Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/173

 to lead to trivialities and to direct attention to small details. It may satisfy those who wish for edification, and the heart may be impressed by looking at things in this fashion. It is another thing, however, if we have to get to know God by this means, and if we mean to speak of absolute wisdom. A bronto-theology, a testacean-theology, &c., have been discovered in this way. The content, the active working of God, are here simply such finite ends as may be shown to be present in existence generally. Absolutely higher ends would be found in morality, in freedom; moral good would have to be an end for itself in order that an absolute end of such a nature might also be attained in the world. But here we are in the region of actions in accordance with ends in general, while it is finite, limited ends which present themselves in observation. The Power which works in accordance with ends is merely the life-force, and is not yet Spirit, the personality of God. When it is said that the Good is the end, then it may be asked, What is good? If it is further said that happiness comes to men in proportion to their moral worth, that the end is that the good man should be happy and the bad man unhappy, then, as a matter of fact, we see in the world what forms a most cruel contrast to this, and we find just as many incitements to morality as there are sources of temptation. In short, perception and observation, considered in this aspect, do indeed give us conformity to an end, but in an equal degree do they give what is not in conformity to an end, and in the long-run it comes to be a matter of calculating which of the two elements predominates. It is, accordingly, some such finite end, speaking generally, which constitutes the content of the idea of the wisdom of God.

The defect of the proof consists in this, that the idea of conformity to an end or of wisdom is defined in a general way merely, and for this reason attention is directed to those observations and to the knowledge