does
not deny the existence of Abracadabra--both terms mean as much, or as
little. And it is more than absurd for people who have rejected theism
to continue using the word "god" as though it had a quite definite
meaning apart from the gods of the various theologies. We have Professor
Huxley admitting that "there is no evidence of the existence of the god
of the theologians," and we imagine that he would have met the
affirmation of their existence with a flat contradiction. At any rate he
would have been quite justified in doing so. But when he asserts, with a
show of logical precision, but in reality with great looseness, that "it
is preposterous to assert that there is no god because he cannot be such
as we think him to be," he is using language for which no precise
meaning can be found. To be intelligible, the sentence implies that we
have some conception answering to the terms used, and this, as we have
pointed out with almost wearisome insistence, is not the case. It is not
a case of saying to the theist, "I fully understand your hypothesis, but
as at present I do not see enough evidence to convince me of its truth
or to demonstrate its error I must suspend judgment." We do _not_
understand it. And when we seek to we discover that the terms of the
proposition we are asked to accept refuse to be brought together within
the compass of a single conception. Suspended judgment where the subject
under discussion is understandable is right and proper, but it is quite
out of place, and indeed cannot exist, where the proposition before us
is void of meaning. In such circumstances suspended judgment is absurd,
and it may be added that the affirmation or negation of such a
proposition is absurd likewise.

Only one other word need be said on this point. It may be urged that
educated believers mean by "God" not the anthropomorphic deity of the
theologies, but a personal intelligence controlling things. But this is
really not less anthropomorphic than the form in which the god idea
meets us in the popular theologies. Its anthropomorphism is only, to
unobservant minds, less apparent. The conception of an intelligent,
personal being controlling nature is not fundamentally less
objectionable than the frankly man-like being of the early theologies.
Intelligence, as we know it (and to talk of an intelligence that is
unlike the intelligence we know is absurd) is as much a characteristic
of human, or animal, organisation, as arms and