k.

At first tentative, but becoming ever more distinctly conscious of its
real motive, Naturalism has always arisen in opposition to what we may
call "supernatural" propositions, whether these be the naive mythological
explanations of world-phenomena found in primitive religions, or the
supernatural popular metaphysics which usually accompanies the higher
forms. It is actuated at the same time by one of the most admirable
impulses in human nature,--the impulse to explain and understand,--and to
explain, if possible, through simple, familiar, and ordinary causes. The
sane human understanding sees all about it the domain of everyday and
familiar phenomena. It is quite at home in this domain; everything seems
to it well-known, clear, transparent, and easily understood; it finds in
it intelligible causes and certain laws which govern phenomena, as well as
a constant association of cause and effect. Here everything can be
individually controlled and examined, and everything "happens naturally."
Things govern themselves. Nothing unexpected, nothing that has not its
obvious causes, nothing mysterious or miraculous happens here. Sharply
contrasted with this stands the region of the apparently inexplicable, the
supernatural, with all its influences and operations, and results. To the
religious interpretation in its naive, pious, or superstitious forms of
expression, this region of the supernatural seems to encroach broadly and
deeply on the domain of the everyday world. But with the awakening of
criticism and reflection, and the deepening of investigation into things,
it retreats farther and farther, it surrenders piece after piece to the
other realm of thought, and this arises doubt and suspicion. With these
there soon awakens a profound conviction that a similar mode of causal
connection binds all things together, a glimmering of the uniformity and
necessity embracing, comprehending, and ultimately explaining all things.
And these presentiments, in themselves at first quite childishly and
almost mythologically conceived, may still be, even when they first arise,
and while they are still only vaguely formulated, anticipations of later
more definite scientific conceptions. Such a beginning of naturalistic
consciousness may remain quite naive and go no farther than a silent but
persistent protest. It makes free use of such familiar expressions as
"everything comes about of itself"; "everything happens by natural means";
"it is