ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



our feet in accepting the explanation and interpre- 

 tation which any of the formal religious systems, 

 old or new, place upon it? I think not. 



In the presence of the midnight skies, of the crea- 

 tive and destructive cosmic processes constantly 

 going on in the awful depths of the sidereal space, 

 of suns and systems coming in and going out like 

 blooming and fading flowers, in the presence of the 

 geological and biological histories of the globe, or of 

 the histories of the different nations and races of the 

 globe, does not most of our Christian mythology 

 seem utterly childish? 



How strange that we should crave a creed or a be- 

 lief that goes outside of our experimental knowledge; 

 that is independent of it, not subject to its tests and 

 limitations; something afar off and irrational and 

 inexplicable, and beyond the reach of time and 

 change! Who is the philosopher who said that we 

 are guided by our common sense in everything but 

 our religious beliefs? 



We can taste and see and touch and smell and eat 

 and drink and measure and accumulate and organ- 

 ize and assimilate scientific knowledge; it gives us a 

 place whereon to stand our Archimedean lever with 

 which we can move the world and the whole sidereal 

 system of worlds. But with our so-called theological 

 knowledge, and with much of our metaphysical 

 knowledge, it is like trying to move with a lever the 

 mountain upon which one stands. 



254 



