blunder, and its present form only the result of progressive but
unessential refinements on that blunder, the inference that religion is
untrue--that nothing actual corresponds to its hypothesis--is very easily
drawn. The inference is not, perhaps, logical, for all our science itself
is the result of progressive refinements upon hypotheses originally
erroneous, fashioned to explain facts misconceived. Yet our science is
true, within its limits, though very far from being exhaustive of the
truth. In the same way, it might be argued, our religion, even granting
that it arose out of primitive fallacies and false hypotheses, may yet
have been refined, as science has been, through a multitude of causes,
into an approximate truth.

Frequently as I am compelled to differ from Mr. Spencer both as to facts
and their interpretation, I am happy to find that he has anticipated me
here. Opponents will urge, he says, that 'if the primitive belief' (in
ghosts) 'was absolutely false, all derived beliefs from it must be
absolutely false?' Mr. Spencer replies: 'A germ of truth was contained in
the primitive conception--the truth, namely, that the power which
manifests itself in consciousness is but a differently conditioned form of
the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness.' In fact, we find
Mr. Spencer, like Faust as described by Marguerite, saying much the same
thing as the priests, but not quite in the same way. Of course, I allow
for a much larger 'germ of truth' in the origin of the ghost theory than
Mr. Spencer does. But we can both say 'the ultimate form of the religious
consciousness is' (will be?) 'the final development of a consciousness
which at the outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous
errors.'[8]

'One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,