IN MODERN SCIENCE. 225 



ceive the need of revelation. This would in 

 such case be no more at variance with science 

 or with natural law than the e*ducation given by 

 wise parents to their children, or the laws pro- 

 mulgated by a wi^e government for the guidance 

 of its subjects, both of which are, and are in- 

 tended to be, interventions affecting the ordi- 

 nary course of affairs. 



Of necessity, all this proceeds on the suppo- 

 sition that there is a God. But in certain dis- 

 cussions now prevalent as to the " orgin of re- 

 ligion," it is customary quietly to assume that 

 there is no God to be known, and conse- 

 quently that religion must be a mere gratuitous 

 invention of man. It is not too much to say, 

 however, that any scientific conception of the 

 unity of nature and of man's place in it must 

 forbid our making atheistic assumptions. If 

 man were a mere product of blind, unintelli- 

 gent chance, the idea of a God was not likely 

 ever to have occurred to him, still less to have 

 become the common property of all races of 

 men. In like manner, there is no scientific 

 basis for the assumption that man originated 

 in a low and bestial type, and that his religion 

 developed itself by degrees from the instincts 

 of lower animals, from which man is supposed 



