240 THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DISCOVERY ON THOUGHT. 



God had previously made ; "* thus leaving the way clear for us 

 to he in a sense Christian Agnostics as to alleged Divine 

 interposition, though with religion and religious feelings within 

 us to he neither atheists nor materialists, hut with a nohle 

 consciousness and lofty conceptions of the Great and Universal 

 Spirit of spirits pervading all things, the eternal principle of the 

 universe which we are apt to call the universal laws of nature. 

 At the same time we must not take too much of what we may 

 call the " modern thought " of mankind. Our religion may be 

 positive : it may have its creed, churches, chapels, priests, 

 teachers, rites and ceremonies, morality, aspirations, and 

 consolations, institutions which bring men together to join in 

 services which will take them out of their worldly ideas and 

 show them the spiritual side of their nature, and teach them to 

 form some definite (though Aery imperfect) conception of the 

 spiritual, some idea of the great Incomprehensible, much to their 

 own benefit and that of succeeding generations. 



A short discussion followed, in which Professor ORCHARD and 

 Mr. Eouse took part, and the meeting separated after a vote of 

 thanks to the author had been passed. 



* The Relations between Religion and Science, Lecture iv, p. 115 (1885). 



