oreover, the necessary results of the reaction of irresponsible
wealth upon that infirm and dangerous thing the human will, the
spreading moral rot of gambling which is associated with irresponsible
wealth, will have been working out, and will continue to work out, so
long as there is such a thing as irresponsible wealth pervading the
social body. That too the New Republic must in its very development
overcome. In the preceding chapter it is clearly implicit that I believe
that the New Republic, as its consciousness and influence develop
together, will meet, check, and control these things; but the broad
principles upon which the control will go, the nature of the methods
employed, still remain to be deduced. And to make that deduction, it is
necessary that the primary conception of life, the fundamental,
religious, and moral ideas of these predominant men of the new time
should first be considered.

Now, quite inevitably, these men will be religious men. Being
themselves, as by the nature of the forces that have selected them they
will certainly be, men of will and purpose, they will be disposed to
find, and consequently they will find, an effect of purpose in the
totality of things. Either one must believe the Universe to be one and
systematic, and held together by some omnipresent quality, or one must
believe it to be a casual aggregation, an incoherent accumulation with
no unity whatsoever outside the unity of the personality regarding it.
All science and most modern religious systems presuppose the former, and
to believe the former is, to any one not too anxious to quibble, to
believe in God. But I believe that these prevailing men of the future,
like many of the saner men of to-day, having so formulated their
fundamental belief, will presume to no knowledge whatever, will presume
to no possibility of knowledge of the real being of God. They will have
no positive definition of God at all. They will certainly not indulge in
"that something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness" (not
defined) or any defective claptrap of that sort. They will content
themselves with denying the self-contradictory absurdities of an
obstinately anthropomorphic theology,[50] they will regard the whole of
being, within themselves and without, as the sufficient revelation of
God to their souls, and they will set themselves simply to that
revelation, seeking its meaning towards themselves faithfully and
courageously. Manifestly the e