* "Is there in man any such Instinct? May not the general tendency to worship a Deity, everywhere be the result of the influence gained by Priests over the mind by the play of the mysterious Unknown and Hereafter upon susceptible imaginations? Besides, what are we to say of the immense number of philosophical Buddhists and Brahmins, for whose comfort or moral guidance the idea of a God or a hereafter is felt to be quite unnecessary? They cannot comprehend it, and consequently acts of worship to God would be deemed by them fanatical. It is traditionalists who either do not think at all, or think only within a narrow, creed-bound circle, that are most devoted to worshipping Deity; and if so, may not the whole history of worship have its origin in superstition and priestcraft! In that case, the theory of an instinct of worship falls to the ground."--Note by the Editor. Of all the various sentiments which are thus at present "intuitional," none is so powerful, none so overmastering as this instinct to worship, this sentiment of religion. It is as natural for man to worship as to eat. He will do it, be it reasonable or unreasonable. Just as the baby crams everything into his mouth, so does man persist in worshipping something. It may be said that the baby's instinct does not prove that he is right in trying to devour a matchbox; true, but it proves the existence of something eatable; so fetish-worship, polytheism, theism, do not prove that man has worshipped rightly, but do they not prove the existence of something worshipable! The argument does not, of course, pretend to amount to a demonstration; it is nothing more than the suggestion of an analogy. Are we to find that the supply is correlated to the demand throughout nature, and yet believe that this hitherto invariable system is suddenly altered when we reach the spiritual part of man? I do not deny that this instinct is hereditary, and that it is fostered by habit. The idea of reverence for God is transmitted from parent to child; it is educated into an abnormal development, and thus almost indefinitely strengthened; but yet it does appear to me that the bent to worship is an integral part of man's nature. This instinct has also sometimes been considered to have its root in the feeling that one's individual self is but a "part of a stupendous whole;" that the so-called religious feeling which is evoked by a grand view or a bright starlight night is only the realisation of personal insignificance, and the reverence which rises in the soul in the presence of the mighty universe of which we form a part. Whatever the root and the significance of this instinct, there can be no doubt of its strength; there is nothing rouses men's passions as does theology; for religion men rush on death more readily and joyfully than* for any other cause; religious fanaticism is the most fatal, the most terrible power in the world. In