xists in all around me; that the universe is eternal, or at
least eternal so far as our faculties are concerned, since we cannot,
as some one has quaintly put it, 'get to the outside of everywhere';
that a Deity cannot be conceived of as apart from the universe; that
the Worker and the Work are inextricably interwoven, and in some sense
eternally and indissolubly combined. Having got so far, we will
proceed to examine into the possibility of proving the existence of
that one essence popularly called by the name of _God_, under the
conditions strictly defined by the orthodox. Having demonstrated, as I
hope to do, that the orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and absurd,
we will endeavour to ascertain whether _any_ idea of God, worthy to be
called an idea, is attainable in the present state of our faculties."
"The Deity must of necessity be that one and only substance out of
which all things are evolved, under the uncreated conditions and
eternal laws of the universe; He must be, as Theodore Parker somewhat
oddly puts it, 'the materiality of matter as well as the spirituality
of spirit'--_i.e._, these must both be products of this one substance;
a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter are
seen to be but different modes of one essence. Thus we identify
substance with the all-comprehending and vivifying force of nature,
and in so doing we simply reduce to a physical impossibility the
existence of the Being described by the orthodox as a God possessing
the attributes of personality. The Deity becomes identified with
nature, co-extensive with the universe, but the _God_ of the orthodox
no longer exists; we may change the signification of God, and use the
word to express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by it a
Personal Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an individuality
which divides Him from the rest of the universe."[3]

Proceeding to search whether _any_ idea of God was attainable, I came
to the conclusion that evidence of the existence of a conscious Power
was lacking, and that the ordinary proofs offered were inconclusive;
that we could grasp phenomena and no more. "There appears, also, to
be a possibility of a mind in nature, though we have seen that
intelligence is, strictly speaking, impossible. There cannot be
perception, memory, comparison, or judgment, but may there not be a
perfect mind, unchanging, calm, and still? Our faculties fail us when
we try to estimate the Deity, and