The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1920-11-14
ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE BY John
Burroughs Houghton, Mifflin Company.
Reviewed by
II. L. PANGBORN.

TN his essays on Accepting the Universe"
John Burroughs has given perhaps the
clearest and certainly one Of the most
a more accurate term, may be called modern
scientific pantheism. Each epoch, he recog-
nizes must have it's own religion and 1t must
be religion with a content somewhat be-
yond limited intellectual elements--it inevi-
tably must have something emotional in it.
His answer is statement of the religion of
science, of nature, with a determined opti-
mism as a constituent part of 1t.
In fact Mr. Burroughs does more than
accept the universe. He pats it on the back
with full approval and assures it that it is
the best possible of all conceivable universes,
and that to form a part of it is "our rare
good fortune" He never blinks the difficulty
of reconcling this conclusion with the exist
ence of evil of mperfection, OF what must
call militant wrong. All these are. ii is true,
part of the Cosmos, but merely momentary
and of small import, provided you can get
far enough TO envisage the Thing as whole.
He finds reconciliation. too, in the adapta-
bility of life to its changing conditions. and
believes that IL we can succeed in measuring
il with large enough natural universal
standards the contemplation of this Cosmos
may become supreme felicity"
OF course he will have nothing TO do with
any anthropomorphic god nor with any mar
rowly theological scheme of things. II
strikes him as insufferable conceit for man
to assume that he is the centre Of creation
or even that he is in any sense a flnality
He is unable to conceive either a beginning
or an end Of the universe or of any "crea-
ton ca nihuo. The universe was not made:
but II is And 1t is growing. changing, de-
veloping. and man is but a part of IT. He
conceives a sort of natural providence-not n
specialized affair and surely not at all per-
sonalized-as somehow a part of the Whole.
God is not apart from the universe nor a
mere part of it, but the universe is God.
When asked as to any solution of questions
about the Ultimate he frankly admits that
the human mind land that's the only sort of
mind we have) cannot fathom 1t. Here
must become agnostic. in the proper sense OF
that word: we do not, and cannot know.
That much is fairly familiar ground The
interest in Burroughs's diagnosis OF our case
lies in his reconciliations. AS he admits, he
is not always wholly consistent, and he Is
plagued with the age old difficulty OF trying
TO approach the unknowable in language Of
the known But he makes out an eloquent
case for the cheerfulness Of evolution as a
religion IT is our chief business to feel at
home on this planet" which Is so marvellous
~ adapted to our growth. We may also
realize that man himself is active and con-
sciously, purposefuly active in lettering this
environment, with the material nature pro-
vides him. AUD I'VE are embosomed in the
eternal benehcence, whether we desire 1t or
not" meaning thereby the benefcent adap-
tations of nature.
He does not follow out fully the conse-
quences of admitting that man himself is
biological legislator. evolving new laws and
that the emergence of moral (and still more)
aesthetic concepts in the process of evolution
Is the introduction of really new-and thus
xplicable-factors. To do so would lead
one into what he would call obviously tele-
illogical fields IT is possible to adjust moral
IDEAS to evolution, as they have a biological