The scientific study of man is the most difficult of all branches of
knowledge. It requires, in the first place, an entire new terminology to
get rid of that enormous load of prejudices with which every term applied
to the malformations, the functional disturbances, and the organic
diseases of the moral nature is at present burdened. Take that one word
Sin, for instance: all those who have studied the subject from nature and
not from books know perfectly well that a certain fraction of what is so
called is nothing more or less than a symptom of hysteria; that another
fraction is the index of a limited degree of insanity; that still another
is the result of a congenital tendency which removes the act we sit in
judgment upon from the sphere of self-determination, if not entirely, at
least to such an extent that the subject of the tendency cannot be judged
by any normal standard.
To study nature without fear is possible, but without reproach,
impossible. The man who worships in the temple of knowledge must carry
his arms with him as our Puritan fathers had to do when they gathered in
their first rude meeting-houses. It is a fearful thing to meddle with
the ark which holds the mysteries of creation. I remember that when I
was a child the tradition was whispered round among us little folks that
if we tried to count the stars we should drop down dead.
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