64 INSTINCT AND REASON. 



through a single block. At the first proposal of rail- 

 ways^ a pace of twenty or five-and-twenty miles an hour 

 was thought too wonderful for belief; while now, from 

 familiarity with far higher rates of speed, we think it 

 miserably slow. A child is surprised to learn that the 

 light of the sun requires time to reach the eye ; but a 

 new and even greater surprise is aroused by the infor- 

 mation that the time so required is only a few minutes 

 for ninety millions of miles. The swiftness of thought 

 is proverbial. A single act of thought is commonly 

 supposed to be absolutely instantaneous ; and yet pre- 

 sence of mind, which depends on rapidity of thought, is 

 fully recognized as an uncommon quality, while it has 

 now been ascertained by experiment that every thought 

 requires a definite, and in many cases measurable, length 

 of time for its production and exercise. Following the 

 analogy of these illustrations, we may expect that the 

 popular opinion or prejudice as to the instantaneous 

 creation of the human mind will vanish and subside 

 when men become familiar with the idea of its slow 

 development. It will at least be seen that there is no 

 special dignity and grandeur in the supposed suddenness 

 of its introduction into the universe. The general scheme 

 of nature, so far as we can penetrate its working, seems 

 to show that there is some proportion observed between 

 the time spent in producing and the perfection of the 

 thing produced. Religion itself is an unquestionable 

 witness to this method of procedure. There is no .great 

 religion of which the adherents claim to have had it 

 revealed to them from the first in its full perfection. 



