ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



does he get his eyes, his ears, his heart? He gets 

 them where he got his life — from natural sources. 

 He gets them whence he got his sense of art, of 

 beauty, of harmony. There are no moral standards 

 in Nature apart from man, but as man is a part of 

 Nature, so are these, and all other standards. So are 

 all religions, arts, literatures, philosophies, hero- 

 isms, self-denials, as well as all idolatries, supersti- 

 tions, sorceries, cruelties, wrongs, failures, a part of 

 Nature. 



Is the big-brained man of to-day any less a part of 

 Nature than the low-browed, long-jawed man of 

 Pliocene times? 



The humanization of God leads us into many 

 difficulties. If He is a personal being with attributes 

 and emotions like our own, then we are forced to the 

 conclusion that He is no better than we are — that 

 He has our faults as well as our virtues, our cruelty 

 as well as our love. He is a party to all the wrongs 

 and crimes and suffering that darken the earth; He 

 permits wars and pestilence and famine and earth- 

 quakes and tornadoes, and all the consuming and 

 agonizing diseases that flesh is heir to. He is an in- 

 finite man with infinite powers for good and evil. 



In the long drama of animal evolution there has 

 evidently been as much suffering as pleasure, and of 

 the drama of human history the same may be said: 

 pain, failure, delay, injustice, to all of which our 

 humanized God has been a party. No wonder our 



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