12 I AY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [i. 



that light and heat come and go with the sun ; that 

 sticks burn away in a fire ; that plants and animals grow 

 and die ; that if he struck his fellow-savage a blow he 

 would make him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return, 

 while if he offered him a fruit he would please him, and 

 perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When men had 

 acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though 

 they were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of 

 biology, of moral, economical, and political science, were 

 sketched. Nor did the germ of religion fail when 

 science began to bud. Listen to words which, though 

 new, are yet three thousand years old : — 



u . . . When in heaven the stars about the moon 

 Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 

 And every height conies out, and jutting peak 

 And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 

 Break open to their highest, and all the stars 

 Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." * 



If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus 

 far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to 

 find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there 

 follows a certain sorrow, — the little light of awakened 

 human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the 

 abyss of the unknown and unknowable ; seems so in- 

 sufficient to do more than illuminate the imperfections 

 that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot be 

 realized, of man's own nature. But in this sadness, this 

 consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an 

 open secret which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of 

 all religion ; and the attempt to embody it in the forms 

 furnished by the intellect is the origin of the higher 

 theologies. 



Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the 

 foundations of all knowledge — secular or sacred — were 



o 

 1 Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's Greek ? 



