Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/48

40 It is charged that science "has no answer" to the question, What is the meaning, what is the function of religion in social development? It is asserted that "contemporary literature may be searched almost in vain for evidence of any true realization of the fact" that religious beliefs "must have some immense utilitarian function to perform" in the evolution of society. What are we to say to this? Simply that Mr. Kidd is not well informed on the subject of which he writes. We shall not be accused of diverging very far from the highroad of science, of betaking ourselves to any very obscure or devious paths, if we venture to quote on this point Dr. Henry Maudsley, author of a number of well-known works on mental physiology. Let us, then, turn to his work on Body and Will, republished in this country eleven years ago, and see what we can find bearing on this very question. On page 208 we read: "It is most necessary to bear in mind that forms and ceremonies, stereotyped propositions, articles of faith, and dogmas of theology do not constitute the essence of religion, but its vesture, and that, apart from all such forms and modes of interpretation, it responds to an eternal need of human sentiment. For it is inspired by the moral sentiments of humanity and rests on the deep foundations of sacrifice of self, devotion to the kind, the heroism of duty, pity for the poor and suffering, and faith in the triumph of good. It appeals to and is the outcome of the heart, not of the understanding; and so goes down into lower depths than the fathom line of the understanding can sound; for the intellect is aristocratic and the heart democratic, knowledge puffing up, but love uniting and building up, and the true social problem is to democratize the intellect through the heart. It is the deep fusing feeling of human solidarity, in whatsoever doctrines and ceremonies it may be organized for the time, that is religion in its truest sense; for it is in the social organism what the heart is in the bodily organism, and, when it ceases to beat in conscience, death and corruption ensue." Dr. Maudsley did not sound a trumpet before him that all the world might suspend its ordinary business in order to admire his originality, because he knew enough to know that, while what he was saying was well worth saying, it was not so very original after all. But after reading the above-quoted sentences from so well known a writer, what are we to think of Mr. Kidd's statement that "contemporary literature may be searched almost in vain" for any true recognition of the "utilitarian function of religion in the evolution of society"? And what great degree of originality can we attribute to the definition of religion which, after an elaborate preamble, Mr. Kidd delivers to us: "A religion is a form of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the individual where his interests and the interests of