Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE COLD HAND AND THE DEAD HEART Philosophy was born in the cradle of Heathenism, and has a cold hand, because it has a dead heart. Philosophy is not the mother of religion. Religious cults antedate the philosophic age by several centuries of authentic history. Yet philosophy has always been regarded as the handmaid of religion. The religions of men have often been exceedingly bad, but the ethical features of religion have, in the main, been purer than those which derive their origin from philosophic sources. The cold, dead hand of philosophy has always had a chilling effect on the religion of man. Greek philosophy found a people who were religious, and nursed them into skepticism. The polytheism of the Greeks was a better moral stimulus to the life of that people, than the philosophy of Aristotle, Socrates or Plato. France was better, politically and socially, under priestcraft, than when influenced by the brilliant philosophers of a century ago. The reason for this is evident, from the fact that philosophy was divisive; while religion was constructive. Philosophy came to man, with only the recommendation of men. Religion claimed to be, and was in its essence, from God. Philosophy struck at the tap root of moral obligation, the Divine command; while religion drew at least some of its nourishment from the Divine reservoir. Philosophy dealt with mind and matter; religion, with spirit. Religion accepts the supernatural and is controlled by it. Philosophy tries to interpret the higher realms of human experience by the laws of nature. In all ages, it has attempted to substitute the natural for the supernatural. " Philosophy first begins when man experiences, and acts on the necessity of explaining phenomena by means of natural causes." 1 The object of philosoph...