uman intelligence. The real
question at issue will then stand out in clear relief, and precision
will be given to the entire discussion.

(i.) _We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the
universal human intelligence_. It is found in all minds where reason has
had its normal and healthy development; and no race of men has ever been
found utterly destitute of the idea of God. The proof of this position
has already been furnished in chap, ii.,[211] and needs not be re-stated
here. We have simply to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke
and others of the sensational school to the experiences of infants,
idiots, the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper
conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting, are utterly
irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains within itself the
rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect
development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and
heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its
growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under
one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may
perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of
reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of
cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is
yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant
thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb
are certainly not in that full and normal correlation to the world of
sense which is a necessary condition of the development of reason.
Language, the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, and
reason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought are
dead sounds, _thoughts without words are nothing_. The word is the
thought incarnate."[212] Under proper and normal conditions, the idea of
God is the natural and necessary form in which human thought must be
developed. And, with these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that
the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human
intelligence.

[Footnote 211: Pp. 89,90.]

[Footnote 212: Mueller, "Science of Language," p. 384.]

(ii.) _We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a
simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent
of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world