GOD IN NATURE 



175 



Nor can he escape by the magisterial denunciation 

 of theistic ideas as anthropomorphic fancies. All 

 science must in this sense be anthropomorphic, for it 

 consists of what nature appears to us to be, when 

 viewed through the medium of our senses, and of 

 what we think of nature as so presented to us. The 

 only difference is this, that if agnostic evolution is 

 true, science itself only represents a certain stage of 

 the development, and can have no actual or perma 

 nent truth ; while, if the theistic view is correct, then 

 the fact that man himself belongs to the unity of 

 nature, and is in harmony with its other parts, gives 

 us some guarantee for the absolute truth of scientific 

 facts and principles. 



The idea that nature is a manifestation of mind 

 is so ancient and general that it may almost be 

 considered as an intuition, born spontaneously of our 

 own consciousness of will. It proceeds in any case 

 naturally from the analogy between the operations of 

 nature and those which originate in our own will 

 and contrivance. When men begin to think more 

 accurately, this idea acquires a deeper foundation in 

 the conclusion that nature, in all its varied mani 

 festations, is one vast machine or congeries of 

 machines, too great and complex for us to compre 

 hend, and implying a primary energy infinitely beyond 

 that of man ; and thus the unity of nature points to 

 one Creative Mind. 



Even to the savage peoples, in whose minds the 



