]
[Footnote 2: The poetic sense, the perception of the beautiful, &c.]
Whether this further distinction is justified or not, there is a
distinction between the moral and the purely intellectual; and we are
justified in using different terms for things that are _practically_
different. This the Edinburgh Reviewer seems to have forgotten.
It was necessary to my argument to enter on this somewhat lengthy
examination of the spiritual nature of man, because, while we
acknowledge the unity of man, we are compelled to recognize in his
religious sense and aspirations and capacities something quite
disparate--something that we could not get by a natural process of
growth from such beginnings of reason as are observed in the lower
animals.
I am aware that Dr. Darwin conceived that the religious feeling of man
might have grown out of the natural emotions of fear,[1] love,
gratitude, &c., when once men began to question as to the explanation of
the phenomena of life, and to ascribe the forces of nature to the
possession of a spirit such as he himself was conscious of: and with
much more positive intent, Mr. H. Spencer has also, after most
painstaking inquiries, formulated what he conceives to be the origin of
religious belief in man. He refers us to the early belief in a "double"
of self, which double could be projected out of self, and remained in
some way after death, so as to become the object of fear, and ultimately
of worship.
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