ore proved by this argument than the pure
subjectivity of Science.

But there is one most important particular in which the development of
Religion entirely differs from the development of Science. The leaders
of scientific thought, from the time that Science has been conscious of
itself, have never claimed direct divine instruction. For a long time,
indeed, scientific thought rested largely on tradition, and that
tradition was handed on from generation to generation without any
examination into its foundations. The stores of past observations seemed
so very much larger in quantity than any that men could add in their own
day, that it was natural to give more weight to what was received than
to what was newly observed. The experience of each generation in
succession seemed nothing in comparison with the accumulated experience
of all preceding generations. And in many cases old traditions stopped
the growth of Science by preventing the acceptance of observations
inconsistent with them. But such old traditions never claimed to rest on
a revelation from God; or, if such a claim was made here and there, it
never had strength enough to root itself in Science and form part of the
recognised authority on which Science stood.

Science, from the time when it recognised itself as Science, has owed
its development to observation of nature, and long before it shook off
the fetters of unexamined tradition it had disclaimed, even for that
tradition, any other basis than this. But not so Religion. Many
religions, and among them the purer and higher religions, in proportion
to their nearer approach to perfection, have claimed to rest on a Divine
Revelation, and to be something more than either speculations of
philosophic observers of nature, or deductions from innate principles of
reason or conscience. Not thinkers, but prophets, or men claiming to be
prophets, have given the purest religions to their disciples among
mankind. It has always been possible to bring all religious teaching to
the bar of conscience; it has been possible to put all religious
teaching to logical examination; to systematise its precepts, whether of
faith or conduct; to inquire into its fundamental principles, and to ask
for the authority on which the whole teaching rests. But these
applications of our intellectual faculties to Religion have always been
admitted as coming after, not as preceding, the teaching to which they
are made. The prophet does sometimes r