Thoughts on Religion by George John Romanes
page 57 of 159 (35%)
page 57 of 159 (35%)
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that, when thus divested of its distinguishing attributes the conception
disappears--the word Mind stands for a blank.' Moreover, 'How is the "originating Mind" to be thought of as having states produced by things objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to another?'[25] Hence, without continuing this line of argument, which it would not be difficult to trace through every constituent branch of human psychology, we may take it as unquestionable that, if there is a Divine Mind, it must differ so essentially from the human mind, that it becomes illogical to designate the two by the same name: the attributes of eternity and ubiquity are in themselves enough to place such a Mind in a category _sui generis_, wholly different from anything which the analogy furnished by our own mind enables us even dimly to conceive. And this, of course, is no more than theologians admit. God's thoughts are above our thoughts, and a God who would be comprehensible to our intelligence would be no God at all, they say. Which may be true enough, only we must remember that in whatever measure we are thus precluded from understanding the Divine Mind, in that measure are we precluded from founding any conclusions as to its nature upon analogies furnished by the human mind. The theory ceases to be anthropomorphic: it ceases to be even 'anthropopsychic': it is affiliated with the conception of mind only in virtue of the one fact that it serves to give the best provisional account of the order of Nature, by supposing an infinite extension of some of the faculties of the human mind, with a concurrent obliteration of all the essential conditions under which alone these faculties are known to exist. Obviously of such a Mind as this no predication is logically possible. If such a Mind exists, it is not |
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