Between the two ideas of God which we have exhibited in such striking contrast, there is nevertheless one point of resemblance; and this point is fundamental, since it is the point in virtue of which both are entitled to be called theistic ideas. In both there is presumed to be a likeness of some sort between God and Man. In both there is an element of anthropomorphism. Even upon this their common ground, however, there is a wide difference between the two conceptions. In the one the anthropomorphic element is gross, in the other it is refined and subtle. The difference is so far-reaching that some years ago I proposed to mark it by contrasting these two conceptions of God as Anthropomorphic Theism and Cosmic Theism. For the doctrine which represents God as immanent in the universe and revealing himself in the orderly succession of events, the name Cosmic Theism is eminently appropriate: but it is not intended by the antithetic nomenclature to convey the impression that in cosmic theism there is nothing anthropomorphic.[18] A theory which should regard the Human Soul as alien and isolated in the universe, without any links uniting it with the eternal source of existence, would not be theism at all. It would be Atheism, which on its metaphysical side is "the denial of anything psychical in the universe outside of human consciousness." It is far enough from any such doctrine to the cosmic theism of Clement and Origen, of Spinoza and Lessing and Schleiermacher. The difference, however, between this cosmic conception of God and the anthropomorphic conception held by Tertullian and Augustine, Calvin and Voltaire and Paley, is sufficiently great to be described as a contrast. The explanation of the difference must be sought far back in the historic genesis of the two conceptions. Cosmic theism, as we have seen, was reached through nature-worship with its notion of vast elemental spirits indwelling in physical phenomena. Anthropomorphic theism is descended from the notion of tutelar deities which was part of the primitive ancestor-worship. In the process by which men attained to cosmic theism, physical generalization was the chief agency at work; but into anthropomorphic theism, as we have seen, there entered conceptions derived from men's political thinking. For such a people as the Romans, who could deify Imperator Augustus in just the same way that the Japanese have deified their Mikado, it was natural, and easy to conceive of God as a monarch enthroned in the heavens and surrounded by a court of ministering angels. Such was the popular conception in the early ages of Christianity, and such it has doubtless remained with the mass of uninstructed people even to this day. The very grotesqueness of the idea, as it appears to the mind of a philosopher, is an index of the ease with which it satisfies the mind of an uneducated man. Many persons, no doubt, have entertained this idea of God without ever giving it very definite shape, and many have recognized it as in great measure symbolic: yet nothing can be more certain than that untold thousands have conceived it in its full intensity of anthropomorphism. Alike in sermons and theological treatises, in stately poetry and in every-day talk, the Deity has been depicted as pleased or angry, as repenting of his own acts, as soothed by adulation and quick to wreak vengeance upon silly people for blasphemous remarks. In those curious bills of expenses for the mediÆval miracle-plays, along with charges of twopence for keeping up a "fyre at hell mouthe," we find such items as a shilling for a purple coat for God. In one of these plays an angel who has just witnessed the crucifixion comes rushing into Heaven, crying, "Wake up, almighty Father! Here are those beggarly Jews killing your son, and you asleep here like a drunkard!" "Devil take me if I knew anything about it!" is the drowsy reply. Not the slightest irreverence was intended in these miracle-plays, which were the only dramatic performances tolerated by the mediÆval church, for the sake of their wholesome educational influence upon the common people. In the light of such facts, one sees that the representations of the Deity as an old man of august presence, with flowing hair and beard, by the early modern painters, must have meant to all save the highest minds much more than a mere symbol. Until one's thoughts have become accustomed to range far and wide over the universe it is doubtless impossible to frame a conception of Deity that is not grossly anthropomorphic. I remember distinctly the conception which I had formed when five years of age. I imagined a narrow office just over the zenith, with a tall standing-desk running lengthwise, upon which lay several open ledgers bound in coarse leather. There was no roof over this office, and the walls rose scarcely five feet from the floor, so that a person standing at the desk could look out upon the whole world. There were two persons at the desk, and one of them—a tall, slender man, of aquiline features, wearing spectacles, with a pen in his hand and another behind his ear—was God. The other, whose appearance I do not distinctly recall, was an attendant angel. Both were diligently watching the deeds of men and recording them in the ledgers. To my infant mind this picture was not grotesque, but ineffably solemn, and the fact that all my words and acts were thus written down, to confront me at the day of judgment, seemed naturally a matter of grave concern.

If we could cross-question all the men and women we know, and still more all the children, we should probably find that, even in this enlightened age, the conceptions of Deity current throughout the civilized world contain much that is in the crudest sense anthropomorphic. Such, at any rate, seems to be the character of the conceptions with which we start in life. With those whose studies lead them to ponder upon the subject in the light of enlarged experience, these conceptions become greatly modified. They lose their anthropomorphic definiteness, they grow vague by reason of their expansion, they become recognized as largely symbolic, but they never quite lose all traces of their primitive form. Indeed, as I said a moment ago, they cannot do so. The utter demolition of anthropomorphism would be the demolition of theism. We have now to see what traces of its primitive form the idea of God can retain, in the light of our modern knowledge of the universe.