s well for us to pause and look back on the
progress of man from the erroneous inferences of his social infancy to
the true conclusions of his maturity--from anthropocentric ideas, which
in all nations and parts of the world have ever been the same, to the
discovery of his true position and insignificance in the universe.

[Sidenote: The sky, apparent nature of.] We are placed in a world
surrounded with illusions. The daily events of our life and the objects
before us tend equally to deceive us. If we cast our eyes on the earth,
it seems to be made only to minister to our pleasures or our wants. If
we direct our attention to the sky, that blue and crystalline dome, the
edges of which rest on the flat land or the sea--a glacial vault, which
Empedocles thought was frozen air, and the fathers of the Church the
lowest of the seven concentric strata of heavens--we find a thousand
reasons for believing that whatever it covers was intended by some Good
Being for our use. Of the various living things placed with us beneath
it, all are of an inferior grade when compared with ourselves, and all
seem intended for us. The conclusions at which we thus arrive are
strengthened by a principle of vanity implanted in our hearts,
unceasingly suggesting to us that this pleasant abode must have been
prepared for our reception, and furnished and ornamented expressly for
our use.

[Sidenote: Anthropocentric ideas of God.] But reflexion teaches us that
we came not hither of ourselves, and that doubtless the same Good Being
who prepared this delightful abode brought us as tenants into it. From
the fact of our own existence, we are insensibly and inevitably led to
infer the existence of God; from the favourable circumstances in which
our lot is cast, we gather evidences of His goodness; and in the energy
which natural phenomena often display, we see the tokens of His power.
What other explanation can we give of tempests in the sea or lightning
in the heavens? Moreover, it is only during a part of our time--our
waking hours--that we are brought into relation with these material
things; for the rest, when we are asleep, a state in which we spend more
than a third part of our life, we are introduced to other scenery, other
beings, another world. [Sidenote: Of the world and heaven.] From these
we gather that there are agents of an intangible and more ethereal
mould, perhaps of the nature of Him who brought us here, perhaps His
subordinates and mess