The Metaphysics of a Naturalist 
81 
may see visions and not be converted or be converted and not 
indulge in violent emotional contortions. Some, like the child 
who was exhorted to seek Jesus, may truthfully say, never lost 
him. 
But our definition is not that exactly of theology. It would be 
sufficient to reply that theology is not now our topic, yet every 
man is religious and religion certainly ought to assist in right liv- 
ing which is also the object of ethics. We go back to our ques- 
tion. Is there any help other than a reluctant resignation to 
sin and to be sorry on the little plane of our individual endeavor? 
It is riot in the nature of the human soul to be content with a 
part where every part logically suggests a whole. The social 
soul recognizes the existence of a vast all-inclusive unit, the 
ideal whole of which it is a part. If every other being has claims 
upon me, then my entire, perfect allegiance is due to this absolute 
whole. We may conceive it as design, or will, or intellect, or we 
may clothe it with all of our own attributes carried up toward 
infinity as far as our imaginations can go. Every man, be he 
pantheist or deist, has his god. We may, with Margaret Fuller, 
call it ^The universe.’’ What do you suppose her ^ffiniverse” 
looked like? 
As students of psychological ethics this Absolute assumes the 
form of the greatest self — that perfection of attribute and fulness 
of action that means the fulfilment of all tendencies and the 
completion of all evolution. The fitness of self to form a part 
in that highest union becomes the criterion of every act. The 
failure to realize or approach the ideal causes sharpest pain. 
Without this view of perfection progress would be impossible. 
The pull is from above. In terms of Christian theology, no man 
can come to the Son (the perfect exemplification of human per- 
fection) unless the Father draw him.^^ 
The term “pull from above’’ may require explanation. It may be objected 
that, when the largest possible self has been attained, it is composite, a mass of efforts 
of the individual. Are not our highest aspirations reflected as from a heaven of 
brass above us? Did any one ever prove to the satisfaction of the skeptic that 
prayer was ever objectively answered? The objection must be accepted for what it 
is worth. 
When the indivdual sets up for himself an independent self-existence, the only 
proof he has of its validity grows out of the impossibility of thinking more than one 
universe. If our minds were not part and parcel of other activities and bound up 
with all other activities in one organism, then there would be no compulsion to accept 
