in civilization have become more
and more the accepted standards of the world in which we live.

If an instinct or a desire is unreasonable, it should not be allowed to
prevail; if a tradition or a convention of the past is unscientific, it
should be discarded and ridiculed as something out-of-date. That is the
conclusion which advanced intellects have reached through scientific
methods of enlightenment; it is the message they have been
communicating, the example which they have been setting, until the
wide-spread results are becoming increasingly apparent among all
classes and in nearly all places, where modern science and civilization
have penetrated.

It ought not to be very difficult for any one to recognize and
understand why the methods of science and the rule of reason occupy such
a dominant place in public estimation as they undoubtedly do to-day. The
only natural question is why they have not always, in by-gone
generations, occupied just as high a place. The answer to this question
is very simple, though some people's attention may not have been called
to it. The scientific method of investigation, as we know it to-day, is
a comparatively recent product of the human intellect. There was no
science of any such kind when Homer wrote the Iliad, or when the
Christian religion was founded, or when Leonardo da Vinci painted the
Mona Lisa and Shakespeare wrote his masterpieces. Even at the time our
great American republic was put into operation, modern science was still
in its swaddling clothes. It is only in the last two generations that it
may be said to have reached its true form and begun turning out in rapid
succession the multitude of discoveries and inventions which have had
such an immense effect in the daily life of civilization.

It also takes a certain amount of time for great changes to permeate,
and become absorbed by masses of people, so that it should not seem
strange if many of the indirect results have only begun to be noticeable
within the past few years.

And now if we look about and pause to reflect on these triumphs of
modern science, as they affect the life and ideas and feelings of the
average individual, a very curious and somewhat startling question is
liable to suggest itself.

Is it possible that right here may be the main and underlying cause of
the so-called "demoralization" of the present generation? Is it possible
that the "impossible notions" and the equally "impossible conduct" o