XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 283 



theistic aspect that some readers may think the opposition 

 here offered superfluous ; it may be well, therefore, to quote 

 two more sentences. In another place he observes,^ " Pass- 

 ing over the consideration of credibility, and confining 

 ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that atheism, 

 pantheism, and theism, when rigorously analysed, severally 

 prove to be absolutely unthinkable ; " and speaking of 

 "every form of religion," he adds,^ "The analysis of every 

 possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no hypothesis 

 is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even thinkable." 

 The unknowable is admitted to be a power which cannot 

 be regarded as having sympathy with us, but as one to 

 which no emotion whatever can be ascribed, and we are 

 expressly forbidden " by diityl' to affirm personality of 

 God as much as to deny it of Him. How such a being 

 can be presented as an object on which to exercise religious 

 emotion it is difficult indeed to understand.^ Aspiration, 

 love, devotion to be poured forth upon what we can never 

 know, upon what we can never affirm to know, or care for, 

 us, our thoughts or actions, or to possess the attributes of 

 wisdom and goodness ! The worship offered in such a 

 religion must be, as Professor Huxley says,^ " for the most 

 part of the silent sort " — silent not only as to the spoken 



1 Loc. cit. p. 43. 2 Lq(3_ gji-^ p 4g^ 



3 Mr. J, Martineau, iu his "Essays," vol. i. p. 211, observes: "Mr. 

 Spencer's conditions of ])ious worship are hard to satisfy ; there must be 

 between the Divine and hinnan no communion of thought, relations of 

 conscience, or approach of atfection." .... •' But you cannot constitute 

 a religion out of mystery alone, any more than out of knowledge alone ; 

 nor can you measure the relation of doctrines to humility and piety by the 

 mere amount of conscious darkness which they leave. All worship, being 

 directed to what is above us and transcends our comprehension, stands 

 in tn-esence of a mystery. But not all that stands before a mystery is 

 worship." ■* " Lay Sermons," p. 20. 



