o the Tower of Siloam and the horror of the Mont-Pelee eruption
there runs a direct lineage of the same perennial riddle. Well-developed
religion has never existed without this--at once its shadow and its
touchstone.

CHAPTER II. NATURALISM.

Naturalism is not of to-day or of yesterday, but is very ancient,--as old,
indeed, as philosophy,--as old as human thought and doubt. Indeed, we may
say that it almost invariably played its part whenever man began to
reflect on the whence and the how of the actual world around him. In the
philosophical systems of Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus it lies
fully developed before us. It persisted as a latent and silently dreaded
antagonist, even in times when "orthodox" anti-naturalistic and
super-naturalistic systems were the officially prevailing ones, and were
to all appearance generally adhered to. So in the more modern systems of
materialism and positivism, in the _Systeme de la nature_ and in the
theory of _l'homme machine_, in the materialistic reactions from the
idealistic nature-speculations of Schelling and Hegel, in the discussions
of materialism in the past century, in the naturalistic writings of
Moleschott, Czolbe, Vogt, Buechner, and Haeckel, and in the still dominant
naturalistic tendency and mood which acquired new form and deep-rooted
individuality through Darwinism,--in all these we find naturalism, not
indeed originating as something new, but simply blossoming afresh with
increased strength. The antiquity of Naturalism is no reproach, and no
reason for regarding it as a matter long since settled; it rather
indicates that Naturalism is not a chance phenomenon, but an inevitable
growth. The favourite method of treating it as though it were the outcome
of modern scepticism, malice, or obduracy, is just as absurd as if the
"naturalists" were to treat the convictions of their opponents as the
result of incredible narrow-mindedness, priestly deception, senility, or
calcification of the brain-cells. And as naturalism is of ancient origin
so also do its different historical phases and forms resemble each other
in their methods, aims, and arguments, as well as in the moods,
sympathies, and antipathies which accompany them. Even in its most highly
developed form we can see that it did not spring originally from a
completed and unified principle, but was primarily criticism of and
opposition to other views.

What is Distinctive in the Naturalistic Outloo