122 
Something like this conception is expressed by Pope* in the 
following lines : — 
“ All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul 
That changed through all, and yet in all the same. 
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent, 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns. 
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small ; 
He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all.” 
Contrast and Conclusion. 
Pantheism in its refined form seems to me to be the highest 
effort of the natural mind in religion. We are told by the 
Apostle Paul that the natural man receiveth not the things 
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, 
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned. It is, nevertheless, needful to man that he should 
have some sort of a religion, without which he is like a dog 
without a master. In pursuance of what may be called the 
religious instinct, he worships that which seems most superior 
to himself. In the first place, the sun, “ of this great world 
both eye and chief,” seems to claim his admiration. His 
beneficent power, as quickening all creation, is that which 
strikes us most who behold so little of his ravs : but in the 
V * 
zones more evidently under his dominion he becomes the 
mighty Baal, the far-darting Apollo, striking his enemies 
with irresistible force, slaying the powers of evil, typified 
under the serpent form, and honoured everywhere with 
human sacrifices. The moon, the apparently more gentle god- 
dess (or god) received on the other hand the supreme homage 
of nations, presiding over fecundity — the planets also, as 
we are now learning afresh, having much influence on the 
destinies of this lower world. But out of all this Sabeism 
arises the more refined conception of light or fire as common 
to all these, and as either embodying or typifying that more 
refined principle which was supposed to animate all. 
It is this form of idolatry which came to its culminating 
point in Persia, and seems to have pervaded Druidism and 
* Essay on Man , p. 77. 
