28 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LA Y SERMONS 



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." i • 



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 sor- 

 row, — 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 illumi- 

 nate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspira- 

 tions that cannot be realised, 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 penetrate, 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 

 intelligence dawned, though the superstructure remained 

 for long ages so slight and feeble as to be compatible with 

 the existence of almost any general view respecting the mode 

 of governance of the universe. No doubt, from the first, 



1 Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's Greek ? 



