the
world's stage have a permanent background; that there is order amidst
the seeming confusion, and that many events take place according to
unchanging rules. To this region of familiar steadiness and customary
regularity they gave the name of Nature. But, at the same time, their
infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the
playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible,
commonplace, orderly world of Nature was surrounded and
interpenetrated by another intangible and mysterious world, no more
bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and
passions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an
intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. They attributed to
the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an
unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of
which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard
them as not merely beyond, but above, Nature.

Hence arose the conception of a "Supernature" antithetic to
"Nature"--the primitive dualism of a natural world "fixed in fate" and
a supernatural, left to the free play of volition--which has pervaded
all later speculation and, for thousands of years, has exercised a
profound influence on practice. For it is obvious that, on this theory
of the Universe, the successful conduct of life must demand careful
attention to both worlds; and, if either is to be neglected, it may be
safer that it should be Nature. In any given contingency, it must
doubtless be desirable to know what may be expected to happen in the
ordinary course of things; but it must be quite as necessary to have
some inkling of the line likely to be taken by supernatural agencies
able, and possibly willing, to suspend or reverse that course. Indeed,
logically developed, the dualistic theory must needs end in almost
exclusive attention to Supernature, and in trust that its overruling
strength will be exerted in favour of those who stand well with its
denizens. On the other hand, the lessons of the great schoolmaster,
experience, have hardly seemed to accord with this conclusion. They
have taught, with considerable emphasis, that it does not answer to
neglect Nature; and that, on the whole, the more attention paid to her
dictates the better men fare.

Thus the theoretical antithesis brought about a practical antagonism.
From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, N