It is a mere dogmatic statement, that can give no logical account of itself, and must trust, for its acceptance, to the world's vague sense of its fitness.

The modern world, it is true, has mistaken it for an argument, and has been cowed by it accordingly; but the mistake is a simple one, and can be readily accounted for.

The dogmatism of denial was formerly a sort of crude rebellion, inconsistent with itself, and vulnerable in a thousand places.

Nature, as then known, was, to all who could weigh the wonder of it, a thing inexplicable without some supernatural agency.
Indeed, marks of such an agency seemed to meet men everywhere.

But now all this has changed.