136 Luck, or Cunning ? 
I know not what theologians may think of this passage, 
but from a scientific point of view it is unassailable. So 
again, “‘O Lord,” he exclaims, ‘“‘ Thou hast searched me out, 
and known me: Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine 
up-rising ; Thou understandest my thoughts long before. 
Thou art about my path, and about my bed: and spiest out 
all my ways. For lo, there is not a word in my tongue but 
Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether. ... Whither shall I go, 
then, from Thy Spirit ? Or whither shall J go, then, from 
Thy presence? If I climb up into heaven Thou art there: 
if I go down to hell, Thou art there also. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of 
the sea, even there also shall Thy hand lead me and Thy 
right hand shall hold me. If Isay, Peradventure the dark- 
ness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned to day. 
Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee, but... the 
darkness and light to Thee are both alike.’’* 
What convention or short cut can symbolise for us the 
results of laboured and complicated chains of reasoning or 
bring them more aptly and concisely home to us than the 
one supplied long since by the word God? What can 
approach more nearly to a rendering of that which cannot 
be rendered—the idea of an essence omnipresent in all 
things at all times everywhere in sky and earth and sea; 
ever changing, yet the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever; the ineffable contradiction in terms whose presence 
none can either ever enter, or ever escape ? Or rather, what 
convention would have been more apt if it had not been lost 
sight of as a convention and come to be regarded as an 
idea in actual correspondence with a more or less knowable 
reality ? A convention was converted into a fetish, and 
now that its worthlessness as a fetish is being generally felt, 
its great value as a hieroglyph or convention is in danger of 
being lost sight of. No doubt the psalmist was seeking for 
Sir William Grove’s conception, if haply he might feel after 
* Ps, cxxxix., Prayer-book version. 
