t. His intellectual
nature is framed to accord with laws which are ever present but are not
authoritative; they admonish but they do not coerce; _that_ is done
surely though oft remotely by the consequences of their violation. At
first, unaware of the true character of these laws, he fancies that if
he were altogether comfortable physically, his every wish would be
gratified. Slowly it dawns upon him that no material gratification can
supply an intellectual craving; that this is the real want which haunts
him; and that its only satisfaction is _to think rightly_, to learn the
truth. Then he sees that the millennial kingdom is "not of this world;"
that heaven and earth may pass away, but that such truth as he seeks
cannot pass away; and that his first and only care should be as a
faithful and wise servant to learn and revere it.

The sentiments which created this mythical cycle, based as they are now
seen to be on ultimate psychological laws, are as active to-day as ever.
This century has witnessed the rise of a school of powerful thinkers and
true philanthropists who maintained that the noblest object is the
securing to our fellow-men the greatest material comfort possible; that
the religious aspirations will do well to content themselves with this
gospel of humanity; and that the approach of the material millennium,
the perfectibility of the human race, the complete adaptation of
function to condition, the "distant but not uncertain final victory of
Good,"[179-1] is susceptible of demonstration. At present, these views
are undergoing modification. It is perceived with more or less
distinctness that complete physical comfort is not enough to make a man
happy; that in proportion as this comfort is attained new wants develope
themselves, quite as importunate, which ask what material comfort
cannot give, and whose demand is neither for utility nor pleasurable
sensation. Such wants are created by the sense of duty and the love of
truth.

The main difference between the latest exponents of the utilitarian
doctrines and the heralds of distinctively religious thought, is that
the former consider that it is most important in the present condition
of man for him to look after his material welfare; while the latter
teach that if he first subject thought and life to truth and duty, "all
these things will be added unto him." Wordsworth has cast this latter
opinion, and the myths which are its types, into eloquent verse: