262 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



what it is — a,n external sanction for faith j confess 

 that we do not understand the detailed working of 

 the whole, but see in the change of methods brought 

 about by the rise of mind a hope that we shall gradually 

 learn at least to dispense with much waste and evil 

 and degeneration in the further course of evolution. 



This main direction gives us cause for optimism. 

 The exceptions to it temper that optimism. But 

 the direction is there. 



As we shall see later, we may either call the sum of 

 the forces acting in the cosmos the manifestations 

 of God, who in this case must be the Absolute God, 

 and unknowable except through these manifestations. 

 Or we may confine the term God to its anthropo- 

 logical usage, as denoting the objects of human 

 religion, in which case we must admit that the term 

 God as understood by man is constituted by man's 

 idea of the forces acting in the cosmos, so that not 

 only are these forces involved, not only a possible 

 Absolute God behind them, but also the organizing 

 power of human mind. 



I wish you here to agree to my adopting the second 

 alternative and giving the name of God to the sum 

 of the forces acting in the cosmos as perceived and 

 grasped by human mind. We can therefore now 

 say that God is one, but that though one, has several 

 aspects. There is one aspect of God which is neutral 

 to us, in a way hostile, mere Power operating in the 

 vastness of the stellar universes, apprehended only 



