as_.

Whether or not Christ was Himself divine would make no difference so far
as the consideration of Christianity as the highest phase of evolution
is concerned, or from the purely secular [scientific] point of view.
From the religious point of view, or that touching the relation of God
to man, it would of course make a great difference; but the difference
belongs to the same region of thought as that which applies to all the
previous moments of evolution. Thus the passage from the non-moral to
the moral appears, from the secular or scientific point of view, to be
due, as far as we can see, to mechanical causes in natural selection or
what not. But, just as in the case of the passage from the non-mental to
the mental, &c., this passage may have been _ultimately_ due to divine
volition, and _must have been so due_ on the theory of Theism.
Therefore, I say, it makes no difference from a secular or scientific
point of view whether or not Christ was Himself divine; since, in either
case, the movement which He inaugurated was the proximate or phenomenal
cause of the observable results.

Thus, even the question of the divinity of Christ ultimately resolves
itself into the question of all questions--viz. is or is not mechanical
causation 'the outward and visible form of an inward and spiritual
grace'? Is it phenomenal or ontological; ultimate or derivative?

Similarly as regards the redemption. Whether or not Christ was really
divine, in as far as a belief in His divinity has been a necessary cause
of the moral and religious evolution which has resulted from His life on
earth, it has equally and so far 'saved His people from their sins';
that is, of course, it has saved them from their own sense of sin as an
abiding curse. Whether or not He has effected any corresponding change
of an objective character in the ontological sphere, again depends on
the 'question of questions' just stated.

_Reasonableness of the Doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity._

Pure agnostics and those who search for God in Christianity should have
nothing to do with metaphysical theology. _That_ is a department of
enquiry which, _ex hypothesi_, is transcendental, and is only to be
considered after Christianity has been accepted. The doctrines of the
Incarnation and the Trinity seemed to me most absurd in my agnostic
days. But now, as a _pure_ agnostic, I see in them no rational
difficulty at all. As to the Trinity, the plurality of person