384 What is Religion * [July, 
The treatment of this momentous subjedt in a purely 
“ historical spirit ” leads us directly to the origin and source 
of man’s belief in a power beyond the transitory phenomena 
which surround him, leading him, by the aspirations of his 
own religious consciousness, to the yearning and desire for 
a something beyond and above his sense of finiteness, on 
which he can rely and trust in firm assurance that the bond 
can never be broken which connects him with his origin. 
Earth to Earth, Spirit to God. As “Geology is the method- 
ical knowledge of the Earth’s crust, Physiology of living 
organisms, Psychology of the self-conscious mind, Ethnology 
of the races of mankind,” so “ the science of Religion ” 
teaches the rational apprehension of a creating God. 
In Theologies we have overladen subtleties which over- 
reach themselves, and are perversions of truth. Every 
system of Theology presents the miraculous, and the evi- 
dences of thaumaturgy are analogous. The great difficulty 
is that the marvellous always developes into the incredible. 
The commencement of all creeds is simplicity ; the type 
becomes lowered, and eventually it as a Theology enters 
into the arena of verbal conflicts. 
In the religious sentiment, implanted in the minds of all 
however it may be stifled or silenced, we have a diredt and 
positive pleader, which, ignoring all superstitions, leads us 
into the immediate presence of the living Entity, unfathom- 
able to the finite conception, but a living evidence and con- 
scious witness in primitive thought which daringly launches 
“ out on to the ocean of real being.” We have “ an intel- 
lectual and moral region in our natures,” “ two co-ordinate 
sources,” the former bringing us to a transcendent cause, 
the latter to a transcendent righteousness ; together finding 
their unity in an Eternal will, and thus “ the final objedt of 
Reason and the final home of the Conscience are the 
same.” 
The monistic theorisers lay great stress on Nature as the 
all of phenomenal results, ignoring its grand synthesis ma- 
nifested as a produdt of intelligence, relegating to matter its 
office and power. Nature with the Monist is but a mani- 
festation of matter. Are we to suppose that in an universal 
conflagration (fire mist) chemical agencies were induced, 
which sifted, separated, and amalgamated the different stuffs 
recognised as matter, and the other agencies we know as 
forces : look at it as we may we find but impotence, and, 
like Lucretius, must seek for a lever to stir the inert mass 
into living substances. 
What is Nature ? Is it to be limited to the ordination of 
