THE CHAIN OF SPECIES. 



321 



also natural that there should be an almost universal concurrence in 

 their views of primitive times, because there was nothing in their dis- 

 putes about the dogmas of Christianity to bring the early ages of man 

 and of the earth into discussion. When, therefore, tlie skeptics, in 

 their profound ignorance of theology and of the higher philosophy, 

 ran against these sand-bags of individual opinions, it was natural for 

 them to suppose that they had discovered the very citadel of religion; 

 although, as we have seen, these anthropomorphic schemes are no 

 more like religion than the play-house earthworks of children, piled 

 up some summers day on the sandy shore, are like Fort Morgan. 

 Yet, from this simple psychological connection in their growth, his- 

 tory, science, and theology, since that period have been polemical ; and, 

 when, b}^ the application of truly rational and scientific methods, think- 

 mcr men bes^an to construct the natural history of the earth from the 

 facts recorded in the strata of its crust, and it began to be seen that 

 all organic forms are modeled upon one common plan and developed 

 out of primordial types under the operation of natural laws, an alarm 

 was sounded, as if the principles of Faith were really involved, and in 

 danger of impending overthrow. In their alarm and trepidation the 

 guardians of the ditnly-comprehended regions of Religion, regarding 

 all who wander out of the beaten paths of knowledge as " false knaves," 

 begin their examinations always, like a certain famous magistrate, 

 with the question, "Masters, do you serve God?" and insist that 

 "God" shall be written first, "for God forbid but God should go be- 

 fore such villains." 



On the other hand, iagain, as remarked, there are scientific men who 

 would also be philosophers, who suppose the anthropomorphic, that is, 

 the poetic expressions of religious conceptions, to be essential to and 

 the very gist of worship. Not having arrived at any thing beyond 

 anthropomorphic notions of the Deity themselves, they weakly im- 

 agine that no other are possible; that there is no religion, no religious 

 worship, notliing to lift man out of and beyond himself into the con- 

 templation of the unexpressed sublimities of the Infinite and the Al- 

 mighty, except the legends of the miracles and wonders of remote 

 ages. Hence one of them now boasts that, in the advance of science, 

 "anthropomorphism" (by which he means religion itself) "is driven 

 to its last intrenchment— the mind and heart of man himself." When 

 was it ever anywhere else? When was it ever any thing else (that is 

 the expression of it) than a development of the imagination — the 

 faculty of faith — the sesthetical faculty — that which lifts man above 

 the clods of earth and makes him akin to the immortal and the divine? 

 For is not religion both a science and an art? — from the inductive 

 point of view as truly a science as any other, and the climax and 

 crowning glory of all the others? and also an art, a fine art, as truly 

 as any other, and the most divinely beautiful of them all ? 



Alas for the philosopher who thinks it driven to the last ditch ! 



VOL. V. — 21 



