The science of anthropology has in recent years aroused wide interest.  Inquiries into the condition of early man have shown (independently of Darwinism) that there is nothing to be said for the view that he fell from a higher to a lower state; the evidence points to a slow rise from mere animality.  The origin of religious beliefs has been investigated, with results disquieting for orthodoxy.  The researches of students of anthropology and comparative religion—­such as Tylor, Robertson Smith, and Frazer—­have gone to show that mysterious ideas and dogma and rites which were held to be peculiar to the Christian revelation are derived from the crude ideas of primitive religions.  That the mystery of the Eucharist comes from the common savage rite of eating a dead god,

[190] that the death and resurrection of a god in human form, which form the central fact of Christianity, and the miraculous birth of a Saviour are features which it has in common with pagan religions—­such conclusions are supremely unedifying.  It may be said that in themselves they are not fatal to the claims of the current theology.  It may be held, for instance, that, as part of Christian revelation, such ideas acquired a new significance and that God wisely availed himself of familiar beliefs—­which, though false and leading to cruel practices, he himself had inspired and permitted—­in order to construct a scheme of redemption which should appeal to the prejudices of man.  Some minds may find satisfaction in this sort of explanation, but it may be suspected that most of the few who study modern researches into the origin of religious beliefs will feel the lines which were supposed to mark off the Christian from all other faiths dissolving before their eyes.

The general result of the advance of science, including anthropology, has been to create a coherent view of the world, in which the Christian scheme, based on the notions of an unscientific age and on the arrogant assumption that the universe was made for man, has no suitable or reasonable place.  If Paine felt this a hundred years ago, it is far

[191] more apparent now.  All minds however are not equally impressed with this incongruity.  There are many who will admit the proofs furnished by science that the Biblical record as to the antiquity of man is false, but are not affected by the incongruity between the scientific and theological conceptions of the world.

For such minds science has only succeeded in carrying some entrenchments, which may be abandoned without much harm.  It has made the old orthodox view of the infallibility of the Bible untenable, and upset the doctrine of the Creation and Fall.  But it would still be possible for Christianity to maintain the supernatural claim, by modifying its theory of the authority of the Bible and revising its theory of redemption, if the evidence of natural science were the only group of facts with which it collided.  It might be argued that the law of universal causation is a hypothesis inferred from experience, but that experience includes the testimonies of history and must therefore take account of the clear evidence of miraculous occurrences in the New Testament (evidence which is valid, even if that book was not inspired).  Thus, a stand could be taken against the generalization of science on the firm ground of historical fact.  That solid ground, however, has given