142 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [vm. 



word, but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, Ancestor- 

 worship, Hero-worship, and Demonology of primitive savages 

 are all, I believe, different manners of expression of their 

 belief in ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation 

 of out of-the-way events, which is its concomitant. Witch 

 craft and sorcery are the practical expressions of these beliefs ; 

 and they stand in the same relation to the religious worship as 

 the simple anthropomorphism of children, or savages, does to 

 theology. 



In the progress of the species from savagery to advanced 

 civilization, anthropomorphism grows into theology, while 

 physicism (if I may so call it) develops into science ; 

 but the development of the two is contemporaneous, not 

 successive. For each, there long exists an assured province 

 which is not invaded by the other ; while, between the two, lies 

 a debateable land, ruled by a sort of bastards, who owe their 

 complexion to physicism and their substance to anthropomor 

 phism, and are M. Comte s particular aversions metaphysical 

 entities. 



But, as the ages lengthen, the borders of Physicism increase. 

 The territories of the bastards are all annexed to science ; and 

 even Theology, in her purer forms, has ceased to be anthropo 

 morphic, however she may talk. Anthropomorphism has taken 

 stand in its last fortress man himself. But Science closely 

 invests the walls; and Philosophers gird themselves for battle 

 upon the last and greatest of all speculative problems 

 Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or truly 

 anthropomorphic element, or is it only the cunningest of 

 all Nature s clocks ? Some, among whom I count myself, think 

 that the battle will for ever remain a drawn one, and that, for 

 all practical purposes, this result is as good, as anthropomor 

 phism winning the day. 



The classification of the sciences, which, in the eyes of M. 

 Comte s adherents, constitutes his second great claim to the 

 dignity of a scientific philosopher, appears to me to be open to 

 just the same objections as the law of the three states. It is 



