28 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



he well avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently 

 uncaused will has a powerful effect in giving rise to 

 many occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed 

 other and greater events to other and greater volitions, 

 and came to look upon the world and all that therein is, 

 as the product of the volitions of persons like himself, 

 but stronger, and capable of being appeased or an- 

 gered, as he himself might be soothed or irritated. 

 Through such conceptions of the plan and working 

 of the universe all mankind have passed, or are passing. 

 And we may now consider what has been the effect 

 of the improvement of natural knowledge on the views 

 of men who have reached this stage, and who have be- 

 gun to cultivate natural knowledge with no desire but 

 that of "increasing God's honour and bettering man's 

 estate." 



For example, what could seem wiser, from a mere 

 material point of view, more innocent, from a theo- 

 logical one, to an ancient people, than that they should 

 learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings 

 for their husbandmen ; or the position of the stars, as 

 guides to their rude navigators ? But what has grown 

 out of this search for natural knowledge of so merely 

 useful a character? You all know the reply. Astron- 

 omy, which of all sciences has filled men's minds 

 with general ideas of a character most foreign to their 

 daily experience, and has, more than any other, ren- 

 dered it impossible for them to accept the beliefs of 

 their fathers. Astronomy, which tells them that 

 this so vast and seemingly solid earth is but an atom 

 among atoms, whirling, no man knows whither, through 

 illimitable space; which demonstrates that what we 

 call the peaceful heaven above us, is but that space, 

 filled by an infinitely subtle matter whose particles 



