pantheist cannot wonder, for he cannot praise God or praise anything as really distinct from himself. Our immediate business here however is with the effect of this Christian admiration (which strikes outwards, towards a deity distinct from the worshipper) upon the general need for ethical activity and social reform. And surely its effect is sufficiently obvious. There is no real possibility of getting out of pantheism any special impulse to moral action. For pantheism implies in its nature that one thing is as good as another; whereas action implies in its nature that one thing is greatly preferable to another. Swinburne in the high summer of his scepticism tried in vain to wrestle with this difficulty. In “Songs before Sunrise,” written under the inspiration of Garibaldi and the revolt of Italy, he proclaimed the newer religion and the purer God which should wither up all the priests of the world.
“What doest thou now Looking Godward to cry I am I, thou art thou, I am low, thou art high, I am thou that thou seekest to find him, find thou but thyself, thou art I,”
Of which the immediate and evident deduction is that tyrants are as much the sons of God as Garibaldis; and that King Bomba of Naples having, with the utmost success, “found himself” is identical with the ultimate good in all things.