136 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



difference that the particular experiences which fur- 

 nished the warp and woof of their theories were drawn, 

 not from the study of nature, but from what lay much 

 closer to them the observation of men. Their theories 

 accordingly took an anthropomorphic form. To super- 

 sensual beings, which, 'however potent and invisible, 

 were nothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps 

 raised from among mankind, and retaining all human 

 passions and appetites,' * were handed over the rule 

 and governance of natu*al phenomena. 



Tested by observation and reflection, these early 

 notions failed in the long run to satisfy the more pene- 

 trating intellects of our race. Far in the depths of his- 

 tory we find men of exceptional power differentiating 

 themselves from the crowd, rejecting these anthropo- 

 morphic notions, and seeking to connect natural pheno- 

 mena with their physical principles. But, long prior 

 to these purer efforts of the understanding, the merchant 

 had been abroad, and rendered the philosopher possible ; 

 commerce had been developed, wealth amassed, leisure 

 for travel and speculation secured, while races educated 

 under different conditions, and therefore differently in- 

 formed and endowed, had been stimulated and sharpened 

 by mutual contact. In those regions where the com- 

 mercial aristocracy of ancient Greece mingled with 

 their eastern neighbours, the sciences were born, being 

 nurtured and developed by free-thinking and coura- 

 geous men. The state of things to be displaced may 

 be gathered from a passage of Euripides quoted by 

 Hume. ' There is nothing in the world ; no glory, no 

 prosperity. The gods toss all into confusion ; mix 

 everything with its reverse, that all of us, from our 

 ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more 

 worship and reverence.' Now as science demands the 

 1 Hume, Natural History of Religion.' 



