ly, without the anthropomorphic qualifications by which
its effect is commonly nullified. The time is surely coming when the
slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion will be marvelled at, and
when the very inadequacy of human language to express Divinity will be
regarded as a reason for a deeper faith and more solemn adoration."[41]

I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles of Cosmic Theism to
render a clear and just conception of those fundamental parts of the system
which I am about to criticise; but it is needless to say that, for all
minor details of this system, I must refer those who may not already have
perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays. In now beginning my
criticisms, it may be well to state at the outset, that they are to be
restricted to the philosophical aspect of the subject. With matters of
sentiment I do not intend to deal,--partly because to do so would be unduly
to extend this essay, and partly also because I believe that, so far as the
acceptance or the rejection of Cosmic Theism is to be determined by
sentiment, much, if not all, will depend on individual habits of thought.
For whether or not Cosmic Theism is to be regarded as a religion adapted to
the needs of any individual man, will depend on what these needs are felt
to be by that man himself: we cannot assert magisterially that this
religion must be adapted to his needs because we have found it to be
adapted to our own. And if it is retorted that, human nature being
everywhere the same, a form of religion that is adapted to one man must on
this account be adapted to another, I reply that it is not so. For if a man
who is what Mr. Fiske calls an "Anthropomorphic Theist" finds from
experience that his system of religion--say Christianity--creates and
sustains a class of emotions and general habits of thought which he feels
to be the highest and the best of which he is capable, it is useless for a
"Cosmic Theist" to offer such a man another system of religion, in which
the conditions essential to the existence of these particular emotions and
habits of thought are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel
that the proffered substitution would be tantamount, if accepted, to an
utter destruction of all that he regards as essentially religious. He will
tell us that he finds it perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate
those feelings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" which the
Cosmic Theist