the world of ideas alone but unhappily also on the battlefields of earth, with men and not ideas alone as combatants bent on one another's destruction, was still fresh in memory, and the wrangling sects of Protestantism were perpetuating the strife. Naturally there was great longing for peace, and how could it be attained better than by emphasizing the points of agreement among warring parties, which indeed were far more numerous and significant than those on which they differed, and if these agreements could be established upon some other authority than that of the Bible, with its almost limitless possibilities of interpretation and misinterpretation, so much the better. Hence we find Lord Herbert of Cherbury announcing five truths of natural religion which, as he believed, were innate in man and consequently were in need of no external support. The five points were: there is one highest divine being; this being is to be worshipped; the most important part of his worship consists in virtue and piety; blasphemy and crime must be atoned for by repentance; punishment and reward follow after this life. These ideas Herbert believed to be implicit in the nature of man in such a way that, whenever an appropriate occasion arose, they mounted into his consciousness with unimpeachable authority. But were not these the essentials of religion upon which not only all Christians but also all men, just because they were men, were agreed, and did they not offer a certain and sufficient basis of unity and ground of peace? The attempt was at least stimulating, and attention was directed to the mind of man in the hope of discovering there as a universal possession, if not these particular points of Lord Herbert, at any rate certain notitiae communes constituting natural religion. Into the history of these various attempts we cannot go. They were made both by those who accepted and by those who denied revelation. Mention must be made, however, of a form of the undertaking which is of especial interest to us gathered here to-night in Emerson Hall. The argument seemed to have received its quietus when Locke denied innate ideas, although Lord Herbert himself seems to have put it in a form which would have permitted his followers to reply that they meant not exactly ideas but rather tendencies to action of such a sort that these ideas were their legitimate and

necessary intellectual formulations. But this form also was threatened when Kant affirmed the reality of these tendencies as mental forms but denied them validity outside the world of experience. Yet it was soon asked, Why this denial which virtually throws us into scepticism? If the integration of man with nature be acknowledged, shall we not find the unity of both in one all-embracing life of God whereof each is manifestation? If this be so, then man and nature are of one tissue and structure and the forms of human thinking are also the forms of nature's activity. Then man is the clearer revelation of that which, or of Him who, is the very inmost being of man and nature both. What is latent in nature is patent in man. This was the creative idea of Emerson and of the New England Transcendentalists. Accordingly, by them, the basis of religion was found in the human soul as bearer of God himself within which were found certain intuitions-the idea of God, the sentiment of duty, the assurance of immortality—which as inalienable possessions of humanity were therefore unquestionable disclosures of God. How illogical and silly to seek a revelation from without, while God was thus perpetually and universally revealing himself within! Here was natural religion; and what more was needed, if indeed more had been given?

But intuitions are dubious things, and knowledge of earlier races and of contemporary peoples in early stages of development by no means serves to confirm the optimistic confidence of Parker, for example, that the farther back one goes the clearer and purer become these intuitions. In fact, is it not more likely that these supposed intuitions are actual inculcations for which centuries of Christian thinking and training are responsible? The argument which once seemed irrefragable soon lost cogency.

Meanwhile, however, there had developed a metaphysical form of the argument much more profound and promising. The question was not so much whether our detailed knowledge of the world or of man indicates God as whether our knowledge as such, in form, that is, rather than content, does not necessarily imply God. The world of sense is discontinuous, that of our knowledge is unified: does reality correspond to sense or to

knowledge? If to the latter, then it also is unified and structural, and consciousness furnishes the only form we know for the organization of reality into unity. Is not God, therefore, necessarily implied in our knowledge? The inquiry involved one of the paradoxes which rejoice a metaphysical mind. The content of our knowledge may lead us to doubt or even deny the existence of God but the structure of the denial involves the affirmation of that which is denied. We cannot guarantee the value of our denial save by a tacit affirmation of that which is openly denied. Into this form of the argument it would be superfluous to enter further, for here at Harvard all its phases are perfectly familiar, as well as all the criticisms of it. Suffice it to say that thus theism becomes part of the general epistemological problem. To accept the validity of knowledge in its detailed contents and deny the structure of our knowledge would seem absurd. And if, acknowledging that the trustworthiness of knowledge in concrete detail is not susceptible of logical demonstration, we nevertheless accept it by a sort of ontological good faith, it is hard to see why a similar procedure is not equally warranted with reference to the structural implications of knowledge.

It is remarkable, however, that the course of natural religion, which started among the common ways of men with a simplicity which promised universal comprehension and acceptance, should have led us to these heights of speculation whither only the more reflective philosophers dare climb and in whose rarefied atmosphere only the stout-hearted can dwell. It seems to have fetched a wide compass around to that earlier view of Varro as represented by Augustine which appears to have identified natural religion with an esoteric cult of the philosophers. Surely this is not the sort of natural religion contemplated by the founder of this lectureship, which was to serve as the solid foundation upon which in the succeeding years of a student's life was to be raised the imposing structure of good old-fashioned New England Congregationalism. Can such a natural religion as this ever become universal?

Here, then, it becomes necessary to draw the distinction between theology and religion, and to confess that so far we have been speaking of natural theology and not of natural religion. That

the two ideas have been confused throughout the process we have been hastily sketching is the only excuse for not making the differentiation earlier. But in a book written a generation ago by J. R. Seeley, and properly entitled Natural Religion, the distinction was made, and it was shown with almost prophetic insight and power that there already existed a natural religion of a kind hitherto unrecognized which was destined to increase in depth and richness. In truth, Seeley's book, now almost forgotten, seems to me one of the most significant contributions ever made to the literature of the subject, which should have marked a turning-point in thought concerning natural religion quite as noteworthy as that which his Ecce Homo made in the popular appreciation of Jesus. For the tendency which he was keen enough to detect has gone on apace, until it has become the most important factor in the religious world of today. The Christian church bewails its diminishing influence, which indeed is a palpable fact, but it has been slow to recognize that outside its borders there has been growing a religious life which it has inspired only indirectly, if at all, and which it by no means nourishes or directs. This extra-confessional and extra-ecclesiastical religious life seeks no alliance with any church, nor would it find itself at home there, but it cherishes a love of truth so pure and ardent that even the most precious traditional beliefs are willingly relinquished in obedience to its august demands, a devotion to goodness which stops at no expenditure of time or treasure or effort that it may give greater happiness and worth to other lives, a love of beauty which demands a city and a country beautiful, and is resolved that even the humblest shall be surrounded by the ennobling influences of art and music and educated into aesthetic appreciation. The point to be insisted upon, then, is the actual presence in the world today of a genuine, although unconventional, religious life wholly independent of ancient forms however tender and sacred as well as of historic tradition however uplifting. It concerns itself not a whit with the arguments we have been rehearsing, finding indeed ominous intimations in the word, as if we had been rehearsing arguments long since dead and buried. It knows not the language of Canaan or even of Jerusalem, still less of Nicaea and Geneva, for its speech smacks

wholesomely of the soil and the twentieth century, nor has it the faintest interest in the endeavor to translate its utterances into the hieratic dialect of formal religion. Yet as the modern man confronts the world of nature and of man, he makes direct and immediate response in natural religion. No worshipper ever felt more deeply the majesty and wonder of his God than the student of science feels, in reasonable awe, the sublime order of the universe. Those who only accept at second hand the conclusions of scientific scholars seldom know in their own experience the sobering and fructifying sense of mystery which often descends upon a reflecting master in the realms of science. He knows full well that the mystery of the world has not been dispelled, rather has it been deepened by enlarging knowledge. True, a man of science may refuse to allow himself to dwell upon the mystery he can but feel, lest it should seduce him from his appointed task, but the mystery is there, he feels it, and sometimes the analytic mind of the scholar yields to the appreciative mind of the man-more often, I fancy, than is generally supposed. The sense of mystery always has accompanied religion, and whoever faces today the world of nature thoughtfully is filled with awe. In addition, religion has inspired a feeling of confidence because of assurance that God was on the side of his worshipper, yet no devotee ever offered his prayer with half the confidence that a modern engineer constructs a bridge. This ordered world can be trusted not to deny itself or betray one who puts intelligent confidence in it. Schleiermacher and Calvin, each in his own way, emphasized the feeling of dependence as essential to religion until there was need to bring to the front again the dignity and worth of the individual man, but neither Calvin nor Schleiermacher nor any of their followers in piety ever felt more strongly the sense of dependence than does the man who today acknowledges the absolute sovereignty of natural laws, and Channing never taught more convincingly the worth of man than does he who, recognizing his dependence, is assured, nevertheless, that to him is given through knowledge of laws ability to control the forces of nature to serve his purposes. Whether or no the universe is animated by a purpose which directs its course towards the highest ends, it is at least amenable