But investigations in hypnotism still go on,
and may do much in the twentieth century to carry the world yet
further from the realm of the miraculous.
In a third field science has won a striking series of
victories. Bacteriology, beginning in the researches of
Leeuwenhoek in the seventeenth century, continued by O. F. Muller
in the eighteenth, and developed or applied with wonderful skill
by Ehrenberg, Cohn, Lister, Pasteur, Koch, Billings, Bering, and
their compeers in the nineteenth, has explained the origin and
proposed the prevention or cure of various diseases widely
prevailing, which until recently have been generally held to be
"inscrutable providences." Finally, the closer study of
psychology, especially in its relations to folklore, has revealed
processes involved in the development of myths and legends: the
phenomena of "expectant attention," the tendency to
marvel-mongering, and the feeling of "joy in believing."
In summing up the history of this long struggle between
science and theology, two main facts are to be noted: First, that
in proportion as the world approached the "ages of faith" it
receded from ascertained truth, and in proportion as the world
has receded from the "ages of faith" it has approached
ascertained truth; secondly, that, in proportion as the grasp of
theology Upon education tightened, medicine declined, and in
proportion as that grasp has relaxed, medicine has been developed.
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