SCIENCE AND MAN 389 



power which makes for righteousness" has dealt in delu- 

 sions; for it cannot be denied that the beliefs of religion, 

 including the dogmas of theology and the freedom of the 

 will, have had some effect in molding the moral world. 

 Granted; but I do not think that this goes to the root of 

 the matter. Are you quite sure that those beliefs and 

 dogmas are primary, and not derived? that they are not 

 the products, instead of being the creators, of man's moral 

 nature ? I think it is in one of the Latter-Day Pamphlets 

 that Carlyle corrects a reasoner, who deduced the nobility 

 of man from a belief in heaven, by telling him that he 

 puts the cart before the horse, the real truth being that 

 the belief in heaven is derived from the nobility of man. 

 The bird's instinct to weave its nest is referred to by- 

 Emerson as typical of the force which built cathedrals, 

 temples, and pyramids: 



Knowest them what wove yon woodbird's nest 



Of leaves and feathers from her breast, 



Or how the fish outbuilt its shell, 



Painting with morn each annual cell? 



Such and so grew these holy piles 



While love and terror laid the tiles; 



Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 



As the best gem upon her zone; 



And Morning opes with haste her lids 



To gaze upon the Pyramids; 



O'er England's abbeys bends the sky 



As on its friends with kindred eye; 



For out of Thought's interior sphere 



These wonders rose to upper air, 



And nature gladly gave them place, 



Adopted them into her race, 



And granted them an equal date 



"With Andes and with Ararat. 



