the
supreme reality, so I will call this higher part of the universe by the
name of God.[361] We and God have business with each other; and in
opening ourselves to his influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
The universe, at those parts of it which our personal being
constitutes, takes a turn genuinely for the worse or for the better in
proportion as each one of us fulfills or evades God's demands. As far
as this goes I probably have you with me, for I only translate into
schematic language what I may call the instinctive belief of mankind:
God is real since he produces real effects.

[361] Transcendentalists are fond of the term "Over-soul," but as a
rule they use it in an intellectualist sense, as meaning only a medium
of communion. "God" is a causal agent as well as a medium of
communion, and that is the aspect which I wish to emphasize.

The real effects in question, so far as I have as yet admitted them,
are exerted on the personal centres of energy of the various subjects,
but the spontaneous faith of most of the subjects is that they embrace
a wider sphere than this. Most religious men believe (or "know," if
they be mystical) that not only they themselves, but the whole universe
of beings to whom the God is present, are secure in his parental hands.
There is a sense, a dimension, they are sure, in which we are ALL
saved, in spite of the gates of hell and all adverse terrestrial
appearances. God's existence is the guarantee of an ideal order that
shall be permanently preserved. This world may indeed, as science
assures us, some day burn up or freeze; but if it is part of his order,
the old ideals are sure to be brought elsewhere to fruition, so that
where God is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck
and dissolution are not the absolutely final things. Only when this
farther step of faith concerning God is taken, and remote objective
consequences are predicted, does religion, as it seems to me, get
wholly free from the first immediate subjective experience, and bring a
REAL HYPOTHESIS into play. A good hypothesis in science must have
other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked
to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough. God, meaning only
what enters into the religious man's experience of union, falls short
of being an hypothesis of this more useful order. He needs to enter
into wider cosmic relations in order to justify the subject's absolute
c