sentences. In another place he observes,[249]
"Passing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to
that of conceivability, we see that atheism, pantheism, and theism, when
rigorously analysed, severally prove to be absolutely unthinkable;" and
speaking of "every form of religion," he adds,[250] "The analysis of every
possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no hypothesis is sufficient but
that no hypothesis is even thinkable." The unknowable is admitted to be a
power which cannot be regarded as having sympathy with us, but as one to
which no emotion whatever can be ascribed, and we are expressly {247}
forbidden "by _duty_," to affirm personality of God as much as to deny it
of Him. How such a being can be presented as an object on which to exercise
religious emotion it is difficult indeed to understand.[251] Aspiration,
love, devotion to be poured forth upon what we can never know, upon what we
can never affirm to know, or care for, us, our thoughts or actions, or to
possess the attributes of wisdom and goodness! The worship offered in such
a religion must be, as Professor Huxley says,[252] "for the most part of
the silent sort"--silent not only as to the spoken word, but silent as to
the mental conception also. It will be difficult to distinguish the
follower of this religion from the follower of none, and the man who
declines either to assert or to deny the existence of God, is practically
in the position of an atheist. For theism enjoins the cultivation of
sentiments of love and devotion to God, and the practice of their external
expression. Atheism forbids both, while the simply non-theist abstains in
conformity with the prohibition of the atheist and thus practically sides
with him. Moreover, since man cannot imagine that of which he has no
experience in any way whatever, and since he has experience only of _human_
perfections and of the powers and properties of _inferior_ existences; if
he be required to deny human perfections and to abstain from making use of
such conceptions, he is thereby necessarily reduced to others of an
inferior order. Mr. H. Spencer says,[253] "Those who espouse this {248}
alternative position, make the erroneous assumption that the choice is
between personality and something lower than personality; whereas the
choice is rather between personality and something higher. Is it not just
possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence
an