Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing.
Xenophanes of Colophon (About 570 B.C.).
I do not know whose paraphrase this is; it was prefixed by Tyndall to his Belfast Address, 1874. He probably imagined that these lines contained an argument in favour of materialism; but on the contrary the Greek philosopher affirms the existence of a supreme God. All that he says is that the conception of him as resembling a mortal in his physical attributes is wrong.
At the back of Tyndall’s mind was no doubt the prevalent idea that any “anthropomorphic” conception of the nature of the Deity is necessarily absurd. But there is nothing unreasonable in believing that His nature, though immeasurably superior, is nevertheless akin to our own. The argument is that the source or power of the world must be greater than the highest thing it has produced, the mind of man; and that it must more nearly resemble the higher than the lower of its products. In particular it is impossible for us to believe that our moral ideas of truth, justice, right and wrong, etc., can differ at all in kind, however much in degree, from those of God. So also our reason must be akin to His insight. Such a belief should be regarded, not as “anthropomorphic,” but as (in a sense different from that of Clifford and Harrison) a “deification of man”—the recognition of the Divine that is in him.
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,