The solution of this problem can only be reached through the discussion of the following questions: 1. What are "the facts of religious feeling" involved in this problem, and what are the necessary correlatives of these facts? 2. What are the facts concerning the order of nature involved in the problem, and what are the logical inferences from these facts? 3. How can the conception of the _Force_ which is manifested in the phenomena of nature be brought into harmony with the idea of _God_ as revealed in the religious consciousness? 1. First, then, what are the facts of religious feeling which "as experiences of consciousness are perfectly beyond the assaults of logic," and what are the necessary correlatives of these facts? We present first of all the incontestable fact that _prayer is natural to_ man. Like our instinctive belief in the being of God, the accountability of man, and the immortality of the soul, we have also an instinctive prompting to pray, and an instinctive belief in the efficacy of prayer. This is an essentially human characteristic; it is common to all men. Man has been defined in many ways, as "a rational animal," "a social animal," "a tool-using animal," "a language-speaking animal;" with more justice may he be called "a _praying_ animal," for prayer is a universal characteristic and fundamental differentia of man. Never has the traveler yet found a people which did not pray. Tribes of men have been found without houses, without raiment, without letters, without science, but never without prayer any more than without speech. This was remarked by Plutarch eighteen centuries ago,[415] and the researches and explorations of modern travelers and ethnologists have added confirmation to its truth. The flow of prayer from human lips is just as natural as the flow of speech. Is man in danger or in sorrow, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul that knows not where to fly, flies to God. There are few men, probably no men, who in moments of extreme peril or intense anguish can resist the impulse to pray. Nature is stronger than all our logic; and, science or no science, the cry for help will rise from the lips of even skeptical men.[416] We ask that these facts may be fully considered and fairly estimated. The instinctive tendency to pray is a universal fact of human nature, as valid and as significant as any fact in physics. It presents as rightful a claim to be taken account of in our theories of the ultimate constitution of the universe as the First Law of Motion or the Conservation of Energy. If we disregard it, our _Systema Mundi_ will be one-sided and partial, and, instead of being a philosophy, will be only a caricature.