The Open court Volume 25

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 Excerpt: ... logic and mathematics. Whether the universe is also materially one large whole, whether all masses are bodily connected and interrelated, whether they are in touch by an all-pervading ether and whether all existences influence one another by the universal law of gravitation, is a problem which our present knowledge cannot solve. It is possible that there are worlds outside of this large stellar universe of ours which are not related with it, but it may be that all the many universes within and without the range of telescopes are an interconnected whole. I do not believe that this problem is of any consequence whatever for our thought, so I leave it alone and am satisfied to know that the immanent unity of the world is an established fact. The latter, the intrinsic oneness of the universe is of much more vital importance than the former, its probable external unity. I understand by God the normative factor of the world; God in this sense is the former, the moulder, the creator. The work which he performs (to speak humanly of God as "he") is formulated by scientists in natural laws, and appears in the moral development of social events as Providence, as the curse of sin and the blessing of the right mode of action. In this sense Fichte defined God as the moral world-order. It will be noticed that my conception of God is not pantheistic. I do not identify God with the Pan, the All of nature. He is that part of nature which dominates its development and determines its destiny. I grant that God and nature are inseparable, but they are not identical; they are two aspects of the same reality of which God is the higher one. Evil accordingly is not a part of God. Evil is an intrinsic and necessary part of nature. It is true that nature is a revelation of ...