280 
the unconscious infinite, may be useful as materials for future 
life : but the hope and the destiny of the individual is eternal 
silence. To this, the only alleviation which this philosophy 
affords,’ is the consideration that while our conscious selves 
have utterly perished, the cosmos will go on evolving fresh 
forms of life and beauty throughout eternity, and will crush 
them again beneath the iron wheels of its chariot. No 
feeling of responsibility for the past need disturb us. Our 
destiny is non- entity. , , 
42. Such is the general sum total — the net result which this 
philosophy propounds to us in lieu of Theism. A few quotations 
from it will place its principles in a striking light. 
43. “ The argument of the old religion was, that as the 
reasonable and the good in mankind proceed from conscious- 
ness and will, that, therefore, which on a large scale corresponds 
to this in the world must likewise proceed from an Author 
endowed with intelligent volition. We have given up this mode 
of inference. We no longer regard the Cosmos as the work of 
a reasonable and good Creator, but rather as the laboratory 
of the reasonable and good. We consider it not as planned by 
the highest reason, but planned for the highest reason. The 
Cosmos is simultaneously both cause and effect, the outward 
and the inward together.” Again, “We stand here at the 
limits of our knowledge. We gaze into the abyss, we can 
fathom no further. But this, at least, is certain, that the 
personal image which meets our gaze there is but the reflection 
of the wondering spectator himself. If we always bear this in 
mind, there would be as little objection to the expression f God 
as to that of the rising and setting of the sun, when we are all 
the time conscious of the actual circumstances.” After these 
and numerous similar assertions, the following utterance is 
remarkable: “At any rate, that in which we feel ourselves 
entirely dependent is by no means merely a rude power, to 
which we bow in mute resignation ; but is at the same time 
both order and law, reason and goodness, to which we surrender 
ourselves in loving trust. More than this, as we perceive m 
ourselves the same disposition to the reasonable and the good, 
which we recognize in the Cosmos ; and find ourselves to be 
beings by whom it is felt and recognized, in whom it is to 
become personified ; we also feel ourselves related in our inmost 
nature to that on which we are dependent ; we discover ourselves 
at the same time to be free in that dependence, and piide and 
humility, joy and submission intermingle in the feeling for the 
Cosmos.” . . . c 
44. Such is the substitute which this philosophy provides for 
