372 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vm 



of theology will be like its beginning it will 

 cease to have any relation to ethics. I suppose 

 that, so long as the human mind exists, it will not 

 escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its 

 intellectual conceptions. The science of the 

 present day is as full of this particular form of 

 intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of 

 ignorant ages. The difference is that the philoso- 

 pher who is worthy of the name knows that his 

 personified hypotheses, such as law, and force, 

 and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, 

 while the ignorant and the careless take them for 

 adequate expressions of reality. So, it may be, 

 that the majority of mankind may find the practice 

 of morality made easier by the use of theological 

 symbols. And unless these are converted from 

 symbols into idols, I do not see that science has 

 anything to say to the practice, except to give an 

 occasional warning of its dangers. But, when 

 such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I 

 think the highest duty which is laid upon men of 

 science is to show that these dogmatic idols have 

 no greater value than the fabrications of men's 

 hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have 

 replaced. 



END OF VOL. IV. 



