CHAPTER V 

 RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT* 



FROM this abstract exposition of Cosmic 

 Theism as a religious doctrine let us now 

 proceed to consider some of the practical 

 relations of Cosmic Theism to human life, with 

 especial reference to conduct, which, as Mat- 

 thew Arnold well says, makes up in importance 

 at least seven eighths of life. As every system 

 of religion has comprised, on the one hand, a 

 theory of the world, and on the other hand, a 

 code enjoining certain kinds of human conduct, 

 and as we have thus far expounded Cosmism as 

 a theory of the world, what is now to be said of 

 the relations of Cosmism to human conduct? 

 Or, in other words, does the enlargement of 

 our conceptions of Divine action, in conformity 

 with the requirements of contemporary know- 

 ledge, involve any radical alteration of the 

 fundamental principles of action in which Reli- 

 gion, viewed practically, consists ? 



The position is often taken, by those who dis- 

 sent from current ecclesiastical creeds, that there 

 is no reason in the nature of things why the 

 ^ [See Introduction, § 32.] 

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