RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT 



maintain every one of the fundamental truths 

 which give to Religion its permanent value. 

 Starting from the knowledge of nature which 

 we now possess, and without making appeal 

 to venerated traditions based upon the scantier 

 knowledge possessed by relatively barbarous 

 ages, I have sought to show that the truths 

 already discerned and asserted in these traditions 

 — the fundamental truths to which alone the 

 traditions owe their permanent hold upon men^s 

 minds — are in no wise shaken, but rather con- 

 firmed and reiterated by our present knowledge. 

 For my purpose, this has been sufficiently shown 

 in the present chapter and its two predecessors. 

 For not only have we seen that scientific in- 

 quiry, proceeding from its own resources and 

 borrowing no hints from theology, leads to the 

 conclusion that the universe is the manifestation 

 of a Divine Power that is in no wise identifi- 

 able with the universe, or interpretable in terms 

 of " blind force " or of any other phenomenal 

 manifestation ; but we have also seen that the 

 ethical relations in which man stands with refer- 

 ence to this Divine Power are substantially the 

 same, whether described in terms of modern sci- 

 ence or in terms of ancient mythology. And in 

 so far as there is any difference between the sci- 

 entific and the mythologic view of the sanctions 

 by which these ethical relations are maintained, 

 we have seen that the sanctions recognized by 

 3^3 



