• (To ins EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") hardly like to
suggest it, but is it possible that Mr. Lloyd Engstrom (Spectator, September 1st) is only tripping over a phrase? "Something to be explained," A problem to be solved," "A mystery calling for interpretation,"—is it not pressing words rather hard to make these imply that an answer must be forthcoming ? Explanations and solutions may be called for, but they may not, any more than spirits, come when they are called. The existence of mysteries to be explained and problems to be solved may be quite compatible with the mysteries and problems being inexplicable and in- soluble,—especially when Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us, using the very same phrase, that they present themselves for solution to every civilised child; and, finally, summing-up in the last paragraph of the chapter, offers us, as an expression equivalent to all the foregoing, "the omnipresence of something which passes comprehension." Surely with this all appearance of contradiction vanishes ; and Mr. Engstrom may dismiss his apprehension that he has discovered such a fault in the foundations as may bring the great Spencerian structure about our ears. A logical flaw in the main argument surely there is not; nor would there be even if Mr. Engstrom's supposed discovery were real. The conclusion that "the power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly inscrut- able" is rested, with Herbert Spencer, on considerations with which the theories of the religions, current or obsolete, civilised or rude, have really nothing to do. For myself, I have never been quite able to dispel the suspicion that the gravest of grave philosophers was for once indulging in a Little solemn irony in thus summoning the religions before his judgment-seat, and then allowing them to leave the court without a stain on their character. 'See,' he says to them, 'you have all along been declaring how little you knew of the Object of your aspirations. You were more right even than you supposed you were. You know nothing, absolutely and utterly nothing ; and for the very best of reasons : there is nothing to know. But I have comfort for you. Welcome to the common ground of the Unknowable.' Nor is it easy to persuade oneself that it is quite apart from a certain philosophic satisfaction that in the course of his argument he succeeds in bringing every religion, even the most spiritual, into line with the "rudest Fetishism." But perhaps there is just one word to be said, not on the main argument, which I think has withstood all attacks, but on this treatment of the religions. First, one notices that the "Religious Ideas" of the chapter-title has in the chapter itself been translated, without warning, into " Religion " and "Religions.". This does not seem quite legitimate in itself. But are not some of us rather taken aback to be told that a theory of the universe is "the vital element in all religions " ? Some of us have been in the habit of thinking that, in its essence, religion is a thing of the heart and the desires, not of the intellect or understanding at all; that its most vital element is the fact, the experimental fact, of personal com- munion with an unseen Power. All else, especially all theories, are quite secondary, are, perhaps, even an excrescence and incumbrance. Herbert Spencer Would no doubt deny the phenomena. He may do so ; but then, I venture to think, he has not touched the real opposition between religion and science, and his reconciliation falls to the ground. It is the personal relation that is the very -life of all supernatural religion; and to science this is inconceivable. Here is a gulf that our greatest thinker has done nothing to bridge; perhaps because it is unbridgable.—I am, Sir, &o., South Yardley, Birmingham. G. HooKttata.
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