COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



pose and temporarily modify the natural order. 

 Finally, when physical generalization has ad- 

 vanced so far as to include all, or nearly all, 

 orders of phenomena, the theory of miraculous 

 interposition vanishes, or remains only as a life- 

 less formula, verbally assented to, but not really 

 believed in, while the presiding Volition is 

 thrust back to the beginning of things, being 

 retained only as a convenient and apparently 

 necessary postulate by which to account for the 

 origin of the universe and the harmonious co- 

 operation of phenomena. This most refined 

 form of theology will be thoroughly discussed 

 in a future chapter. We have now only to 

 note that further progress in deanthropomor- 

 phization involves the extrusion of the no- 

 tion of a volitional Cause altogether, and leaves 

 us with the conception of a Cause manifested 

 throughout the entire world of phenomena, 

 which is an indestructible element of conscious- 

 ness, and which, equally with the anthropomor- 

 phic conceptions which have preceded it, is 

 the proper object of religious feeling, but con- 

 cerning the nature of which — in itself, and 

 apart from its phenomenal manifestations — 

 the human mind can frame no verifiable hypo- 

 thesis. 



We have seen that this terminal phase of the 

 deanthropomorphizing process is radically dis- 

 tinct from Positivism, in which the Cause mani- 

 268 



