GOVERNMENT AND SCIENCE 191 



complete the second of the seven days of creation, in just 

 the same manner as I have endeavoured to show that during 

 the first three days of the Epoch of Hope ; Agriculture, 

 Civilisation, and Religion, have been evolved in an exact 

 sequence with my Hypothesis, as were the seven days narrated 

 in Genesis, and then the principal duty of my task will have 

 been performed, as I will have taken the reader up to the age 

 in which we live. 



But we cannot say that the birth of Wisdom started in 

 the world's history prior to the Eleventh Day of Creation, 

 when the influences of superstition and fear that gave birth 

 to religion and fanatical rule, and the foolish systems of con- 

 trol born and nurtured by trading on the ignorance and 

 credulity of mankind, become supplanted as state government 

 gives rise to the first absolute form of management that 

 directly aims at placing the will of man in opposition to the 

 will of God. This lays the foundation-stone of man's triumph 

 over the laws of nature ; and am I not justified in saying 

 that this is a higher evolution of human wisdom than depen- 

 dence on the ignorance, miraculous apparitions, bigoted beliefs 

 in the infallibility of necromancy, fortune-telling and clairvoy- 

 ancy; which were the fundamental principles on which all 

 religions have asserted their claims to rule mankind. 



That these factors gave rise to man's belief in, and 

 feeling of dependence on his infinite creator, no one will 

 deny, and that in doing so it evolved his first belief in the 

 existence of only one God and His Trinity, which acquire- 

 ment of a knowledge of divine truth no sane person will dis- 

 pute, is and always will be the highest pinnacle of wisdom, 

 and the source and rise of all the tributaries of the river of 

 divine enlightenment that flows through and enriches the 

 valleys of human knowledge. Upon investigation we must 

 also admit that the ancient forms of appeal to prophets and 

 idols, were but an early realisation ; of the more perfect forms 

 of appeal by direct prayer, since offered direct to our creator. 

 In like manner religion has been the most powerful form of 

 human rule, if often more abused than the more advanced and 

 useful one of scientific government. It only shows the wisdom 

 of the divine plan of creation and its universal system of 

 gradual advancement, that God should first create hopes and 

 ambitions by religious teaching, before He punished our faults 



NN 



