MEDITATIONS AND CEITIOISMS 205 



All the early minds did, but science leads us farther 

 and farther away from an anthropomorphic God. 

 It is singular that we should have outgrown anthro- 

 pomorphism so far as to deny personality to the 

 separate forces of nature, but ascribe it to nature as a 

 whole. 



XIV 



The view which the old theology takes is an arti- 

 ficial view. It imposes upon the world arbitrary and 

 artificial conditions as if one were to paint the grass 

 blue and the sky green. It says the world is a lost 

 and condemned world ; that God is estranged from 

 the race of man ; that through some act of disobedi- 

 ence of Adam six thousand or more years ago, sin and 

 death entered the world, and that a way of escape 

 from eternal ruin has been provided for mankind by 

 the life and ignominious death of an innocent and 

 just person, Jesus of Nazareth, etc. This I say is 

 an artificial view, an utterly unscientific view, — as 

 much so as the belief not so very old that witches 

 could cause storms and tempests, or as the view of 

 Justin Martyr that the earth becomes fertile when 

 dug by a spade because the spade is in the form of 

 a cross. 



Theology looks upon sin as something entirely apart 

 from a man's natural defects, and upon religion as 

 something entirely independent of his good qualities. 

 Both are from without, — one the work of a malignant 

 spirit, the other the gift of a good spirit, but both 

 arbitrary or mechanical, and in no way related to the 



