Auslane), 286. Christianity and the World (Rev. Osric Copland), 286. The Leading Homily. RELATION OF RELIGION TO SOCIAL SCIENCE. "THIS IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND THESE THINGS I WILL THAT THOU AFFIRM CONSTANTLY, THAT THEY WHICH HAVE BELIEVED IN GOD MIGHT BE CAREFUL TO MAINTAIN GOOD WORKS. THESE THINGS ARE GOOD AND PROFITABLE UNTO MEN."-Titus iii. 8. HERE is, we may be sure, but one ruling thought in our minds at this moment, the relation of Social Science to Religion. This Congregation is a witness that such a relation is believed to exist.* By the first of these two factors we mean to include all that may be learned by history and observation as to the nature and conditions of social and national well-being, the result of methodical inquiry into economical and sociological phenomena; and finally the enactment of laws, those restraints which an intelligent community, having attained freedom, proceeds to impose and enforce on itself for its own good. The second is a phenomenon and factor in life hitherto universal, the power of religion. It has always been a great power in social life, and its standard, though perhaps not its influence, has always been rising and never falling. It is based on human nature itself, man's necessary relation to the infinite, to the super Preached in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, before the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and published in The Homilist with the sanction of The Council. A natural, to God. Now it is not necessary that there should be any relation or co-operation between these two great powers. Social Science might be toiled for from scientific or utilitarian motives with as little religious feeling as Chemistry. Religion might be a purely speculative or a purely personal matter: either an abstract philosophy, or the sense of individual sin, forgiveness, salvation. An illustration of this separation, full of instruction for us, may be found in the second and third centuries of our era, in Rome. In that age may be seen the work of a Social Science Association as great, as wise, as unselfish, as powerfully patronised, as any Association in our day. It was the age of the great Stoic politicians, to whom are due the genius and humanity of Roman law. Simultaneously, but existing wholly apart, may be seen the religious individualism of the Christianity of that age: which disregarded politics and economics; whose maxim was to obey the de facto government; which preached resignation, not amelioration; which occupied itself more with the next world than with this. These two factors existed then, and may still exist, without relation to one another. But this separation tends to paralyse both. For each supplies something that the other lacks. Assuredly they must be united before the kingdom of God can come. The pursuit of science is with some few men a species of worship: the passion for truth, the presence of the infinite, the reverence it brings, are almost a religion. And it might be assumed that Social Science and legislation, with its keen human and moral interests, would be the most religious of sciences. Nevertheless it is not necessarily so. It involves the danger of treating men as instruments, as means; not as moral beings, as ends. It may harden, not deepen. And what power does it possess to create motive? To know the best course is one thing: but how is the will of the social reformer to be braced to the necessary toil? The root of volition is not knowledge but feeling. How are we to get to feel as we know? Social Science needs then a motive outside itself. Isolated it dies, as Stoicism died, not wholly ineffectual, but disappointed, despairing. It is more important to remark that Religion suffers no less where it is divorced from life. And it suffers from this cause among us now and throughout Christendom. It is too much an affair of Church and opinions and mysteries, and of conventional believing for believing's sake; too little the sympathetic beneficence of an active life in the world. Busy men, and the best men and women are busy, find that what is by others called religion is crowded out, and that their high social aims are viewed with suspicion. Many a noble heart drifts into what is called irreligion, drifts into a contempt for religion, because the religion presented to it is so unworthy, so unaggressive, so subjective. Now the truth that I am here to proclaim is that these two powers must work in closest alliance. Religion will contribute the motive, the love; the infectious, undying zeal that springs from Christ. Science the method, the sphere. This is, I am sure, the line of progress along which we are moving and may move faster, and on which we may find a cure for some of the evils we deplore. This is something worth living for. This is why we meet here to-day. This combination offers a key to some yet unsolved problems in the life of individuals. Here perhaps is to be found the object of our boasted individual freedom. Freedom for each man to think, and speak, and act as he will, is ever growing. But to what purpose? Freedom is a means, not an end. This is, I suppose, Mazzini's meaning in his great saying that it is no longer rights but duties that the social reformers must preach. Social Science has become religious. Here too is the cure for aimlessness, for melancholy, perhaps even for cynical worldliness. Here is an aid to purity and simplicity. In such a combination may also be found the solution of some speculative problems that tease us. A man learns himself by action, not by self-observation. "Do thy duty," as Goethe said, "and thou shalt know what is within thee." Obedience and love, as Christ tells us, bring an unexpected insight into divine things. Here too you may find Christ, if you never found Him before, where so many of the most deeply religious spirits of our time are finding Him, men and women who in past centuries would have sought Him in |