SCIENCE. 



399 



But perhaps it seems on the Theory ot Development even 

 more a necessity than on any other. It is of the essence of 

 that theory that all things should have worked together 

 for the good of the Being that was to be. On the lowest 

 interpretation, this " toil co-operant to an end " is always 

 the necessary result of forces ever weaving and ever in- 

 terwoven. On the higher interpretation it is the same. 

 Only, some Worker is ever behind the work. But under 

 either interpretation the conclusion is the same. That 

 the first man should have been a savage, with instincts 

 and dispositions perverted as they are never perverted 

 among the beasts, is a supposition impossible and incon- 

 ceivable. Like every other creature, he must have been 

 in harmony with his origin aud his end — with the path 

 which had led him to where he stood, with the work 

 which made him what he was. It may well have been 

 part of that work — nay, it seems almost a necessary part 

 of it — to give to this new and wonderful Being some 

 knowledge of his whence and whither — some open vis- 

 ion, some sense and faculty divine. 



With arguments so deeply founded on the analogies of 

 Nature in favor of the conclusion that the first Man, 

 though a child in acquired knowledge, must from the first 

 have had instincts and intuitions in harmony with his 

 origin and with his destiny, we must demand the clearest 

 proof from those who assume that he could have had no 

 conception of a Divine Being, and that this was an idea 

 which could only be acquired in time from staring 

 at things too big for him to measure, and from won- 

 dering at things too distant for him to reach. 

 Not even his powers could extract from such things that 

 which they do not contain. But in his own Personality, 

 fresh from the hand of Nature, — in his own spirit just 

 issuing from the fountains of its birth, — in his own Will, 

 willing according to the law of its creation, — in his own 

 desire of knowledge, — in his own sense of obligation, — 

 in his own wonder and reverence and awe, — he had all 

 the elements to enable him at once to apprehend, though 

 not to comprehend, the Infinite Being who was the 

 Author of his own. 



It is, then, with that intense interest which must ever 

 belong to new evidence in support of fundamental truths 

 that we find these conclusions, founded as they are on 

 the analogies of Nature, confirmed and not disparaged 

 by such facts as can be gathered from other sources of 

 information. Scholars who have begun their search into 

 the origin of Religion in the full acceptance of what may 

 be called the savage theory of the origin of Man — who, 

 captivated by a plausible generalization, had taken it for 

 granted that the farther we go back in time, the more 

 certainly do we find all Religion assuming one or other 

 of the gross and idolatrous torms which have been indis- 

 criminately grouped under the designation of Fetishism- 

 have been driven from this belief by discovering to their 

 surprise that facts do not support tne theory. They 

 have found, on the contrary, that up to the farthest 

 limits which are reached by records which are properly 

 historical, and far beyond those limits to the remotest 

 distance which is attained by evidence founded on the 

 analysis of human speeeh, the religious conceptions of 

 men are seen as we go back in time to have been not 

 coarser and coarser, but simpler, purer, higher — so that 

 the very oldest conceptions ot the Divine Being of which 

 we have any certain evidence are the simplest and best 

 of all. 



In particular, and as a fact of typical significance, we 

 find very clear indications that everywhere Idolatry and 

 Fetishism appear to have been corruptions, whilst the 

 higher and more spiritual conceptions of Religion 

 which lie behind do generally even now survive among 

 idolatrous tribes as vague surmises or as matters of 

 speculative belief. Nowhere even now, it is confessed, 

 is mere Fetishism the whole of the Religion of any 

 people. Everywhere, in so far as the history ot it is known, 

 it has been the work of evolution, the development of 



tendencies which are deviations from older paths. And 

 not less significant is the fact that everywhere in the im- 

 agination and traditions of Mankind there is preserved the 

 memory and the belief in a past better than the present. 

 " It is a constant saying," we are told, " among African 

 tribes that formerly heaven was nearer to man than it is 

 now ; that the highest God, the Creator Himself, gave 

 formerly lessons of wisdom to human beings ; but that 

 afterwards He withdrew from them, and dwells now far 

 from them in heaven." All the Indian races have the 

 same tradition ; and it is not easy to conceive how a 

 belief so universal could have risen unless as a survival. 

 It has all the marks of being a memory and not an imag- 

 ination. It would reconcile the origin of Man with that 

 law which has been elsewhere universal in creation — the 

 law under which every ceature has been produced not 

 only with appropriate powers, but with appropriate in- 

 stincts and intuitive perceptions for the guidance of these 

 powers in their exercise and use. Many will remember 

 the splendid lines in which Dante has defined this law, 

 and has declared the impossibility of Man having been 

 exempt therefrom : — 



Nell' ordine ch'io dico sono accline 



Tutte nature per diverse sorti 



Piii al principle) loro, e men vicine ; 



Onde si muovono a divcrsi poni 



Per lo gran mar dell' essere ; e ciascuna 



Con istinto a lei daio che la parti. 



* # * # * 



Ne pur le creature, che son fuorc 



D'intelligenzia, quesfarco saetta, 



Ma quelle c'hanno intelletto ed amore. 3 



The only mystery which would remain is the mystery 

 which arises out of the fact that somehow those instincts 

 have in Man not only been liable to fail, but that they 

 seem to have acquired apparently an ineradicable tendency 

 to become perverted. But this is a lesser mystery than 

 the mystery which would attach to the original birth or 

 creation of any breature in the condition of a human 

 savage. It is a lesser mystery because it is of the essence 

 of a Being whose Will is comparatively free that he 

 should be able to deviate from his appointed path. The 

 origin of evil may appear to us to be a great mystery. 

 But this at least may be said in mitigation of the diffi- 

 culty, that without the possibility of evil there could be 

 no possibility of any virtue. Among the lower animals 

 obedie ice has always been a necessity. In Man it was 

 raised to the dignity of a duty. It is in this great change 

 that we can see and understand how it is that the very ele- 

 evation of his nature is inseparable from the possibility of a 

 Fall. The mystery, then, which attaches to his condition 

 now is shifted from his endowments and his gifts to the use 

 he made of them. The question of the origin of Religion 

 is merged and lost in the question of the origin of Man. 

 And that other question, how his Religion came to be 

 corrupted, becomes intelligible on the supposition of wil- 

 ful disobedience with all its consequences having become 

 "inherited and organized in the race." This is the for- 

 mula of expression which has been invented or accepted 

 by those who do not believe in original instincts or intui- 

 tions, even when these are in harmony with the order and 

 with the reasonableness of Nature. It may well there- 

 fore be accepted in a case where we have to account for 

 tendencies and propensities which have no such charac- 

 ter — which are exceptions to the unity of Nature, and at 

 variance with all that is intelligible in its order, or rea- 

 sonable in its law. 



If all explanation essentially consists in the reduction 

 of phenomena into the terms of human thought and into 

 the analogies of human experience, this is the explana- 

 tion which can alone reconcile the unquestionable cor- 

 ruption of human character with the analogies of Crea- 

 tion. 



" I'aradiso," canto i. 110-120. 



