INSTINCT AND REASON. 65 



What is true of religion, is true of all arts and sciences. 

 Their progress has been gradual. The greatness of na- 

 tions, even when it seems to blaze forth in history most 

 suddenly, ever finds its true origin in numerous steps of 

 slow preparation. A hardy, frugal tribe of warriors is 

 nursed in some obscure mountain cradle. The struggle 

 for existence fosters their preservative virtues. A line 

 of rulers is evoked, forced by the circumstances of their 

 tenure to acquire, as their leading qualities, cunning, 

 prudence, self-control, fertility of resource, promptitude 

 of action, till at length the hour and the man coincide, 

 and a handful of barbarians give their name to a great 

 empire. The same rule prevails with languages, and the 

 literatures that adorn them. So fully is this established 

 in regard to literature, that men who examine the sub- 

 ject deeply are almost led to disbelieve in originality of 

 genius altogether, from the invariable indebtedness of 

 the noblest authors to the thoughts and imaginings 

 of earlier minds. There is, therefore, no antecedent 

 improbability that can fairly be pleaded against the 

 gradual development of the human mind. On the 

 contrary, every possible analogy is in its favour. A 

 supposition so favoured becomes at least a lawful and 

 reasonable subject of enquiry. If it be true that the 

 theory of evolution applies to the mind of man, we 

 should expect to find in that mind itself traces of the 

 earlier steps, or grades of development, through which 

 it has passed, and also in the world around creatures 

 lower than humanity in some sort representing those 

 earlier stages of slowly unfolding reason. In other 



