THE RISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 



were caused. To scare an enemy he would utter 

 a terrible war cry ; whose war cry then, he would 

 ask, was the thunder rolling terribly across the 

 sky? He could fling handfuls of water this way 

 or that; who then drove the mighty rivers along 

 and tossed the waves of the sea? He could blow 

 a flower to pieces ; whose breath shattered the for- 

 est trees? 



Thus, by thinking about himself, man could not 

 help thinking of some mysterious being or beings 

 who controlled vaster forces than he. These, in 

 one shape or another, became his gods, whom he 

 tried to propitiate. 



Age by age the lamp of religion thus humbly 

 lit has burned more brightly, with a purer flame, 

 until in the great revealed Faith, that man has 

 been made in the likeness of God, the whole civilized 

 world is united. 



There was only danger lest the ever-growing 

 number of those who studied nature and abhorred 

 its apparent cruelty, as well as those who could 

 not reconcile the demonstrated truths of science 

 with the revealed truth of religion, should fall 

 away. 



If I can help some few to realize, firstly that 

 nature is not cruel because, lacking self-con- 

 sciousness, other animals cannot consider whether 

 they suffer or not and, secondly, that science and 



f 119 



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