ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM 



that, without admitting " this great central con- 

 ception of a Supreme Will," the laws of nature 

 must forever remain unintelligible. Let us not 

 fail to note that Mr. Adam's conception of the- 

 ism, as here illustrated, is far more refined, and 

 far less hostile to scientific inquiry, than the con- 

 ception of theism embodied in the accepted 

 creeds of theologians, and officially defended 

 from the pulpit. Those who adopt Mr. Adam's 

 conception will, if consistent, welcome, instead 

 of opposing, every scientific interpretation of 

 phenomena hitherto deemed supernatural — 

 since, in the above passage, God is clearly re- 

 garded as manifesting himself in order and not 

 in disorder, in method and not in caprice, in law 

 and not in miracle. With this view our Cosmic 

 Philosophy thoroughly coincides ; and elimi- 

 nating the anthropomorphism from Mr. Adam's 

 statement, I, for one, will heartily join in the 

 assertion "that " necessary law is the constant ex- 

 pression of the divine working^ But the con- 

 nection asserted between universal law and a su- 

 preme quasi-human Will Is one which a scien- 

 tific philosophy cannot admit, for it rests upon 

 a mere verbal equivocation. The inference from 

 community of name to community of nature, 

 however appropriate it might have seemed to 

 the realists of the twelfth century, is In our day 

 hardly admissible. Because the word " law " is 

 used to describe alike the generalizations of 

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