{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2513/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2513","id":"gutenberg_2513","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2513","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Evolution","God"],"text":"Produced by Elliot S. Wheeler\n\n\n\n\n\nGOD THE KNOWN AND GOD THE UNKNOWN\n\nBy Samuel Butler\n\n\n\n\nPrefatory Note\n\n\"GOD the Known and God the Unknown\" first appeared in the form of a\nseries of articles which were published in \"The Examiner\" in May, June,\nand July, 1879. Samuel Butler subsequently revised the text of his\nwork, presumably with the intention of republishing it, though he\nnever carried the intention into effect. In the present edition I have\nfollowed his revised version almost without deviation. I have, however,\nretained a few passages which Butler proposed to omit, partly because\nthey appear to me to render the course of his argument clearer, and\npartly because they contain characteristic thoughts and expressions of\nwhich none of his admirers would wish to be deprived. In the list of\nButler's works \"God the Known and God the Unknown\" follows \"Life and\nHabit,\" which appeared in 1877, and \"Evolution, Old and New,\" which was\npublished in May, 1879. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the\nthree works are closely akin in subject and treatment, and that \"God the\nKnown and God the Unknown\" will gain in interest by being considered in\nrelation to its predecessors.\n\nR. A. STREATFEILD\n\n\n\n\nGOD THE KNOWN AND GOD THE UNKNOWN\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION\n\nMANKIND has ever been ready to discuss matters in the inverse ratio of\ntheir importance, so that the more closely a question is felt to touch\nthe hearts of all of us, the more incumbent it is considered upon\nprudent people to profess that it does not exist, to frown it down, to\ntell it to hold its tongue, to maintain that it has long been finally\nsettled, so that there is now no question concerning it.\n\nSo far, indeed, has this been carried through all time past that the\nactions which are most important to us, such as our passage through the\nembryonic stages, the circulation of our blood, our respiration, etc.\netc., have long been formulated beyond all power of reopening question\nconcerning them--the mere fact or manner of their being done at all\nbeing ranked among the great discoveries of recent ages. Yet the analogy\nof past settlements would lead us to suppose that so much unanimity was\nnot arrived at all at once, but rather that it must have been preceded\nby much smouldering [sic] discontent, which again was followed by open\nwarfare; and that even after a settlement had been ostensibly arrived\nat, there was still much secret want of conviction on the part of many\nfor several generations.\n\nThere are many who see nothing in this tendency of our nature but\noccasion for sarcasm; those, on the other hand, who hold that the\nworld is by this time old enough to be the best judge concerning the\nmanagement of its own affairs will scrutinise [sic] this management with\nsome closeness before they venture to satirise [sic] it; nor will\nthey do so for long without finding justification for its apparent\nrecklessness; for we must all fear responsibility upon matters about\nwhich we feel we know but little; on the other hand we must all\ncontinually act, and for the most part promptly. We do so, therefore,\nwith greater security when we can persuade both ourselves and others\nthat a matter is already pigeon-holed than if we feel that we must use\nour own judgment for the collection, interpretation, and arrangement\nof the papers which deal with it. Moreover, our action is thus made to\nappear as if it received collective sanction; and by so appearing it\nreceives it. Almost any settlement, again, is felt to be better than\nnone, and the more nearly a matter comes home to everyone, the more\nimportant is it that it should be treated as a sleeping dog, and be let\nto lie, for if one person begins to open his mouth, fatal developments\nmay arise in the Babel that will follow.\n\nIt is not difficult, indeed, to show that, instead of having reason to\ncomplain of the desire for the postponement of important questions, as\nthough the world were composed mainly of knaves or fools, such fixity as\nanimal and vegetable forms possess is due to this very instinct. For if\nthere had been no reluctance, if there were no friction and vis inertae\nto be encountered even after a theoretical equilibrium had been upset,\nwe should have had no fixed organs nor settled proclivities, but should\nhave been daily and hourly undergoing Protean transformations, and have\nstill been throwing out pseudopodia like the amoeba. True, we might have\ncome to like this fashion of living as well as our more steady-going\nsystem if we had taken to it many millions of ages ago when we were\nyet young; but we have contracted other habits which have become so\nconfirmed that we cannot break with them. We therefore now hate that\nwhich we should perhaps have loved if we had practised [sic] it. This,\nhowever, does not affect the argument, for our concern is with our likes\nand dislikes, not with the manner in which those likes and dislikes have\ncome about. The discovery that organism is capable of modification\nat all has occasioned so much astonishment that it has taken the most\nenlightened part of the world more than a hundred years to leave off\nexpressing its contempt for such a crude, shallow, and preposterous\nconception. Perhaps in another hundred years we shall learn to admire\nthe good sense, endurance, and thorough Englishness of organism in\nhaving been so averse to change, even more than its versatility in\nhaving been willing to change so much.\n\nNevertheless, however conservative we may be, and however much alive to\nthe folly and wickedness of tampering with settled convictions-no matter\nwhat they are-without sufficient cause, there is yet such a constant\nthough gradual change in our surroundings as necessitates corresponding\nmodification in our ideas, desires, and actions. We may think that we\nshould like to find ourselves always in the same surroundings as our\nancestors, so that we might be guided at every touch and turn by\nthe experience of our race, and be saved from all self-communing or\ninterpretation of oracular responses uttered by the facts around us.\nYet the facts will change their utterances in spite of us; and we, too,\nchange with age and ages in spite of ourselves, so as to see the facts\naround us as perhaps even more changed than they actually are. It has\nbeen said, \"Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.\" The passage would\nhave been no less true if it had stood, \"Nos mutamur et tempora mutantur\nin nobis.\" Whether the organism or the surroundings began changing first\nis a matter of such small moment that the two may be left to fight it\nout between themselves; but, whichever view is taken, the fact will\nremain that whenever the relations between the organism and its\nsurroundings have been changed, the organism must either succeed in\nputting the surroundings into harmony with itself, or itself into\nharmony with the surroundings; or must be made so uncomfortable as to\nbe unable to remember itself as subjected to any such difficulties, and\ntherefore to die through inability to recognise [sic] its own identity\nfurther.\n\nUnder these circumstances, organism must act in one or other of these\ntwo ways: it must either change slowly and continuously with the\nsurroundings, paying cash for everything, meeting the smallest change\nwith a corresponding modification so far as is found convenient; or it\nmust put off change as long as possible, and then make larger and more\nsweeping changes.\n\nBoth these courses are the same in principle, the difference being only\none of scale, and the one being a miniature of the other, as a ripple\nis an Atlantic wave in little; both have their advantages and\ndisadvantages, so that most organisms will take the one course for one\nset of things and the other for another. They will deal promptly\nwith things which they can get at easily, and which lie more upon the\nsurface; those, however, which are more troublesome to reach, and lie\ndeeper, will be handled upon more cataclysmic principles, being allowed\nlonger periods of repose followed by short periods of greater activity.\n\nAnimals breathe and circulate their blood by a little action many times\na minute; but they feed, some of them, only two or three times a day,\nand breed for the most part not more than once a year, their breeding\nseason being much their busiest time. It is on the first principle that\nthe modification of animal forms has proceeded mainly; but it may be\nquestioned whether what is called a sport is not the organic expression\nof discontent which has been long felt, but which has not been attended\nto, nor been met step by step by as much small remedial modification as\nwas found practicable: so that when a change does come it comes by way\nof revolution. Or, again (only that it comes to much the same thing),\na sport may be compared to one of those happy thoughts which sometimes\ncome to us unbidden after we have been thinking for a long time what to\ndo, or how to arrange our ideas, and have yet been unable to arrive at\nany conclusion.\n\nSo with politics, the smaller the matter the prompter, as a general\nrule, the settlement; on the other hand, the more sweeping the change\nthat is felt to be necessary, the longer it will be deferred.\n\nThe advantages of dealing with the larger questions by more cataclysmic\nmethods are obvious. For, in the first place, all composite things must\nhave a system, or arrangement of parts, so that some parts shall depend\nupon and be grouped round others, as in the articulation of a skeleton\nand the arrangement of muscles, nerves, tendons, etc., which are\nattached to it. To meddle with the skeleton is like taking up the\nstreet, or the flooring of one's house; it so upsets our arrangements\nthat we put it off till whatever else is found wanted, or whatever else\nseems likely to be wanted for a long time hence, can be done at the same\ntime. Another advantage is in the rest which is given to the attention\nduring the long hollows, so to speak, of the waves between the periods\nof resettlement. Passion and prejudice have time to calm down, and when\nattention is next directed to the same question, it is a refreshed and\ninvigorated attention-an attention, moreover, which may be given\nwith the help of new lights derived from other quarters that were not\nluminous when the question was last considered. Thirdly, it is more\neasy and safer to make such alterations as experience has proved to be\nnecessary than to forecast what is going to be wanted. Reformers are\nlike paymasters, of whom there are only two bad kinds, those who pay too\nsoon, and those who do not pay at all.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. COMMON GROUND\n\nI HAVE now, perhaps, sufficiently proved my sympathy with the reluctance\nfelt by many to tolerate discussion upon such a subject as the existence\nand nature of God. I trust that I may have made the reader feel that he\nneed fear no sarcasm or levity in my treatment of the subject which I\nhave chosen. I will, therefore, proceed to sketch out a plan of what I\nhope to establish, and this in no doubtful or unnatural sense, but by\nattaching the same meanings to words as those which we usually attach to\nthem, and with the same certainty, precision, and clearness as anything\nelse is established which is commonly called known.\n\nAs to what God is, beyond the fact that he is the Spirit and the\nLife which creates, governs, and upholds all living things, I can say\nnothing. I cannot pretend that I can show more than others have done\nin what Spirit and the Life consists, which governs living things and\nanimates them. I cannot show the connection between consciousness and\nthe will, and the organ, much less can I tear away the veil from the\nface of God, so as to show wherein will and consciousness consist.\nNo philosopher, whether Christian or Rationalist, has attempted this\nwithout discomfiture; but I can, I hope, do two things: Firstly, I can\ndemonstrate, perhaps more clearly than modern science is prepared to\nadmit, that there does exist a single Being or Animator of all living\nthings--a single Spirit, whom we cannot think of under any meaner name\nthan God; and, secondly, I can show something more of the persona or\nbodily expression, mask, and mouthpiece of this vast Living Spirit than\nI know of as having been familiarly expressed elsewhere, or as being\naccessible to myself or others, though doubtless many works exist in\nwhich what I am going to say has been already said.\n\nAware that much of this is widely accepted under the name of Pantheism,\nI venture to think it differs from Pantheism with all the difference\nthat exists between a coherent, intelligible conception and an\nincoherent unintelligible one. I shall therefore proceed to examine\nthe doctrine called Pantheism, and to show how incomprehensible and\nvalueless it is.\n\nI will then indicate the Living and Personal God about whose existence\nand about many of whose attributes there is no room for question; I will\nshow that man has been so far made in the likeness of this Person or\nGod, that He possesses all its essential characteristics, and that it is\nthis God who has called man and all other living forms, whether animals\nor plants, into existence, so that our bodies are the temples of His\nspirit; that it is this which sustains them in their life and growth,\nwho is one with them, living, moving, and having His being in them; in\nwhom, also, they live and move, they in Him and He in them; He being\nnot a Trinity in Unity only, but an Infinity in Unity, and a Unity in an\nInfinity; eternal in time past, for so much time at least that our minds\ncan come no nearer to eternity than this; eternal for the future as long\nas the universe shall exist; ever changing, yet the same yesterday, and\nto-day, and for ever. And I will show this with so little ambiguity that\nit shall be perceived not as a phantom or hallucination following upon\na painful straining of the mind and a vain endeavour [sic] to give\ncoherency to incoherent and inconsistent ideas, but with the same ease,\ncomfort, and palpable flesh-and-blood clearness with which we see those\nnear to us; whom, though we see them at the best as through a glass\ndarkly, we still see face to face, even as we are ourselves seen.\n\nI will also show in what way this Being exercises a moral government\nover the world, and rewards and punishes us according to His own laws.\n\nHaving done this I shall proceed to compare this conception of God with\nthose that are currently accepted, and will endeavour [sic] to show that\nthe ideas now current are in truth efforts to grasp the one on which\nI shall here insist. Finally, I shall persuade the reader that the\ndifferences between the so-called atheist and the so-called theist are\ndifferences rather about words than things, inasmuch as not even the\nmost prosaic of modern scientists will be inclined to deny the existence\nof this God, while few theists will feel that this, the natural\nconception of God, is a less worthy one than that to which they have\nbeen accustomed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. PANTHEISM.\n\nTHE Rev. J. H. Blunt, in his \"Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, etc.,\"\ndefines Pantheists as \"those who hold that God is everything, and\neverything is God.\"\n\nIf it is granted that the value of words lies in the definiteness and\ncoherency of the ideas that present themselves to us when the words\nare heard or spoken-then such a sentence as \"God is everything and\neverything is God\" is worthless.\n\nFor we have so long associated the word \"God\" with the idea of a Living\nPerson, who can see, hear, will, feel pleasure, displeasure, etc., that\nwe cannot think of God, and also of something which we have not been\naccustomed to think of as a Living Person, at one and the same time, so\nas to connect the two ideas and fuse them into a coherent thought. While\nwe are thinking of the one, our minds involuntarily exclude the other,\nand vice versa; so that it is as impossible for us to think of anything\nas God, or as forming part of God, which we cannot also think of as a\nPerson, or as a part of a Person, as it is to produce a hybrid between\ntwo widely distinct animals. If I am not mistaken, the barrenness of\ninconsistent ideas, and the sterility of widely distant species or\ngenera of plants and animals, are one in principle-sterility of hybrids\nbeing due to barrenness of ideas, and barrenness of ideas arising from\ninability to fuse unfamiliar thoughts into a coherent conception. I have\ninsisted on this at some length in \"Life and Habit,\" but can do so no\nfurther here. (Note: Butler returned to this subject in \"Luck, or\ncunning?\" which was originally published in 1887.}\n\nIn like manner we have so long associated the word \"Person\" with the\nidea of a substantial visible body, limited in extent, and animated\nby an invisible something which we call Spirit, that we can think of\nnothing as a person which does not also bring these ideas before us. Any\nattempt to make us imagine God as a Person who does not fulfil [sic] the\nconditions which our ideas attach to the word \"person,\" is ipso facto\natheistic, as rendering the word God without meaning, and therefore\nwithout reality, and therefore non-existent to us. Our ideas are like\nour organism, they will stand a vast amount of modification if it is\neffected slowly and without shock, but the life departs out of them,\nleaving the form of an idea without the power thereof, if they are\njarred too rudely.\n\nAny being, then, whom we can imagine as God, must have all the\nqualities, capabilities, and also all the limitations which are implied\nwhen the word \"person\" is used.\n\nBut, again, we cannot conceive of \"everything\" as a person. \"Everything\"\nmust comprehend all that is to be found on earth, or outside of it,\nand we know of no such persons as this. When we say \"persons\" we intend\nliving people with flesh and blood; sometimes we extend our conceptions\nto animals and plants, but we have not hitherto done so as generally as\nI hope we shall some day come to do. Below animals and plants we have\nnever in any seriousness gone. All that we have been able to regard as\npersonal has had what we can call a living body, even though that\nbody is vegetable only; and this body has been tangible, and has been\ncomprised within certain definite limits, or within limits which have at\nany rate struck the eye as definite. And every part within these limits\nhas been animated by an unseen something which we call soul or spirit. A\nperson must be a persona--that is to say, the living mask and mouthpiece\nof an energy saturating it, and speaking through it. It must be animate\nin all its parts.\n\nBut \"everything\" is not animate. Animals and plants alone produce in us\nthose ideas which can make reasonable people call them \"persons\" with\nconsistency of intention. We can conceive of each animal and of each\nplant as a person; we can conceive again of a compound person like the\ncoral polypes [sic], or like a tree which is composed of a congeries of\nsubordinate persons, inasmuch as each bud is a separate and individual\nplant. We can go farther than this, and, as I shall hope to show,\nwe ought to do so; that is to say, we shall find it easier and more\nagreeable with our other ideas to go farther than not; for we should\nsee all animal and vegetable life as united by a subtle and till lately\ninvisible ramification, so that all living things are one tree-like\ngrowth, forming a single person. But we cannot conceive of oceans,\ncontinents, and air as forming parts of a person at all; much less\ncan we think of them as forming one person with the living forms that\ninhabit them.\n\nTo ask this of us is like asking us to see the bowl and the water in\nwhich three gold-fish are swimming as part of the gold-fish. We cannot\ndo it any more than we can do something physically impossible. We can\nsee the gold-fish as forming one family, and therefore as in a way\nunited to the personality of the parents from which they sprang, and\ntherefore as members one of another, and therefore as forming a single\ngrowth of gold-fish, as boughs and buds unite to form a tree; but we\ncannot by any effort of the imagination introduce the bowl and the water\ninto the personality, for we have never been accustomed to think of such\nthings as living and personal. Those, therefore, who tell us that \"God\nis everything, and everything is God,\" require us to see \"everything\"\nas a person, which we cannot; or God as not a person, which again we\ncannot.\n\nContinuing the article of Mr. Blunt from which I have already quoted, I\nread:--\n\n\"Linus, in a passage which has been preserved by Stobaeus, exactly\nexpresses the notion afterwards adopted by Spinoza: 'One sole energy\ngoverns all things; all things are unity, and each portion is All; for\nof one integer all things were born; in the end of time all things shall\nagain become unity; the unity of multiplicity.' Orpheus, his disciple,\ntaught no other doctrine.\"\n\nAccording to Pythagoras, \"an adept in the Orphic philosophy,\" \"the soul\nof the world is the Divine energy which interpenetrates every portion\nof the mass, and the soul of man is an efflux of that energy. The world,\ntoo, is an exact impress of the Eternal Idea, which is the mind of God.\"\nJohn Scotus Erigena taught that \"all is God and God is all.\" William\nof Champeaux, again, two hundred years later, maintained that \"all\nindividuality is one in substance, and varies only in its non-essential\naccidents and transient properties.\" Amalric of Bena and David of Dinant\nfollowed the theory out \"into a thoroughgoing Pantheism.\" Amalric held\nthat \"All is God and God is all. The Creator and the creature are one\nBeing. Ideas are at once creative and created, subjective and objective.\nGod is the end of all, and all return to Him. As every variety of\nhumanity forms one manhood, so the world contains individual forms\nof one eternal essence.\" David of Dinant only varied upon this by\n\"imagining a corporeal unity. Although body, soul, and eternal substance\nare three, these three are one and the same being.\"\n\nGiordano Bruno maintained the world of sense to be \"a vast animal having\nthe Deity for its living soul.\" The inanimate part of the world is\nthus excluded from participation in the Deity, and a conception that\nour minds can embrace is offered us instead of one which they cannot\nentertain, except as in a dream, incoherently. But without such a view\nof evolution as was prevalent at the beginning of this century, it was\nimpossible to see \"the world of sense\" intelligently, as forming \"a vast\nanimal.\" Unless, therefore, Giordano Bruno held the opinions of Buffon,\nDr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, with more definiteness than I am\nyet aware of his having done, his contention must be considered as a\nsplendid prophecy, but as little more than a prophecy. He continues,\n\"Birth is expansion from the one centre of Life; life is its\ncontinuance, and death is the necessary return of the ray to the centre\nof light.\" This begins finely, but ends mystically. I have not, however,\ncompared the English translation with the original, and must reserve a\nfuller examination of Giordano Bruno's teaching for another opportunity.\n\nSpinoza disbelieved in the world rather than in God. He was an Acosmist,\nto use Jacobi's expression, rather than an Atheist. According to him,\n\"the Deity and the Universe are but one substance, at the same time\nboth spirit and matter, thought and extension, which are the only known\nattributes of the Deity.\"\n\nMy readers will, I think, agree with me that there is very little of the\nabove which conveys ideas with the fluency and comfort which accompany\ngood words. Words are like servants: it is not enough that we should\nhave them-we must have the most able and willing that we can find, and\nat the smallest wages that will content them. Having got them we must\nmake the best and not the worst of them. Surely, in the greater part of\nwhat has been quoted above, the words are barren letters only: they do\nnot quicken within us and enable us to conceive a thought, such as we\ncan in our turn impress upon dead matter, and mould [sic] that matter\ninto another shape than its own, through the thought which has become\nalive within us. No offspring of ideas has followed upon them, or, if\nany at all, yet in such unwonted shape, and with such want of alacrity,\nthat we loathe them as malformations and miscarriages of our minds.\nGranted that if we examine them closely we shall at length find them\nto embody a little germ of truth-that is to say, of coherency with our\nother ideas; but there is too little truth in proportion to the trouble\nnecessary to get at it. We can get more truth, that is to say, more\ncoherency-for truth and coherency are one-for less trouble in other\nways.\n\nBut it may be urged that the beginnings of all tasks are difficult and\nunremunerative, and that later developments of Pantheism may be more\nintelligible than the earlier ones. Unfortunately, this is not the\ncase. On continuing Mr. Blunt's article, I find the later Pantheists a\nhundredfold more perplexing than the earlier ones. With Kant, Schelling,\nFichte, and Hegel, we feel that we are with men who have been decoyed\ninto a hopeless quagmire; we understand nothing of their language-we\ndoubt whether they understand themselves, and feel that we can do\nnothing with them but look at them and pass them by.\n\nIn my next chapter I propose to show the end which the early Pantheists\nwere striving after, and the reason and naturalness of their error.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. PANTHEISM.\n\nThe earlier Pantheists were misled by the endeavour [sic] to lay hold of\ntwo distinct ideas, the one of which was a reality that has since been\ngrasped and is of inestimable value, the other a phantom which has\nmisled all who have followed it. The reality is the unity of Life, the\noneness of the guiding and animating spirit which quickens animals and\nplants, so that they are all the outcome and expression of a common\nmind, and are in truth one animal; the phantom is the endeavour [sic] to\nfind the origin of things, to reach the fountain-head of all energy,\nand thus to lay the foundations on which a philosophy may be constructed\nwhich none can accuse of being baseless, or of arguing in a circle.\n\nIn following as through a thick wood after the phantom our forefathers\nfrom time to time caught glimpses of the reality, which seemed so\nwonderful as it eluded them, and flitted back again into the thickets,\nthat they declared it must be the phantom they were in search of, which\nwas thus evidenced as actually existing. Whereon, instead of mastering\nsuch of the facts they met with as could be captured easily-which facts\nwould have betrayed the hiding-places of others, and these again of\nothers, and so ad infinitum-they overlooked what was within their reach,\nand followed hotly through brier and brake after an imaginary greater\nprize.\n\nGreat thoughts are not to be caught in this way. They must present\nthemselves for capture of their own free will, or be taken after a\nlittle coyness only. They are like wealth and power, which, if a man\nis not born to them, are the more likely to take him, the more he has\nrestrained himself from an attempt to snatch them. They hanker after\nthose only who have tamed their nearer thoughts. Nevertheless, it is\nimpossible not to feel that the early Pantheists were true prophets and\nseers, though the things were unknown to them without which a complete\nview was unattainable. What does Linus mean, we ask ourselves, when he\nsays:--\"One sole energy governs all things\"? How can one sole energy\ngovern, we will say, the reader and the chair on which he sits? What\nis meant by an energy governing a chair? If by an effort we have made\nourselves believe we understand something which can be better expressed\nby these words than by any others, no sooner do we turn our backs than\nthe ideas so painfully collected fly apart again. No matter how often we\ngo in search of them, and force them into juxtaposition, they prove to\nhave none of that innate coherent power with which ideas combine that we\ncan hold as true and profitable.\n\nYet if Linus had confined his statement to living things, and had said\nthat one sole energy governed all plants and animals, he would have come\nnear both to being intelligible and true. For if, as we now believe,\nall animals and plants are descended from a single cell, they must be\nconsidered as cousins to one another, and as forming a single tree-like\nanimal, every individual plant or animal of which is as truly one and\nthe same person with the primordial cell as the oak a thousand years old\nis one and the same plant with the acorn out of which it has grown.\nThis is easily understood, but will, I trust, be made to appear simpler\npresently.\n\nWhen Linus says, \"All things are unity, and each portion is All; for of\none integer all things were born,\" it is impossible for plain people-who\ndo not wish to use words unless they mean the same things by them as\nboth they and others have been in the habit of meaning-to understand\nwhat is intended. How can each portion be all? How can one Londoner\nbe all London? I know that this, too, can in a way be shown, but the\nresulting idea is too far to fetch, and when fetched does not fit in\nwell enough with our other ideas to give it practical and commercial\nvalue. How, again, can all things be said to be born of one integer,\nunless the statement is confined to living things, which can alone be\nborn at all, and unless a theory of evolution is intended, such as Linus\nwould hardly have accepted?\n\nYet limit the \"all things\" to \"all living things,\" grant the theory of\nevolution, and explain \"each portion is All\" to mean that all life is\nakin, and possesses the same essential fundamental characteristics,\nand it is surprising how nearly Linus approaches both to truth and\nintelligibility.\n\nIt may be said that the animate and the inanimate have the same\nfundamental substance, so that a chair might rot and be absorbed by\ngrass, which grass might be eaten by a cow, which cow might be eaten by\na man; and by similar processes the man might become a chair; but these\nfacts are not presented to the mind by saying that \"one energy governs\nall things\"-a chair, we will say, and a man; we could only say that one\nenergy governed a man and a chair, if the chair were a reasonable living\nperson, who was actively and consciously engaged in helping the man to\nattain a certain end, unless, that is to say, we are to depart from\nall usual interpretation of words, in which case we invalidate the\nadvantages of language and all the sanctions of morality.\n\n\"All things shall again become unity\" is intelligible as meaning that\nall things probably have come from a single elementary substance,\nsay hydrogen or what not, and that they will return to it; but the\nexplanation of unity as being the \"unity of multiplicity\" puzzles; if\nthere is any meaning it is too recondite to be of service to us.\n\nWhat, again, is meant by saying that \"the soul of the world is the\nDivine energy which interpenetrates every portion of the mass\"? The soul\nof the world is an expression which, to myself, and, I should imagine,\nto most people, is without propriety. We cannot think of the world\nexcept as earth, air, and water, in this or that state, on and in which\nthere grow plants and animals. What is meant by saying that earth has a\nsoul, and lives? Does it move from place to place erratically? Does it\nfeed? Does it reproduce itself? Does it make such noises, or commit such\nvagaries as shall make us say that it feels? Can it achieve its ends,\nand fail of achieving them through mistake? If it cannot, how has it a\nsoul more than a dead man has a soul, out of whom we say that the soul\nhas departed, and whose body we conceive of as returning to dead earth,\ninasmuch as it is now soulless? Is there any unnatural violence which\ncan be done to our thoughts by which we can bring the ideas of a soul\nand of water, or of a stone into combination, and keep them there for\nlong together? The ancients, indeed, said they believed their rivers to\nbe gods, and carved likenesses of them under the forms of men; but even\nsupposing this to have been their real mind, can it by any conceivable\nmeans become our own? Granted that a stone is kept from falling to dust\nby an energy which compels its particles to cohere, which energy can be\ntaken out of it and converted into some other form of energy; granted\n(which may or may not be true) also, that the life of a living body is\nonly the energy which keeps the particles which compose it in a certain\ndisposition; and granted that the energy of the stone may be convertible\ninto the energy of a living form, and that thus, after a long journey\na tired idea may lag after the sound of such words as \"the soul of the\nworld.\" Granted all the above, nevertheless to speak of the world as\nhaving a soul is not sufficiently in harmony with our common notions,\nnor does it go sufficiently with the grain of our thoughts to render the\nexpression a meaning one, or one that can be now used with any propriety\nor fitness, except by those who do not know their own meaninglessness.\nVigorous minds will harbour [sic] vigorous thoughts only, or such as bid\nfair to become so; and vigorous thoughts are always simple, definite,\nand in harmony with everyday ideas.\n\nWe can imagine a soul as living in the lowest slime that moves, feeds,\nreproduces itself, remembers, and dies. The amoeba wants things, knows\nit wants them, alters itself so as to try and alter them, thus preparing\nfor an intended modification of outside matter by a preliminary\nmodification of itself. It thrives if the modification from within is\nfollowed by the desired modification in the external object; it knows\nthat it is well, and breeds more freely in consequence. If it cannot\nget hold of outside matter, or cannot proselytise [sic] that matter and\npersuade it to see things through its own (the amoeba's) spectacles-if\nit cannot convert that matter, if the matter persists in disagreeing\nwith it-its spirits droop, its soul is disquieted within it, it becomes\nlistless like a withering flower-it languishes and dies. We cannot\nimagine a thing to live at all and yet be soulless except in sleep for\na short time, and even so not quite soulless. The idea of a soul, or of\nthat unknown something for which the word \"soul\" is our hieroglyphic,\nand the idea of living organism, unite so spontaneously, and stick\ntogether so inseparably, that no matter how often we sunder them they\nwill elude our vigilance and come together, like true lovers, in spite\nof us. Let us not attempt to divorce ideas that have so long been wedded\ntogether.\n\nI submit, then, that Pantheism, even as explained by those who had\nentered on the outskirts only of its great morass, nevertheless holds\nout so little hope of leading to any comfortable conclusion that it will\nbe more reasonable to occupy our minds with other matter than to follow\nPantheism further. The Pantheists speak of a person without meaning a\nperson; they speak of a \"him\" and a \"he\" without having in their\nminds the idea of a living person with all its inevitable limitations.\nPantheism is, therefore, as is said by Mr. Blunt in another article,\n\"practically nothing else than Atheism; it has no belief in a personal\ndeity overruling the affairs of the world, as Divine Providence, and is,\ntherefore, Atheistic,\" and again, \"Theism believes in a spirit\nsuperior to matter, and so does Pantheism; but the spirit of Theism is\nself-conscious, and therefore personal and of individual existence-a\nnature per se, and upholding all things by an active control; while\nPantheism believes in spirit that is of a higher nature than brute\nmatter, but is a mere unconscious principle of life, impersonal,\nirrational as the brute matter that it quickens.\"\n\nIf this verdict concerning Pantheism is true--and from all I can gather\nit is as nearly true as anything can be said to be which is predicated\nof an incoherent idea--the Pantheistic God is an attempt to lay hold of a\ntruth which has nevertheless eluded its pursuers.\n\nIn my next chapter I will consider the commonly received, orthodox\nconception of God, and compare it with the Pantheistic. I will show that\nit, too, is Atheistic, inasmuch as, in spite of its professing to give\nus a conception of God, it raises no ideas in our minds of a person or\nLiving Being--and a God who is not this is non-existent.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. ORTHODOX THEISM\n\nWe have seen that Pantheism fails to satisfy, inasmuch as it requires us\nto mean something different by the word \"God\" from what we have been\nin the habit of meaning. I have already said-I fear, too often-that no\nconception of God can have any value or meaning for us which does not\ninvolve his existence as an independent Living Person of ineffable\nwisdom and power, vastness, and duration both in the past and for the\nfuture. If such a Being as this can be found existing and made evident,\ndirectly or indirectly, to human senses, there is a God. If otherwise,\nthere is no God, or none, at any rate, so far as we can know, none with\nwhom we need concern ourselves. No conscious personality, no God. An\nimpersonal God is as much a contradiction in terms as an impersonal\nperson.\n\nUnfortunately, when we question orthodox theology closely, we find that\nit supposes God to be a person who has no material body such as could\ncome within the range of any human sense, and make an impression upon\nit. He is supposed to be of a spiritual nature only, except in so far\nas one part of his triune personality is, according to the Athanasian\nCreed, \"perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.\"\n\nHere, then, we find ourselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, we are\ninvolved in the same difficulty as in the case of Pantheism, inasmuch\nas a person without flesh and blood, or something analogous, is not a\nperson; we are required, therefore, to believe in a personal God, who\nhas no true person; to believe, that is to say, in an impersonal person.\n\nThis, as we have seen already, is Atheism under another name, being, as\nit is, destructive of all idea of God whatever; for these words do not\nconvey an idea of something which human intelligence can understand\nup to a certain point, and which it can watch going out of sight into\nregions beyond our view, but in the same direction-as we may infer other\nstars in space beyond the farthest that we know of; they convey utterly\nself-destructive ideas, which can have no real meaning, and can only be\nthought to have a meaning by ignorant and uncultivated people. Otherwise\nsuch foundation as human reason rests upon-that is to say, the current\nopinion of those whom the world appraises as reasonable and agreeable,\nor capable of being agreed with for any time-is sapped; the whole thing\ntumbles down, and we may have square circles and round triangles, which\nmay be declared to be no longer absurdities and contradictions in terms,\nbut mysteries that go beyond our reason, without being contrary to it.\nFew will maintain this, and those few may be neglected; an impersonal\nperson must therefore be admitted to be nonsense, and an immaterial God\nto be Atheism in another shape.\n\nOn the other hand, if God is \"of a reasonable soul and human flesh\nsubsisting,\" and if he thus has the body without which he is-as far as\nwe are concerned-non-existent, this body must yet be reasonably\nlike other bodies, and must exist in some place and at some time.\nFurthermore, it must do sufficiently nearly what all other \"human flesh\"\nbelonging to \"perfect man\" must do, or cease to be human flesh. Our\nideas are like our organisms; they have some little elasticity and\ncircumstance-suiting power, some little margin on which, as I have\nelsewhere said, side-notes may be written, and glosses on the original\ntext; but this power is very limited. As offspring will only, as a\ngeneral rule, vary very little from its immediate parents, and as it\nwill fail either immediately or in the second generation if the parents\ndiffer too widely from one another, so we cannot get our idea of-we\nwill say a horse-to conjure up to our minds the idea of any animal more\nunlike a horse than a pony is; nor can we get a well-defined idea of a\ncombination between a horse and any animal more remote from it than an\nass, zebra, or giraffe. We may, indeed, make a statue of a flying horse,\nbut the idea is one which cannot be made plausible to any but ignorant\npeople. So \"human flesh\" may vary a little from \"human flesh\" without\nundue violence being done to our reason and to the right use of\nlanguage, but it cannot differ from it so much as not to eat, drink, nor\nwaste and repair itself. \"Human flesh,\" which is without these necessary\nadjuncts, is human flesh only to those who can believe in flying horses\nwith feathered wings and bills like birds-that is to say, to vulgar and\nsuperstitious persons.\n\nLastly, not only must the \"perfect man,\" who is the second person of\nthe Godhead according to the orthodox faith, and who subsists of \"human\nflesh\" as well as of a \"reasonable soul,\" not only must this person\nexist, but he must exist in some place either on this earth or outside\nit. If he exists on earth, he must be in Europe, Asia, Africa, America,\nor on some island, and if he were met with he must be capable of being\nseen and handled in the same way as all other things that can be called\nperfect man are seen; otherwise he is a perfect man who is not only not\na perfect man, but who does not in any considerable degree resemble one.\nIt is not, however, pretended by anyone that God, the \"perfect man,\" is\nto be looked for in any place upon the surface of the globe.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the person of God exists in some sphere outside\nthe earth, his human flesh again proves to be of an entirely different\nkind from all other human flesh, for we know that such flesh cannot\nexist except on earth; if in space unsupported, it must fall to the\nground, or into some other planet, or into a sun, or go on revolving\nround the earth or some other heavenly body-or not be personal. None of\nthose whose opinions will carry weight will assign a position either in\nsome country on this earth, or yet again in space, to Jesus Christ, but\nthis involves the rendering meaningless of all expressions which involve\nhis personality.\n\nThe Christian conception, therefore, of the Deity proves when examined\nwith any desire to understand our own meaning (and what lawlessness so\ngreat as the attempt to impose words upon our understandings which have\nno lawful settlement within them?) to be no less a contradiction in\nterms than the Pantheistic conception. It is Atheistic, as offering us\na God which is not a God, inasmuch as we can conceive of no such\nbeing, nor of anything in the least like it. It is, like Pantheism, an\nillusion, which can be believed only by those who repeat a formula which\nthey have learnt by heart in a foreign language of which they understand\nnothing, and yet aver that they believe it. There are doubtless many who\nwill say that this is possible, but the majority of my readers will hold\nthat no proposition can be believed or disbelieved until its nature is\nunderstood.\n\nIt may perhaps be said that there is another conception of God possible,\nand that we may see him as personal, without at the same time believing\nthat he has any actual tangible existence. Thus we personify hope,\ntruth, and justice, without intending to convey to anyone the impression\nthat these qualities are women, with flesh and blood. Again, we do not\nthink of Nature as an actual woman, though we call her one; why may we\nnot conceive of God, then, as an expression whereby we personify, by a\nfigure of speech only; the thing that is intended being no person, but\nour own highest ideal of power, wisdom, and duration.\n\nThere would be no reason to complain of this if this manner of using the\nword \"God\" were well understood. Many words have two meanings, or even\nthree, without any mischievous confusion of thought following. There\ncan not only be no objection to the use of the word God as a manner of\nexpressing the highest ideal of which our minds can conceive, but on the\ncontrary no better expression can be found, and it is a pity the word is\nnot thus more generally used.\n\nFew, however, would be content with any such limitation of God as that\nhe should be an idea only, an expression for certain qualities of human\nthought and action. Whence, it may be fairly asked, did our deeply\nrooted belief in God as a Living Person originate? The idea of him as\nof an inconceivably vast, ancient, powerful, loving, and yet formidable\nPerson is one which survives all changes of detail in men's opinion. I\nbelieve there are a few very savage tribes who are as absolutely without\nreligious sense as the beasts of the field, but the vast majority for a\nlong time past have been possessed with an idea that there is somewhere\na Living God who is the Spirit and the Life of all that is, and who is a\ntrue Person with an individuality and self-consciousness of his own. It\nis only natural that we should be asked how such an idea has remained in\nthe minds of so many--who differ upon almost every other part of their\nphilosophy-for so long a time if it was without foundation, and a piece\nof dreamy mysticism only.\n\nTrue, it has generally been declared that this God is an infinite God,\nand an infinite God is a God without any bounds or limitations; and\na God without bounds or limitations is an impersonal God; and an\nimpersonal God is Atheism. But may not this be the incoherency of\nprophecy which precedes the successful mastering of an idea? May we not\nthink of this illusory expression as having arisen from inability to\nsee the whereabouts of a certain vast but tangible Person as to whose\nexistence men were nevertheless clear? If they felt that it existed, and\nyet could not say where, nor wherein it was to be laid hands on, they\nwould be very likely to get out of the difficulty by saying that it\nexisted as an infinite Spirit, partly from a desire to magnify what they\nfelt must be so vast and powerful, and partly because they had as\nyet only a vague conception of what they were aiming at, and must,\ntherefore, best express it vaguely.\n\nWe must not be surprised that when an idea is still inchoate its\nexpression should be inconsistent and imperfect-ideas will almost always\nduring the earlier history of a thought be put together experimentally\nso as to see whether or no they will cohere. Partly out of indolence,\npartly out of the desire of those who brought the ideas together to be\ndeclared right, and partly out of joy that the truth should be supposed\nfound, incoherent ideas will be kept together longer than they should\nbe; nevertheless they will in the end detach themselves and go, if\nothers present themselves which fit into their place better. There is no\nconsistency which has not once been inconsistent, nor coherency that has\nnot been incoherent. The incoherency of our ideas concerning God is due\nto the fact that we have not yet truly found him, but it does not argue\nthat he does not exist and cannot be found anywhere after more diligent\nsearch; on the contrary, the persistence of the main idea, in spite\nof the incoherency of its details, points strongly in the direction of\nbelieving that it rests upon a foundation in fact.\n\nBut it must be remembered there can be no God who is not personal and\nmaterial: and if personal, then, though inconceivably vast in comparison\nwith man, still limited in space and time, and capable of making\nmistakes concerning his own interests, though as a general rule right in\nhis estimates concerning them. Where, then, is this Being? He must be\non earth, or what folly can be greater than speaking of him as a person?\nWhat are persons on any other earth to us, or we to them? He must have\nexisted and be going to exist through all time, and he must have a\ntangible body. Where, then, is the body of this God? And what is the\nmystery of his Incarnation?\n\nIt will be my business to show this in the following chapter.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. THE TREE OF LIFE\n\nAtheism denies knowledge of a God of any kind. Pantheism and Theism\nalike profess to give us a God, but they alike fail to perform what they\nhave promised. We can know nothing of the God they offer us, for not\neven do they themselves profess that any of our senses can be cognisant\n[sic] of him. They tell us that he is a personal God, but that he has no\nmaterial person. This is disguised Atheism. What we want is a Personal\nGod, the glory of whose Presence can be made in part evident to our\nsenses, though what we can realise [sic] is less than nothing in\ncomparison with what we must leave for ever unimagined.\n\nAnd truly such a God is not far from every one of us; for if we survey\nthe broader and deeper currents of men's thoughts during the last three\nthousand years, we may observe two great and steady sets as having\ncarried away with them the more eligible races of mankind. The one is\na tendency from Polytheism to Monotheism; the other from Polytypism to\nMonotypism of the earliest forms of life-all animal and vegetable forms\nhaving at length come to be regarded as differentiations of a single\nsubstance-to wit, protoplasm.\n\nNo man does well so to kick against the pricks as to set himself against\ntendencies of such depth, strength, and permanence as this. If he is\nto be in harmony with the dominant opinion of his own and of many past\nages, he will see a single God-impregnate substance as having been the\nparent from which all living forms have sprung. One spirit, and one form\ncapable of such modification as its directing spirit shall think fit;\none soul and one body, one God and one Life.\n\nFor the time has come when the two unities so painfully arrived at must\nbe joined together as body and soul, and be seen not as two, but one.\nThere is no living organism untenanted by the Spirit of God, nor any\nSpirit of God perceivable by man apart from organism embodying and\nexpressing it. God and the Life of the World are like a mountain, which\nwill present different aspects as we look at it from different sides,\nbut which, when we have gone all round it, proves to be one only. God\nis the animal and vegetable world, and the animal and vegetable world is\nGod.\n\nI have repeatedly said that we ought to see all animal and vegetable\nlife as uniting to form a single personality. I should perhaps explain\nthis more fully, for the idea of a compound person is one which at first\nis not very easy to grasp, inasmuch as we are not conscious of any but\nour more superficial aspects, and have therefore until lately failed\nto understand that we are ourselves compound persons. I may perhaps be\nallowed to quote from an earlier work.\n\n\"Each cell in the human body is now admitted by physiologists to be a\nperson with an intelligent soul, differing from our own more complex\nsoul in degree and not in kind, and, like ourselves, being born, living,\nand dying. It would appear, then, as though 'we,' 'our souls,' or\n'selves,' or 'personalities,' or by whatever name we may prefer to\nbe called, are but the consensus and full-flowing stream of countless\nsensations and impulses on the part of our tributary souls or 'selves,'\nwho probably no more know that we exist, and that they exist as a part\nof us, than a microscopic insect knows the results of spectrum analysis,\nor than an agricultural labourer [sic] knows the working of the British\nConstitution; and of whom we know no more than we do of the habits\nand feelings of some class widely separated from our own.\"-(\"Life and\nHabit,\" p. 110.)\n\nAfter which it became natural to ask the following question:--\"Is it\npossible to avoid imagining that we may be ourselves atoms, undesignedly\ncombining to form some vaster being, though we are utterly incapable of\nperceiving this being as a single individual, or of realising [sic] the\nscheme and scope of our own combination? And this, too, not a spiritual\nbeing, which, without matter or what we think matter of some sort, is\nas complete nonsense to us as though men bade us love and lean upon an\nintelligent vacuum, but a being with what is virtually flesh and blood\nand bones, with organs, senses, dimensions in some way analogous to our\nown, into some other part of which being at the time of our great change\nwe must infallibly re-enter, starting clean anew, with bygones bygones,\nand no more ache for ever from age or antecedents.\n\n\"'An organic being,' writes Mr. Darwin, 'is a microcosm, a little\nuniverse, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms inconceivably\nminute and numerous as the stars in Heaven.' As these myriads of smaller\norganisms are parts and processes of us, so are we parts and processes\nof life at large.\"\n\nA tree is composed of a multitude of subordinate trees, each bud being\na distinct individual. So coral polypes [sic] form a tree-like growth\nof animal life, with branches from which spring individual polypes\n[sic] that are connected by a common tissue and supported by a common\nskeleton. We have no difficulty in seeing a unity in multitude, and\na multitude in unity here, because we can observe the wood and the\ngelatinous tissue connecting together all the individuals which compose\neither the tree or the mass of polypes [sic]. Yet the skeleton, whether\nof tree or of polype [sic], is inanimate; and the tissue, whether of\nbark or gelatine [sic], is only the matted roots of the individual buds;\nso that the outward and striking connection between the individuals\nis more delusive than real. The true connection is one which cannot be\nseen, and consists in the animation of each bud by a like spirit-in the\ncommunity of soul, in \"the voice of the Lord which maketh men to be\nof one mind in an house\"-\"to dwell together in unity\"-to take what are\npractically identical views of things, and express themselves in concert\nunder all circumstances. Provided this-the true unifier of organism-can\nbe shown to exist, the absence of gross outward and visible but\ninanimate common skeleton is no bar to oneness of personality.\n\nLet us picture to our minds a tree of which all the woody fibre [sic]\nshall be invisible, the buds and leaves seeming to stand in mid-air\nunsupported and unconnected with one another, so that there is nothing\nbut a certain tree-like collocation of foliage to suggest any common\nprinciple of growth uniting the leaves.\n\nThree or four leaves of different ages stand living together at the\nplace in the air where the end of each bough should be; of these the\nyoungest are still tender and in the bud, while the older ones are\nturning yellow and on the point of falling. Between these leaves a sort\nof twig-like growth can be detected if they are looked at in certain\nlights, but it is hard to see, except perhaps when a bud is on the point\nof coming out. Then there does appear to be a connection which might be\ncalled branch-like.\n\nThe separate tufts are very different from one another, so that oak\nleaves, ash leaves, horse-chestnut leaves, etc., are each represented,\nbut there is one species only at the end of each bough.\n\nThough the trunk and all the inner boughs and leaves have disappeared,\nyet there hang here and there fossil leaves, also in mid-air; they\nappear to have been petrified, without method or selection, by what we\ncall the caprices of nature; they hang in the path which the boughs and\ntwigs would have taken, and they seem to indicate that if the tree could\nhave been seen a million years earlier, before it had grown near its\npresent size, the leaves standing at the end of each bough would have\nbeen found very different from what they are now. Let us suppose that\nall the leaves at the end of all the invisible boughs, no matter how\ndifferent they now are from one another, were found in earliest budhood\nto be absolutely indistinguishable, and afterwards to develop towards\neach differentiation through stages which were indicated by the fossil\nleaves. Lastly, let us suppose that though the boughs which seem wanted\nto connect all the living forms of leaves with the fossil leaves, and\nwith countless forms of which all trace has disappeared, and also with\na single root-have become invisible, yet that there is irrefragable\nevidence to show that they once actually existed, and indeed are\nexisting at this moment, in a condition as real though as invisible\nto the eye as air or electricity. Should we, I ask, under these\ncircumstances hesitate to call our imaginary plant or tree by a single\nname, and to think of it as one person, merely upon the score that the\nwoody fibre [sic] was invisible? Should we not esteem the common soul,\nmemories and principles of growth which are preserved between all the\nbuds, no matter how widely they differ in detail, as a more living\nbond of union than a framework of wood would be, which, though it were\nvisible to the eye, would still be inanimate?\n\nThe mistletoe appears as closely connected with the tree on which it\ngrows as any of the buds of the tree itself; it is fed upon the same sap\nas the other buds are, which sap-however much it may modify it at\nthe last moment-it draws through the same fibres [sic] as do its\nfoster-brothers-why then do we at once feel that the mistletoe is no\npart of the apple tree? Not from any want of manifest continuity, but\nfrom the spiritual difference-from the profoundly different views of\nlife and things which are taken by the parasite and the tree on which it\ngrows-the two are now different because they think differently-as\nlong as they thought alike they were alike-that is to say they were\nprotoplasm-they and we and all that lives meeting in this common\nsubstance.\n\nWe ought therefore to regard our supposed tufts of leaves as a tree,\nthat is to say, as a compound existence, each one of whose component\nitems is compounded of others which are also in their turn compounded.\nBut the tree above described is no imaginary parallel to the condition\nof life upon the globe; it is perhaps as accurate a description of the\nTree of Life as can be put into so small a compass. The most sure proof\nof a man's identity is the power to remember that such and such things\nhappened, which none but he can know; the most sure proof of his\nremembering is the power to react his part in the original drama,\nwhatever it may have been; if a man can repeat a performance with\nconsummate truth, and can stand any amount of cross-questioning about\nit, he is the performer of the original performance, whatever it was.\nThe memories which all living forms prove by their actions that they\npossess-the memories of their common identity with a single person in\nwhom they meet-this is incontestable proof of their being animated by\na common soul. It is certain, therefore, that all living forms, whether\nanimal or vegetable, are in reality one animal; we and the mosses being\npart of the same vast person in no figurative sense, but with as much\nbona fide literal truth as when we say that a man's finger-nails and his\neyes are parts of the same man.\n\nIt is in this Person that we may see the Body of God-and in the\nevolution of this Person, the mystery of His Incarnation.\n\n[In \"Unconscious Memory,\" Chapter V, Butler wrote: \"In the articles\nabove alluded to (\"God the Known and God the Unknown\") I separated the\norganic from the inorganic, but when I came to rewrite them I found that\nthis could not be done, and that I must reconstruct what I had written.\"\nThis reconstruction never having been effected, it may be well to quote\nfurther from \"Unconscious Memory\" (concluding chapter): \"At parting,\ntherefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom in the\nuniverse as living and able to feel and remember, but in a humble way.\nHe must have life eternal as well as matter eternal; and the life and\nthe matter must be joined together inseparably as body and soul to\none another. Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who repeat\nphrases conventionally, but as people who would have their words taken\naccording to their most natural and legitimate meaning; and he will feel\nthat the main difference between him and many of those who oppose him\nlies in the fact that whereas both he and they use the same language,\nhis opponents only half mean what they say, while he means it\nentirely... We shall endeavour [sic] to see the so-called inorganic as\nliving, in respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic,\nrather than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has\nin common with the inorganic.\"]\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THE LIKENESS OF GOD\n\nIn my last chapter I endeavoured [sic] to show that each living being,\nwhether animal or plant, throughout the world is a component item of\na single personality, in the same way as each individual citizen of a\ncommunity is a member of one state, or as each cell of our own bodies\nis a separate person, or each bud of a tree a separate plant. We must\ntherefore see the whole varied congeries of living things as a single\nvery ancient Being, of inconceivable vastness, and animated by one\nSpirit.\n\nWe call the octogenarian one person with the embryo of a few days old\nfrom which he has developed. An oak or yew tree may be two thousand\nyears old, but we call it one plant with the seed from which it has\ngrown. Millions of individual buds have come and gone, to the yearly\nwasting and repairing of its substance; but the tree still lives and\nthrives, and the dead leaves have life therein. So the Tree of Life\nstill lives and thrives as a single person, no matter how many new\nfeatures it has acquired during its development, nor, again, how many\nof its individual leaves fall yellow to the ground daily. The spirit or\nsoul of this person is the Spirit of God, and its body-for we know of no\nsoul or spirit without a body, nor of any living body without a spirit\nor soul, and if there is a God at all there must be a body of God-is\nthe many-membered outgrowth of protoplasm, the ensemble of animal and\nvegetable life.\n\nTo repeat. The Theologian of to-day tells us that there is a God, but is\nhorrified at the idea of that God having a body. We say that we believe\nin God, but that our minds refuse to realise [sic] an intelligent Being\nwho has no bodily person. \"Where then,\" says the Theologian, \"is the\nbody of your God?\" We have answered, \"In the living forms upon the\nearth, which, though they look many, are, when we regard them by the\nlight of their history and of true analogies, one person only.\" The\nspiritual connection between them is a more real bond of union than the\nvisible discontinuity of material parts is ground for separating them in\nour thoughts.\n\nLet the reader look at a case of moths in the shop-window of a\nnaturalist, and note the unspeakable delicacy, beauty, and yet\nserviceableness of their wings; or let him look at a case of\nhumming-birds, and remember how infinitely small a part of Nature is\nthe whole group of the animals he may be considering, and how infinitely\nsmall a part of that group is the case that he is looking at. Let him\nbear in mind that he is looking on the dead husks only of what was\ninconceivably more marvellous [sic] when the moths or humming-birds were\nalive. Let him think of the vastness of the earth, and of the activity\nby day and night through countless ages of such countless forms of\nanimal and vegetable life as that no human mind can form the faintest\napproach to anything that can be called a conception of their multitude,\nand let him remember that all these forms have touched and touched and\ntouched other living beings till they meet back on a common substance in\nwhich they are rooted, and from which they all branch forth so as to be\none animal. Will he not in this real and tangible existence find a God\nwho is as much more worthy of admiration than the God of the ordinary\nTheologian-as He is also more easy of comprehension?\n\nFor the Theologian dreams of a God sitting above the clouds among the\ncherubim, who blow their loud uplifted angel trumpets before Him, and\nhumour [sic] Him as though He were some despot in an Oriental tale; but\nwe enthrone Him upon the wings of birds, on the petals of flowers, on\nthe faces of our friends, and upon whatever we most delight in of all\nthat lives upon the earth. We then can not only love Him, but we can\ndo that without which love has neither power nor sweetness, but is a\nphantom only, an impersonal person, a vain stretching forth of arms\ntowards something that can never fill them-we can express our love and\nhave it expressed to us in return. And this not in the uprearing of\nstone temples-for the Lord dwelleth [sic] in temples made with other\norgans than hands-nor yet in the cleansing of our hearts, but in the\ncaress bestowed upon horse and dog, and kisses upon the lips of those we\nlove.\n\nWide, however, as is the difference between the orthodox Theologian and\nourselves, it is not more remarkable than the number of the points on\nwhich we can agree with him, and on which, moreover, we can make his\nmeaning clearer to himself than it can have ever hitherto been. He, for\nexample, says that man has been made in the image of God, but he cannot\nmean what he says, unless his God has a material body; we, on the other\nhand, do not indeed believe that the body of God-the incorporation of\nall life-is like the body of a man, more than we believe each one of our\nown cells or subordinate personalities to be like a man in miniature;\nbut we nevertheless hold that each of our tributary selves is so far\nmade after the likeness of the body corporate that it possesses all our\nmain and essential characteristics-that is to say, that it can waste\nand repair itself; can feel, move, and remember. To this extent, also,\nwe-who stand in mean proportional between our tributary personalities\nand God-are made in the likeness of God; for we, and God, and our\nsubordinate cells alike possess the essential characteristics of life\nwhich have been above recited. It is more true, therefore, for us to say\nthat we are made in the likeness of God than for the orthodox Theologian\nto do so.\n\nNor, again, do we find difficulty in adopting such an expression as that\n\"God has taken our nature upon Him.\" We hold this as firmly, and much\nmore so, than Christians can do, but we say that this is no new thing\nfor Him to do, for that He has taken flesh and dwelt among us from the\nday that He first assumed our shape, some millions of years ago, until\nnow. God cannot become man more especially than He can become other\nliving forms, any more than we can be our eyes more especially than any\nother of our organs. We may develop larger eyes, so that our eyes may\ncome to occupy a still more important place in our economy than they\ndo at present; and in a similar way the human race may become a more\npredominant part of God than it now is-but we cannot admit that one\nliving form is more like God than another; we must hold all equally like\nHim, inasmuch as they \"keep ever,\" as Buffon says, \"the same fundamental\nunity, in spite of differences of detail-nutrition, development,\nreproduction\" (and, I would add, \"memory\") \"being the common traits of\nall organic bodies.\" The utmost we can admit is, that some embodiments\nof the Spirit of Life may be more important than others to the welfare\nof Life as a whole, in the same way as some of our organs are more\nimportant than others to ourselves.\n\nBut the above resemblances between the language which we can adopt\nintelligently and that which Theologians use vaguely, seem to reduce the\ndifferences of opinion between the two contending parties to disputes\nabout detail. For even those who believe their ideas to be the most\ndefinite, and who picture to themselves a God as anthropomorphic as He\nwas represented by Raffaelle, are yet not prepared to stand by their\nideas if they are hard pressed in the same way as we are by ours. Those\nwho say that God became man and took flesh upon Him, and that He is\nnow perfect God and perfect man of a reasonable soul and human flesh\nsubsisting, will yet not mean that Christ has a heart, blood, a stomach,\netc., like man's, which, if he has not, it is idle to speak of him as\n\"perfect man.\" I am persuaded that they do not mean this, nor wish to\nmean it; but that they have been led into saying it by a series of steps\nwhich it is very easy to understand and sympathise [sic] with, if they\nare considered with any diligence.\n\nFor our forefathers, though they might and did feel the existence of a\nPersonal God in the world, yet could not demonstrate this existence, and\nmade mistakes in their endeavour [sic] to persuade themselves that they\nunderstood thoroughly a truth which they had as yet perceived only from\na long distance. Hence all the dogmatism and theology of many centuries.\nIt was impossible for them to form a clear or definite conception\nconcerning God until they had studied His works more deeply, so as to\ngrasp the idea of many animals of different kinds and with no apparent\nconnection between them, being yet truly parts of one and the same\nanimal which comprised them in the same way as a tree comprises all its\nbuds. They might speak of this by a figure of speech, but they could\nnot see it as a fact. Before this could be intended literally, Evolution\nmust be grasped, and not Evolution as taught in what is now commonly\ncalled Darwinism, but the old teleological Darwinism of eighty years\nago. Nor is this again sufficient, for it must be supplemented by a\nperception of the oneness of personality between parents and offspring,\nthe persistence of memory through all generations, the latency of this\nmemory until rekindled by the recurrence of the associated ideas, and\nthe unconsciousness with which repeated acts come to be performed.\nThese are modern ideas which might be caught sight of now and again by\nprophets in time past, but which are even now mastered and held firmly\nonly by the few.\n\nWhen once, however, these ideas have been accepted, the chief difference\nbetween the orthodox God and the God who can be seen of all men is, that\nthe first is supposed to have existed from all time, while the second\nhas only lived for more millions of years than our minds can reckon\nintelligently; the first is omnipresent in all space, while the second\nis only present in the living forms upon this earth-that is to say, is\nonly more widely present than our minds can intelligently embrace. The\nfirst is omnipotent and all-wise; the second is only quasi-omnipotent\nand quasi all-wise. It is true, then, that we deprive God of that\ninfinity which orthodox Theologians have ascribed to Him, but the\nbounds we leave Him are of such incalculable extent that nothing can be\nimagined more glorious or vaster; and in return for the limitations we\nhave assigned to Him, we render it possible for men to believe in Him,\nand love Him, not with their lips only, but with their hearts and lives.\n\nWhich, I may now venture to ask my readers, is the true God-the God of\nthe Theologian, or He whom we may see around us, and in whose presence\nwe stand each hour and moment of our lives?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. THE LIFE EVERLASTING\n\nLet us now consider the life which we can look forward to with certainty\nafter death, and the moral government of the world here on earth.\n\nIf we could hear the leaves complaining to one another that they must\ndie, and commiserating the hardness of their lot in having ever been\ninduced to bud forth, we should, I imagine, despise them for their\npeevishness more than we should pity them. We should tell them that\nthough we could not see reason for thinking that they would ever hang\nagain upon the same-or any at all similar-bough as the same individual\nleaves, after they had once faded and fallen off, yet that as they had\nbeen changing personalities without feeling it during the whole of their\nleafhood, so they would on death continue to do this selfsame thing\nby entering into new phases of life. True, death will deprive them of\nconscious memory concerning their now current life; but, though they die\nas leaves, they live in the tree whom they have helped to vivify, and\nwhose growth and continued well-being is due solely to this life and\ndeath of its component personalities.\n\nWe consider the cells which are born and die within us yearly to have\nbeen sufficiently honoured [sic] in having contributed their quotum to\nour life; why should we have such difficulty in seeing that a healthy\nenjoyment and employment of our life will give us a sufficient reward in\nthat growth of God wherein we may live more truly and effectually after\ndeath than we have lived when we were conscious of existence? Is Handel\ndead when he influences and sets in motion more human beings in three\nmonths now than during the whole, probably, of the years in which he\nthought that he was alive? What is being alive if the power to draw men\nfor many miles in order that they may put themselves en rapport with\nhim is not being so? True, Handel no longer knows the power which he has\nover us, but this is a small matter; he no longer animates six feet of\nflesh and blood, but he lives in us as the dead leaf lives in the tree.\nHe is with God, and God knows him though he knows himself no more.\n\nThis should suffice, and I observe in practice does suffice, for all\nreasonable persons. It may be said that one day the tree itself must\ndie, and the leaves no longer live therein; and so, also, that the very\nGod or Life of the World will one day perish, as all that is born must\nsurely in the end die. But they who fret upon such grounds as this must\nbe in so much want of a grievance that it were a cruelty to rob them of\none: if a man who is fond of music tortures himself on the ground that\none day all possible combinations and permutations of sounds will have\nbeen exhausted so that there can be no more new tunes, the only thing\nwe can do with him is to pity him and leave him; nor is there any better\ncourse than this to take with those idle people who worry themselves\nand others on the score that they will one day be unable to remember\nthe small balance of their lives that they have not already forgotten\nas unimportant to them-that they will one day die to the balance of\nwhat they have not already died to. I never knew a well-bred or amiable\nperson who complained seriously of the fact that he would have to die.\nGranted we must all sometimes find ourselves feeling sorry that we\ncannot remain for ever at our present age, and that we may die so much\nsooner than we like; but these regrets are passing with well-disposed\npeople, and are a sine qua non for the existence of life at all. For if\npeople could live for ever so as to suffer from no such regret, there\nwould be no growth nor development in life; if, on the other hand,\nthere were no unwillingness to die, people would commit suicide upon the\nsmallest contradiction, and the race would end in a twelvemonth.\n\nWe then offer immortality, but we do not offer resurrection from the\ndead; we say that those who die live in the Lord whether they be just\nor unjust, and that the present growth of God is the outcome of all past\nlives; but we believe that as they live in God-in the effect they have\nproduced upon the universal life-when once their individual life is\nended, so it is God who knows of their life thenceforward and not\nthemselves; and we urge that this immortality, this entrance into\nthe joy of the Lord, this being ever with God, is true, and can be\napprehended by all men, and that the perception of it should and will\ntend to make them lead happier, healthier lives; whereas the commonly\nreceived opinion is true with a stage truth only, and has little\npermanent effect upon those who are best worth considering. Nevertheless\nthe expressions in common use among the orthodox fit in so perfectly\nwith facts, which we must all acknowledge, that it is impossible not\nto regard the expressions as founded upon a prophetic perception of the\nfacts.\n\nTwo things stand out with sufficient clearness. The first is the rarity\nof suicide even among those who rail at life most bitterly. The other\nis the little eagerness with which those who cry out most loudly for a\nresurrection desire to begin their new life. When comforting a husband\nupon the loss of his wife we do not tell him we hope he will soon join\nher; but we should certainly do this if we could even pretend we thought\nthe husband would like it. I can never remember having felt or witnessed\nany pain, bodily or mental, which would have made me or anyone\nelse receive a suggestion that we had better commit suicide without\nindignantly asking how our adviser would like to commit suicide himself.\nYet there are so many and such easy ways of dying that indignation at\nbeing advised to commit suicide arises more from enjoyment of life than\nfrom fear of the mere physical pain of dying. Granted that there is much\ndeplorable pain in the world from ill-health, loss of money, loss of\nreputation, misconduct of those nearest to us, or what not, and granted\nthat in some cases these causes do drive men to actual self-destruction,\nyet suffering such as this happens to a comparatively small number, and\noccupies comparatively a small space in the lives of those to whom it\ndoes happen.\n\nWhat, however, have we to say to those cases in which suffering and\ninjustice are inflicted upon defenceless [sic] people for years and\nyears, so that the iron enters into their souls, and they have no\navenger. Can we give any comfort to such sufferers? and, if not, is our\nreligion any better than a mockery-a filling the rich with good things\nand sending the hungry empty away? Can we tell them, when they are\noppressed with burdens, yet that their cry will come up to God and be\nheard? The question suggests its own answer, for assuredly our God knows\nour innermost secrets: there is not a word in our hearts but He knoweth\nit altogether; He knoweth our down-sitting and our uprising, He is\nabout our path and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways; He has\nfashioned us behind and before, and \"we cannot attain such knowledge,\"\nfor, like all knowledge when it has become perfect, \"it is too excellent\nfor us.\"\n\n\"Whither then,\" says David, \"shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither\nshall I go, then, from thy presence? If I climb up into heaven thou art\nthere; if I go down into hell thou art there also. If I take the wings\nof the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there\nalso shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say\nperadventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned\ninto day: the darkness and light to thee are both alike. For my reins\nare thine; thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. My bones are not\nhid from thee: though I be made secretly and fashioned beneath in the\nearth, thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect; and in thy\nbook were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned when\nas yet there was none of them. Do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate\nthee? and am I not grieved with them that rise up against thee? Yea, I\nhate them right sore, as though they were mine enemies.\" (Psalm\nCXXXIX.) There is not a word of this which we cannot endorse with more\nsignificance, as well as with greater heartiness than those can who\nlook upon God as He is commonly represented to them; whatever comfort,\ntherefore, those in distress have been in the habit of receiving from\nthese and kindred passages, we intensify rather than not. We cannot,\nalas! make pain cease to be pain, nor injustice easy to bear; but we\ncan show that no pain is bootless, and that there is a tendency in all\ninjustice to right itself; suffering is not inflicted wilfully, [sic] as\nit were by a magician who could have averted it; nor is it vain in its\nresults, but unless we are cut off from God by having dwelt in some\nplace where none of our kind can know of what has happened to us, it\nwill move God's heart to redress our grievance, and will tend to the\nhappiness of those who come after us, even if not to our own.\n\nThe moral government of God over the world is exercised through us, who\nare his ministers and persons, and a government of this description\nis the only one which can be observed as practically influencing\nmen's conduct. God helps those who help themselves, because in helping\nthemselves they are helping Him. Again, Vox Populi vox Dei. The current\nfeeling of our peers is what we instinctively turn to when we would know\nwhether such and such a course of conduct is right or wrong; and so Paul\nclenches his list of things that the Philippians were to hold fast with\nthe words, \"whatsoever things are of good fame\"-that is to say, he falls\nback upon an appeal to the educated conscience of his age. Certainly\nthe wicked do sometimes appear to escape punishment, but it must be\nremembered there are punishments from within which do not meet the eye.\nIf these fall on a man, he is sufficiently punished; if they do not fall\non him, it is probable we have been over hasty in assuming that he is\nwicked.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. GOD THE UNKNOWN\n\nThe reader will already have felt that the panzoistic conception of\nGod-the conception, that is to say, of God as comprising all living\nunits in His own single person-does not help us to understand the origin\nof matter, nor yet that of the primordial cell which has grown and\nunfolded itself into the present life of the world. How was the world\nrendered fit for the habitation of the first germ of Life? How came it\nto have air and water, without which nothing that we know of as living\ncan exist? Was the world fashioned and furnished with aqueous and\natmospheric adjuncts with a view to the requirements of the infant\nmonad, and to his due development? If so, we have evidence of design,\nand if so of a designer, and if so there must be Some far vaster Person\nwho looms out behind our God, and who stands in the same relation to him\nas he to us. And behind this vaster and more unknown God there may be\nyet another, and another, and another.\n\nIt is certain that Life did not make the world with a view to its own\nfuture requirements. For the world was at one time red hot, and there\ncan have been no living being upon it. Nor is it conceivable that matter\nin which there was no life-inasmuch as it was infinitely hotter than the\nhottest infusion which any living germ can support-could gradually come\nto be alive without impregnation from a living parent. All living things\nthat we know of have come from other living things with bodies and\nsouls, whose existence can be satisfactorily established in spite of\ntheir being often too small for our detection. Since, then, the world\nwas once without life, and since no analogy points in the direction of\nthinking that life can spring up spontaneously, we are driven to suppose\nthat it was introduced into this world from some other source extraneous\nto it altogether, and if so we find ourselves irresistibly drawn to\nthe inquiry whether the source of the life that is in the world-the\nimpregnator of this earth-may not also have prepared the earth for the\nreception of his offspring, as a hen makes an egg-shell or a peach a\nstone for the protection of the germ within it? Not only are we drawn to\nthe inquiry, but we are drawn also to the answer that the earth was so\nprepared designedly by a Person with body and soul who knew beforehand\nthe kind of thing he required, and who took the necessary steps to bring\nit about.\n\nIf this is so we are members indeed of the God of this world, but we\nare not his children; we are children of the Unknown and Vaster God who\ncalled him into existence; and this in a far more literal sense than we\nhave been in the habit of realising [sic] to ourselves. For it may be\ndoubted whether the monads are not as truly seminal in character as the\nprocreative matter from which all animals spring.\n\nIt must be remembered that if there is any truth in the view put forward\nin \"Life and Habit,\" and in \"Evolution Old and New\" (and I have met\nwith no serious attempt to upset the line of argument taken in either\nof these books), then no complex animal or plant can reach its full\ndevelopment without having already gone through the stages of that\ndevelopment on an infinite number of past occasions. An egg makes itself\ninto a hen because it knows the way to do so, having already made\nitself into a hen millions and millions of times over; the ease and\nunconsciousness with which it grows being in themselves sufficient\ndemonstration of this fact. At each stage in its growth the chicken is\nreminded, by a return of the associated ideas, of the next step that it\nshould take, and it accordingly takes it.\n\nBut if this is so, and if also the congeries of all the living forms\nin the world must be regarded as a single person, throughout their long\ngrowth from the primordial cell onwards to the present day, then, by\nparity of reasoning, the person thus compounded-that is to say, Life or\nGod-should have already passed through a growth analogous to that which\nwe find he has taken upon this earth on an infinite number of past\noccasions; and the development of each class of life, with its\nculmination in the vertebrate animals and in man, should be due to\nrecollection by God of his having passed through the same stages, or\nnearly so, in worlds and universes, which we know of from personal\nrecollection, as evidenced in the growth and structure of our bodies,\nbut concerning which we have no other knowledge whatsoever.\n\nSo small a space remains to me that I cannot pursue further the\nreflections which suggest themselves. A few concluding considerations\nare here alone possible.\n\nWe know of three great concentric phases of life, and we are not without\nreason to suspect a fourth. If there are so many there are very likely\nmore, but we do not know whether there are or not. The innermost sphere\nof life we know of is that of our own cells. These people live in a\nworld of their own, knowing nothing of us, nor being known by ourselves\nuntil very recently. Yet they can be seen under a microscope; they can\nbe taken out of us, and may then be watched going here and there in\nperturbation of mind, endeavouring [sic] to find something in their\nnew environment that will suit them, and then dying on finding how\nhopelessly different it is from any to which they have been accustomed.\nThey live in us, and make us up into the single person which we conceive\nourselves to form; we are to them a world comprising an organic and an\ninorganic kingdom, of which they consider themselves to be the organic,\nand whatever is not very like themselves to be the inorganic. Whether\nthey are composed of subordinate personalities or not we do not know,\nbut we have no reason to think that they are, and if we touch ground, so\nto speak, with life in the units of which our own bodies are composed,\nit is likely that there is a limit also in an upward direction,\nthough we have nothing whatever to guide us as to where it is, nor any\ncertainty that there is a limit at all.\n\nWe are ourselves the second concentric sphere of life, we being the\nconstituent cells which unite to form the body of God. Of the third\nsphere we know a single member only-the God of this world; but we see\nalso the stars in heaven, and know their multitude. Analogy points\nirresistibly in the direction of thinking that these other worlds are\nlike our own, begodded and full of life; it also bids us believe that\nthe God of their world is begotten of one more or less like himself,\nand that his growth has followed the same course as that of all other\ngrowths we know of.\n\nIf so, he is one of the constituent units of an unknown and vaster\npersonality who is composed of Gods, as our God is composed of all the\nliving forms on earth, and as all those living forms are composed of\ncells. This is the Unknown God. Beyond this second God we cannot at\npresent go, nor should we wish to do so, if we are wise. It is no\nreproach to a system that it does not profess to give an account of the\norigin of things; the reproach rather should lie against a system\nwhich professed to explain it, for we may be well assured that such a\nprofession would, for the present at any rate, be an empty boast. It is\nenough if a system is true as far as it goes; if it throws new light\non old problems, and opens up vistas which reveal a hope of further\naddition to our knowledge, and this I believe may be fairly claimed for\nthe theory of life put forward in \"Life and Habit\" and \"Evolution,\nOld and New,\" and for the corollary insisted upon in these pages; a\ncorollary which follows logically and irresistibly if the position I\nhave taken in the above-named books is admitted.\n\nLet us imagine that one of the cells of which we are composed could\nattain to a glimmering perception of the manner in which he unites\nwith other cells, of whom he knows very little, so as to form a greater\ncompound person of whom he has hitherto known nothing at all. Would he\nnot do well to content himself with the mastering of this conception,\nat any rate for a considerable time? Would it be any just ground of\ncomplaint against him on the part of his brother cells, that he had\nfailed to explain to them who made the man (or, as he would call it, the\nomnipotent deity) whose existence and relations to himself he had just\ncaught sight of?\n\nBut if he were to argue further on the same lines as those on which he\nhad travelled hitherto, and were to arrive at the conclusion that there\nmight be other men in the world. besides the one whom he had just\nlearnt to apprehend, it would be still no refutation or just ground of\ncomplaint against him that he had failed to show the manner in which his\nsupposed human race had come into existence.\n\nHere our cell would probably stop. He could hardly be expected to arrive\nat the existence of animals and plants differing from the human race,\nand uniting with that race to form a single Person or God, in the\nsame way as he has himself united with other cells to form man. The\nexistence, and much more the roundness of the earth itself, would be\nunknown to him, except by way of inference and deduction. The only\nuniverse which he could at all understand would be the body of the man\nof whom he was a component part.\n\nHow would not such a cell be astounded if all that we know ourselves\ncould be suddenly revealed to him, so that not only should the vastness\nof this earth burst upon his dazzled view, but that of the sun and of\nhis planets also, and not only these, but the countless other suns which\nwe may see by night around us. Yet it is probable that an actual being\nis hidden from us, which no less transcends the wildest dream of our\ntheologians than the existence of the heavenly bodies transcends the\nperception of our own constituent cells.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"God the Known and God the Unknown","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":16352}