Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/134

, it is to be feared that we forget our humility and become self-satisfied. This orderly definition of the universe, we reflect, is something of an achievement, and we assume that it is peculiarly our own. The Greeks, to be sure, and a few others, seem to have had the idea, but this only shows, as we say, how modern the Greeks were. Primitive man in general, we are quite certain, preferred mystery to order, refused to recognize the most obvious causes, and rarely did a thing directly if by indirection he could get it done more awkwardly. Here again we are somewhat checked when the archaeologist comes upon some primitive implement strangely effective—that is, strangely like our implements,—or discovers on forgotten cave-walls drawings which indicate a remarkable eye for things as they still are. Yet the mass impression remains, that