Problems of Immanence: studies critical and constructive

h a period of peculiar stress is to utter a commonplac

eliefs; nor, if he is capable of appreciating facts, will he deny-though he may deplore it-that to all seeming these attacks have been attended by a considerable measure of success. If, however, our man in the pew were asked to specify what forces he had in his mind, he would p

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ferring is philosophy; while science and criticism have overthrown certain traditional ramparts, a type of philosophy has sprung up, slowly undermining the very foundations; or, to vary the simile, while the former two have captured cert

practical consequences in the domain of conduct might arise from its spread. For if it is accurate to say that behind every ethic there stands-whether avowed or unavowed-a certain metaphysic, the converse holds true no less; every philosophy, in the exact proportion in which it is ex animo accepted, will tend to produce its ethical c

h at the present time is making a successful appeal to multitudes of inexact thinkers. The fundamental idea common to this school is that the universe, including our individualities or what we think such, constitutes only one being, and manifests only one will, which all its phenomena express. Separateness of existence, according to such a view-which, after all, represents only the extreme logic of Pantheism-is, of

o such thing as real, objective evil. Sin, if the term be retained at all, can at most be only a blunder. Evil is only an inexact description of a lesser good, or good in the making. Indeed, properly considered-i.e., from the monistic standpoint-evil is a mere negation, a shadow where light should be; or to be quite logical, evil is that which is not-in other words, there is no evil, except to deluded minds, whose business is to get quit of their delusion. Th

"incidental experiments in the growing knowledge and consciousness of the race." Mr. Wells's fundamental act of faith is a firm belief in "the ultimate rightness and significance of things," including "the wheel-smashed frog on the road, and the fly drowning in the milk." In other words, all is just as it has to be; regrets, remorses and discontents exist only for the "unbeliever" in this truth, while, speaking for himself, the autho

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elief in a cosmic "scheme" every part of which is ultimately right. An end in the gutter or on the gallows may be as necessary to that scheme's perfection as a life spent in strenuous goodness. Whatever is, is right. It can be hardly necessary to point out that s

es of luxury, and some leading lives of shame and indignity; . . . I see gamblers, fools, brutes, toilers, martyrs. Their

y should they be remedied, why should they be stigmatised as ills, seeing that "everything is right"? Let {59} Mr. Wells once take his principles seriously enough to apply them, and personal as well as social

ly disavows the Christian name; what must give us pause is to find the monistic ethics being preached and taught by official exponents of

w themselves pained by certain things; but it is not really that; they

is goo

king mak

they dislike them; if they thought it desirable

ined by the thought of fifty thousand hungry children in London elementary schools, or by the condition of Regent Street at night, it is because we are not "cultured" enough-we have not the right gnosis. When we reflect that anyone who consistently believes that "nothing is good or ill, but thinking makes it so," will inevitably, first or last, apply that comfor

r of the same school, which will exhibit both the teaching under discus

evil the intention of the person who does it, or how seemingly meaningless the calamity that causes it-which is not in some way the sacrament of God's love to us, and His call upon our

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et us apply this thesis to yet another case, which will bring out its full character: if an English girl-one of God's children-is snared away by a ruffian, under pretext of honest employment, to some Continental hell, then we are to understand that the physical and moral ruin which awaits the victim is "in some way the sacrament of God's love" to her-"in a true and real sense it is God's own doing," and meant for her greater glory! We have no hesitation in saying that such teaching strikes us as fraught with infinite possibilities of moral harm, the more so because of the rat

ber that human nature is habitually prone to welcome whatever will serve as an excuse for throwing off the irksome restraints of moral discipline. That is why we repeat that the one real danger religion has to face to-day is the danger arising from the spread of a false philosophy, whose tenets are ultimately incompatible with Christian morals. The worst heresies are moral {63} heresies; and of the views we have been discussing we say roundly that their falseness is sufficiently proved by their ethical implications. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; therefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Against all the insidious attempts that are made to-day to minimise or explain away moral e

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