20 TJie Scope and Princljdes 



its devotees to accept as authority the commandments of 

 ])ope, or priest, or ecclesiastical synod, or sacred Ixjok. It 

 has made the past a shackle upon the present, instead of a 

 help and an inspiration to a larger and more progressive 

 life. It has fostered a morbid and unhealthy other-world- 

 liness, instead of seeking to better the condition of men 

 here and now. It has cultivated a low pretense of famil- 

 iarity with the person and attributes of the Deity, as it has 

 assumed to define them, instead of bidding the soul stand 

 in reverent awe in the presence of ''the Infinite and Eter- 

 nal Energy whence all things proceed." All these things 

 must be changed if the church would remain a living and 

 l)rogressive force in the individual life and in the ordering 

 of society. 



Insteatl of ceremonies and worship based upon the cur- 

 rent anthropomor})hic conceptions of the deity, there will 

 arise " observances tending to keep alive a consciousness of 

 the true relation in which we stand to the Unknown Clause, 

 and tending to giw expression to the sentiment underlying 

 that consciousness." As to the character and attributes of 

 this cause, the religious teacher, accei)ting the teachings of 

 Evolution, will not arbitrarily dogmatize. In the language 

 of -Mr. Spencer, ''duty requires us neither to assert nor to 

 df'uy that it has personality, but to submit ourselves with 

 all humility to tlm established limits of our intelligence, 

 in the conviction that the choice is not between personality 

 and something lower, but personality and something higher, 

 and that the ultimate reality is no more representative In 

 terms of liuman consciousness than human consciousnes.s is 

 rei)resentative in terms of a i)lant's functions." The fact 

 that we stand continually in the presence of this Ultimate 

 Keality, that it is involved in every i)luMiomenal activity, 

 wlietherof mind or of matter, will however, be kept contin- 

 ually l)efore us. The use of the term " Unknowable," as 

 applied to this Reality, is unfortunate if thereby it conveys 

 tlie idea of that wliich is itractieally or actually non-exist- 

 ent, — a sui)erticial interpretation of j\Ir. Spencer's doctrine 

 with which we are frequently assailed by ids self-consti- 

 tuted critics, but against which he everywhere carefully 

 guards liimself, to the understanding mind. As he liimself 

 declares: "the Ultimate lieality is the sole existence; all 

 things i)resent to consciousness being but shows of it." 



In the words of an able popular interpreter of the evo- 



