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external world, and become our masters instead of our servants.

Mr. Le Gallienne follows the beaten track of theology in talking about
"mysteries," which are only subterfuges to cover the retreat of a
nonplussed debater, or a warren for the fugitive game of the hounds
of reason. He also follows the beaten track in arguing--or rather
assuming--that the elect spiritualists have a "sense" which is lacking
in the reprobate materialists. There is nothing like a good lumping
assumption for begging the question at issue. It settles the discussion
before it opens, and saves a world of trouble. But even an assumption
may be looked in the face; nay, it is best looked in the face when you
suspect it of being an imposture.

According to Mr. Le Gallienne, the religious sense--or, as he also
writes it, the SPIRITUAL SENSE, with capital letters--is not after all
a special faculty, but a special compound, or interaction, of common
faculties. He does, indeed, treat these common faculties as
"tribautaries" of the Spiritual Sense; but it is very evident that the
tributaries make the stream, which is merely a name without them. First,
there is the Sense of Wonder, which is nothing but the positive side of
ignorance; second, the Sense of Beauty, which "is not necessarily a
religious sense," but may be pressed into its service; third, the Sense
of Pity, which really originates, as we conceive, in parental affection,
and has even been noticed in rats as well as in religionists; fourth,
the Sense of Humor, which is a peculiarly "candid" friend of religion,
so that Mr. Le Gallienne is obliged to give its devotees an impressive
warning against running into Ill-nature and Sacrilege; fifth, the Sense
of Gratitude, which in religion, so far as we can see, appears to
consist in a lively sense of favors to come, through the medium of
prayer, to which thanksgiving is only a judicious preliminary, like the
compliments and flatteries that are addressed to an oriental despot by
his humble but calculating petitioners.

Now all these senses are perfectly natural. Every one of them is found
in the lower animals as well as in man. How then can there be anything
supernatural, supersensible, or "spiritual,", in their combination? Is
it not evident that Religion works, like everything else, upon common
materials? Chiefly, indeed, upon the unchastened imagination of
credulous ignorance. We may prove this from Mr. Le Gallienne's own
testimony.

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