uremberg
were singing its accumulating harmonies, poor Beckmesser on his
blackboard jotted down the rules which were being broken. Beckmesser
represents a static conception of life which endeavours to freeze
progress at a given point and call it infallible. But Beckmesser is
wrong. You cannot take things like music and religion and set them down
in final rules and regulations. They are life, and you have to let them
grow and flower and expand and reveal evermore the latent splendour at
their heart.

V

Obviously, the point where this progressive conception of Christianity
comes into conflict with many widely accepted ideas is the abandonment
which it involves of an external and inerrant authority in matters of
religion. The marvel is that that idea of authority, which is one of the
historic curses of religion, should be regarded by so many as one of the
vital necessities of the faith. The fact is that religion by its very
nature is one of the realms to which external authority is least
applicable. In science people commonly suppose that they do not take
truth on any one's authority; they prove it. In business they do not
accept methods on authority; they work them out. In statesmanship they
no longer believe in the divine right of kings nor do they accept
infallible dicta handed down from above. But they think that religion is
delivered to them by authority and that they believe what they do believe
because a divine Church or a divine Book or a divine Man told them.

In this common mode of thinking, popular ideas have the truth turned
upside down. The fact is that science, not religion, is the realm where
most of all we use external authority. They tell us that there are
millions of solar systems scattered through the fields of space. Is that
true? How do we know? We never counted them. We know only what the
authorities say. They tell us that the next great problem in science is
breaking up the atom to discover the incalculable resources of power
there waiting to be harnessed by our skill. Is that true? Most of us do
not understand what an atom is, and what it means to break one up passes
the farthest reach of our imaginations; all we know is what the
authorities say. They tell us that electricity is a mode of motion in
ether. Is that true? Most of us have no first hand knowledge about
electricity. The motorman calls it "juice" and that means as much to us
as to call it a mode of motion in et