20 The Scope and Prlnc'qiles 



its devotees to accept as authority the commandments of 

 pope, or priest, or ecclesiastical synod, or sacred book. It 

 has made the past a shackle upon the present, instead of a 

 help and an inspiration to a larger and more progressive 

 life. It has fostered a morbid and unhealthy other-world- 

 liness, instead of seeking to better the condition of men 

 here and now. It has cultivated a low pretense of famil- 

 iarity with the person and attributes of the Deity, as it has 

 assumed to define them, instead of bidding the soul stand 

 in reverent awe in the presence of "the Infinite and Eter- 

 nal Energy whence all things proceed." All these things 

 must be changed if the church Avould remain a living and 

 progressive force in the individual life and in the ordering 

 of society. 



Instead of ceremonies and w^orship based upon the cur- 

 rent anthropomorphic conceptions of the deity, there Avill 

 arise '' observances tending to keep alive a consciousness of 

 the true relation in which we stand to the Unknown Cause, 

 and tending to give expression to the sentiment underlying 

 that consciousness." As to the character and attributes of 

 this cause, the religious teacher, accepting the teachings of 

 Evolution, Avill not arbitrarily dogmatize. In the language 

 of Mr. Spencer, " duty requires us neither to assert nor to 

 deny that it has personality, but to submit ourselves with 

 all humility to the established limits of our intelligence, 

 in the conviction that the choice is not between personality 

 and something lower, but personality and something higher, 

 and that the ultimate reality is no more representative in 

 terms of human consciousness than human consciousness is 

 re})resentative in terms of a plant's functions." The fact 

 that we stand continually in the presence of this Ultimate 

 Reality, that it is involved in every phenomenal activity, 

 whether of mind or of matter, will however, be kept contin- 

 ually before us. The use of the term '' Unknowable," as 

 applied to this Reality, is unfortunate if thereby it conveys 

 the idea of that which is practically or actually non-exist- 

 ent, a superficial interpretation of Mr. Spencer's doctrine 

 with Avhich we are frequently assailed by his self-consti- 

 tuted critics, but against wdiich he everywhere carefully 

 guards himself, to the understanding mind. As he himself 

 declares : " the Ultimate Reality is the sole existence ; all 

 things present to consciousness being but shows of it." 



In the words of an able popular interpreter of the evo- 



