118 • THE RECONCILIATION. 



deep and vital a conception as that with which we are here 

 dealing. Underlying, as this conception does, all others, a 

 modification of it threatens to reduce the superstructure to 

 ruins. Or to change the metaphor — being the root with 

 which are connected our ideas of goodness, rectitude, or 

 duty, it appears impossible that it should be transformed 

 without causing these to wither away and die. The whole 

 higher part of the nature almost of necessity takes up arms 

 against a change which, by destroying the established asso- 

 ciations of thought, seems to eradicate morality. 



This is by no means all that has to be said for such pro- 

 tests. There is a much deeper meaning in them. They do 

 not simply express the natural repugnance to a revolution of 

 belief, here made specially intense by the vital importance 

 of the belief to be revolutionized ; but they also express an 

 instinctive adhesion to a belief that is in one sense the best 

 — the best for those who thus cling to it, though not ab- 

 stractedly the best. For here let me remark that 

 what were above spoken of as the imperfections of Religion, 

 at first great but gradually diminishing, have been imperfec- 

 tions only as measured by an absolute standard ; and not as 

 measured by a relative one. Speaking generally, the relig- 

 ion curent in each age and among each people, has been as 

 near an approximation to the truth as it was then and there 

 possible for men to receive : the more or less concrete forms 

 in which it has embodied the truth, have simply been the 

 means of making thinkable what would otherwise have been 

 unthinkable; and so have for the time being served to in- 

 crease its impressiveness. If we consider the con- 

 ditions of the case, we shall find this to be an unavoidable 

 conclusion. During each stage of evolution, men must 

 think in such terms of thought as they possess. While all 

 the conspicuous changes of which they can observe the ori- 

 gins, have men and animals as antecedents, they are unable 

 to think of antecedents in general under any other shapes; 

 and hence creative agencies are of necessity conceived by 



