“But you must excuse me from entering further into this intricate and mysterious subject. Many ingenious theories have been devised, but I wish to deal as little with them as possible. There is a laudable curiosity, there is also an unlawful curiosity, and there is a science which is not desirable. I have been obliged, in the way of my calling, to study it; but I never touch it, without regretting its necessity. Spare me. The knowledge that cannot enlighten, that cannot aid virtue, and only leads astray, should never be sought.” CHAPTER XXII. SUPERSTITION. I had, almost from the first, suspected Mr. Merton’s conclusion, and should never for a moment have doubted it, had I not grown up in the disbelief of evil spirits. Science, or what passes for science, had long denied all supernatural and all superhuman intervention in the affairs of mankind; and I, like the majority of my contemporaries, had grown up a complete Epicurean. There was, perhaps, a God who had created the world, but having created it, and impressed upon it certain fixed and invariable laws, he left it to take care of itself. I denied his providence, or, what is the same thing, resolved it into the uniform and inflexible laws of nature, and like my friends of the French Eclectic school, saw the Divine intervention only in the necessary and immutable elements of human history. God was for me simply Fate, Invincible Necessity, and therefore no free person, no object of reverence, love, or worship. Having excluded Providence, I necessarily rejected the ministry of angels. I resolved all nature into a collection of forces operative by intrinsic and necessary laws. Man is one of these forces, neither the strongest nor the weakest. In his own intrinsic strength he is not much, but by placing himself in a right position with regard to the other forces of nature, he may make them work in him and for him, and thus increase his strength by the whole of theirs, as the millwright makes use of the force of the stream to turn his mill, the inventor of the magnetic telegraph of the lightning to convey his messages, or as the sailor avails himself of the wind to propel his ship.