6o TlIK POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



isms of wliioli lie is cliit-f, tlie planet on which he dwells, the system to 

 which it belongs, and the whole vast system of systems sweeping in 

 unimagined circles through space, all be supposed to exist, and have 

 no architect and no supporter. Such is not the deduction of science, 

 and such is not tlie conclusion at which the most skilled interjjreters 

 of Nature have arrived. In examining any artificial work, it is an in- 

 stinct wuth man, and his reason approves, to assign for it a conscious 

 and intelligent cause ; and he knows that the cause exists in onind, for 

 without mind nothing could be planned or originated. Not only so, 

 but in every instance Ave judge of the character of the originating 

 mind by the product. A great and noble work is not originated by a 

 feeble and undevelo]>ed mind, nor a crude and imperfect work by a 

 large and well-disciplined one. 



We judge similarly in regard to every work, from the crude uten- 

 sils of the " cave-dwellers " to the mighty products of a Michael An- 

 gelo, a Shakespeare, or a Laplace. So, in judging of works compared 

 with which the mightiest works of man are as mole-hiils, Avhose beauty 

 it is the higliest exercise of his genius feebly to copy and represent, 

 whose method and arrangement it is the life-work of the most exalted 

 intellects to discover, and whose extent, either in time or space, he 

 still gropes to find the unit of, we assign for cause a corresponding 

 soul ; and he who comprehends best the work is capable of under- 

 standing best the architect. 



The gods of sects and specialties may perhaps be failing of their 

 accustomed reverence, but, in the mean time, there is dawning on the 

 w^orld, with a softer and serener light, the conception, imperfect 

 though it still may be, of a conscious, originating, all-pervading, 

 active soul the "Over-Soul," the Cause, the Deity; unrevealed 

 through human form or speech, but filling and insi^iring every living 

 soul in the Avide universe according to its measure: whose temple is 

 Nature, and whose worship is aspiration. 



Science, then, so far from excluding God from the universe, de- 

 mands him as an ever-active power ; but, as man can only know him 

 through his works, and as the universe is yet comparatively unknown 

 to him even in his highest condition, and must remain so while he is 

 confined to earth, it follows that our knowledge, and even our concejv 

 tions of him, must be limited and imperfect, and our appreciation of 

 him correspondingly so. 



Is there, then, reason, in harmony Avith science, to expect an exist- 

 ence under more favorable circumstances for a knowledge and appre- 

 ciation of this orio-inatinGf soul whom science itself demands ? 



As interpreted by the docti'ine of evolution, we find man, as he 

 now exists, with his physical organization and advanced psychical 

 being, the product of a long series of develojiments. lie has arrived, 

 however, only at a certain point in the ascending series ; from that 

 point he easily reviews the whole long line beneath him from tlic very 



