392 £SSAyS IjV rillLOSOPIIY 



moves its merely natural and shifting being, in its effort 

 after complete accord between the two phases of its nature, 

 the eternal and the temporal, the rational and the sensuous. 

 Thus the system teaches that the two supreme Divine 

 Offices celebrated in historic theology, Creation and Regen- 

 eration, have alike a most real meaning, though indeed not 

 a literal but only a metaphorical one. It invites theology to 

 realise the pressing need of now revising and correcting the 

 conception of Creation, in a similar metaphorical sense to 

 that in which the conception of Regeneration has now for 

 some time been reformed : as the latter is now by leading 

 theologians interpreted as the influence of a consciously 

 apprehended ideal truth, the purely final causation by which 

 the Holy Spirit gains its ends, so let the former be for the 

 future read in the corresponding sense of a final causation 

 alone. Between mind and mind, between God and all 

 other minds, there is no causation but Final Cause ; the 

 sole realm of Efficient Cause is the realm of Nature, 

 whether physical or psychic, objective or subjective ; effi- 

 cient causation operates from the non-divine minds to their 

 natural (or phenomenal) and sensuous contents, or else, in 

 a secondary manner, between the serial terms of these. 

 Hence God is in no wise responsible for the evil, either 

 natural or moral, that we find in the world of experience, 

 but only for the good that gradually arises in it ; and even 

 for this good, only in chief, and not solely ; for to every 

 mind that promotes the good and helps to check the evil 

 belongs indefeasibly the credit of his part in the increase 

 of good and the decrease of evil. The evil in the world is 

 the product of the non-divine minds themselves : the natural 

 evil, of their very nature ; the moral, the only real evil, of 

 their failure to answer to their reason with their will. 



This brief sketch of the view must suffice as preparation 

 for the main task which I here have in hand ; namely, to 



