CH. IT.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 407 



ascribing goodness to God I do not mean what I mean by 

 goodness ; if I do not mean the goodness of which 1 have 

 some knowledge, but an incomprehensible attribute of an 

 incomprehensible substance, which for aught I know may 

 be a totally different quality from that which I love and 

 venerate what do I mean by calling it goodness ? and 

 what reason have I for venerating it ? To say that God s 

 goodness may be different in kind from man s goodness, 

 what is it but saying, with a slight change of phraseology, 

 that God may possibly not be good?&quot; With Mr. Mill, 

 therefore, &quot; I will call no Being good, who is not what I 

 mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures.&quot; 

 And, going a step farther, I will add that it is impossible 

 to call that Being good, who, existing prior to the pheno 

 menal universe, and creating it out of the plenitude of 

 infinite power and foreknowledge, endowed it with such 

 properties that its material and moral development must 

 inevitably be attended by the misery of untold millions of 

 sentient creatures for whose existence their Creator is ulti 

 mately alone responsible. In short, there can be no hypo 

 thesis of a &quot; moral government &quot; of the world, which docs 

 not implicitly assert an immoral government. As soon as 

 we seek to go beyond the process of evolution disclosed 

 by science, and posit an external Agency which is in the 

 slightest degree anthropomorphic, we are obliged either to 

 supplement and limit this Agency by a second one that is 

 diabolic, or else to include elements of diabolism in the 

 character of the first Agency itself. And in the latter case 

 the blasphemy if we choose to call it so lies at the door 

 of those who, by urging upon us their anthropomorphic 

 hypothesis, oblige us to judge the character of the Deity by 

 human standards ; and not at the door of those who simply 

 reveal the true character of that anthropomorphic hypothesis 

 by setting forth its hidden implications. 



