self-satisfaction, assumed as finality. We talk of the "ever aspiring
soul"; we take for granted that if one religion passes away, another must
arise. But what if man presently find himself without spiritual needs?
Such modification of his being cannot be deemed impossible; many signs of
our life to-day seem to point towards it. If the habits of thought
favoured by physical science do but sink deep enough, and no vast
calamity come to check mankind in its advance to material contentment,
the age of true positivism may arise. Then it will be the common
privilege, "rerum cognoscere causas"; the word supernatural will have no
sense; superstition will be a dimly understood trait of the early race;
and where now we perceive an appalling Mystery, everything will be lucid
and serene as a geometric demonstration. Such an epoch of Reason might
be the happiest the world could know. Indeed, it would either be that,
or it would never come about at all. For suffering and sorrow are the
great Doctors of Metaphysic; and, remembering this, one cannot count very
surely upon the rationalist millennium.



XII.


The free man, says Spinoza, thinks of nothing less often than of death.
Free, in his sense of the word, I may not call myself. I think of death
very often; the thought, indeed, is ever in the background of my mind;
yet free in another sense I assuredly am, for death inspires me with no
fear. There was a time when I dreaded it; but that, merely because it
meant disaster to others who depended upon my labour; the cessation of
being has never in itself had power to afflict me. Pain I cannot well
endure, and I do indeed think with apprehension of being subjected to the