Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
I pointed out that he had inverted my meaning by representing as
negative that which I regarded as positive. What I have everywhere
referred to as the All-Being, he named the All-Nothingness. What answer
does he make when I show that my position is exactly the reverse of
that alleged? He says that while I am “dealing with transcendental
conceptions, intelligible only to certain trained metaphysicians,” he
is “dealing with religion as it affects the lives of men and women in
the world;” that “to ordinary men and women, an unknowable and
inconceivable Reality is practically an Unreality;” and that thus all
he meant to say was that the “Everlasting Yes” of the “evolutionist,”
“is in effect on the public a mere Everlasting No,” (p. 354). Now
compare these passages in his last article with the following passages
in his first article:—“One would like to know how much of the
Evolutionist’s day is consecrated to seeking the Unknowable in a devout
way, and what the religious exercises might be. How does the man of
science approach the All-Nothingness” (p. 502)? Thus we see that what
was at first represented as the unfitness of the creed considered as
offered to the select is now represented as its unfitness considered as
offered to the masses. What were originally the “Evolutionist” and the
“man of science” are now changed into “ordinary men and women” and “the
public;” and what was originally called the All-Nothingness has become
an “inconceivable Reality.” The statement which was to be justified is
not justified but something else is justified in its stead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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