A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



59 



On the contrary, it seems to me that these ideas 

 cannot be so made, and that there is an absolute 

 difference between thought and the external sub- 

 stances which it thinks about. This may be my 

 ignorance, but until that ignorance is removed I 

 must accept those distinctions which are founded 

 on the experience and observation of my own na- 

 ture, and I must retain words which are necessary 

 to express them. 



Then, as regards the word " infinite," in like 

 manner, I cannot dispense witfh it, for the simple 

 reason that the idea of infinity is one of which I 

 cannot get rid, and which all science teaches me 

 is an idea inseparable from our highest concep- 

 tions of the realities of Nature. Infinite time and 

 infinite space, and the infinite duration of matter 

 and of force, are conceptions which are part of 

 my intellectual being, and I cannot " think them 

 away." Metaphysicians may tell me that they 

 are " forms of thought." But if so, they are at 

 least all the more " frankly human," and I accept 

 them as such. 



Next we are to avoid " vague negatives alto- 

 gether." Well, but surely a definition of religion 

 as distinguished from theology, which consists in 

 " avoiding " certain terms such as we have now 

 examined, is a definition consisting of "vague 

 negatives," and of nothing else. 



But then we come next to an affirmative defi- 

 nition : " confining ourselves resolutely to the 

 sphere of what can be shown by experience." To 

 this I assent, provided experience be not con- 

 fined to the sphere of sense, and provided every- 

 thing which any man has ever felt, or known, or 

 conceived, be accepted as in its own place and 

 rank coming within the sphere which is thus 

 described. 



Again, it is demanded of us that we confine 

 ourselves resolutely within " what is relative and 

 not absolute." To this I assent. All knowledge 

 is relative — relative both to the mind which 

 knows, and relative also to all other things which 

 remain to be known. Absolute goodness, and 

 absolute power, and absolute knowledge, are all 

 conceivable, but they are all relative ; and to 

 talk of any object of knowledge, or of any sub- 

 ject of knowledge, as non-relative, is, or seems to 

 me to be, simply nonsense. 



Lastly, it is demanded of us to confine our- 

 selves to what is " wholly and frankly human." 

 If this means that we are not to think of any 

 power or any being who is not related to our 

 human faculties in a most definite and intelli- 

 gible sense, I accept the limitation. But if it 

 means that we are not to think of any such power 



or being except under all the imperfections, 

 weaknesses, and vices of humanity, then the 

 limitation is one which I cannot accept either as 

 conceivable in itself, or as consistent with what 

 I can see or understand of Nature. • 



But ought we not to be agreed in this ? If 

 there is a Power to which man " must bow," "a 

 Being which he must adore," and a " Providence 

 which he must love and serve," it is clearly im- 

 possible that this Being, Power, or Providence 

 can be " wholly human," in the sense of being 

 no greater, no wiser, no better, than man him- 

 self. 



The whole of this language is the language of 

 theology and of nothing else — language, indeed, 

 which may be held consistently with a vast vari- 

 ety of theological creeds, but which is insepa- 

 rable from those fundamental conceptions which 

 all such creeds involve, which is borrowed from 

 them, and without which it has to me no intelli- 

 gible sense. 



With these explanations I accept the tenth 

 paragraph of Paper No. IV., and that part of the 

 last paragraph which has been already quoted, 

 as expressing with admirable force and truth at 

 least one aspect of the connection between mor- 

 als and religion. 



Prof. CLIFFORD.— In the third of the pre- 

 ceding discourses there is so much which I can 

 fully and fervently accept, that I should find it 

 far more grateful to rest in that feeling of admi- 

 ration and sympathy, than to attend to points of 

 difference which seem to me to be of altogether 

 secondary import. But for the truth's sake this 

 must first be done, because it will then be more 

 easy to point out some of the bearings of the 

 position held in that discourse upon the question 

 which is under discussion. 



That the sense of duty in a man is the prompt- 

 ing of a self other than his own, is the very es- 

 sence of it. Not only would morals not be self- 

 sufficing if there were no such prompting of a 

 wider self, but they could not exist ; one might 

 as well suppose a fire without heat. Not only is 

 a sense of duty inherent in the constitution of 

 our nature, but the prompting of a wider self 

 than that of the individual is inherent in a sense 

 of duty. It is no more possible to have the right 

 without unselfishness, than to have man without 

 a feeling for the right. 



We may explain or account for these facts in 

 various ways, but we shall not thereby alter the 

 facts. No theories about heat and light will ever 

 make a cold fire. And no doubt or disproof of 

 any existing theory can any more extinguish that 



