SCIENCE. 



285 



may be, but must be, an object of religious contempla- 

 tion in proportion as it is connected with the idea of 

 Power in a living Will. Infinite goodness must be the ob- 

 ject of religious thought and emotion, because in its very 

 nature this conception involves that of a Personal Being. 

 But if all this is what is intended by "the Infinite" then 

 it would be best to say so plainly. The- only use of the 

 phrase, as the one selected to indicate the cbject of 

 Religion, is that it may be understood in a 

 sense that is kept out of sight. And the ex- 

 planations which have been given of it are 

 generally open to the same charge of studied ambiguity. 

 " The Infinite " has been defined as that which trans- 

 cends sense and reason, — that which cannot be compre- 

 hended or completely and wholly understood, although it 

 may be apprehended or partially conceived. 3 And no 

 doubt, if this definition be applied, as by implication it 

 always is applied, to the power and to the resources, or 

 to any other feature in the character of an Infinite Being, 

 then it becomes a fair definition of the highest conceiv- 

 able object of religious thought. But, again, if it be not 

 so applied, — if it be understood as only applying to the 

 impossibility under which we find ourselves of grasping 

 anything which is limitless, — of counting an infinite 

 number of units, — of traversing, even in thought, an in- 

 finite space, — of living out an infinite time, — then " the 

 Infinite " does not contain the one essential element 

 which constitutes Religion. 



Similar objections apply to another abstract phrase, 

 sometimes used as a definition of the object of religious 

 feeling, namely, " the Invisible." Mere material things, 

 which are either too large to be wholly seen, or too small 

 to be seen at all, can never supply the one indispensable 

 element of Religion. In so far, therefore, as invisibility 

 applies to them only, it suggests nothing of a religious 

 nature. But in so far as " the Invisible " means, and is 

 intended to apply to, living Beings who are out of sight, 

 to Personal Agencies which either have no bodily form, 

 or who are thought of and conceived as separate from 

 such form — in so far, of course, " the Invisible," like 

 " the Infinite," does cover and include the conception 

 without which there can be no Religion. 



Definitions of meaning are more or less important in 

 all discussions ; but there are many questions in which 

 they are by no means essential, because of the facility 

 of which we refer the abstract words we may be using 

 to the concrete things, — to the actual phenomena to 

 which they are applied. When, for example, we speak 

 of the religion ot Mahomet, or of the religion of Con- 

 fucius, or of the religion of Buddha, we do not need to 

 define whr.t we mean by the word " Religion," because 

 in all cf these cases the system of doctrine and the con- 

 ceptions which constitute those religions are known, or 

 are matters of historical evidence. But when we come 

 to discuss the origin, not of any particular system of 

 belief, but of Religion in the abstract, some clear and 

 intelligible definition of the word Religion becomes ab- 

 solutely essential, because in that discussion we are deal- 

 ing with a question which is purely speculative. It is 

 idle to enter upon that speculative discussion unless we 

 have some definite understanding what we are speculat- 

 ing about. In the case of Religion we cannot keep our 

 understanding of the word fresh and distinct by thinking 

 of any well-known and admitted facts respecting the 

 beginnings of belief. There are no such facts to go 

 upon as regards the religion of Primeval Man. Those, 

 indeed, who accept the narrative attributed to the in- 

 spired authority of the Jewish Lawgiver have no need to 

 speculate. In that narrative the origin ot Religion is 

 identified with the origin of Man, and the Creator is 

 represented as having had, in some form or another, di- 

 rect communication with the creature He had made. 

 But those who do not accept that narrative, or who, 



3 Max Muller, " Hibbert Lectures," 1878. 



without rejecting it altogether, regard it as so full of 

 metaphor that it gives us no satisfying explanation, and 

 who assume that Religion has had an origin subsequent 

 to the origin of the species, have absolutely nothing to 

 rely upon in the nature of history. There is no contem- 

 porary evidence, nor is there any tradition which can be 

 trusted. Primeval man has kept no journal of his own 

 first religious emotions, any more than of his own first 

 appearance in the world. We are therefore thrown back 

 upon pure speculation — speculation indeed, which 

 may find in the present, and in a comparatively recent 

 past, some data lor arriving at conclusions, more or less 

 probable, on the conditions of a time which is out of 

 sight. But among the very first of these data, if it be 

 not indeed the one datum without which all others are 

 useless, is a clear conception of the element which is 

 common to all religions as they exist now, or as they can 

 be traced back beyond the dawn of history into the dim 

 twilight of tradition. Of this universal element in all 

 religions " the Infinite " is no definition at all. It is itself 

 much more vague and indefinite in meaning than the 

 word which it professes to explain. And this is all the 

 more needless, seeing that the common element in all 

 religions, such as we know them now, is one of the 

 greatest simplicity. It is the element of a belief in sup- 

 erhuman Beings — in Living Agencies, other and higher 

 than our own. 



It is astonishing how much the path of investigation 

 is cleared before us the moment we have arrived at this 

 definition of the belief which is fundamental to all re- 

 ligions. That belief is simply a belief in the existence 

 ot Beings of whom our own Being is the type, although 

 it need not be the measure or the form. By the very 

 terms of the definition the origin of this belief is and 

 must be in ourselves. That is to say, the disposition to 

 believe in the existence of such Beings arises out of the 

 felt unity of our own nature with the whole system of 

 things in which we live and of which we are a part. It 

 is the simplest and most natural of all conceptions that 

 the agency of which we are most conscious in ourselves 

 is like the Agency which works in the world around us. 

 Even supposing this conception to be groundless, and 

 that, as some now maintain, a more scientific investiga- 

 tion of natural agencies abolishes the conception of 

 design or purpose, or of personal Will being at all con- 

 cerned therein, — even supposing this, it is not the less 

 true that the transfer of conceptions founded on our own 

 consciousness of agency and of power within us to the 

 agencies and powers around us, is a natural, if it be not 

 indeed a necessary conception. That it is a natural con- 

 ception is proved by the fact that it has been, and still is 

 so widely prevalent ; as well as by the fact that what is 

 called the purely scientific conception of natural agencies 

 is a modern conception, and one which is confessedly of 

 difficult attainment. So difficult indeed is it to expel 

 from the mind the conception of personality in or behind 

 the agencies of Nature, that it may fairly be questioned 

 whether it has ever been effectually done. Verbal de- 

 vices for keeping the idea out of sight are indeed vety 

 common ; but even these are not very successful. I have 

 elsewhere pointed out 4 that those naturalists and phi- 

 losophers who are most opposed to all theological expla- 

 nations or conceptions of natural forces do, nevertheless, 

 habitually, in spite of themselves, have recourse to lan- 

 guage which derives its whole form as well as its whole 

 intelligibility, from those elements of meaning which re- 

 fer to the familiar operations of our own Mind and Will. 

 The very phrase " Natural Selection " is one which likens 

 the operations of Nature to the operations of a mind exer- 

 cising the power of choice. The whole meaning of the 

 phrase is to indicate how Nature attains certain ends 

 which are like "selection." And what "selection" is 

 we know, because it is an operation familiar to ourselves. 

 But the personal element of Will and of purpose lies 



4 " Reign of Law, " Chaps. I. and V. 



