HERBERT SPENCER’S SERVICE TO RELIGION 231 
and exhaustive system of theology into the bargain.' 
What I wish, therefore, to point out is that Mr. 
Spencer’s work on the side of religion will be seen to 
be no less important than his work on the side of 
science, when once its religious implications shall 
have been fully and consistently unfolded. If we look 
at all the systems or forms of religion of which we 
have any knowledge, we shall find that they differ in 
many superficial features. They differ in many of 
the transcendental doctrines which they respectively 
preach, and in many of the rules of conduct which 
they respectively lay down for men’s guidance. They 
assert different things about the universe, and they 
enjoin or prohibit different kinds of behaviour on the 
part of their followers. The doctrine of the Trinity, 
which to most Christians is the most sacred of myste- 
ries, is to all Mohammedans the foulest of  blas- 
phemies; the Brahman’s conscience would be more 
troubled if he were to kill a cow by accident, than if » 
he were to swear to a lie or steal a purse; the Turk, 
who sees no wrong in bigamy, would shrink from the 
sin of eating pork. But, amid all such surface differ- 
ences, we find throughout all known religions two 
points of substantial agreement. And these two 
points of agreement will be admitted by modern civ- 
ilized men to be of far greater importance than the 
innumerable differences of detail. 
1 “Tt is clear that many persons have derived from Spencer’s use of the 
word Unknowable an impression that he intends by metaphysics to refine 
God away into nothing, whereas he no more cherishes any such intention 
than did St. Paul, when he asked, ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord, 
or who hath been his counsellor’ ; no more than Isaiah did when he de- 
declared, ‘ Even as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are Jehovah’s 
ways higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts.’ ” — JoHN 
FISKE, “ Through Nature to God.” 
