It certainly does not imply those flat
contradictions of the lessons of experience which emerge from the other
method of thought. It asks us to believe no miracles. It involves no
supernaturalism. Whatever is, is natural, and is at the same time
divine. Stated, indeed, as a bare logical formula, the doctrine seems to
elude our grasp. It is intelligible to say that Christ was divine and
Mahomet human, for the statement implies a comparison between two
different terms; but if you say that Christ and Mahomet are both of the
same class, what does it matter whether you call them both divine or
both human? Every logical statement implies an exclusion as well as
inclusion. To say that A is B is meaningless if you add that every other
conceivable letter is also B. You attempt to make everybody rich by
reckoning their property in pence instead of pounds, and the process,
though at first sight attractive, is unsatisfactory. In fact, this phase
of opinion generally slips back into the preceding. We find that
exceptions are insensibly made, and that after pronouncing nature to be
divine, it is tacitly assumed there is an indefinite region which is
somehow outside nature.
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