the religious ideals of people and are symbols of what
they think they should be as religionists. They are symbolic,
emblematic, parabolic, allegoric devices of the imagination, and contain
nothing but the ideal, imaginary things which are put into them by
people for themselves, and they do nothing except what the people
perform through them in their names for themselves.

Matter and force constitute a machine, an automatic one, which produces
things, everything which enters into the constitution of the cosmos, by
evolutionary processes, or rather all such things, and there are no
others, are the result of one universal and eternal process of
evolution.

What is known as nature is the aggregation of the products of this
machine by this process. The machine is unconscious and its workings are
mechanical, yet some of its products rise into self-consciousness with
the power of self-determination, but both the consciousness and the
determination are limited. The infinite consciousness, personality and
determination which are postulated of gods are contradictions.

Of all beings man possesses most of consciousness, personality and
determination. What he has of these is not dependent upon gods, but all
they have of them is dependent upon him. Divine beings are, as to their
self-consciousness, personality and determination, human beings
personified and placed in the sky. Man does everything for gods. They do
nothing for him.

Such are the facts and arguments based upon them, which have forced me
step by step over the long way from the position of supernaturalistic
traditionalism in its Christian form, still occupied by you, to that of
naturalistic scientism in its socialist form which I am now occupying,
as tentatively as possible, pending further study in the light of
additional facts, for which (some six years ago, when I was desperately
battling to prevent the shipwreck of my faith in the god and heaven of
orthodox Christianity) I appealed to about 800 outstanding theologians,
among them yourself, representing all parts of christendom and every
great church, including of course all our bishops among the theologians,
and the Anglican communion among the churches.

You may remember how much of correspondence we had at that time, though
neither you nor any one who kindly tried to reach me with the rope of
the new scientific apologetics for which I appealed, can realize how
eagerly I looked for the replies to my questions,