214 
sufficient kind why you refuse to let another formulate it for 
you. You discover that you cannot satisfy yourself with a 
form of words that shall adequately embody your conception, — 
while you repudiate with all your soul the phrase which the 
Materialist kindly invents for you, that of a “ detached 
creator,” man-like in his procedure and effort. The charge of 
anthropomorphism is chiefly based upon the fact that religious 
people speak of God as a person, of which more anon. Mean- 
while, I desire to affirm that it is a mistake to suppose that the 
elements of personalitxj are inseparable from limitation, or 
compel us to make the Deity only an indefinite projection of 
man. The “Builder and Maker” — the Mover and Changer of 
the worlds and what they contain — is not such a creature as 
man ; and we are not driven to furnish Him with physical 
organs and limbs in order to do His work. Christians believe 
in God, and believe in Him as a personality, and in so doing 
we are to be ranked with neither Polytheists, nor Atheists, 
nor Pantheists, but are to be known as Christian Theists. 
This title has never failed to produce a correct impression 
on the minds of fair and sincere inquirers. The Bible and 
the whole literature of Theology explain it fully. We cannot 
say as much of the name Materialist. Materialism has not 
yet produced a text-book or compiled a library of reference 
for the use of men. For the first time, and at Belfast, 
we learn what a Present-day Materialist is. Of course, he is 
either a practical student or an enthusiastic worshipper of 
science ; but he is not merely an analyst, an experimenter, a 
questioner of nature, and a recorder of her transactions. He 
may be all these things, as Messrs. Huxley, Tyndall, and 
Darwin are; but he is more. He is (we are now told) a con- 
ceptive being, — an imaginative being. Some years ago, at 
Liverpool, Dr. Tyndall enforced this in his remarkably eloquent 
essay on “The Scientific Uses of Imagination.” Therefore he 
tells us that the Materialist is one “ who prolongs his vision 
backward across the boundary of experimental evidence, and 
discovers in that matter, which we in our ignorance, and not- 
withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have 
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of 
every form and quality of life.”* The first remark suggested 
to me by this description of the attitude, conduct, and discern- 
ment of a Materialist, is that it carries him from the region of 
fact to the region of speculation. The region of fact is safe 
and unassailable. The region of speculation is unsafe and 
* Note III., Appendix. 
