Page 166 - erewhon

man had personified it and called it by a name; that it was
an unworthy conception of the Deity to hold Him person-
al, inasmuch as escape from human contingencies became
thus impossible; that the real thing men should worship was
the Divine, whereinsoever they could find it; that ‘God’ was
but man’s way of expressing his sense of the Divine; that as
justice, hope, wisdom, &c., were all parts of goodness, so
God was the expression which embraced all goodness and
all good power; that people would no more cease to love
God on ceasing to believe in His objective personality, than
they had ceased to love justice on discovering that she was
not really personal; nay, that they would never truly love
Him till they saw Him thus.
She said all this in her artless way, and with none of
the coherence with which I have here written it; her face
kindled, and she felt sure that she had convinced me that
I was wrong, and that justice was a living person. Indeed I
did wince a little; but I recovered myself immediately, and
pointed out to her that we had books whose genuineness
was beyond all possibility of doubt, as they were certainly
none of them less than 1800 years old; that in these there
were the most authentic accounts of men who had been spo-
ken to by the Deity Himself, and of one prophet who had
been allowed to see the back parts of God through the hand
that was laid over his face.
This was conclusive; and I spoke with such solemnity that
she was a little frightened, and only answered that they too
had their books, in which their ancestors had seen the gods;
on which I saw that further argument was not at all likely

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