of our seeking Him.

This famous argument from the supposed unanimity of mankind's belief in
God, the argument which with a sure instinct was seized upon by the
ancients, is in its essence identical with the so-called moral proof
which Kant employed in his _Critique of Practical Reason_, transposing
its application from mankind collectively to the individual, the proof
which he derives from our conscience, or rather from our feeling of
divinity. It is not a proof strictly or specifically rational, but
vital; it cannot be applied to the logical God, the _ens summum_, the
essentially simple and abstract Being, the immobile and impassible prime
mover, the God-Reason, in a word, but to the biotic God, to the Being
essentially complex and concrete, to the suffering God who suffers and
desires in us and with us, to the Father of Christ who is only to be
approached through Man, through His Son (John xiv. 6), and whose
revelation is historical, or if you like, anecdotical, but not
philosophical or categorical.

The unanimous consent of mankind (let us suppose the unanimity) or, in
other words, this universal longing of all human souls who have arrived
at the consciousness of their humanity, which desires to be the end and
meaning of the Universe, this longing, which is nothing but that very
essence of the soul which consists in its effort to persist eternally
and without a break in the continuity of consciousness, leads us to the
human, anthropomorphic God, the projection of our consciousness to the
Consciousness of the Universe; it leads us to the God who confers human
meaning and finality upon the Universe and who is not the _ens summum_,
the _primum movens_, nor the Creator of the Universe, nor merely the
Idea-God. It leads us to the living, subjective God, for He is simply
subjectivity objectified or personality universalized--He is more than a
mere idea, and He is will rather than reason. God is Love--that is,
Will. Reason, the Word, derives from Him, but He, the Father, is, above
all, Will.

"There can be no doubt whatever," Ritschl says (_Rechtfertigung und
Versoehnung_, iii., chap. v.), "that a very imperfect view was taken of
God's spiritual personality in the older theology, when the functions of
knowing and willing alone were employed to illustrate it. Religious
thought plainly ascribes to God affections of feeling as well. The older
theology, however, laboured under the impression that feeling and
emotion were ch