ch. vii.] ANTHROPOMORPHISM AND COSMISM. 181 



of the older tlieosophy, we have now innumerable occulta 

 vires, inherent virtues, vital principles, essential properties, 

 and abstract entities ; at the bottom of all the universal 

 occult entity Nature, which is regarded as producing pheno- 

 mena with considerable uniformity, save when the Volition be- 

 hind sees fit to interpose and temporarily modify the natural 

 order. Finally, when physical generalization has advanced 

 so far as to include all, or nearly all, orders of phenomena, 

 the theory of miraculous interposition vanishes, or remains 

 only as a lifeless formula, verbally assented to, but not really 

 believed in, while the presiding Volition is thrust back to the 

 beginning of things, being retained only as a convenient and 

 apparently necessary postulate by which to account for the 

 origin of the universe and the harmonious cooperation of 

 phenomena. This most refined form of theology will be 

 thoroughly discussed in a future chapter. We have now 

 only to note that further progress in deanthropomorphization 

 involves the extrusion of the notion of a volitional Cause 

 altogether, and leaves us with the conception of a Cause mani- 

 fested throughout the entire world of phenomena, which is an 

 indestructible element of consciousness, and which, equally 

 with the anthropomorphic conceptions which have preceded 

 it, is the proper object of religious feeling, but concerning the 

 nature of which — in itself, and apart from its phenomenal 

 manifestations — the human mind can frame no verifiable 

 hypothesis. 



We have seen that this terminal phase of the deanthropo- 

 morphizing process is radically distinct from Positivism, in 

 #hich the Cause manifested in the world of phenomena is 

 entirely ignored. It need hardly be added that it is equally 

 distinct from Atheism and Pantheism, in which no place is 

 left for a Cause distinct from phenomena themselves. How 

 shall we characterize this terminal phase of the long process 

 of philosophic development which we have just passed in 

 rapid survey ? An answer will be forthcoming if we pause 



