Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/42



“Certain spirits, by permission, ascended from hell, and said to me, ‘You have written a great deal from the Lord, write something also from us.’ I replied, ‘What shall I write?’ They said, ‘Write that every spirit, whether he be good or evil, is in his own delight, — the good in the delight of his good, and the evil in the delight of his evil.’ I asked them, ‘What may your delight be?’ They said that it was the delight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding, and lying. . . . I said, ‘Then you are like the unclean beasts.’. . . They answered, ‘If we are, we are.’” —, Divine Providence.

“There’s nothing, either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Hamlet.

which of the two considerations mentioned in our introduction shall a religious philosophy begin? Of its two chief considerations, the moral code, and the relation of this code to reality, which is the one that properly stands first in order? We have already indicated our opinion. The philosophy of religion is distinguished from theoretic philosophy precisely by its relation to an ideal. If possible, therefore, it should early be clear as to what ideal it has. The ideal ought, if possible, to be studied first, since it is this ideal that is to give character to our whole quest among the realities. And so the first part of religious philosophy is properly the discussion of ethical problems.