Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/200

198 stronger as the power of religion has weakened. "Right through history it has been the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to religious extravagances. And it is worth noting that with the exception of a little gain from the practice of casuistry, religions have contributed nothing towards .the building up of a science of ethics. On the contrary, it has been a very potent cause of confusion and obstruction. Fictitious vices and virtues have been created and the real moral problems lost sight of. It gave the world the morality of the prison cell, instead of the tonic of the rational life. And it was indeed fortunate for the race that conduct was not ultimately dependent upon a mass of teachings that had their origin in the brains of savages, and were brought to maturity during the darkest period of European civilization.... And we know that the period during which the influence of Christian theism was strongest, was the period when the intellectual life of civilized man was at its lowest, morality at its weakest, and the general outlook hopeless. Religious control gave us heresy hunts, Jew hunts, burning for witchcraft, and magic in place of medicine. It gave us the Inquisition and the auto da fe, the fires of Smithfield, and the night of St. Bartholomew. It gave us the war of sects, and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of war. It gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror. The Christian record is before us, and it is such that every Church blames the others for its existence. Quite as certainly we cannot point to a society that has been dominated by Freethinking ideals, but we can point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is due to their presence. We can show that progressive ideals have originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious sections of society." (Cohen.)