272 THE HISTORY OF 



decrees of truth, can make one story as good as another, 

 and consequently has no contradiction to fear from there ; 

 and where Man, cunningly leaping clear over the basis of 

 the dreams he brings forward, at once retreats behind the 

 impregnable intrenchment : " Prove me the opposite !" 

 I will not here enter upon the various religious phantasma- 

 gorias and the inquiries into what is to take place after 

 death, and the like, but merely cite the cosmogonies, which 

 every people, nay among some nations almost every indivi- 

 dual, delineates, and recall remembrance to the fact, that 

 the truth of the Mosaic history of the six days' Creation, has 

 been contested with more zeal than has ever been applied 

 to unfold the apophthegm : " Love thy neighbour as 

 thyself'' in all its meanings, and to act according to it. 

 While the haughty English High-church, much more 

 despicable than Popery in its most offensive extreme, 

 fattens on the sweat and blood of millions of poor hungry 

 Irishmen, she hunts down with all the unworthy means 

 that stand at her disposal, every scientific inquiry which 

 appears to contradict her narrow view of the literal truth of 

 the old Jewish poetry. Never is Man more, and indeed 

 almost only then, intolerant, when a scientific proof or con- 

 futation is out of the question. He who places himself in 

 direct opposition to sound human understanding, on the 

 domain of the demonstrable, subjects himself to the curse 

 of ridicule which nothing can withstand. But where no 

 proof in favour, and consequently, in most cases, no proof 

 against a thing is possible, conceit, when it is united with 

 power, compels the recognition of its visions, and asserts 

 indeed with really blasphemous audacity, that the Eternal 

 Ruler of the world has vouchsafed to it, in preference to 

 all the rest of mankind, special mysterious communications. 

 But the worst of the matter is, that while Man gives 



