health, and therefore to "salvation"--becomes gradually obstructed, with the result that the vital energies of the soul tend either to dissipate themselves and run to waste, or to make new channels for themselves,--channels of degenerative tendency, the end of which is spiritual death. FOOTNOTES: [1] By "self-satisfaction" I mean satisfaction with the existing system _as a system_. That strenuous efforts are being made to improve the system, within its own limits, I can well believe. But the system itself, with the defects and limitations which are of its essence, seems to be regarded as adequate, and even as final, by nearly all who work under it. [2] 1862 to 1895 A.D. [3] The _Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_, by Dr. Emil Schuerer. [4] In its extreme form legalism tends to bring about that ruin of human nature which it starts by postulating; for, by forbidding Man's higher faculties to energise, it necessarily arrests their development, and so makes it possible for the lower faculties to draw to themselves an undue share of the rising sap of Man's life. CHAPTER II EDUCATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE The God of popular theology has been engaged for more than thirty centuries in educating his child, Man. His system of education has been based on complete distrust of Man's nature. In the schools which Man has been required to attend--the Legal School under the Old Dispensation, the Ecclesiastical School under the New--it has been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, nor desire what is good. The truth of things has therefore been formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and profess his belief in it, clause by clause. His duty has also been formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or to the direction of an all-controlling Church. It has further been taken for granted that Man's instincts and impulses are wholly evil, and that "Right Faith" and "Right Conduct" are entirely repugnant to his nature. In order to overcome the resistance which his corrupt heart and perverse will might therefore be expected to offer to the authority and influence of his teachers, a scheme of rewards and punishments has had to be devised for his benefit. As there is no better nature for the scheme to appeal to, an appeal has had to be made to fears and hopes which are avowedly base. The refractory child has had to be threatened with corporal punishment in the form of an eternity of torment in Hell. And he has had to be bribed by the offer of prizes, the chief of which is an eternity of selfish enjoyment in Heaven,--enjoyment so selfish that it will consist with, and even (it is said) be heightened by, the knowledge that in the Final Examination the failures have been many and the prize-winners few.