AUGUST 181 



midwinter, the migration across the sea of a landrail — 

 a bird of such languid flight when flushed that it seems 

 hardly able to reach the far side of a turnip field (and 

 generally doesn't) — these and thousands of other 

 phenomena that happen under our indifferent eyes 

 have ceased to astonish us, though the forces that 

 regulate them are far beyond our control or under- 

 standing. It is when there is revealed to us the 

 existence of myriads of organisms, whereof the 

 complexity and variety baffle our power of compre- 

 hension, that we are overwhelmed with a sense of the 

 limited range of our knowledge, and we take refuge in 

 astonishment. 



' The fool hath said in his heart there is no God ' ; 

 and in sooth men have invested the Supreme Ruler 

 with such contradictory attributes, fenced Him off with 

 such elaborate ceremonies and insisted upon such 

 illogical dogmas about Him, that many thoughtful 

 students have inclined, silently or otherwise, to the con- 

 clusion that the said fool was not so far wrong. But 

 as the light of natural science broadens, the most 

 advanced minds are feeling more and more that the 

 whole scheme and substance of the universe and its 

 inhabitants are unintelligible without the postulate of 

 a Controlling Power. It is easier to accept — at least it 

 seems more consonant with reason to accept — the most 

 exacting mandates of empirical and dogmatic theology 

 than to hold that ourselves, the globe we inhabit, 

 in common with an infinite variety of other animated 

 creatures, as well as an incalculable multitude of other 

 globes and their inhabitants, are the product of 'the 



