T PART III THE REALITY OF RELIGION O perceive the independent essence of religion, as this is manifest in consciousness, is to estimate its intrinsic character in the form of sensitivity and spontaneity which do not arise in thinking or acting; both of these points of view involve a third question which concerns the reality of religion, as also a fourth which will inquire into the possibility of construing historical religion into a world-order. One half of the work proposed has thus been accomplished, and, having discovered the independent nature and self-constituted character of the religious consciousness, we must now proceed to inquire concerning the universality and necessity of these religious sentiments. Religion asserts itself as a form of culture which is distinct from both science and philosophy, and does not fail to differentiate its inner nature from logic and ethics; in doing this, religion assumes the validity of its ideas of a spiritual world-order and a realm of positive religious life in humanity. May these ideas be regarded as partaking of truth? Such is the question which lies before us. To answer it we must investigate the worldorder of humanity, and see whether the world of persons can appear as real as the world of things. Religion proclaims its universality in manifesting its history. The term "world" is to be understood in a dual sense, in which, not only external nature, but the particular nature of humanity, is the determining factor, and it is in this second sense that we employ the expression "history of the world" to indicate the systematic development of humanity. It is in this sense that we refer to the reality and world-order of religion, and, thus understood, the precinct of religion reveals the unity of religion and history in humanity. To believe in the world-order of humanity would not be difficult for our Anglo-American speculation, had not the history of our thought, which traces back to the physics and ethics of Butler, and the “causality and conscience" of Martineau, been educated upon purely • mechanical lines. At any rate, religion which ever culminates in the idea of an independent realm, as “Tao,” the "World of Brahman," or the "Kingdom of God," cannot attain completeness until finally it assume the form of a world-order. " From the employment of such terms as "reality,' "world-order," and the like, it must not be imagined that we vainly attempt to create the corresponding ideas, for the sole purpose of this part of our work consists in making intelligible certain facts which are given in the history of humanity. The understanding, possessing as it does certain categories, does not refrain from taking its concrete data from the domain of sense, and while it realizes that sensation can never speak for anything beyond itself, just as sense-experience can reveal actualities only and not necessities, it finds external elements essential to the content of human knowledge. In the same way thought may carry out its own reasonable programme, and yet involve the data of mankind's history, and just as the immortal soul participates in time, so the religious view of the world need not refrain from employing the elements of positive occurrence. The eternal verities need not lose their sufficient character when they are interpreted in the living form of Buddhism and Christianity, and the essence and character of spiritual religion may be maintained in the midst of the positive. The problem proposed by the positive must now be set in a clearer light. As a sheer fact religion is a positive affair, and in no sense does it consist of eternal verities which come directly from the understanding. To see this one need only glance through the volumes of the Sacred Books of the East," which are saturated with the positive elements, incident upon language, custom, history. Nevertheless, the purely positive cannot suffice to render religion valuable, and it is apparent that the data of history are not in themselves convincing. We appeal to the positive fact in history, not because it is a matter which emphasizes time, place, and circumstance, but because the fact is an event of peculiar significance in the life of humanity. The renunciatory decision of Gautama is a merely biographical fact in itself, but it shapes the destiny of millions in the Orient, and the advent of Jesus is of magisterial significance for the Occident. The ideal event is native to religion, the inclusive influence of which is able to elevate simple facts to sovereign principles. Religion does not forbid revelation, but, as in the case of Persian dualism, it takes the purely historical fact of the division of the Aryans and transfigures it into a doctrine. To reach the idea of a world-order is to realize religion itself. That which threatens religion is subjectivity and humanism, and that which must now come in to correct this tendency is the thought that religion has a worldmeaning; accordingly, we ask, is the precinct of religion subtended by any world-principle? Traditional theism asks whether its idea of God demonstrates His existence, and in the same spirit it is now inquired whether subjective religion possesses any objective significance, or any theological realm. To satisfy the demands of such a question we must consider the objective side of religion as it appears in history. There it must be asked whether the positive sustains the character of a revelation, and if, finally, such religion has an ontological significance. Thus, rather than select a category of the understanding, like substance or causality, and try to raise it to the rank of ontological verity, we follow the intuitions of living, char acteristic religion with the hope that they may reveal an eternal life. The ideas of ontosophy, to use Clauberg's term, tend ever to relate the total life of humanity to the supersensible world, and not only in the alert and skilful thinking of the dialectician, but in the dreaming consciousness of artist and religionist, does the Absolute appear. True art, true life, and true religion contain more than innuendoes of the circumambient One who is life and truth. The Deity is not a citadel which we attack in vain, but a home which we possess in security, and we need not strive to enter into the inaccessible, for we can live in the presence of the supreme God. It is not by searching analysis, but by a vast synthesis, which humanity has long been developing, that we arrive at the Godhead, so that, at last, philosophy of religion has not to create but to contemplate. Now, the positive nature of religion makes necessary a beginning in human history, and it is this argument from beginnings which must be reduced to philosophy. I. The Origin of Religion The reality of religion is found in history. To fathom the precise meaning of religion is to indicate the lines of its historical progress, and this involves, not only questions of fact and problems of relation, but another form of inquiry which seeks to render thinkable the communion of historical humanity with God. Readers of the Kantian "Kritik" cannot fail to notice the striking interrogations which were put forth by the arbiter between expiricism and rationalism, especially the one which raises the whole problem of knowledge when it asks, "How are synthetic judgments possible a priori?" In the larger sense this question asks, How may the actual be regarded as necessary, or how may the temporal become the eternal? Such is the general nature of the problem before us. Not satisfied with the phenomenal connection of things, our thought presses on to indicate the noumenal order, and thus ascends from explanation to justification. History is the path from nature to spirit, and the problem which it proposes, while it resembles the logical inquiry of Kant, is not unlike the metaphysical investigation which Descartes carried on in the spirit of dualism. The facts in the present case include the origin, development, and culmination of religion. Of these three, the second is the most obvious one, since we are as far from an explanation of the beginning of religion as we are from a prophecy as to its end. What here concerns us is the feeling that what is so excellent as religion should be without beginning or end of days. The argumentum a tergo is neither fallacious nor convincing; in itself it represents one of the problems which the new logic must take up, since constructive thinking is now making use of it, while its value as a canon of thought remains undetermined. Questions of origin were among the latest to arrive in a philosophic world, which had long pursued questions of ground, and we need not Nietzsche's suggestion, that it was democratic prejudice which exerted the retarding influence, to see that this is so. The fallacy of origins, like the fallacy of etymology, is often suggestive, and the logic of the future must learn how to connect the natural development of an idea with its rational deduction, just as human culture must be trained to respect the validity and value of that which has been explained. Scientific evolution, as a theory, has been our possession for a half-century, but it has not as yet been assimilated, and the repugnance which we feel is a psychological fact which, thus far, we cannot gainsay. When we suspect that art, law, and religion have sprung from the dust, we fear lest their sanctity be lost to us. What we explain, however, we do not explain away, and to see the beginning is not to see the end. Therefore, we shall continue to regard religion a fronte, while we glance backward toward ideas a tergo. It is startling to note the way in which Lotze declares that the question concerning |