"This is all
The gain we reap from all the wisdom sown
Through ages: Nothing doubted those first sons
Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries,
Nothing believe."

But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly bought at the cost of
knowledge; nor in a better sense has it yet gone from among us. Far more
sublime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of the astronomer,
who spends the nights in marking the seemingly wayward motions of the
stars, or of the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the minute
fibres of the organism, each upheld by the unshaken conviction that from
least to greatest throughout this universe, purpose and order everywhere
prevail.

Natural religions rarely offer more than this negative opposition to
reason. They are tolerant to a degree. The savage, void of any clear
conception of a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only
true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagines that it is owing
to the inferiority of his own gods to those of his victor, and he rarely
therefore requires any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting on
this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a strange province, sent
its most venerated idol for a time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco,
thus proving its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more
violent steps to propagate their creeds.[290-1] So in the city of Mexico
there was a temple appropriated to the idols of conquered nations in
which they were shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent them
from doing mischief. A nation, like an individual, was not inclined to
patronize a deity who had manifested his incompetence by allowing his
charge to be gradually worn away by constant disaster. As far as can now
be seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient Mexico and
Peru were far more liberal than that introduced by the Spanish
conquerors, which, claiming the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its
claim by inquisitions and censorships.

In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a potent corrective
to the doctrine that the fate of man was dependent on the caprices of
the gods. For no belief was more universal than that which assigned to
each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible monitor was an ever
present help in trouble. He suggested expedients, gave advice and
warning in dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil the
machinations of