onstancy of
occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at any rate, among
them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers ever imagined that
a stone must have a god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had
a god within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such matters
as these, it is hardly questionable that mankind from the first took
strictly positive and scientific views.

But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences which present
themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has always taken himself as the
standard of comparison, as the centre and measure of the world; nor
could he well avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently uncaused
will has a powerful effect in giving rise to many occurrences, he
naturally enough ascribed other and greater events to other and greater
volitions, and came to look upon the world and all that therein is, as
the product of the volitions of persons like himself, but stronger, and
capable of being appeased or angered, as he himself might be soothed
or irritated. Through such conceptions of the plan and working of
the universe all mankind have passed, or are passing. And we may
now consider, what has been the effect of the improvement of natural
knowledge on the views of men who have reached this stage, and who
have begun to cultivate natural knowledge with no desire but that of
"increasing God's honour and bettering man's estate."

For example, what could seem wiser, from a mere material point of view,
more innocent, from a theological one, to an ancient people, than that
they should learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for
their husbandmen; or the position of the stars, as guides to their rude
navigators? But what has grown out of this search for natural
knowledge of so merely useful a character? You all know the reply.
Astronomy,--which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general
ideas of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has,
more than any other, rendered it impossible for them to accept the
beliefs of their fathers. Astronomy,--which tells them that this so vast
and seemingly solid earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling, no man
knows whither, through illimitable space; which demonstrates that what
we call the peaceful heaven above us, is but that space, filled by an
infinitely subtle matter whose particles are seething and surging, like
the waves of an angry sea; which opens up to us infinite regi