2,2,6 MAN AND GOD. 



hackneyed objection which may long have seemed 

 the only refuge of the belief In the Infinite. These 

 difficulties, it may be said, only show that our finite 

 minds cannot grasp the Infinite, and that the Infinite, 

 therefore, must appear a mass of contradictions from 

 the standpoint of the Finite. The abstractions of 

 our finite reasoning produce a show of contradiction 

 in what Is perfectly consistent from the standpoint 

 of the Infinite. The true attitude of the human 

 mind in such matters is a reverent confession of 

 weakness, which admits as a faith, and bases upon 

 feeling, 3. mystery which Is Insoluble to our finite 

 7^eason. 



Such has ever been the language of hard-pressed 

 absurdities, when driven Into a corner. They en- 

 velop themselves In a cap of darkness, and seek to 

 escape under the protecting gloom of our ignorance. 



But in reality this pseudo-religious agnosticism 

 has as little to do with religion as it has with reason. 

 Agnosticism is a superstition equally baleful and 

 hateful, whether it masquerades in the vestments of 

 religion or of science (as in ch. li.), and the worship 

 of the Infinite Is an idolatry precisely on a par with 

 the reverence for the Unknowable. They are both 

 self-contradictory phantoms which the human mind 

 has conjured up out of the boundless maze of error, 

 and hypostaslzed and materialized by parallel 

 paralogisms. And If we look at the magnitude of 

 the issues Involved, It must surely be admitted that 

 the worst of all Idolatries Is that which requires the 

 human mind to sacrifice Its faith In the rationality of 

 things, in its own competency to solve the problems 

 of its life. In order that it may fall down and worship 

 the contradictions It has Itself set up. 



The argument from the *'finlteness" of our minds 



