COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



wondrous process of evolution as itself the 

 working out of a mighty Teleology of which 

 our finite understandings can fathom but the 

 scantiest rudiments.^ As we shall see in the 

 fifth chapter, the process of evolution, when 

 reverently treated with the aid of such scientific 

 resources as we possess, and when disencum- 

 bered of anthropomorphic hypotheses, leads us 

 in the way of no such fearful dilemma as the 

 one by which we are now encountered. It is 

 theology alone which drives us to the brink of 

 this fathomless abyss, by insisting upon the 

 representation of the Deity as a person endowed 

 with anthropomorphic attributes. If goodness 

 and intelligence are to be ascribed to the Deity, 

 it must be the goodness and intelligence of 

 which we have some rudimentary knowledge 

 as manifested in humanity, — otherwise our 

 hypothesis is resolved into unmeaning verbi- 

 age. " If,*' as Mr. Mill observes, " in ascribing 

 goodness to God I do not mean what I mean 

 by goodness ; if I do not mean the goodness 

 of which I have some knowledge, but an in- 

 comprehensible attribute of an incomprehensi- 

 ble substance, which for aught I know may be 



^ For by taking such ground as this, he would virtually 

 abandon his anthropomorphic hypothesis, and concede all that 

 is demanded by the Cosmist. For this conception of teleology 

 implied in the process of evolution, see Huxley, Critiques and 

 Addresses, p. 306. 



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