VII 



RELIGION: ITS PERSISTENCE AND 

 HUMAN CHARACTERS 



By Julian S. Huxley 



TO those religious philosophers who conclude 

 that the universe is God, and to those others 

 who identify God with the philosophical Ab- 

 solute, the Unknowable behind phenomena, the unify- 

 ing principle in reality, and so forth, we may legiti- 

 mately reply that their conclusions may be of great 

 interest for philosophy, but have ceased to have any 

 but the remotest bearing on religion. Such a God 

 could not be worshipped or prayed to, and could not 

 arouse the intense emotion or ecstasy of mystical ex- 

 perience, and, In fact, has really no kinship with the 

 actual gods of actual religions. 



Where, then, does the solution lie? It would seem 

 to lie in dismantling the theistic edifice, which will no 

 longer bear the weight of the universe as enlarged by 

 recent science; and attempting to find new outlets for 

 the religious spirit. God, in any but a purely philo- 

 sophical, and one is almost tempted to say, a Pick- 

 wickian, sense, turns out to be a product of the human 

 mind. As an independent or unitary being, active in 

 the affairs of the universe, he does not exist. 



The religious emotions of mankind, these many cen- 



1 Reprinted from Science, Religion and Human Nature, by courteous 

 permission of the author. 



105 



