ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



own form upon the power that is and upholds the 

 cosmos. He carves it into his own image, and then 

 seeks to propitiate it and influence it as He Him- 

 self is propitiated and influenced. Praise is sweet to 

 it, honor is sweet, revenge is sweet, because these 

 things are sweet to man. 



When we call this force Nature, we bring it near 

 to us and can see and feel our direct relation to it. 

 We are bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. We 

 see its impersonal or unpersonal character. We get 

 light on the vexed problem of good and evil which 

 is such an insoluble enigma to the theologians. 



Nature embraces all; she fathers and mothers all; 

 has no partialities, knows no exceptions, no miracles, 

 no deputied atonements, no evil apart from the 

 good and no good apart from the evil, no life with- 

 out death and no death without life. 



IX. THE INSOLUBLE 



What desperate efforts mankind has made to shape 

 this vast, blind, unconscionable power we call Na- 

 ture into an image of a God that would satisfy our 

 moral and spiritual wants and aspirations! Where 

 did men get their standards of such a God? They 

 have evidently been slowly evolved through the 

 friction of man with man. They have possessed sur- 

 vival value. Love, truth, justice, mercy, have con- 

 tributed to the fullness of life and to length of days. 

 One may adopt Biblical language and say that 



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