Chapter LI: Appendix: XVI

'Deism and Pantheism are both so irrational, so utterly inadequate to explain the simplest facts of our moral and spiritual life that neither of them can long hold mankind together. Positivism, which has made a systematic and memorable attempt to fill the gap, itself bears witness to the craving of human nature for some stronger bond than such systems can supply; while its appreciation of the necessity of Religion gives it an importance not possessed by mere Agnosticism. Yet it is impossible to look at an encyclopaedic attempt to grasp all knowledge and all history, such as that made by the founder of Positivism, without a deep, oppressive sadness....

'Can men heap fact upon fact and connect science with science in a splendid hierarchy and find no better end than this? Is such a review to come to this, that we must worship either actual humanity with all its meanness and wickedness, or ideal humanity which does not yet exist, and, if this world is all in all, may never come into being? ... For ideal humanity, however moral and enlightened, if unaided by God, as the Posivitist holds, is still earth-bound and sense-bound.... We are told that it is common sense to recognise that much is beyond us. Perfectly true. But it is not common sense to worship an ignorant and weak humanity which certainly made nothing, and has in itself no assurance {241} of continuance in the future, nay rather, a very clear probability of destruction, if simply left to itself.

'What Positivism surely needs to give it hope and consistency is the doctrine of the Logos, of the Eternal Word and Reason, the Creator, Orderer, and Sustainer of all things, Who has taken a stainless human nature that He might make men capable of all knowledge. This Divine Humanity of the Logos, drawing mankind into Himself, is indeed worthy of all worship. In loving Him, we learn really what it is to "live for others." In looking to Him we cease from selfishness and pride. Such a worship of humanity is not a mere baseless hope, but a reality appearing in the very midst of history, a reality apprehended by Faith indeed, but by a Faith always proving itself to those, and by those, who hold it fast in Love. There is room, then, ample room, and a loud demand for the re-establishment of a Christian Philosophy based upon the Incarnation.'--JOHN WORDSWORTH (Bishop of Salisbury), _The One Religion_, pp. 307-309.

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