RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 841 



symbols of the something beyond consciousness. Though 

 analysis afterwards reinstates our primitive beliefs, to the 

 extent of showing that behind every group of phenomenal 

 manifestations there is always a nexus, which is the reality 

 that remains fixed amid appearances which are variable ; yet 

 v e are shown that this nexus of reality is for ever inacces 

 sible to consciousness. And when, once more, we remember 

 that the activities constituting consciousness, being rigorously 

 bounded, cannot bring in among themselves the activities 

 beyond the bounds, which therefore seem unconscious, 

 though production of either by the other seems to imply that 

 they are of the same essential nature ; this necessity we are 

 under to think of the external energy in terms of the internal 

 energy, gives rather a spiritualistic than a materialistic aspect 

 to the Universe : further thought, however, obliging us to 

 recognize the truth that a conception given in phenomenal 

 manifestations of this ultimate energy can in no wise show 

 us what it is. 



While the beliefs to which analytic science thus leads, 

 are such as do not destroy the object-matter of religion, 

 but simply transfigure it, science under its concrete forms 

 enlarges the sphere for religious sentiment. From the very 

 beginning the progress of knowledge has been accompanied 

 by an increasing capacity for wonder. Among savages, the 

 Lowest are the least surprised when shown remarkable products 

 of civilized art : astonishing the traveller by their indifference. 

 And so little of the marvellous do they perceive in the 

 grandest phenomena of Nature, that any inquiries concern 

 ing them they regard as childish trifling. This contrast 

 in mental attitude between the lowest human beings and 

 the, higher human beings around us, is paralleled by con 

 trasts among the grades of these higher human beings them 

 selves. It is not the rustic, nor the artizan, nor the trader, who 

 sees something more than a mere matter of course in the 

 hatching of a chick ; but it is the biologist, who, pushing to 

 the uttermost his analysis of vital phenomena, reaches his 



