2. Man and Religion.—It must be here assumed that the attempt to explain man empirically—that is, as a product of nature—has failed, and that he must be interpreted ideally, as a person in and yet above the process of nature. If Materialism, or Naturalism, or Agnosticism be true, then human religion is a delusion, and Divine revelation an impossibility. But none of these theories can offer a guarantee for the truth of science, or a reason for the claims of conscience; and each of them fails to explain all that man feels to have the highest worth for him. Idealism alone ean so interpret man as not to lower the value of his spiritual interests and pursuits. What, then, is the idealist interpretation of man? As rational, he seeks truth, the harmony of thought and being ; as moral, he seeks what from different points of view may be described as holiness or freedom, or the harmony of law and will; as emotional, he seeks what from different points of view may be described as blessedness or love, the harmony of his whole self with his whole environment. N ow, although these ideals are not always consciously present to his mind, even although they may dis- guise themselves in the forms of lower desires and expectations, yet they are ever determining his actions both as motive for and as end of his de- velopment. These ideals as realized in one Being afford man his conception of God. Of course it is not affirmed that man’s religious consciousness
reaches this conception by any such analysis or argument ; all that is here indicated is that man’s ideal nature adequately interpreted implies the conception of God, and that his belief in_his ideal involves his faith in a reality corresponding thereto, for such a reality alone can afford him the assurance that his ideal can be realized. Unless the intelligence and the intelligible world have their ground in one reason, the harmony of thought and being can never be reached; unless the activity of man can be derived from the same character as is expressed in moral standards, the harmony of will and law seems unattainable ; unless the same purpose is expressed in the desires of men and the process of the world, there will be no escape from the struggle of the self and the environment. Man has ever sought to form relations with, by rendering services to, or seeking benefits from the Being on whom he is proved by his very nature dependent, and with whom, as rational, moral, emotional, he claims affinity. The communion of God and man finds expression in Leligion, which from a speculative standpoint may be defined as necessary, and from a historical as universal. It is true that attempts have been made to prove that there are peoples without religion ; but in the instances produced it has subsequently been found that closer investi- gation modified first impressions ; and, even should there be any doubt left in a few cases, it can be confidently asserted that peoples without re- ligion have not yet reached the full development of their humanity. Without attempting now to dis- prove the contentions of the thinkers who do not interpret man’s morality and religion as true, but account for them as fictitious, we may assert that the origin of religion cannot be inconsistent with its functions, If man’s ideal implies re- ligion, its origin lies not in what is lowest but in what is highest in him. Imperfect as were the forms in which the instincts, impulses, and intui- tions of religion at first were manifested, yet we have warrant in the history of religions for con- cluding that man’s consciousness of God developed along with his consciousness of self and the world. The communion he sought with God had neces- sarily the inadequacy of his purposes for himself, or the uses he made of the world. If religion be thus implied in man as mind and heart and will, the inquiry as to the organ of religion in him is evidently due to a misconception of its nature. Religion is not one of a number of spiritual func- tions; it is the relation between man’s whole personality and the Being who is its ground, law, type, ideal, in whom all his varied functions have their source and reason. Hence religion has his whole nature as its organ, and finds expression in all his spiritual functions. Religion is not primarily or exclusively intellectual (Hegel), or moral (Kant), or emotional (Schleiermacher), but embraces mind and will and heart alike. Just as man responds to his natural environment in knowledge, feeling, deed, so does he respond to his spiritual environment in reason, conscience, reverence. His consciousness of God is at least as varied as his consciousness of the world, or of his own self. But in the history of religions the proportion and harmony of these three elements has not been maintained. Religion as truth and as righteousness has often been subordinated to religion as the satisfaction of emotions. This is sought in worship, from which all intellectual and all moral elements cannot be altogether excluded. In Greece, for instance, we find the popular idolatry completely divorced from the ethical inquiry of a Socrates and the speculative effort of a Plato. The intellectual and moral content of religion has again and again been allowed to fall