FROM THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY. 13 



it is worth while for the reader to note a fact already 

 indicated by necessary implication ; namely, that every 

 rational theory of life considers man from an extra-terres- 

 trial and a terrestrial point of view. For religion concerns 

 itself with these two-fold relations in their unknowable 

 aspect, while science deals with them in their knowable 

 aspect. Having thus found a basis for religion and a basis 

 for science, let us take up each separately, and see what is 

 the significance of the division in its ultimate bearings. 



Religion, as we have seen, has for its subject matter 

 the mystery in which the universe is enshrouded. How, 

 then, ought the word to be defined ? Rightly understood, 

 " Religion," to borrow words elsewhere used,* " may be 

 defined as the consciousness that an inconceivable, an 

 inexplicable energy is everywhere revealing itself in and 

 through the workings of the entire universe." It consists 

 in the recognition of this energy as an undefined, indefin- 

 able reality, from which in some way all things proceed,, 

 and to which all things are united. That it is a reality we 

 are forced to conclude by all that we do know a priori 

 and a posteriori ; but the nature of the reality is utterly 

 inscrutable. Man, however, is so constituted that he 

 cannot avoid picturing it to himself in some way or other ; 

 and there can be no logical objection to any representation 

 that ascribes to the ultimate cause no other attributes than 

 the widest mental grasp makes absolutely essential. Any 

 attempted definition of the Infinite, therefore, in full re- 

 cognition of our total inability to do more than very dimly, 

 very remotely apprehend its true nature any conception 

 that fully realizes how utterly unlike the reality is the- 

 symbol that would shadow forth its non-mechanical, non- 



* Herbert Spencer's Theory of Eeligion and Morality. By Sylvan Drey- 

 London : "Williams and Xorgate. 



