The sun., 1909-02-21


and even whole secondary periods. schools
and traditions. markedly typical Of some
current other than that specially charac-
teristic of the order.
Baron Hugel closes his Introductory
chapter with some consideration Of the
causes that are ever tending to produce
and to excuse the quiet elimination or
forcible suppression Of one or other Of
the three elements that constitute the
minimize or deny altogether the necessity
Of any such multiplicity. Taking the
last point first. the author recalls how
irresistible the appeal to boundless sim
plification seems to the specifically re-
ligious temper. Can there be anything
more sublmely. utterly simple than
religion?' not few persons say and feel
Where is there room here, some even
feel angrily. for all these distinctions,
all this balancing Of divers faculties and
parts, when the one thing necessary is
the one God and to be one with Him
forever? Is not everything else but so
naturalism, a presumptuous attempting
to build up bit by bit in practice and to
analyze part from pert in theory what
can only come straight from God Him
self, and coming from Him the One, can
not r'tt bear the impress OF His own in
distin guishable unity? Can there be.
some ask. anything more unforcedly.
unanaly zably simple than all actual re-
ligion-and this in exact proportion to
its greatness? Look. they say. at St.
Francis Of Assist or St. John the Baptist;
look. above all. at the Christ, supremely.
uniquely great. just because Of His sub
lime simplicity.
Our author submits that in all this
Of error. He comedies IL to be profoundly
true that all that is at all, still more all
personality. and hence. above all. God,
the Spirit of Spirits. is just in that pro-
portion profoundly, mysteriously One.
with a Unity which all our best thinking
can only distantly and snalogously rep
resent. 1t is not here denied that 'all
relig gion will ever. in proportion as IL is
vigorous and pure, thirst after an ever
increasing Unification, will long TO be one.
and to give itself TO the One--to follow
naked the naked Jesus II is equally true
that all the history Of human thought
and all the actual experience Of each
Of us prove that this unity can be ap-
pretended and developed by and within
our poor human selves only In proper
ton as we carefully persist in stopping
at the point where II can most thoroughly
organize and harmonize the largest posi-
bic multiplicity Of various facts and forces
Aside from the inseparable tendency
Of the religious temper to long for simpli-
fcation our author distinguishes special
motives operating In each OF the three ele-
ments of religion toward the suppression
Of the two others He endeavors to exhibit
this tendency at work In the two chief
constituents as against each other and In
combination against the third. Take
for instance a religion in which the his
torical and the institutional element il
signally preponderant. Such a religion
will consist in the continuous commemo-
ration Of some great religious facts Of the
past. 1t will teach and represent some
divine revelation as having been made In
and through such and such a particular
person in such and such a particular
place at such and such particular time.
and such revelation will claim acceptance
as divine and redemptive in and through
the very form and manner in which II
was originally made. Every such per-
sonal and revelational religion was nee
essarily first manifested in unique condi-
tions Of space and time; and yet in 30 far
as it claims to be divine it must claim to
embrace all the endless conditions OF other
spaces and other times.
Our author points out that this combi-
nat ion Of a clearly contingent constituent
and Of an imperiously absolute claim is
not less but more visible as we rise In the
scale OF religion. The figure OF our Lord
is far more clear aud definite and richly
individual than are the figures of the
Buddha and Of Mohammed. At the same
time Christianity has always claimed
for Him far more than Buddhism or