The crowning generalization of modern thought is that which presents the Universe as a unity, inter-related in all its parts. By it, the defenders of dualism are discredited, and their theological, metaphysical philosophy is thrown aside. It is no longer God and Man, nor even Man and God, but Man only, with God an anthropomorphic shadow, related to man not as his creator, but as created by him. God and Man are not “two,” but in reality “one.”
Modern science has reversed the order of their appearance, and also the order of their dependence. That which seemed to our primitive ancestors a living reality, a separate and independent being, proves, when submitted to the tests of anthropology and psychology, to have been a creature of their own dreams.
And thus, as a result of scientific research into the origin of dualism and the nature of dreams, as Professor Clifford says: “The dim and shadowy outline of the superhuman deity fades slowly from before us; and as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness, the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure--the figure of him who made all Gods and shall unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and from the inmost depths of every soul, the face of our father man looks out upon us, with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes, and says: ‘Before Jehovah was, I am.’”
The thinker who would expand his intellectual wings in this monistic atmosphere, must possess not only a “discriminating” mind, but also, as Marcus Hitch suggests, a “unifying” mind. There are two errors he must avoid; the creation of distinctions that do not exist and the ignoring of distinctions that do.
The chief sinner against this first canon of dialectical thinking is our old friend the theologian. When the evolutionary naturalists demonstrated the hopeless untruth of his “revealed” legends about the origin of men and things, he sought refuge in the ingenious theory that these fables while scientifically indefensible were, notwithstanding, spiritually true. In short, scientific truth and spiritual truth were so distinct as to have no vital relations. These “artful dodgers” have relieved controversial literature of much of its wonted heaviness and contributed generally to the gaiety of the nations.