262 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



As long as they are obviously mutually dependent in 

 a living being, so must they stand or fall together. 



Though Mr. Rix approaches very near to the 

 " Monistic Religion " of Haeckel, who sees nothing but 

 " blind and unconscious " matter and force, he tells us, 

 "There is a Universe and ... it is spiritual, and this 

 spiritual universe or universal spirit is what we mean by 

 ' God.'^ Is it a Self-conscious Being? " 



"In ourselves," he adds, "we all recognise within 

 the circle of conscious experience two dissimilar kinds of 

 experience ; which we term psychical and physical, mind 

 and matter or self and not-self."^ 



Haeckel, we may remember, unites them, making 

 psychology a branch of physiology. 



" But this distinction fails in the Universe," because, 

 " if the universe is indeed one, then to that one there 

 can be no beyond. . . . He [God] is the Universe. . . . 

 To Him, there is no matter as distinct from mind."^ 



Now Mr. Rix, as before, so here, overlooks one 

 phenomenon, and that is ether, which is not matter. 

 Matter may perhaps be formed out of etherial vortex- 

 rings, but ether is ether and not matter. As it is the 

 great vehicle of forces, pervading the universe, inclusive 

 of all material objects, so God is a Spiritual Energy as 

 well. Hence, if we may use the term, I repeat, ether 

 would seem to be " the vehicle of Divine power ". 



Still, the question is not yet answered — " Is God a 

 Person who thinks and loves? " ^ " Of course He can — 

 He thinks in j'ou, thinks in me and in every thinking 

 being. Your thought is God's thought. . . . He becomes 

 the individual and sets that individual thinking."^ 



An obvious question arises — Why, then, can two 



1 o/). cj^, p. 137. '^P. 139- 3 P. 141. 



*P. 147. 'P. 149. 



