CHAPTER V. 



RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 



FROM this abstract exposition of Cosmic Theism as a reli 

 gious doctrine, let us now proceed to consider some of the 

 practical relations of Cosmic Theism to human life, with 

 especial reference to conduct, which, as Matthew Arnold well 

 says, makes up in importance at least seven-eighths of life. 

 As every system of religion has comprised, on the one hand, 

 a theory of the world, and on the other hand, a code enjoin 

 ing certain kinds of human conduct, and as we have thus 

 far expounded Cosmism as a theory of the world, what is 

 now to be said of the relations of Cosmism to human 

 conduct ? Or, in other words, does the enlargement of our 

 conceptions of Divine action, in conformity with the require 

 ments of contemporary knowledge, involve any radical 

 alteration of the fundamental principles of action in which 

 Religion, viewed practically, consists ? 



The position is often taken, by those who dissent from 

 current ecclesiastical creeds, that there is no reason in the 

 nature of things why the long-established association between 

 religion and ethics should be continued, and to these the 

 following inquiry will perhaps seem uncalled for. It is urged, 

 with justice, that conduct is not necessarily dependent on 

 creed that equal uprightness may coexist with belief in 



