THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 353 



hence one kind of fetichism. Passing over all intermediate stages, the 

 truth to be noted is, that as fast as explanation of the anomalies dissi- 

 pates the wonder they excited, there grows up a wonder at the uni- 

 formities there arises the question how come they to be uniformities ? 

 As fast as Science transfers more and more things from the category 

 of irregularities to the category of regularities, the mystery that once 

 attached to the superstitious explanations of them becomes a mystery 

 that attaches to the scientific explanations of them : there is a merging 

 of many special mysteries in one general mystery. The astronomer, 

 having shown that the motions of the Solar System imply a uniform 

 and invai-iably-acting force he calls gravitation, finds himself abso- 

 lutely incapable of conceiving the force. Though he helps himself to 

 think of the Sun's action on the Earth by assuming an intervening 

 medium, and finds he must do this if he thinks about it at all ; yet the 

 mystery reappears when he asks what is the constitution of this me- 

 dium. Though compelled to use units of ether as symbols, he sees 

 that they can be but symbols. Similarly with the physicist and the 

 chemist. Though the hypothesis of atoms and molecules enables 

 them to work out multitudinous interpretations that are verified by 

 experiment, yet the ultimate unit of matter admits of no consistent 

 conception. Instead of the particular mysteries presented by those 

 actions of matter they have explained, there rises into prominence the 

 mystery which matter universally presents, and which proves to be 

 absolute. So that, beginning with the germinal idea of mystery which 

 the savage gets from a display of power in another transcending his 

 own, and the germinal sentiment of awe accompanying it, the progress 

 is toward an ultimate recognition of a mystery behind every act and 

 appearance, and a transfer of the awe from something special and oc- 

 casional to something universal and unceasing. 



No one need expect, then, that the religious consciousness will die 

 away, or will change the lines of its evolution. Its specialties of form, 

 once strongly marked and becoming less distinct during past mental 

 progress, will continue to fade ; but the substance of the consciousness, 

 will persist. That the object-matter can be replaced by another object- 

 matter, as supposed by those who think the " Religion of Humanity " 

 will be the religion of the future, is a belief countenanced neither by 

 induction nor by deduction. However dominant may become the 

 moral sentiment enlisted on behalf of Humanity, it can never exclude 

 the sentiment, alone properly called religious, awakened by that which 

 is behind Humanity and behind all other things. The child, by wrap- 

 ping its head in the bedclothes, may for a moment get rid of the dis- 

 tinct consciousness of surrounding darkness ; but the consciousness, 

 though rendered less vivid, survives, and imagination persists in occu- 

 pying itself with that which lies beyond perception. No such thing 

 as a " Religion of Humanity" can ever do more than temporarily shut 

 out the thought of a Power of which Humanity is but a small and 

 vol. in. 23 



