of that one essence popularly called by the name of God, under the conditions strictly defined by the orthodox.  Having demonstrated, as I hope to do, that the orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and absurd, we will endeavour to ascertain whether any idea of God, worthy to be called an idea, is attainable in the present state of our faculties.”  “The Deity must of necessity be that one and only substance out of which all things are evolved, under the uncreated conditions and eternal laws of the universe; He must be, as Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, ’the materiality of matter as well as the spirituality of spirit’—­i.e., these must both be products of this one substance; a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter are seen to be but different modes of one essence.  Thus we identify substance with the all-comprehending and vivifying force of nature, and in so doing we simply reduce to a physical impossibility the existence of the Being described by the orthodox as a God possessing the attributes of personality.  The Deity becomes identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe, but the God of the orthodox no longer exists; we may change the signification of God, and use the word to express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by it a Personal Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an individuality which divides Him from the rest of the universe."[3]

Proceeding to search whether any idea of God was attainable, I came to the conclusion that evidence of the existence of a conscious Power was lacking, and that the ordinary proofs offered were inconclusive; that we could grasp phenomena and no more.  “There appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in nature, though we have seen that intelligence is, strictly speaking, impossible.  There cannot be perception, memory, comparison, or judgment, but may there not be a perfect mind, unchanging, calm, and still?  Our faculties fail us when we try to estimate the Deity, and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities; but does it therefore follow that He is not?  It seems to me that to deny His existence is to overstep the boundaries of our thought-power almost as much as to try and define it.  We pretend to know the Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable.  Unknowable to us at present, yes!  Unknowable for ever, in other possible stages of existence?  We have reached a region into which we cannot penetrate; here all human faculties fail us; we bow our heads on ‘the threshold of the unknown.’

  “’And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see,
  But if we could see and hear, this vision—­were it not He?’

Thus sings Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics:  ’if we could see and hear.’  Alas! it is always an ’if!’[4]