Our knowledge of the universe can be only a shadowy symbol of the reality. The poverty of language is so great and the power of thought so limited that the most subtle philosopher can form only an empty symbol of the cosmic soul. The most ethereal symbols of the greatest thinkers are necessarily incomplete in detail and anthropomorphic, in order to be intelligible. The history of philosophy and religion shows that with the evolution of mind and the acquisition of knowledge, the anthropomorphic ideas of the soul of the cosmos become less crudely coarse and vulgar, until the most elevated and refined ideas of monotheism are reached. But even these refined ideas about the soul of the universe are necessarily anthropomorphic, though in a vastly less degree than in the lower phases of culture. One’s conceptions of this all-pervading soul immanent in the universe are therefore profoundly modified by one’s kind and degree of culture. In the words of Professor Fiske, the great scholar and subtle thinker who has delved in the deepest mines of philosophy and come forth weary and heavy-laden with their boasted treasures, has framed a very different conception of God from that entertained by the priest at the confessional. A study of the human brain, then, and the soul resident therein prepares us to believe that the cosmos has a soul (God) immanent in it. We can readily grasp the idea that the soul of the cosmos may be self-conscious, wills, thinks, acts, and designs. This cosmic soul has been and is active in creation. In a low phase of culture every distinct object of nature is looked upon as a separate creation—a manufacture. With the progress of science the conception of separate creative acts becomes greatly modified. The creative acts are judged to be fewer in number and nobler in character. Finally, that phase of highest culture which recognizes the law of universal evolution, formulates the view of one continuous creative act, in which every object is still a creation but not a separate creation,—only a separate manifestation of one eternal act of creative energy. The history of creation, which means the same thing as the history of evolution, shows innumerable adaptations which may surely be considered as the work of a cosmos designer. Evolution has profoundly modified our conceptions of design in nature as it has those of creation. Every separate work of nature, presents a separate, distinct and man-like design to the uncultured. But, with advancing science, all these separate and petty designs are swallowed up into fewer and grander designs, until at last, through evolution, we reach the magnificent and ennobling conception of one infinite and all-embracing design, persisting through infinite time and extending throughout infinite space, which embraces every apparently separate design.