Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/34

Rh and then only will religious philosophy be content with less. Then it will still ask: What in this world is worth most? It cannot make realities, but it is determined to judge them. It cannot be content with blind faith, and demands the actual truth as much as theoretic philosophy demands it; but religious philosophy treats this truth only as the material for its ideal judgments. It seeks the ideal among the realities.

Upon such a quest as this, we ask the reader to accompany us in the following pages. We have not space to be exhaustive, nor in fact to offer much more than suggestions; but we want the suggestions to be explicit, and we hope that they may stimulate some reader, and may perhaps help him in completing his own trains of thought.

People come to such questions as these with certain prejudices about the method and spirit of inquiry; and all their work may be hampered by these prejudices. Let us say yet a little more of what we think as to this matter. There are two extremes to fear in religious philosophy: indifference that arises from a dogmatic disposition to deny, and timidity that arises from an excessive show of reverence for the objects of religious faith. Both of these extreme moods have their defective methods in dealing with religious philosophy. The over-skeptical man looks with impatience on all lengthy discussions of these topics. There can be nothing in it all, he says;