41T COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt.im. 



is the most perfect type of existence in the universe. Oui 

 knowledge of the Cosmos has heen aptly compared by 

 Carlyle to the knowledge which a minnow in its native 

 creek has of the outlying ocean. Of the innumerable com- 

 binations of matter and incarnations of force which are 

 going on within the bounds of space, we know, save a few 

 of the simplest, those only which are confined to the sur- 

 face of our little planet. And to assert that among them 

 all there may not be forms of existence as far transcend- 

 ing humanity as humanity itself transcends the crysta,l or 

 the sea-weed, is certainly the height of unwarrantable 

 assumption. 



•' Think yon this mould of hopes and fears 

 Could find no statelier than his peers 

 In yonder hundred million spheres ? " 



Until our knowledge becomes coextensive with the entire 

 world of phenomena, questions like these must remain 

 unanswered. Meanwhile we may rest assured that, could 

 we solve them all, the state of the case would not be essen- 

 tially altered. Our conception might be relatively far loftier, 

 but from the absolute point of view it would be equally 

 beneath the Eeality. We are therefore forced to conclude 

 that the process of deanthropomorphization which has from 

 the first characterized the history of philosophic development 

 must still continue to go on ; until the Intelligent Will 

 postulated by the modern theologian shall have shared the 

 fate of the earlier and still more imperfect symbols whereby 

 finite man has vainly tried to realize that which must evei 

 tronscend his powers of conception. 



