“The true love wherewith God loves other spirits is not the outpouring upon them of graces which are the unearned gift of his miraculous power; it is the love, on the contrary, which holds the individuality, the personal initiative, of its object sacred. As the true father desires that the son who, after him, is to be the head of the family shall have a method and policy of his own, by which the honours of the line shall be increased by new contributions, so he who is the Father of Spirits will have his image brought forth in every one of his offspring by the thought and conviction of each soul itself.”

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.257

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George Holmes Howison 135
American philosopher 1834–1916

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