How far such an interpretation may favour pantheism, or
imperil personality, or involve a doctrine of "pre-existence," or of
innate ideas, is not for us here to discuss. If we are to judge it
fairly, it must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis
explanatory of certain observations, and apart from all other
psychological theories with which it may seem in conflict. Truth will in
the end adjust itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from forced
and premature adjustments.
Mr. Lang's second and principal contention is that even if we allow the
animistic account of the belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit
that process by which belief in God is supposed to be a later
development of the belief in spirits, as though inequality among spirits
had given rise to aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy.
By God here we understand: "a primal eternal Being, author of all
things, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient
guardian of morality," a definition which, while it fixes the high-water
mark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what,
according to Mr.
Pages:
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294