I can well understand why infidelity should make the basal assumption in question, because its whole case must rest thereon.  But surely it is time for theists to abandon this assumption.

The assumed distinction between causation as natural and super-natural no doubt began in superstition in prehistoric time, and throughout the historical period has continued from a vague feeling that the action of God must be mysterious, and hence that the province of religion must be within the super-sensuous.  Now, it is true enough that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, and hence the feeling in question is logically sound.  But under the influence of this feeling, men have always committed the fallacy of concluding that if a phenomenon has been explained in terms of natural causation, it has thereby been explained in toto—­forgetting that it has only been explained up to the point where such causation is concerned, and that the real question of ultimate causation has merely been thus postponed.  And assuredly beyond this point there is an infinitude of mystery sufficient to satisfy the most exacting mystic.  For even Herbert Spencer allows that in ultimate analysis all natural causation is inexplicable.

Logically regarded the advance of science, far from having weakened religion, has immeasurably strengthened it.  For it has proved the uniformity of natural causation.  The so-called natural sphere has increased at the expense of the ‘super-natural.’  Unquestionably.  But although to lower grades of culture this always seems a fact inimical to religion, we may now perceive it is quite the reverse, since it merely goes to abolish the primitive or uncultured distinction in question.

It is indeed most extraordinary how long this distinction has held sway, or how it is the ablest men of all generations have quietly assumed that when once we know the natural causation of any phenomenon, we therefore know all about it—­or, as it were, have removed it from the sphere of mystery altogether, when, in point of fact, we have only merged it in a much greater mystery than ever.

But the answer to our astonishment how this distinction has managed to survive so long lies in the extraordinary effect of custom, which here seems to slay reason altogether; and the more a man busies himself with natural causes (e.g. in scientific research) the greater does this slavery to custom become, till at last he seems positively unable to perceive the real state of the case—­regarding any rational thinking thereon as chimerical, so that the term ‘meta-physical,’ even in its etymological sense as super-sensuous or beyond physical causation, becomes a term of rational reproach.  Obviously such a man has written himself down, if not an ass, at all events a creature wholly incapable of rationally treating any of the highest problems presented either by nature or by man.