when rightly understood nowise justifies,
religion cannot exist without the aid of ignorance. It is really and
truly the mother of devotion. The sentiment of religious fear does not
apply to a _known_ power--to the movement of an opposing army, or the
action of gravity in an avalanche for example. The prayer which under
such circumstances is offered, is directed to an unknown intelligence,
supposed to control the visible forces. As science--which is the
knowledge of physical laws--extends, the object of prayer becomes more
and more intangible and remote. What we formerly feared, we learn to
govern. No one would pray God to avert the thunderbolt, if lightning
rods invariably protected houses. The Swiss clergy opposed the system of
insuring growing crops because it made their parishioners indifferent to
prayers for the harvest. With increasing knowledge and the security
which it brings, religious terror lessens, and the wants which excite
the sentiment of devotion diminish in number and change in character.

This is apt to cast general discredit on religion. When we make the
discovery that so many events which excited religious apprehension in
the minds of our forefathers are governed by inflexible laws which we
know all about, we not only smile in pity at their superstitions, but
make the mental inference that the diminished emotion of this kind we
yet experience is equally groundless. If at the bottom of all displays
of power lies a physical necessity, our qualms are folly. Therefore, to
the pious soul which still finds the bulk of its religious aspirations
and experiences in the regions of the emotions and sensations, the
progress of science seems and really does threaten its cherished
convictions. The audacious mind of man robs the gods of power when he
can shield himself from their anger. The much-talked-of conflict between
religion and science is no fiction; it exists, and is bound to go on,
and religion will ever get the worst of it until it learns that the
wishes to which it is its proper place to minister are not those for
pleasure and prosperity, not for abundant harvests and seasonable
showers, not success in battle and public health, not preservation from
danger and safety on journeys, not much of anything that is spoken of
in litanies and books of devotion.

Let a person who still clings to this form of religion imagine that
science had reached perfection in the arts of life; that by skilled
adaptations of m