But pass over this. Let us come to the doctrine for which the professor writes his book, namely, individuals, communities, nations, universal humanity, are under the control of physical conditions, therefore of physical law, or law in the sense of the physiologists or the physicists. If this means anything, it means that the religion, the morality, the intellectual development, the growth and decay, the littleness and the grandeur of men and nations depend solely on physical causes, not at all on moral causes--a doctrine not true throughout even in human physiology, and supported by no facts, except in a very restricted degree, when applied to nations and communities. In the corporeal phenomena of the individual the soul counts for much, and in morbid physiology the moral often counts for more than the physical; perhaps it always does, for we know from revelation that the morbidity of nature is the penalty or effect of man's transgression. It is proved to be false as applied to nations and communities by the fact that the Christian religion, which is substantially that of the ancient patriarchs, is, at least as far as science can go, older than any of the false religions, has maintained itself the same in all essential respects, unvaried and invariable, in every variety of physical change, and in every diversity of physical condition, and absolutely unaffected by any natural causes whatever. The chief physical conditions on which the professor relies are climate and geographical position. Yet what we hold to be the true religion, the primitive religion of mankind, has prevailed in all climates, and been found the same in all geographical positions. Nay, even the false pagan religions have varied only in their accidents with climatic and geographical positions. We find them in substance the same in India, Central Asia, on the banks of the Danube, in the heart of Europe, in the ancient Scania, the Northern Isles, in Mexico and Peru. The substance of Greek and Roman or Etrurian mythology is the same with that of India and Egypt. M. Rénan tells us that the monotheism so firmly held by the Arabic branch of the Semitic family, is due to the vast deserts over which the Arab tribes wander, which suggest the ideas of unity and universality; and yet for centuries before Mohammed, these same Arabs, wandering over the same deserts, were polytheists and idolaters; and not from contemplating those deserts, but by recalling the primitive traditions of mankind, preserved by Jews and Christians, did the founder of Islamism attain to the monotheism of the Koran. The professor is misled by taking, in the heathen mythology he has studied, the poetic imagery and embellishments, which indeed vary according to the natural aspects, objects, and productions of the locality, for their substance, thought, or doctrine. {167} The poetic illustrations, imagery, and embellishments of Judaism are all oriental; but the Jew in all climates and in all