be found in the 'sensation of the Infinite,' which Infinite we can know 'as the Indefinite only, or as the partially defined.' For 'could we define it nil,' he goes on to say, 'it would cease to be the Infinite, it would cease to be the Unknown, it would cease to be the Inconceivable or the Divine.' Anything, then, which surpasses man's comprehension and man's power would seem to be fraught with religious germs. Thus while there remains anything unknown, there is room for the religious germ to develop, a fact which men of little faith never thoroughly realize; but it must be admitted that every addition to our knowledge and means of understanding the universe, tends, however insignificant it may be, to narrow the domain of what passes for religion. 'We have lived,' says Dr. Tylor, in a work[1] which forms an account of the genesis of religion, 'to see the time when men shrink from addressing even to Supreme Deity the old customary rain-prayers; for the rainfall is passing from the region of the supernatural, to join the tides and seasons in the realm of physical science.' Conversely, if we look back in the direction of the early history of man, we have to acknowledge that the province of prayer was considerably larger and wider formerly than it is now; that is to say, many things which seem to us to have nothing in particular to do with religion, wore an essentially religious aspect in the eyes of our pagan ancestors, and rightly so, if we consider the extent of their ignorance of the nature of the world around them. But it would be at variance with all that is known to us about nations in a low state of civilization,
- ↑ Primitive Culture, ii. 261.
