Multitudes of astronomical observations finally make the geocentric theory untenable and the heliocentric theory alone tenable. The minute study of sources regarding an epoch in church history undermines at last the illegitimate ecclesiasticalpretensions based on the forged Donation of Constantine, or the spurious Isidorean Decretals. The piling up of innumerable points about the text of the Pentateuch impeaches eventually their Mosaic authorship and discloses the actual history of Israel. An immense number of observations on the order and upbuilding of the earth's strata in the end enables geology to free minds from the spell of Usher's chronology. Nevertheless every fabric of culture is plastic in some respects and rigid in other respects.
Religion is plastic so far as it remains myth but resistant so far as it has become dogma.
Science can be readily extended on the side of data, but not on the side of law, generalization, and theory. Differentiate the plastic and the rigid sides of botany, of psychology, of economics. The home is woman's sphere. The Mead Project. All rights reserved.