INSTINCT AND REASON. 63 



physical science, though his mind is evidently, and even 

 confessedly, swayed throughout by other than physical 

 considerations. He represents, in fact, and endeavours 

 to reconcile to his own scientific views, the weight of 

 popular prejudice which has hitherto condemned those 

 views with some vehemence of opposition. 



The sentiment in question amounts to this, that cer- 

 tain powers or faculties of the human mind are so 

 wonderful and so unique, that they could not have 

 originated in the ordinary processes of nature without 

 some special intervention. Antecedents conforming to 

 the usual observed order in other living productions are 

 not sufficiently magnificent for the soul of man. Some- 

 thing sudden, something mysterious, is demanded in the 

 agency of its creation. It must be like Pallas Athene, 

 springing from the brain of Zeus, a goddess fully armed 

 from her birth in the panoply of wisdom and virtue. 

 Yet the whole feeling thus to be described of what is fit 

 and worthy must be accredited, as we desire to show, 

 simply to prejudice. Nothing can really depend for its 

 intrinsic grandeur upon our knowledge or ignorance 

 of its origin. A single cause instantaneously producing 

 its effect does not make the result in any way more 

 admirable or magnificent than the like result coming at 

 the close of an indefinitely extended chain of causation. 

 Feelings of surprise and wonder are excited when we 

 find that ten thousand copies of the Times newspaper 

 can be printed within a single hour ; but the same 

 feelings move us in the granite-yards of Scotland, when 

 we learn that many months are required for cutting 



