RETROGRESSIVE RELIGION, 451 



dwelling apart from, man and the world. If the formula of the Un- 

 knowable is (ic"), or the Unknown raised to infinity, theirs is (naj), 

 some unknown expression of Infinity. Neither (ic") nor (nx) will ever 

 make good men and women. 



If we leave the region of formulas and go back to the practical 

 effect of religion on human conduct, we must be driven to the conclu- 

 sion that the future of religion is to be, not only what every real 

 religion has ever been, anthropomorphic — but frankly anthropic. The 

 attempted religion of Spiritism has lost one after another every re- 

 source of a real religion, until risu solvuntur tahulce, and it ends in a 

 religion of Nothingism. It is the Nemesis of Faith in spiritual ab- 

 stractions and figments. The hypothesis has burst, and leaves the 

 Void. The future will have then to return to the Knowable and the 

 certainly known, to the religion of Realism. It must give up explain- 

 ing the Universe, and content itself with explaining human life. 

 Humanity is the grandest object of reverence within the region of the 

 real and the known, Humanity with the World on which it rests as its 

 base and environment. Religion, having failed in the superhuman 

 world, returns to the human world. Here religion can find again all 

 its certainty, all its depth of human sympathy, all its claim to com- 

 mand and reward the purest self-sacrifice and love. We can take our 

 place again with all the great religious spirits who have ever molded 

 the faith and life of men, and we find ourselves in harmony with the 

 devout of every faith who are manfully battling with sin and discord. 

 The way for us is the clearer as we find the religion of Spiritism, in 

 its long and restless evolution of thirty centuries, ending in the legiti- 

 mate deduction, the religion of the Unknowable, a paradox as mem- 

 orable as any in the history of the human mind. The alternative is 

 very plain. Shall we cling to a religion of Spiritism when Philosophy 

 is whittling away spirit to Nothing ? Or shall we accept a religion 

 of Realism, where all the great traditions and functions of religion 

 are retained unbroken ? — Nineteenth Century, 



RETROGRESSIYE RELIGION.* 



By EEEBEET SPENCER. 



rdays when dueling was common, and its code of ceremonial well 

 elaborated, a deadly encounter was preceded by a polite salute. 

 Having by his obeisance professed to be his antagonist's very humble 

 servant, each forthwith did his best to run him through the body. 



* Excepting its last section, this article had been written, and part of it sent to the 

 printers, by the 30th of May ; and, consequently, before I saw the article of Sir James 

 Stephen, published in the "Nineteenth Century" for June, 1884. Hence the fact that 



