I.] ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 11 



amidst the abyss of the unknown and unknowable ; seems so 

 insufficient 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 laid when intelligence 

 dawned, though the superstructure remained for long ages 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 oi 

 occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at any rate, 

 .among them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers evet 

 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 

 mankind 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 uncaused 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 improve 

 ment of natural knowledge on the views of men who have 



