Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/657

Rh presently find ourselves using them as conceptions regularlyformed. In Goethe's well-turned phrase:

 "Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen, Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein."

But if prejudice prevails in philosophy, what shall we say of religion? The race as a whole is divided into a large number of religious systems, and each system into sects. Every individual apperceives the "eternal truths" from the standpoint of the sect in which he was educated. Rarely does he change from one faith to another, and when he does so it is not often for his peace of mind. Such an "Exodus from Houndsditch," in Carlyle's homely phrase, is accomplished only "in a state of brutal nakedness, scandalous mutilation." Why? Because religious ideas are deep-seated and fundamental. To receive into the mind a group of new and foreign notions of such a kind requires a breaking up and readjusting of the old order such as few can undertake with safety. The very psychological laws that we are studying, however, may teach us that these world-wide differences in opinions are not destructive of the eternal verities of religion, but only that these verities are distorted when narrowed down to fit our particular systems and our individual capacities.

There is a curious science called the science of interpretation, whose business it is to translate the facts and thoughts of the world into phrases comprehensible to a mind limited to a certain system of ideas. Have we ever stopped to think what a confession of shame such a science carries on its face? To interpret is, in some sense, to change, to distort. An instructive illustration of this branch of learning may be seen in hermeneutics, or the science of the interpretation of the Scriptures. Never in any literature were thoughts expressed in so simple, straightforward, and honest language as in the books of the Bible, or in language less in need of interpretation. What this science really has in hand is the pitiful task of fitting a vast variety of thoughts into the limited number of forms of some system of theology. So, everywhere, it is a mistake to interpret things. It is better to let Nature carry on her work of rectification, by allowing the bare facts of the world to project themselves freely against our minds and be perceived as they are, or make for themselves apperceptive organs.

Interpretation leads to over-interpretation. This evil becomes prominent in connection with those studies which are not yet exact sciences, such as sociology, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Here, as we know, we very often have to make an allowance for the "personal equation" of the author—unless, unfortunately, belonging to the same party, sect, or school, we have