If I apply this analogy to an explanation of the above definition of Pantheism as the theory that there is nothing but God, it must not be supposed that I regard the parallelism as perfect.  In fact, one purpose of the following exposition will be to show why and where all such analogies fail.  For Pantheism does not regard man, or any organism, as a true unity.  In the view of Pantheism the only real unity is God.  But without any inconsistency I may avail myself of common impressions to correct a common mis-impression.  Thus, those who hold that the reasonable soul and flesh is one man—­one altogether—­but at the same time deny that the toe or the finger, or the stomach or the heart, is the man, are bound in consistency to recognise that if Pantheism affirms God to be All in All, it does not follow that Pantheism must hold a man, or a tree, or a tiger to be God.

[Sidenote:  Farther Definition.]

Excluding, then, such an apparently plausible, but really fallacious inversion of the Pantheistic view of the Universe, I repeat that the latter is the precise opposite of Atheism.  So far from tolerating any doubt as to the being of God, it denies that there is anything else.  For all objects of sense and thought, including individual consciousness, whether directly observed in ourselves, or inferred as existing in others, are, according to Pantheism, only facets of an infinite Unity, which is “altogether one” in a sense inapplicable to anything else.  Because that Unity is not merely the aggregate of all the finite objects which we observe or infer, but is a living whole, expressing itself in infinite variety.  Of that infinite variety our gleams of consciousness are infinitesimal parts, but not parts in a sense involving any real division.  The questions raised by such a view of the Universe, many of them unanswerable—­as is also the case with questions raised by every other view of the Universe—­will be considered further on.  All that I am trying to secure in these preliminary observations is a general idea of the Pantheistic view of the Universe as distinguished from that of Polytheism, Monotheism, or Atheism.

[Sidenote:  Various Forms of Pantheism.]

[Sidenote:  Spurious Forms.]

[Sidenote:  Exclusion of Creation.]

[Sidenote:  Evolution and Decay applicable only to Parts, not to the Whole.]

Of course, there have been different forms of Pantheism, as there have been also various phases of Monotheism; and in the brief historical review which will follow this introductory explanation of the name, I shall note at least the most important of those forms.  But any which fail to conform, to the general definition here given, will not be recognised as Pantheism at all, though they may be worth some attention as approximations thereto.  For any view of the Universe, allowing the existence of anything outside the divine Unity, denies that God is All in All, and, therefore, is