sensationalistic aspects of human experience.

That, then, which is a central force in religion, the sense of the
inscrutability of human nature, the feeling of awe before the natural
processes, what Paul called the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of
godliness, tends to disappear. Wonder and confident curiosity succeed
humility and awe. That which is of the essence of religion, the sense
of helplessness coupled with the sense of responsibility, is stifled.
Whatever else the humane sciences have done, they have deepened man's
fascinated and narrowing absorption in himself and given him apparent
reason to believe that by analyzing the iron chain of cause and effect
which binds the process and admitting that it permits no deflection
or variation, he is making the further questions as to the origin,
meaning and destiny of that process either futile or superfluous. So
that, in brief, the check to speculative thinking and the repudiation
of central metaphysical concepts, which the earlier movement brought
about, has been accentuated and sealed by the humane sciences and the
new and living problems offered them for practical solution. Thus the
generation now ending has been carried beyond the point of combating
ancient doctrines of God and man, to the place where it has become
comparatively indifferent, rather than hostile, to any doctrine of
God, so absorbed is it in the physical functions, the temporal needs
and the material manifestations of human personality.

Finally, as the natural and humane sciences mark new steps in the
expanding humanistic movement, so in these last days, critical
scholarship, itself largely a product of the humanistic viewpoint, has
added another factor to the group. The new methods of historical and
literary criticism, of comparative investigation in religion and the
other arts, have exerted a vast influence upon contemporary religious