IN THE CREATION STORY OP GKNESIS. 



7] 



ill that higher monism involved in the monotheistic conception 

 of " creation " revealed on the first page of the Bible. 



With Herbert Spencer and his school we admit frankly that 

 there is a limit to " the knowahle'' so far as haman knowledge 

 can be advanced by the human intellect alone ; but we part 

 company with him and his school, when they in their arrogance 

 declare all else to be unknowable. The "pure agnosticism" | 

 of George llomanes* does not frighten us, tliough we resent / 

 that agnostic dogmatism, which is so much the fashion in these 

 days of shallowness — the shallowness of a newspaper-educated 

 public. There is still a place, we maintain, for a reasoned faith, 

 which recognises behind all phenomena and all manifestations 

 of energy (in the whole range of " the knowable ") beneficent 

 Mind and Will (corresponding in hind to the tUtimate facts 

 of onr own consciousness), which can choose its own way of 

 making itself known in a measure to its spiritual offspring 

 through the spiritual intuitions of the human mind. Without 

 any conflict, therefore, with physical science we can claim a 

 place in the highest philosophy for " Eevelation," which all 

 centres in the Incarnate Word. 



" The acknowledgment of God in Christ, 

 Accepted by the reason, solves for thee 

 All questions on the earth and out of it, 

 And has so far advanced thee to be Avise." — Browning. 



Tennyson {In Memoriam) describes knoioledge as — 



" Half grown as yet, a child, and vain " : 



and reminds us that — 



" She is earthly, of the mind, 

 But wisdom heavenly, of the soul.'' 



In the deep consciousness of the " Ego," we say with him — 



" I think we are not wholly brain. 

 Magnetic mockeries " ; 



and can join in his prayer — 



" Let knowledge grow from more to more, 

 And more of reverence in us dwell." 



Man is in fact something more than a mere thinking machine. 



In the geological outlook the present author's position is 

 sabstantially that which he took in his graduation thesis in 1888, 



* See his Thoughts on Religion (Longmans, 1904). 



