218 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



tor of the world, in the strict acceptation of the 

 term, is but its architect and builder. 



Both Materialism and Dualism are one in assert- 

 ing the eternity of matter. Materialism, however, 

 is atheistic, in that it excludes a Creator, while Dual- 

 ism, although rejecting creation, properly so called, 

 admits the existence of a Supreme Being. But 

 God, according to dualists, is little more than a 

 demiurge. He is powerful, but not omnipotent. 

 The eternal, self-existent matter which is postulated, 

 and which exists outside of God, rebels against His 

 action, and becomes a cosmic power against which 

 He is powerless. / 



6**** "0* * 



Pantheism. 



m 



Pantheism is the opposite of Materialism. Ac- 

 cording to the latter, as we have seen, everything 

 is matter; according to the former, as the word 

 indicates, everything is God. The finite and the 

 infinite ; the contingent and the necessary ; beings, 

 which appear in time, and God, who is from eternity, 

 are, according to the teachings of pantheists, but dif- 

 ferent aspects of the same existence. Whether we 

 consider the emanation of the Brahmans, the Pan- 

 theism of the Eleatics, or that of the neo-Platonists 

 of Alexandria, or that of Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling 

 and Hegel, the doctrines so taught issue in the nega- 

 tion of creation as well as in the negation of the 

 true nature of God. For to predicate, in what 

 manner soever, an identity of God with the world, 

 or to conceive God as the material principle, or the 

 primal matter, from which everything emanates, as 

 pantheists do, is to negative completely not only 



