THE RECONCILIATION. 115 



of the world, that lie might have given good advice. He 

 was humble however compared with those who profess to 

 understand not only the relation of the Creating to the 

 created, but also how the Creating is constituted. And yet 

 this transcendent audacity, which claims to penetrate the 

 secrets of the Power manifested to us through all existence 

 — nay even to stand behind that Power and note the condi- 

 tions to its action — this it is which passes current as piety! 

 May we not without hesitation affirm that a sincere recogni- 

 tion of the truth that our own and all other existence is a 

 mystery absolutely and for ever beyond our comprehension, 

 contains more of true religion than all the dogmatic theology 

 ever written? 



Meanwhile let us recognize whatever of permanent good 

 there is in these persistent attempts to frame conceptions of 

 that which cannot be conceived. From the beginning it has 

 been only through the successive failures of such concep- 

 tions to satisfy the mind, that higher and higher ones have 

 been gradually reached ; and doubtless, the conceptions now 

 current are indispensable as transitional modes of thought. 

 Even more than this may be willingly conceded. It is possi- 

 ble, nay probable, that under their most abstract forms, ideas 

 of this order will always continue to occupy the background 

 of our consciousness. Very likely there will ever remain a 

 need to give shape to that indefinite sense of an Ultimate 

 Existence, which forms the basis of our intelligence. We 

 shall always be under the necessity of contemplating it as 

 some mode of being; that is — of representing it to ourselves 

 in some form of thought, however vague. And we shall not 

 err in doing this so long as we treat every notion we thus 

 frame as merely a symbol, utterly without resemblance to 

 that for which it stands. Perhaps the constant formation of 

 such symbols and constant rejection of them as inadequate, 

 may be hereafter, as it has hitherto been, a means of disci- 

 pline. Perpetually to construct ideas requiring the utmost 

 stretch of our faculties, and perpetually to find that such 



