INTRODUCTION 



come adjusted to the world, and hence in turn 

 is disposed to interpret the world as adjusted to 

 itself. " It is not the intelligence which has 

 made the environment, but it is the environ- 

 ment which has moulded the intelligence. In 

 the mint of nature, the coin Mind has been 

 stamped ; and theology, perceiving the likeness 

 of the die to its impression, has unwittingly in- 

 verted the causal relation of the two, making 

 Mind, archetypal and self-existent, to be the 

 die." Moreover, " Personality and infinity are 

 terms expressive of ideas which are mutually 

 incompatible." Hence, " an anthropomorphic 

 God cannot be conceived as an infinite God." 

 To those who have formed scientific habits of 

 mind, and who have been led once to conceive 

 of the all-sustaining Power of Spencer, — to 

 such persons "the conception of a presiding 

 anthropomorphic Will is a gross and painful 

 conception." And so the " Intelligent Will 

 postulated by the modern theologians " must 

 in time share " the fate of the earlier and still 

 more imperfect symbols whereby finite man has 

 vainly tried to realize that which must ever tran- 

 scend his powers of conception." The case thus 

 made out, if taken by itself, would seem to be 

 sufficiently negative to make very questionable 

 why one should still call the doctrine thus de- 

 fined " Theistic." 



xcii 



