64 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



while the other annuls the active reality of the 

 cosmos, or world of existences other than God, by 

 reducing these to modes of the one and only Uni- 

 versal Life. 



Both forms are manifestly open to the criticism 

 visited upon pantheism by the standard defenders 

 of theism : they both contradict the essence of the 

 divine nature by sacrificing the distinctness of the 

 divine personality to a passion for the divine omni- 

 presence. The sacrifice of the distinctness is obvi- 

 ous, at any rate, even if such a loss of distinct being 

 is not so evidently incompatible with the true nature 

 of godhead ; though that this loss is incompatible 

 with real deity will erelong appear. 



Further, both forms are in the last analysis 

 atheisms ; the one openly, the other implicitly so. 

 The one may be more exactly named a meta- 

 physical or theoretical atheism, as it dispenses 

 with the distinct existence of God in his office of 

 Creator ; the other may properly be called a moral 

 or practical atheism, as in destroying the freedom 

 and the moral immortality of the individual it can- 

 cels God in his greater office of Redeemer. Under 

 either form the First Principle is emptied of attributes 

 that are vital to deity. In the first, the entire dis- 

 tinct being of God disappears ; in the second, all 

 those attributes are lost that present God in his 

 adorable characters of justice and love, and in the 



