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14. Now, what we have to ask is, on what ground does 
Mr. Spencer mark off what he calls “ religious ” ideas, and 
those alone, as belonging entirely to the sphere of the Un- 
knowable ? What reasons does he give (so far as we can see, 
he has given none) for the exclusion of the subjects which are 
known as te religious” from this “ segregation into subject and 
object ” ? What authority is there, beyond the “ unproved 
sayings” of so great a man, for the doctrine that religious 
truths cannot be included in the list of “ knowable likenesses 
and differences among the manifestations of the Unknowable 
Power 33 ? We cannot conceive metaphysically of space, or of 
time, or of matter, or of motion, or of self. That is to say, 
we cannot satisfactorily define them on metaphysical prin- 
ciples. And yet they exist. We know it. The ground of this 
knowledge is what we call, whether we can define it exactly 
or not, our consciousness. Why, then, should not God exist, 
although we cannot define satisfactorily the mode of His 
existence according to the laws of metaphysics? Why should 
not the universal consciousness of His existence be held to prove 
it, in spite of all metaphysical difficulty, as it is held to prove 
all other things ? Why should we not regard the spiritual 
communion between the soul and God as a consequence of the 
iC knowable likenesses and differences among the manifesta- 
tions of the Unknowable Power 33 ? For our contention with 
men of Mr. Herbert Spencer's school is not that we profess 
to know all about God, but that we claim to be able to know 
something about Him. All creation is involved in a robe of 
mystery. The origin of things, the forces of the universe, 
the phenomena of nature, the secret of existence, — all, as we 
have seen, are in some respects outside the sphere of our appre- 
hension. Even in our own being, we recognise the presence 
of truths beyond our power to penetrate. And yet we venture 
humbly and reverently to believe that God has permitted us 
to know something about ourselves and the phenomena we 
perceive around us. Where is the absurdity of supposing that, 
pari ratione 3 we may know something of Him ? 
15. It is in the attempt to form abstract conceptions of 
God that philosophy has failed. We shall see presently that 
Christianity has not failed, just because she has avoided that 
pitfall. The attempt to form a Christian philosophy on the 
basis of abstract conceptions of the Divine nature has always, 
like Dean Mansel's, involved the person who attempted it, 
either in a hopeless tangle of perplexities, or in a direct 
contradiction of the first principles of Christianity. A brief 
glance at the various theories of God, from Plato downwards, 
will serve to convince us of the tri^th of tjiis statement. 
