^H. iii.J COSMIC THEISM. 421 



directly woTshipped, but unseen agents were iniiigined as 

 controlling the phenomena by their arbitrary volitions, and 

 these agents, as being mysterious, were worshipped. So 

 when polytheism began to give place to monotheism, the 

 process was still the same. The visible and tangible world 

 was regarded as the aggregate of things which might be 

 understood; but above and beneath all this was the mys- 

 terious aspect of things — the Dynamis, the Demiurgus, the 

 Cause of all, the Ruler of all — and this mighty Something 

 was worshipped. Though theology has all along wrestled 

 with the insoluble problems presented by this supreme 

 Mystery, and, by insisting on divers tangible propositions 

 concerning it, has implicitly asserted that it can be at 

 least partially known ; the fact remains that only by being 

 unknown has it continued to be the object of the religious 

 sentiment. Could the theologian have carried his point 

 and constructed a " science of Deity ; " could the divine 

 nature have been all expressed in definite formulas, as we 

 express the genesis of vegetation or the revolutions of 

 the planets, worship would have disappeared altogether. 

 Worship is ever the dark side of the shield, of whicli 

 knowledge is the bright side. It is because science can 

 never explain the universe, it is because the enlarjiinff 

 periphery of knowledge does but reveal from day to day a 

 greater number of points at which we meet the unknow- 

 able lying beyond, tliat religion can never become obsolete. 

 Though we have come to recognize the most refined sym- 

 bols by which men have sought to render Deity intelli- 

 gible as inadequate and misleading symbols; though we 

 sacrifice the symbol of personality, because personality im- 

 plies limitation, and to speak of an infinite personality is 

 to cheat oneself with a phrase that is empty of meaning; 

 yet our recognition of Deity is only the more emphatic. 

 Thus " the object of religious sentiment will ever continue 

 to be that which it has ever been." The God of the 



