42 DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 



As regards the sense of smell, we find Ezekiel (vi, 13) speaking 

 of the places where men offered sweet savour to all their idols ; 

 and it is related (Gen. viii, 21) that Noah offered burnt offerings 

 and that Jahveh smelled a sweet savour. As regards the sense of 

 taste, it is recorded (Gen xviii, 1) that Jahveh appeared unto 

 Abraham, who, because he had thus found favour in his Lord's 

 sight, prepared a meal with cakes of fine flour and a calf dressed 

 with butter and milk ; delicacies which were eaten by the divinity, 

 under a tree. As regards the sense of sight, we find that bright 

 colours, blue, purple and scarlet were employed for sacerdotal 

 purposes (Exod. xxvi, 31 — xxviii, 31) ; that a lamp, like the vestal 

 flame, was caused to burn continually (Lev. xxiv, 2) ; and that 

 David danced before Jahveh with all his might (11 Sam. vi, 14). 

 While as regards the sense of hearing, it is sufficient to recall that 

 Jahveh was to be praised in his sanctuary (Ps. cl, i, 3, 4, 5), with 

 the sound of the trumpet, of the psaltery and harp, of stringed 

 instruments and organs, and of high-sounding cymbals, which 

 were directed to be played skilfully, with a loud noise (Ps. xxxiii, 3). 



Of course, in this enlightened country we have long since grown 

 out of the grosser forms of anthropomorphism. But travellers tell 

 us that in distant and degraded lands the senses of the local 

 divinity are still soothed with incense, or refreshed with the 

 spectacle of fruit and flowers ; that priests dress themselves up in 

 strange garments when they go into their temples ; that sacred 

 movements are still practised, and that the ear is smitten with the 

 prolonged wail of intoned lament, and the tumultuous hubbub 

 of a chorus. 



SCIENCE. 



A s long, however, as natural phenomena were referred to a 

 -^-*- personal cause — as long as an outbreak of disease, for 

 instance, was attributed not to a polluted water-supply, but to the 

 retributive action of an offended local divinity, who smites his foes 

 as one man will strike down his fellow — so long was Science 

 impossible. For the function of Science is, not for example to 

 attribute the failure of the grape crop to the immorality of Paris, 

 but by exact observations to gain an accurate knowledge of the 

 linked causation of things. And so, the idea of personality having 



