without any rigid examination of its meaning,
as if the general idea of 'force' in our minds furnished an explanation
of the infinite variety of forces which exist in the universe. A similar
ambiguity occurs in the use of the favourite word 'law,' which is
sometimes regarded as a mere abstraction, and then elevated into a real
power or entity, almost taking the place of God. Theology, again, is
full of undefined terms which have distracted the human mind for ages.
Mankind have reasoned from them, but not to them; they have drawn out
the conclusions without proving the premises; they have asserted the
premises without examining the terms. The passions of religious parties
have been roused to the utmost about words of which they could have
given no explanation, and which had really no distinct meaning. One sort
of them, faith, grace, justification, have been the symbols of one
class of disputes; as the words substance, nature, person, of another,
revelation, inspiration, and the like, of a third. All of them have been
the subject of endless reasonings and inferences; but a spell has hung
over the minds of theologians or philosophers which has prevented them
from examining the words themselves. Either the effort to rise above
and beyond their own first ideas was too great for them, or there might,
perhaps, have seemed to be an irreverence in doing so. About the Divine
Being Himself, in whom all true theological ideas live and move, men
have spoken and reasoned much, and have fancied that they instinctively
know Him. But they hardly suspect that under the name of God even
Christians have included two characters or natures as much opposed as
the good and evil principle of the Persians.

To have the true use of words we must compare them with things; in using
them we acknowledge that they seldom give a perfect representation of
our meaning. In like manner when we interrogate our ideas we find that
we are not using them always in the sense which we supposed. And Plato,
while he criticizes the inconsistency of his own doctrine of universals
and draws out the endless consequences which flow from the assertion
either that 'Being is' or that 'Being is not,' by no means intends
to deny the existence of universals or the unity under which they
are comprehended. There is nothing further from his thoughts than
scepticism. But before proceeding he must examine the foundations which
he and others have been laying; there is nothing true