SCIENCE AND MAN 389 



power which makes for righteousness" has dealt in delu- 

 sions; for it cannot be denied that the beliefs of religion, 

 including the dogmas of theology and the freedom of the 

 will, have had some efiect in molding the moral world. 

 Granted; but I do not think that this goes to the root of 

 the matter. Are you quite sure that those beliefs and 

 dogmas are primary, and not derived? — that they are not 

 the products^ instead of being the creators^ of man's moral 

 nature ? I think it is in one of the Latter-Day Pamphlets 

 that Carlyle corrects a reasoner, who deduced the nobility 

 of man from a belief in heaven, by telling him that he 

 puts the cart before the horse, the real truth being that 

 the belief in heaven is derived from the nobility of man. 

 The bird's instinct to weave its nest is referred to by 

 Emerson as typical of the force which built cathedrals, 

 temples, and pyramids: 



Knowest thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 

 Of leaves and feathers from her breast, 

 Or how the fish outbuilt its shell, 

 Painting with morn each annual cell? 

 Such and so grew these holy piles 

 "While love and terror laid the tiles; 

 Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 

 As the best gem upon her zone; 

 And Morning opes with haste her lids 

 To gaze upon the Pyramids; 

 O'er England's abbeys bends the sky 

 As on its friends with kindred eye; 

 For out of Tliought's interior sphere 

 These wonders rose to upper air, 

 ■ And nature gladly gave them plao». 

 Adopted them into her race, 

 And granted them an equal date 

 "With Andes and with Ararat 



