Improving Natural Knowledge 39 



make him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return, while 

 if he offered him a fruit he would please him, and per- 

 haps receive a fish in exchange. When men had acquired 

 this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though they 

 were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of biology, 5 

 of moral, economical, and political science, were sketched. 

 Nor did the germ of religion fail when science began to 

 bud. Listen to words which, though new, are yet three 

 thousand years old: 



"... When in heaven the stars about the moon 10 



Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 

 And every height comes out, and jutting peak 

 And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 

 Break open to their highest, and all the stars 

 Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." * 15 



If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus 

 far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, 

 as we do, that upon that brief gladness there follows a 

 certain sorrow, the little light of awakened human in- 

 telligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of the 20 

 unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do 

 more than illuminate the imperfections that cannot be 

 remedied, the aspirations that cannot be realized, of 

 man's own nature. But in this sadness, this conscious- 

 ness of the limitation of man, this sense of an open secret 25 

 which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of all religion ; 

 and the attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by 

 the intellect is the origin of the higher theologies. 



Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the founda- 

 tions of all knowledge secular or sacred were laid when 30 

 intelligence dawned, though the superstructure remained 



* Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's 

 Greek? 



