e sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd
Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus, at her felt approach and secret might,
Art after art goes out, and all is night.
See skulking truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap'd o'er her head.
Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more._

_Physic of metaphysic begs defence,
And metaphysic calls for aid on sense!
See mystery to mathematics fly.
In vain: they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires;
And, unawares, morality expires.
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine,
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine.
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restor'd,
Light dies before thy uncreating word,
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all._

Dr. Johnson said that these verses were the noblest in English poetry.
Could he have read them in our day, and have realised with what a
pitiful accuracy their prophecy might soon begin to fulfil itself, he
would probably have been too busy with dissatisfaction at the matter of
it to have any time to spare for an artistic approbation of the manner.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Mr. Frederic Harrison.

[28] The case of J.S. Mill may seem at first sight to be an exception to
this. But it is really not so. Though he was brought up without any
religious teaching, yet the severe and earnest influences of his
childhood would have been impossible except in a religious country. He
was in fact brought up in an atmosphere (if I may borrow with a slight
change a phrase of Professor Huxley's) of Puritanism minus Christianity.
It may be remembered farther that Mill says of himself, '_I am one of
the very few examples of one who has not thrown off religious belief,
but never had it_.'

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRACTICAL PROSPECT.

_Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck....
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell._

Shakespeare, _Sonnet XIV_.

The prospects I have been just describing as the goal of positive
progress will seem, no doubt, to many to be quite impossible in its
cheerlessness. If the future glory of our race was a dream, not worth
dwelling on, much more so, they will say, is such a future abasement of
it as this. They will say that optimism may at times ha