Shrouded in the cloak of philosophy, the question of the existence ofGod continues to attract attention, and, I may add, to command morerespect than it deserves. For it is only by a subterfuge that it assumesthe rank of philosophy. "God" enters into philosophy only when it isbeginning to lose caste in its proper home, and then in its newenvironment it undergoes such a transformation as to contain very littlelikeness to its former, and proper, self. It disowns its parentage andclaims another origin, and, like so many genealogists devising pedigreesfor the parvenu, certain philosophers attempt to map out for thenewcomer an ancestry to which he can establish no valid claim. Nothingwould, indeed, surprise the ancestor more than to be brought face toface with his descendant. He would not be more astonished than would theancient Eohippus on meeting with a modern dray-horse. In anthropology orhistory the idea of God may fairly claim a place, but it has no place inphilosophy on any sensible meaning of the word.
The consequence of this transference of the idea of God to the sphere ofphilosophy is the curious position th