MODIFICATIONS IN THE IDEA OF GOD^ ETC. 47 



■the most disputatious of manlv-ind have ever ftiiled to arrive 

 at this conclusion. Its lowest form is fetichism. A step 

 above this is the worship of ancestors. Yet a higiier form 

 of it is the deification of the various powers of nature, 

 which was the relift'ion of Greece and Rome. A still hig-her 

 form is the original Hindoo religion, which, while it deified 

 the powers of nature, regarded tlie primal deity as inter- 

 fused with and underl^nug them all. Yet another form is 

 Buddhism, which seems to have arisen as a protest against 

 Hindoo pantheism, and to have regarded God, with the 

 Gnostic Basilides, as outside all existence — the Absolute 

 •of modern philosophy — that is to say, something, or someone, 

 entirely unconnected with the limitation involved in being. 

 This, however, cannot be described as a higher form than 

 pantheism. For it not only dissociates God from the 

 universe, but it persuades man to seek the same end, 

 encouraging him to .aim at detachment from everything 

 around him — a creed which, as competent observers tell us, 

 results in idleness, stagnation, and degradation. Observation 

 and reflection, then, are the ordinary sources of the idea 

 of God. 



The Hebrew idea of God appears to have been altogether 

 •on a higher plane than that of any of the systems I have 

 mentioned. Here, perhaps, 1 may be permitted to explain 

 why I find myself unable to make use of the recent researches 

 in Hebrew history, Avhich, we are informed on high authority, 

 may be regarded as having established certain conclusions. 

 The reason is because, in endeavouring to use them, I can 

 only find that as far as the course of Hebrew religious 

 •development is concerned they have unsettled everything 

 and settled nothing. The only certain results which are said 

 to be established are these : — First, that what have been 

 supposed to be the earlier Israelite books are not the earliest, 

 but contain materials originally published between the ninth 

 century B.C. and the fourth ; next, that the Book ot 

 Deuteronomy was written between the reigns of Ahaz and 

 Josiah; and next, that the prophets did not follow, but 

 precede, the Law, which the Hebrew Scriptures, as handed 

 down to us, ascribe to Moses. I will not attempt to dispute 

 these conclusions. I only say that they do not help me at 

 all in my endeavour to follow out the development of the 

 idea of God in the minds of the Hebrew people. Moses — let 

 it be granted — has vanished at the touch of scientific criticism. 

 .But as yet nothing has taken his \)lace. We do not know in the 



