CONVICTION 333 



Conviction. Through fourteen chapters you have fol- 

 lowed with me the scientific approach to knowledge. 

 I have given the philosophical reflections as they have 

 naturally arisen from the current scientific conclusions, 

 I hope without distorting them for theological ends. In 

 the present chapter the standpoint has no longer been 

 predominantly scientific; I started from that part of our 

 experience which is not within the scope of a scientific 

 survey, or at least is such that the methods of physical 

 science would miss the significance that we consider it 

 essential to attribute to it. The starting-point of belief 

 in mystical religion is a conviction of significance or, 

 as I have called it earlier, the sanction of a striving in 

 the consciousness. This must be emphasised because 

 appeal to intuitive conviction of this kind has been the 

 foundation of religion through all ages and I do not 

 wish to give the impression that we have now found 

 something new and more scientific to substitute. I re- 

 pudiate the idea of proving the distinctive beliefs of 

 religion either from the data of physical science or by 

 the methods of physical science. Presupposing a 

 mystical religion based not on science but (rightly or 

 wrongly) on a self-known experience accepted as fun- 

 damental, we can proceed to discuss the various criti- 

 cisms which science might bring against it or the 

 possible conflict with scientific views of the nature of 

 experience equally originating from self-known data. 



It is necessary to examine further the nature of the 

 conviction from which religion arises; otherwise we may 

 seem to be countenancing a blind rejection of reason as 

 a guide to truth. There is a hiatus in reasoning, we must 

 admit; but it is scarcely to be described as a rejection 

 of reasoning. There is just the same hiatus in reasoning 

 about the physical world if we go back far enough. We 



