82 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



which the Church believes the world to have been 

 created is God's own incomprehensible essence. 1 In 

 creation God passes through the pri mordiales causae 

 into the world of invisible and visible creatures. Our 

 life is God's life. We are in the image of God. 



pThe Incarnation differs from creation only in degree. 



^he "processio" of God into the world has its 

 correlated " reversio " when He returns unto Him- 

 self. It is much more intelligible than Hegel, quite 

 as philosophical and much more ingenious, because 

 Scotus Erigena contrived to use theological terms, 

 and could claim a good deal of authority from the 

 writings of orthodox theologians. Now, however, 

 we are told that "this religious dogma" of the 

 Incarnation "is only another way of saying that 

 the antithesis of subjective and objective is given 

 to us as already overcome, and that on us lies the 

 obligation of participating in this redemption by 

 laying aside our immediate subjectivity, putting off 

 the old Adam, and learning to know God as our 

 true and essential self." 2 The pantheistic con- 

 ception is as certain as in Erigena, but we have 

 not gained much in clearness of expression. The 

 Atonement, according to this last theory, ceases 

 to mean man's reconciliation with God, for the 

 Incarnation is simply the revelation that there is 

 really no enmity to be reconciled. 



***** 



1 De Divis. Nat., iii. 9. 2 Hegel's Logic, 194. 



