Excerpt from The Insuppressible Book: A Controversy Between Herbert Spencer and Frederic Harrison; From the "Nineteenth Century" And "Pall Mall Gazette" Unlike the ordinary consciousness, the religious consciousness is concerned with that which lies be yond the sphere of sense. A brute thinks only of things which can be touched, seen, heard, tasted, etc. And the like is true of the untaught child, the deaf mute, and the lowest savage. But the developing man has thoughts about existences which he regards as usually intangible, inaudible, invisible; and yet which he regards as operative upon him. What sug gests this notion of agencies transcending percep tion? How do these ideas concerning the supernat ural evolve out of ideas concerning the natural? The transition cannot be sudden; and an account of the genesis of religion must begin by describing the steps through which the transition takes place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.