It has produced an almost infinite diversity of
Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which
natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about
Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of
their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their
interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or
averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have
attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history
indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice,
with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions
are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents
delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with
criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. In
singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of
mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more
exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the
greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of
civilisation submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there
would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural
knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in
trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and
questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of
action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or
vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition.
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