Page:The church, the schools and evolution.djvu/78

 it from error, without becoming a believer on Christ as the first step. So let no one who has not surrendered his heart to Christ in faith boast that he either knows the truth or is free.

But suppose a man should seek to know spiritual truth and yet refuse to surrender his heart to Christ in faith, then what? It could only be because he was so devoid of the scientific spirit that he did not want to know the truth at any cost. And no man who is in this frame of mind can ever come to know the truth. Haeckel defines the scientific attitude of mind when he says of the scientific inquirer that his


 * sole and only task is to seek to know the truth, and to teach what he has discovered to be the truth, indifferent as to * * * consequences.

This means, in the terms of our present discussion, that in order to know spiritual truth, the man of scientific mind will be willing to work by Christ's formula no matter what it costs him, for that alone will give him the knowledge of eternal things which will make it possible adequately to interpret natural truth.

But suppose the inquirer doubts the possibility of entering into a scientifie knowledge of spiritual truth by following this formula, what then? It can only be because he is so unscholarly as to make the blunder in logic of assuming as untrue or impossible that which '''remains to be proved. '''

No matter on which ground he refuses to surrender to Christ, therefore, no inquirer after spiritual truth can be either scientific or scholarly who makes this refusal; for he thereby renders himself not only