OF THE SPIRIT. 



417 



highest rule conceivable for us human beings in the 

 Divine Order of things. 1 And again, if we turn to 

 the result of recent biological enquiry, we are struck 

 as great authorities 2 have told us by the practical 

 impossibility of predicting phenomena and events in 

 the living portion of creation with anything approach- 

 ing that accuracy with which exact science has taught 

 us to predict the workings of inanimate or mechanical 

 forces. This may be owing to the complexity which 

 governs every individual instance or to the undefinable 

 nature of the living principle itself : 3 we meet every- 

 where the unexpected, the unforeseen, the incalculable, 

 that which is contingent, individual, and unique. This 

 circumstance as I stated on a former occasion forces 

 us continually to resort from the scientific exact and 

 mechanical view of nature to a poetical and artistic 

 interpretation, which seems to bring us much nearer 



1 The comparative history of re- 

 ligion, after having been confined 

 mostly to learned treatises on the 

 subject which have accumulated an 

 enormous amount of detail has, in 

 recent times, been introduced more 

 and more into general literature 

 and made accessible to thoughtful 

 readers. I should like to mention 

 as especially interesting and help- 

 ful as an introductiou to this 

 large subject the writings of Dr 

 F. B. Jevons ; and besides a 

 larger work referred to above (vol. 

 iii. p. 163, n.), his small treatise 

 entitled 'Comparative Religion,' 

 in the "Cambridge Manuals of 

 Science and Literature" (1913); 

 see especially what is there said 

 on the Christian conception of 

 Love (p. 136 sqq.) 



2 See ante, vol. ii. p. 372. 



VOL. IV. 



3 As already stated on various 

 occasions, the things in nature 

 notably those in the living and 

 animated world cannot be thor- 

 oughly understood if torn out of 

 their surroundings, and still less 

 if dissected and analysed into 

 their constituent parts. Both these 

 abstracting processes, so essential 

 and so indispensable to scientific 

 research, must be supplemented by 

 ever and again recurring to the 

 vue d'ensemble. And this refers 

 equally to such historical growths 

 as the religions of the world. A 

 process of abstraction and of 

 analysis, followed by ever so in- 

 genious a synthesis and recon- 

 struction, misses their real nature 

 and significance. This reveals itself 

 only to the synoptic glance. 



2 D 



