To put this a little
differently: we feel that the God of the orthodox moralist is not the God
of human nature. He is nothing but the moralist himself in a highly
sublimated state, but betraying, in spite of that sublimation, a fatal
savor of human personality. The conviction that any man--George
Washington, let us say--is a morally unexceptionable man, does not in the
least reconcile us to the idea of God being an indefinitely exalted
counterpart of Washington. Such a God would be "most tolerable, and not to
be endured"; and the more exalted he was, the less endurable would he be.
In short, man instinctively refuses to regard the literal inculcation of
the Decalogue as the final word of God to the human race, and much less to
the individuals of that race; and when he finds a story-teller proceeding
upon the contrary assumption, he is apt to put that story-teller down as
either an ass or a humbug.
As for art--if the reader happen to be competent to form an opinion on
that phase of the matter--he will generally find that the art dwindles in
direct proportion as the moralized deity expatiates; in fact, that they
are incompatible.
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