An Omnipotent Power without attributes, or one to which no attributes can be assigned, is not likely to be the end of all philosophical speculation about the ultimate cause. Power without attributes, power without a determining will, power without guidance, or purposes, or objects, is not a conception to which a well-trained intellect is now likely to attain; and the greater the accumulation of physical knowledge becomes, the greater will be the necessity to such an intellect for recognizing attributes, and for assigning them to the power which is manifested by the phenomena. According to Mr. Spencer, the process by which mankind are ultimately to lose the consciousness of a personal Deity is the following: Anthropomorphic attributes were at first ascribed to the single great supernatural agent of whom the primitive men conceived. But in our days, the idea of such a supreme supernatural agent has come to retain but a few of these attributes. These few will eventually be lost, and there will be nothing left but a consciousness of an Omnipotent Power to which no attributes can be ascribed. The probability of this result depends upon the necessity for ascribing what are called anthropomorphic attributes to the Supreme Being; or, in other words, it depends upon the inquiry whether, in order to ascribe to the Supreme Being any attributes at all, we are necessarily confined to those which are anthropomorphic. "Anthropomorphism," a term compounded from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, man, and μορφή, form, has come to signify the representation of the Deity under a human form, or with human attributes and affections. It is therefore important to know what we in fact do, when reasoning on the phenomena of nature, we reach the conclusion that they must have had an author or producer, and then ascribe to him certain attributes. The fact that the ancient religious beliefs ascribed to the Supreme Being grossly anthropomorphic attributes, is unimportant. So is the fact that the anthropomorphic attributes have been slowly diminishing in the conceptions of the reasoning and cultivated part of mankind. The really important question is whether there can be no conception of a Supreme Being without ascribing to him attributes which liken him to man; or whether, when the anthropomorphic attributes are lost, the idea of a personal God will be lost.