324 MAN AND GOD. 



lost most of its hold over thinking minds, and has 

 been expelled by the very Agnosticism it had 

 fostered for Its own protection. The world no 

 longer seeks to escape from the perplexities of the 

 human reason by an appeal to the Bible : the appeal 

 lies to "the exact methods of verified knowledge," 

 which by their very nature are bound to treat the 

 Book of the Revelation of an (unknowable) God as 

 one of the most curious of the repositories of primi- 

 tive superstition. Thus do the eternal laws of retrib- 

 ution avenge the truth upon those who wittingly 

 or unwittingly use bad arguments, by the way In 

 which they Invariably recoil upon their authors. 

 Even, therefore, if acquiescence In a contradiction 

 ever really profited the cause of religion, It can now 

 do so no longer. Religion Is lost if It sinks Into the 

 morass of the unknowable Infinite, In which It can 

 find no foothold. 



In pressing this advice upon the religious guides 

 of mankind. It Is impossible not to feel painfully 

 that the patient to whom the advice is tendered 

 has already suffered much advice from every quarter. 

 But though a sick man receives much advice, it 

 does not follow that It is all bad. And In this case 

 the advice Is at least new. For It has at last be- 

 come possible for religion to save Itself by the other 

 alternative. It has become possible to purify 

 Theism of its contradiction without dissolving It in 

 Pantheism. The accumulation of the data enabling 

 us to estimate the drift of the world-process enable 

 us also for the first time to develop consistently the 

 finite and personal elements In Theism ; and follow- 

 ing out this train of thought we shall come to realize 

 that religion, philosophy and science alike demand 

 a belief in a personal and limited God. 



I 



