This is apt to cast general discredit on religion. When we make the discovery that so many events which excited religious apprehension in the minds of our forefathers are governed by inflexible laws which we know all about, we not only smile in pity at their superstitions, but make the mental inference that the diminished emotion of this kind we yet experience is equally groundless. If at the bottom of all displays of power lies a physical necessity, our qualms are folly. Therefore, to the pious soul which still finds the bulk of its religious aspirations and experiences in the regions of the emotions and sensations, the progress of science seems and really does threaten its cherished convictions. The audacious mind of man robs the gods of power when he can shield himself from their anger. The much-talked-of conflict between religion and science is no fiction; it exists, and is bound to go on, and religion will ever get the worst of it until it learns that the wishes to which it is its proper place to minister are not those for pleasure and prosperity, not for abundant harvests and seasonable showers, not success in battle and public health, not preservation from danger and safety on journeys, not much of anything that is spoken of in litanies and books of devotion. Let a person who still clings to this form of religion imagine that science had reached perfection in the arts of life; that by skilled adaptations of machinery, accidents by sea and land were quite avoided; that observation and experience had taught to foresee with certainty and to protect effectively against all meteoric disturbances; that a perfected government insured safety of person and property; that a consummate agriculture rendered want and poverty unknown; that a developed hygiene completely guarded against disease; and that a painless extinction of life in advanced age could surely be calculated upon; let him imagine this, and then ask himself what purpose religion would subserve in such a state of things? For whatever would occupy it then--if it could exist at all--should _alone_ occupy it now. FOOTNOTES: [49-1] _Address to the Clergy_, pp. 42, 43, 67, 106, etc. [49-2] E. von Hardenberg [Novalis], _Werke_, s. 364. [50-1] _Treatises Devotional and Practical_, p. 188. London, 1836. [50-2] In Aramaic _dachla_ means either a god or fear. The Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah are by some traced to a common root, signifying to tremble, to show fear, though the more usual derivation is from one meaning to be strong. [51-1] “Wen die Hoffnung, den hat auch die Furcht verlassen.” Arthur Schopenhauer, _Parerga und Paralipomena_. Bd. ii. s. 474. [52-1] Alexander Bain, _On the Study of Character_, p. 128. See also his remarks in his work, _The Emotions and the Will_, p. 84, and in his notes to James Mill’s _Analysis of the Mind_, vol. i., pp. 124-125. [53-1] Wilhelm von Humboldt’s _Gesammelte Werke_, Bd. vii., s. 62. [53-2] De Senancourt, _Obermann_, Lettre xli.