But while denouncing intolerance we must not become intolerant ourselves. With all their faults these three religions have been, in their day, of considerable service to the world. We may justly say of them that having done all the bad and all the good of which they were capable it is time for them to step aside and leave the field to science. Am I asked what good these religions have done? I answer: They have taught man science by forbidding it. It may sound strange, but religion aroused human curiosity, which again discovered science. The time came when man was not satisfied with information only about the next world, about spirits and demons, about mysteries and divine attributes; he asked also information about this world, about man, the past history of the earth and so forth. Just as by seeking the philosopher's stone men discovered chemistry, and by the way of astrology they came to the science of astronomy, and by the way of sorcery and magic to the knowledge of medicine,--so did theology develop into philosophy. Religion also must be credited with having been the first to give man a system of thought. Now a system, however crude, is a work of art. It is a creation. It is a putting together of ideas and beliefs for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion. Thus religion taught man to think connectedly, to see the relation of things, and to think for a purpose, that is to say, to reason. The savage has ideas too, but he can not put them together, he can not classify or systematize them. There has been iron in the bowels of the earth, and lying on the surface in many places for long ages, but only when man could give shape and form to it did he enter the path of civilization. In the same sense, not until man could forge, fuse and combine his ideas into a system of some kind, did he begin his intellectual evolution. Religion started civilization by enabling man to put his ideas together. Even as the worm was the prophecy of the coming man, the creed was the beginning of science. Let us see if we cannot make this idea a little clearer: All religions represent the effort of the human mind to understand itself and its environment. At the core of every religion, however crude, there is a philosophy,--that is to say, every belief, be it ever so foolish, has a meaning, and at one time was a help to man. The savage carries a fetish on his person to secure himself against evil. The civilized man crosses himself in the presence of danger. Both practices embody a truth, and it is the province of criticism to define that truth.