ld of nature around him, he is as
the brute which suffers and enjoys without inquiring why it experiences
light or darkness, pain or pleasure. When first he puts, in awkward
language, to himself or to his fellow, the question _why does such an
effect follow such a cause_? he commences his existence, if not as a
reasonable being, (a state at which he has not yet arrived) at least
_as a being capable of reason_. The answer to this first inquiry of
awakening intelligence is, of course, such as his own circumscribed
observation supplies.--It is, in fine, in accordance with the
explanation of the old nurse to the child, who, asking, when startled by
a rolling peal of thunder--'what makes that noise' was fully satisfied
by the reply: 'my darling, it is God Almighty overhead moving his
furniture.' Man awakening to thought, but still unfamiliar with the
concatenation of natural phenomena, inevitably conceives of some huge
being, or beings, bestriding the clouds and whirlwind, or wheeling the
sun and the moon like chariots through the blue vault. And so again,
fancy most naturally peoples the gloom of the night with demons, the
woods and the waters with naiads and dryads, elves and fairies, the
church-yard with ghosts, and the dark cave and the solitary cot with
wizards, imps and old witches. Such, then, is theology in its origin;
and, in all its stages, we find it varying in grossness according to
the degree of ignorance of the human mind; and, refining into verbal
subtleties and misty metaphysics in proportion as that mind exchanges,
in its progress from darkness to light, the gloom of ignorance for the
mass of terror."

The nature of belief in the unknowable, and the dire consequences
arising from fanaticism, are ably depicted in the following passages,
selected from Lecture IV., on "Religion:"--

"Admitting religion to be the most important of all subjects, its truths
must be the most apparent; for we shall readily concede, both that a
thing true, must be always of more or less importance--and that a thing
essentially important, must always be indisputably true. Now, again, I
conceive we shall be disposed to admit, that exactly in proportion to
the indisputability of a truth, is the proof it is capable of affording;
and that, exactly in proportion to the proof afforded, is our admission
of such truth and belief in it. If, then, religion be the most important
subject of human inquiry, it must be that also which presents the