ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 29 



there were certain phenomena which, to the rudest mind, 

 presented a constancy of occurrence, and suggested that a 

 fixed order ruled, at any rate, among them. I doubt if the 

 grossest of Fetish worshippers ever imagined that a stone 

 must have a god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had 

 a god within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such 

 matters as these, it is hardly questionable that mankind 

 from the first took strictly positive and scientific views. 



But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences 

 which present themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has 

 always taken himself as the standard of comparison, as 

 the centre and measure of the world; nor could he well 

 avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently uncaused 

 will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many occurrences, 

 he naturally enough ascribed other and greater events to 

 other and greater volitions, and came to look upon the world 

 and all that therein is, as the product of the volitions of 

 persons like himself, but stronger, and capable of being 

 appeased or angered, as he himself might be soothed or 

 irritated. Through such conceptions of the plan and work- 

 ing of the universe all mankind have passed, or are passing. 

 And we may now consider what has been the effect of the 

 improvement of natural knowledge on the views of men 

 who have reached this stage, and who have begun to culti- 

 vate natural knowledge with no desire but that of "increas- 

 ing God's honour and bettering man's estate." 



For example, what could seem wiser, from a mere ma- 

 terial point of view, more innocent, from a theological one, 

 to an ancient people, than that they should learn the exact 

 succession of the seasons, as warnings for their husband- 

 men; or the position of the stars, as guides to their rude 

 navigators? But what has grown out of this search for 

 natural knowledge of so merely useful a character? You 



