. . .

"To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and
perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may
seem little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the
cutting, the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as
little remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the
Creative Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA
MEMBRA of perfected life on this planet. . . ."

But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God
of man as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of
humanitarianism. Sir Harry's ideas are much less thoroughly thought out
than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On
that account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ
were simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of
ethics--and yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though
religions were nothing more than ethical movements, and as though
Christianity were merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness
that everything was simply horrid, and so, "Let us instal loving
kindness as a cardinal axiom." He ignores altogether the fundamental
essential of religion, which is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE
DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE
IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD.
He presents a conception of religion relieved of its "nonsense" as the
cheerful self-determination of a number of bright little individuals
(much stirred but by no means overcome by Cosmic Pity) to the Service
of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as outward a thing, it goes as
little into the intimacy of their lives, as though they had after proper
consideration agreed to send a subscription to a Red Cross Ambulance or
take part in a public demonstration against the Armenian Massacres, or
do any other rather nice-spirited exterior thing. This is what he says:

"I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the
Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian
ideal and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and
disputable, and 'mattering not neither here nor there,' of Christian
theology--a theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of
Christ--and all of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made
immortal in their application by