ifted
up and brought towards its true destiny. Feeling demands these symbols, the
heart craves for them. The bare enunciation of principles is not enough;
they must be clothed upon by sentiment and affection. The Christian symbols
answer to this need, they most fitly express this craving of the soul for a
higher and purer life. The spontaneous, creative life of humanity has
developed them as a fit mode of voicing its great spiritual cravings, and
only the same creative genius can replace them. The inquiring intellect
cannot furnish substitutes for them; rationalism utterly fails in all its
attempts to satisfy the spiritual nature.

Such is George Eliot's religion. It is the "Religion of Humanity" as
interpreted by a woman, a poet and a genius. It differs from Comte's as the
work of a poet differs from that of a philosopher, as that of a woman
differs from that of a man. His _positive religion_ gives the impression of
being invented; it is artificial, unreal. Hers is, at least, living and
beautiful and impressive; it is warm, tender and full of compassion, He
invents a new symbolism, a new hierarchy, and a new worship; that is, he
remodels Catholicism to fit the Religion of Humanity. She is too sensible,
too wise, or rather too poetic and sympathetic, to undertake such a
transformation, or to be satisfied with it when accomplished by another.
She gives a new poetic and spiritual meaning to the old faith and worship;
and in doing this makes no break with tradition, rejects nothing of the old
symbolism.

It was her conviction that nothing of the real meaning and power of
religion escaped by the transformation she made in its spiritual contents.
She believed that she had dropped only its speculative teachings, while all
that had ever made it of value was retained. That she was entirely mistaken
in this opinion scarcely needs to be said; or that her speculative
interpretation, if generally accepted, would destroy for most persons even
those elements of religion which she accepted. A large rich mind, gifted
with genius and possessed of wide culture, as was hers, could doubtless
find satisfaction in that attenuated substitute for piety and worship which
she accepted. There certainly could be no Mr. Tryan, no Dinah Morris, no
Savonarola, no Mordecai, if her theories were the common ones; and it would
be even less possible for a Dorothea, a Felix Holt, a Daniel Deronda, or a
Romola to develop in such an atmosphere. What her inte