ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 41 



searching be found out, that there is a clearer recognition 

 of the inscrutableness of creation. Further developments 

 of theology, ending in such assertions as that " a God un- 

 derstood would be no God at all," and " to think that God 

 is, as we can think him to be, is blasphemy," exhibit this 

 recognition still more distinctly ; and it pervades all the cul- 

 tivated theology of the present day. Thus while other con- 

 stituents of religious creeds one by one drop away, this re- 

 mains and grows even more manifest ; and so is shown to be 

 the essential constituent. 



Nor does the evidence end here. Not only is the omni- 

 presence of something which passes comprehension, that 

 most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which 

 becomes the more distinct in proportion as they develope, 

 and which remains after their discordant elements have 

 been mutually cancelled; but it is that belief which the 

 most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable — or 

 rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the 

 most inexorable logic ; but on the contrary is a belief which 

 the most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true 

 than any religion supposes. For every religion, setting out 

 though it does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forth- 

 with proceeds to give some solution of this mystery ; and so 

 asserts that it is not a mystery passing human comprehen- 

 sion. But an examination of the solutions they severally 

 propound, shows them to be uniformly invalid. The analy- 

 sis of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no 

 hypothesis is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even think- 

 able. And thus the mystery which all religions recognize, 

 turns out to be a far more transcendent mystery than any of 

 them suspect — not a relative, but an absolute mystery. 



Here, then, is an ultimate religious truth of the highest 

 possible certainty — a truth in which religions in general are 

 at one with each other, and with a philosophy antagonistic 

 to their special dogmas. And this truth, respecting which 

 there is a latent agreement among all mankind from the 



