ndled in the same way as all other things that can be called
perfect man are seen; otherwise he is a perfect man who is not only not
a perfect man, but who does not in any considerable degree resemble one.
It is not, however, pretended by anyone that God, the "perfect man," is
to be looked for in any place upon the surface of the globe.

If, on the other hand, the person of God exists in some sphere outside
the earth, his human flesh again proves to be of an entirely different
kind from all other human flesh, for we know that such flesh cannot
exist except on earth; if in space unsupported, it must fall to the
ground, or into some other planet, or into a sun, or go on revolving
round the earth or some other heavenly body-or not be personal. None of
those whose opinions will carry weight will assign a position either in
some country on this earth, or yet again in space, to Jesus Christ, but
this involves the rendering meaningless of all expressions which involve
his personality.

The Christian conception, therefore, of the Deity proves when examined
with any desire to understand our own meaning (and what lawlessness so
great as the attempt to impose words upon our understandings which have
no lawful settlement within them?) to be no less a contradiction in
terms than the Pantheistic conception. It is Atheistic, as offering us
a God which is not a God, inasmuch as we can conceive of no such
being, nor of anything in the least like it. It is, like Pantheism, an
illusion, which can be believed only by those who repeat a formula which
they have learnt by heart in a foreign language of which they understand
nothing, and yet aver that they believe it. There are doubtless many who
will say that this is possible, but the majority of my readers will hold
that no proposition can be believed or disbelieved until its nature is
understood.

It may perhaps be said that there is another conception of God possible,
and that we may see him as personal, without at the same time believing
that he has any actual tangible existence. Thus we personify hope,
truth, and justice, without intending to convey to anyone the impression
that these qualities are women, with flesh and blood. Again, we do not
think of Nature as an actual woman, though we call her one; why may we
not conceive of God, then, as an expression whereby we personify, by a
figure of speech only; the thing that is intended being no person, but
our own highest ideal of power, w