man is one with man in God,' must also be necessarily a religion of
vitality, of progress, of advancement. The contrast between it and Islam
is that of movement with fixedness, of participation with sterility, of
development with barrenness, of life with petrifaction. The first vital
principle and the animating spirit of its birth must, indeed, abide ever
the same, but the outer form must change with the changing days, and new
offshoots of fresh sap and greenness be continually thrown out as
witnesses to the vitality within; else were the vine withered and the
branches dead. I have no intention here--it would be extremely out of
place--of entering on the maze of controversy, or discussing whether any
dogmatic attempt to reproduce the religious phase of a former age is
likely to succeed. I only say that life supposes movement and growth, and
both imply change; that to censure a living thing for growing and changing
is absurd; and that to attempt to hinder it from so doing by pinning it
down on a written label, or nailing it to a Procrustean framework, is
tantamount to killing it altogether. Now Christianity is living, and,
because living, must grow, must advance, must change, and was meant to do
so: onwards and forwards is a condition of its very existence; and I
cannot but think that those who do not recognize this show themselves so
far ignorant of its true nature and essence. On the other hand, Islam is
lifeless, and, because lifeless, cannot grow, cannot advance, cannot
change, and was never intended so to do; stand-still is its motto and its
most essential condition; and therefore the son of Abd-el-Wahhab, in
doing his best to bring it back to its primal simplicity, and making its
goal of its starting-point, was so far in the right, and showed himself
well acquainted with the nature and first principles of his religion."

Sec. 7. Mohammedanism a Relapse; the worst Form of Monotheism, and a
retarding Element in Civilization.

According to this view, which is no doubt correct, the monotheism of
Mohammed is that which makes of God pure will; that is, which exaggerates
personality (since personality is in will), making the Divine One an
Infinite Free Will, or an Infinite I. But will divorced from reason and
love is wilfulness, or a purely arbitrary will.

Now the monotheism of the Jews differed from this, in that it combined
with the idea of will the idea of justice. God not only does what he
chooses, but he cho