312 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
mental construction is a human invention. Is the final cause 
in some sense and degree a human creation ? 
If the absolute is experience, as Bradley holds,! or if the cosmic 
process is itself creative, as according to Ward and Bergson, then 
man may have as his religious goal not simply conformity to the 
will of God or to the unfolding of the cosmic order, but he may 
even dare to make the cosmic order conform, in some small 
degree, to his ideal and minister to his needs. Primitive man 
endeavored to “‘ manipulate’? God or the gods by sacrifice, 
incense, prayers, etc. The Christian of today seeks to win favor 
and the supply of his needs by prayer, and in the thought of 
many, by the kind of life that merits divine favor. Compara- 
tively few have attained the thought of compelling divine favor 
by living in conformity with divine (because cosmic) laws; — 
and fewer still have gone so far, probably too far, as to believe that 
there is no other divine law than just these laws we have been 
and are discovering, formulating and controlling in the realms of 
nature and mind. Are we warranted in taking the step, then, of 
asserting that as the incarnation of creative intelligence, men as 
creators are making cosmic laws, and in a sense making the God 
they worship ? If so, we have a new and final form of adaptation 
which might be called active religious adaptation, but as this 
assumes that there is no higher form of consciousness, thought, 
feeling or will than that possessed by man, we cannot give our 
assent to this hypothesis. 
1 Appearance and Reality. 
