orses do,
I know perhaps even better than you. But have you ever asked yourself,
what would have become of mankind without any religion, without the
conviction that beyond our horizon, that is beyond our limit, there still
must be something? You will answer, 'How do we know that?' Well, can there
be any boundary without something beyond it? Is not that as true as any
theorem in geometry? If it were not so, how could we explain the fact that
mankind has never been without a belief in a world beyond, nor without
religion, either in the lowest or in the highest levels.

"This horizon, this boundary, does not relate only to space, as all will
agree, even when carried beyond the Milky Way; it relates as well to time.
You assert, 'The world is much older than we suppose;' you are right, but
if it were a million years, still there must have been a time before it
was even a day old. That also is indisputable. But when we reach the limit
of our senses and our understanding, then the horse shies, then we imagine
that nothing can go beyond our understanding. Now let us begin with our
five senses. They seem to be our wings, but seen in the light they are our
fetters, our prison walls. All our senses have their horizon and their
limits; and the limits in the external world are our making. Our sight
scarcely reaches a mile, then it ceases; we can observe the movement of
the second hand, but that of the minute hand escapes us. Why? We might
know that a cannon-ball passes through our field of vision, but we cannot
locate it. Why not? Our sense of touch is also very weak and only extends
over a very limited space. And as it is on the large scale, so is it with
the small. We see the eye of a needle, but infusoria and bacteria, which
we know to be there and which affect us so much, we cannot see. With
telescopes and microscopes we can slightly extend the field of our
perception, but the limitations and weakness of our sense-impressions
remain none the less an undeniable fact. We live in a prison, in a cave as
Plato said, and yet we accept our impressions as they are, and form out of
them general notions and words, and with these words we erect this stately
building, or this tower of Babel, which we then call human science.

"Yes, say certain philosophers, our senses may be finite and
untrustworthy, but our understanding, and still further our reason, they
are unlimited, and recognise nothing which is beyond them. Well, what does
this most