II THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 89 



feel the play of a freer, purer air ; a lull in the 

 miasmatic currents that bring intolerance on their 

 wings. The tolerance that approaches is due to no 

 surrender of its main position by dogmatic theology, 

 but to that larger perception of the variety and com- 

 plexity of life, ignorance of, or wilful blindness to, 

 which, is the secret of the survival of rigid opinion. 

 The demonstration of the earth's roundness; the 

 discovery of America ; the growing conception of 

 inter-relation between the lowest and the highest life- 

 forms; the slow but sure acceptance of the Copernican 

 theory ; and, above all, the idea of a Cosmos, an 

 unbroken order ; to which every advance in know- 

 ledge contributes, justified and fostered the free play of 

 the intellect. Foreign as yet, however, to the minds 

 of widest breadth, was the conception of the inclusion 

 of MAN himself in the universal order. Duality 

 nature overruled by supernature was the unaltered 

 note ; the supernature as part of nature a thing 

 undreamed-of. Nor could it be otherwise while the 

 belief in diabolical agencies still held the field, 

 sending wretched victims to the stake on the evi- 

 dence of conscientious witnesses, and with the con- 

 currence of humane judges. Animism, the root of 

 all personification, whether of good or evil, had lost 

 none of its essential character, and but little of its 

 vigour. 



' I flatter myself/ says Hume, in the opening 

 words of the essay upon * Miracles/ in his Inquiry 

 Concerning Human Understanding, ' that I have dis- 

 covered an argument of a like nature (he is referring 

 to Archbishop Tillotson's argument on Transubstan- 

 tiation) which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, 



