Page:Tyranny of Shams (1916).djvu/292

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
276
THE TYRANNY OF SHAMS

rebutting the general belief that men of science have for the most part abandoned Christianity. They—with the support of a man like Sir O. Lodge—talk glibly of the death of “Victorian materialism” and the rebirth of spiritualism; whereas Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, Darwin, Clifford, Lewes, and every other Victorian man of science repudiated materialism. When you ask who the modern men are who have abandoned the views of the Huxleian generation and come to favour religion, they produce an extraordinarily confused list of names. I have referred to their magnum opus in this department, Tabrum’s Religious Beliefs of Scientists. It actually includes two prominent members of the Rationalist Press Association; while men like Lodge and Wallace and Crookes are included among the more orthodox. Of late years it is the fashion to impress ignorant congregations with the names of W. James, Eucken, and Bergson; whereas James and Bergson are not even theists, and Eucken professes a form of theism which any Church would heatedly repudiate. The members of the various sects are literally and most scandalously duped on this point.

I have claimed that the clergy are spiteful and unjust, as well as careless about truth. There are very few popular religious writers who seem capable of giving a correct account of the views they are criticising, and there are very many who manipulate quotations with the effect of grossly deceiving their readers. Worse still, the clergy habitually