nquestionably, then, on the mere ground taken by Mr. Herbert Spencer
himself, if we are compelled to think of the First Cause either in human
terms (but with human imperfections abstracted and human perfections
carried to the highest conceivable degree), or, on the other hand, in terms
decidedly inferior, such as those are driven to who think of Him, but
decline to accept as a help the term "personality;" there can be no
question but that the first conception is immeasurably nearer the truth
than the second. Yet the latter is the one put forward and advocated by
that author in spite of its unreasonableness, and in spite also of its{251}
conflicting with the whole moral nature of man and all his noblest
aspirations.

Again, Mr. Herbert Spencer objects to the conception of God as "first
cause," on the ground that "when our symbolic conceptions are such that no
cumulative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascertain that
there are corresponding actualities, nor any predictions be made whose
fulfilment can prove this, then they are altogether vicious and illusive,
and in no way distinguishable from pure fictions."[256]

Now, it is quite true that "symbolic conceptions," which are not to be
justified either (1) by presentations of sense, or (2) by intuitions, are
invalid as representations of real truth. Yet the conception of God
referred to _is_ justified by our primary intuitions, and we can assure
ourselves that it _does_ stand for an actuality by comparing it with (1)
our intuitions of free-will and causation, and (2) our intuitions of
morality and responsibility. That we _have_ these intuitions is a point on
which the Author joins issue with Mr. Spencer, and confidently affirms that
they cannot logically be denied without at the same time complete and
absolute scepticism resulting from such denial--scepticism wherein vanishes
any certainty as to the existence both of Mr. Spencer and his critic, and
by which it is equally impossible to have a thought free from doubt, or to
go so far as to affirm the existence of that very doubt or of the doubter
who doubts it.

It may not be amiss here to protest against the intolerable assumption of a
certain school, who are continually talking in lofty terms of "science,"
but who actually speak of primary religious conceptions as "unscientific,"
and habitually employ the word "science," when they should limit it by the
prefix "physical." This is the more amazing as not