Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/135

98 Reality, into which finite beings are absorbed; nor of a Universal Substance, in whose law our ethical independence is lost; nor of an Ineffable Mystery, which we can only silently adore.” But we do not escape Pantheism, and attain to Theism, by the easy course of excluding the Unconscious, or the sole Substance, or an inscrutable Mystery, from the seat of the Absolute. We must go farther, and attain to the distinct reality, the full otherhood, of the creation; so that there shall be no confusion of the creature with the Creator, nor any interfusion of the Creator with the creature. Above all, we must attain to the moral reality of the creature, which means his self-determining freedom not merely with reference to the world of sense, but also with reference to the Creator, and must therefore include his imperishable existence. The conception set forth to-night is certainly not that of an Unconscious; it is certainly not that of a mere Substance, to which our independence is subjected by sheer physical law; and it is certainly not a Mystery, in the sense of having a nature made up of traits wholly strange to our human cognition. For its essence is intelligence, and that omniscient; and hence its activity is not by transmission in space; and, finally, consciousness — or, as Professor Royce apparently would prefer to say, experience — is the very thing we are most experienced in, and so best acquainted with. But if the Infinite Self includes us all, and all our experiences, — sensations and sins, as well as the rest, — in the unity of one life, and includes us and them directly; if there is but one and the same final Self for us each and all; then, with