f intellectual shadow-worship as is the
nescience of ignorant ages. The difference is that the philosopher who
is worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such as
law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols,
while the ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions
of reality. So, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find the
practice of morality made easier by the use of theological symbols. And
unless these are converted from symbols into idols, I do not see
that science has anything to say to the practice, except to give an
occasional warning of its dangers. But, when such symbols are dealt with
as real existences, I think the highest duty which is laid upon men of
science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than
the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they
have replaced.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Even the most sturdy believers in the popular theory that the proper
or titular names attached to the books of the Bible are those of their
authors will hardly be prepared to maintain that Jephthah, Gideon, and
their colleagues wrote the book of Judges. Nor is it easily admissible
that Samuel wrote the two books which pass under his name, one of which
deals entirely with events which took place after his death. In fact, no
one knows who wrote either Judges or Samuel, nor when, within the range
of 100 years, their present form was given to these books.]

[Footnote 2: My citations are taken from the Revised Version, but for Lord and
God I have substituted Jahveh and Elohim.]

[Footnote 3: I need hardly say that I depend upon authoritative Biblical critics,
whenever a question of interpretation of the text arises. As Reuss
appears to me to be one of the most learned, acute, and fair-minded of
those whose works I have studied, I have made most use of the commentary
and dissertations in his splendid French edition of the Bible. But
I have also had recourse to the works of Dillman, Kalisch, Kuenen,
Thenius, Tuch, and others, in cases in which another opinion seemed
desirable.]

[Footnote 4: See "Divination," by Hazoral, _Journal of Anthropology,_ Bombay,
vol. i. No. 1.]

[Footnote 5: See, for example, the message of Jephthah to the King of the
Ammonites: "So now Jahveh, the Elohim of Israel, hath dispossessed the
Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess them?
Wilt not thou possess tha