he periodic and regular occurrences in nature, how impressive they
may be, much thought of in devotional moods. The moment that an event is
recognized to be under fixed law, it is seen to be inappropriate to seek
by supplication to alter it. No devotee, acquainted with the theory of
the tides, would, like Canute the King, think of staying their waves
with words. Eclipses and comets, once matters of superstitious terror,
have been entirely shorn of this attribute by astronomical discovery.
Even real and tragic misfortunes, if believed to be such as flow from
fixed law, and especially if they can be predicted sometime before they
arrive, do not excite religious feeling. As Bishop Hall quaintly
observes, referring to a curious medieval superstition: "Crosses, after
the nature of the cockatrice, die if they be foreseen."

Only when the event suggests the direct action of _mind_, of some free
intelligence, is it possible for the religious sentiment to throw around
it the aureole of sanctity. Obviously when natural law was little known,
this included vastly more occurrences than civilized men now think of
holding to be of religious import. Hence the objective and material form
of religion is always fostered by ignorance, and this is the form which
prevails exclusively in uncultivated societies.

The manifestations of motion which the child first notices, or which the
savage chiefly observes, relate to himself. They are associated with the
individuals around him who minister to his wants; the gratification of
these depend on the volitions of others. As he grows in strength he
learns to supply his own wants, and to make good his own volitions as
against those of his fellows. But he soon learns that many events occur
to thwart him, out of connection with any known individual, and these
of a dreadful nature, hurricanes and floods, hunger, sickness and death.
These pursue him everywhere, foiling his plans, and frustrating his
hopes. It is not the show of power, the manifestations of might, that he
cares for in these events, but that they touch _him_, that they spoil
_his_ projects, and render vain _his_ desires; _this_ forces him to cast
about for some means to protect himself against them.

In accordance with the teaching of his experience, and true moreover to
the laws of mind, he refers them, collectively, to a mental source, to a
vague individuality. This loose, undefined conception of an unknown
volition or power forms the e