We live in an age of intense literary and intellectual activity; the tendency of the highest culture of our time [March 1876], however, it is complained, being towards materialism and scepticism, the latter either in the form of indifferentism or absolute negation. The great mass of our people, however--the uneducated or only partially educated--stand at the other extreme; for whilst it is complained that those of the highest culture believe too little, or don't believe at all, the common people, it is averred, believe too much. And it is perfectly true that the latter are indeed superstitious to an extent of which the mere outsider can have no adequate conception; and yet, philosophically pondered, there can be no difficulty, we think, in arriving at the conclusion that of the two evils over-belief is better than its opposite; that it is better, upon the whole, to believe too much than too little. A man with any form of creed, even if it be false, may be led in time to believe aright, whereas the case of the utterly creedless man is well-nigh hopeless. For our own part, therefore, we do not look upon the superstitions of our people with such horror and alarm as many well-meaning persons, clerical or lay, feel or feign when brought in contact with an evil which, let the philosophers say what they will, has its good as well as its bad side. We greatly doubt if, under present circumstances, and in their present stage of civilisation, the inhabitants of Scotland generally, and of the Highlands, with which we are best acquainted, in particular, would be at all so religious and devout a people as they are confessedly allowed to be, were it not for the substratum of superstition that underlies their better founded beliefs and religious aspirations. Constantly en rapport with the supernatural and the unseen, they are more disposed than they might otherwise be to believe in and shape the conduct of their daily lives in accordance with the doctrine of a future world, with its rewards and punishments, feeling and acknowledging in a very remarkable manner, even through the medium of their superstitions--if erroneous, yet not always degrading--the full force and meaning of what the apostle speaks of in a general way as "the powers of the world to come." An interesting paper might be written in support of the theory here indicated, a theory that to some may seem a paradox, but meanwhile it must lie over for some more fitting occasion. Such a task requires time; for of all the delicate tasks that the philosophic mind can concern itself with, the most delicate is the endeavour to discover and recognise the spirit of good things in things evil, and of reason in things unreasonable. Meanwhile, it is the truth, account for it as we may, that notwithstanding the multiplication of ministers and churches, schoolmasters and school boards, "Increase of Episcopate" Bill, and all the rest of it, there is still a lively undercurrent of superstition