LEAF AND TENDRIL 



There he found the benevolence, the love, the sense 

 of justice, which he failed to find in the world with- 

 out. It is not a mere fling or witty retort that man 

 creates God in his own image; it is profoundly 

 true. And then he torments himself that he does 

 not see this image reflected in nature. More and 

 more, as his evolution goes on, he loves mercy, jus- 

 tice, goodness, and more and more he endows his 

 gods with these attributes. In the long-past time, 

 when those sentiments were far less developed in 

 man, we find his gods much more cruel and wicked. 

 All moral and ethical sentiments and aspirations 

 are purely personal, and relate to man in society. 

 They are the fruit of the social aggregate. It may 

 be said with a measure of truth that while man's 

 intellect is from God, his moral nature is the work 

 of his own hands. His reason is reflected in the 

 course of nature; it is in unison' with the cosmic 

 process ; it looks upon the world and says it is good ; 

 it is consistent and fulfills its own end. But his 

 moral nature is not reflected in the objective world ; 

 there is hardly a trace of it there ; there is only law 

 which knows no mercy, or tenderness, or forgiveness, 

 or self-sacrifice, and which is oblivious to pain and 

 suffering. Hence the God which our moral nature 

 demands is not found in the world; to the cosmic 

 process he is a stranger; it rules him out as it rules 

 out all our human weaknesses. Fly to the uttermost 

 parts of the earth, and you will not find him there. 



