The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1902-10-27

/ make not my brother TO stumble"
Yet ne says immediately. Am i not
| Tree? Am not an apostle? Have / not
seen Jesus our Lord? III the modecl
| tendency OF thought tea |.es US the lesson
OF restriction in the form OF specialization
! With greater emphasis does the doctrine
| OF social solidarity proclaim -our mutual
responsibility since we are all members
one OF another.
Eternal restriction is the price OF
liberty. The nation remains free by
clinging 10 the narrow way Rome Is a
living example of a nation going the
! broad way and doing as the whim OF an
emperor or the weakness OF senate
| dictated. The individual remains free in
so far as he forbids himself the things
that enslave and bind The way 10 life
and liberty is the way OF sacrifice. self
denial, Limitation. We must do these
things not for their own sake. but for
conscience sake, humanitys sake life's
sake. To forget them Is death.
But just here we reach a difficulty.
This is not the whole OF the text. Mar
row Is the gate and Strengthened the way
that leads unto life. and few there be
that find IT, That find what? The mar
row gate and the straitened way? Not
at all. Few there be who enter I'm at the
narrow gate and the straitened way
who find life.
HAS IT'S DANGERS
This process OF restriction has its dan
gers. The danger is that IL will make
narrow people. Witness Pharisaism Re-
stfietieH-on every -hand--The outcome
of IL was 10 make an end out of the re-
striction. The virtue was in the thing
itself. II was not a means 10 a higher
end. IL was the end. How dangerously
near TO that position we are in the Chris
ton church today. To go TO church is not
the means OF an inspiration for Chris
tan living for the remaining six days
OF the week: IL is an end in itself. To
accept the Bible is TO accept theories
about IL and make that an end OF faith.
instead of using the Bible as II was in
tended to be used-as a means to the
development of the Spiritual life.
How truly Is the danger OF specializa-
tion brought continually before US. A
man specializes I'm science. He reaches
certain conclusions He discovers a law
or principle He may be dealing with
inanimate nature or at most the lowest
forms OF animal life. Starting with that
principle he develops a philosophy broad
enough 10 cover all life, falling to recog-
nize that what is true on one plane and
viewed from his particular point OF view
may be utterly false as applied TO man.
and from the point OF view OF history,
ethics or philosophy.
Says Professor Munsterberg. one OF
our most eminent psychologists: "Psy-
chology has the right and the duty TO
consider everything from the psychology y
cal standpoint~ but life and history.
ethics and philosophy have neither the
duty nor the right to accept as picture
of reality. the impression which is
reached from the psychological stand
point"
To borrow an illustration from this
same writer: The chemist offers a thirsty
man balloon filled with hydrogen and
another filled with oxygen. instead of
good swallow of water. The chemist is
quite right. that rs water-TAa- -fainting
man insists that 1t is not and life speaks
always the language of the thirsty.
To know thing is to know 1t in it's
relations and to comprehend them. Such
a process would lead to intellectual life.
Such process is true specialization But
too often the false scientist reaching a
partial understanding of one thing gem
eralizes about everything else. This
is dogmatism, pure and simple. and dog
matism whether IL is in science or the
ology has no place in Heaven or on
II 60