:>4 <>\ iMi'Rovixc; XATFRAL KXOWLEDGE 



constancy of occurrence, and suggested that a 

 fixnl order ruled, at any rate, among them. I 

 doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers ever 

 imagined that a stone must have a god within 

 it to make it fall, or that a fruit had a god 

 within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to 

 such matters as these, it is hardly questionable 

 that mankind from the first took strictly positive 

 and scientific views. 



But, with respect to all the less familiar occur- 

 rences which present themselves, uncultured man, 

 no doubt, has always taken himself as the 

 standard of comparison, as the centre and measure 

 of the world ; nor could he well avoid doing so. 

 And finding that his apparently uncaused will 

 has a powerful effect in giving rise to many 

 occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other 

 and greater events to other and greater volitions, 

 and came to look upon the world and all that 

 therein is, as the product of the volitions of 

 persons like himself, but stronger, and capable of 

 being appeased or angered, as he himself might be 

 soothed or irritated. Through such conceptions of 

 the plan and working of the universe all mankind 

 have passed, or are passing. And we may now con- 

 sider what has been the effect of the improvement 

 of natural knowledge on the views of men who have 

 reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate 

 natural knowledge with no desire but that of "in- 

 creasing God's honour and bettering man's estate." 



