388 LESSONS FEOM NATUEE. [CHAP. XIII. 



and I ain anxious to state his views with the utmost fairness, 

 the following are the conclusions at which he arrives ; 



I. It is professors of physical science who in the future 

 are to be the supreme Pontiffs, better qualified &quot; than any 

 body else &quot; to judge the highest questions of philosophy and 

 religion, though the actual interpreters of &quot;the unknowable 

 are to be the poets. 



II. It is doubtful whether the duly instructed can longer 

 have their &quot; hearts strengthened &quot; by the conception of the 

 First Cause as &quot; Jehovah,&quot; or even as &quot; Lord.&quot; 



III. The Patres Conscripti, or rather the Pontifices 

 Maxitni, have dogmatically defined and decreed, that there 

 is one &quot; single source of power from which all vital energy 

 is derived &quot; an &quot;inorganic force.&quot; 



IV. The inquiry as to the origin and the end of human life 

 is fruitless, and, therefore, the effort to discover our proper 

 aim is an endeavour to solve what is hopelessly insoluble. 



Y. Nevertheless we do come from a fire, such as that of 

 the sun ; and love, charity which &quot; thinketh no evil,&quot; hu 

 mility, piety, and holiness are essentially derived from the 

 heat, and are merely different &quot; modes of motion.&quot; 



Let us now turn to the teaching of &quot; our great philoso- 

 , pher,&quot; as Mr. Darwin styles him. Mr. Herbert 



Mr. opencer s r * in 



teaching. Spencer, in his First Principles, distinctly tells us, 

 that Theism is not only incredible but inconceivable (p. 43), 

 and that &quot; every form of religion &quot; is not &quot; even thinkable &quot; 



(p. 46). In the place of God we are presented with &quot;the 



unknowable !&quot; To the very natural objection that thus an 

 emotionless and &quot; unthinkable abstraction &quot; (p. 114) is offered 

 to us, &quot; instead of a power which we can regard as having 

 some sympathy with us,&quot; we are quietly and coolly told, 

 &quot;this kind of protest of necessity accompanies every change 

 from a lower creed to a higher;&quot; &quot;No mental revolution 

 can be accomplished without more or less of laceration.&quot; 

 The same writer, in an article in the Fortnightly Keview, * 



* For April 1871. 



