350 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 



combination of human symbols, material or mental, 

 however skilfully and subtly put together by even the 

 greatest thinkers, to adequately characterize. Language 

 can give no more than an approximate description of 

 the manifestations of the Power, which itself remains for 

 ever inaccessible and unfathomable. It would, indeed, 

 be the easier of the two, according to Spencer, to offer a 

 solution of the problem of the universe and the tran- 

 scendent power manifested in it in terms of mind than 

 in terms of matter, but both solutions would be inade- 

 quate. " It would be easier to translate so-called matter 

 into so-called spirit, than to translate so-called spirit into 

 so-called matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly im- 

 possible) ; yet no translation can carry us beyond our 

 symbols." The materialist's solution of the world- 

 problem, he thinks futile. The idealist's is also inade- 

 quate; for though idealism can express the phenomena 

 of matter in terms of mind, yet matter exists as a mode 

 of force. Its reality, though relative, is as deep as that of 

 our thought. We cannot conceive its non-existence. In 

 one sense, matter is perhaps a more essential predicate 

 of the Ultimate Power than mind ; for matter was first 

 in the field on the earth, as geology and the doctrine 

 of evolution assure us. Moreover, this matter extends 

 through all space. Far as gravitation extends, there 

 reigns matter ; and its probable ultimate unit, the hy- 

 drogen atom, has been reported in Sirius and Aldebaran 

 by the spectroscope ; while we cannot affirm with equal 

 confidence the existence of mind or consciousness closely 

 resembling ours in remote parts of the stellar regions. 



According to Spencer, we do not know this Ultimate 

 Power, and we shall never know it. Neither we nor 

 any of the human species, however enlarged their intelli- 

 gence may in future become, shall know it. In fact, it 



