TO THE POOE. 273 



which Nature, in her regular behaviour from age to age, 

 has left for man's knowledge, and appointed for his 

 guidance, is ever attended and must be attended with 

 fatal and disastrous consequences. To ascertain the facts 

 and conditions is the special work of Science ; to impress 

 the lesson resulting is the duty of the philosopher and 

 moralist who builds upon science. 



The kingdom of heaven, then, for which men have 

 long prayed, the civitas Dei, the perfect state, will only 

 come when it has already existed in men's hearts and 

 shown itself in their conduct, but that will not be in 

 our day, nor in our children's, although they will be 

 appreciably nearer to it. Nevertheless, the happy time, 

 which will come at last, though late, and by the slow 

 operation of the same perfecting processes which have 

 raised man from the brute to the savage, and from the 

 savage to the civilized man, will not be delayed by 

 this true teaching. It will be delayed only if men, as 

 heretofore, persistently pursue the opposite course, long 

 ago censured by Bacon, of embracing fictions, " flattering 

 hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and 

 the like," instead of the " naked and open daylight " 

 of truth ; of living upon illusions which burst, instead 

 of knowing the literal terms which Nature allows, and 

 facing and accepting the actual facts which she puts 

 before us ; the former being the bad habit to which our 

 poor species has ever been addicted, in all directions, 

 and not merely with respect to the future of society, 

 but the future of the individual. 



3. In the preceding part of this chapter we have 

 shadowed forth the outlines of a great and far-reaching 

 controversy, the most important in the history][of our 

 species; but which, though probably as old as human 

 society itself, and certainly as old as the Republic of 



T 



