368 MAN AND GOD. 



we know that this very contemptlbleness In appear- 

 ance of the obstacles to the world's progress {cp. § 

 25 s.f.) is not in itself an effective method of the 

 divine guidance of the process, that it does not form 

 part of the humorous element in things, of that 

 subtle "irony of fate" and that gentle cynicism of 

 nature's ways, which we so often fancy we can trace 

 in the course of the world ? We have hardly yet 

 got the data for estimating the strength of the 

 spiritual resistances to the divine purpose. It is 

 only when we see how slowly the vast and incalcul- 

 able power which is displayed in the order of the 

 physical universe grinds small the obstacles to its 

 purpose, how many millions of years were required 

 to evolve man, how many thousands of years to 

 civilize him, and how slow even now the stubborn 

 obstinacy of unreason makes the ever-accelerating 

 progress of the world — It is only when we observe 

 and ponder on all this, that we may form some faint 

 image of the strength of the spiritual resistances 

 to the world-process, and obtain an idea of the 

 grandeur of the Divine Purpose immensely more 

 vivid and impressive than the vague hyperboles of 

 an uncritical adulation of the Infinite. The con- 

 ception of the Divine Power as finite exalts the 

 Deity, actually and morally, as far above an unin- 

 telligible Infinite as modern astronomy has exalted 

 our sense of the grandeur of the universe, as com- 

 pared with the ancient fancies that the stars were 

 set in the firmament to adorn our skies, or that the 

 sun was " about the size of Peloponnese," and was 

 put out every night in the " baths of Ocean." 



And the moral stimulus and emotional relief also 

 of such a conception of the world-process ought to 

 be Immense. It represents us no longer as the 



