The Religion of Science Author:Calvin Blanchard Subtitle: Or, the Art of Actualizing Liberty, and of Perfecting and Satisfactorily Prolonging Happiness: Being a Practical Answer to the Great Question,--"if You Take Away My Religion, What Will You Give Me in Its Stead?" General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1860 Original Publisher: C. Blanchard Subjects: Free thou... more »ght Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTORY. Nature does not possess the power to be inert. Were all existence reduced to its elements -- or attenuated to a condition the thinest and weakest conceivable -- it would of itself, thence proceed, not only to its present condition, but to the perfect one, the outlines of which we shall present. Creation is that adaptation, through development, of supply to demand, which, in the very nature of All Existence of which we can conceive, cannot stop short of completion. Absolute creation, whether of matter, phenomena, or mere space and duration, is unintelligible. Neither the earth, nor man, are yet created. Material constituents are still so far from being adjusted to their best capacity, that much of the surface of our globe is continually frozen ; a greater portion perpetually scorched, and the remainder is but barely tolerable. Earthquakes and volcanoes do still fearfully devastate, and tempests destroy, except when gathering fury. Pestilence has not been banished, nor famine prevented. In short, developement is yet only preliminary ; supply, except very partially, being still dormant or latent, and demand, consequently, being in dreadful excess. Human nature, like its progenitor, is also at apparent war with itself. Man is a bundle of ill defined wants, quarrelling fearfully with his ignorance for satisfaction, a...« less