_a_--then the relation of the smaller to the greater will be
that of the sphere of immanence to the sphere of transcendence. The
two are not mutually separable, but the one has its being wholly within
the other.

Nevertheless it is quite true that there has been within recent years a
distinct shifting of the centre of gravity from the one doctrine to the
other, a growing disposition to regard the immanence of God as the
fundamental datum, the basis of the modern restatement of religious
belief. How will this conception help us to {16} such an end? The
answer to that question may be given in the words of Dr. Horton, who
says, "The intellectual background of our time is Agnosticism, and _the
reply which faith makes to Agnosticism is couched in terms of the
immanence of God_." [1] Dr. Horton's meaning will grow clearer to us
if we once more glance at our imaginary diagram, letting the smaller
figure _a_, the sphere of immanence, stand for our universe. If the
sphere of God's being lay altogether outside the universe, _i.e._,
outside the radius of our knowledge--if He, in other words, were merely
and altogether transcendent--He would also be merely and altogether
unknowable, exactly as Agnosticism avers. His transcendent attributes,
all that partakes of infinity, cannot--and that of necessity--become
objects of immediate knowledge to finite minds; if He is to be known at
all to us, He can only be so known by being manifested through His
presence within, or action upon, the finite and comprehensible sphere.
In other words, _it is primarily as He is revealed in and through the
finite world, that is to say as immanent, that God becomes knowable to
us_; all that is included under His transcendence is of the very
highest importance for us--religion would be utterly incomplete without
it--but it is an inference we make from His immanence. It is, to give
an obvious illustration, only to a transcendent God that we can offer
prayer--God {17} over all whom the soul needs, to enter into relations
withal; but it is also true that we gain the assurance of His
transcendence through His immanence, and that

The God without he findeth not,
Who finds Him not within.

In a word, the Divine immanence is not the goal of our quest of God,
but it is the indispensable starting-point.

A simple reflection will serve to place this beyond doubt. Against the
old-fashioned Deism which continued to bear sway till far into the last