Excursions of an evolutionist / by John Fiske.

  • John Fiske
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Excursions of an evolutionist / by John Fiske. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    276/388 (page 272)
    beasts of the field. On the one side and on the other we hear it maintained, with equal emphasis, that any system of Protestantism — any system which seeks to combine absolute freedom of spec- ulation with an essentially religious attitude of mind — is logically absurd, and is destined to be superseded. The only question is as to what al- ternative is to survive the inevitable fate of all such misguided attempts; and here Dr. Biichner and the Pope will be found to disagree. While on the one hand it is held that the course of modern philosophic thought is so distinctly to- ward materialism that every one who is not a materialist is behind the age, on the other hand it is prophesied that, out of sheer weariness of the scepticism that is the perpetual outcome of free inquiry, there will eventually be brought about a renaissance of the ages of faith. I do not know that it can be said precisely how far these expec- tations go. Probably it is not expected that cru- sades or pilgrimages to Corapostella will again become fashionable in the complex industrial society of the future; perhaps it is not ex- pected that leaders of scientific thought will ac- cept the miracle of St. Januarius, for the Catholic Chui'ch has oftentimes known how to be judi- ciously lax about such matters; but there is no