The
proposition is capable of being presented with almost mathematical
precision; the receptive faculty begins to fail at a comparatively early
age; thereafter new opinions are assimilated with increasing difficulty
until the power is lost. This progressive period of life, which is at best
brief, may, however, be indefinitely shortened by the interposition of
artificial obstacles, which have to be overcome by a waste of time and
energy, before the reason can act with freedom; and when these obstacles
are sufficiently formidable, the whole time is consumed and men are
stationary. The most effectual impediments are those prejudices which are
so easily implanted in youth, and which acquire tremendous power when
based on superstitious terrors. Herein, then, lies the radical divergence
between theological and scientific training: the one, by inculcating that
tradition is sacred, that accurate investigation is sacrilege, certain to
be visited with terrific punishment, and that the highest moral virtue is
submission to authority, seeks to paralyze exact thought, and to produce a
condition in which dogmatic statements of fact, and despotic rules of
conduct, will be received with abject resignation; the other, by
stimulating the curiosity, endeavors to provoke inquiry, and, by
encouraging a scrutiny of what is obscure, tries to put the mind in an
impartial and questioning attitude toward all the phenomena of the
universe.
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