400 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [n. m, 



than at any subsequent time, this aboriginal tendency is 

 nevertheless not yet quite fully overcome. Even as in the 

 crying of an infant at sight of a stranger may be seen still 

 feebly surviving the traces of feelings organized in the race 

 at a time when the strange meant the dangerous, so likewise 

 may we detect evanescent symptoms of a fetishistic style of 

 reasoning in many highly subtilized ontological theories now 

 in vogue ; of which the volitional theory of causation, above 

 dealt with, is a notable example. This archaic mode of 

 reasoning, now become exceptional, was once universal. 

 Now applied only to the most abstruse problems, it was 

 at first equally employed in the solution of the simplest. 

 Storm and sunshine, as well as defeat and victory, were 

 regarded as the manifestations of superhuman volition 

 and the achievements of superhuman intelligence. But 

 scientific generalization, steadily arranging in correlated 

 groups phenomena which had hitherto seemed isolated and 

 lawless, was followed by the generalization of presiding 

 divinities. And this went on until, in comparatively modern 

 times the habit of viewing nature as an organic whole has 

 resulted in monotheism. As the most prominent result of 

 this generalizing process we have seen slowly going on an 

 elimination, from the objects of men s worship, of the less 

 noble qualities originally ascribed to them. One by one the 

 grosser sensual passions, the emotions least worthy of re 

 verence, and intellectual shortcomings, such as the liability to 

 make mistakes and to be overreached, have been omitted 

 from the conception of Deity. And the culmination of this 

 purifying process is to be seen in the Deity of the modern 

 metaphysician, which is little more than an abstract embodi 

 ment of reason and volition. Bat in spite of all this pro 

 gressive change in the form of the conception, its substance 

 still remains the same. It is still the human personality, 

 however refined and etherealized, which is appealed to alike 

 as the source and as the explanation of all phenomena. It 



