And if the Pantheist in these days be asked, "What interpretation then
do you propose?" his answer is, "I propose none. I take things as they
are. In their totality they are unknowable, as, indeed, even science
finds they are in their infinitesimal parts." But we need not on this
account lose "the divinity that shapes our ends."
[Sidenote: Pantheistic Morality.]
[Sidenote: The Law of the Whole.]
For, between the infinite and the infinitesimal the human experience
realizes itself in surroundings which, when observed and reflected on,
make the impression of ordered relations of parts. By a necessity of our
finite and individual existence as centres of action--a necessity of
which we can give no account--we present those relations to ourselves in
forms of time and space. Then, when our experience is large enough and
ripe enough, being enriched and stimulated by the stored-up experience
of humanity, as recorded in tradition, custom, Bibles, and Epics, we
attain to the moral sense, and realize that we are bound to be loyal to
something greater than self. That "greater" may be the tribe, the
nation, humanity or God. But in far the larger number of cases in which
this sense of willing loyalty is aroused, its cause is the appeal to us
of some whole of which we form a part. Certainly this is so with the
patriot and the philanthropist. Indeed, it would be difficult, or
impossible, to find any human relationship, from the family upwards,
through the wider circles of school, club, municipality, nationality, in
which this sense of loyalty or devotion to the law of the whole is not
the best incentive to devotion.
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