Some of these paths we have
followed a little way; others, if fortune should be kind, the writer
and the reader may one day pursue together. For the present we have
journeyed far enough together, and it is time to part. Yet before we
do so, we may well ask ourselves whether there is not some more
general conclusion, some lesson, if possible, of hope and
encouragement, to be drawn from the melancholy record of human error
and folly which has engaged our attention in this book.
If then we consider, on the one hand, the essential similarity of
man's chief wants everywhere and at all times, and on the other
hand, the wide difference between the means he has adopted to
satisfy them in different ages, we shall perhaps be disposed to
conclude that the movement of the higher thought, so far as we can
trace it, has on the whole been from magic through religion to
science. In magic man depends on his own strength to meet the
difficulties and dangers that beset him on every side. He believes
in a certain established order of nature on which he can surely
count, and which he can manipulate for his own ends.
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