168 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



tests by the universal assent of all populations. We 

 are not aware of the benefits it is conferring upon 

 us till we suddenly awake and find ourselves richer, 

 wiser, happier and better than we were. 



The discoveries and the progress of the last four 

 hundred years have raised the human race (or at 

 least the European branch of it) to an elevation so 

 infinitely superior to that of any other known living 

 being that it is not presumption to infer that he 

 is the main object of (rod's providence on earth. 

 Nowhere do we see any rival to him, and the whole 

 scheme of creation, as far as this planet is concerned, 

 appears to have him for its end and object. 



There is a tendency which is much to be depre- 

 cated in modern Religion and in modern Science 

 to diverge somewhat from each other. Religion 

 perhaps inclines to become narrow, exclusive, dog- 

 matic and polemical ; while in Science there is a dis- 

 position to refer everything to secondary causes and 

 to reduce Religion into a cold abstraction in the 

 place of a warm and living sentiment. Each of 

 these tendencies is to be deplored. 



The discoveries of modern Science by their com- 

 prehensiveness afford a Key to enable us better to 

 conceive the mighty scheme of Providence ; the co- 



