12 The Destiny of Man. 



physical theories of Lucretm^, is employed 

 in the service of a theology cumbrous in 

 its obsolete details, but resting upon funda- 

 mental truths which mankind can never 

 safely lose sight of. In the view of Dante 

 and of that phase of human culture which 

 found in him its clearest and sweetest 

 voice, this earth, the fair home of man, 

 was placed in the centre of a universe 

 wherein all things were ordained for his 

 sole behoof : the sun to give him light and 

 warmth, the stars in their courses to pre- 

 side over his strangely checkered destinies, 

 the winds to blow, the floods to rise, or the 

 fiend of pestilence to stalk abroad over the 

 land, all for the blessing, or the warning, 

 or the chiding, of the chief among God's 

 creatures, Man. Upon some such concep- 

 tion as this, indeed, all theology would 

 seem naturally to rest. vOnce dethrone 

 Humanity,j regard it as a mere local in- 

 cident in an endless and aimless series 

 of cosmical changes, and you arrive at a 

 doctrine which, under whatever specious 



