Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/723

 whom they severally speak is of unknown nature, they conclude, from the mere absence of the idea of that Being in their individual consciousness, that its very existence is a dream.

Lastly, a few words, and a few only, must be said in reply to those who will think that the cenception of the Unknowable resulting from our analysis is too vague and shadowy to form the fitting foundation for religious feeling. They will probably object that the Being whom that feeling requires is not an inconceivable Cause or Substance of the Universe, but a Personal God; not an undefined something which we can barely imagine, but a definite Some one whom we can adore and love. There is nothing, they will say, in such a conception as this either to satisfy the affections or to impress the moral sentiments. And both purposes were fulfilled by the Christian ideal of a loving Father and a righteous Judge.

To these objections I would reply, first of all, that I have simply attempted to analyze religion as I found it, neither omitting what was of the essence of the religious idea, nor inserting what was not. If this analysis is in any respect defective, that is a matter for criticism and discussion. But if it has been correctly performed—of which I frankly admit there is abundant room for doubt—then I am not responsible for not finding in the universal elements of religion that which is not contained within them. The expression found for the ultimate truths must embrace within it, if possible, the crude notions of deity formed by the savage, and the highly abstract ideal formed by the most eminent thinkers of modern times. Even then, if I myself held the doctrines of the personality and the fatherhood of God, I could not have required from others any admission of these views of mine as universal ingredients in religious faith. The utmost I could have done would have been to tack them on as supplementary developments of the idea of the ultimate Being. And thus it is still open to any one who wishes it to do. Difficult as it is to reconcile the ideas of Love and Justice with unlimited Power and absolute Existence, yet if there are some who find it possible to accomplish the reconciliation, it may be well for them so to do. *