God the Known and
God the Unknown

BY SAMUEL BUTLER


CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

MANKIND has ever been ready to discuss matters in the inverse
ratio of their importance, so that the more closely a question is
felt to touch the hearts of all of us, the more incumbent it is
considered upon prudent people to profess that it does not exist,
to frown it down, to tell it to hold its tongue, to maintain that
it has long been finally settled, so that there is now no
question concerning it.

So far, indeed, has this been carried through all time past that
the actions which are most important to us, such as our passage
through the embryonic stages, the circulation of our blood, our
respiration, etc. etc., have long been formulated beyond all
power of reopening question concerning them - the mere fact or
manner of their being done at all being ranked among the great
discoveries of recent ages. Yet the analogy of past settlements
would lead us to suppose that so much unanimity was not arrived
at all at once, but rather that it must have been preceded by
much smouldering [sic] discontent, which again was followed by
open warfare; and that even after a settlement had been