LAW IMPLIES MIND. 2.9 J.) 



and setting of the fixed stars which mark the 

 different points of the course of the sun, while the 

 various aspects which the earth itself assumes 

 mark, here below also, the same periods of the 

 sun's annual motion ; . . .all these different 

 pictures, displayed before the eyes of man, form 

 the great and magnificent spectacle by which I 

 suppose him surrounded at the moment when 

 he is about to create his gods"* 



What is this (divested of its wanton levity 

 of expression) but to say, that when man has 

 so far traced the course of nature as to be irre- 

 sistibly impressed with the existence of order, 

 law, variety in constancy, and fixity in change ; 

 of relations of form and space, duration and suc- 

 cession, cause and consequence, among the ob- 

 jects which surround him ; there springs up in 

 his breast, unbidden and irresistibly, the thought 

 of superintending intelligence of a mind which 

 comprehended from the first and completely that 

 which he late and partially comes to know ? The 

 worship of earth and sky, of the host of heaven 

 and the influences of nature, is not the ultimate 

 and fundamental fact in the early history of the 

 religious impressions of mankind. These are but 

 derivative streams, impure and scanty, from the 

 fountain of religious feeling which appears to be 

 disclosed to us by the contemplation of the uni- 



* Dupuis. Origiue des Cultcs. 



