exertion of faith be in and out of our own minds at the same instant. How
can we conceive Him under the forms of time and space, who is out of time
and space? How get rid of such forms and see Him as He is? How can we
imagine His relation to the world or to ourselves? Innumerable
contradictions follow from either of the two alternatives, that God is or
that He is not. Yet we are far from saying that we know nothing of Him,
because all that we know is subject to the conditions of human thought. To
the old belief in Him we return, but with corrections. He is a person, but
not like ourselves; a mind, but not a human mind; a cause, but not a
material cause, nor yet a maker or artificer. The words which we use are
imperfect expressions of His true nature; but we do not therefore lose
faith in what is best and highest in ourselves and in the world.

'A little philosophy takes us away from God; a great deal brings us back to
Him.' When we begin to reflect, our first thoughts respecting Him and
ourselves are apt to be sceptical. For we can analyze our religious as
well as our other ideas; we can trace their history; we can criticize their
perversion; we see that they are relative to the human mind and to one
another. But when we have carried our criticism to the furthest point,
they still remain, a necessity of our moral nature, better known and
understood by us, and less liable to be shaken, because we are more aware
of their necessary imperfection. They come to us with 'better opinion,
better confirmation,' not merely as the inspirations either of ourselves or
of another, but deeply rooted in history and in the human mind.


PARMENIDES

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