men had acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though they
were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of biology, of moral,
economical, and political science, were sketched. Nor did the germ of
religion fail when science began to bud. Listen to words which though
new, are yet three thousand years old:--

"...When in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the start
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart."*

[footnote] *Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English
for Homer's Greek?

If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is
irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we do, that upon
that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,--the little light
of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss
of the unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do more than
illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations
that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. But in this sadness,
this consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an open
secret which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of all religion; and
the attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by the intellect is the
origin of the higher theologies.

Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the foundations of all
knowledge--secular or sacred--were laid when intelligence dawned,