THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION 



most thoughtful men of Scientific training the testi- 

 mony that Nature offers is convincing. There is one 

 ever-acting, all-sustaining, wise, intelligent power, in 

 whom we live and more and have our being. Xaiu re 

 as an Entity has no existence. Xature is merely the 

 personification of the past and present acts of the 

 ultimate power and volition that governs alL To 

 think of Nature as apart from, and not a part of, the 

 First Cause God is to believe (in the words of the 

 AthfliKH"?!" creed) that u there is not one Incompre- 

 hensible, but two Incomprehensibles." AH that we 

 know of God, or that we can possibly know in this 

 life, is to be learned by the observation of His works, 

 including therein the life, history and intelligence of 

 man as a part thereof In stating that die power 

 which governs the universe is not apart from nor 

 outside of nature, but in nature, no essential praJfafr- 

 tion of the attributes of God is involved or intended. 

 The metaphysician, in defining the Absolute, pro- 

 jected only his own ideas therein. Spinoza reduced 

 all existence to Substance; made God, die Absolute 

 Being, the thinking and extended Substance ; nomi- 

 nally of infinite attributes, but by Spinoza's negations 

 leaving only a vague idea of eternal intelligent in- 

 active existence. Science avoids this error. It is folly 

 and presumption in us to try to comprehend the abstract 

 nature of the existence of God apart from his manifes- 



