LATER ATTITUDE TO RELIGION 275

religious customs, but a wider knowledge convinced
him almost against his will that some sort of religious
cult has been an indispensable factor in social progress.
Quite aware of the great changes in theological
thought which had taken place during his life-time,
he looked forward to a stage in which, " recognising
the mystery of things as insoluble, religious organisa-
tions will be devoted to ethical culture." As Prof.
Henry Sidgwick puts it, " Spencer contemplates com-
placently the reduction of religious thought and
sentiment to a perfectly indefinite consciousness of
the Unknowable and the emotion that accompanies
this peculiar intellectual exercise."

" Thus I have come more and more to look calmly on
forms of religious belief to which I had, in earlier days, a
pronounced aversion. Holding that they are in the main
naturally adapted to"their respective peoples and times, it now
seems to me well that they should severally live and work
as long as the conditions permit, and, further, that sudden
changes of religious institutions, as of political institutions, are
certain to be followed by reactions.'7

*« If it be asked why, thinking thus, I have persevered in
setting forth views at variance with current creeds, my reply
is the one elsewhere made: It is for each to utter that
which he sincerely believes to be true, and, adding his unit of
influence to all other units, leave the results to work them-
selves out/'

Largely, however, Spencer's change of mood in re-
gard to religious creeds and institutions resulted from
" a deepening conviction that the sphere occupied by
them can never become an unfilled sphere, but that
there must continue to arise afresh the great questions
concerning ourselves and surrounding things; and
that, if not positive answers, then modes of conscious-
S*detailed knowledged conclusions: we find that each adopts his