EXAMTNATIOlf OF PROF. CARPENTER's EVOLUTION". 199 



latter. Can we conceive of a Supreme intelligence as being sub- 

 ject to the laws of mental growth — of being wiser to-day than yes- 

 terday? Is not the wisdom infinite, and the same yesterday, to-day 

 and forever? How then can we conceive of jjofentialities? Or on 

 the other hand can we think of any attributes which could be 

 added to it? Is net the Divine mind perfect in all things so far as 

 our conceptions go? How, then, if we can conceive of nothing 

 which can be added to it, can we conceive of it as existing stripped 

 of attributes? The Supreme Intelligence is not a generalization, 

 but is, on the contrary, so to speak, a strongly individualized human 

 intelligence. Every mental faculty which we possess we conceive 

 as being held by the Divine Mind in a perfected state. Wisdom, 

 knowledge, justice, in infinite Cvmpleteness go to make up our con- 

 ception of God. If we increase in wisdom, knowledge and justice, 

 we advance towards him; that is to say, the more strongly individu- 

 alized our minds become, the nearer do we approach in likeness 

 unto God. But if God were the " highest generalization " the 

 more individualized we became the farther would we be from Him, 

 and this is doubtless a result which Dr. Carpenter would be among 

 the last to desire. 



" If the Supreme Intelligence is to communicate with man," 

 sa.ys Dr. Carpenter, "it mAist be in obedience to the laws which con- 

 trol our mental activities. The divine thought must then, like 

 human conceptions, be communicated by means of physical ?,ym- 

 bols." The error, (for we think there is one.) which lurks in this 

 assumption is the error of all theologians, and forms the basis of 

 all their reasonings and of all their conceptions; viz: That man is 

 the object of creation — the end sought through the formation of mat- 

 ter, and that the Supreme Intelligence is desirous of conveying his 

 thoughts to the consciousness of man. Dr. Carpenter had just been 

 speaking of the purely subjective nature of the conceptions of the 

 artists, and that it was necessary before those conceptions could be 

 communicated to others, that they should, through the instrumen- 

 tality of the canvas or the marble, seek an objective expression, and 

 to follow this remark with that above quoted is to place the Sup- 

 preme Intelligence in the artist's position with conceptions to com- 

 municate, and implies, before they can be communicated, an object- 

 ive medium and another consciousness to which the communication 

 is to be made. If man is the highest product of matter — of creative 



