Our minds retain many creases whose origin we have forgotten;
we veer away from many a pleasant inclination without knowing why.
These unanalyzed and residual inhibitions that grip us and will not
let us go, form a contrasting background to our more explicit motives
and often count for more in our conduct. The very lack of comprehension
serves in less rational minds to enhance their prestige with an
atmosphere of awe and mystery. These strange checks and promptings
that well up in a man's heart are which he must not dare to disobey.
The voice of God in our hearts we may, indeed, well conceive them to
be. The attempt to analyze into its psychological elements and trace
the natural genesis of conscience, as of morality in general must not
be taken as an attempt to discredit it or to read God out of the world.
For God works usually, if not universally, through natural laws; and
the historical viewpoint, that sees everything in our developed life
as the outcome of ages of natural evolution, is not only rich in fruitful
insight, but entirely consistent with a deep religious feeling. For
hortatory or inspirational purposes we do not need to make this
analysis; it has, indeed, its practical dangers. It tends to rob the
glory from anything to analyze it into its parts and study the natural
causes that produced it. The loveliest painting is but a mess of
pigments to the microscope, the loveliest face but a mess of cells
and hairs and blood vessels.
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