OH. III.] COSMIC THEISM. 427 



ferenfc from "Divine action;" but it is also tlie logical 

 offspring of that primitive fetishism from which all our 

 theology is descended. For as physical generalization began 

 to diminisli the sphere of action of the innumerable quasi- 

 human agencies by wliich fetishism sought to account for 

 natural phenomena, there could hardly fail to arise a belief 

 in some sort of opposition between invariable law and quasi- 

 human agency. On the one hand you have a set of facts 

 that occur in fixed sequences, and so are not the result of 

 anthropomorphic volition ; on the other hand you have a set 

 of facts that seem to occur according to no determinable 

 order, and so are the result of anthropomorphic volition. 

 The fetishistic thinker could not, of course, formulate the 

 case in this abstract and generalized way ; but there can be 

 no doubt that a crudely felt antithesis of the kind here indi- 

 cated must have been nearly coeval with the beginnings of 

 physical generalization. Now the gradual summing up and 

 blending together of all the primeval quasi-human agencies 

 into one grand quasi-human Agency, could not at once do 

 away with this antithesis. On the contrary, the antithesis 

 rould naturally remain as the generalized opposition be- 

 tween the realm of " invariable law " and the realm of 

 "Divine originality." It would be superfluous to recount 

 the various metaphysical shapes which this conception has 

 assumed, in some of which Nature has even been personified 

 as an intelligent and volitional agency, distinct from God, 

 ^nd working through law while God works through miracle. 

 The result has been that, as scientific generalization has 

 steadily extended the region of " natural law," the region 

 which theology has assigned to "Divine action" has steadily 

 diminished, until theological arguments have become insen- 

 sibly pervaded by the curious assumption that the greater part 

 of the universe is godless. For it is naively asked, if plants 

 and animals have been naturally originated, if the world as 

 a whole has been evolved and not created, and if human 



