o72 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 



VIII 



of theology will be like its beginning it will 

 cease to have any relation to ethics. I suppi.-e 

 that, so Ion- as the human mind exists, it will not 

 escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its 

 intellectual conceptions. The science of ti it- 

 present day is as full of this particular form ol 

 intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience . >t' 

 ignorant ages. The difference is that the philoso- 

 pher who is worthy of the name knows that his 

 personified hypotheses, such as law, and fnivo, 

 and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, 

 while the ignorant and the careless take them lor 

 adequate expressions of reality. So, it may be, 

 that the majority of mankind may iind tlie praei ice 

 of morality made easier by the use of theological 

 symbols. And unless these are converted 

 symbols into idols, I do not see that science h 

 anything to say to the practice, except to give 

 occasional warning of its dangers. But. wh 

 such symbols are dealt with as real existences, 1 

 think the highest duty which is laid upon men of 

 science is to show that these dogmatic idols have 

 no greater value than the fabrications of men's 

 hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have 

 replaced. 



END OF VOL. IV. 



i:iriiAP.i> CI.AV AM- SONS, MMi-iin, I...MON AND HCNCAY. 





