I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 33 



And every height comes out, and jutting peak 

 And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 

 Break open to their highest, and all the stars 

 Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." l 



If the half savage Greek could share our feelings 

 thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went 

 further, to find as we do, that upon that brief 

 gladness there follows a certain sorrow, the little 

 light of awakened human intelligence shines so 

 mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown 

 and unknowable ; seems so insufficient to do 

 more than illuminate the imperfections that 

 cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot 

 be realised, of man's own nature. But in this 

 sadness, this consciousness of the limitation of man, 

 this sense of an open secret which he cannot 

 penetrate, lies the essence of all religion ; and the 

 attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by 

 the intellect is the origin of the higher theologies. 

 Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that 

 the foundations of all knowledge secular or 

 sacred were laid when intelligence dawned, 

 though the superstructure remained for long 

 ages so slight and feeble as to be compatible with 

 the existence of almost any general view respect- 

 ing the mode of governance of the universe. No 

 doubt, from the first, there were certain phse- 

 nomena which, to the rudest mind, presented a 



1 Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's 

 Greek ? 



VOL. I. D 



