THE ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE.

191

some degree of power there is in man of self-determination, by the amount of which, and not by their specific actions, moral merit or demerit is to be measured."* How "inevitable consequences" are to be expected where "causes cease to operate," he does not tell us ; but no doubt the earth goes round the sun in physics, and the sun round the earth where man's volition is concerned. Huxley, the man of science, says: "Theology in her purer forms, has ceased to be anthropomorphic, however she may talk. Anthropomorphism has taken her stand in its last fortress-man himself. But science closely invests the walls; and philosophers gird themselves for battle upon the last and greatest of all speculative problems. Does human nature possess any free volitional or truly anthropomorphic element, or is it only the cunningest of all nature's clocks? Some, among whom I count myself, think that the battle will for ever remain a drawn one, and that, for all practical purposes, this result is as good as anthropomorphism winning the day."†

Notwithstanding, we are slowly, but surely, coming to the conviction that in nature there is no beginning,—merely pre-existent and persistent force and its correlates—that is, "that each manifestation of force can be interpreted only as the effect of some antecedent force, no matter whether it be an inorganic action, an animal movement, a thought or feeling"; that all force, or power, or ability is derived and inseparable from that of which it is the force-the Supreme Cause of all. If we have lost matter, we have found force; if we have lost mind-a suppositious, capricious existence, governed by nothing—we have found universal law, and “a supreme and infinite and everlasting Mind in synthesis with all things." In the correlation of force, we have one great heart-beat of the Absolute Existence. "Being underlies all

*Froude's Essays, "Spinoza," vol. ii., p. 59.

† Fortnightly Review, June, p. 664.

"First Principles," by Herbert Spencer.

*

*

modes and forms of being."* "Nature is an infinitely di vided God. The Divine One has dispersed itself into innumerable sensible substances, as a white beam of light is decomposed by the prism with seven coloured rays. And a divine being would be evolved from the union of all these substances, as the seven coloured rays dissolve again into the clear-light beam. The existing form of nature is the optic glass, and all the activities of spirit are only an infinite colour-play of that simple divine ray."†

CHAPTER V.

RELIGION.

WE have seen how the physical and moral worlds have been created within us by our forms of thought, and by out likes and antipathies; the latter constituting a World based on the Chemistry of Sensibility. We have now to consider in what way and by what faculties the Religious World is created. Morality defines our relation to our fellow-man, religion our relation to God. The properties of matter, regarded as separate and distinct forces acting upon our organisation, give rise to our "forms of thought." The mental faculty of Individuality gives unity to these properties of matter, creating what we call substance; the same faculty gives unity to our separate thoughts and feelings, and to that unity we give the name of Mind; but the process does not stop here; for every change or effect we see that there is a cause which is always equal, under like circumstances, to produce the same effect. This force, or this power or ability to produce change, is unseen and unknown to us except in its effect, but we necessarily conclude that it is the force of something, and Individuality again gives unity to all these separate powers or causes of effects, and to this unity we give the name of God. Examination into the nature of this Force shows that it is Persistent,-that is, is the effect, or correlate, or equivalent of some antecedent force, and that what we call matter and mind are known to us only from the changes that take place in it, its mode of action or phenomena: "in other words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary substrata of groups of natural phenomena."* These changes or phenomena do not persist, but

* Huxley.

pass away, but their Unknown Cause, or the power that produced them, continues to exist, and as far as we know has existed, and will continue to exist, without beginning or end. This Unknown Cause-this abstract conception of Force or Power—we immediately proceed to invest with all our own modes of thought and feeling, and as these have varied with the progress of intelligence, so have the attributes we have ascribed to the unknown Source.

Although "the Reality behind the veil of appearances" is unknown to us, yet we infer its nature from its manifestations, and its character, as we judge of all character, by the tendency of its actions.

This idea of Supreme Power, originating in the intellect, is the base of all Religion; although the Feelings to which it gives rise and with which it is associated more properly constitute Religion. Thus, as hidden power and as the cause of all things it excites Wonder; as supreme power it creates Veneration or Reverence, Hope, and Fear. Again, we have a strong "love of life," and a great dread of ceasing to be; we cannot bear the thought of parting for ever from those who are dear to us; we have an intuition of persistent force-of the something that continues to exist independently of all change in ourselves, which we feel is indestructible, and which we call our immortal soul; and as we strongly wish for another world, or state of existence after it is apparent we have done with this, our feelings of Hope and Faith give reality to what we so much desire, and we believe in this other world. Each religion, then, peoples this future state with beings of its own creation. Strong feelings beget myths. The Bard and the Prophet in the earliest ages were the same; the Bard expressing and harmonising public feeling, and the people necessarily believing as inspired that which so harmonised. In this way religions are formed and religious feeling is generated.

It is said that this dread of ceasing to be, and this yearning for a "future state," are evidence that that future state is to be, since God would not have implanted within us a feeling that was not to be gratified, and "certain it is that man alone yearns for something that neither sense nor reason can supply;" but we must recollect that such feelings have their uses in this life, and that this dread of ceasing to be induces us to do all we can to keep both ourselves and our friends in existence here, and that therefore the transference of such feelings to another world may be a misdirection of them. Veneration also, which is worship as applied to God, has also its useful application here, as it is the source of politeness and of that courtesy which we owe and pay to one another. Society could scarcely exist without it; in fact, what are called the Religious Feelings-Veneration, Hope, Wonder or Faith-have, as we have previously seen, their application here.

This hidden, and therefore mysterious, Power-a Power behind and beyond and exceeding his own in all his chief interests, appears to have been recognised in all stages of man's existence. At first there were supposed to be separate powers for all the more mysterious and powerful phenomena in nature, and we had gods of the earth and of the heavens, of the winds and of the waters, of war and of wisdom; and unity was only given to these powers with increasing intelligence; * and thus unity can only be said to be recently proved

* In the Rigveda, a collection of ancient Hindu Hymns, &c., the old authority for religious and social Institutions, made 2,000 years before Christ, the principal deities mentioned are Agni, the god of fire; Indra, the regent of the firmament, who shatters the clouds with his thunderbolt, and dispenses rain; Nitra and Varuna, the representatives of day and night; Sûrza, the sun; Væzu, the wind; the Maruts, or tempests; Asvins, &c., together with Vishnu and Rudra, who play so prominent a part in the later mythology, but so small in the Vedic pantheon.