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.
[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.
[54-1] Elements of Medical Psychology, p. 331.