* * * * *
I.
COSMIC THEISM.[37]
Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so much
speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy to have
clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has
himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no
attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those of its
implications which may be termed theological--as distinguished from
religious--Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last two or three years,
however, there has appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new
philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his master's teaching of
the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it into a definite system of what may
be termed scientific theology. And not only so, but he assures the world
that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the purest, and the
most ennobling form of religion that mankind has ever been privileged to
know in the past, or, from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to
know in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the most
fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary deductions from the
highest truths of Science; it is a system wherein no single doctrine
appeals for its acceptance to any principle of blind or credulous faith,
but wherein every doctrine can be fully justified by the searching light of
reason; it is a system wherein the noblest of our aspirations and the most
sublime of our emotions are able to find an object far more worthy and much
more glorious than has ever been supplied to them by any of the older forms
of Theism; and it is a system, therefore, in which, with a greatly enlarged
and intensified meaning, we may worship God, and all that is within us
bless His holy name.
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