In conclusion, we may perhaps point out some of the bearings of such a change. In the first place, the change in our conception of God necessitates the stressing of religious experience, as such, as against belief in particular dogma, or in the efficacy of special ritual.
Secondly, it emphasizes the need for tolerance and enlightenment. The scientific view asserts not that its knowledge is absolute or complete, but that, although relative and partial, it will indubitably continue to grow harmoniously along the general lines already laid down.
Another change wrought by the inclusion of all phenomena under one head and the banishment of the supernatural is the inestimable advantage that we thereby find the possibility of constructing a single general view of the universe for civilization. At present there are two that matter--the orthodox religious and the scientific. The religious starts from the top, the scientific from the bottom; but the scientific has been creeping up, and now that it has begun to attack the problem of mind it will be able to drown the other out. Since the current religious formulation is only symbolic, it cannot become scientific; but since the scientific is based on the closest possible analysis of reality, it can become religious so far as it investigates the realities of religious experience.
Once it has done this, we shall be able to construct a _Weltanschauung_ such as never before, with roots in the ordered reactions of inorganic matter, trunk strong with the steady progress of evolving life, and branches reaching up into the highest realities of the spirit. Union is strength; and it is one of the prime duties of educated men and women to see that the present duality and antagonism at the heart of what should be the central unity of civilization--of its most fundamental idea, its conception of the universe--should be terminated.
The new outlook will also interlock with the youthful science of psychology to produce great results. Much of what now is interpreted, by all save the few experts, in supernatural terms of the old theology will become intelligible as a product of the natural workings of that amazing thing, the human mind. We shall not have sects trying to exploit the normal dissatisfactions and disharmonies of adolescence in order to secure “conversions”; repressed tendencies will not be thought to be the voice of a personal Devil, nor neglected ideals the voice of a personal God. Irrational fear, to-day still the greatest enemy of mankind and most potent annihilator of happiness, will, by comprehension of its curious mechanism and its persistence, often transformed, from childhood to adult life, become amenable to treatment and be made more and more to disappear. Proper analysis of mental processes such as repression, suppression, and sublimation will enable us to make better use of our faculties, and deliberately to build up treasures of spiritual experience now attainable only by the lucky few in whom temperament and circumstances accidentally conspire.