18 WHAT IS DARWINISM? 



we are forced by our moral constitution to be- 

 lieve it to be an intelligent person. This Mr. 

 Spencer denies. '•' Let those," he says, " who 

 can, believe that there is eternal war between 

 our intellectual faculties and our moral obli- 

 gations. I, for one, admit of no such radical 

 vice in the constitution of things." (p. 108). 

 Religion has always erred, he asserts, in that 

 v/hile it teaches that the Infinite Being can- 

 not be known, it insists on ascribing to it such 

 and such attributes, Avhich of course assumes 

 that so far forth it is known. We have no 

 right, ho contends, to ascribe personality to the 

 " Unknown Reality," or anything else, except 

 that it is the cause of all that we perceive or 

 experience. There may be a mode of being, 

 as much transcending intelligence and will, as 

 these transcend mechanical motion. To show 

 the folly of referring to the Unknown the at- 

 tributes of our own spirits, he makes " the gro- 

 tesque supposition that the tickings and other 

 movements of a watch constituted a kind of 

 consciousness ; and that a watch possessed of 

 such a consciousness, insisted on regarding the 

 watchmaker's actions as determine'd like its 

 own by springs and escapements." (p. 111). 

 The vast majority of men, instead of agreeing 



