MAY 13 1903 
 
 mcm si*' 
 
 BT 101 .F57 1887 
 Fiske, John, 1842-1901. 
 
 The idea of God as affected 
 by modern knowledge 
 
THE IDEA OF GOD AS AFFECTED 
 BY MODERN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Y 
 
 By JOHN FISKE 
 
 Sixth Thousand 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 fE&e CimersiDe <JTamfcriD0e 
 
Copyright, 1885, 
 
 By JOHN FISKE. 
 
 All rights reserved . 
 
 The Riverside Press , Cambridge .* 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
To 
 
 MY WIFE, 
 
 IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE SWEET SUNDAY MORNING 
 UNDER THE APPLE-TREE ON THE HILLSIDE, 
 
 WHEN WE TWO SAT LOOKING DOWN INTO FAIRY WOODLAND PATHS, 
 AND TALKED OF THE THINGS 
 SINCE WRITTEN IN THIS LITTLE BOOK, 
 
 2 riofco tietucate it. 
 
 ’Apyvpiov /cat XP V<T ^ 0V °^X vrrapxei 
 (io u o Se ex w ) tovto am 6c6a>ju.t. 
 
 aXp 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ideaofgodasaffecOOfisk_O 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 -»- 
 
 HEN asked to give a second ad¬ 
 dress before the Concord School 
 of Philosophy, I gladly accepted 
 the invitation, as affording a proper occa¬ 
 sion for saying certain things which I had 
 for some time wished to say about theism. 
 My address was designed to introduce the 
 discussion of the question whether pan¬ 
 theism is the legitimate outcome of mod¬ 
 ern science. It seemed to me that the 
 object might best be attained by passing 
 in review the various modifications which 
 the idea of God has undergone in the past, 
 and pointing out the shape in which it is 
 likely to survive the rapid growth of mod¬ 
 ern knowledge, and especially the estab¬ 
 lishment of that great doctrine of evolu¬ 
 tion which is fast obliging us to revise 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 our opinions upon all subjects whatsoever. 
 Having thus in the text outlined the idea 
 of God most likely to be conceived by 
 minds trained in the doctrine of evolution, 
 I left it for further discussion to decide 
 whether the term “pantheism” can prop¬ 
 erly be applied to such a conception. 
 While much enlightenment may be got 
 
 from carefully describing the substance of 
 
 % 
 
 a philosophic doctrine, very little can be 
 gained by merely affixing to it a label; 
 and I could not but feel that my argument 
 would be simply encumbered by the intro¬ 
 duction of any question of nomenclature 
 involving such a vague and uninstructive 
 epithet as “pantheism.” Such epithets 
 are often regarded with favour and freely 
 used, as seeming to obviate the necessity 
 for that kind of labour to which most peo¬ 
 ple are most averse, — the labour of sus¬ 
 tained and accurate thinking. People are 
 too apt to make such general terms do 
 duty in place of a careful examination of 
 facts, and are thus sometimes led to 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 strange conclusions. When, for example, 
 they have heard somebody called an “ag¬ 
 nostic,” they at once think they know all 
 about him ; whereas they have very likely 
 learned nothing that is of the slightest 
 value in characterizing his opinions or his 
 mental attitude. A term that can be ap¬ 
 plied at once to a Comte, a Mansel, and a 
 Huxley is obviously of little use in the 
 matter of definition. But, it may be asked, 
 in spite of their world-wide differences, do 
 not these three thinkers agree in holding 
 that nothing can be known about the na¬ 
 ture of God ? Perhaps so, — one cannot 
 answer even this plain question with an 
 unqualified yes; but, granting that they 
 fully agree in this assertion of ignorance, 
 nevertheless, in their philosophic attitudes 
 with regard to this ignorance, in the use 
 they severally make of the assertion, in the 
 way it determines their inferences about all 
 manner of other things, the differences are 
 so vast that nothing but mental confusion 
 can come from a terminology which would 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 content itself by applying to all three the 
 common epithet “agnostic.” The case is 
 similar with such a word as “ pantheism,” 
 which has been familiarly applied to so 
 many utterly diverse systems of thought 
 that it is very hard to tell just what it 
 means. It has been equally applied to 
 the doctrine of “the Hindu philosophers 
 of the orthodox Brahmanical schools,” who 
 “hold that all finite existence is an illu¬ 
 sion, and life mere vexation and mistake, 
 a blunder or sorry jest of the Absolute 
 and to the doctrine of the Stoics, who 
 “went to the other extreme, and held that 
 the universe was the product of perfect 
 reason and in an absolute sense good.” 
 (Pollock’s “Spinoza,” p. 356.) In recent 
 times it has been commonly used as a 
 vituperative epithet, and hurled indiscrimi¬ 
 nately at such unpopular opinions as do 
 not seem to call for so heavy a missile as 
 the more cruel term “atheism.” The 
 writer who sets forth in plain scientific 
 language a physical theory of the universe 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 is liable to be scowled at and called an 
 atheist; but, when the very same ideas are 
 presented in the form of oracular apoph¬ 
 thegm or poetic rhapsody, the author is 
 more gently described as “ tinctured with 
 pantheism.” 
 
 But out of the chaos of vagueness in 
 which this unhappy word has been im¬ 
 mersed it is perhaps still possible to ex¬ 
 tract something like a definite meaning. 
 In the broadest sense there are three pos¬ 
 sible ways in which we may contemplate 
 the universe. 
 
 First , we may regard the world of phe¬ 
 nomena as sufficient unto itself, and deny 
 that it needs to be referred to any under¬ 
 lying and all-comprehensive unity. Noth¬ 
 ing has an ultimate origin or destiny ; 
 there is no dramatic tendency in the suc¬ 
 cession of events, nor any ultimate law to 
 which everything must be referred ; there 
 is no reasonableness in the universe save 
 that with which human fancy unwarrant¬ 
 ably endows it; the events of the world 
 
x Preface. 
 
 have no orderly progression like the scenes 
 of a well-constructed plot, but in the man¬ 
 ner of their coming and going they con¬ 
 stitute simply what Chauncey Wright so 
 aptly called “cosmical weather they drift 
 and eddy about in an utterly blind and 
 irrational manner, though now and then 
 evolving, as if by accident, temporary com¬ 
 binations which have to us a rational ap¬ 
 pearance. This is Atheism, pure and un¬ 
 qualified. It recognizes no Omnipresent 
 Energy. 
 
 Secondly , we may hold that the world of 
 phenomena is utterly unintelligible unless 
 referred to an underlying and all-compre¬ 
 hensive unity. All things are manifesta¬ 
 tions of an Omnipresent Energy which 
 cannot be in any imaginable sense per¬ 
 sonal or anthropomorphic ; out from this 
 eternal source of phenomena all individ¬ 
 ualities proceed, and into it they must all 
 ultimately return and be absorbed; the 
 events of the world have an orderly pro¬ 
 gression, but not toward any goal recog- 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 nizable by us ; in the process of evolution 
 there is nothing* that from any point of 
 view can be called teleological; the be¬ 
 ginning and end of things — that which is 
 Alpha and Omega—is merely an inscruta¬ 
 ble essence, a formless void. Such a view 
 as this may properly be called Pantheism. 
 It recognizes an Omnipresent Energy, but 
 virtually identifies it with the totality of 
 things. 
 
 Thirdly , we may hold that the world of 
 phenomena is intelligible only when re¬ 
 garded as the multiform manifestation of 
 an Omnipresent Energy that is in some 
 way — albeit in a way quite above our 
 finite comprehension — anthropomorphic 
 or quasi-personal. There is a true objec¬ 
 tive reasonableness in the universe; its 
 events have an orderly progression, and, so 
 far as those events are brought sufficiently 
 within our ken for us to generalize them 
 exhaustively, their progression is toward a 
 goal that is recognizable by human intelli¬ 
 gence ; “ the process of evolution is itself 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 the working out of a mighty Teleology of 
 which our finite understandings can fathom 
 but the scantiest rudiments ” (“ Cosmic 
 Philosophy,” vol. ii. p. 406) ; it is indeed 
 but imperfectly that we can describe the 
 dramatic tendency in the succession of 
 events, but we can see enough to assure 
 us of the fundamental fact that there is 
 such a tendency ; and this tendency is the 
 objective aspect of that which, when re¬ 
 garded on its subjective side, we call Pur¬ 
 pose. Such a theory of things is Theism. 
 It recognizes an Omnipresent Energy, 
 which is none other than the living God. 
 
 It is this theistic doctrine which I hold 
 myself, and which in the present essay I 
 have sought to exhibit as the legitimate 
 outcome of modern scientific thought. I 
 was glad to have such an excellent occa¬ 
 sion for returning to the subject as the 
 invitation from Concord gave me, because 
 in a former attempt to expound the same 
 doctrine I do not seem to have succeeded 
 in making myself understood. In my 
 
xnt 
 
 Preface. 
 
 “ Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy,” pub¬ 
 lished in 1874, I endeavoured to set forth 
 a theory of theism identical with that 
 which is set forth in the present essay. 
 But an acute and learned friend, writing 
 under the pseudonym of “ Physicus,” in 
 his “ Candid Examination of Theism ” 
 (London, 1878), thus criticizes my theory: 
 In it, he says, “while I am able to discern 
 the elements which I think may properly 
 be regarded as common to Theism and to 
 Atheism, I am not able to discern any 
 single element, that is specifically distinc¬ 
 tive of Theism ” (p. 145). The reason for 
 the inability of “Physicus” to discern any 
 such specifically distinctive element is that 
 he misunderstands me as proposing to di¬ 
 vest the theistic idea of every shred of 
 anthropomorphism, while still calling it a 
 theistic idea. This, he thinks, would be 
 an utterly illegitimate proceeding, and I 
 quite agree with him. In similar wise my 
 friend Mr. Frederick Pollock, in his ad¬ 
 mirable work on Spinoza (London, 1880), 
 
xiv Preface . 
 
 observes that “ Mr. Fiske’s doctrine ex¬ 
 cludes the belief in a so-called Personal 
 God, and the particular forms of religious 
 emotion dependent on it” (p. 356). If 
 the first part of this sentence stood alone, 
 I might pause to inquire how much lati¬ 
 tude of meaning may be conveyed in the 
 expression “ so-called ; ” is it meant that I 
 exclude the belief in a Personal God as it 
 was held by Augustine and Paley, or as it 
 was held by Clement and Schleiermacher, 
 or both ? But the second clause of the 
 sentence seems to furnish the answer; it 
 seems to imply that I would practically do 
 away with Theism altogether. 
 
 Such a serious misstatement of my posi¬ 
 tion, made in perfect good faith by two 
 thinkers so conspicuous for ability and can¬ 
 dour, shows that, in spite of all the elab¬ 
 orate care with which the case was stated 
 in “Cosmic Philosophy,” some further ex¬ 
 planation is needed. It is true that there 
 are expressions in that work which, taken 
 singly and by themselves, might seem to 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 imply a total rejection of theism. Such 
 expressions occur chiefly in the chapter en¬ 
 titled “Anthropomorphic Theism,” where 
 great pains are taken to show the inade¬ 
 quacy of the Paley argument from design, 
 and to point out the insuperable difficul¬ 
 ties in which we are entangled by the con¬ 
 ception of a Personal God as it is held by 
 the great majority of modern theologians 
 who have derived it from Plato and Au¬ 
 gustine. In the succeeding chapters, how¬ 
 ever, it is expressly argued that the total 
 elimination of anthropomorphism from the 
 idea of God is impossible. There are some 
 who, recognizing that the ideas of Person¬ 
 ality and Infinity are unthinkable in com¬ 
 bination, seek to escape the difficulty by 
 speaking of God as the “ Infinite Power ; ” 
 that is, instead of a symbol derived from 
 our notion of human consciousness, they 
 employ a symbol derived from our notion 
 of force in general. For many philosophic 
 purposes the device is eminently useful; 
 but it should not be forgotten that, while 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 the form of our experience of Personality 
 does not allow us to conceive it as infinite, 
 it is equally true that the form of our ex¬ 
 perience of Force does not allow us to 
 conceive it as infinite, since we know force 
 only as antagonized by other force. Since, 
 moreover, our notion of force is purely a 
 generalization from our subjective sensa¬ 
 tions of effort overcoming resistance, there 
 is scarcely less anthropomorphism lurking 
 in the phrase “Infinite Power” than in the 
 phrase “Infinite Person.” Now in “Cos¬ 
 mic Philosophy ” I argue that the presence 
 of God is the one all-pervading fact of life, 
 from which there is no escape; that while 
 in the deepest sense the nature of Deity 
 is unknowable by finite Man, nevertheless 
 the exigencies of our thinking oblige us to 
 symbolize that nature in some form that 
 has a real meaning for us ; and that we 
 cannot symbolize that nature as in any 
 wise physical, but are bound to symbolize 
 it as in some way psychical. > I do not here 
 repeat the arguments, but simply state the 
 
Preface . xvii 
 
 conclusions. The final conclusion (vol. ii. 
 p. 449) is that we must not say that “ God 
 is Force,” since such a phrase inevitably 
 calls up those pantheistic notions of blind 
 necessity, which it is my express desire to 
 avoid; but, always bearing in mind the 
 symbolic character of the words, we may 
 say that “God is Spirit.” How my belief 
 in the personality of God could be more 
 strongly expressed without entirely desert¬ 
 ing the language of modern philosophy 
 and taking refuge in pure mythology, I 
 am unable to see. 
 
 There are two points in the present 
 essay which I hope will serve to define 
 more completely the kind of theism which 
 I have tried to present as compatible with 
 the doctrine of evolution. One is the 
 historic contrast between anthropomorphic 
 and cosmic theism regarded in their modes 
 of genesis, and especially as exemplified 
 within the Christian church in the very 
 different methods and results of Augustine 
 on the one hand and Athanasius on the 
 
xviii Preface . 
 
 other. The view which I have ventured 
 to designate as “cosmic theism” is no in¬ 
 vention of mine ; in its most essential fea¬ 
 tures it has been entertained by some of 
 the profoundest thinkers of Christendom 
 in ancient and modern times, from Clem¬ 
 ent of Alexandria to Lessing and Goethe 
 and Schleiermacher. The other point is 
 the teleological inference drawn from the 
 argument of my first Concord address on 
 “ The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light 
 of his Origin.” 
 
 When that address was published, a 
 year ago, I was surprised to find it quite 
 commonly regarded as indicating some 
 radical change of attitude on my part, — 
 a “ conversion,” perhaps, from one set of 
 opinions to another. Inasmuch as the 
 argument in the “ Destiny of Man ” was 
 based in every one of its parts upon argu¬ 
 ments already published in “ Cosmic Phi¬ 
 losophy” (1874), and in the “Unseen 
 World” (1876), I naturally could not 
 understand why the later book should 
 
Preface. xix 
 
 impress people so differently from the 
 earlier ones. It presently appeared, how¬ 
 ever, that none of my friends who had 
 studied the earlier books had detected any 
 such change of attitude ; it was only people 
 who knew little or nothing about me, or 
 else the newspapers. Whence the infer¬ 
 ence seemed obvious that many readers 
 of the “Destiny of Man” must have con¬ 
 trasted it, not with my earlier books which 
 they had not read, but with some vague 
 and distorted notion about my views which 
 had grown up (Heaven knows how or why !) 
 through the medium of “the press;” and 
 thus there might have been produced the 
 impression that those views had under¬ 
 gone a radical change. 
 
 It would be little to my credit, however, 
 had my views of the doctrine of evolution 
 and its implications undergone no develop¬ 
 ment or enlargement since the publication 
 of “ Cosmic Philosophy.” To carry such a 
 subject about in one’s mind for ten years, 
 without having any new thoughts about it, 
 
xx Preface. 
 
 would hardly be a proof of fitness for phi¬ 
 losophizing. I have for some time been 
 aware of a shortcoming in the earlier work, 
 which it is the purpose of these two Con¬ 
 cord addresses in some measure to remedy. 
 That shortcoming was an imperfect ap¬ 
 preciation of the goal toward which the 
 process of evolution is tending, and a con¬ 
 sequent failure to state adequately how the 
 doctrine of evolution must affect our esti¬ 
 mate of Man’s place in Nature. Nothing 
 of fundamental importance in “ Cosmic 
 Philosophy” needed changing, but a new 
 chapter needed to be written, in order to 
 show how the doctrine of evolution, by 
 exhibiting the development of the highest 
 spiritual human qualities as the goal to¬ 
 ward which God’s creative work has from 
 the outset been tending, replaces Man in 
 his old position of headship in the uni¬ 
 verse, even as in the days of Dante and 
 Aquinas. That which the pre-Copernican 
 astronomy naively thought to do by plac¬ 
 ing the home of Man in the centre of 
 
Preface . xxi 
 
 the physical universe, the Darwinian bi¬ 
 ology profoundly accomplishes by exhibit¬ 
 ing Man as the terminal fact in that stu¬ 
 pendous process of evolution whereby 
 things have come to be what they are. 
 In the deepest sense it is as true as it ever 
 was held to be, that the world was made 
 for Man, and that the bringing forth in 
 him of those qualities which we call high¬ 
 est and holiest is the final cause of crea¬ 
 tion. The arguments upon which this 
 conclusion rests, as they are set forth in 
 the “Destiny of Man” and epitomized in 
 the concluding section of the present es¬ 
 say, may all be found in “ Cosmic Philoso¬ 
 phy ; ” but I failed to sum them up there 
 and indicate the conclusion, almost within 
 reach, which I had not quite clearly seized. 
 When, after long hovering in the back¬ 
 ground of consciousness, it suddenly flashed 
 upon me two years ago, it came with such 
 vividness as to seem like a revelation. 
 
 This conclusion as to the implications 
 of the doctrine of evolution concerning 
 
xxii Preface . 
 
 Man’s place in Nature supplies the ele¬ 
 ment warning in the theistic theory set 
 forth in “ Cosmic Philosophy,” — the tele¬ 
 ological element. It is profoundly true 
 that a theory of things may seem theistic 
 or atheistic in virtue of what it says of 
 Man, no less than in virtue of what it says 
 of God. The craving for a final cause is 
 so deeply rooted in human nature that no 
 doctrine of theism which fails to satisfy it 
 can seem other than lame and ineffective. 
 In writing “Cosmic Philosophy” I fully 
 realized this when, in the midst of the 
 argument against Paley’s form of theism, 
 I said that “the process of evolution is 
 itself the working out of a mighty Tele¬ 
 ology of which our finite understandings 
 can fathom but the scantiest rudiments.” 
 Nevertheless, while the whole momentum 
 of my thought carried me to the conviction 
 that it must be so, I was not yet able to 
 indicate how it is so, and I accordingly left 
 the subject with this brief and inadequate 
 hint. Could the point have been worked 
 
Preface . xxiii 
 
 out then and there, I think it would have 
 left no doubt in the minds of “ Physicus” 
 and Mr. Pollock as to the true character 
 of Cosmic Theism. 
 
 But hold, cries the scientific inquirer, 
 what in the world are you doing? Are 
 we again to resuscitate the phantom Te¬ 
 leology, which we had supposed at last 
 safely buried between cross-roads and 
 pinned down with a stake ? Was not Ba¬ 
 con right in characterizing “final causes ” 
 as vestal virgins, so barren has their study 
 proved ? And has not Huxley, with yet 
 keener sarcasm, designated them the he- 
 tairce of philosophy, so often have they 
 led men astray ? Very true. I do not 
 wish to take back a single word of all that 
 I have said in my chapter on “Anthro¬ 
 pomorphic Theism ” in condemnation of 
 the teleological method and the peculiar 
 theistic doctrines upon which it rests. As 
 a means of investigation it is absolutely 
 worthless. Nay, it is worse than worth¬ 
 less ; it is treacherous, it is debauching to 
 
xxiv Preface . 
 
 the intellect. But that is no reason why, 
 when a distinct dramatic tendency in the 
 events of the universe appears as the 
 result of purely scientific investigation, 
 we should refuse to recognize it. It is the 
 object of the “Destiny of Man ” to prove 
 that there is such a dramatic tendency ; 
 and while such a tendency cannot be re¬ 
 garded as indicative of purpose in the 
 limited anthropomorphic sense, it is still, 
 as I said before, the objective aspect of 
 that which, when regarded on its subjec¬ 
 tive side, we call Purpose. There is a 
 reasonableness in the universe such as to 
 indicate that the Infinite Power of which 
 it is the multiform manifestation is psy¬ 
 chical, though it is impossible to ascribe 
 to Him any of the limited psychical at¬ 
 tributes which we know, or to argue from 
 the ways of Man to the ways of God. 
 For, as St. Paul reminds us, “ who hath 
 known the mind of the Lord, or who hath 
 been his counsellor ? ” 
 
 It is in this sense that I accept Mr. 
 
Preface . xxv 
 
 Spencer’s doctrine of the Unknowable. 
 How far my interpretation agrees with his 
 own I do not undertake to say. On such 
 an abstruse matter it is best that one 
 should simply speak for one’s self. But in 
 his recent essay on “ Retrogressive Re¬ 
 ligion ” he uses expressions which imply 
 a doctrine of theism essentially similar to 
 that here maintained. The “ infinite and 
 eternal Energy from which all things pro¬ 
 ceed/’ and which is the same power that 
 “in ourselves wells up under the form of 
 consciousness,” is certainly the power 
 which is here recognized as God. The 
 term “Unknowable” I have carefully re¬ 
 frained from using; it does not occur in 
 the text of this essay. It describes only 
 one aspect of Deity, but it has been seized 
 upon by shallow writers of every school, 
 treated as if fully synonymous with Deity, 
 and made the theme of the most dismal 
 twaddle that the world has been deluged 
 with since the days of mediaeval scholasti¬ 
 cism. The latest instance is the wretched 
 
XXVI 
 
 Preface . 
 
 positivist rubbish which Mr. Frederic Har¬ 
 rison has mistaken for criticism, and to 
 which it is almost a pity that Mr. Spencer 
 should have felt called upon to waste his 
 valuable time in replying. That which 
 Mr. Spencer throughout all his works re¬ 
 gards as the All-Being, the Power of which 
 “ our lives, alike physical and mental, in 
 common with all the activities, organic 
 and inorganic, amid which we live, are but 
 the workings,” — this omnipresent Power 
 it pleases Mr. Harrison to call the “ All- 
 Nothingness,” to describe it as “a logical 
 formula begotten in controversy, dwelling 
 apart from man and the world ” (whatever 
 all that may mean), and to imagine its wor¬ 
 shippers as thus addressing it in prayer, 
 “ O x n , love us, help us, make us one with 
 thee! ” If Mr. Harrison’s aim were to 
 understand, rather than to misrepresent, 
 the religious attitude which goes with such 
 a conception of Deity as Mr. Spencer’s, 
 he could nowhere find it more happily ex¬ 
 pressed than in these wonderful lines of 
 Goethe: — 
 
Preface. xxvii 
 
 " Weltseele, komm, uns zu durchdringen I 
 Dann mit dem Weltgeist selbst zu ringen 
 Wird unsrer Krafte Hochberuf. 
 Theilnehmend fiihren gute Geister, 
 
 Gelinde leitend, hochste Meister, 
 
 Zu dem der alles schafft und schuf.” 
 
 Mr. Harrison is enabled to perform his 
 antics simply because he happens to have 
 such a word as “Unknowable” to play 
 with. Yet the word which has been put 
 to such unseemly uses is, when properly 
 understood, of the highest value in theis- 
 tic philosophy. That Deity per se is not 
 only unknown but unknowable is a truth 
 which Mr. Spencer has illustrated with all 
 the resources of that psychologic analysis 
 of which he is incomparably the greatest 
 master the world has ever seen ; but it 
 is not a truth which originated with him, 
 or the demonstration of which is tanta¬ 
 mount, as Mr. Harrison would have us 
 believe, to the destruction of all religion. 
 Among all the Christian theologians that 
 have lived, there are few higher names 
 than Athanasius, who also regarded Deity 
 
xxviii Preface . 
 
 per se as unknowable, being revealed to 
 mankind only through incarnation in 
 Christ. It is not as failing to recognize 
 its value that I have refrained in this essay 
 from using the term “ Unknowable; ” it is 
 because so many false and stupid infer¬ 
 ences have been drawn from Mr. Spencer’s 
 use of the word that it seemed worth while 
 to show how a doctrine essentially similar 
 to his might be expounded without intro¬ 
 ducing it. For further elucidation I will 
 simply repeat in this connection what I 
 wrote long ago: “ It is enough to re¬ 
 mind the reader that Deity is unknowable 
 just in so far as it is not manifested to 
 consciousness through the phenomenal 
 world,—knowable just in so far as it is 
 thus manifested : unknowable in so far as 
 infinite and absolute, — knowable in the 
 order of its phenomenal manifestations; 
 knowable, in a symbolic way, as the Power 
 which is disclosed in every throb of the 
 mighty rhythmic life of the universe; 
 knowable as the eternal Source of a Moral 
 
Preface. xxix 
 
 Law which is implicated with each action 
 of our lives, and in obedience to which lies 
 our only guaranty of the happiness which 
 is incorruptible, and which neither inevi¬ 
 table misfortune nor unmerited obloquy 
 can take away. Thus, though we may not 
 by searching find out God, though we may 
 not compass infinitude or attain to abso¬ 
 lute knowledge, we may at least know all 
 that it concerns us to know, as intelligent 
 and responsible beings. They who seek 
 to know more than this, to transcend the 
 conditions under which alone is knowl¬ 
 edge possible, are, in Goethe’s profound 
 language, as wise as little children who, 
 when they have looked into a mirror, turn 
 it around to see what is behind it. (“ Cos¬ 
 mic Philosophy,” vol. ii. p. 470.) 
 
 The present essay must be regarded as 
 a sequel to the “Destiny of Man,”—so 
 much so that the force of the argument 
 in the concluding section can hardly be 
 appreciated without reference to the other 
 
xxx Preface. 
 
 book. The two books, taken together, 
 contain the bare outlines of a theory of 
 religion which I earnestly hope at some 
 future time to state elaborately in a work 
 on the true nature of Christianity. Some 
 such scheme had begun vaguely to dawn 
 upon my mind when I was fourteen years 
 old, and thought in the language of the 
 rigid Calvinistic orthodoxy then prevalent 
 in New England. After many and exten¬ 
 sive changes of opinion, the idea assumed 
 definite shape in the autumn of 1869, when 
 I conceived the plan of a book to be entitled 
 “Jesus of Nazareth and the Founding of 
 Christianity,” — a work intended to deal 
 on the one hand with the natural genesis 
 of the complex aggregate of beliefs and as¬ 
 pirations known as Christianity, and on the 
 other hand with the metamorphoses which 
 are being wrought in this aggregate by 
 modern knowledge and modern theories 
 of the universe. Such a book, involv¬ 
 ing a treatment both historical and phil¬ 
 osophical, requires long and varied prep* 
 
Preface . xxxi 
 
 aration ; and I have always regarded my 
 other books, published from time to time, 
 as simply wayside studies preliminary to 
 the undertaking of this complicated and 
 difficult task. While thus habitually shap¬ 
 ing my work with reference to this cher¬ 
 ished idea, I have written some things 
 which are in a special sense related to it. 
 The rude outlines of a very small portion 
 of the historical treatment are contained 
 in the essays on “The Jesus of History,” 
 and “The Christ of Dogma,” published in 
 the volume entitled “ The Unseen World, 
 and Other Essays.” The outlines of the 
 philosophical treatment are partially set 
 forth in the “ Destiny of Man ” and in the 
 present work. 
 
 It amused me to see that almost every re¬ 
 view of the “ Destiny of Man ” took pains 
 to state that it was my Concord address 
 “rewritten and expanded.” Such trifles 
 help one to understand the helter-skelter 
 way in which more important things get 
 said and believed. The “ Destiny of 
 
xxxii Preface . 
 
 Man ” was printed exactly as it was de¬ 
 livered at Concord, without the addition, 
 or subtraction, or alteration of a single 
 word. The case is the same with the 
 present work. 
 
 Petersham, September 6, 1885. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 -G-- 
 
 /. Difficulty of expressing the Idea of God so 
 
 that it can he readily understood ... 35 
 
 II. The ‘Rapid Growth of Modern Knowledge . 46 
 
 III. Sources of the Theistic Idea . 62 
 
 IK. Development of Monotheism .72 
 
 K. The Idea of God as immanent in the World. 81 • 
 
 KI. The Idea of God as remote from the World. 87 
 
 KII. Conflict between the Two Ideas, commonly 
 misunderstood as a Conflict between Re¬ 
 ligion and Science .P7 
 
 Kill. Anthropomorphic Conceptions of God . . /// 
 
 IX. The Argument from Design . 118 
 
 X. Simile of the Watch replaced by Simile of 
 
 the Flower . 128 
 
 XI. The Craving for a Final Cause . . . .174 
 
 XII. Symbolic Conceptions . 140 
 
 XIII. The Eternal Source of Phenomena . . . 144 
 
 XIK. The Power that mahes for Righteousness . /58 
 

 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
31 ot)n jfiske’tf Writings* 
 
 —♦— 
 
 MYTHS AND MYTHMAKERS: Old Tales and Su¬ 
 perstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. i2mo, 
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THE IDEA OF GOD. 
 
 I. 
 
 c Difficulty of expressing the Idea of God so 
 that it can he readily understood. 
 
 N Goethe’s great poem, while Faust 
 is walking with Margaret at even¬ 
 tide in the garden, she asks him 
 questions about his religion. It is long 
 since he has been shriven or attended 
 mass; does he, then, believe in God? — a 
 question easy to answer with a simple yes, 
 were it not for the form in which it is put. 
 The great scholar and subtle thinker, who 
 has delved in the deepest mines of philoso¬ 
 phy and come forth weary and heavy-laden 
 with their boasted treasures, has framed 
 a very different conception of God from 
 that entertained by the priest at the con- 
 
36 The Idea of God . 
 
 fessional or the altar, and how is he to 
 make this intelligible to the simple-minded 
 girl that walks by his side? Who will 
 make bold to declare that he can grasp an 
 idea of such overwhelming vastness as the 
 idea of God, yet who that hath the feel¬ 
 ings of a man can bring himself to cast 
 away a belief that is indispensable to the 
 rational and healthful workings of the 
 mind ? So long as the tranquil dome of 
 heaven is raised above our heads and the 
 firm-set earth is spread forth beneath our 
 feet, while the everlasting stars course in 
 their mighty orbits and the lover gazes 
 with ineffable tenderness into the eyes of 
 her that loves him, so long, says Faust, 
 must our hearts go out toward Him that 
 upholds and comprises all. Name or de¬ 
 scribe as we may the Sustainer of the 
 world, the eternal fact remains there, far 
 above our comprehension, yet clearest and 
 most real of all facts. To name and de¬ 
 scribe it, to bring it within the formulas 
 of theory or creed, is but to veil its glory 
 
The Idea of God . 37 
 
 as when the brightness of heaven is en¬ 
 shrouded in mist and smoke. This has 
 a pleasant sound to Margaret’s ears. It 
 reminds her of what the parson some¬ 
 times says, though couched in very differ¬ 
 ent phrases; and yet she remains uneasy 
 and unsatisfied. Her mind is benumbed 
 by the presence of an idea confessedly too 
 great to be grasped. She feels the need 
 of some concrete symbol that can be read¬ 
 ily apprehended ; and she hopes that her 
 lover has not been learning bad lessons 
 from Mephistopheles. 
 
 The difficulty which here besets Marga¬ 
 ret must doubtless have been felt by every 
 one when confronted with the thoughts by 
 which the highest human minds have en¬ 
 deavoured to disclose the hidden life of 
 the universe and interpret its meaning. It 
 is a difficulty which baffles many, and they 
 who surmount it are few indeed. Most 
 people content themselves through life 
 with a set of concrete formulas concerning 
 Deity, and vituperate as atheistic all con- 
 
$8 The Idea of God . 
 
 ceptions which refuse to be compressed 
 within the narrow limits of their creed. 
 For the great mass of men the idea of 
 God is quite overlaid and obscured by in¬ 
 numerable symbolic rites and doctrines 
 that have grown up in the course of the 
 long historic development of religion. All 
 such rites and doctrines had a meaning 
 once, beautiful and inspiring or terrible 
 and forbidding, and many of them still 
 retain it. But whether meaningless or 
 fraught with significance, men have wildly 
 clung to them as shipwrecked mariners 
 cling to the drifting spars that alone give 
 promise of rescue from threatening death. 
 Such concrete symbols have in all ages 
 been argued and fought for until they have 
 come to seem the essentials of religion; 
 and new moons and sabbaths, decrees of 
 councils and articles of faith, have usurped 
 the place of the living God. In every age 
 the theory or discovery — however pro¬ 
 foundly theistic in its real import — which 
 has thrown discredit upon such symbols 
 
The Idea of God. 39 
 
 has been stigmatized as subversive of re¬ 
 ligion, and its adherents have been reviled 
 and persecuted. It is, of course, inevita¬ 
 ble that this should be so. To the half- 
 educated mind a theory of divine action 
 couched in the form of a legend, in which 
 God is depicted as entertaining human 
 purposes and swayed by human passions, 
 is not only intelligible, but impressive. It 
 awakens emotion, it speaks to the heart, 
 it threatens the sinner with wrath to come 
 or heals the wounded spirit with sweet 
 whispers of consolation. However myth¬ 
 ical the form in which it is presented, 
 however literally false the statements of 
 which it is composed, it seems profoundly 
 real and substantial. Just in so far as it 
 is crudely concrete, just in so far as its 
 terms can be vividly realized by the ordi¬ 
 nary mind, does such a theological theory 
 seem weighty and true. On the other 
 hand, a theory of divine action which, dis¬ 
 carding as far as possible the aid of con¬ 
 crete symbols, attempts to include within 
 
40 The Idea of God. 
 
 its range the endlessly complex operations 
 that are forever going on throughout the 
 length and breadth of the knowable uni¬ 
 verse,— such a theory is to the ordinary 
 mind unintelligible. It awakens no emo¬ 
 tion because it is not understood. Though 
 it may be the nearest approximation to 
 the truth of which the human intellect is 
 at the present moment capable, though 
 the statements of which it is composed 
 may be firmly based upon demonstrated 
 facts in nature, it will nevertheless seem 
 eminently unreal and uninteresting. The 
 dullest peasant can understand you when 
 you tell him that honey is sweet, while a 
 statement that the ratio of the circumfer¬ 
 ence of a circle to its diameter may be 
 expressed by the formula tt = 3 -I 4 I 59 
 will sound as gibberish in his ears ; yet 
 the truth embodied in the latter statement 
 is far more closely implicated with every 
 act of the peasant’s life, if he only knew 
 it, than the truth expressed in the former. 
 So the merest child may know enough to 
 
The Idea of God. 41 
 
 marvel at the Hebrew legend of the burn¬ 
 ing bush, but only the ripest scholar can 
 begin to understand the character of the 
 mighty problems with which Spinoza was 
 grappling when he had so much to say 
 about natura naturans and natara natn- 
 rata. 
 
 For these reasons all attempts to study 
 God as revealed in the workings of the 
 visible universe, and to characterize the 
 divine activity in terms derived from such 
 study, have met with discouragement, if 
 not with obloquy. As substituting a less 
 easily comprehensible formula for one that 
 is more easily comprehensible, they seem 
 to be frittering away the idea of God, 
 and reducing it to an empty abstraction. 
 There is a further reason for the dread 
 with which such studies are commonly re¬ 
 garded. The theories of divine action ac¬ 
 cepted as orthodox by the men of any age 
 have been bequeathed to them by their 
 forefathers of an earlier age. They were 
 originally framed with reference to as- 
 
42 The Idea of God. 
 
 sumed facts of nature which advancing 
 knowledge is continually discrediting and 
 throwing aside. Each forward step in 
 physical science obliges us to contemplate 
 the universe from a somewhat altered point 
 of view, so that the mutual relations of its 
 parts keep changing as in an ever-shifting 
 landscape. The notions of the world and 
 its Maker with which we started by and 
 by prove meagre and unsatisfying; they 
 no longer fit in with the general scheme 
 of our knowledge. Hence the men who 
 are wedded to the old notions are quick to 
 sound the alarm. They would fain deter 
 us from taking the forward step which 
 carries us to a new standpoint. Beware 
 of science, they cry, lest with its dazzling 
 discoveries and adventurous speculations 
 it rob us of our souks comfort and leave 
 us in a godless world. Such in every age 
 has been the cry of the more timid and 
 halting spirits ; and their fears have found 
 apparent confirmation in the behaviour of 
 a very different class of thinkers. As there 
 
The Idea of God. 43 
 
 are those who live in perpetual dread of 
 the time when science shall banish God 
 from the world, so, on the other hand, 
 there are those who • look forward with 
 longing to such a time, and in their impa¬ 
 tience are continually starting up and pro¬ 
 claiming that at last it has come. There 
 are those who have indeed learned a les¬ 
 son from Mephistopheles, the “ spirit that 
 forever denies.” These are they that say 
 in their hearts, “There is no God,” and 
 “congratulate themselves that they are 
 going to die like the beasts.” Rushing 
 into the holiest arcana of philosophy, even 
 where angels fear to tread, they lay hold 
 of each new discovery in science that mod¬ 
 ifies our view of the universe, and herald 
 it as a crowning victory for the material¬ 
 ists,— a victory which is ushering in the 
 happy day when atheism is to be the creed 
 of all men. It is in view of such philoso¬ 
 phizers that the astronomer, the chemist, 
 or the anatomist, whose aim is the dispas¬ 
 sionate examination of evidence and the 
 
44 
 
 The Idea of God. 
 
 unbiassed study of phenomena, may fitly 
 utter the prayer, “ Lord, save me from my 
 friends! ” 
 
 Thus through age after age has it fared 
 with men’s discoveries in science, and with 
 their thoughts about God and the soul. 
 It was so in the days of Galileo and New¬ 
 ton, and we have found it to be so in the 
 days of Darwin and Spencer. The the¬ 
 ologian exclaims, If planets are held in 
 place by gravitation and tangential mo¬ 
 mentum, and if the highest forms of life 
 have been developed by natural selection 
 and direct adaptation, then the universe 
 is swayed by blind forces, and nothing is 
 left for God to do : how impious and ter¬ 
 rible the thought! Even so, echoes the fa¬ 
 vourite atheist, the Lamettrie or Buchner 
 of the day; the universe, it seems, has 
 always got on without a God, and accord¬ 
 ingly there is none : how noble and cheer¬ 
 ing the thought! And as thus age after 
 age they wrangle, with their eyes turned 
 away from the light, the world goes on to 
 
The Idea of God. 45 
 
 larger and larger knowledge in spite of 
 them, and does not lose its faith, for all 
 these darkeners of counsel may say. As 
 in the roaring loom of Time the endless 
 web of events is woven, each strand shall 
 make more and more clearly visible the 
 living garment of God. 
 
II. 
 
 The Rapid Growth of [Modern Knowledge. 
 
 T no time since men have dwelt 
 upon the earth have their notions 
 about the universe undergone so 
 great a change as in the century of which 
 we are now approaching the end. Never 
 before has knowledge increased so rapidly; 
 never before has philosophical speculation 
 been so actively conducted, or its results 
 so widely diffused. It is a characteristic 
 of organic evolution that numerous pro¬ 
 gressive tendencies, for a long time incon¬ 
 spicuous, now and then unite to bring about 
 a striking and apparently sudden change ; 
 or a set of forces, quietly accumulating in 
 one direction, at length unlock some new 
 reservoir of force and abruptly inaugurate 
 a new series of phenomena, as when water 
 rises in a tank until its overflow sets whirl- 
 
The Idea of God . 47 
 
 ing a system of toothed wheels. It may 
 be that Nature makes no leaps, but in this 
 way she now and then makes very long 
 strides. It is in this way that the course 
 of organic development is marked here and 
 there by memorable epochs, which seem to 
 open new chapters in the history of the 
 universe. There was such an epoch when 
 the common ancestor of ascidian and am- 
 phioxus first showed rudimentary traces of 
 a vertebral column. There was such an 
 epoch when the air-bladder of early am¬ 
 phibians began to do duty as a lung. 
 Greatest of all, since the epoch, still hidden 
 from our ken, when organic life began upon 
 the surface of the globe, was the birth of 
 that new era when, through a wondrous 
 change in the direction of the working of 
 natural selection, Humanity appeared upon 
 the scene. In the career of the human 
 race we can likewise point to periods in 
 which it has become apparent that an im¬ 
 mense stride was taken. Such a period 
 marks the dawning of human history, when 
 
48 The Idea of God. 
 
 after countless ages of desultory tribal war¬ 
 fare men succeeded in uniting into com¬ 
 paratively stable political societies, and 
 through the medium of written language 
 began handing down to posterity the record 
 of their thoughts and deeds. Since that 
 morning twilight of history there has been 
 no era so strongly marked, no change so 
 swift or so far-reaching in the conditions of 
 human life, as that which began with the 
 great maritime discoveries of the fifteenth 
 century and is approaching its culmination 
 to-day. In its earlier stages this modern 
 era was signalized by sporadic achievements 
 of the human intellect, great in themselves 
 and leading to such stupendous results as 
 the boldest dared not dream of. Such 
 achievements were the invention of print¬ 
 ing, the telescope and microscope, the 
 geometry of Descartes, the astronomy of 
 -Newton, the physics of Huyghens, the 
 physiology of Harvey. Man’s senses were 
 thus indefinitely enlarged as his means of 
 registration were perfected ; he became 
 
The Idea of God. 4g 
 
 capable of extending physical inferences 
 from the earth to the heavens; and he made 
 his first acquaintance with that luminiferous 
 ether which was by and by to reveal the 
 intimate structure of matter in regions far 
 beyond the power of the microscope to 
 penetrate. 
 
 It is only within the present century that 
 the vastness of the changes thus beginning 
 to be wrought has become apparent. The 
 scientific achievements of the human intel¬ 
 lect no longer occur sporadically : they fol¬ 
 low one upon another, like the organized 
 and systematic conquests of a resistless 
 army. Each new discovery becomes at 
 once a powerful implement in the hands 
 of innumerable workers, and each year 
 wins over fresh regions of the universe 
 from the unknown to the known. Our own 
 generation has become so wonted to this 
 unresting march of discovery that we al¬ 
 ready take it as quite a matter of course. 
 Our minds become easily deadened to its 
 real import, and the examples we cite in 
 
 4 
 
jo The Idea of God . 
 
 illustration of it have an air of triteness. 
 We scarcely need to be reminded that all 
 the advances made in locomotion, from the 
 days of Nebuchadnezzar to those of Andrew 
 Jackson, were as nothing compared to the 
 change that has been wrought within a few 
 years by the introduction of railroads. In 
 these times, when Puck has fulfilled his 
 boast and put a girdle about the earth in 
 forty minutes, we are not yet perhaps in 
 danger of forgetting that a century has not 
 elapsed since he who caught the lightning 
 upon his kite was laid in the grave. Yet 
 the lesson of these facts, as well as of the 
 grandmother’s spinning-wheel that stands 
 by the parlour fireside, is well to bear 
 in mind. The change therein exemplified 
 since Penelope plied her distaff is far less 
 than that which has occurred within the 
 memory of living men. The developments 
 of machinery, which have worked such 
 wonders, have greatly altered the political 
 conditions of human society, so that a huge 
 republic like the United States is now as 
 
The Idea of God . 5 / 
 
 snug and compact and easily manageable 
 as the tiny republic of Switzerland in the 
 eighteenth century. The number of men 
 that can live upon a given area of the 
 earth’s surface has been multiplied mani¬ 
 fold, and while the mass of human life has 
 thus increased its value has been at the 
 same time enhanced. 
 
 In these various applications of physical 
 theory to the industrial arts, countless 
 minds, of a class that formerly were not 
 reached by scientific reasoning at all, are 
 now brought into daily contact with com¬ 
 plex and subtle operations of matter, and 
 their habits of thought are thus notably 
 modified. Meanwhile, in the higher regions 
 of chemistry and molecular physics the 
 progress has been such that no description 
 can do it justice. When we reflect that a 
 fourth generation has barely had time to 
 appear on the scene since Priestley discov¬ 
 ered that there was such a thing as oxygen, 
 we stand awestruck before the stupendous 
 pile of chemical science which has been 
 
^2 The Idea of God . 
 
 reared in this brief interval. Our knowl¬ 
 edge thus gained of the molecular and 
 atomic structure of matter has been alone 
 sufficient to remodel our conceptions of 
 the universe from beginning to end. The 
 case of molecular physics is equally strik¬ 
 ing. The theory of the conservation of 
 energy, and the discovery that light, heat, 
 electricity, and magnetism are differently 
 conditioned modes of undulatory motion 
 transformable each into the other, are not 
 yet fifty years old. In physical astronomy 
 we remained until 1839 confined within 
 the limits of the solar system, and even 
 here the Newtonian theory had not yet won 
 its crowning triumph in the discovery of 
 the planet Neptune. To-day we not only 
 measure the distances and movements of 
 many stars, but by means of spectrum 
 analysis are able to tell what they are made 
 of. It is more than a century since the 
 nebular hypothesis, by which we explain 
 the development of stellar systems, was 
 first propounded by Immanuel Kant, but 
 
The Idea of God. 53 
 
 it is only within thirty years that it has 
 been generally adopted by astronomers; 
 and among the outward illustrations of its 
 essential soundness none is more remarka¬ 
 ble than its surviving such an enlargement 
 of our knowledge. Coming to the geologic 
 study of the changes that have taken place 
 on the earth’s surface, it was in 1830 that 
 Sir Charles Lyell published the book which 
 first placed this study upon a scientific 
 basis. Cuvier’s classification of past and 
 present forms of animal life, which laid 
 the foundations alike of comparative anat¬ 
 omy and of palaeontology, came but little 
 earlier. The cell-doctrine of Schleiden and 
 Schwann, prior to which modern biology 
 can hardly be said to have existed, dates 
 from 1839; and it was only ten years be¬ 
 fore that the scientific treatment of embry¬ 
 ology began with Von Baer. At the pres¬ 
 ent moment, twenty-six years have not 
 elapsed since the epoch-making work of 
 Darwin first announced to the world the 
 discovery of natural selection. 
 
54 The Idea of God. 
 
 In the cycle of studies which are imme¬ 
 diately concerned with the career of man¬ 
 kind, the rate of progress has been no less 
 marvellous. The scientific study of human 
 speech may be said to date from the flash 
 of insight which led Friedrich Schlegel in 
 1808 to detect the kinship between the 
 Aryan languages. From this beginning 
 to the researches of Fick and Ascoli in 
 our own time, the quantity of achievement 
 rivals anything the physical sciences can 
 show. The study of comparative mythol¬ 
 ogy, which has thrown such light upon 
 the primitive thoughts of mankind, is still 
 younger, — is still, indeed, in its infancy. 
 The application of the comparative method 
 to the investigation of laws and customs, 
 of political and ecclesiastical and indus^ 
 trial systems, has been carried on scarcely 
 thirty years ; yet the results already ob¬ 
 tained are obliging us to rewrite the his¬ 
 tory of mankind in all its stages. The 
 great achievements of archaeologists — the 
 decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and 
 
The Idea of God . 55 
 
 of cuneiform inscriptions in Assyria and 
 Persia, the unearthing of ancient cities, 
 the discovery and classification of primeval 
 implements and works of art in all quar¬ 
 ters of the globe — belong almost entirely 
 to the nineteenth century. These discov¬ 
 eries, which have well-nigh doubled for us 
 the length of the historic period, have 
 united with the quite modern revelations 
 of geology concerning the ancient glacia¬ 
 tion of the temperate zones, to give us an 
 approximate idea of the age of the human 
 race 1 and the circumstances attending its 
 diffusion over the earth. It has thus at 
 length become possible to obtain some¬ 
 thing like the outlines of a comprehensive 
 view of the history of the creation, from 
 the earliest stages of condensation of our 
 solar nebula down to the very time in 
 which we live, and to infer from the char¬ 
 acteristics of this past evolution some of 
 the most general tendencies of the future. 
 
 All this accumulation of physical and 
 historical knowledge has not failed to re- 
 
$6 The Idea of God. 
 
 act upon our study of the human mind 
 itself. In books of logic the score of cen¬ 
 turies between Aristotle and Whately saw 
 less advance than the few years between 
 Whately and Mill. In psychology the 
 work of Fechner and Wundt and Spencer 
 belongs to the age in which we are now 
 living. When to all this variety of achieve¬ 
 ment we add what has been done in the 
 critical study of literature and art, of clas¬ 
 sical and Biblical philology, and of met¬ 
 aphysics and theology, illustrating from 
 fresh points of view the history of the hu¬ 
 man mind, the sum total becomes almost 
 too vast to be comprehended. This cen¬ 
 tury, which some have called an age of 
 iron, has been also an age of ideas, an era 
 of seeking and finding the like of which 
 was never known before. It is an epoch 
 the grandeur of which dwarfs all others 
 that can be named since the beginning 
 of the historic period, if not since Man 
 first became distinctively human. In their 
 mental habits, in their methods of inquiry. 
 
The Idea of God. 57 
 
 and in the data at their command, “ the 
 men of the present day who have fully 
 kept pace with the scientific movement are 
 separated from the men whose education 
 ended in 1830 by an immeasurably wider 
 gulf than has ever before divided one pro¬ 
 gressive generation of men from their pre¬ 
 decessors.” 2 The intellectual development 
 of the human race has been suddenly, al¬ 
 most abruptly, raised to a higher plane 
 than that upon which it had proceeded 
 from the days of the primitive troglodyte 
 to the days of our great-grandfathers. It 
 is characteristic of this higher plane of de¬ 
 velopment that the progress which until 
 lately was so slow must henceforth be 
 rapid. Men’s minds are becoming more 
 flexible, the resistance to innovation is 
 weakening, and our intellectual demands 
 are multiplying while the means of satis¬ 
 fying them are increasing. Vast as are 
 the achievements we have just passed in 
 review, the gaps in our knowledge are im¬ 
 mense, and every problem that is solved 
 
5<§ The Idea of God. 
 
 but opens a dozen new problems that await 
 solution. Under such circumstances there 
 is no likelihood that the last word will soon 
 be said on any subject. In the eyes of 
 the twenty-first century the science of the 
 nineteenth will doubtless seem very frag¬ 
 mentary and crude. But the men of that 
 day, and of all future time, will no doubt 
 point back to the age just passing away 
 as the opening of a new dispensation, the 
 dawning of an era in which the intellect¬ 
 ual development of mankind was raised to 
 a higher plane than that upon which it had 
 hitherto proceeded. 
 
 As the inevitable result of the thronging 
 discoveries just enumerated, we find our¬ 
 selves in the midst of a mighty revolution 
 in human thought. Time-honoured creeds 
 are losing their hold upon men; ancient 
 symbols are shorn of their value; every¬ 
 thing is called in question. The contro¬ 
 versies of the day are not like those of 
 former times. It is no longer a question 
 of hermeneutics, no longer a struggle be- 
 
The Idea of God. 59 
 
 tween abstruse dogmas of rival churches. 
 Religion itself is called upon to show why 
 it should any longer claim our allegiance. 
 There are those who deny the existence 
 of God. There are those who would ex¬ 
 plain away the human soul as a mere 
 group of fleeting phenomena attendant 
 upon the collocation of sundry particles of 
 matter. And there are many others who, 
 without committing themselves to these 
 positions of the atheist and the material¬ 
 ist, have nevertheless come to regard re¬ 
 ligion as practically ruled out from human 
 affairs. No religious creed that man has 
 ever devised can be made to harmonize in 
 all its features with modern knowledge. 
 All such creeds were constructed with ref¬ 
 erence to theories of the universe which 
 are now utterly and hopelessly discredited. 
 How, then, it is asked, amid the general 
 wreck of old beliefs, can we hope that the 
 religious attitude in which from time im¬ 
 memorial we have been wont to contem¬ 
 plate the universe can any longer be main- 
 
60 The Idea of God . 
 
 tained? Is not the belief in God perhaps 
 a dream of the childhood of our race, like 
 the belief in elves and bogarts which once 
 was no less universal ? and is not modern 
 science fast destroying the one as it has 
 already destroyed the other ? 
 
 Such are the questions which we daily 
 hear asked, sometimes with flippant eager¬ 
 ness, but oftener with anxious dread. In 
 view of them it is well worth while to 
 examine the idea of God, as it has been 
 entertained by mankind from the earliest 
 ages, and as it is affected by the knowl¬ 
 edge of the universe which we have ac¬ 
 quired in recent times. If we find in that 
 idea, as conceived by untaught thinkers in 
 the twilight of antiquity, an element that 
 still survives the widest and deepest gen¬ 
 eralizations of modern times, we have the 
 strongest possible reason for believing that 
 the idea is permanent and answers to an 
 Eternal Reality. It was to be expected 
 that conceptions of Deity handed down 
 from primitive men should undergo seri- 
 
The Idea of God. 61 
 
 ous modification. If it can be shown that 
 the essential element in these conceptions 
 must survive the enormous additions to 
 our knowledge which have distinguished 
 the present age above all others since man 
 became man, then we may believe that it 
 will endure so long as man endures ; for it 
 is not likely that it can ever be called upon 
 to pass a severer ordeal. 
 
 All this will presently appear in a still 
 stronger light, when we have set forth the 
 common characteristic of the modifications 
 which the idea of God has already under¬ 
 gone, and the nature of the opposition be¬ 
 tween the old and the new knowledge with 
 which we are now confronted. Upon this 
 discussion we have now to enter, and we 
 shall find it leading us to the conclusion 
 that throughout all possible advances in 
 human knowledge, so far as we can see, 
 the essential position of theism must re¬ 
 main unshaken. 
 
III. 
 
 Sources of the Theistic Idea . 
 
 UR argument may fitly begin with 
 an inquiry into the sources of the 
 theistic idea and the shape which 
 it has universally assumed among untu¬ 
 tored men. The most primitive element 
 which it contains is doubtless the notion 
 of dependence upon something outside of 
 ourselves. We are born into a world con¬ 
 sisting of forces which sway our lives and 
 over which we can exercise no control. 
 The individual man can indeed make his 
 volition count for a very little in modify¬ 
 ing the course of events, but this end 
 necessitates strict and unceasing obedi¬ 
 ence to powers that cannot be tampered 
 with. To the behaviour of these external 
 powers our actions must be adapted under 
 penalty of death. And upon grounds no 
 
The Idea of God. 63 
 
 less firm than those on which we believe 
 in any externality whatever, we recognize 
 that these forces antedated our birth and 
 will endure after we have disappeared 
 from the scene. No one supposes that he 
 makes the world for himself, so that it is 
 born and dies with him. Every one per¬ 
 force contemplates the world as something 
 existing independently of himself, as some¬ 
 thing into which he has come, and from 
 which he is to go ; and for his coming 
 and his going, as well as for what he does 
 while part of the world, he is dependent 
 upon something that is not himself. 
 
 Between ancient and modern man, as 
 between the child and the adult, there can 
 be no essential difference in the recogni¬ 
 tion of this fundamental fact of life. The 
 primitive man could not, indeed, state the 
 case in this generalized form, any more 
 than a young child could state it, but the 
 facts which the statement covers were as 
 real to him as they are to us.* The prim- 
 
 * See note A at the end of the volume. 
 
64 The Idea of God. 
 
 itive man knew nothing of a world, in the 
 modern sense of the word. The concep¬ 
 tion of that vast consensus of forces which 
 we call the world or universe is a some¬ 
 what late result of culture; it was reached 
 only through ages of experience and re¬ 
 flection. Such an idea lay beyond the 
 horizon of the primitive man. But while 
 he knew not the world, he knew bits and 
 pieces of it ; or, to vary the expression, he 
 had his little world, chaotic and fragmen¬ 
 tary enough, but full of dread reality for 
 him. He knew what it was to deal from 
 birth until death with powers far mightier 
 than himself. To explain these powers, to 
 make their actions in any wise intelligible, 
 he had but one available resource ; and 
 this was so obvious that he could not fail 
 to employ it. The only source of action 
 of which he knew anything, since it was 
 the only source which lay within himself, 
 was the human will ; 3 and in this respect, 
 after all, the philosophy of the primeval 
 savage was not so very far removed from 
 
The Idea of God. 65 
 
 that of the modern scientific thinker. The 
 primitive man could see that his own ac¬ 
 tions were prompted by desire and guided 
 by intelligence, and he supposed the same 
 to be the case with the sun and the wind, 
 the frost and the lightning. All the forces 
 of outward nature, so far as they came 
 into visible contact with his life, he per¬ 
 sonified as great beings which were to be 
 contended with or placated. This prime¬ 
 val philosophy, once universal among men, 
 has lasted far into the historic period, and 
 it is only slowly and bit by bit that it has 
 been outgrown by the most highly civil¬ 
 ized races. Indeed the half-civilized ma¬ 
 jority of mankind have by no means as 
 yet cast it aside, and among savage tribes 
 we may still see it persisting in all its 
 original crudity. In the mythologies of 
 all peoples, of the Greeks and Hindus and 
 Norsemen, as well as of the North Ameri¬ 
 can Indians and the dwellers in the South 
 Sea islands, we find the sun personified 
 as an archer or wanderer, the clouds as 
 
 5 
 
66 The Idea of God. 
 
 gigantic birds, the tempest as a devouring 
 dragon ; and the tales of gods and heroes, 
 as well as of trolls and fairies, are made 
 up of scattered and distorted fragments 
 of nature-myths, of which the primitive 
 meaning had long been forgotten when 
 the ingenuity of modern scholarship laid 
 it bare. 4 
 
 In all this personification of physical 
 phenomena our prehistoric ancestors were 
 greatly assisted by that theory of ghosts 
 which was perhaps the earliest speculative 
 effort of the human mind. Travellers 
 have now and then reported the existence 
 of races of men quite destitute of religion, 
 or of what the observer has learned to 
 recognize as religion ; but no one has ever 
 discovered a race of men devoid of a belief 
 in ghosts. The mass of crude inference 
 which makes up the savage’s philosophy 
 of nature is largely based upon the hypoth¬ 
 esis that every man has another self\ a 
 double, or wraith, or ghost. This “hypoth¬ 
 esis of the other self which serves to ac- 
 
The Idea of God . 6y 
 
 count for the savage’s wanderings during 
 sleep in strange lands and among strange 
 people, serves also to account for the pres¬ 
 ence in his dreams of parents, comrades, 
 or enemies, known to be dead and buried. 
 The other self of the dreamer meets and 
 converses with the other selves of his dead 
 brethren, joins with them in the hunt, or 
 sits down with them to the wild cannibal 
 banquet. Thus arises the belief in an 
 ever-present world of ghosts, a belief which 
 the entire experience of uncivilized man 
 goes to strengthen and expand .” 5 Count¬ 
 less tales and superstitions of savage races 
 show that the hypothesis of the other self 
 is used to explain the phenomena of hys¬ 
 teria and epilepsy, of shadows, of echoes, 
 and even of the reflection of face and ges¬ 
 tures in still water. It is not only men, 
 moreover, who are provided with other 
 selves. Dumb beasts and plants, stone 
 hatchets and arrows, articles of clothing 
 and food, all have their ghosts ; 6 and when 
 the dead chief is buried, his wives and 
 
68 The Idea of God. 
 
 servants, his dogs and horses, are slain 
 to keep him company, and weapons and 
 trinkets are placed in his tomb to be used 
 in the spirit-land. Burial-places of primi¬ 
 tive men, ages before the dawn of history, 
 bear testimony to the immense antiquity 
 of this savage philosophy. From this 
 wholesale belief in ghosts to the interpre¬ 
 tation of the wind or the lightning as a 
 person animated by an indwelling soul and 
 endowed with quasi-human passions and 
 purposes, the step is not a long one. The 
 latter notion grows almost inevitably out 
 of the former, so that all races of men 
 without exception have entertained it. 
 That the mighty power which uproots 
 trees and drives the storm-clouds across 
 the sky should resemble a human soul is 
 to the savage an unavoidable inference. 
 “ If the fire burns down his hut, it is be¬ 
 cause the fire is a person with a soul, and 
 is angry with him, and needs to be coaxed 
 into a kindlier mood by means of prayer 
 or sacrifice.” He has no alternative but 
 
The Idea of God. 69 
 
 to regard fire-soul as something akin to 
 human-soul; his philosophy makes no dis¬ 
 tinction between the human ghost and the 
 elemental demon or deity. 
 
 It was in accordance with this primitive 
 theory of things that the earliest form of 
 religious worship was developed. In all 
 races of men, so far as can be determined, 
 this was the worship of ancestors . 7 The 
 other self of the dead chieftain continued 
 after death to watch over the interests of 
 the tribe, to defend it against the attacks 
 of enemies, to reward brave warriors, and 
 to punish traitors and cowards. His fa¬ 
 vour must be propitiated with ceremonies 
 like those in which a subject does homage 
 to a living ruler. If offended by neglect 
 or irreverent treatment, defeat in battle, 
 damage by flood or fire, visitations of fam¬ 
 ine or pestilence, were interpreted as 
 marks of his anger. Thus the spirits ani¬ 
 mating the forces of nature were often 
 identified with the ghosts of ancestors, and 
 mythology is filled with traces of the con- 
 
jo The Idea of God. 
 
 fusion. In the Vedic religion the pitris , 
 or “fathers,” live in the sky along with 
 Yama, the original pitri of mankind : they 
 are very busy with the weather ; they send 
 down rain to refresh the thirsty earth, or 
 anon parch the fields till the crops perish 
 of drought ; and they rush along in the 
 roaring tempest, like the weird host of the 
 wild huntsman Wodan. To the ancient 
 Greek the blue sky Uranos was the father 
 of gods and men, and throughout antiq¬ 
 uity this mingling of ancestor-worship with 
 nature-worship was general. With the 
 systematic development of ethnic relig¬ 
 ions, in some instances ancestor-worship 
 remained dominant, as with the Chinese, 
 the Japanese, and the Romans; in others, 
 a polytheism based upon nature-worship 
 acquired supremacy, as with the Hindus 
 and Greeks, and our own Teutonic fore¬ 
 fathers. The great divinities of the Hel¬ 
 lenic pantheon are all personifications of 
 physical phenomena. At a comparatively 
 late date the Roman adopted these divin- 
 
The Idea of God. ji 
 
 ities and paid to them a fashionable and 
 literary homage, but his solemn and heart¬ 
 felt rites were those with which he wor¬ 
 shipped the lares and penates in the pri¬ 
 vacy of his home. His hospitable treat¬ 
 ment of the gods of a vanquished people 
 was the symptom of a commingling of the 
 various local religions of antiquity which 
 insured their mutual destruction and pre¬ 
 pared the way for their absorption into a 
 far grander and truer system . 8 
 
IV. 
 
 Development of Monotheism. 
 
 UCH an allusion to the Romans, 
 in an exposition like the present 
 one, is not without its signifi¬ 
 cance. It was partly through political cir¬ 
 cumstances that a truly theistic idea was 
 developed out of the chaotic and fragmen¬ 
 tary ghost theories and nature-worship of 
 the primeval world. To the framing of 
 the vastest of all possible conceptions, the 
 idea of God, man came but slowly. This 
 nature-worship and ancestor-worship of 
 early times was scarcely theism. In their 
 recognition of man’s utter dependence 
 upon something outside of himself which 
 yet was not wholly unlike himself, these 
 primitive religions contained the essential 
 germ out of which theism was to grow ; 
 but it is a long way from the propitiation 
 
The Idea of God. 73 
 
 of ghosts and the adoration of the rising 
 sun to the worship of the infinite and 
 eternal God, the maker of heaven and 
 earth, in whom we live, and move, and 
 have our being. Before men could arrive 
 at such a conception, it was necessary for 
 them to obtain some integral idea of the 
 heaven and the earth ; it was necessary 
 for them to frame, however inadequately, 
 the conception of a physical universe. 
 Such a conception had been reached by 
 civilized peoples before the Christian era, 
 and by the Greeks a remarkable begin¬ 
 ning had been made in the generalization 
 and interpretation of physical phenomena. 
 The intellectual atmosphere of Alexan¬ 
 dria, for two centuries before and three 
 centuries after the time of Christ, was 
 more modern than anything that followed 
 down to the days of Bacon and Descartes; 
 and all the leaders of Greek thought since 
 Anaxagoras had been virtually or avowed¬ 
 ly monotheists. As the phenomena of na¬ 
 ture were generalized, the deities or super- 
 
j4 The Idea of God. 
 
 human beings regarded as their sources 
 were likewise generalized, until the con¬ 
 ception of nature as a whole gave rise to 
 the conception of a single Deity as the 
 author and ruler of nature ; and in accord¬ 
 ance with the order of its genesis, this 
 notion of Deity was still the notion of a 
 Being possessed of psychical attributes, 
 and in some way like unto Man. 
 
 But there was another cause, besides 
 scientific generalization, which led men’s 
 minds toward monotheism. The concep¬ 
 tion of tutelar deities, which was the most 
 prominent practical feature of ancestor- 
 worship, was directly affected by the po¬ 
 litical development of the peoples of an¬ 
 tiquity. As tribes were consolidated into 
 nations, the tutelar gods of the tribes be¬ 
 came generalized, or the god of some lead¬ 
 ing tribe came to supersede his fellows, 
 until the result was a single national deity, 
 at first regarded as the greatest among 
 gods, afterwards as the only God. The 
 most striking instance of this method of 
 
The Idea of God. 75 
 
 development is afforded by the Hebrew 
 conception of Jehovah. The most primi¬ 
 tive form of Hebrew religion discernible 
 in the Old Testament is a fetichism, or 
 very crude polytheism, in which ancestor- 
 worship becomes more prominent than 
 nature-worship. At first the teraphim , or 
 tutelar household deities, play an impor¬ 
 tant part, but nature-gods, such as Baal, 
 and Moloch, and Astarte, are extensively 
 worshipped. It is the plural elohim who 
 create the earth, and whose sons visit the 
 daughters of antediluvian men. The tute¬ 
 lar deity, Jehovah, is originally thought of 
 as one of the elohim , then as chief among 
 elohim , and Lord of the hosts of heaven. 
 Through his favour his chosen prophet 
 overcomes the prophets of Baal, he is 
 greater than the deities of neighbouring 
 peoples, he is the only true god, and thus 
 finally he is thought of as the only God, 
 and his name becomes the symbol of mon¬ 
 otheism. The Jews have always been one 
 of the most highly-gifted races in the 
 
7<5 The Idea of God. 
 
 world. In antiquity they developed an 
 intense sentiment of nationality, and for 
 earnestness and depth of ethical feeling 
 they surpassed all other peoples. The 
 conception of Jehovah set forth in the 
 writings of the prophets was the loftiest 
 conception of deity anywhere attained be¬ 
 fore the time of Christ; in ethical value 
 it immeasurably surpassed anything to be 
 found in the pantheon of the Greeks and 
 Romans. It was natural that such a 
 conception of deity should be adopted 
 throughout the Roman world. At the be¬ 
 ginning of the Christian era the classic 
 polytheism had well-nigh lost its hold upon 
 men’s minds ; its value had become chiefly 
 literary, as a mere collection of pretty sto¬ 
 ries ; it had begun its descent into the 
 humble realm of folk-lore. For want of 
 anything better people had recourse to 
 elaborate Eastern ceremonials, or con¬ 
 tented themselves with the time-honoured 
 domestic worship of the lares and penates. 
 Yet their minds were ripe for some kind 
 
The Idea of God . 77 
 
 of monotheism, and in order that the Jew¬ 
 ish conception should come to be gen* 
 erally adopted, it was only necessary that 
 it should be freed from its limitations of 
 nationality, and that Jehovah should be 
 set forth as Sustainer of the universe and 
 Father of all mankind. This was done by 
 Jesus and Paul. The theory of divine ac¬ 
 tion implied throughout the gospels and 
 the epistles was the first complete mono¬ 
 theism attained by mankind, or at least by 
 that portion of it from which our modern 
 civilization has descended. Here for the 
 first time we have the idea of God disso¬ 
 ciated from the limiting circumstances 
 with which it had been entangled in all 
 the ethnic religions of antiquity. Individ¬ 
 ual thinkers here and there had already, 
 doubtless, reached an equally true concep¬ 
 tion, as was shown by Kleanthes in his 
 sublime hymn to Zeus ; 9 but it was now 
 for the first time set forth in such wise as 
 to win assent from the common folk as 
 well as the philosophers, and to make its 
 
y 8 The Idea of God. 
 
 way into the hearts of all men. Its ac¬ 
 ceptance was hastened, and its hold upon 
 mankind immeasurably strengthened, by 
 the divinely beautiful ethical teaching in 
 which Jesus couched it, — that teaching, 
 so often misunderstood yet so profoundly 
 true, which heralded the time when Man 
 shall have thrown off the burden of his 
 bestial inheritance and strife and sorrow 
 shall cease from the earth. 10 
 
 We shall presently see that in its funda¬ 
 mental features the theism of Jesus and 
 Paul was so true that it must endure as 
 long as man endures. Changes of state¬ 
 ment may alter the outward appearance of 
 it, but the kernel of truth will remain the 
 same forever. But the shifting body of re¬ 
 ligious doctrine known as Christianity has 
 at various times contained much that is 
 unknown to this pure theism, and much 
 that has shown itself to be ephemeral in its 
 hold upon men. The change from poly¬ 
 theism to monotheism could not be thor¬ 
 oughly accomplished all at once. As 
 
The Idea of God . 79 
 
 Christianity spread over the Roman world 
 it became encrusted with pagan notions 
 and observances, and a similar process 
 went on during the conversion of the Teu¬ 
 tonic barbarians. Yuletide and Easter and 
 other church holidays were directly adopted 
 from the old nature-worship ; the adoration 
 of tutelar household deities survived in the 
 homage paid to patron saints; and the 
 worship of the Berecynthian Mother was 
 continued in that of the Virgin Mary. 11 
 Even the name God\ applied to the Deity 
 throughout Teutonic Christendom, seems 
 to be neither more nor less than Wodan, 
 the personification of the storm-wind, the 
 supreme divinity of our pagan forefathers.* 
 That Christianity should thus have re¬ 
 tained names and symbols and rites belong¬ 
 ing to heathen antiquity was inevitable. 
 The system of Christian theism was the 
 work of some of the loftiest minds that have 
 ever appeared upon the earth ; but it was 
 adopted by millions of men and women, of 
 
 * See note B. at the end of the volume. 
 
80 The Idea of God. 
 
 all degrees of knowledge and ignorance, of 
 keenness and dullness, of spirituality and 
 grossness, and these brought to it their 
 various inherited notions and habits of 
 thought. In all its ages, therefore, Chris¬ 
 tian theism has meant one thing to one 
 person, and another thing to another. 
 While the highest Christian minds have 
 always been monotheistic, the multitude 
 have outgrown polytheism but slowly ; 
 and even the monotheism of the highest 
 minds has been coloured by notions ulti¬ 
 mately derived from the primeval ghost- 
 world which have interfered with its pu¬ 
 rity, and have seriously hampered men in 
 their search after truth. 
 
 In illustration of this point we have now 
 to notice two strongly contrasted views of 
 the divine nature which have been held 
 by Christian theists, and to observe their 
 bearings upon the scientific thought of 
 modern times. 
 
V. 
 
 The Idea of God as immanent in the World . 
 
 E have seen that since the prim¬ 
 itive savage philosophy did not 
 distinguish between the human 
 ghost and the elemental demon or deity, 
 the religion of antiquity was an inextrica¬ 
 ble tangle of ancestor-worship with nature- 
 worship. Nevertheless, among some peo¬ 
 ples the one, among others the other, 
 became predominant. I think it can hardly 
 be an accidental coincidence that nature- 
 worship predominated with the Greeks and 
 Hindus, the only peoples of antiquity who 
 accomplished anything in the exact sci¬ 
 ences, or in metaphysics. The capacity for 
 abstract thinking which led the Hindu to 
 originate algebra, and the Greek to orig¬ 
 inate geometry, and both to attempt elabo¬ 
 rate scientific theories of the universe, —* 
 
82 The Idea of God. 
 
 this same capacity revealed itself in the 
 manner in which they deified the powers 
 of nature. They were able to imagine the 
 indwelling spirit of the sun or the storm 
 without help from the conception of an 
 individual ghost. Such being the general 
 capacity of the people, we can readily un¬ 
 derstand how, when it came to monotheism, 
 their most eminent thinkers should have 
 been able to frame the conception of God 
 acting in and through the powers of nature, 
 without the aid of any grossly anthropomor¬ 
 phic symbolism. In this connection it is 
 interesting to observe the characteristics 
 of the idea of God as conceived by the 
 three greatest fathers of the Greek church, 
 Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Atha¬ 
 nasius. The philosophy of these profound 
 and vigorous thinkers was in large meas¬ 
 ure derived from the Stoics. They regarded 
 Deity as immanent in the universe, and 
 eternally operating through natural laws. 
 In their view God is not a localizable per¬ 
 sonality, remote from the world, and acting 
 
The Idea of God, 83 
 
 upon it only by means of occasional portent 
 and prodigy ; nor is the world a lifeless 
 machine blindly working after some preor¬ 
 dained method, and only feeling the pres¬ 
 ence of God in so far as he now and then 
 sees fit to interfere with its normal course 
 of procedure. On the contrary, God is the 
 ever-present life of the world; it is through 
 him that all things exist from moment to 
 moment, and the natural sequence of events 
 is a perpetual revelation of the divine wis¬ 
 dom and goodness. In accordance with 
 this fundamental view, Clement, for exam¬ 
 ple, repudiated the Gnostic theory of the 
 vileness of matter, condemned asceticism, 
 and regarded the world as hallowed by the 
 presence of indwelling Deity. Knowing 
 no distinction “ between what man discov¬ 
 ers and what God reveals,” he explained 
 Christianity as a natural development from 
 the earlier religious thought of mankind. 
 It was essential to his idea of the divine 
 perfection that the past should contain 
 within itself all the germs of the future ; 
 
84 The Idea of God. 
 
 and accordingly he attached but slight value 
 to tales of miracle, and looked upon salva¬ 
 tion as the normal ripening of the higher 
 spiritual qualities of man “ under the guid¬ 
 ance of immanent Deity.” The views of 
 Clement’s disciple Origen are much like 
 those of his master. Athanasius ventured 
 much farther into the bewildering regions 
 of metaphysics. Yet in his doctrine of the 
 Trinity, by which he overcame the visible 
 tendency toward polytheism in the theories 
 of Arius, and averted the threatened danger 
 of a compromise between Christianity and 
 Paganism, he proceeded upon the lines 
 which Clement had marked out. In his 
 very suggestive work on “The Continuity 
 of Christian Thought,” Professor Alexander 
 Allen thus sets forth the Athanasian point 
 of view : “ In the formula of Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit, as three distinct and co¬ 
 equal members in the one divine essence, 
 there was the recognition and the recon¬ 
 ciliation of the philosophical schools which 
 had divided the ancient world. In the idea 
 
The Idea of God. 85 
 
 of the eternal Father the Oriental mind 
 recognized what it liked to call the profound 
 abyss of being, that which lies back of all 
 phenomena, the hidden mystery which lends 
 awe to human minds seeking to know the 
 divine. In the doctrine of the eternal Son 
 revealing the Father, immanent in nature 
 and humanity as the life and light shining 
 through all created things, the divine reason 
 in which the human reason shares, there 
 was the recognition of the truth after which 
 Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics were 
 struggling, — the tie which binds the cre¬ 
 ation to God in the closest organic relation¬ 
 ship. In the doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
 the church guarded against any pantheistic 
 confusion of God with the world by uphold¬ 
 ing the life of the manifested Deity as es¬ 
 sentially ethical or spiritual, revealing itself 
 in humanity in its highest form, only in so 
 far as humanity recognized its calling and 
 through the Spirit entered into communion 
 with the Father and the Son.” 
 
 Great as was the service which these 
 
86 The Idea of God. 
 
 views of Athanasius rendered in the fourth 
 century of our era, they are scarcely to be 
 regarded as a permanent or essential fea¬ 
 ture of Christian theism. The metaphysic 
 in which they are couched is alien to the 
 metaphysic of our time, yet through this 
 vast difference it is all the more instructive 
 to note how closely Athanasius approaches 
 the confines of modern scientific thought, 
 simply through his fundamental conception 
 of God as the indwelling life of the universe. 
 We shall be still more forcibly struck with 
 this similarity when we come to consider 
 the character impressed upon our idea of 
 God by the modern doctrine of evolution. 
 
VI. 
 
 The Idea of God as remote from the World. 
 
 UT this Greek conception of divine 
 immanence did not find favour with 
 the Latin-speaking world. There 
 a very different notion prevailed, the ori¬ 
 gin of which may be traced to the mental 
 habits attending the primitive ancestor- 
 worship. Out of materials furnished by 
 the ghost-world a crude kind of monothe¬ 
 ism could be reached by simply carrying 
 back the thought to a single ghost-deity 
 as the original ancestor of all the others. 
 Some barbarous races have gone as far as 
 this, as for example the Zulus, who have 
 developed the doctrine of divine ancestors 
 so far as to recognize a first ancestor, the 
 Great Father, Unkulunkulu, who created 
 the world. 12 The kind of theism reached 
 by this process of thought differs essen- 
 
88 The Idea of God . 
 
 tially from the theism reached through the 
 medium of nature-worship. For whereas 
 in the latter case the god of the sky or 
 the sea is regarded as a mysterious spirit 
 acting in and through the phenomena, in 
 the former case the phenomena are re¬ 
 garded as coerced into activity by some 
 power existing outside of them, and this 
 power is conceived as manlike in the crud¬ 
 est sense, having been originally thought 
 of as the ghost of some man who once 
 lived upon the earth. In the monotheism 
 which is reached by thinking along these 
 lines of inference, the universe is con¬ 
 ceived as an inert lifeless machine, im¬ 
 pelled by blind forces which have been 
 set acting from without; and God is con¬ 
 ceived as existing apart from the world in 
 solitary inaccessible majesty, — “ an ab¬ 
 sentee God,” as Carlyle says, “ sitting idle 
 ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside 
 of his universe, and ‘seeing it go.’ ” This 
 conception demands less of the intellect 
 than the conception of God as immanent 
 
The Idea of God. 8g 
 
 in the universe. It requires less grasp of 
 mind and less width of experience, and it 
 has accordingly been much the more com¬ 
 mon conception. The idea of the indwell¬ 
 ing God is an attempt to reach out toward 
 the reality, and as such it taxes the pow¬ 
 ers of the finite mind. The idea of God 
 external to the universe is a symbol which 
 in no wise approaches the reality, and for 
 that very reason it does not tax the men¬ 
 tal powers ; there is an aspect of finality 
 about it, in which the ordinary mind rests 
 content and complains of whatever seeks 
 to disturb its repose. 
 
 I must not be understood as ignoring 
 the fact that this lower species of theism 
 has been entertained by some of the lofti¬ 
 est minds of our race, both in ancient and 
 in modern times. When once such an 
 ever-present conception as the idea of God 
 has become intertwined with the whole 
 body of the thoughts of mankind, it is 
 very difficult for the most powerful and 
 subtle intelligence to change the form it 
 
go The Idea of God. 
 
 has taken. It has become so far organ¬ 
 ized into the texture of the mind that it 
 abides there unconsciously, like our funda¬ 
 mental axioms about number and magni¬ 
 tude ; it sways our thought hither and 
 thither without our knowing it. The two 
 forms of theism here contrasted have slow¬ 
 ly grown up under the myriad unassign¬ 
 able influences that in antiquity caused na¬ 
 ture-worship to predominate among some 
 people and ancestor-worship among oth¬ 
 ers ; they have coloured all the philoso¬ 
 phizing that has been done for more than 
 twenty centuries ; and it is seldom that a 
 thinker educated under the one form ever 
 comes to adopt the other and habitually 
 employ it, save under the mighty influ¬ 
 ence of modern science, the tendency of 
 which, as we shall presently see, is all in 
 one direction. 
 
 Among ancient thinkers the view of 
 Deity as remote from the world prevailed 
 with the followers of Epikuros, who held 
 that the immortal gods could not be sup- 
 
The Idea of God. 91 
 
 posed to trouble themselves about the pal¬ 
 try affairs of men, but lived a blessed life 
 of their own, undisturbed in the far-off em¬ 
 pyrean. This left the world quite under 
 the sway of blind forces, and thus we find 
 it depicted in the marvellous poem of Lu¬ 
 cretius, one of the loftiest monuments of 
 Latin genius. It is to all appearance an 
 atheistic world, albeit the author was per¬ 
 haps more profoundly religious in spirit 
 than any other Roman that ever lived, 
 save Augustine; yet to his immediate 
 scientific purpose this atheism was no 
 drawback. When we are investigating 
 natural phenomena, with intent to explain 
 them scientifically, our proper task is sim¬ 
 ply to ascertain the physical conditions 
 under which they occur, and the less we 
 meddle with metaphysics or theology the 
 better. As Laplace said, the mathema¬ 
 tician, in solving his equations, does not 
 need “the hypothesis of God.” 13 To the 
 scientific investigator, as such, the forces 
 of nature are doubtless blind, like the x 
 
92 The Idea of God. 
 
 and y in algebra, but this is only so long 
 as he contents himself with describing 
 their modes of operation ; when he under¬ 
 takes to explain them philosophically, as 
 we shall see, he can in no wise dispense 
 with his theistic hypothesis. The Lucre- 
 tian philosophy, therefore, admirable as a 
 scientific coordination of such facts about 
 the physical universe as were then known, 
 goes but very little way as a philosophy. 
 It is interesting to note that this atheism 
 followed directly from that species of the¬ 
 ism which placed God outside of his uni¬ 
 verse. We shall find the case of modern 
 atheism to be quite similar. As soon as 
 this crude and misleading conception of 
 God is refuted, as the whole progress of 
 scientific knowledge tends to refute it, the 
 modern atheist or positivist falls back 
 upon his universe of blind forces and con¬ 
 tents himself with it, while zealously shout¬ 
 ing from the housetops that this is the 
 whole story. 
 
 To one familiar with Christian ideas, the 
 
The Idea of God. 
 
 notion that Man is too insignificant a crea¬ 
 ture to be worth the notice of Deity seems 
 at once pathetic and grotesque. In the 
 view of Plato, by which all Christendom 
 has been powerfully influenced, there is 
 profound pathos. The wickedness and 
 misery of the world wrought so strongly 
 upon Plato’s keen sympathies and delicate 
 moral sense that he came to conclusions 
 almost as gloomy as those of the Buddhist 
 who regards existence as an evil. In the 
 Timaios he depicts the material world as 
 essentially vile; he is unable to think of 
 the pure and holy Deity as manifested 
 in it, and he accordingly separates the 
 Creator from his creation by the whole 
 breadth of infinitude. This view passed 
 on to the Gnostics, for whom the puzzling 
 problem of philosophy was how to explain 
 the action of the spiritual God upon the 
 material universe. ^Sometimes the inter¬ 
 val was bridged* by mediating aeons or 
 emanations partly spiritual and partly ma¬ 
 terial ; sometimes the world was held to 
 
g 4 The Idea of God. 
 
 be the work of the devil, and in no sense 
 divine. 14 The Greek fathers under the 
 lead of Clement, espousing the higher the¬ 
 ism, kept clear of this torrent of Gnostic 
 thought ; but upon Augustine it fell with 
 full force, and he was carried away with 
 it. In his earlier writings Augustine 
 showed himself not incapable of compre¬ 
 hending the views of Clement and Atha¬ 
 nasius ; but his intense feeling of man’s 
 wickedness dragged him irresistibly in 
 the opposite direction. In his doctrine 
 of original sin, he represents humanity as 
 cut off from all relationship with God, who 
 . is depicted as a crudely anthropomorphic 
 Being far removed from the universe and 
 accessible only through the mediating of¬ 
 fices of an organized church. Compared 
 with the thoughts of the Greek fathers 
 this was a barbaric conception, but it was 
 suited alike to the lower grade of culture 
 in western Europe, and to the Latin po¬ 
 litical genius, which in the decline of the 
 Empire was already occupying itself with 
 
The Idea of God. 95 
 
 its great and beneficent work of construct¬ 
 ing an imperial Church. For these rea¬ 
 sons the Augustinian theology prevailed, 
 and in the Dark Ages which followed it 
 became so deeply inwrought into the in¬ 
 nermost fibres of Latin Christianity that 
 it remains dominant to-day alike in Cath¬ 
 olic and Protestant churches. With few 
 exceptions every child born of Christian 
 parents in western Europe or in America 
 grows up with an idea of God the outlines 
 of which were engraven upon men’s minds 
 by Augustine fifteen centuries ago. Nay, 
 more, it is hardly too much to say that 
 three fourths of the body of doctrine cur¬ 
 rently known as Christianity, unwarranted 
 by Scripture and never dreamed of by 
 Christ or his apostles, first took coherent 
 shape in the writings of this mighty Ro¬ 
 man, who was separated from the apostolic 
 age by an interval of time like that which 
 separates us from the invention of print¬ 
 ing and the discovery of America. The 
 idea of God upon which all this Augus- 
 
9<5 The Idea of God. 
 
 tinian doctrine is based is the idea of a 
 Being actuated by human passions and 
 purposes, localizable in space and utterly 
 remote from that inert machine, the uni¬ 
 verse in which we live, and upon which 
 He acts intermittently through the sus¬ 
 pension of what are called natural laws. 
 So deeply has this conception penetrated 
 the thought of Christendom that we con¬ 
 tinually find it at the bottom of the spec¬ 
 ulations and arguments of men who would 
 warmly repudiate it as thus stated in its 
 naked outlines. It dominates the reason¬ 
 ings alike of believers and skeptics, of 
 theists and atheists ; it underlies at once 
 the objections raised by orthodoxy against 
 each new step in science and the assaults 
 made by materialism upon every religious 
 conception of the world ; and thus it is 
 chiefly responsible for that complicated 
 misunderstanding which, by a lamentable 
 confusion of thought, is commonly called 
 “ the conflict between religion and sci¬ 
 ence.” 
 
VII. 
 
 Conflict between the Two Ideas, commonly mis¬ 
 understood as a Conflict between Religion 
 and Science. 
 
 N illustration of the mischief that 
 has been wrought by the August- 
 inian conception of Deity, we may 
 cite the theological objections urged against 
 the Newtonian theory of gravitation and 
 the Darwinian theory of natural selection. 
 Leibnitz, who as a mathematician but little 
 inferior to Newton himself might have 
 been expected to be easily convinced of the 
 truth of the theory of gravitation, was 
 nevertheless deterred by theological scru¬ 
 ples from accepting it. It appeared to him 
 that it substituted the action of physical 
 forces for the direct action of the Deity. 
 Now the fallacy of this argument of Leib¬ 
 nitz is easy to detect. It lies in a meta- 
 
p8 The Idea of God. 
 
 physical misconception of the meaning of 
 the word “ force.” “Force” is implicitly 
 regarded as a sort of entity or daemon which 
 has a mode of action distinguishable from 
 that of Deity; otherwise it is meaningless 
 to speak of substituting the one for the 
 other. But such a personification of 
 “force” is a remnant of barbaric thought, 
 in no wise sanctioned by physical science. 
 When astronomy speaks of two planets as 
 attracting each other with a “ force ” which 
 varies directly as their masses and inversely 
 as the squares of their distances apart, it 
 simply uses the phrase as a convenient 
 metaphor by which to describe the manner 
 in which the observed movements of the 
 two bodies occur. It explains that in pres¬ 
 ence of each other the two bodies are ob¬ 
 served to change their positions in a cer¬ 
 tain specified way, and this is all that it 
 means. This is all that a strictly scientific 
 hypothesis can possibly allege, and this is 
 all that observation can possibly prove. 
 Whatever goes beyond this and imagines 
 
The Idea of God. 99 
 
 or asserts a kind of “ pull ” between the 
 two bodies, is not science, but metaphysics. 
 An atheistic metaphysics may imagine 
 such a “ pull,” and may interpret it as the 
 action of something that is not Deity, but 
 such a conclusion can find no support in 
 the scientific theorem, which is simply a 
 generalized description of phenomena. The 
 general considerations upon which the be¬ 
 lief in the existence and direct action of 
 Deity is otherwise founded are in no wise 
 disturbed by the establishment of any such 
 scientific theorem. We are still perfectly 
 free to maintain that it is the direct action 
 of Deity which is manifested in the plan¬ 
 etary movements ; having done nothing 
 more with our Newtonian hypothesis than 
 to construct a happy formula for express¬ 
 ing the mode or order of the manifestation. 
 We may have learned something new con¬ 
 cerning the manner of divine action ; we 
 certainly have not “ substituted ” any other 
 kind of action for it. And what is thus 
 obvious in this simple astronomical example 
 
IOO 
 
 The Idea of God. 
 
 is equally true in principle in every case 
 whatever in which one set of phenomena 
 is interpreted by reference to another set. 
 In no case whatever can science use the 
 words “ force” or " cause ” except as meta¬ 
 phorically descriptive of some observed or 
 observable sequence of phenomena. And 
 consequently at no imaginable future time, 
 so long as the essential conditions of human 
 thinking are maintained, can science even 
 attempt to substitute the action of any 
 other power for the direct action of Deity. 
 The theological objection urged by Leib¬ 
 nitz against Newton was repeated word for 
 word by Agassiz in his comments upon 
 Darwin. He regarded it as a fatal objec¬ 
 tion to the Darwinian theory that it ap¬ 
 peared to substitute the action of physical 
 forces for the creative action of Deity. The 
 fallacy here is precisely the same as in 
 Leibnitz’s argument. Mr. Darwin has 
 convinced us that the existence of highly 
 complicated organisms is the result of an 
 infinitely diversified aggregate of circum- 
 
The Idea of God. ioi 
 
 stances so minute as severally to seem 
 trivial or accidental; yet the consistent 
 theist will always occupy an impregnable 
 position in maintaining that the entire 
 series in each and every one of its incidents 
 is an immediate manifestation of the crea¬ 
 tive action of God. 
 
 In this connection it is worth while to 
 state explicitly what is the true province of 
 scientific explanation. Is it not obvious 
 that since a philosophical theism must re¬ 
 gard divine power as the immediate source 
 of all phenomena alike, therefore science 
 cannot properly explain any particular 
 group of phenomena by a direct reference 
 to the action of Deity ? Such a reference 
 is not an explanation, since it adds nothing 
 to our previous knowledge either of the 
 phenomena or of the manner of divine 
 action. The business of science is simply 
 to ascertain in what manner phenomena 
 coexist with each other or follow each 
 other, and the only kind of explanation 
 with which it can properly deal is that 
 
102 The Idea of God. 
 
 which refers one set of phenomena to 
 another set. In pursuing this, its legiti¬ 
 mate business, science does not touch on 
 the province of theology in any way, and 
 there is no conceivable occasion for any 
 conflict between the two. From this and 
 the previous considerations taken together 
 it follows not only that such explanations 
 as are contained in the Newtonian and 
 Darwinian theories are entirely consistent 
 with theism, but also that they are the only 
 kind of explanations with which science 
 can properly concern itself at all. To say 
 that complex organisms were directly 
 created by the Deity is to make an asser¬ 
 tion which, however true in a theistic 
 sense, is utterly barren. It is of no profit 
 to theism, which must be taken for granted 
 before the assertion can be made; and it 
 is of no profit to science, which must still 
 ask its question, “ How ? ” 15 
 
 We are now prepared to see that the the¬ 
 ological objection urged against the New¬ 
 tonian and Darwinian theories has its roots 
 
The Idea of God. 103 
 
 in that imperfect kind of theism which 
 Augustine did so much to fasten upon the 
 western world. Obviously if Leibnitz and 
 Agassiz had been educated in that higher 
 theism shared by Clement and Athanasius 
 in ancient times with Spinoza and Goethe 
 in later days, — if they had been accus¬ 
 tomed to conceive of God as immanent 
 in the universe and eternally creative,— 
 then the argument which they urged with 
 so much feeling would never have occurred 
 to them. By no possibility could such an 
 argument have entered their minds. To 
 conceive of “physical forces” as powers of 
 which the action could in any wise be “ sub¬ 
 stituted” for the action of Deity would in 
 such case have been absolutely impossible. 
 Such a conception involves the idea of God 
 as remote from the world and acting upon 
 it from outside. The whole notion of what 
 theological writers are fond of calling “sec¬ 
 ondary causes ” involves such an idea of 
 God. The higher or Athanasian theism 
 knows nothing of secondary causes in a 
 
W4 The Idea of God. 
 
 world where every event flows directly 
 from the eternal First Cause. It knows 
 nothing of physical forces save as imme¬ 
 diate manifestations of the omnipresent 
 creative power of God. In the personifi¬ 
 cation of physical forces, and the implied 
 contrast between their action and that of 
 Deity, there is something very like a sur¬ 
 vival of the habits of thought which char¬ 
 acterized ancient polytheism. What are 
 these personified forces but little gods who 
 are supposed to be invading the sacred 
 domain of the ruler Zeus ? When one 
 speaks of substituting the action of Grav¬ 
 itation for the direct action of Deity, does 
 there not hover somewhere in the dim 
 background of the conception a vague 
 spectre of Gravitation in the guise of a re¬ 
 bellious Titan ? Doubtless it would not be 
 easy to bring any one to acknowledge such a 
 charge, but the unseen and unacknowledged 
 part of a fallacy is just that which is most 
 persistent and mischievous. It is not so 
 many generations, after all, since our an- 
 
The Idea of God. 105 
 
 cestors were barbarians and polytheists ; 
 and fragments of their barbaric thinking 
 are continually intruding unawares into 
 the midst of our lately-acquired scientific 
 culture. In most philosophical discussions 
 a great deal of loose phraseology is used, in 
 order to find the proper connotations of 
 which we must go back to primitive and 
 untutored ages. Such is eminently the 
 case with the phrases in which the forces 
 of nature are personified and described 
 as something else than manifestations of 
 omnipresent Deity. 
 
 This subject is of such immense impor¬ 
 tance that I must illustrate it from yet 
 another point of view. We must observe 
 the manner in which, along with the prog¬ 
 ress of scientific discovery, theological ar¬ 
 guments have come to be permeated by 
 the strange assumption that the greater 
 part of the universe is godless. Here again 
 we must go back for a moment to the 
 primeval world and observe how behind 
 every physical phenomenon there were 
 
io6 The Idea of God. 
 
 supposed to be quasi-human passions and 
 a quasi-human will. Now the phenomena 
 which were first arranged and systematized 
 in men’s thoughts, and thus made the sub¬ 
 ject of something like scientific generaliza¬ 
 tion, were the simplest, the most accessible, 
 and the most manageable phenomena ; and 
 from these the conception of a quasi-human 
 will soonest faded away. There are sav¬ 
 ages who believe that hatchets and kettles 
 have souls, but men unquestionably out¬ 
 grew such a belief as this long before they 
 outgrew the belief that there are ghost-like 
 deities in the tempest, or in the sun and 
 moon. After many ages of culture, men 
 ceased to regard the familiar and regularly- 
 recurring phenomena of nature as immedi¬ 
 ate results of volition, and reserved this 
 primeval explanation for unusual or terrible 
 phenomena, such as comets and eclipses, 
 or famines and plagues. As the result of 
 these habits of thought, in course of time, 
 Nature seemed to be divided into two an¬ 
 tithetical provinces. On the one hand, 
 
The Idea of God . wy 
 
 there were the phenomena that occurred 
 with a simple regularity which seemed to 
 exclude the idea of capricious volition ; and 
 these were supposed to constitute the realm 
 of natural law. On the other hand, there 
 were the complex and irregular phenomena 
 in which the presence of law could not so 
 easily be detected ; and these were sup¬ 
 posed to constitute the realm of immediate 
 divine action. This antithesis has forever 
 haunted the minds of men imbued with 
 the lower or Augustinian theism ; and such 
 have made up the larger part of the Chris¬ 
 tian world. It has tended to make the 
 theologians hostile to science and the men 
 of science hostile to theology. For as sci¬ 
 entific generalization has steadily extended 
 the region of natural law, the region which 
 theology has assigned to divine action has 
 steadily diminished. Every discovery in 
 science has stripped off territory from the 
 latter province and added it to the former. 
 Every such discovery has accordingly been 
 promulgated and established in the teeth 
 
io8 The Idea of God. 
 
 of bitter and violent opposition on the part 
 of theologians. A desperate fight it has 
 been for some centuries, in which science 
 has won every disputed position, while 
 theology, untaught by perennial defeat, 
 still valiantly defends the little corner that 
 is left it. Still as of old the ordinary the¬ 
 ologian rests his case upon the assumption 
 of disorder, caprice, and miraculous inter¬ 
 ference with the course of nature. He 
 naively asks, “ If plants and animals have 
 been naturally originated, if the world as a 
 whole has been evolved and not manufac¬ 
 tured, and if human actions conform to 
 law, what is there left for God to do ? If 
 not formally repudiated, is he not thrust 
 back into the past eternity, as an ultimate 
 source of things, which is postulated for 
 form’s sake, but might as well, for all 
 practical purposes, be omitted ? ” 16 
 
 The scientific inquirer may reply that 
 the difficulty is one which theology has 
 created for itself. It is certainly not sci 
 ence that has relegated the creative activ 
 
The Idea of God. iog 
 
 ity-of God to some nameless moment in 
 the bygone eternity and left him without 
 occupation in the present world. It is not 
 science that is responsible for the mis¬ 
 chievous distinction between divine action 
 and natural law. That distinction is his¬ 
 torically derived from a loose habit of 
 philosophizing characteristic of ignorant 
 ages, and was bequeathed to modern times 
 by the theology of the Latin church. 
 Small blame to the atheist who, starting 
 upon such a basis, thinks he can interpret 
 the universe without the idea of God ! He 
 is but doing as well as he knows how, with 
 the materials given him. One has only, 
 however, to adopt the higher theism of 
 Clement and Athanasius, and this alleged 
 antagonism between science and theology, 
 by which so many hearts have been sad¬ 
 dened, so many minds darkened, vanishes 
 at once and forever. “ Once really adopt 
 the conception of an ever-present God, 
 without whom not a sparrow falls to the 
 ground, and it becomes self-evident that 
 the law of gravitation is but an expression 
 
no The Idea of God. 
 
 of a particular mode of divine action. And 
 what is thus true of one law is true of all 
 laws.” 17 The thinker in whose mind divine 
 action is thus identified with orderly action, 
 and to whom areally irregular phenomenon 
 would seem like a manifestation of sheer 
 diabolism, foresees in every possible exten¬ 
 sion of knowledge a fresh confirmation of 
 his faith in God. From his point of view 
 there can be no antagonism between our 
 duty as inquirers and our duty as wor¬ 
 shippers. To him no part of the universe 
 is godless. In the swaying to and fro of 
 molecules and the ceaseless pulsations of 
 ether, in the secular shiftings of planetary 
 orbits, in the busy work of frost and rain¬ 
 drop, in the mysterious sprouting of the 
 seed, in the everlasting tale of death and 
 life renewed, in the dawning of the babe’s 
 intelligence, in the varied deeds of men 
 from age to age, he finds that which awak¬ 
 ens the soul to reverential awe ; and each 
 act of scientific explanation but reveals an 
 opening through which shines the glory of 
 the Eternal Majesty. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Anthropomorphic Conceptions of God. 
 
 ETWEEN the two ideas of God 
 which we have exhibited in such 
 striking contrast, there is never¬ 
 theless one point of resemblance; and 
 this point is fundamental, since it is the 
 point in virtue of which both are entitled 
 to be called theistic ideas. In both there 
 is presumed to be a likeness of some sort 
 between God and Man. In both there is 
 an element of anthropomorphism. Even 
 upon this their common ground, however, 
 there is a wide difference between the two 
 conceptions. In the one the anthropo¬ 
 morphic element is gross, in the other it 
 is refined and subtle. The difference is 
 so far-reaching that some years ago I pro¬ 
 posed to mark it by contrasting these two 
 conceptions of God as Anthropomorphic 
 
112 The Idea of God. 
 
 Theism and Cosmic Theism. For the 
 doctrine which represents God as imma¬ 
 nent in the universe and revealing him¬ 
 self in the orderly succession of events, 
 the name Cosmic Theism is eminently 
 appropriate: but it is not intended by 
 the antithetic nomenclature to convey the 
 impression that in cosmic theism there 
 is nothing anthropomorphic. 18 A theory 
 which should regard the Human Soul as 
 alien and isolated in the universe, with¬ 
 out any links uniting it with the eternal 
 source of existence, would not be theism 
 at all. It would be Atheism, which on 
 its metaphysical side is “the denial of 
 anything psychical in the universe out¬ 
 side of human consciousness.” It is far 
 enough from any such doctrine to the 
 cosmic theism of Clement and Origen, of 
 Spinoza and Lessing and Schleiermacher. 
 The difference, however, between this cos¬ 
 mic conception of God and the anthropo¬ 
 morphic conception held by Tertullian and 
 Augustine, Calvin and Voltaire and Paley, 
 
The Idea of God. 11 j 
 
 is sufficiently great to be described as a 
 contrast. The explanation of the differ¬ 
 ence must be sought far back in the his¬ 
 toric genesis of the two conceptions. Cos¬ 
 mic theism, as we have seen, was reached 
 through nature-worship with its notion of 
 vast elemental spirits indwelling in physi¬ 
 cal phenomena. Anthropomorphic theism 
 is descended from the notion of tutelar 
 deities which was part of the primitive an¬ 
 cestor-worship. In the process by which 
 men attained to cosmic theism, physical 
 generalization was the chief agency at 
 work; but into anthropomorphic theism, 
 as we have seen, there entered concep¬ 
 tions derived from men’s political think¬ 
 ing. For such a people as the Romans, 
 who could deify Imperator Augustus in 
 just the same way that the Japanese have 
 deified their Mikado, it was natural and 
 easy to conceive of God as a monarch en¬ 
 throned in the heavens and surrounded 
 by a court of ministering angels. Such 
 was the popular conception in the early 
 
114 The Idea of God. 
 
 ages of Christianity, and such it has 
 doubtless remained with the mass of un¬ 
 instructed people even to this day. The 
 very grotesqueness of the idea, as it ap¬ 
 pears to the mind of a philosopher, is an 
 index of the ease with which it satisfies 
 the mind of an uneducated man. Many 
 persons, no doubt, have entertained this 
 idea of God without ever giving it very 
 definite shape, and many have recognized 
 it as in great measure symbolic : yet noth¬ 
 ing can be more certain than that un¬ 
 told thousands have conceived it in its 
 full intensity of anthropomorphism. Alike 
 in sermons and theological treatises, in 
 stately poetry and in every-day talk, the 
 Deity has been depicted as pleased or 
 angry, as repenting of his own acts, as 
 soothed by adulation and quick to wreak 
 vengeance upon silly people for blasphe¬ 
 mous remarks. In those curious bills of 
 expenses for the mediaeval miracle-plays, 
 along with charges of twopence for keep¬ 
 ing up a “fyre at hell mouthe,” we find 
 
The Idea of God. 115 
 
 such items as a shilling for a purple coat 
 for God. In one of these plays an angel 
 who has just witnessed the crucifixion 
 comes rushing into Heaven, crying, “Wake 
 up, almighty Father! Here are those 
 beggarly Jews killing your son, and you 
 asleep here like a drunkard ! ” “ Devil take 
 me if I knew anything about it!’' is the 
 drowsy reply. Not the slightest irrever¬ 
 ence was intended in these miracle-plays, 
 which were the only dramatic perform¬ 
 ances tolerated by the mediaeval church, 
 for the sake of their wholesome educa¬ 
 tional influence upon the common people. 
 In the light of such facts, one sees that 
 the representations of the Deity as an old 
 man of august presence, with flowing hair 
 and beard, by the early modern painters, 
 must have meant to all save the highest 
 minds much more than a mere symbol. 
 Until one’s thoughts have become accus¬ 
 tomed to range far and wide over the 
 universe it is doubtless impossible to 
 frame a conception of Deity that is not 
 
/ / 6 The Idea of God. 
 
 grossly anthropomorphic. I remember dis¬ 
 tinctly the conception which I had formed 
 when five years of age. I imagined a nar¬ 
 row office just over the zenith, with a tall 
 standing-desk running lengthwise, upon 
 which lay several open ledgers bound in 
 coarse leather. There was no roof over 
 this office, and the walls rose scarcely five 
 feet from the floor, so that a person stand¬ 
 ing at the desk could look out upon the 
 whole world. There were two persons at 
 the desk, and one of them — a tall, slender 
 man, of aquiline features, wearing specta¬ 
 cles, with a pen in his hand and another 
 behind his ear — was God. The other, 
 whose appearance I do not distinctly re¬ 
 call, was an attendant angel. Both were 
 diligently watching the deeds of men and 
 recording them in the ledgers. To my 
 infant mind this picture was not grotesque, 
 but ineffably solemn, and the fact that 
 all my words and acts were thus written 
 down, to confront me at the day of judg¬ 
 ment, seemed naturally a matter of grave 
 
 concern. 
 
The Idea of God. i iy 
 
 If we could cross-question all the men 
 and women we know, and still more all 
 the children, we should probably find that, 
 even in this enlightened age, the concep¬ 
 tions of Deity current throughout the civ¬ 
 ilized world contain much that is in the 
 crudest sense anthropomorphic. Such, at 
 any rate, seems to be the character of the 
 conceptions with which we start in life. 
 With those whose studies lead them to 
 ponder upon the subject in the light of 
 enlarged experience, these conceptions be¬ 
 come greatly modified. They lose their 
 anthropomorphic definiteness, they grow 
 vague by reason of their expansion, they 
 become recognized as largely symbolic, 
 but they never quite lose all traces of 
 their primitive form. Indeed, as I said a 
 moment ago, they cannot do so. The ut¬ 
 ter demolition of anthropomorphism would 
 be the demolition of theism. We have 
 now to see what traces of its primitive 
 form the idea of God can retain, in the 
 light of our modern knowledge of the uni¬ 
 
 verse. 
 
IX. 
 
 The Argument from Design . 
 
 HE most highly refined and scien¬ 
 tific form of anthropomorphic the¬ 
 ism is that which we are accus¬ 
 tomed to associate with Paley and the 
 authors of the Bridgewater treatises. It 
 is not peculiar to Christianity, since it 
 has been held by pagans and unbelievers 
 as firmly as by the devoutest members of 
 the church. The argument from design 
 is as old as Sokrates, and was relied on 
 by Voltaire and the English deists of the 
 eighteenth century no less than by Dr. 
 Chalmers and Sir Charles Bell. Upon this 
 theory the universe is supposed to have 
 been created by a Being possessed of intel¬ 
 ligence and volition essentially similar to 
 the intelligence and volition of Man. This 
 Being is actuated by a desire for the good 
 
The Idea of God . / / g 
 
 of his creatures, and in pursuance thereof 
 entertains purposes and adapts means to 
 ends with consummate ingenuity. The 
 process by which the world was created 
 
 4 
 
 was analogous to manufacture, as being 
 the work of an intelligent artist operating 
 upon unintelligent materials objectively 
 existing. It is in accordance with this 
 theory that books on natural theology, as 
 well as those text-books of science which 
 deem it edifying to introduce theological 
 reflections where they have no proper 
 place, are fond of speaking of the “ Divine 
 Architect” or the “Great Designer.” 
 
 This theory, which is still commonly 
 held, was in high favour during the earlier 
 part of the present century. In view of 
 the great and sudden advances which 
 physical knowledge was making, it seemed 
 well worth while to consecrate science to 
 the service of theology; and at the same 
 time, in emphasizing the argument from 
 design, theology adopted the methods of 
 science. The attempt to discover evi- 
 
120 The Idea of God. 
 
 dences of beneficent purpose in the struc¬ 
 ture of the eye and ear, in the distribu¬ 
 tion of plants and animals over the earth’s 
 surface, in the shapes of the planetary 
 orbits and the inclinations of their axes, 
 or in any other of the innumerable ar¬ 
 rangements of nature, was an attempt at 
 true induction ; and high praise is due to 
 the able men who have devoted their ener¬ 
 gies to reinforcing the argument. By far 
 the greater part of the evidence was natu¬ 
 rally drawn from the organic world, which 
 began to be comprehensively studied in 
 the mutual relations of all its parts in the 
 time of Lamarck and Cuvier. The or¬ 
 ganic world is full of unspeakably beauti¬ 
 ful and wonderful adaptations between or¬ 
 ganisms and their environments, as well 
 as between the various parts of the same 
 organism. The unmistakable end of these 
 adaptations is the welfare of the animal 
 or plant; they conduce to length and com¬ 
 pleteness of life, to the permanence and 
 prosperity of the species. For some time, 
 
The Idea of God . / 21 
 
 therefore, the arguments of natural the¬ 
 ology seemed to be victorious along the 
 whole line. The same kind of reasoning 
 was pushed farther and farther to explain 
 the classification and morphology of plants 
 and animals; until the climax was reached 
 in Agassiz’s remarkable “ Essay on Classi¬ 
 fication,” published in 1859, ‘ m which every 
 organic form was not only regarded as a 
 concrete thought of the Creator interpret¬ 
 able by the human mind, but this kind 
 of explanation was expressly urged as a 
 substitute for inquiries into the physical 
 causes whereby such forms might have 
 been originated. 
 
 In its best days, however, there was a 
 serious weakness in the argument from 
 design, which was ably pointed out by 
 Mr. Mill, in an essay wherein he accords 
 much more weight to the general argu¬ 
 ment than could now by any possibility 
 be granted it. Its fault was the familiar 
 logical weakness of proving too much. 
 The very success of the argument in 
 
122 The Idea of God. 
 
 showing the world to have been the work 
 of an intelligent Designer made it impos¬ 
 sible to suppose that Creator to be at 
 once omnipotent and absolutely benevo¬ 
 lent. For nothing can be clearer than 
 that Nature is full of cruelty and mal- 
 adaptation. In every part of the animal 
 world we find implements of torture sur¬ 
 passing in devilish ingenuity anything 
 that was ever seen in the dungeons of the 
 Inquisition. We are introduced to a 
 scene of incessant and universal strife, of 
 which it is not apparent on the surface 
 that the outcome is the good or the hap¬ 
 piness of anything that is sentient. In 
 pre-Darwinian times, before we had gone 
 below the surface, no such outcome was 
 discernible. Often, indeed, we find the 
 higher life wantonly sacrificed to the low 
 er, as instanced by the myriads of para¬ 
 sites apparently created for no other pur¬ 
 pose than to prey upon creatures better 
 than themselves. Such considerations 
 bring up, with renewed emphasis, the ever- 
 
The Idea of God. 123 
 
 lasting problem of the origin of evil. If 
 the Creator of such a world is omnipotent 
 he cannot be actuated solely by a desire 
 for the welfare of his creatures, but must 
 have other ends in view to which this is 
 in some measure subordinated. Or if he 
 is absolutely benevolent, then he cannot 
 be omnipotent, but there is something in 
 the nature of things which sets limits to 
 his creative power. This dilemma is as 
 old as human thinking, and it still remains 
 a stumbling-block in the way of any the¬ 
 ory of the universe that can possibly be 
 devised. But it is an obstacle especially 
 formidable to any kind of anthropomor¬ 
 phic theism. For the only avenue of es¬ 
 cape is the assumption of an inscrutable 
 mystery ^which would contain the solution 
 of the problem if the human intellect 
 could only penetrate so far; and the more 
 closely we invite a comparison between 
 divine and human methods of working, the 
 more do we close up that only outlet. 
 
 The practical solution oftenest adopted 
 
124 The Idea of God. 
 
 has been that which sacrifices the Cre¬ 
 ator’s omnipotence in favour of his benev¬ 
 olence. In the noblest of the purely 
 Aryan religions — that of which the sa¬ 
 cred literature is contained in the Zend- 
 avesta — the evil spirit Ahriman exists 
 independently of the will of the good 
 Ormuzd, and is accountable for all the sin 
 in the world, but in the fulness of time 
 he is to be bound in chains and shorn of 
 his power for mischief. 19 This theory has 
 passed into Christendom in the form of 
 Manichaeism; but its essential features 
 have been adopted by orthodox Christi¬ 
 anity, which at the same time has tried to 
 grasp the other horn of the dilemma and 
 save the omnipotence of the Deity by pay¬ 
 ing him what Mr. Mill calls the doubtful 
 compliment of making him the creator of 
 the devil. By this device the essential 
 polytheism of the conception is thinly 
 veiled. The confusion of thought has 
 been persistently blinked by the popular 
 mind ; but among the profoundest think- 
 
The Idea of God. 125 
 
 ers of the Aryan race there have been two 
 who have explicitly adopted the solution 
 which limits the Creator’s power. One of 
 these was Plato, who held that God’s per¬ 
 fect goodness has been partially thwarted 
 by the intractableness of the materials he 
 has had to work with. This theory was 
 carried to extremes by those Gnostics who 
 believed that God’s work consisted in re¬ 
 deeming a world originally created by the 
 devil, and in orthodox Christianity it gave 
 rise to the Augustinian doctrine of total 
 depravity, and the “philosophy of the plan 
 of salvation ” founded thereon. The other 
 great thinker who adopted a similar solu¬ 
 tion was Leibnitz. In his famous theory 
 of optimism the world is by no means 
 represented as perfect; it is only the best 
 of all possible worlds, the best the Creator 
 could make out of the materials at hand. 
 In recent times Mr. Mill shows a marked 
 preference for this view, and one of the 
 foremost religious teachers now living, 
 Dr. Martineau, falls into a parallel line 
 
126 The Idea of God . 
 
 of thinking in his suggestion that the 
 primary qualities of matter constitute a 
 “ datum objective to God,” who, “in shap¬ 
 ing the orbits out of immensity, and de¬ 
 termining seasons out of eternity, could 
 but follow the laws of curvature, measure, 
 and proportion.” 20 
 
 But indeed it is not necessary to refer 
 to the problem of evil in order to show 
 that the argument from design cannot 
 prove the existence of an omnipotent and 
 benevolent Designer. It is not omnipo¬ 
 tence that contrives and plans and adapts 
 means to ends. These are the methods 
 of finite intelligence; they imply the over¬ 
 coming of obstacles ; and to ascribe them 
 to omnipotence is to combine words that 
 severally possess meanings into a phrase 
 that has no meaning. “God said, Let 
 there be light: and there was light.” In 
 this noble description of creative omnipo¬ 
 tence one would search in vain for any 
 hint of contrivance. The most the argu¬ 
 ment from design could legitimately hope 
 
The Idea of God. i2j 
 
 to accomplish was to make it seem prob¬ 
 able that the universe was wrought into 
 its present shape by an intelligent and be¬ 
 nevolent Being immeasurably superior to 
 Man, but far from infinite in power and 
 resources. Such an argument hardly rises 
 to the level of true theism. 21 
 
 t 
 
X. 
 
 Simile of the Watch replaced by Simile of 
 
 the Flower. 
 
 T was in its own chosen strong¬ 
 hold that this once famous argu¬ 
 ment was destined to meet its 
 doom. It was in the adaptations of the 
 organic world, in the manifold harmonies 
 between living creatures and surrounding 
 circumstances, that it had seemed to find 
 its chief support; and now came the Dar¬ 
 winian theory of natural selection, and in 
 the twinkling of an eye knocked all this 
 support from under it. It is not that the 
 organism and its environment have been 
 adapted to each other by an exercise of 
 creative intelligence, but it is that the 
 organism is necessarily fitted to the en¬ 
 vironment because in the perennial slaugh¬ 
 ter that has gone on from the beginning 
 
The Idea of God . 129 
 
 only the fittest have survived. Or, as 
 it has been otherwise expressed, “ the 
 earth is suited to its inhabitants because 
 it has produced them, and only such 
 as suit it live/’ In the struggle for ex¬ 
 istence no individual peculiarity, however 
 slight, that tends to the preservation of 
 life is neglected. It is unerringly seized 
 upon and propagated by natural selection, 
 and from the cumulative action of such 
 slight causes have come the beautiful 
 adaptations of which the organic world is 
 full. The demonstration of this point, 
 through the labours of a whole generation 
 of naturalists, has been one of the most 
 
 r 
 
 notable achievements of modern science, 
 and to the theistic arguments of Paley 
 and the Bridgewater treatises it has dealt 
 destruction. 
 
 But the Darwinian theory of natural se¬ 
 lection does not stand alone. It is part 
 of a greater whole. It is the most con¬ 
 spicuous portion of that doctrine of evo¬ 
 lution in which all the results hitherto 
 
 9 
 
rjo The Idea of God. 
 
 attained by the great modern scientific 
 movement are codified, and which Herbert 
 Spencer had already begun to set forth 
 in its main outlines before the Darwinian 
 theory had been made known to the world. 
 This doctrine of evolution so far extends 
 the range of our vision through past and 
 future time as entirely to alter our con¬ 
 ception of the universe. Our grandfa¬ 
 thers, in common with all preceding gen¬ 
 erations of men, could and did suppose 
 that at some particular moment in the 
 past eternity the world was created in very 
 much the shape which it has at present. 
 But our modern knowledge does not allow 
 us to suppose anything of the sort. We 
 can carry back our thoughts through a 
 long succession of great epochs, some of 
 them many millions of years in duration, 
 in each of which the innumerable forms 
 of life that covered the earth were very 
 different from what they were in all the 
 others, and in even the nearest of which 
 they were notably different from what 
 
The Idea of God. 131 
 
 they are now. We can go back still far¬ 
 ther to the eras when the earth was a 
 whirling ball of vapour, or when it formed 
 an equatorial belt upon a sun two hundred 
 million miles in diameter, or when the 
 sun itself was but a giant nebula from 
 which as yet no planet had been born. 
 And through all the vast sweep of time, 
 from the simple primeval vapour down to 
 the multifarious world we know to-day, we 
 see the various forms of Nature coming 
 into existence one after the other in ac¬ 
 cordance with laws of which we are al¬ 
 ready beginning to trace the character and 
 scope. Paley’s simile of the watch is no 
 longer applicable to such a world as this. 
 It must be replaced by the simile of the 
 flower. The universe is not a machine, 
 but an organism, with an indwelling prin¬ 
 ciple of life. It was not made, but it has 
 grown. 
 
 That such a change in our conception 
 of the universe marks the greatest revo¬ 
 lution that has ever taken place in human 
 
/ The Idea of God . 
 
 thinking need scarcely be said. But even 
 in this statement we have not quite re¬ 
 vealed the depth of the change. Not only 
 has modern science made it clear that the 
 varied forms of Nature which make up the 
 universe have arisen through a process of 
 evolution, but it has also made it clear 
 that what we call the laws of Nature have 
 been evolved through the self-same pro¬ 
 cess. The axiom of the persistence of 
 force, upon which all modern science has 
 come to rest, involves as a necessary cor¬ 
 ollary the persistence of the relations be¬ 
 tween forces ; so that, starting with the 
 persistence of force and the primary qual¬ 
 ities of matter, it can be shown that all 
 those uniformities of coexistence and suc¬ 
 cession which we call natural laws have 
 arisen one after the other in connection 
 with the forms which have afforded the 
 occasions for their manifestation. The 
 all-pervading harmony of Nature is thus 
 itself a natural product, and the last inch 
 
The Idea of God. 
 
 '33 
 
 of ground is cut away from under the the¬ 
 ologians who suppose the universe to have 
 come into existence through a supernat¬ 
 ural process of manufacture at the hands 
 of a Creator outside of itself. 
 
XI. 
 
 The Craving for a Final Cause . 
 
 T appears, then, that the idea of 
 God as remote from the world is 
 not likely to survive the revolu¬ 
 tion in thought which the rapid increase 
 of modern knowledge has inaugurated. 
 The knell of anthropomorphic or Augus- 
 tinian theism has already sounded. This 
 conclusion need not, however, disturb us 
 when we consider how imperfect a form 
 of theism this is which mankind is now 
 outgrowing. To get rid of the appearance 
 of antagonism between science and relig¬ 
 ion will of itself be one of the greatest 
 benefits ever conferred upon the human 
 race. It will forward science and purify 
 religion, and it will go * far toward in¬ 
 creasing kindness and mutual helpfulness 
 among men. Since such happy results 
 
The Idea of God. 133 
 
 are likely to follow the general adoption 
 of the cosmic or Athanasian form of the¬ 
 ism, in place of the other form, it becomes 
 us to observe more specifically the manner 
 in which this higher theism stands related 
 to our modern knowledge. 
 
 To every form of theism, as I have al¬ 
 ready urged, an anthropomorphic element 
 is indispensable. It is quite true, on the 
 one hand, that to ascribe what we know 
 as human personality to the infinite Deity 
 straightway lands us in a contradiction, 
 since personality without limits is incon¬ 
 ceivable. But on the other hand, it is no 
 less true that the total elimination of an¬ 
 thropomorphism from the idea of God 
 abolishes the idea itself. This difficulty 
 need not dishearten us, for it is no more 
 than we must expect to encounter on the 
 threshold of such a problem as the one 
 before us. We do not approach the ques¬ 
 tion in the spirit of those natural theolo¬ 
 gians who were so ready with their expla¬ 
 nations of the divine purposes. We are 
 
136 The Idea of God. 
 
 aware that “ we see as through a glass 
 darkly,” and we do not expect to “think 
 God’s thoughts after him” save in the 
 crudest symbolic fashion. In dealing with 
 the Infinite we are confessedly treating of 
 that which transcends our powers of con¬ 
 ception. Our ability to frame ideas is 
 strictly limited by experience, and our ex¬ 
 perience does not furnish the materials for 
 the idea of a personality which is not nar¬ 
 rowly hemmed in by the inexorable bar¬ 
 riers of circumstance. We therefore can¬ 
 not conceive such an idea. But it does 
 not follow that there is no reality answer¬ 
 ing to what such an idea would be if it 
 could be conceived. The test of incon¬ 
 ceivability is only applicable to the world 
 of phenomena from which our experience 
 is gathered. It fails when applied to that 
 which lies behind phenomena. I do not 
 hold for this reason that we are justified 
 in using such an expression as “ infinite 
 personality” in a philosophical inquiry 
 where clearness of thought and speech is 
 
The Idea of God. / ^7 
 
 above all things desirable. But I do hold, 
 most emphatically, that we are not de¬ 
 barred from ascribing a quasi-psychical na¬ 
 ture to the Deity simply because we can 
 frame no proper conception of such a na¬ 
 ture as absolute and infinite. 
 
 The point is of vital importance to the¬ 
 ism. As Kant has well said, “the concep¬ 
 tion of God involves not merely a blindly 
 operating Nature as the eternal root of 
 things, but a Supreme Being that shall be 
 the author of all things by free and under¬ 
 standing action ; and it is this conception 
 which alone has any interest for us.” It 
 will be observed that Kant says nothing 
 here about “contrivance.” By the phrase 
 “free and understanding action” he doubt¬ 
 less means much the same that is here 
 meant by ascribing to God a quasi-psy¬ 
 chical nature. And thus alone, he says, 
 can we feel any interest in theism. The 
 thought goes deep, yet is plain enough to 
 every one. The teleological instinct in 
 Man cannot be suppressed or ignored. 
 
/ j8 The Idea of God. 
 
 The human soul shrinks from the thought 
 that it is without kith or kin in all this 
 wide universe. Our reason demands that 
 there shall be a reasonableness in the con¬ 
 stitution of things. This demand is a fact 
 in our psychical nature as positive and ir¬ 
 repressible as our acceptance of geometri¬ 
 cal axioms and our rejection of whatever 
 controverts such axioms. No ingenuity of 
 argument can bring us to believe that the 
 infinite Sustainer of the universe will “put 
 us to permanent intellectual confusion.” 
 There is in every earnest thinker a crav¬ 
 ing after a final cause ; and this craving 
 can no more be extinguished than our 
 belief in objective reality. Nothing can 
 persuade us‘ that the universe is a farrago 
 of nonsense. Our belief in what we call 
 the evidence of our senses is less strong 
 than our faith that in the orderly sequence 
 of events there is a meaning which our 
 minds could fathom were they only vast 
 enough. Doubtless in our own age, of 
 which it is a most healthful symptom 
 that it questions everything, there are 
 
The Idea of God. 139 
 
 many who, through inability to assign the 
 grounds for such a faith, have persuaded 
 themselves that it must be a mere super¬ 
 stition which ought not to be cherished ; 
 but it is not likely that any one of these 
 has ever really succeeded in ridding him¬ 
 self of it. 
 
 According to Mr. Spencer, the only ulti¬ 
 mate test of reality is persistence, and the 
 only measure of validity among our pri¬ 
 mary beliefs is the success with which 
 they resist all efforts to change them. Let 
 us see, then, how it is with the belief in 
 the essential reasonableness of the uni¬ 
 verse. Does this belief answer to any out¬ 
 ward reality ? Is there, in the scheme of 
 things, aught that justifies Man in claim¬ 
 ing kinship of any sort with the God that 
 is immanent in the world ? 
 
 The difficulty in answering such ques¬ 
 tions has its root in the impossibility of 
 framing a representative conception of 
 Deity; but it is a difficulty which may, for 
 all practical purposes, be surmounted by 
 the aid of a symbolic conception. 
 
XII. 
 
 Symbolic Conceptions . 
 
 BSERVE the meaning of this dis¬ 
 tinction. Of any simple object 
 which can be grasped in a single 
 act of perception, such as a knife or a 
 book, an egg or an orange, a circle or a 
 triangle, you can frame a conception which 
 almost or quite exactly represents the ob¬ 
 ject. The picture or visual image in your 
 
 9 
 
 mind when the orange is present to the 
 senses is almost exactly reproduced when 
 it is absent. The distinction between the 
 two lies chiefly in the relative vividness 
 of the former as contrasted with the rela¬ 
 tive faintness of the latter. But as the 
 objects of thought increase in size and in 
 complexity of detail, the case soon comes 
 to be very different. You cannot frame 
 a truly representative conception of the 
 
The Idea of God. 141 
 
 town in which you live, however familiar 
 you may be with its streets and houses, 
 its parks and trees, and the looks and de¬ 
 meanour of the townsmen ; it is impossi¬ 
 ble to embrace so many details in a single 
 mental picture. The mind must range to 
 and fro among the phenomena in order 
 to represent the town in a series of con¬ 
 ceptions. But practically what you have 
 in mind when you speak of the town is 
 a fragmentary conception in which some 
 portion of the object is represented, while 
 you are well aware that with sufficient 
 pains a series of mental pictures could be 
 formed which would approximately corre¬ 
 spond to the object. That is to say, this 
 fragmentary conception stands in your 
 mind as a symbol of the town. To some 
 extent the conception is representative, 
 but to a great degree it is symbolic. With 
 a further increase in the size and complex¬ 
 ity of the objects of thought, our concep¬ 
 tions gradually lose their representative 
 character, and at length become purely 
 
142 The Idea of God. 
 
 symbolic. No one can form a mental 
 picture that answers even approximately 
 to the earth. Even a homogeneous ball 
 eight thousand miles in diameter is too 
 vast an object to be conceived otherwise 
 than symbolically, and much more is this 
 true of the ball upon which we live, with 
 all its endless multiformity of detail. We 
 imagine a globe and clothe it with a few 
 terrestrial attributes, and in our minds 
 this fragmentary notion does duty as a 
 symbol of the earth. 
 
 The case becomes still more striking 
 when we have to deal with conceptions of 
 the universe, of cosmic forces such as light 
 and heat, or of the stupendous secular 
 changes which modern science calls us to 
 contemplate. Here our conceptions can¬ 
 not even pretend to represent the objects; 
 they are as purely symbolic as the alge¬ 
 braic equations whereby the geometer ex¬ 
 presses the shapes of curves. Yet so long 
 as there are means of verification at our 
 command, we can reason as safely with 
 
The Idea of God. 143 
 
 these symbolic conceptions as if they were 
 truly representative. The geometer can 
 at any moment translate his equation into 
 'an actual curve, and thereby test the re¬ 
 sults of his reasoning; and the case is 
 similar with the undulatory theory of light, 
 the chemist’s conception of atomicity, and 
 other vast stretches of thought which in 
 recent times have revolutionized our knowl¬ 
 edge of Nature. The danger in the use 
 of symbolic conceptions is the danger of 
 framing illegitimate symbols that answer 
 to nothing in heaven or earth, as has hap¬ 
 pened first and last with so many short¬ 
 lived theories in science and in meta¬ 
 physics. Forewarned of this danger, and 
 therefore — I hope—forearmed against it, 
 let us see what a scientific philosophy has 
 to say about the Power that is manifested 
 in and through the universe. 
 
The Eternal Source of Phenomena . 
 
 E have seen that before men could 
 arrive at the idea of God, before 
 out of the old crude and fragmen¬ 
 tary polytheisms there could be developed 
 a pure and coherent theism, it was neces¬ 
 sary that physical generalization should 
 have advanced far enough to enable them, 
 however imperfectly, to reason about the 
 universe as a whole. It was a faint 
 glimpse of the unity of Nature that first 
 led men to the conception of the unity of 
 God, and as their knowledge of the phe¬ 
 nomenal fact becomes clearer, so must 
 their grasp upon the noumenal truth be¬ 
 hind it become firmer. Now the whole 
 tendency of modern science is to impress 
 upon us ever more forcibly the truth that 
 the entire knowable universe is an im- 
 
The Idea of God, 145 
 
 mense unit, animated throughout all its 
 parts by a single principle of life. This 
 conclusion, which was long ago borne in 
 upon the minds of prophetic thinkers, like 
 Spinoza and Goethe, through their keen 
 appreciation of the significance of the 
 physical harmonies known to them, has 
 during the last fifty years received some¬ 
 thing like a demonstration in detail. It 
 is since Goethe’s death, for example, that 
 it has been proved that the Newtonian 
 Maw of gravitation extends to the bodies 
 which used to be called fixed stars. That 
 such was the case was already much more 
 than probable, but so lately as 1835 there 
 were to be found writers on science, such 
 as Comte, who denied that it could ever 
 be proved. But a still more impressive 
 illustration of the unity of Nature is fur¬ 
 nished by the luminiferous ether, when 
 considered in connection with the discov¬ 
 ery of the correlation of forces. The fath¬ 
 omless abysses of space can no longer be 
 talked of as empty; they are filled with 
 
 10 
 
146 The Idea of God . 
 
 a wonderful substance, unlike any of the 
 forms of matter which we can weigh and 
 measure. A cosmic jelly almost infinitely 
 hard and elastic, it offers at the same time 
 no appreciable resistance to the move¬ 
 ments of the heavenly bodies. It is so 
 sensitive that a shock in any part of it 
 causes a “tremour which is felt on the 
 surface of countless worlds.” Radiating 
 in every direction, from millions of centric 
 points, run shivers of undulation mani¬ 
 fested in endless metamorphosis as heat, 
 or light, or actinism, as magnetism or elec¬ 
 tricity. Crossing one another in every im¬ 
 aginable way, as if all space were crowded 
 with a mesh-work of nerve-threads, these 
 motions go on forever in a harmony that 
 nothing disturbs. Thus every part of the 
 universe shares in the life of all the other 
 parts, as when in the solar atmosphere, 
 pulsating at its temperature of a million 
 degrees Fahrenheit, a slight breeze in¬ 
 stantly sways the needles in every com¬ 
 pass-box on the face of the earth. 
 
The Idea of God. 147 
 
 Still further striking confirmation is 
 found in the marvellous disclosures of 
 spectrum analysis. To whatever part of 
 the heavens we turn the telescope, armed 
 with this new addition to our senses, we 
 find the same chemical elements with 
 which the present century has made us 
 familiar upon the surface of the earth. 
 From the distant worlds of Arcturus and 
 the Pleiades, whence the swift ray of light 
 takes many years to reach us, it brings 
 the story of the hydrogen and oxygen, the 
 vapour of iron or sodium, which set it in 
 motion. Thus in all parts of the universe 
 that have fallen within our ken we find 
 a unity of chemical composition. Nebulae, 
 stars, and planets are all made of the same 
 materials, and on every side we behold 
 them in different stages of development, 
 worlds in the making: here an irregular 
 nebula such as our solar system once was, 
 there a nebula whose rotation has at 
 length wrought it into spheroidal form; 
 here and there stars of varied colours mark- 
 
148 The Idea of God. 
 
 ing different eras in chemical evolution; 
 now planets still partly incandescent like 
 Saturn and Jupiter, then planets like Mars 
 and the earth, with cool atmospheres and 
 solid continents and vast oceans of water; 
 and lastly such bodies as the moon, va¬ 
 pourless, rigid, and cold in death. 
 
 Still nearer do we come toward real¬ 
 izing the unity of Nature when we recol¬ 
 lect that the law of evolution is not only 
 the same for all these various worlds, but 
 is also the same throughout all other or¬ 
 ders of phenomena. Not only in the de¬ 
 velopment of cosmical bodies, including 
 the earth, but also in the development of 
 life upon the earth’s surface and in the 
 special development of those complex man¬ 
 ifestations of life known as human socie¬ 
 ties, the most general and fundamental 
 features of the process are the same, so 
 that it has been found possible to express 
 them in a single universal formula. And 
 what is most striking of all, this notable 
 formula, under which Herbert Spencer 
 
The Idea of God. 149 
 
 has succeeded in generalizing the phe¬ 
 nomena of universal evolution, was derived 
 from the formula under which Von Baer 
 in 1829 first generalized the mode of de¬ 
 velopment of organisms from their em¬ 
 bryos. That a law of evolution first par¬ 
 tially detected among the phenomena of 
 the organic world should thereafter not 
 only be found applicable to all other orders 
 of phenomena, but should find in this ap¬ 
 plication its first complete and coherent 
 statement, is a fact of wondrous and start¬ 
 ling significance. It means that the uni¬ 
 verse as a whole is thrilling in every fibre 
 with Life, — not, indeed, life in the usual 
 restricted sense, but life in a general 
 sense. The distinction, once deemed ab¬ 
 solute, between the living and the not- 
 living is converted into a relative distinc¬ 
 tion ; and Life as manifested in the organ¬ 
 ism is seen to be only a specialized form 
 of the Universal Life. 
 
 The conception of matter as dead or in¬ 
 ert belongs, indeed, to an order of thought 
 
150 The Idea of God. 
 
 that modern knowledge has entirely out¬ 
 grown. If the study of physics has taught 
 us anything, it is that nowhere in Nature 
 is inertness or quiescence to be found. 
 All is quivering with energy. From par¬ 
 ticle to particle without cessation the 
 movement passes on, reappearing from 
 moment to moment under myriad Protean 
 forms, while the rearrangements of parti¬ 
 cles incidental to the movement constitute 
 the qualitative differences among things. 
 Now in the language of physics all mo¬ 
 tions of matter are manifestations of 
 force, to which we can assign neither be¬ 
 ginning nor end. Matter is indestructible, 
 motion is continuous, and beneath both 
 these universal truths lies the fundamental 
 truth that force is persistent. The far¬ 
 thest reach in science that has ever been 
 made was made when it was proved by 
 Herbert Spencer that the law of universal 
 evolution is a necessary consequence of 
 the persistence of force. It has shown us 
 that all the myriad phenomena of the uni- 
 
Tie Idea of God. 151 
 
 verse, all its weird and subtle changes, in 
 all their minuteness from moment to mo¬ 
 ment, in all their vastness from age to 
 age, are the manifestations of a single ani¬ 
 mating principle that is both infinite and 
 eternal. 
 
 By what name, then, shall we call this 
 animating principle of the universe, this 
 eternal source of phenomena ? Using the 
 ordinary language of physics, we have just 
 been calling it Force, but such a term in no 
 wise enlightens us. Taken by itself it is 
 meaningless ; it acquires its meaning only 
 from the relations in which it is used. It 
 is a mere symbol, like the algebraic ex¬ 
 pression which stands for a curve. Of 
 what, then, is it the symbol ? 
 
 The words which we use are so en¬ 
 wrapped in atmospheres of subtle associa¬ 
 tions that they are liable to sway the direc¬ 
 tion of our thoughts in ways of which we 
 are often unconscious. It is highly de¬ 
 sirable that physics should have a word 
 as thoroughly abstract, as utterly emptied 
 
/ 52 The Idea of God. 
 
 of all connotations of personality, as pos¬ 
 sible, so that it may be used like a math¬ 
 ematical symbol. Such a word is Force. 
 But what we are now dealing with is by 
 no means a scientific abstraction. It is 
 the most concrete and solid of realities, 
 the one Reality which underlies all ap¬ 
 pearances, and from the presence of which 
 we can never escape. Suppose, then, that 
 we translate our abstract terminology into 
 something that is more concrete. Instead 
 of the force which persists, let us speak 
 of the Power which is always and every¬ 
 where manifested in phenomena. Our 
 question, then, becomes, What is this in¬ 
 finite and eternal Power like ? What kind 
 of language shall we use in describing it ? 
 Can we regard it as in any wise “ mate¬ 
 rial,” or can we speak of its universal and 
 ceaseless activity as in any wise the work¬ 
 ing of a “blind necessity”? For here, at 
 length, we have penetrated to the inner¬ 
 most kernel of the problem; and upon 
 the answer must depend our mental atti¬ 
 tude toward the mystery of existence. 
 
The Idea of God. / 5j 
 
 The answer is that we cannot regard 
 the infinite and eternal Power as in any¬ 
 wise “material,” nor can we attribute its 
 workings to “blind necessity.” The eter¬ 
 nal source of phenomena is the source of 
 what we see and hear and touch ; it is the 
 source of what we call matter, but it can¬ 
 not itself be material. Matter is but the 
 generalized name we give to those modi¬ 
 fications which we refer immediately to an 
 unknown something outside of ourselves. 
 It was long ago shown that all the quali¬ 
 ties of matter are what the mind makes 
 them, and have no existence as such apart 
 from the mind. In the deepest sense all 
 that we really know is mind, and as Clif¬ 
 ford would say, what we call the material 
 universe is simply an imperfect picture in 
 our minds of a real universe of mind-stuff. 22 
 Our own mind we know directly ; our 
 neighbour’s mind we know by inference; 
 that which is external to both is a Power 
 hidden from sense, which causes states of 
 consciousness that are similar in both. 
 
/54 The Idea of God . 
 
 Such states of consciousness we call ma¬ 
 terial qualities, and matter is nothing but 
 the sum of such qualities. To speak of the 
 hidden Power itself as “ material ” is there¬ 
 fore not merely to state what is untrue, — 
 it is to talk nonsense. We are bound to 
 conceive of the Eternal Reality in terms 
 of the only reality that we know, or else 
 refrain from conceiving it under any form 
 whatever. But the latter alternative is 
 clearly impossible. 23 We might as well try 
 to escape from the air in which we breathe 
 as to expel from consciousness the Power 
 which is manifested throughout what we 
 call the material universe. But the only 
 conclusion we can consistently hold is that 
 this is the very same power “which in 
 ourselves wells up under the form of con¬ 
 sciousness.” 
 
 In the nature-worship of primitive men, 
 beneath all the crudities of thought by 
 which it was overlaid and obscured, there 
 was thus after all an essential germ of 
 truth which modern philosophy is con- 
 
The Idea of God . 755 
 
 strained to recognize and reiterate. As 
 the unity of Nature has come to be dem¬ 
 onstrated, innumerable finite powers, once 
 conceived as psychical and deified, have 
 been generalized into a single infinite 
 Power that is still thought of as psy¬ 
 chical. From the crudest polytheism we 
 have thus, by a slow evolution, arrived at 
 pure monotheism, — the recognition of the 
 eternal God indwelling in the universe, 
 in whom we live and move and have our 
 being. 
 
 But in thus conceiving of God as psy¬ 
 chical, as a Being with whom the human 
 soul in the deepest sense owns kinship, 
 we must beware of too carelessly ascrib¬ 
 ing to Him those specialized psychical at¬ 
 tributes characteristic of humanity, which 
 one and all imply limitation and weakness. 
 We must not forget the warning of the 
 prophet Isaiah : “ My thoughts are not 
 your thoughts, neither are your ways my 
 ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens 
 are higher than the earth, so are my ways 
 
156 The Idea of God. 
 
 higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
 than your thoughts.” Omniscience, for 
 example, has been ascribed to God in 
 every system of theism ; yet the psychical 
 nature to which all events, past, present, 
 and future, can be always simultaneously 
 present is clearly as far removed from the 
 limited and serial psychical nature of Man 
 as the heavens are higher than the earth. 
 We are not so presumptuous, therefore, 
 as to attempt, with some theologians of 
 the anthropomorphic school, to inquire mi¬ 
 nutely into the character of the divine de¬ 
 crees and purposes. But our task would 
 be ill-performed were nothing more to be 
 said about that craving after a final cause 
 which we have seen to be an essential 
 element in Man’s religious nature. It 
 remains to be shown that there is a rea¬ 
 sonableness in the universe, that in the 
 orderly sequence of events there is a mean¬ 
 ing which appeals to our human intelli¬ 
 gence. Without adopting Paley’s method, 
 which has been proved inadequate, we 
 
The Idea of God. 
 
 *57 
 
 may nevertheless boldly aim at an object 
 like that at which Paley aimed. Caution 
 is needed, since we are dealing with a 
 symbolic conception as to which the very 
 point in question is whether there is any 
 reality that answers to it. The problem 
 is a hard one, but here we suddenly get 
 powerful help from the doctrine of evolu¬ 
 tion, and especially from that part of it 
 known as the Darwinian theory. 
 
XIV. 
 
 The Power that makes for Righteousness . 
 
 LTHOUGH it was the Darwinian 
 theory of natural selection which 
 overthrew the argument from de¬ 
 sign, yet — as I have argued in another 
 place — when thoroughly understood it will 
 be found to replace as much teleology as 
 it destroys. 24 Indeed, the doctrine of evo¬ 
 lution, in all its chapters, has a certain 
 teleological aspect, although it does not 
 employ those methods which in the hands 
 of the champions of final causes have been 
 found so misleading. The doctrine of evo¬ 
 lution does not regard any given arrange¬ 
 ment of things as scientifically explained 
 when it is shown to subserve some good 
 purpose, but it seeks its explanation in 
 such antecedent conditions as may have 
 been competent to bring about the ar- 
 
The Idea of God. i$g 
 
 rangement in question. Nevertheless, the 
 doctrine of evolution is not only per¬ 
 petually showing us the purposes which 
 the arrangements of Nature subserve, 
 but throughout one large section of the 
 ground which it covers it points to a 
 discernible dramatic tendency, a clearly- 
 marked progress of events toward a mighty 
 goal. Now it especially concerns us to 
 note that this large section is just the 
 one, and the only one, which our powers 
 of imagination are able to compass. The 
 astronomic story of the universe is alto¬ 
 gether too vast for us to comprehend in 
 such wise as to tell whether it shows any 
 dramatic tendency or not. 25 But in the 
 story of the evolution of life upon the sur¬ 
 face of our earth, where alone we are able 
 to compass the phenomena, we see all 
 things working together, through count¬ 
 less ages of toil and trouble, toward one 
 glorious consummation. It is therefore a 
 fair inference, though a bold one, that if 
 our means of exploration were such that 
 
160 The Idea of God. 
 
 we could compass the story of all the sys¬ 
 tems of worlds that shine in the spacious 
 firmament, we should be able to detect a 
 similar meaning. At all events, the story 
 which we can decipher is sufficiently im¬ 
 pressive and consoling. It clothes our 
 theistic belief with moral significance, re¬ 
 veals the intense and solemn reality of 
 religion, and fills the heart with tidings of 
 great joy. 
 
 The glorious consummation toward which 
 organic evolution is tending is the produc¬ 
 tion of the highest and most perfect psy¬ 
 chical life. Already the germs of this 
 conclusion existed in the Darwinian the¬ 
 ory as originally stated, though men were 
 for a time too busy with other aspects of 
 the theory to pay due attention to, them. 
 In the natural selection of such individual 
 peculiarities as conduce to the survival of 
 the species, and in the evolution by this 
 process of higher and higher creatures 
 endowed with capacities for a richer and 
 more varied life, there might have been 
 
The Idea of God. 161 
 
 seen a well-marked dramatic tendency, to¬ 
 ward the denouement of which every one 
 of the myriad little acts of life and death 
 during the entire series of geologic aeons 
 was assisting. The whole scheme was 
 teleological, and each single act of nat¬ 
 ural selection had a teleological meaning. 
 Herein lies the reason why the theory so 
 quickly destroyed that of Paley. It did 
 not merely refute it, but supplanted it 
 with explanations which had the merit of 
 being truly scientific, while at the same 
 time they hit the mark at which natural 
 theology had unsuccessfully aimed. 
 
 Such was the case with the Darwinian 
 theory as first announced. But since it 
 has been more fully studied in its appli¬ 
 cation to the genesis of Man, a wonderful 
 flood of light has been thrown upon the 
 meaning of evolution, and there appears 
 a reasonableness in the universe such as 
 had not appeared before. It has been 
 shown that the genesis of Man was due to 
 a change in the direction of the working 
 
 u 
 
j62 The Idea of God. 
 
 of natural selection, whereby psychical va¬ 
 riations were selected to the neglect of 
 physical variations. It has been shown 
 that one chief result of this change was 
 the lengthening of infancy, whereby Man 
 appeared on the scene as a plastic crea¬ 
 ture capable of unlimited psychical prog¬ 
 ress. It has been shown that one chief 
 result of the lengthening of infancy was 
 the origination of the family and of human 
 society endowed with rudimentary moral 
 ideas and moral sentiments. It has been 
 shown that through these cooperating 
 processes the difference between Man and 
 all lower creatures has come to be a differ¬ 
 ence in kind transcending all other dif¬ 
 ferences ; that his appearance upon the 
 earth marked the beginning of the final 
 stage in the process of development, the 
 last act in the great drama of creation ; 
 and that all the remaining work of evolu¬ 
 tion must consist in the perfecting of the 
 creature thus marvellously produced. It 
 has been further shown that the perfect- 
 
The Idea of God. 163 
 
 ing of Man consists mainly in the ever- 
 increasing predominance of the life of the 
 soul over the life of the body. And lastly, 
 it has been shown that, whereas the ear¬ 
 lier stages of human progress have been 
 characterized by a struggle for existence * 
 like that through which all lower forms of 
 life have been developed, nevertheless the 
 action of natural selection upon Man is 
 coming to an end, and his future develop¬ 
 ment will be accomplished through the 
 direct adaptation of his wonderfully plas¬ 
 tic intelligence to the circumstances in 
 which it is placed. Hence it has appeared 
 that war and all forms of strife, having 
 ceased to discharge their normal function, 
 and having thus become unnecessary, will 
 slowly die out; 26 that the feelings and 
 habits adapted to ages of strife will ulti¬ 
 mately perish from disuse; and that a 
 stage of civilization will be reached in 
 which human sympathy shall be all in all, 
 and the spirit of Christ shall reign su¬ 
 preme throughout the length and breadth 
 of the earth. 
 
164 The Idea of God. 
 
 These conclusions, with the grounds 
 upon which they are based, have been 
 succinctly set forth in my little book en¬ 
 titled “The Destiny of Man viewed in the 
 Light of his Origin.” Startling as they 
 may have seemed to some, they are no 
 more so than many of the other truths 
 which have been brought home to us dur¬ 
 ing this unprecedented age. They are the 
 fruit of a wide induction from the most 
 vitally important facts which the doctrine 
 of evolution has set forth ; and they may 
 fairly claim recognition as an integral body 
 of philosophic doctrine fit to stand the 
 test of time. Here they are summarized 
 as the final step in my argument concern¬ 
 ing the true nature of theism. They add 
 new meanings to the idea of God, as it is 
 affected by modern knowledge, while at 
 the same time they do but give articulate 
 voice to time-honoured truths which it was 
 feared the skepticism of our age might 
 have rendered dumb and powerless. For 
 if we express in its most concentrated 
 
The Idea of God . 765 
 
 form the meaning of these conclusions 
 regarding Man’s origin and destiny, we 
 find that it affords the full justification 
 of the fundamental ideas and sentiments 
 which have animated religion at all times. 
 We see Man still the crown and glory of 
 the universe and the chief object of divine 
 care, yet still the lame and halting crea¬ 
 ture, loaded with a brute-inheritance of 
 original sin, whose ultimate salvation is 
 slowly to be achieved through ages of 
 moral discipline. We see the chief agency 
 which produced him — natural selection 
 which always works through strife — ceas¬ 
 ing to operate upon him, so that, until 
 human strife shall be brought to an end, 
 there goes on a struggle between his 
 lower and his higher impulses, in which 
 the higher must finally conquer. And in 
 all this we find the strongest imaginable 
 incentive to right living, yet one that is 
 still the same in principle with that set 
 forth by the great Teacher who first 
 brought men to the knowledge of the true 
 God. 
 
166 The Idea of God . 
 
 As to the conception of Deity, in the 
 shape impressed upon it by our modern 
 knowledge, I believe I have now said 
 enough to show that it is no empty for¬ 
 mula or metaphysical abstraction which 
 we would seek to substitute for the living 
 God. The infinite and eternal Power that 
 is manifested in every pulsation of the uni¬ 
 verse is none other than the living God. 
 We may exhaust the resources of meta¬ 
 physics in debating how far his nature 
 may fitly be expressed in terms applicable 
 to the psychical nature of Man; such vain 
 attempts will only serve to show how we 
 are dealing with a theme that must ever 
 transcend our finite powers of conception. 
 But of some things we may feel sure. 
 Humanity is not a mere local incident in 
 an endless and aimless series of cosmical 
 changes. The events of the universe are 
 not the work of chance, neither are they 
 the outcome of blind necessity. Practi¬ 
 cally there is a purpose in the world 
 whereof it is our highest duty to learn 
 
The Idea of God. i6y 
 
 the lesson, however well or ill we may 
 fare in rendering a scientific account of 
 it. When from the dawn of life we see 
 all things working together toward the 
 evolution of the highest spiritual attri¬ 
 butes of Man, we know, however the 
 words may stumble in which we try to 
 say it, that God is in the deepest sense a 
 moral Being. The everlasting source of 
 phenomena is none other than the infi¬ 
 nite Power that makes for righteousness. 
 Thou canst not by searching find Him 
 out; yet put thy trust in Him, and against 
 thee the gates of hell shall not prevail; for 
 there is neither wisdom nor understanding 
 nor counsel against the Eternal. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 - 0 — 
 
 A. —MEDITATIONS OF A SAVAGE. 
 
 In the presence of the great mystery of exist¬ 
 ence, the thoughts of the untutored savage are 
 not always so very unlike those of civilized men, 
 as we may see from the following pathetic words 
 of a Kafir, named Sekese, in conversation with a 
 French traveller, M. Arbrouseille, on the subject 
 of the Christian religion : — 
 
 “ Your tidings,” said this uncultivated barba¬ 
 rian, “are what I want, and I was seeking before 
 I knew you, as you shall hear and judge for your¬ 
 self. Twelve years ago I went to feed my flocks ; 
 the weather was hazy. I sat down upon a rock 
 and asked myself sorrowful questions ; yes, sor¬ 
 rowful, because I was unable to answer them. 
 Who has touched the stars with his hands — on 
 what pillars do they rest, I asked myself. The 
 waters never weary, they know no other law than 
 to flow without ceasing from morning till night 
 and from night till morning; but where do they 
 stop, and who makes them flow thus ? The clouds 
 
Notes. 169 
 
 also come and go, and burst in water over the 
 earth. Whence come they — who sends them ? 
 The diviners certainly do not give us rain; for 
 how could they do it ? and why do not I see them 
 with my own eyes when they go up to heaven to 
 fetch it ? I cannot see the wind; but what is it ? 
 who brings it, makes it blow and roar and terrify 
 us ? Do I know how the corn sprouts ? Yester¬ 
 day there was not a blade in my field, to-day I 
 returned to the field and found some; who can 
 have given to the earth the wisdom and the power 
 to produce it ? Then I buried my head in both 
 my hands.” — Cited in Picton, Mystery of Matter, 
 p. 222. 
 
 B. —THE NAME GOD. 
 
 None of the dictionaries offer a satisfactory ex¬ 
 planation of the word God. It was once commonly 
 supposed to be related to the adjective good ,, but 
 Grimm long ago showed that this connection is, 
 to say the least, very improbable. It has also 
 been sought to identify it with Persian Khodd, 
 from Zend qvadata , Skr. svadata , Lat. a se datus , 
 in which the idea is that of self-existence ; but this 
 fanciful etymology was exploded by Aufrecht. The 
 arrant guesswork of Donaldson, who would con¬ 
 nect God with Ka\ 6 s, and 0 e 6 s with Tid-ti/xi (New Cra- 
 tylus, p. 710), scarcely deserves mention in these 
 
Notes. 
 
 lyo 
 
 days. Among the more scientific philologists of 
 our time, August Fick, in treating of the “ Wort- 
 schatz dergermanischen Spracheinheit,” simply re¬ 
 fers God to a primitive Teutonic gutha , and says 
 no more about it. (Vergl. Woerterbuch der indo- 
 germanischen Sprachen, III. 107.) He is followed 
 by Skeat (Etymological Dictionary, p. 238), who 
 adds that there is “ no connection with good .” 
 Eduard Muller says: “ So bedenklich die zusam- 
 menstellung mit good, so fraglich ist doch auch 
 noch die urverwandtschaft mit pers. Khoda gott, 
 oder skr. gfidha mysterium, oder skr. giiddha 
 purus; Heyne : ‘ als sich verhiillender, unsicht- 
 barer, vgl. skr. gtih fiir gudh celare.’ ” (Woerter¬ 
 buch der englischen Sprache, p. 456.) 
 
 Max Muller has much more plausibly suggested 
 that God was formerly a heathen name for the 
 Deity, which passed into Christian usage, like the 
 Latin Deus . (Science of Language, 6th ed. II. 
 317.) Following this hint, I suggested, several 
 years ago (North Amer. Review, Oct. 1869, p. 354), 
 that God is probably identical with Wo dan or Odin , 
 the name of the great Northern deity, the chief 
 object of the worship of our forefathers. This re¬ 
 lation cf an initial G to an initial W is a very com¬ 
 mon one ; as for example Guillaume and Williajn, 
 guerre and war, guardia?i and warden, guile and 
 wile . The same thing is seen in Armorican guasta 
 
Notes. 
 
 171 
 
 and Ital. gu as tare, as compared with Lat. vastare, 
 Eng. waste; and in the Eng. quick , Goth, quivs, 
 Lat. vivus. In Erchempert’s Historia Langobar- 
 dorum, 11, Pertz, III. 245, we find Ludoguicus for 
 Ludovicus. Not only is this relation a common 
 one, but there are plenty of specific instances of 
 it in the case of IVodan. In Germany we have the 
 town names of Godesberg , Gudenberg , and Godens- 
 holt , all derived from Wodan. In the Westphalian 
 dialect, Wednesday (“ day of Wodan ”) is called Go- 
 denstag or Gunstagj in Nether-Rhenish, Gudens- 
 tag; in Flemish, Goenstag. See Thorpe, North¬ 
 ern Mythol. I. 229; Taylor, Words and Places, 
 323 ; and cf. Grimm, Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, 
 296. The Westphalian Saxons wrote both Guodan 
 and Gudan. Odin was also called Godin (Laing, 
 Heimskringla, I. 74), and Paulus Diaconus tells us 
 that the Lombards pronounced Wodan as Guodan. 
 In view of such a convergence of proofs, I am sur¬ 
 prised that attention was not long ago called to 
 this etymology. 
 
 Wodan was originally the storm-spirit or animat¬ 
 ing genius of the wind, answering in many re¬ 
 spects to the Greek Hermes and the Vedic Sara- 
 meyas. See my Myths and Myth-makers, 19, 20, 
 32, 35 > 67, 124, 204; and cf. Mackay, Religious 
 Development of the Greeks and Hebrews, i. 260- 
 273 - 
 
REFERENCES. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 M. M., Myths and Myth-makers, 1872; C. P., Outlines of Cosmic 
 Philosophy, 1874; U. W., The Unseen World, 1876; D., Dar¬ 
 winism and Other Essays, 1879; E. E., Excursions of an Evo¬ 
 lutionist, 1884; D. M., The Destiny of Man, 1884; A. P. I., 
 American Political Ideas, 1885. 
 
 1. E. E. 56-77. 
 
 2. C. P. i. 230. 
 
 3. C. P. i. 157, 177 - 179 - 
 
 4. M. M. 18-21, etpassim. 
 
 5. M. M. 220. 
 
 6. M. M. 232. 
 
 7. M. M. 236; E. E, 251. 
 
 8. A. P. I. 78, 81. 
 
 9. U. W. 10. 
 
 10. D. M. 104-107. 
 
 11. E. E. 262. 
 
 12. M. M. 236. 
 
 13. C. P. ii. 383. 
 
 14. U. W. 118. 
 
 15. D. 5-8; C. P. ii. 283. 
 
 16, 17. C. P. ii. 428. 
 
 18. C. P. i. 183; ii. 449. 
 
References. 
 
 *73 
 
 19. M. M. 122. 
 
 20. C. P. ii. 405. 
 
 21. C. P. ii. 381-410* 
 
 22. E. E. 327-336. 
 
 23. C. P. ii. 449. 
 
 24. D. M. 113 ; cf. C. P. ii. 406. 
 
 25. D. 103. 
 
 26. D. M. 77-95; A. P. I. 101-152. 
 
 X 
 
IMPORTANT BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FISKE. 
 
 OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, based on the Doo 
 
 trine of Evolution. With Criticisms on the Positive 
 Philosophy. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 465, 523, $6.00. 
 
 Mr. Darwin, after reading this work, wrote as follows 
 to Mr. Fiske: — 
 
 “You must allow me to thank you for the very great interest 
 
 ^‘^erin^Qy^^reLi^o lucM^^exp^itor^and^therefo^thiukerj 
 I never y k ^ t j understand nearly the whole, though 
 
 Srt? zusxrszx 
 
 jS'interes'ted Z Tad alriveTfr ^ 
 
 It pleased - M li oaif of “i‘e “aa,e conclusions with you, 
 
 or never have given my reasons lor such 
 
 conclusions.” 
 
 This work of Mr. Tiske's may be not unfairly designated the most 
 important^contribution yet made by America to hter- 
 
 q fn via theory of the influence of prolonged infancy upon 
 
 social development (Part II., chap xxii.) e ^ l ^ io ^ r, Jthe theory 
 to be considered a distinctly important Articular - 
 
 of the origin of species, and of the origin of man in particular. 
 
 Academy (London). 
 
 Ills most important suggestion, that of the influence L^s'wf 
 period of feeble adolescence upon man s social development, js, we 
 think, a permanent contribution to the development theoiy. 
 tion (New York). 
 
 He recognizes Mr. Spencer as his teacher and guide; but he has 
 
 ?I°ty of specdi;tion.-GEORC.BEirLKY, in TMunc (New York). 
 
 Hr. Tiske’s work . . , is the first important eontributton made 
 
 by America to the evolution philosophy, • • • ^ purport of 
 
 r/cSo W »m° SlheSK^SSS; (hondon). 
 
The author asserts that a system of philosophy has been con¬ 
 structed, out of purely scientific materials, . . . which opposes a 
 direct negative to every one of the theorems of which Positivism is 
 made up. — Scotsman (Edinburgh). 
 
 Mr. Fiske is not a mere compiler from Mr. Spencer's works, nor 
 is he simply a popularizer of au abstruse theory. He works his 
 way to the chief results of Mr. Spencer's argument with independ¬ 
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 literary style. ... It is curious to note the almost fierce persist¬ 
 ence with which the author returns again and again to an attack 
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 to bridge over the gulf which divides the merely gregarious and 
 sympathetic brutes from morally constituted man (Part II., chap, 
 xxii.). — James Sully, in Examiner (London). 
 
 Mr. Fiske is a disciple who thinks for himself, and who has no 
 hesitation, when necessary, in criticising him whom he acknowl¬ 
 edges as master. . . . He is so thoroughly imbued with the philo¬ 
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 English. — Daily News (London). 
 
 Mr. Fiske’s work shows a complete and independent mastery of 
 the subject in all its bearings, together with a power of lucid and 
 vigorous exposition unexcelled in any philosophical work with 
 which we are acquainted. — Daily Globe (Boston). 
 
 It is our best American book on the evolution philosophy, and 
 deserves to rank with the productions of the great English thinkers. 
 —■Index (Boston). . 
 
 DARWINISM AND OTHER ESSAYS. New Edition, en¬ 
 larged. 12 mo, pp. 283 , $ 2 . 00 . 
 
 Contents: Darwinism Verified; Mr. Mivart on Dar¬ 
 winism ; Dr. Bateman on Darwinism ; Dr. Buchner on 
 Darwinism ; A Crumb for the “ Modern Symposium ; ” 
 Chauncey Wright; What is Inspiration ? Modern Witch¬ 
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 If ever there was a spirit thoroughly invigorated by the “joy of 
 right understanding ” it is that of the author of these pieces. Even 
 the reader catches something of his intellectual buoyancy, and is 
 thus carried almost lightly through discussions which would be 
 hard and dry in the hands of a less animated writer. ... No less 
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foundations of spiritual truths, so called, cannot possibly be shaken 
 thereby. . . . Warm personal admiration and acute critical dis¬ 
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 in the article on the lamented Mr. Wright. . . The article on Mr. 
 Buckle’s Fallacies has one aspect more remarkable than all the resfc. 
 It was written and published when the “ History of Civilization ” 
 was new,—that is to say, when the writer was nineteen years of 
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 piece of criticism. The judgment of posterity on the most am¬ 
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 there a trace of immaturity. . . . The essay on the Races of the 
 Danube forcibly suggests the idea that Mr. Fiske has qualities of 
 mind, almost unused hitherto, which would make him an excep¬ 
 tionally valuable writer of history. — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 The article on the Races of the Danube shows that Mr. Fiske has 
 a special talent for history. — Nation (New York). 
 
 MYTHS AND MYTH-MAKERS: Old Tales and Su¬ 
 perstitions interpreted by Comparative Mythology. 
 12 mo, pp. 251 , $ 2 . 00 . 
 
 Contents : The Origins of Folk-Lore; The Descent 
 of Fire; Werewolves and Swan-Maidens; Light and 
 Darkness; Myths of the Barbaric World; Juventus 
 Mundi; The Primeval Ghost-World. 
 
 Mr. Fiske has given us a book which is at once sensible and at¬ 
 tractive, on a subject about which much is written that is crotchety 
 or tedious. — W. R. S. Ralston, in Athenceum (London). 
 
 This volume is not a text-book of scientific mythology. It con 
 tains seven essays crowded with quotations and examples, in the 
 abundant use of which the writer's learning is not more conspicu¬ 
 ous than his literary skill. Not everybody can shape and control 
 such wealth of material. — Christian Union (New York). 
 
 He has, as we must admit, one qualification for attaining his ob¬ 
 ject, in being completely master of his subject, and in knowing 
 also how to treat it in an attractive manner. — Felix Liebrecht, in 
 Academy (London). 
 
 It is extremely interesting for its happy combination of psycho¬ 
 logic analysis with a study of the primitive beliefs of mankind. . .. 
 A perusal of this thorough work cannot be too strongly recom¬ 
 mended to all who are interested in comparative mythology. — lie « 
 vue Critique (Paris). 
 
 Mr. Fiske is a master of perspicuous explanation. — World (New 
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Its weight of sense and its lucidity will extend Mr. Fiske’s repu¬ 
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 With the capacity for profound research and the power of crit¬ 
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 clear and simple statement, which will not let the most indifferent 
 refuse knowledge of the topics treated.* In such a field as the dis¬ 
 cussion of old fables and superstitions affords, we have not only to 
 admire Mr. Fiske for the charm of his manner, but for the justice 
 and honesty of his method. — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 It is both an amusing and instructive book, evincing large re¬ 
 search, and giving its results in a lucid and attractive style. — E. P. 
 Whipple. 
 
 THE UNSEEN WORLD, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 12rao, 
 pp. 349, $2.00. 
 
 Contents: The Unseen World; The To-morrow of 
 Death; The Jesus of History; The Christ of Dogma; 
 A Word about Miracles; Draper on Science and Re¬ 
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 Famine of 1770 in Bengal; Spain and the Netherlands; 
 Longfellow’s Dante; Paine’s St. Peter; A Philosophy 
 of Art; Athenian and American Life. 
 
 We think every one will remark, while examining this volume, the 
 variety of subjects treated ; and if anybody has formed an opinion 
 that Mr. Fiske is a man who cares for nothing but myths and phi¬ 
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 are critical reviews of important books widely different in their 
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 fresh special knowledge, that enables him to supply much infor¬ 
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 in the volume he is noticing. To the knowledge, analytical power, 
 and faculty of clear statement, that appear in all these papers, Mr. 
 Fiske adds a just independence of thought that conciliates respect¬ 
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 with the commonly accepted ones. — Boston Advertiser. 
 
 Of all the criticism and discussion called forth both in this coun¬ 
 try and in England by that remarkable little book, “The Unseen 
 Universe,” Mr. John Fiske’s “ Unseen World” is at once the most 
 profound, the most comprehensive, and the most lucid. . . . The 
 mere statement of a thought in his perspicuous and translucent 
 language gives it, in most cases, a new meaning and an added force. 
 — Appletons’ Journal. 
 
They are all striking compositions, and deserving of a place tn 
 the fore rank of this kind of literature. It is not often that more 
 robust and healthy reading can be found between the covers of a 
 single volume. — San Francisco Bulletin. 
 
 The vigor, the earnestness, the honesty, and the freedom from 
 cant and subtlety in his writing are exceedingly refreshing. He is 
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 Mr. Fiske has won for himself a foremost place among American 
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 He is one of our foremost religious thinkers.— Times (Neve 
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 The line of argument is so plain that all can follow it, and the 
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 Mr. John Fiske is a devoted student of Dante. The review of Mr. 
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 He is a scholar profoundly versed in ancient and modern lore, a 
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 He finely exposes the materialistic character of the book called 
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 The book has a unity and charm in the clearness of the thought 
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 ... He has already achieved a place as wholly his own as it is 
 eminent. — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST. 12rao, pp. 379, 
 
 $ 2 . 00 . 
 
 Contents: Europe before the Arrival of Man; The 
 Arrival of Man in Europe; Our Aryan Forefathers; 
 What we learn from Old Aryan Words; Was there a 
 Primeval Mother-Tongue 'i Sociology and Hero-Wor- 
 
ship; Heroes oi Industry; The Causes of Persecution-, 
 The Origins of Protestantism; The True Lesson of 
 Protestantism; Evolution and Religion; The Meaning 
 of Infancy; A Universe of Mind-Stuff; In Memoriam: 
 Charles Darwin. 
 
 Among our thoughtful essayists there are none more brilliant 
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 points in artistic relief. It is this perspective which makes his 
 work such agreeable reading even on abstruse subjects, and has 
 enabled him to play the same part in popularizing Spencer in this 
 country that Littr <5 performed for (Jomte in France, and Dumont 
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 favorite subject of evolution. . . . They are well worth reperusal. 
 — The Nation (New York). 
 
 These essays are all full of thought and worthy of preservation, 
 while several of them are entitled to rank among the very best es¬ 
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 subject until he has acquainted himself with it; and then he pre¬ 
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 whose clear thought, discriminating judgment, and philosophic 
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 his writings both instructive and entertaining. — Index (Boston). 
 
 The vividness and directness of the styler is second only to the 
 bracing and stimulating quality of the matter This book comes 
 nearer than anything we now think of among American publica¬ 
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 Mr. Fiske, under the above title, makes his excursions through 
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the reader is disposed to apply the same term of praise upon his 
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 Mr. Fiske is the master of an extremely lucid and attractive 
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 fruits of a very industrious reading and examination of authorities. 
 . . . Whether one agrees with him or not one cannot fail to receive 
 much instruction and definite intellectual impulse from the reading 
 of this volume. . . . While heartily dissenting from many of the 
 views advanced in this book, we commend it to all students who 
 care for the honest judgment of an honest man. — Christian Union. 
 
 THE DESTINY OF MAN, viewed in the Light of his 
 
 Origin. 16mo, pp. 121, $1.00. 
 
 Contents : Man’s Place in Nature as affected by the 
 Copernican Theory ; As affected by Darwinism ; On the 
 Earth there will never be a Higher Creature than Man; 
 The Origin of Infancy ; The Dawning of Consciousness; 
 Lengthening of Infancy and Concomitant Increase of 
 Brain Surface; Change in the Direction of the Working 
 of Natural Selection ; Growing Predominance of the Psy¬ 
 chical Life ; The Origins of Society and Morality ; Im¬ 
 provableness of Man; Universal Warfare of Primeval 
 Men ; First checked by the Beginnings of Industrial Civ¬ 
 ilization ; Methods of Political Development and Elimina¬ 
 tion of Warfare; End of the Working of Natural Selec¬ 
 tion upon Man ; Throwing off the Brute-Inheritance ; 
 The Message of Christianity; The Question as to a 
 Future Life. 
 
 Mr. Fiske has long held rank as one of the most profound and ex¬ 
 act of Americas thinkers, and his little monograph will serve to 
 extend that deserved fame among a class of readers who are not or¬ 
 dinarily interested in the literature of science. Mr. Fiske's book is, 
 in a word, a plea for faith in the immortality of man, based on the 
 doctrine of evolution. With a superb command of all the knowl¬ 
 edge bearing upon the philosophy of Darwinism, to which he has 
 himself been a noteworthy contributor, Mr. Fiske sums up in elo¬ 
 quent periods the process of evolutionary creation from the origin 
 of infancy to the beginnings of industrial and political development 
 which have made human society what it is to-day ; and then, look¬ 
 ing into the future, he foretells how natural selection, working on 
 the lines already marked out, shall attain its perfect work. The 
 whole argument, or rather exposition, is a marvel of condensation. 
 — Boston Traveller. 
 
Mr. Fiske has given us in his “ Destiny of Man ” a most attracv 
 ive condensation of his views as expressed in his various othei 
 works. One is charmed by the directness and clearness of his style, 
 his simple and pure English, and his evident knowledge of his sub¬ 
 ject. ... Of one thing we may be sure, that none are leading us 
 more surely or rapidly to the full truth than men like the author 
 of this little book, who reverently study the works of God for the 
 lessons which he would teach his children.— Christian Union (Kew 
 York). 
 
 Professor Fiske is always interesting. His exposition, step by 
 step, of the doctrine of evolution, is admirably adapted for those 
 prejudiced against it to read — simple, pleasant, and clear, and ex¬ 
 pressly designed to disarm hostility by showing that it is by no 
 means absolutely incompatible with accepted religious beliefs — at 
 least, with their essential qualities. — Overland Monthly (San Fran¬ 
 cisco). 
 
 It is a remarkable contribution to the literature of religious 
 thought. . . . It will prove that evolution is at least not irreverent. 
 • . . it is packed full of learning and suggestion, in a style at once 
 simple and beautiful, and is worth a dozen volumes of ordinary 
 sermons. — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 This essay will and should attract wide attention, founded as it is 
 upon modern science and marking the way in an advanced path in 
 religio-scientific inquiry. Mr. Fiske is acknowledged one of the 
 first of scientific thinkers, and his conclusions have more than the 
 usual weight. — Albany Journal. 
 
 Ilis little volume will be highly prized by those who enjoy seeing 
 one of the most profound themes which can occupy the attention 
 treated with eloquence and strength, with scientific insight and im¬ 
 aginative vigor. — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 The reverent spirit of the book, the wide range of illustrations, 
 the remarkable lucidity of thought and style, and the noble elo¬ 
 quence that characterizes it, render this book one of striking value 
 aud interest. — Salem Gazette. 
 
 THE IDEA OF GOD AS AFFECTED BY M0BEEN 
 KNOWLEDGE. 16mo, $1.00. 
 
 This essay is a sequel to “ The Destiny of Man.” Its object is to 
 show that the indications of Science and Philosophy are theistic, 
 not atheistic; that while the idea of God has been gi’eatly modified 
 by modern knowledge, it has not been lost or belittled, but magni¬ 
 fied and illuminated. The essay is prefaced by a long Introduction 
 of remarkable interest, and the w r hole book is full of significance 
 and charm for all thoughtful minds. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers, Boston. 
 

 
 
 
 
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