224 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



reversed : reason, instead of paying homage to re- 

 ligion and making its submission to external authority, 

 now legislates for the religion which is its own off- 

 spring, and becomes itself the authority from which 

 the credentials of religion must issue. 



It is this New Doctrine, known generally, and 

 properly enough, as the doctrine of Rationalism, 

 that I am permitted by the courtesy of this Congress^ 

 briefly to explain and defend. To the question. 

 What is the right relation between reason and reli- 

 gion, you will now understand me to answer, It 

 is that reason should be the source of which religion 

 is the issue ; that reason, when most itself, will un- 

 questionably be religious, but that religion must for 

 just that cause be entirely rational ; that reason is 

 the final authority from which religion must derive 

 its warrant, and with which its contents must comply ; 

 that all religious doctrines and instrumentalities, all 

 religious practices, all religious institutions, and all 

 records of religion, whether in tradition or in scrip- 

 ture, must alike submit their claims at the bar of 

 general human reason, and that only those approved 



^ The essay was read as an address before the Congress of Religion, 

 held in connexion with the International Exposition at San Francisco 

 in April, 1894. 



