CONCLUSION 349 



after clearing away crudities of thought (which must 

 necessarily be associated with anything adapted to the 

 everyday needs of humanity) to water down the meaning 

 until little is left that could possibly be in opposition 

 to science or to anything else. If the revised interpre- 

 tation had first been presented no one would have raised 

 vigorous criticism; on the other hand no one would have 

 been stirred to any great spiritual enthusiasm. It is the 

 less easy to steer clear of this temptation because it is 

 necessarily a question of degree. Clearly if we are to 

 extract from the tenets of a hundred different sects any 

 coherent view to be defended some at least of them must 

 be submitted to a watering-down process. I do not 

 know if the reader will acquit me of having succumbed 

 to this temptation in the passages where I have touched 

 upon religion; but I have tried to make a fight against it. 

 Any apparent failure has probably arisen in the following 

 way. We have been concerned with the borderland of 

 the material and spiritual worlds as approached from the 

 side of the former. From this side all that we could 

 assert of the spiritual world would be insufficient to 

 justify even the palest brand of theology that is not too 

 emaciated to have any practical influence on man's 

 outlook. But the spiritual world as understood in any 

 serious religion is by no means a colourless domain. 

 Thus by calling this hinterland of science a spiritual 

 world I may seem to have begged a vital question, 

 whereas I intended only a provisional identification. To 

 make it more than provisional an approach must be made 

 from the other side. I am unwilling to play the amateur 

 theologian, and examine this approach in detail. I have, 

 however, pointed out that the attribution of religious 

 colour to the domain must rest on inner conviction; and 

 I think we should not deny validity to certain inner 



