attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history
indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice,
with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions
are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents
delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with
criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. In
singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of
mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more
exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the
greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of
civilisation submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there
would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural
knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in
trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and
questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of
action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or
vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition.

Whether this difference of the fortunes of Naturalism and of
Supernaturalism is an indication of the progress, or of the regress,
of humanity; of a fall from, or an advance towards, the higher life;
is a matter of opinion. The point to which I wish to direct attention
is that the difference exists and is making itself felt. Men are
growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical
evolution of humanity, which is generally, and I venture to think not
unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being,
accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its
originally large occupation of men's thoughts. The question--How far
is this process to go?--is, in my apprehension, the Controverted
Question of our time.