Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/72

60 life, and finally pronounced the difficulty to be anæmia. He ordered her to be put to bed and given as many sweets as she would eat. In a short time the child regained her health, and with it her normal attitude toward life.

It is not probable that all moral disorders could be cured by so simple a prescription as sugar, but it is probable that the removal of organic disorders would remove many of their concomitants—moral disorders.

We close our eyes to this. The reflected image of our scientific Zeitgeist is faint compared to the deep-set images of a dead timespirit. These images have their home in the traditions and superstitions of society. They are the reflection of ignorance, not of knowledge. They belong to a metaphysical rather than to an experimental age.

What are some of these images?

Baffling the clear recognition of cause and effect in the life of the child, there still lingers, and lingers persistently, that monstrous fiction of a diseased imagination which men call sin. It is the image reflected from a theological as opposed to a religious age. It is an obstacle in very truth, for it turns us away from causal terms to a false nomenclature and a false treatment. We say that a boy is bad when we ought to say that his life conditions are unfavorable; that his parents and teachers are unwise. It is difficult to search out the true cause of wrong action. It is easy to call it sin. This is a stubborn image. It persists, for it has back of it immense vested interests. We have in our midst a vast organization which rests its whole excuse for being upon the reality of sin. Its sole function is to circumvent this enemy, and conduct man to God and heaven. It would be disorganizing to admit that in all this it is fighting a poor human fetich, whose shadow obscures from humanity the gracious face of the Eternal. Yet to abandon this nightmare would simply be to return to the pure teaching of Socrates. The monstrous entity of sin had for him no real existence. He found in the world vast ignorance, and he fought it. Virtue he regarded as the fruit of knowledge, and he cultivated it.

Another hideous image comes to us from a vulgar and ascetic age. It regards the uncovered human body as an object of shame. With such immodest ideas of modesty we attempt the development of an organism which we keep studiously out of sight. Little Margaret is very picturesque in her quaint gown and big hat. They conceal the fact that her poor little body is stunted and undeveloped, and will but ill withstand the emotions and functions of womanhood. Brother Jack is also a lively figure in bright kilt skirt and velvet jacket. His neck is thin, but it is surrounded by a very broad linen collar. We look at that