COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



is he not thrust back into the past eternity, as 

 an unknowable source of things, which is pos- 

 tulated for form's sake, but might as well, for 

 all practical purposes, be omitted ? 



The reply is that the difficulty is one which 

 theology has created for itself. It is not science, 

 but theology, which has thrust back Divine ac- 

 tion to some nameless point in the past eternity 

 and left nothing for God to do in the present 

 world. For the whole difficulty lies in the as- 

 sumption of the material universe as a " datum 

 objective to God,'* and in the consequent dis- 

 tinction between " Divine action " and " natural 

 law," — a distinction for which science is in 

 no wise responsible. The tendency of modern 

 scientific inquiry, whether working in the re- 

 gion of psychology or in that of transcendental 

 physics, is to abolish this distinction, and to 

 regard " natural law " as merely a synonym of 

 " Divine action." And since Berkeley's time 

 the conception of the material universe as a 

 "datum objective to God" is one which can 



putant, qui res et miracula per causas naturales explicant aut 

 intelligere student." Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 

 vol. vi. Opera, vol. iii. 86. " Ov yap yveixovro tov^ <(>v(tl- 

 Kov<s /cat jtxcTcwpoXecr^^as totc KaXov/^eVovs, ws cts airta? d\6- 

 yov<s Kol SvvdfX€L^ aTTpovoT^TOVS Kol KaTrjvayKaa-ixeva TrdOrj 

 StarpL/SovTaq TO 6€Lov." Plutarch, iWi/Wj, cap. 23. The com- 

 plaint, it will be seen, is the same in modern that it was in 

 ancient times. Compare Plutarch, Perikles, cap. 6 ; Cicero, 

 Tusc. Disp. i. 13, Opera, ed. Nobbe, tom. viii. p. 299. 

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