THE MODERN SKEPTIC 109 



encounter notions that run counter to them, and that 

 require our acceptance of doctrines in which our 

 powers of reason and observation can have no part. 

 The man of science has no trouble in discover- 

 ing God objectively ; that is, as the all-embracing 

 force and vitality that pervades and upholds the 

 physical universe — in fact, he can discover little 

 else. Knock at any door he will, he finds the 

 Eternal there to answer. But his search discloses 

 no human attributes, nothing he can name in the 

 terms he applies to man, nothing that suggests 

 personality. He can no more ascribe personality to 

 infinite power than he can ascribe form to infinite 

 space. Yet he knows infinite space must exist ; it 

 is a necessity of the mind, though it drives one 

 crazy to try to conceive of it. It is a matter we 

 apprehend, to use a distinction of Coleridge, but 

 cannot comprehend. In the same way we know an 

 infinite power, not ourselves, exists, but it passes 

 the utmost stretch of comprehension. This, I say, 

 is disclosing God objectively, as a palpable, unavoid- 

 able fact. To disclose God subjectively through 

 the conscience, or as an intimate revelation to the 

 spirit, that is to experience religion, as usually 

 understood. The person finds God by looking in- 

 ward, instead of outward, and finds him as a person. 

 Some religious souls have a most intense and vivid 

 conception of God subjectively, who cannot find 

 him by an outward search at all. Cardinal New- 

 man is such a man. He says the world seems 

 simply to give the lie to that great truth of which 



