Note 38 — Chapter VIII · CONCLUSION

The obscurantist would do well to take to heart the answer of Bishop Colenso to the clergyman who reproached him with depraving one of his parishioners by criticisms of the Pentateuch. “The blame,” he replied, “would be more fittingly attached to the teachers who lead people to rest their faith in God and duty on a foundation of falsehood which every new wave of thought is sweeping away.”38 Shall we, to give a glaring instance of pious obstruction, revert to the time—not many years ago—when the use of anæsthetics in surgery was denounced from the pulpit, on the ground of impiety? I think not. Nowadays one can hardly keep one’s countenance in recalling the words of those who seriously, and, as they thought, piously, said that they would rather suffer any pain than “enter the presence of their Maker in a state of intoxication.” We no longer listen to those who would forbid us either to taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge or to give it to others. Obscurantism, dogma’s best friend, is breathing its last. It can therefore no longer be depended upon.