NATURAL VERSUS SUPERNATURAL 53 



a natural basis to the dogma of vicarious sacrifice, 

 perhaps the most incredible dogma in the popular 

 creed. See, says the eloquent divine, how the min- 

 eral must decay before the vegetable can grow ; how 

 the vegetable must die before the animal can live ; 

 how the animal must perish before we can have 

 roast beef for our dinner. The dove is stricken 

 down by the hawk, the deer by the lion, the winged 

 fish falls into the jaws of the dolphin. " It is the 

 solemn law of vicarious sacrifice again ; " and so 

 still higher. "The anguish of the mother is the 

 condition of the child's life." Every civilization is 

 founded upon the labors and sufferings of those who 

 went before. When this law of self-sacrifice is con- 

 sciously obeyed it becomes the highest moral virtue 

 and reaches heroism. Now, all this is true ; it is 

 a part of our natural knowledge. But it is not vica- 

 rious sacrifice ; it is not sacrifice at all in the true 

 sense. It is the order of the succession of life in 

 nature. The living present is always reared upon 

 the dead past. Not only men, but races and nations, 



" May rise by stepping-stones of their dead selves 

 To higher things." 



The six noble citizens of Calais who surrendered 

 themselves to the vengeance of the English king 

 were offering themselves as a vicarious sacrifice. 

 They were willing to die, that their fellows might 

 live ; but this act bears no resemblance to the order 

 of nature above alluded to, and from which the great 

 preacher drew his illustration. It rises to a region 

 of which unconscious nature knows nothing — the 



