we found in monarchical theism, and hoped that pantheism might not
show. We humans are incurably rooted in the temporal point of view.
The eternal's ways are utterly unlike our ways. 'Let us imitate the
All,' said the original prospectus of that admirable Chicago quarterly
called the 'Monist.' As if we could, either in thought or conduct!
We are invincibly parts, let us talk as we will, and must always
apprehend the absolute as if it were a foreign being. If what I mean
by this is not wholly clear to you at this point, it ought to grow
clearer as my lectures proceed.




LECTURE II


MONISTIC IDEALISM

Let me recall to you the programme which I indicated to you at our
last meeting. After agreeing not to consider materialism in any
shape, but to place ourselves straightway upon a more spiritualistic
platform, I pointed out three kinds of spiritual philosophy between
which we are asked to choose. The first way was that of the older
dualistic theism, with ourselves represented as a secondary order of
substances created by God. We found that this allowed of a degree of
intimacy with the creative principle inferior to that implied in the
pantheistic belief that we are substantially one with it, and that the
divine is therefore the most intimate of all our possessions, heart of
our heart, in fact. But we saw that this pantheistic belief could be
held in two forms, a monistic form which I called philosophy of the