COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



any especial sense divinely appointed, he never- 

 theless borrows from the old mythology its no- 

 tion of cataclysms, and vainly imagines that be- 

 liefs and institutions which suit the intellectual 

 and moral needs of half the world can be in- 

 continently eradicated or overthrown by direct 

 assaults from without. Reasoning, then, upon 

 this inadequate basis, and being as incapable 

 of appreciating sympathetically the behefs of a 

 bygone age as his orthodox opponent is inca- 

 pable of emancipating himself from such beliefs, 

 the controversy between the two becomes natu- 

 rally barren of profit though fruitful in recrimi- 

 nation ; and each regards the other with a dislike 

 or a distrust which, though justifiable enough 

 when considered from the points of view respec- 

 tively occupied by the antagonists, nevertheless 

 seems barbaric or childish to those who have 

 reached a higher standpoint. 



This higher standpoint is furnished by what 

 I have called the dynamical habit of looking at 

 things as continually changing in a definite and 

 irreversible order of sequence. That this habit 

 should not have been acquired, save by two or 

 three isolated minds, until the present century, 

 IS not to be wondered at, since for the full ac- 

 quirement of it there is needed a familiarity with 

 scientific conceptions of genesis which could not 

 have been gained at any earlier date. But as 

 soon as the tendency to contemplate all pheno- 

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