PRIMITIVE MAN. 343 



or, as they have been taught to regard them, " super- 

 natural " things, to the domain of the " unknowable." 

 Perhaps some portion of the difficulty may be got 

 over by abandoning altogether the word " super- 

 natural," which has been much misused, and by hold- 

 ing nature to represent the whole cosmos, and to in- 

 clude both the physical and the spiritual, both of them 

 in the fullest sense subject to law, but each to the law 

 of its own special nature. I have read somewhere a 

 story of some ignorant orientals who were induced to 

 keep a steam-engine supplied with water by the fiction 

 that it contained a terrible djin, or demon, who, if 

 allowed to become thirsty, would break out and 

 destroy them all. Had they been enabled to discard 

 this superstition, and to understand the force of steam, 

 we can readily imagine that they would now suppose 

 they knew the whole truth, and might believe that any 

 one who taught them that the engine was a product of 

 intelligent design, was only taking them back to the 

 old doctrine of the thirsty demon of the boiler. This 

 is, I think, at present, the mental condition of many 

 scientists with reference to creation. 



Here we come to the first demand which the doctrine 

 of creation makes on us by way of premises. In 

 order that there may be creation there must be a 

 primary Self-existent Spirit, whose will is supreme. 

 The evolutionist cannot refuse to admit this on as good 

 ground as that on which we hesitate to receive the 

 postulates of his faith. It is no real objection to say 

 that a God can be known to us only partially, and, 



