Throughout all time, mankind have felt that somewhere beyond the limited sphere of their knowledge, beyond the horizon of the seen, there exists a great cause and creator who has made all that was made. Moreover, men have felt that a knowledge of the creator would bring peace and contentment; and they have sought this knowledge through many avenues,—magic, sorcery, divination, rites, and ceremonies. This intuitive feeling has lifted their gaze to the sky and impelled them to the highest abstract speculation. Man alone, of all the creatures that inhabit the earth, looks upward.
This desire for demonstrable knowledge has been the one progressive force in the advancement of the race, for in its evolution mankind have been freed from slavery, brutality, and cruelty. It has been as varied in its expression as are the peoples and races of the earth, but each has been of value in its relation to the final and complete emancipation of men, whether expressed in the devotions of the idolater or those of his more civilized brother in Christian worship. This desire has been termed religious, and there has never been any real progress without it. It has lifted thought from the earth, and changed mortal man from a selfish animal to a cosmic being in sympathy with universal life and thought.
The exercise of reason has meant the evolution of thought from a condition of blind belief to a universal aspiration for the possession of true wisdom. The study of natural science, the acquisition of information with regard to physical things, is profitable and important, not only because it destroys the habit of accepting what cannot be proven, but because it is only through the realization of higher and more exalted ideals that mankind will finally enter the realm of spiritual reality. Progress is thus made certain, though we are trying to grasp what as yet we cannot comprehend. Slowly but surely the longing for knowledge has eliminated many of the religious beliefs and theories formerly adhered to, and in support of which men have sacrificed liberty and even life.
