INTRODUCTION 



that distinctly emotional attitude towards the 

 Unknowable which Fiske regards in this chap- 

 ter as of immense importance, and as giving a 

 " sanction " to our moral ideal. To live well is 

 to express, as best we can, our aim to attain a 

 perfection which has been suggested to us by 

 the working of the Unknowable Power. This 

 very ideal of a perfect adjustment has the Un- 

 knowable as its object. And our search for the 

 ideal is a tendency towards a completeness of 

 Being which the Unknowable Power, immea- 

 surably above ourselves, already somehow mys- 

 teriously possesses, and so there arises in us a 

 religious feeling, which depends upon regarding 

 one's life as lived in obedience to the Inscrut- 

 able Power. 



By way of further defence of this interpreta- 

 tion of the religious attitude, Fiske points out 

 that relations to a Power which is manifested 

 through inexorable laws of nature are morally 

 more wholesome than relations to a Power which 

 can be cajoled or coerced, by means of devices 

 such as are employed towards an anthropomor- 

 phic Deity, into forgiveness of our transgres- 

 sions. He also points out, by the way, what is, 

 once more, a negative feature of the situation, 

 namely, the fact that, with the complete de- 

 anthropomorphizing of our view of the Deity, 

 all need of undertaking to explain the " mystery 

 xcix 



