While thus Lange's conception of religion is superior to that of Spencer in admitting a richer development of religious life, a more various satisfaction of the religious need, in another direction Spencer is superior. He comes considerably nearer to a correct and full _conception of God_ than Lange. His idea of the final cause of all things does not lie entirely in the conception that it is the absolute indiscernible; but Spencer is fully in earnest with the idea that this indiscernible is the real cause of the world and of all single existences in it. He accordingly forbids giving certain attributes to the absolute--not because it would be doubtful whether it has attributes or not, but because it stands _above_ all these {199} imaginable attributes as their real cause. Therefore he forbids, for instance, attributing personality, intelligence, will, to the highest being--not because it could also be impersonal, and in want of intelligence and will, but because it stands _above_ all these attributes as their highest real cause, and because we can think of all these attributes only in human analogy, and therefore, when attributed to the highest being, can think of them only in rejectable anthropomorphism. He says, on page 109: "Those who espouse this position [personality of God], make the erroneous assumption that the choice is between personality and something lower than personality; whereas the choice is rather between personality and something higher. Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will, as these transcend mechanical motion? It is true that we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for questioning its existence; it is rather the reverse.... The Ultimate Cause cannot in any respect be conceived by us because it is in every respect greater than can be conceived." Thus we find in Lange a fuller and richer conception of the subject of religion; but this conception is in want of one thing--without which it is in want of everything--namely, of nothing less than of the objective reality. Spencer's religiousness has a much more meagre and less varied character: the acknowledgment and veneration of the indiscernible; but he nevertheless gives us with this content and object a _real_ object, even an object of veneration, in which the abundance of all reality is hidden, with the only conception that the indiscernible {200} does not let us look into its cornucopia, but only lets us judge of the abundance of its contents by the richness of that which it pours over us in the world of the relatively perceptible. It will not be difficult to show the points at which each of these writers would have been able, had he so wished, to lead his conception of religion, the one to a real, the other to a full content.