i28 COSMIC PMILOSOFHY. [pt. hi. 



actions conform to law, what is there left for God to do ? ^ 



If not formally repudiated, is he not thrust back into the 

 past eternity, as an unknowable source of things, which is 

 postulated for form's sake, but might as well, for all practical 

 purposes, be omitted? 



The reply is that the difficulty is one which theology has 

 created for itself. It is not science, but theology, which has 

 thrust back Divine action to some nameless point in the 

 past eternity and left nothing for God to do in the present 

 world. For the whole difficulty lies in the assumption of 

 the material universe as a " datum objective to God," and in 

 the consequent distinction between "Divine action" and 

 " natural law," — a distinction for which science is in nowise 

 responsible. The tendency of modern scientific inquiry, 

 whether working in the region of psychology or in that 

 of transcendental physics, is to abolish this distinction, and 

 to regard " natural law " as merely a synonym of " Divine 

 action." And since Berkeley's time the conception of the 

 material universe as a " datum objective to God " is one 

 which can hardly be maintained on scientific grounds. It is 

 scientific inquiry, working quite independently of theology, 

 which has led us to the conclusion that all the dynamic 

 phenomena of Nature constitute but the multiform reve- 

 lation of an Omnipresent Power that is not identifiable with 

 Nature. And in this conclusion there is no room left for 

 the difficulty which baffles contemporary theology. The 

 scientific inquirer may retort upon the theologian : — Once 

 really adopt the conception of an ever-present God, without 

 whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and it becomes self- 



^ " Illos omnes Deum aut saltern Dei providentiam tollere putant, qui res 



*t miraciila per cansas uaturales explicant aut intelligere student." Spinoza, 

 Tractatus Theolo'jico-Polilicus, vi. Opera, iii. 86. "Ou 7<ip ■fiveixoj'To rovs 

 (pvfftKobs Kal fierecopoAiffxas Tcire Ka\ovfi4i>ovs, ws els alrlas d\6'Yovs koL Suuifiets 

 oirpoi/o-qTOvs Kal KaTr\va.yKa(Tixiva Trddr) SiarplfiovTas t6 de7oy." Plutarch, 

 A'H-ii(s, cap. 23. The complaint, it will be seen, is the same in modern that 

 It was in anjient times. Compare Plutarch, Perikles, cap. 6; Cicero, Tusc 

 Disp. L 13, 02)6ra, ed. Nobbe, torn, viii, p. 299. 



