9/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE
Agnosticism and skepticism have dealt some heroic blows at lingering, decaying forms from which the Spirit had departed, lopping off and pruning away the dead wood of dogmatism to make way for fresh expressions of a vital character. Honest skepticism is like fire, consuming the dross, and leaving only the genuine substance of truth unscathed.
A positive, vital faith is impervious to the thrusts of such negative weapons as doubt and unbelief. They can only prevail where faith is in decadence and the dry rot of conventionality has set in. As beliefs are outgrown and discarded, many timid persons entertain the gravest apprehension lest the disappearance of old forms shall involve the destruction of faith and the annihilation of all that men have reverenced in the past.
By confounding faith with belief, by associating the Truth with its instruments or agents, they are led to assume that if certain of the latter are put aside because no longer adequate to meet present needs and conditions, no vital power will survive capable of effecting a reconstruction of life upon a broader basis. They do not recognize an eternal Principle beneath all metamorphoses.
The casting off of superfluous opinions and conceptions that have already fulfilled their period of usefulness is indicative of a deeper life at work making for larger ends. As newly formed leaf-buds expand, they force the past season’s dried foliage to loosen its hold and fall to earth, thereby preparing the way for a fuller growth of fresh leaves.
Slaves of belief may be separated into two classes: those who judge every idea in the light of their preconceived opinions, holding tenaciously to a particular philosophy or creed which serves them as a touchstone by which to estimate all new revelations of truth; and those who, although not hopelessly or permanently committed to the views they now hold, are, nevertheless, slaves of belief because they substitute in their lives one or another form of belief for the Principle of principles.
The former class cannot properly be termed truthseekers at all, for they are unwilling to abandon outgrown conceptions for more serviceable ones. The man who never changes his views is, indeed, hopelessly in the dark. He is like a person who should refuse to change his clothing lest he might thereby forfeit his identity. The dogmatist does not profit by the experiences of past generations.
In the clearer light of the future, our most advanced conceptions will seem crude and even in a way absurd, as do those of former periods to us today. The radical of yesterday is the conservative of today; the “crank” of today may prove the sage of tomorrow. Every truly great scientist is imbued with the spirit of reverence, not that of arrogance.
It is a characteristic trait of the dogmatist to regard the knowledge of his own time as the grand consummation of all past thinking. He fancies that, however ignorant and conceited former generations may have been, the full light of truth has now, at length, burst upon the world. Yet in the evolution of knowledge it is necessary continually to abandon outgrown theories after they have served their purpose as stepping-stones to a more perfect understanding of truth.