FAITHS AND CREEDS ARE AFFAIRS OF GROWTH. 429 



ing the eras in which they are severally held, the best 

 that could be held ; and that this is true, not only of thp 

 latest and most refined creeds, but of all, even to the ear- 

 liest and most gross. Those who regard men's faiths aa 

 giren to them from without — as having origins either di- 

 rectly divine or diabolical, and who, considering their own 

 as the sole example of the one, class all the rest under the 

 other, will think this a very shocking opinion. I can im- 

 agine, too, that many of those who have abandoned cur- 

 rent theologies, and now regard religions as so many 

 natural products of human nature — men who, having lost 

 that antagonism towards their old creed which they felt 

 while shaking themselves free from it, can now see that it 

 was highly beneficial to past generations, and is beneficial 

 still to a large part of mankind ; — I can imagine even these 

 hardly prepared to admit that all religions, down to the 

 lowest Fetichism, have, in their places, fulfilled useful func- 

 tions. If such, however, will consistently develop their 

 ideas, they will find this inference involved. 



For if it be true that humanity in its corporate as well 

 as in its individual aspect, is a growth and not a manufac- 

 ture, it is obvious that during each phase men's theologies, 

 as well as their political and social arrangements, must be 

 determined into such forms as the conditions require. In the 

 one case as in the other, by a tentative process, things from 

 time to time re-settle themselves in a way that best consists 

 with national equilibrium. As out of plots and the strug- 

 gles of chieftains, it continually results that the strongest 

 gets to the top, and by virtue of his proved superiority 

 ensures a period of quiet, and gives society time to grow ; 

 as out of incidental expedients there periodically arise new 

 divisions of labour, which get permanently established 

 only by serving men's wants better than the previous ar- 

 rangements did ; so, the creed which each period evolves is 

 one more in conformity with the needs of the time than 



