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or stone have no perception and no power of such action. To assign to Nature this perception and this power, is simply to make Nature the Divine Spirit. This either concedes the doctrine of a God by mere change of name, or it runs into the basest Pagan fetishism by attributing knowledge, accurate perception and mysterious power to masses of stone, nay, to every particle of matter.

If only a few men saw Mind at work in the Universe, they might mistake. The veracity of our bodily senses is not certain : they sometimes make mistakes: yet when the senses of many men concur, we accept the conclusions and are satisfied. So is it with our mental faculties. Though no one has consciousness of the mind and soul of another, yet the action of others convince us that others act from design and therefore have minds like to our own and the universal argument in this belief satisfies us that it is correct. So too our belief that we see a Superior Mind at work in the world is confirmed by the fact that the rest of mankind with great unanimity chime-in: insomuch that Man has been defined as a Religious Animal. I insist, that this direct perception of Superior Mind is similar in kind to our direct perception of Mind in other men. No doubt in the latter case, from the sameness of our wants and instincts, we have far greater ease in tracing the course of mind, and are less in danger of mistaking the direction of design: but this does not interfere with the assertion that in the two cases the process of thought is alike.

But while such is the sole question between us and the Atheist, the argument which convicts him of folly is only a first and very imperfect step towards a Religion worth having. What are the qualities, the power, the purposes of the Spirit whom we discern, and whether there are many such Spirits, are questions for Theists among themselves, with which the Atheist, while he keeps to his argument, has nothing to do. I cannot but think, that if the mist of vain metaphysics were blown aside, simplehearted working-men would be less liable to the delusion that they are advancing in wisdom by adopting the atheistic theory: and if they saw Theists willing to follow truth wherever truth led, they would have less reason to give special honour to the courage which contradicts man's deep and widespread conviction, that a God above us exists, blessed for ever and the source of blessings.

THE TWO THEISMS.

[1872.]

THOS

HOSE who are contending for free thought in religion are contending for a noble prize, and are temporarily united, while that prize is withheld from the public by powerful influences. But the moment they commence to use their freedom, the same thing happens, and must happen, now as always heretofore. Human infirmity clings to all. Each is finite, and sees but partially; hence their judgments are often in opposition. The contrasts of opinion in Greek philosophy, when there was no organized priesthood to forbid or to cripple freedom of thought, were as extreme as now.

Some imagine that, because the schools of material science work on in harmony, and the conflicts of opinion rather assist progress, being but partial and temporary, so will it be in religion, as soon as we resolve to cultivate religious thought scientifically. This might be the case, if materialism were the basis, or if we had foundations recognized by all. But in metaphysics, and in mental science generally, the great discouragement of study has lain in the irreconcilable and fundamental variance of the

professors. Materialism and Spiritualism fight together for possession of the schools of morals and of psychology; so also of necessity will they in religion. Those who wish to be scientific are not agreed as to the bases and procedure of the new (religious) science, for which they are hoping in common. Every science has to work out its own problems in its own way. Strong analogies and harmonies are detected between the several sciences after they arise and live; nevertheless each is born independently, and acts independently; nor can any endure dictation from without, though hints and suggestions may be welcome and profitable. Thus, after we have agreed that free thought is necessary in religion, and that a scientific religion is the thing to be desired, we may easily remain as far apart in religious opinion and beliefs as were Stoics and Epicureans; or if our difference be less extreme, it may be rather from holding more negations in common than from agreement in affirmation.

N

The

Nor, when people profess to believe in God and call themselves Theists, does this go far to indicate real agreement. question recurs, What do we mean by God?

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If we may not

give a reply, the word is unmeaning to us, and we deceive ourselves in thinking that we have any belief at all. But as soon as we give a reply,-not as believing that it can exhaust the whole reality, but merely that it may explain our thought,-some one arises to reprove us for presumption in supposing that we can limit the illimitable, and define the incomprehensible. Men who by general suffrage are eminent in some physical science, think forthwith that their physical attainments justify their laying down the law in religion; and we who have broken loose from the dogmatism of the churches find that we have to encounter a new fight for our freedom against the dogmatism of this or that man of science," who perhaps graciously allows us the field of "the Unknowable" for religion, or not even that; for it is well if the new dogmatist will let us have any belief in a Superior Spirit at all. Nothing is commoner than a shriek of derision against a "personal God." Under the groundless pretence that personality means limitation, or means Anthropomorphy, we are forbidden to believe in a God who has purposes and sentiments. A God without either purposes or sentiments is a God in whom we cannot recognize mind at all, and is therefore a blind force or a blind fate. A recent writer of great literary eminence, while fancying that he is about to deliver religion from sacerdotal metaphysics, emphatically denies, not the personality only, but even the unity of God; thus presenting us with nothing but a plurality of either forces or abstractions, and plunging us into an abyss of metaphysics still deeper-one also out of which no practical religion has ever yet emerged.

Setting aside avowed Atheism and avowed Pantheism (a very equivocal term), even in the apparently more limited form of belief denoted as Theism, there are at least two broadly distinguished schools of thought, between which, if we remain Theists, it is necessary to choose; and the more fully the two can be described and contrasted, the greater will be the aid to students of Free Religion. Indeed one might mark out a third school, the Deism of the eighteenth century. This pourtrayed the Creator as external to his creation, which they supposed him to have endowed with self-acting forces. Matter, in this theory, was either created or endowed with gravitation at a definite time, which may be called the crisis or era of creation; so that

the action of God upon matter was convulsive and momentary; but in the nineteenth century this doctrine is almost universally disowned. The smallest acquaintance with the great science of geology convinces every one that the idea of creation as limited to a single crisis of time has no plausibility whatever; that creation is undoubtedly the work of continuous ages, enormous in duration, whatever its mode and progress; moreover, that if God is to be recognized at all in the universe, the great forces which are therein detected by the mental eye are strictly divine forces, and that any distinction between initial impulses as divine and continued forces as not divine is groundless. incipient reconciliation of Pantheism and Theism.

This is the

Nevertheless, our Theism divides itself into two schools, broadly separated, and for convenience it may be allowed to entitle them Greek Theism and Hebrew Theism. Of the former, the great Aristotle was probably a worthy representative; and it commends itself to a great majority of those who are forward to identify their faith with science. The cardinal point of this is that it supposes God to have nothing, in him or of him, but general Law. He may be described as Force acting everywhere according to Law, under the guidance of Mind. He is supposed to be so absorbed in general action as to remain quite inobservant of the detailed results, or at least unconcerned about them. Thus he intends this earth to have day and night, to have vegetation and various animals on it, moreover to have a human population. These generalities he is not too great to design and devise. But it is said, we cannot suppose him to pay attention to any particular man, without supposing him to attend to every sparrow, to every oyster, to every stalk of sea-weed, and this (it is thought) would be absurd. He wishes the human race, as a whole, to attain its own perfection, but it is thought puerile to suppose him to attend to each individual; and, as favouritism would be a human weakness, he has no love and no care for any one of us. Conversely then, it would be gratuitous, unseemly, perhaps impossible, for any of us to love him. In accordance with this, Aristotle makes a passing remark-" for it would be ridiculous for any one to say that he loves Jupiter;" not, I apprehend, from his investing Jupiter with the colours of Greek mythology, but from his supposing no moral relations to exist between the Supreme God and us. Of course it will follow from that view that human injustice and vice, great as are their mischiefs, are offences against man or ourselves, not against God; hence the

idea of "sin against God" cannot exist. God is not supposed to be concerned with the sin of an individual; to confess it to him would be an impertinence which Aristotle never seems to imagine possible. Indeed, the same great philosopher esteems intellectual virtue as higher than moral virtue, on the express ground that God cannot possess moral virtue, which belongs only to the natures which have passions to restrain and direct wisely; nor indeed is it intelligible to ascribe moral virtue to a Being who is wholly solitary, and has neither temptations to resist, nor duties to fulfil. But probably the modern Theists of this class will admit, that, when a Superior Being gives sensitive life to other objects, he creates for himself relations to them and duty to them, especially the duty of justice not to create them for mere misery, or deal inequitably with them; and that two lines of imaginable conduct at once open, according to one of which God would show himself good, and according to the other evil. Hence the epithet good attached to God is not idle and unmeaning, but has a real sense. I do not know, but I hope, that those whom I entitle Greek Theists in the present day regard it as rightful and becoming to believe that God is good, even while contemplating either that violence of the elements which causes destruction and pain to myriads of his creatures, or the preying of one class of animals on another. That pain and death are strictly necessary, I suppose all thoughtful persons to understand.

But here a caution is needed, concerning the description of omnipotence, a word which is often gravely misunderstood; insomuch that one may doubt whether it is wise to use it at all. If the word be strictly pressed, omnipotence makes wisdom needless, and leaves to it no functions. We cannot ascribe wisdom without implying difficult problems to be solved; but to omnipotence there can be no difficulty at all, and no problem; a "fiat" suffices. Hence in calling God Wise or All-Wise, we virtually assume that there are limits to his power, even if we know not exactly what. A second consideration shows that cases of apparent impotence in God may be mere inventions of human absurdity. It is a celebrated Greek saying that "the only thing which God cannot achieve is, to undo the past." This does but assert that divine power is out of place in solving the absurd problem of making contradictions simultaneously true; such as, "Alexander conquered Darius," a past fact, and, "Alexander did not conquer Darius," the past fact undone. Verbal contradictions belong to the puzzle of human thought,

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