The perfection of means of communication is also one of the great obstacles to the maintenance of a dogmatic faith; nothing shelters a belief like the abyss of a deep valley or the meanderings of an unnavigable river. The last surviving believers in the religions of antiquity were the peasants—_pagani_; whence the word pagan. But to-day the country is being thrown open, mountains are being pierced, the perpetually increasing activity in the movement of things and of people results in the circulation of ideas, in a lowering of the pretensions of the faith, and this levelling down must inevitably continue step by step with the progress of science. In all times it has been observed that the effect of travelling alters one’s beliefs. To-day one travels standing still: the intellectual horizon changes for one, whether one will or not. Men like Papins, Watts, Stephenson, have done as much for the propagation of free-thought as the boldest of philosophers. Even in our days the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez will probably have done more for the enlightenment of the Hindus than the conscientious efforts of Râm Mohun Roy or of Keshub. [Sidenote: And by the development of commerce and industry.] Among the causes which will tend in the future to eliminate the dogma of a special providence, let us note the development of the arts—even the art of commerce and of industry, which is still in its very beginnings. Merchants and workmen, equally, have learned already to rely upon no one but their own individual selves, to rely each upon his own initiative, his personal ingenuity; he knows that to work is to pray, not in the sense that his labour possesses some sort of mystical value but because its value is real and within his reach; and he acquires by that very fact a vivid and increasing sense of responsibility. Compare, for instance, the life of a pointsman (that of a working-man) with the life of a soldier, and you will see that the conduct of the first is of necessity reflective, and develops in him a sense of responsibility, whereas the second—accustomed to march he knows not where, to obey, he knows not why, to vanquish or be vanquished he knows not how—lives among circumstances which naturally inspire in him a conception of irresponsibility, of divine chance, or of hazard. Moreover, whenever industry does not treat the workman like a machine but forces him to act consciously and with reflection, its natural effect is to enfranchise the mind. And the same thing is true of commerce; although in commerce a more important rôle is played, by mere lying in wait—mere passivity; the merchant waits for a purchaser, and his coming or not coming depends upon something else. The superstitions of commerce, however, will grow feebler as the functions of personal initiative and activity become more extensive. Thirty years ago in a very religious town there existed a number of small merchants who looked upon it as a matter of duty