Introductory. 39 



highest motives for exertion ; but to suppose that we 

 can carry such affection forward to far distant generations 

 is to misinterpret human nature. The feeling which is mis- 

 taken for such transcendental love is a sentimental pro- 

 duct of the imagination, which seeks to render the hope of 

 individual immortality unnecessary to our happiness, by 

 persuading us to forget the individual and to think only 

 of the race. The feeling is false to nature, and can never 

 be a real power in the world." 



But if we may expect the evolution of a non-Christian 

 religiosity in harmony more or less with the wants and 

 nature of man as we find him, in what direction may we 

 look for such development ? The deliberate invention of 

 a new religion has been experimentally demonstrated to 

 be a hopeless task, and the age of myth-spinning has 

 gone by in cultivated Europe and America. 



It is not impossible, however, that a new pagan cultus 

 may, should its need be felt, be one day evolved in con- 

 nection with the philosophy of Mr. Spencer himself. 



It is evident that such an evolution is possible, since 

 Mr. Spencer is indeed essentially a Brahman, and his creed 

 Brahmanism, potentially containing a whole pantheon of 

 cosmical divinities, the worship of which is not incapable 

 of being justified to the reason and conscience of many of 

 such as really accept his philosophy. For Mr. Spencer is 

 never tired of telling us that everything is some form of 

 the Unknowable, while of this First Cause Itself we must 



