e of our biggest men. The dominant philosophies of our times
have grown up since Arnold wrote his 'Literature and Dogma,' and they
are in harmony with the quickening social spirit of the age, which is a
religious spirit--a Christian spirit, I call it. Christianity is coming
to its own. These philosophies, which are not so far apart, are the
flower of the thought of the centuries, of modern science, of that most
extraordinary of discoveries, modern psychology. And they are far from
excluding religion, from denying the essential of Christ's teachings.
On the other hand, they grant that the motive-power of the world is
spiritual.

"And this," continued Mr. Engel, "brings me to another aspect of
authority. I wonder if it has struck you? In mediaeval times, when a
bishop spoke ex cathedra, his authority, so far as it carried weight,
came from two sources. First, the supposed divine charter of the Church
to save and damn. That authority is being rapidly swept away. Second, he
spoke with all the weight of the then accepted science and philosophy.
But as soon as the new science began to lay hold on people's minds,
as--for instance--when Galileo discovered that the earth moved instead
of the sun (and the pope made him take it back), that second authority
began to crumble too. In the nineteenth century science had grown so
strong that the situation looked hopeless. Religion had apparently
irrevocably lost that warrant also, and thinking men not spiritually
inclined, since they had to make a choice between science and religion,
took science as being the more honest, the more certain.

"And now what has happened? The new philosophies have restored your
second Authority, and your first, as you properly say, is replaced
by the conception of Personality. Personality is nothing but the
rehabilitation of the prophet, the seer. Get him, as Hatch says, back
into your Church. The priests with their sacrifices and automatic rites,
the logicians, have crowded him out. Why do we read the Old Testament at
all? Not for the laws of the Levites, not for the battles and hangings,
but for the inspiration of the prophets. The authority of the prophet
comes through personality, the source of which is in what Myers calls
the infinite spiritual world--in God. It was Christ's own authority.

"And as for your other authority, your ordinary man, when he reads
modern philosophy, says to himself, this does not conflict with science?
But he gets no hint, w