roducing reverence, and love, and gratitude. And it creates worship,
which recalls man to God a thousand times more forcibly than the order,
harmony, and beauty of the universe can do.

The spontaneous action of reason, in its greatest energy, is
_inspiration_. "Inspiration, daughter of the soul and heaven, speaks
from on high with an absolute authority. It commands faith; so all its
words are hymns, and its natural language is poetry." "Thus, in the
cradle of civilization, he who possessed in a higher degree than his
fellows the gift of inspiration, passed for the confidant and the
interpreter of God. He is so for others, because he is so for himself;
and he is so, in fact, in a philosophic sense. Behold the sacred origin
of prophecies, of pontificates, and of modes of worship."[75]

[Footnote 75: "Hist. of Philos.," vol. i. p. 129.]

As an account of the genesis of the idea of God in the human
intelligence, the doctrine of Cousin must be regarded as eminently
logical, adequate, and satisfactory. As a theory of the origin of
religion, as a philosophy which shall explain all the phenomena of
religion, it must be pronounced defective, and, in some of its aspects,
erroneous.

First, it does not take proper account of that _living force_ which has
in all ages developed so much energy, and wrought such vast results in
the history of religion, viz., the _power of the heart_. Cousin
discourses eloquently on the spontaneous, instinctive movements of the
reason, but he overlooks, in a great measure, the instinctive movements
of the heart. He does not duly estimate the feeling of reverence and awe
which rises spontaneously in presence of the vastness and grandeur of
the universe, and of the power and glory of which the created universe
is a symbol and shadow. He disregards that sense of an overshadowing
Presence which, at least in seasons of tenderness and deep sensibility,
seems to compass us about, and lay its hand upon us. He scarcely
recognizes the deep consciousness of imperfection and weakness, and
utter dependence, which prompts man to seek for and implore the aid of a
Superior Being; and, above all, he takes no proper account of the sense
of guilt and the conscious need of expiation. His theory, therefore, can
not adequately explain the universal prevalence of sacrifices, penances,
and prayers. In short, it does not meet and answer to the deep longings
of the human heart, the wants, sufferings, fears, and hopes of man