IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 345 



Let us take these points separately ; and, first, what great 

 ideas has natural knowledge introduced into men's minds ? 



I cannot but think that the foundations of ail natural 

 knowledge were laid when the reason of man first came 

 face to face with the facts of Nature : when the savage first 

 learned that the fingers of one hand are fewer than those of 

 both ; that it is shorter to cross a stream than to head it ; 

 that a stone stops where it is unless it be moved, and that 

 it drops from the hand which lets it go ; that light and 

 heat come and go with the sun ; that sticks burn away in 

 a fire ; that plants and animals grow and die ; that if he 

 struck his fellow-savage a blow he would make him angry, 

 and perhaps get a blow in return, while if he offered him a 

 fruit he would please him, and perhaps receive a fish in 

 exchange. When men had acquired this much knowledge, 

 the outlines, rude though they were, of mathematics, of 

 physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral, economical, and 

 political science, were sketched. Nor did the germ of 

 religion fail when science began to bud. Listen to words 

 which, though new, are yet three thousand years old : 



". . . When in heaven the stars about the moon 

 Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 

 And every height comes out, and jutting peak 

 And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 

 Break open to their highest, and all the stars 

 Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." * 



If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, 

 it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we 

 do, that upon that brief gladness there follows a certain 

 sorrow, the little light of awakened human intelligence 

 shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown 

 and unknowable ; seems so insufficient to do more than 

 illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the 

 aspirations that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. 

 But in this sadness, this consciousness of the limitation 

 of man, this sense of an open secret which he cannot pene- 

 trate, lies the essence of all religion; and the attempt to 

 embody it in the forms furnished by the intellect is the 

 origin of the higher theologies. 



Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the founda- 

 tions of all knowledge secular or sacred were laid when 



* Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer'g 

 Greek ? 



