COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



personal Ruler, shall we also, as we are logically 

 bound to do, carry with us the conceptions of 

 legislation with which the Doctrine of Evolu- 

 tion has supplied us ? Shall we say that the in- 

 finite Deity adjusts inner relations to external 

 contingencies ? 



Here we come upon the brink of the abyss 

 into which the anthropomorphic hypothesis 

 must precipitate us, if instead of passively acqui- 

 escing in it as a vague authoritative formula, we 

 analyze it with the scientific appliances at our 

 command. To those who have acquired some 

 mastery of the physical truths upon which our 

 Cosmic Philosophy is based, the doctrine not 

 only ceases to be intellectually consoling, but 

 becomes a source of ungovernable disturbance. 

 For to represent the Deity as a person who 

 thinks, contrives, and legislates is simply to 

 represent him as a product of evolution. The 

 definition of intelligence being " the continu- 

 ous adjustment of specialized inner relations to 

 specialized outer relations," it follows that to 

 represent the Deity as intelligent is to surround 

 Deity with an environment, and thus to destroy 

 its infinity and its self-existence.^ The eternal 

 Power whereof the web of phenomena is but 

 the visible garment becomes degraded into a 

 mere strand in the web of phenomena; and the 



^ [With this passage one may contrast chapter iv. of ** The 

 Everlasting Reality of Religion," in Through Nature to God,'\ 

 106 



