Ill 
exist whether those conceptions be adequate or inadequate ; and 
therefore it is an utter absurdity to speak as though their exist- 
ence were in the slightest degree affected by the possibility or 
impossibility of our forming satisfactory conceptions of them. 
22. Thus, then, as we are compelled to impale ourselves 
upon one horn or the other of Mr. Spencer’s dilemma, we 
unhesitatingly choose the latter. Satisfactory abstract con- 
ceptions of anything in heaven and earth we cannot form ; 
they land us in inextricable contradictions. But “ likenesses 
and differences among the manifestations of the Unknowable ” 
(would it not be more correct to say Undefinable ?) “ Power ” 
we “ can know.” In other words, we can form conclusions 
on which to base our conduct from what we see around us. 
That is what our reason was given us for. And though we 
cannot see God, though He transcends our utmost powers, yet 
we contend that He has given us quite sufficient manifesta- 
tions of His existence for us to be able to know that He is, 
and within certain limits what He is. Mr. Spencer confesses as 
much, when he speaks of the “ manifestations” of the “un- 
knowable Power.” It may be contended that we have here 
admitted the proposition, that the ideas we form of God are 
“ regulatively true, but speculatively false.” I do not admit 
the charge. It is quite a different thing to say, as I have in 
effect done, that our ideas of God are regulatively true, but 
speculatively insufficient. In saying this, I only say what 
Dean Mansel and Mr. Spencer have proved to be true con- 
cerning every object of thought whatsoever. And I have 
already, I trust, shown that the truth or falsehood of our beliefs 
is in no way affected by the possibility or impossibility of 
making them intelligible in an abstract form. 
23. II. I proceed briefly to sketch out some of the grounds 
that exist for a belief in God : belief, that is, in a Living 
Power which governs this world, a source of the life which 
abounds in it, a giver of the happiness which, in the gloomiest 
view we take of existence, must be held to surpass the misery 
and pain which is to be found in it. And our method will be 
strictly scientific ; that is to say, we shall proceed from 
observed facts. We shall not, like Aristotle in physical and 
Mr. Spencer in spiritual science, lay down abstract principles 
which are fatal to the progress of thought. We shall simply 
note phenomena, and draw conclusions from those phenomena. 
24. And first, we have high authority — Mr. Spencer’s own — 
for believing that there exist “ manifestations ” of that Power 
of which we have spoken. Prom these “manifestations” it 
can hardly be unreasonable, nay, rather it would appear to be 
a necessary process for the inquiring spirit of humanity, to 
