Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/51

4 Must it not be that there is nothing in Religion, more than in Society, which is not implied in him?

Now the existence of a religious element in us, is not a matter of hazardous and random conjecture, nor attested only by a superficial glance at the history of Man, but this principle is found out, and its existence demonstrated in several legitimate ways.

We see the phenomena of worship and religious observances; of religious wants and actions to supply those wants. Work implies a hand that did, and a head that planned it. A sound induction from these facts carries us back to a religious principle in Man, though the induction does not determine the nature of this principle, except that it is the cause of these phenomena. This common and notorious fact of religious phenomena being found everywhere, can be explained only on the supposition that man is, by the necessity of his nature, inclined to Religion; that worship, in some form, gross or refined, in act, or word, or thought, or life, is natural and quite indispensable to the race. If the opposite view be taken, that there is no religious principle in Man, then there are permanent and universal phenomena without a corresponding cause, and the fact remains unexplained and unaccountable.

Again, we feel conscious of this element within us. We are not sufficient for ourselves; not self-originated; not self-sustained. A few years ago, and we were not; a few years hence, and our bodies shall not be. A mystery is gathered about our little life. We have but small control over things around us; are limited and hemmed in on all sides. Our schemes fail. Our plans miscarry. One after another our lights go out. Our realities prove dreams. Our hopes waste away. We are not where we would be, nor what we would be. After much experience, men powerful as Napoleon, victorious as Cæsar, confess, what simpler men knew by instinct long before, that it is not in Man that walketh to direct his steps. We find our circumference very near the centre, everywhere. An exceedingly short radius measures all our strength. We can know little of material things; nothing but their phenomena. As the circle of our knowledge widens its ring, we feel our