# The Limits of Evolution/Essay 5

THE RIGHT RELATION OF REASON TO RELIGION
On the question, What is the real relation between reason and religion, the range in contrast of views is of course very great. And this is true, whether we consider the views as merely conceivable or as actually presented in the course of history.
It is evident, first, that the view might conceivably be taken, that reason and religion are incompatible. This incompatibility might moreover be construed in behoof of religion as against reason. It might be said, that, granting the reality of religion, the recognition of superhuman Power, the active presence of the Power must be accepted as simply an awful Fact — inexplicable, incomprehensible, inscrutable, yet unquestionable — before which, terrible and indeed resistless and overwhelming, reason must prostrate itself, keep silence, and slink away into undiscoverable hiding. And this view is not merely conceivable, but is actual and historical; nay, it is the eldest view; and if hoary antiquity or multitude of adherents were taken as the true measure of value and authority, it would be the weightiest view. ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/279 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/280 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/281 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/282 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/283 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/284 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/285 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/286 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/287 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/288 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/289 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/290 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/291 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/292 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/293 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/294 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/295 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/296 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/297 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/298 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/299 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/300 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/301 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/302 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/303 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/304 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/305 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/306 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/307 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/308 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/309 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/310 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/311 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/312 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/313 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/314 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/315 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/316 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/317 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/318 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/319 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/320 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/321 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/322 ​this objection would enforce it, too, by recalling our attention to the fact, that, in the very beginnings of this issue, we confronted the assertion—maintained by one great religious school—that reason is intrinsically incompetent to religion, because its judgments, however conclusive and infallible in its own field, are limited to that field, which is the world of sense-experience only, and not in the least the world of supersensible and spiritual reality. Our vindication of Rationalism will accordingly not be complete till we have grappled with this contention common to the religious dogmatist and the agnostic, and made an end of it by showing not only that the opposite is true, but that its truth is implied in this contention itself.
I am not the least disposed to evade this indication of a needed completion to our argument. Rather, I willingly grant the point as correctly made, and I cordially take up the task which I accepted at the outset as part of this hour's duty, namely, to show that reason is not confined in its judgments to the things of sense, but extends also to the things invisible,—to all the things of the spirit, the things of religion.
In entering upon this final stage in our discussion, it is only fair to take the preparatory advantage of noticing that the very parties which discredit reason and maintain the cause of author​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/324 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/325 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/326 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/327 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/328 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/329 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/330 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/331 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/332 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/333 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/334 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/335 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/336 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/337 ​Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/338 ​therefore suitable and pertinent. Let those who would impugn it, assail the value of the method of inductive science, if they will. But those who value that method — and who in these days does not? — must in consistency with its tacit logic conclude that the voice of reason is for God, the God of Christ and of Christianity; and that as reason is essentially religious, so true religion is essentially rational.