Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/186

 Man had not, as he advanced in power and moral dignity, reasoned himself into the belief that he is merely a fortuitous concourse of atoms, differing only in degree of complexity from a lichen or a monad. The more knowledge advanced, the more difficult was it found to believe that this divine something, this apparently boundless capacity for improvement, these far-reaching aspirations after a higher existence, was merely a resultant of the blind re-action of matter upon matter.

The change, to me so surprising, from the sceptical man of science of those former days to the Utis now known to me, was entirely typical of the general change in the attitude of scientific thought towards the most important questions that can engage the attention of man. Fulness of knowledge had removed many of the stumbling-blocks of half-knowledge. Psychology had become a real science. The most complex operations of the intellect could be resolved into their elementary components with all the precision now attained in the analysis of matter. Yet all tended more and more toward compelling a belief in the existence of an archetypal mind, a pre-arranging, all-embracing power.

I have no intention of entering into a detailed statement of the prevailing forms of belief. The heterodoxy of one age is the orthodoxy of another: the devout sentiment of one would be outraged by the current belief of a succeeding age. I need merely state, that all believed in a God, and in a future existence. There were two great schools of thought on this subject, which, in their general characteristics, reminded me of the saying, that all men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians. To one or other of