CHAPTER II. 



THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 



1. SCIENCE is the true revelation to men the only 

 revelation that men have ever received or can receive. 

 For Nature reveals only the secrets which her patient 

 worshippers, after a careful interrogation and close 

 observation, have had the skill to extract from her else 

 close and impassible breast. She has only revealed the 

 " open secret " of her laws to her devoted inquirers, who 

 have carefully watched the ways of her present be- 

 haviour, and have detected the marks of her past 

 behaviour ; reserving a final secret at her heart which 

 none can fathom or discover. This secret is incommuni- 

 cable by her ; nor could it be understood by mortal ears 

 if it were otherwise. The fancied whispers of inspira- 

 tions by the prophets and founders of religions were but 

 the private imaginings of individuals, which the ardour 

 and vehemence of their own souls, conjointly with the 

 spiritual wants and fears of their fellows, intensely 

 desirous of a revelation, permitted to pass for such in 

 rude, uncritical, and credulous ages. Men wanted a reve- 

 lation, a voice from the void ; and the revealer, himself a 

 representative man, more intensely feeling the want than 

 the others, after long and lonely religious contemplation, 

 believed that to him was communicated the secret, and 

 he came forward to supply the want. But he had not 



