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phenomena which science dispels l>y the growth of intelli- 

 gence with more accuracy of observation : as alchemy and 

 astrology were followed by chemistry and astronomy, so 

 mythology, which is the savage attempt to explain the uni- 

 verse through crude conceptions, is gradually being super- 

 ceded by philosophic recognition of the unity of the laws gov- 

 erning everything. 



One of Lord Bacon's essays is devoted to an ingenious 

 attempt at explaining ancient Greek and Roman mji 

 as symbolizing profound wisdom, and no legend among them 

 was too silly not to be reconciled on this basis. The confus- 

 ingly complex ecclesiastical symbolization is the outgrowth of 

 endeavors to find material equivalents for spiritual things, 

 with such poor success that the Christian can see nothing holy 

 in the crescent and horse-tail of the Mohammedan, while the 

 latter derides the cross as "two sticks." and exclaims " Behold 

 the Christian's God." 



And now we come to the main consideration. It is nothing 

 new that there are parallelisms between the acts of men and 

 nations, but these connections were treated of as purely acci- 

 dental, or at best as if they were caused by some inscrutable 

 law. I am not aware that anyone has preceded me in announ- 

 cing that so far from there being anything mysterious in such 

 matters the interdependence of phenomena and the possibil- 

 ity of reducing all things, if not to their ultimates, at least to 

 simpler terms, enables many of the operations of the universe 

 to be better understood and simplifies them a-toni-hmg!v. 



