Part 2 (2/2)

[4] Appendix VII.

[5] Appendix VIII.

[6] _Journal Intime_, ii.

[7] _Modern Essays_.

[8] Appendix IX.

[9] Tennyson, _Wages_.

[10] Appendix X.

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III

THE RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE

'Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence.'--PSALM cx.x.xix. 7.

'Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.'--JEREMIAH xxiii. 24.

'The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.'--1 KINGS viii.

27.

'In Him we live, and move, and have our being.'--ACTS xvii. 28.

'One G.o.d and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'--EPHESIANS iv. 6.

'Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to Whom be glory for ever. Amen.'--ROMANS xi. 36.

'That G.o.d may be all in all.'--1 CORINTHIANS xv. 28.

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III

THE RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE

Among proposed subst.i.tutes for Christianity, none occupies a more prominent place than Pantheism, the ident.i.ty of G.o.d and the universe.

'Pantheism,' says Haeckel, 'is the world system of the modern scientist.'[1] Pantheism, or the Religion of the Universe, is, in one aspect, a protest against Anthropomorphism, the making of G.o.d in the image of man. It is in supposing G.o.d to be altogether such as we are, to be swayed by the same motives, to be actuated by the same pa.s.sions as we are, that the most deadly errors have arisen. Robert Browning, in _Caliban upon Setebos_, represents a half-brutal {66} being who lives in a cave speculating upon the government of the world, wondering why it came to be made, and what could be the purpose of the Creator in making it. Every motive that could sway the savage mind is in turn discussed: pleasure, restlessness, jealousy, cruelty, sport. 'Because I, Caliban,' such is the process of his reasoning, 'delight in tormenting defenceless animals, or would crush any one that interfered with my comfort, or do things because my taskmaster obliges me to do them, so must it be with Him Who made the world.' With great grotesqueness, but with marvellous power, the degraded monster argues as to the reasons which could have prompted the Unseen Ruler to frame the earth and its inhabitants. Everything that he attributes to G.o.d is in keeping with his own base nature. What is the explanation of the horrors which have been perpetrated in the Name of G.o.d? The sacrifice of human {67} beings, of vanquished enemies, or of the nearest and the dearest, the agonies of self-torture, did not these originate in the transference to the Invisible G.o.d of the emotions and principles by which men were guiding their own lives? They had no notion of forbearance and forgiveness and patience, therefore they did not think that there could be forgiveness with G.o.d. They were to be turned aside from their fierce, revengeful purposes by bribes and by the protracted sufferings of their foes, therefore they thought that G.o.d might be bribed by gifts or propitiated by pains. What they were on earth, delighting in bloodshed and conquest and revelry, that, they supposed, must be the Being or the Beings who ruled in the world unseen.

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