Again, it will be objected that this is pure _Pantheism_. Again, we answer “yes.” Call it so if you like, but far different from what goes under that name, far different from the pantheism which sublimates the personality of the Deity into all-pervading unconscious force, and thereby dissipates all our hopes of personal relation with him. Properly understood, we believe this view completely reconciles the two antagonistic and mutually excluding views of impersonal pantheism and anthropomorphic personalism, and is therefore more rational than either. The discussion of this most important point can only come up after the next chapter, because the argument for the personality of Deity is derived, not from without by the study of Nature, but from within in our own consciousness. We therefore put off its discussion for the present. But, finally, some will object, “We can not live and work effectively under such a theory unless, indeed, we escape through pantheism.” It may, alas! be true that this view brings us too near Him in our sense of spiritual nakedness and shortcoming. It may, indeed, be that we can not live and work in the continual realized presence of the Infinite. It may, indeed, be that we must still wear the veil of a practical materialism on our hearts and minds. It may, indeed, be that in our practical life and scientific work we must still continue to think of natural forces as efficient agents. But, if so, let us at least remember that this attitude of mind must be regarded only as our ordinary work-clothes--necessary work-clothes it may be of our outer lower life--to be put aside when we return _home_ to our inner higher life, religious and philosophical. CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF MAN TO NATURE. There are two widely distinct views concerning the relation of man to Nature; the one as old as the history of human thought, the other only now urged upon us by modern science. According to the one, man is the counterpart and equivalent of Nature. He alone has--in fact is--an immortal spirit, and therefore he belongs to a world of his own. According to the other, man is but a part, a very insignificant part of Nature, and connected in the closest way with all other parts, especially with the animal kingdom. He has no world of his own, nor even kingdom of his own: he belongs to the animal kingdom. In that kingdom he has no department of his own: he is a vertebrate. In the department of vertebrates he has no privileged class of his own: he is a mammal. In the class of mammals he has no titled order of his own: he is a primate, and shares his primacy with apes. It is doubtful if he may enjoy the privacy of a family of his own--the Hominidæ--for the structural differences between man and the anthropoid apes are probably not so great as between the sheep family and the deer family.