The _practical influence_ of Pantheism, in so far as its peculiar tendencies are not restrained or counteracted by more salutary beliefs, must be deeply injurious, both to the individual and social welfare of mankind. In its Ideal or Spiritual form it may be seductive to some ardent, imaginative minds; but it is a wretched creed notwithstanding; and it will be found, when calmly examined, to be fraught with the most serious evils. It has been commended, indeed, in glowing terms, as a creed alike beautiful and beneficent,--as a source of religious life nobler and purer than any that can ever spring from the more gloomy system of Theism: for, on the theory of Pantheism, God is manifest to all, everywhere, and at all times; Nature, too, is aggrandized and glorified, and everything in Nature is invested with a new dignity and interest; above all, Man is conclusively freed from all fantastic hopes and superstitious fears, so that his mind can now repose, with tranquil satisfaction, on the bosom of the Absolute, unmoved by the vicissitudes of life, and unscared even by the prospect of death. For what is death? The dissolution of any living organism is but one stage in the process of its further development; and whether it passes into a new form of self-conscious life, or is reabsorbed into the infinite, it still forms an indestructible element in the vast sum of Being. We may, therefore, or, rather, we must, leave our future state to be determined by Nature's inexorable laws, and we need, at least, fear no Being higher than Nature, to whose justice we are amenable, or whose frown we should dread.[143] But, even as it is thus exhibited by some of its warmest partisans, it appears to us, we own, to be a dreary and cheerless creed, when compared with that faith which teaches us to regard God as our "Father in heaven," and that "hope which is full of immortality." It is worse, however, than dreary; it is destructive of all religion and of all morality. If it be an avowed antagonist to Christianity, it is not less hostile to Natural Theology and to Ethical Science. It consecrates error and vice, as being, equally with truth and virtue, necessary and beneficial manifestations of the "infinite." It is a system of Syncretism, founded on the idea that error is only an incomplete truth, and maintaining that truth must necessarily be developed by error, and virtue by vice. According to this fundamental law of "human progress," Atheism itself may be providential; and the axiom of a Fatalistic Optimism--"Whatever is, is best"--must be admitted equally in regard to truth and error, to virtue and vice.