232 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 



and fatalities of Nature, blind and mighty and destroy- 

 ing fire and flood, lightning and tempest, plague and 

 famine, shipwreck and untimely death. To appease the 

 wrath of these awful and destructive powers of Nature, 

 the primitive man supposing them deities or demons, in 

 trembling fear built temples, and offered prayer and 

 sacrifice of everything that could be conceived to appease 

 offended deities, in vain : while modern man, by a know- 

 ledge of Nature's laws, not only averts her anger, but 

 converts her most formidable forces into his powerful 

 servants. Thus by knowledge only, he has performed 

 the miracle of taming the blind and inanimate forces of 

 Nature, much more difficult to subdue than the animals 

 or savage beasts, and utterly insensible to supplication, 

 or prayer, or sacrifice. Let us only know her conditions, 

 and accept them, and Nature will be propitious indeed. 

 Where she had else been our scourge and destroyer, she 

 will give us all things liberally to enjoy. And who are 

 they who have enabled us to placate Nature, the priests 

 of this true worship who have made atonement, the 

 mediators between ordinary men and Nature who have 

 rendered her propitious ? The priests have been the dis- 

 coverers and inventors in the sciences and the arts ; the 

 temples Nature herself; and the inner shrines where 

 the worship has been carried on, have been the labo- 

 ratory and the observatory, the study of the natural 

 philosopher and inventor, and the workshop of the 

 engineer. 



The mastery of Nature has not been the sole result 

 of physical science. This has, indeed, followed from 

 scientific knowledge and discovery, and material advan- 

 tages and comforts, great and important, have again 

 followed from it. We have further got an explanation 

 of Nature, for which the human mind craves as much as 



