Science, again, is but a mere heap of facts, not a golden chain of truths, if we refuse to link it to the throne of God.[11] In every department of human thought, in short, something--and that something the most beautiful in it--must be lost, some sacred spell must be broken, if we are to think of it as divested from the deeper sense which religion has (all unconsciously to ourselves) given to it,--the thread of purpose running through; the understood promise of justice; the sympathy of an unseen, all-beholding Spectator. In the same way, all human relationships will be stripped of the majestic mantle under which they have been sheltered. The idea of the common Fatherhood of God, which Paganism in its best days had begun to teach, and which Christ’s lessons have made the familiar thought of every European child, has put a meaning into the phrase of human brotherhood, which it is much to be doubted if the warmest “Enthusiasts of Humanity” would, without such preliminary training, have been able to give to it. The idea (poorly as it has been hitherto recognized) that the most degraded of mankind, those from whom we naturally turn in disgust, have yet the same Creator and the same Judge as ourselves, has, beyond question, an indirect influence of no small force over all our sentiments concerning them. The same reflection has even at last begun to exercise a perceptible influence over our conduct to the brutes. Christians and Theists of every shade may be found impressed with the sense that religion demands the humane treatment of all sentient creatures; and this, whether they take the view of Cardinal Manning, that, “if I owe no moral duties to the lower animals, I owe all the moral duties that are conceivable to the Creator of those animals,--humanity, mercy, and care for them,” or take the simple Theist stand-point, that, as we love Him, so we naturally look with sympathy and tenderness on everything He has made. Of course, this motive of humanity to brutes disappears with the belief in God; and, accordingly, we find, with quite logical fitness, that, while the opposition to brute torture is maintained by men of every varied shade of religion, the majority of the chief vivisectors of Europe are professed Materialists. Vivisection is the logical outcome of Atheism as regards the brutes; and M. Paul Bert and Carl Vogt are only the most candid examples of men who have carried it out.