CHRISTIAN AGNOSTICISM. 8i 



more serious thinker in reply to a similar theory : " To stop there is to 

 see but the surface of things ; for it still remains to ask how mankind 

 have effected this transformation of a metaphor (or a dream) into a 

 god, and what mysterious force has pushed them into making the tran- 

 sition. ... In order to change any sensuous impression into a god, 

 there must have previously existed the idea of a god." * Yes, clearly 

 the latent idea must have been, in some way, already ingrained in 

 human nature, so that it only needed (as Plato would say) an awaken- 

 ing from its hibernation ; else why should human dreams produce a 

 " religion " and bestial dreams produce none ? The question, there- 

 fore, is not fully answered by Mr. Spencer's entertaining speculation, 

 any more than the miracle (as Dr. Btichner all but calls it) of " heredi- 

 tary gout " is explained by the jubilant paean of the materialist, " Give 

 me but matter and force, and all obscurities instantly vanish away ! " f 

 For no reasonable man, who accepts the modern doctrine of the eter- 

 nity and identity of energy, can entertain a doubt that religion — the 

 most powerful human stimulant we know of — must have pre-existed 

 somehow in the bosom of the unknown, though it only revealed itself 

 at a certain fitting stage in the development of the world. And when 

 we have reached this confession, have we not simply found our way 

 back to that general truth which the Church has couched in every sort 

 of parable and symbol, viz., that (the "how" and the "when" being 

 left for history to unravel) religious ideas, especially in their most 

 fruitful and catholic form, are a gift, an unfolding, a revelation from 

 the bosom of the unknown God ? 



2. There are, however, far more serious and more practical subjects 

 for reflection suggested by Mr. Spencer's paper, than any which relate 

 to the past. Let by-gones be by-gones ! Our contemporaries are an 

 impatient generation, and are very apt to consign to their mental 

 waste-paper basket anything which they are pleased to condemn as 

 " ancient history." What, then, has Mr. Spencer to tell us about the 

 present state of religion ? and what hopes does he unfold to us as we 

 gaze, under his direction, into the future f 



It is truly disappointing to be obliged to say of so devoted a stu- 

 dent and so patient a thinker (1), that he has failed to work his sub- 

 ject out, and (2) that he has fallen into a passion.J It would be well 

 worth while to make these two not unfriendly charges, if only they 

 should succeed in inducing this able writer to give to the world some 

 further product of his thinking on the strangely fascinating subject of 

 religion. For the truth is that, when Mr. Bradlaugh and others pro- 

 claim, " I know not what you mean by God ; I am without idea of 

 God," * they almost put themselves out of court at once by parading 

 their inherent defect of sympathy with ordinary mental conditions. 

 And when, in higher social grades. Dr. Congreve and the Positivists 



* Burnouf, p. 29. f Biichner, " Yie et Lumi^re" (French translation), p. 315. 



X " First Principles," p. 115. « " Plea for Atheism," p. 4. 



VOL. XXV. — 6 



