deal with. And how am I to do so except by observing him working? God knows I have not far to go in search of his manifestations.” And thus Luther went on filling up the Scriptural proposition with his daily experience. He was constantly gaining a clearer conception of his great personal antagonist, constantly stumbling upon some more concealed trait in the Spirit’s character. The Being himself was invisible; but men were walking in the midst of his manifestations. It was as if there were some Being whom we could not see, nor directly in the ordinary way have any intercourse with, but who every morning, before it was light, came and left at our doors some exquisite specimen of his workmanship. It would, of course, be difficult under such disadvantages to become acquainted with the character of our invisible correspondent and nightly visitant; still we could arrive at a few conclusions respecting him, and the more of his workmanship we saw the more insight we should come to have. Or again, in striving to realize to himself the Scriptural proposition about the Devil, Luther, to speak in the language of the “Positive Philosophy,” was but striving to ascertain the laws according to which evil happens. Only the Positive Philosophy would lay a veto on any such speculation, and pronounce it fundamentally vicious in this respect—that there are not two courses of events, separable from each other, in history, the one good and the other evil, but that evil comes of good and good of evil; so that, if we are to have a science of history at all, the most we can have is a science of the laws according to which, not evil follows evil, but events follow each other. But History to Luther was not a physical course of events. It was God acting, and the Devil opposing.

So far Luther did not differ from his age. Belief in Satanic agency was universal at that period. We have no idea now how powerful this belief was. We realize something of the truth when we read the depositions in an old book of trials for witchcraft. But it is sufficient to glance over any writings of the period to see what a real meaning was then attached to the words “Hell” and “Devil.” The spirit of these words has become obsolete, chased away by the spirit of exposition. That was what M. Comte calls the Theological period, when all the phenomena of mind and matter were referred to the agency of Spirits. The going out of the belief in Satanic agency (for even those who retain it in profession allow it no force in practice) M. Comte would attribute to the progress of the spirit of that philosophy of which he is the apostle. We do not think, however, that the mere progress of the scientific spirit—that is, the mere disposition of men to pursue one mode of thinking with respect to all classes of phenomena—could have been sufficient of itself to work such an alteration in the general mind. We are fond of accounting for it, in part at least, by the going out, in the progress of civilization, of those sensations which seem naturally fitted to nourish the belief in supernatural beings. The tendency of civilization has been to diminish our opportunities of feeling terror, of feeling strongly at all. The horrific plays a much less important part in human experience than it once did. To mention but a single instance: we are exempted now, by mechanical contrivances for locomotion, &c., from the necessity of being much in darkness or wild physical solitude. This is especially the case with those who dwell in cities, and therefore exert most conspicuously an intellectual influence. The moaning of the wind at night in winter is about their highest experience of the kind; and is it not a corroboration of the view now suggested that the belief in the supernatural is always strongest at the moment of this experience? Scenes and situations our ancestors were in every day are strange to us. We have not now to travel through forests at the dead of night, nor to pass a lonely spot on a moor where a murderer’s body is swinging from a gibbet. Tam o’ Shanter, even before he came to Allowa’ Kirk, saw more than many of us see in a life-time.