The natural history of the evolution of opinion upon matters which, for want of a more embracing and satisfactory word, we must be content to call “religious,” follows a uniform course in the minds of all men, except those “duller than the fat weed that roots itself at ease on Lethe’s wharf,” who never get beyond the primary stage.  This course is separable into three periods.  The first is that in which a man accepts unhesitatingly the doctrines which he has received from his spiritual teachers—­customary not intellectual, belief.  This sits lightly on him; entails no troublesome doubts and questionings; possesses, or appears to possess, formulae to meet all possible emergencies, and consequently brings with it a happiness that is genuine, though superficial.  But this customary belief rarely satisfies for long.  Contact with the world brings to light other and opposed theories:  introspection and independent investigation of the bases of the hereditary faith are commenced; many doctrines that have been hitherto accepted as eternally and indisputably true are found to rest upon but slight foundation, apart from their title to respect on account of age; doubts follow as to the claim to acceptance of the whole system that has been so easily and unhesitatingly swallowed; and the period of scepticism, or no-belief, with its attendant misery, commences—­for although Dagon has been but little honoured in the time of his strength, in his downfall he is much regretted.  Then comes that long, weary groping after some firm, reliable basis of belief:  but heaven and earth appear for the time to conspire against the seeker; an intellectual flood has drowned out the old order of things; not even a mountain peak appears in the wide waste of desolation as assurance of ultimate rest; and in the dark, overhanging firmament no arc of promise is to be seen.  But this is a state of mind which, from its very nature, cannot continue for ever:  no man could endure it.  While it lasts the struggle must be continuous, but somewhere through the cloud lies the sunshine and the land of peace—­the final period of intellectual belief.  Out of the chaos comes order; ideas that but recently appeared confused, incoherent, and meaningless assume their true perspective.  It is found that all the strands of the old conventional faith have not been snapped in the turmoil; and these, re-knit and strengthened with the new and full knowledge of experience and investigation, form the cable that secures that strange holy confidence of belief that can only be gained by a preliminary warfare with doubt—­a peace that truly passes all understanding to those who have never battled for it,—­as to its foundation, diverse to a miracle in diverse minds, but still, a peace.