48 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



system, and that the whole temple of Man's achieve 

 ment must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a 

 universe in ruins all these things, if not quite beyond 

 dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy 

 which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within 

 the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm founda- 

 tion of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation 

 henceforth be safely built. 



How, in such an alien and inhuman world, can so 

 powerless a creature as Man preserve his aspirations 

 untarnished ? A strange mystery it is that Nature, 

 omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular 

 hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought 

 forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but 

 gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with 

 the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking 

 Mother. In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the 

 parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, 

 to examine, to criticise, to know, and in imagination to 

 create. To him alone, in the world with which he is 

 acquainted, this freedom belongs ; and in this lies his 

 superiority to the resistless forces that control his out- 

 ward life. 



The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his 

 impotence before the powers of Nature ; but having in 

 himself nothing that he respects more than Power, he is 

 willing to prostrate himself before his gods, without 

 inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship. 

 Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty 

 and torture, of degradation and human sacrifice, endured 

 in the hope of placating the jealous gods : surely, the 

 trembling believer thinks, when what is most precious 

 has been freely given, their lust for blood must be ap- 

 peased, and more will not be required. The religion of 



