Whoever claims ABSOLUTE teleological unity, saying that there is one
purpose that every detail of the universe subserves, dogmatizes at
his own risk. Theologians who dogmalize thus find it more and more
impossible, as our acquaintance with the warring interests of the
world's parts grows more concrete, to imagine what the one
climacteric purpose may possibly be like. We see indeed that certain
evils minister to ulterior goods, that the bitter makes the cocktail
better, and that a bit of danger or hardship puts us agreeably to
our trumps. We can vaguely generalize this into the doctrine that
all the evil in the universe is but instrumental to its greater
perfection. But the scale of the evil actually in sight defies all
human tolerance; and transcendental idealism, in the pages of a
Bradley or a Royce, brings us no farther than the book of Job did--
God's ways are not our ways, so let us put our hands upon our mouth.
A God who can relish such superfluities of horror is no God for
human beings to appeal to. His animal spirits are too high. In other
words the 'Absolute' with his one purpose, is not the man-like God
of common people.
7. AESTHETIC UNION among things also obtains, and is very analogous
to ideological union.
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