SOPHEREUS. Let us see if you are correct. In the first place, do you not observe that the tendency of mankind to personify the powers of Nature is one of the strongest proofs of the logical necessity for an interpretation which seeks for an intelligent being of some kind as the actor in the production of the phenomena? It is the fashion, I find, among a certain class of philosophers, to impute this propensity to the proneness of the human mind toward superstitious beliefs; to the mere effect of poetical or imaginary temperament in certain races of men, or to fear in other races; or to a vague longing for some superior being who can sympathize with human sorrows or assist human efforts. Something of all these influences has, no doubt, in different degrees and in various ways, worked itself into the religious beliefs of mankind. But neither any one of them, nor the whole of them, will satisfactorily account for either polytheism or monotheism. We must go deeper. There has been an unconscious reasoning at work, more or less unconscious, which has led to the conclusion that power, the manifestation of power, necessarily implies that the power is held and wielded by some intelligent being. The beliefs of mankind, whether embracing one such being or many, have not been the mere results of superstition, or fear, or longing for divine sympathy, or for superhuman companionship or protection. Those beliefs owe as much to the reasoning powers of mankind as they do to the influence of imagination. In many ages there have been powerful intellects, which have been free from the influence of superstition or fancy, and which have recognized the logical necessity for a conception of power as a force that must be under the guidance and control of intellect. While the popular belief has not attained this conviction by the same conscious and logically conducted process of reasoning, it has been unconsciously led through the same process, by what is open to the observation of human faculties, even in the less civilized portions of the human race. The savage who is sufficiently raised above the brute creation to exercise his own will and intelligence in the pursuit of his game, or in building his wigwam, or in fighting his enemy, knows that he exercises a power that is under his own control; and, as soon as he begins to observe the phenomena of Nature, he conceives of some being who holds a like power over the material universe, and whom he begins to personify, to propitiate, and to worship. This is the result of reasoning: feeble in some cases, but in all cases the intellectual process is the same. Now let us see whether this process is a sound one. Are you sure that you are correct in saying that the power of Nature is without limit? Is there a single force in Nature, a single property of matter, or any sequence of natural events, that is not circumscribed? Do not the very regularity and uniformity of