68 £SSAVS IN PHILOSOPHY 



atheistic. The idealism of acosmic pantheism, 

 grounded as it is in the consciousness of the Uni- 

 versal Substance, has naturally a universal and in 

 so far an objective character. The idealism of athe- 

 istic pantheism, on the contrary, has no warrant 

 except the thought in a particular consciousness, 

 now this, now that, and no means of raising this 

 warrant into a character even common to a class of 

 conscious beings, much less into unrestricted uni- 

 versality ; hence it is particular and subjective. 



Pantheism, then, in both its forms, is not only a 

 more comprehensive view of the world than either 

 materialism or any one-sided idealism, inasmuch as 

 it provides a chance for both of them, but it is also 

 a deeper and more organic view, because it does 

 bring in, at least in a symbolic fashion, the reality 

 of a universal. This advantage, however, it does 

 not secure with any fulness except in its acosmic 

 form. Indeed, the atheistic form is so closely akin 

 to the less organic theories of materialism and sub- 

 jective idealism that we may almost say we do not 

 come to pantheism proper until we pass out of the 

 atheistic sort and get into the acosmic. 



An additional gain afforded by pantheism, emi- 

 nently by the acosmic sort, is the idea of an inti- 

 mate union of the First Principle with the world of 

 particular beings : the creative Cause is stated as 

 spontaneously manifesting its own nature in its 



