bound to suppose that in the divine
nature they exist in an infinitely higher degree, than the
corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short,
by a God I mean a beneficent supernatural spirit, the ruler of the
world or of some part of it, who resembles man in nature though he
excels him in knowledge, goodness, and power. This is, I think, the
sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a God, and I believe that
he is right in so doing. I am aware that it has been not unusual,
especially of late years, to apply the name of God to very
different conceptions, to empty it of all implications of
personality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large
and very vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever
these hard words may signify) the great First Cause, the Universal
Substance, the stream of tendency by which all things seek to
fulfil the law of their being, and so forth. Now, without
expressing opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the views
implied by such applications of the name of God, I cannot but
regard them as illegitimate extensions of the term, in short, an
abuse of language, and I venture to protest against it in the
interest, not only of verbal accuracy, but of clear thinking,
because it is apt to conceal from ourselves and others a real and
very important change of thought; in particular it may lead many to
imagine that the persons who use the name of God in one or other of
these extended senses retain theological opinions which they may in
fact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God may
resemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an
enemy imagine that a fort is still held long after it has been
abandoned by the garrison. (_The Belief in Immortality_; pp. 9-10.
Vol. I.).

This expression of opinion from an authoritative quarter is very much
needed. The fear of public opinion displayed by many "advanced" thinkers
is in this country one of the greatest obstacles to rapid advance. It is
simply deplorable to observe the trouble taken by some to coin new
names, or the illegitimate use made of old ones, for no other
discoverable reason than that of disguising from the world the fact that
the orthodox beliefs are no longer held. The need of to-day is not so
much liberal thought as strong and courageous thoug