The miraculous theory of the universe being virtually dead, the only theory that can reconcile facts with feelings, and the ineradicable emotions and aspirations of the human mind with the incontrovertible conclusions of science, is that of a remote and more or less unknown and incomprehensible First Cause, which has given the original atoms and energies so perfect an impress from the first, that all phenomena are evolved from them by fixed laws, one of the principal of such laws being that of polarity, which develops the ever-increasing complexities and contrasts of the inorganic and organic worlds, of moralities, philosophies, religions, and human societies. True religion consists in a recognition of this truth, a feeling of reverence in presence of the unknown, and, above all, a feeling of love and admiration for the good principle in whatever form it is manifested, in the beauties of nature and of art, in moral and physical purity and perfection, and all else that falls within the domain of the Prince of Light, in whose service, whether we conceive of him as an abstract principle, or accept some personification of him as a living figure, we enlist as loyal soldiers, doing our best to fight in his ranks against the powers of evil. The application of the all-pervading principle of polarity is exemplified in the realm of art. The glorious Greek drama turned mainly on the conflict between resistless fate and heroic free-will, and is typified in its highest form by Æschylus, when he depicts Prometheus chained to the rock hurling defiance at the tyrant of heaven. Our own Milton, in like manner, gives us the spectacle of the fallen archangel opposing his indomitable will and fertile resources to the extremity of adverse circumstance and to Almighty power. The greatest of modern dramas, Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ turns so entirely on the opposition between the human soul striving after the infinite, and the spirit _der verneint_, who combats ideal aspirations with a cynical sneer, that it might well be called a Zoroastrian drama. It is a picture of the conflict between the two opposite principles of good and evil, of affirmation and negation, of the beautiful and the ugly, personified in Faust and Mephistopheles, and it is painted on a background of the great mysterious unknown. ‘Wer darf ihn nennen?’ Who dares to name Him, Who to say of Him, ‘I believe’? Who is there ever with a heart to dare To utter, ‘I believe Him not’? So in poetry, Tennyson, the poet of modern thought, touches the deepest chords when he asks— Are God and Nature, then, at strife? and paints in the sharpest contrast on the background of the unknown, the conflict between the faith that God is love indeed, And love creation’s final law, and the harsh realities of nature, which Red in tooth and claw With ravine shrieks against the creed; or again in his later work, ‘The Ancient Sage,’ he says—