Religious Nature in Man. 19 



and sometimes even to atheism. But neither athe- 

 ism nor infidelity is the natural state of man. He 

 has a religious nature. We may say that there is 

 no foundation for it, nothing that corresponds to it 

 out of himself. But no student of the human mind 

 would deny the possession of this nature to the race, 

 any more than he would deny man's social nature 

 or his appreciation and love of the beautiful. Thisy 

 religious nature has ever proved too powerful to al- 

 low infidelity and atheism more than a passing tri- 

 umph. They have sometimes, indeed, fallen like a 

 disease upon whole masses of men; but generally 

 they have appeared only here and there, as blindness 

 and deafness are the misfortunes of but few. This 

 religious nature, which no condition of the race has 

 ever been able to eradicate or weaken, except under 

 abnormal and temporary conditions, marshals the 

 highest powers of the mind to seek by reason that 

 certainty for its advanced life which superstitious 

 bel; to the race in the times of ignorance. 



It becomes a great moving power, that can no more 

 be destroyed nor restrained from its legitimate ac- 

 tion than any of the great forces of nature. Under 

 its promptings, man will not believe that progress 

 in knowledge is to shut the soul out from that en- 

 joyment which ignorant belief gave it. The con- 

 viction of the great thinkers of the race has been 

 that even the absurd superstitions and religious be- 

 liefs of ignorance are not entirely groundless that 

 they must rest on a basis of truth, because they 

 meet so fully the desires of the soul. As the light 



