is, we have the magnificent
superstructure of modern Science, erected by the employment of methods
quite other than the one which he esteems competent to overthrow
Religion.

The postulate, a straight line may be drawn between two points, while it
makes a geometry possible, reveals nothing as to the properties of
lines; so, in the present case, the proposition resulting from the
process of abstraction, "there is something to be explained," affirms
that, at least _a priori_, Religion is possible, but decides nothing as
to the truth or falsity of unnumbered statements which millions of
people have believed for centuries to belong to the domain of Religion.
This method does not and cannot discredit Religion.

"Religious ideas of one kind or another," says Mr. Spencer, "are almost
universal.... We are obliged to admit that, if not supernaturally
derived, as the majority contend, they must be derived out of human
experiences, slowly accumulated and organized.... Considering all
faculties," under the evolutionary hypothesis, "to result from
accumulated modifications caused by the intercourse of the organism with
its environment, we are obliged to admit that there exist in the
environment certain phenomena or conditions which have determined the
growth of the feeling in question, and so are obliged to admit that it
is as normal as any other faculty.... We are also forced to infer that
this feeling is in some way conducive to human welfare.... Positive
knowledge does not and never can fill the whole region of possible
thought. At the utmost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever
arise, the question--what lies beyond?... Throughout all future time, as
now, the human mind may occupy itself, not only with ascertained
phenomena and their relations, but also with that unascertained
something which phenomena and their relations imply. Hence if knowledge
cannot monopolize consciousness--if it must always continue possible for
the mind to dwell upon that which transcends knowledge; then there can
never cease to be a place for something of the nature of Religion; since
Religion under all its forms is distinguished from everything else in
this, that its subject matter is that which passes the sphere of
experience." Religion is "a constituent of the great whole; and being
such must be treated as a subject of Science with no more prejudice than
any other reality."

It will suit our present purpose to divide the cognitive faculti