BELIEFS AND EXISTENCES 195 



sirable thing, the union of acknowledgment of 

 moral powers and demands with thoroughgoing 

 naturalism. No one really wants to lame man s 

 practical nature; it is the supposed exigencies of 

 natural science that force the hand. No one 

 really bears a grudge against naturalism for the 

 sake of obscurantism. It is the need of some sacred 

 reservation for moral interests that coerces. We 

 all want to be as naturalistic as we can be. But 

 the &quot; can be &quot; is the rub. If we set out with a 

 fixed dualism of belief and knowledge, then the 

 uneasy fear that the natural sciences are going to 

 encroach and destroy &quot; spiritual values &quot; haunts 

 us. So we build them a citadel and fortify it ; 

 that is, we isolate, professionalize, and thereby 

 weaken beliefs. But if beliefs are the most natu- 

 ral, and in that sense, the most metaphysical of 

 all things, and if knowledge is an organized tech 

 nique for working out their implications and in 

 terrelations, for directing their formation and em 

 ploy, how^ unnecessary , how petty the fear and the 

 caution. Because freedom of belief is ours, free 

 thought may exercise itself; the freer the thought 

 the more sure the emancipation of belief. Hug 

 some special belief and one fears knowledge; be 

 lieve in belief and one loves and cleaves to knowl 

 edge. 



We have here, too, the possibility of a common 

 understanding, in thought, in language, in outlook, 



