THE SUPERNATURAL. 47 



called upon to believe in Religion, as that which 

 men pretend to draw between the Natural and 

 the Supernatural. It is a distinction purely arti- 

 ficial, arbitrary, unreal. Nature presents to our 

 intelligence, the more clearly the more we search 

 her, the designs, ideas, and intentions of some 



" Living Will that shall endure, 

 When all that seems shall suffer shock." 



Religion presents to us that same Will, not only 

 working equally through the use of means, but 

 using means which are strictly analogous — refer- 

 able to the same general principles — and which 

 are constantly appealed to as of a sort which we 

 ought to be able to appreciate, because we our- 

 selves are already familiar with the like. Religion 

 makes no call on us to reject that idea, which is 

 the only idea some men can see in Nature — the 

 idea of the universal Reign of Law — the necessity 

 of conforming to it — the limitations which in one 

 aspect it seems to place on the exercise of Will, — 

 the essential basis, in another aspect, which it sup- 

 plies for all the functions of Volition. On the con- 

 trary, the high regions into which this idea is found 



