284 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



word, but silent as to the mental conception also. It will 

 be difficult to distinguish the follower of this religion from 

 the follower of none, and the man who declines either to 

 assert or to deny the existence of God is practically in the 

 position of an atheist. For theism enjoins the cultivation 

 of sentiments of love and devotion to God, and the prac- 

 tice of their external expression. Atheism forbids both, 

 while the simply non-theist abstains in conformity with 

 the prohibition of the atheist and thus practically sides 

 with him. Moreover, since man cannot imagine that of 

 which he has no experience in any way whatever, and 

 since he has experience only of human perfections and of 

 the powers and properties of inferior existences ; if he be 

 required to deny human perfections and to abstain from 

 making use of such conceptions, he is thereby necessarily 

 reduced to others of an inferior order. Mr. H. Spencer 

 says, 1 " Those who espouse this alternative position, make 

 the erroneous assumption that the choice is between per- 

 sonality and something lower than personality ; whereas 

 the choice is rather between personality and something 

 higher. Is it not just possible that there is a mode of 

 being as much transcending intelligence and will, as these 

 transcend mechanical motion ? " 



" It is true we are totally unable to conceive any such 

 higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for ques- 

 tioning its existence ; it is rather the reverse." " May we 

 not therefore rightly refrain from assigning to the 'ultimate 

 cause' any attributes whatever, on the ground that such 

 attributes, derived as they must be from our own natures, 

 are not elevations but degradations ? " The way however 

 to arrive at the object aimed at (i.e. to acquire the best 

 1 Loc. cit. p. 109. 



