e perception of man's
isolation in the natural order; his difference from his surroundings.
That sense of separateness is fundamental to the religious nature. The
false sentiment and partial science of the pagan which stresses the
identification of man and beast is the first quarrel that religionist
and humanist alike have with him. Neither of them sanctions
this perversion of thought and feeling which either projects the
impressionistic self so absurdly and perilously into the natural
order, or else minimizes man's imaginative and intellectual power,
leveling him down to the amoral instinct of the brute. "How much
more," said Jesus, "is a man better than a sheep!" One of the greatest
of English humanists was Matthew Arnold. You remember his sonnet,
entitled, alas! "To a Preacher," which runs as follows:

"In harmony with Nature? Restless fool,
Who with such heat doth preach what were to thee,
When true, the last impossibility--
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool!
Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more,
And in that more lie all his hopes of good,
Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood;
Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore;
Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;
Nature forgives no debt and fears no grave;
Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest.
Man must begin; know this, where Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast friends.
Fool, if thou canst not pass her, rest her slave!"

Religionist and humanist alike share this clear sense of separateness.
Literature is full of the expression of it. Religion, in especial,
has little to do with the natural world as such. It is that other and
inner one, which can make a hell of heaven, a heaven of hell, with
which it is chiefly concerned. Who can forget Othello's soliloquy as
he prepares to darken his marriage chamber before the murder of his
wife?

"Put out the light, and then put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat,
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It needs must wither."

Indeed, how vivid to us all is this difference between man and nature.
"I would to heaven," Byron traced on the back of the manuscript of
_Don Juan_,

"I would to heav