of as if it had been some composite, divisible and reunitable substance,
some finer chemical salt, or curious piece of logical joinery,--began to
lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though invisible character: it
was tacitly figured as something that might, were our organs fine
enough, be /seen/. Yet who had ever seen it? Who could ever see it?
Thus by degrees it passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint
Possibility; and at last into a highly-probable Nonentity. Following
Locke's footsteps, the French had discovered that 'as the stomach
secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete Thought.' And what then was
Religion, what was Poetry, what was all high and heroic feeling? Chiefly
a delusion; often a false and pernicious one. Poetry, indeed, was still
to be preserved; because Poetry was a useful thing: men needed
amusement, and loved to amuse themselves with Poetry: the playhouse was
a pretty lounge of an evening; then there were so many precepts,
satirical, didactic, so much more impressive for the rhyme; to say
nothing of your occasional verses, birthday odes, epithalamiums,
epicediums, by which 'the dream of existence may be so highly sweetened
and embellished.' Nay, does not Poetry, acting on the imaginations of
men, excite them to daring purposes; sometimes, as in the case of
Tyrtaeus, to fight better; in which wise may it not rank as a useful
stimulant to man, along with Opium and Scotch Whisky, the manufacture of
which is allowed by law? In Heaven's name, then, let Poetry be
preserved.

With Religion, however, it fared somewhat worse. In the eyes of Voltaire
and his disciples, Religion was a superfluity, indeed a nuisance. Here,
it is true, his followers have since found that he went too far; that
Religion, being a great sanction to civil morality, is of use for
keeping society in order, at least the lower classes, who have not the
feeling of Honour in due force; and therefore, as a considerable help to