ANCIENT AND MODERN VIEWS OF NATURE. 11 



speaking, comparatively recent) not by genera- 

 tions, but by tens of thousands, if not by 

 hundreds of thousands of years.* 



Our theological ideas have also been expanded 

 with the growth of our science, though not in 

 proportion, because the influence of science on 

 religion has hitherto been negative rather than 

 positive. Homer in a well-known passage (II. v. 

 339-342) explains the difference in the nature of 

 gods and men to consist chiefly in the presence 

 of a fluid called " ichor," in the veins of the 

 former, instead of blood, the result of more 

 wholesome food. So far from this, our modern 

 views of the Unseen have been growing wider 

 and wider, until Herbert Spencer asserts, in his 

 " First Principles," that the only possible ground 

 of reconciliation between science and religion 

 consists in the recognition of an unfathomable 

 mystery underlying both. Without going quite 

 so far, it may perhaps be suggested that Science 

 and Eeligion may at length meet on the broad 

 platform of Theism and Philanthropy. 



* Geology at present requires a longer time for the existence of the 

 earth than astronomers are yet prepared to admit. But this discrep- 

 ancy does not affect the certainty of the earth having been in existence 

 for a vastly longer period than most of the ancients had any idea of. 



