Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/593

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embodied in ritual, institutions, officials, etc., which are his- torical. From time to time it is observed that the religious generalizations do not hold true; experience does not verify them. At last skepticism arises and new efforts of philosophy are required to re-establish the religious dogmas or to make new compromises. Philosophy appears as a force of revision and revolution. In the New Testament we see a new philoso- phy undermining and overthrowing rabbinical Judaism. This operation may be found in the history of any religion. It is often repeated. The institutional and traditional religion stands like an inherited and established product; the philosophy ap- pears like a new and destructive element which claims to be reformatory, and may turn out to be such, but which begins by destruction.

We may see one of these operations in the ecclesiastical schism of the sixteenth century. The mediaeval system broke down in the fifteenth century. It was not able to support the weight thrown on it by the great changes of that period. New devices were charged with the great societal duties. For in- stance, the state was created and charged with duties which the church had claimed to perform. The state thus got control of marriage, divorce, legitimacy, property, education, etc. These things were in the mores, and the mores changed. The masses accepted the changes and readjusted their ideas accordingly. They turned to the state instead of the church for the defense and control of great interests, the schism in the church was a result. Those who still kept faith in sacramental religion have clung to institutions, ritual, dogmas, etc., which are con- sistent with sacramental religion; those who rejected sacra- mental dogmas have made new usages and institutions to fit their religious needs and experience. The latter school have made new deductions and inferences from the great principles of their creed and faith. The deductions thus made, when turned into injunctions or inhibitions, impose certain duties which are imperative and arbitrary. For instance, we are told that we must do a thing because the Bible says so, not because there is any rational relation between that act and self-realiza-