If, then, the direct influence of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man be what we call revelation, then there is evidently no other kind of revelation possible; and, furthermore, such revelation is given to all men in different degrees. It is given to all men as conscience; in greater measure to all great and good men as clearer perception of righteousness; in pre-eminent measure to Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles; but supremely and perfectly to Jesus alone. But there is, and in the nature of things there can be, _no test of truth but reason_. We _must_ fearlessly, but honestly and reverently, try all things, even revelations, by this test. We must not regard, as so many do, the spirit of man as the passive amanuensis of the Spirit of God. Revelations to man must of necessity partake of the imperfections of the medium through which it comes. As pure water from heaven, falling upon and filtering through earth, must gather impurities in its course differing in amount and kind according to the earth, even so the pure divine truth, filtering through man’s mind, must take imperfections characteristic of the man and of the age. Such filtrate must be redistilled in the alembic of reason to separate the divine truth from the earthy impurities. CHAPTER VI. THE OBJECTION, THAT THE ABOVE VIEW IMPLIES PANTHEISM, ANSWERED. It will be observed that the views presented in the last three chapters are closely connected with one another, and all conditioned on the “Relation of God to Nature,” urged in Chapter III. Now it will doubtless be objected to this view, especially as applied in Chapter IV on the “Relation of Man to Nature,” that it is naught else than pure pantheism; that it destroys completely the personality of Deity, and with it all our hopes of communion with him, and all our aspirations of love and worship toward him; that, according to this view, God becomes only the soul or animating principle of Nature, operating everywhere but unconsciously like the vital principle of an organism; that the whole cosmos becomes in fact a great organism, developing under the operation of _resident_ force according to _necessary_ law, only that _we_ apotheosize this omnipresent force and call it God; and finally, that God is naught else than an abstraction, created like other abstractions or general ideas wholly by the human mind, and having no objective existence. Furthermore, it will be said, that according to this view, this omnipresent unconscious energy individuates itself by necessary law of evolution more and more until it reaches, _for the first time in man_, self-consciousness and immortality, and thus that man himself is the only self-conscious immortal being in existence, and therefore the only being worthy of reverence and worship. Thus, this view leads to humanity-worship or rather to _self-worship_.