I.] ADVISABLEXESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 13 



laid when intelligence dawned, though the superstructure 

 remained for Ion 2; a^es so slight and feeble as to be 

 compatible with the existence of almost any general 

 view respecting the mode of governance of the universe. 

 No doubt, from the first, there were certain phenomena 

 which, to the rudest mind, presented a constancy of 

 occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at 

 any rate, among them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish 

 worshippers ever imagined that a stone must have a 

 god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had a god 

 within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such 

 matters as these, it is hardly questionable that man- 

 kind from the first took strictly positive and scientific 

 views. 



But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences 

 which present themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has 

 always taken himself as the standard of comparison, as 

 the centre and measure of the world ; nor could he well 

 avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently un- 

 caused will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many 

 occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other and 

 greater events to other and greater volitions, and came 

 to look upon the world and all that therein is, as the 

 product of the volitions of persons like himself, but 

 stronger, and capable of being appeased or angered, as 

 he himself might be soothed or irritated. Through such 

 conceptions of the plan and working of the universe all 

 mankind have passed, or are passing. And we may now 

 consider, what has been the effect of the improvement 

 of natural knowledge on the views of men who have 

 reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate 

 natural knowledge with no desire but that of "increasing 

 God's honour and bettering man's estate." 



For example : what could seem wiser, from a mere 

 material point of view, more innocent, from a theological 



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