Contemporary Evolution. 



recognised and their intercession alone sought. But the 

 modes of the Unknowable would not be subordinate, 

 would not be mere creatures to intercede, but co-equal 

 and independent powers, one with that of which they 

 are modes, and therefore divine. In other words, we 

 have at once a restored polytheism. * 



And indeed, in the absence of revelation, what more 

 worthy symbol of beneficent modes of the Unknowable 

 could be selected for an object of worship than the 

 sun ? Science teaches us that it is, in fact, not only 

 the agent by which the material world around us is 

 clothed in beauty and in joy, but even that by which 

 alone beauty, goodness, and truth themselves are mani- 

 fested to us. 



For its worship some revival of antique rites might be 

 gradually engrafted on existing forms for the principle 

 of continuity must be recognised and acted on while 



* " Absolute unity admits into its capacious bosom all gods, for 

 the gods so admitted are simply parts of one universal power, which 

 is the substance of all things. Pantheism and polytheism share the 

 same error of giving this in communicable Name to stocks and 

 stones ; for if the being of God is the being of all things, it is as true 

 to say a stone is God, as to say a stone is a being. If God be at once 

 the matter and the soul of the world, and in both, in spite of His 

 eternity and unchangeableness, be subject to every change in time, 

 the idolaters were not to be blamed for honouring with divine worship 

 the air or the fire or irrational animals ; rather, the only blame they 

 deserved was that they did not worship everything." Allies' " For- 

 mation of Christendom," part iii., p. 370. 



