276 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



behaviour that deserves, and alone deserves, to be 

 called rational. 



And, if our view of reason changes, our view of 

 religion must change with it. Religion is not the 

 contradiction but the fulfilment of reason. For rea- 

 son is immanent in all things. Every one of Mr. A. 

 J. Balfour's parallel pigeon-holes is a simple depart- 

 ment or manifestation of reason. " Ethics " and 

 " ^Esthetic " are as rational as abstract scientific 

 knowledge; how could they arise save in a rational 

 consciousness ? And assuredly religion also must be 

 a superstructure reared on the foundations of reason. 

 But it is not true, as the intellectualists hold, that 

 morals or aesthetics add nothing to that which is pre- 

 sented to us in knowledge. It is not true, as Hegel- 

 ianism seems to imply, that goodness and beauty are 

 mere allotropic forms of rational system, or that logic 

 furnishes the master key to their meaning. Our 

 knowledge is real knowledge, but has its limits ; and 

 the meeting-point of these various stems lies under- 

 ground, well out of sight. To God, their connection 

 may be self-evident, their interdependence manifest ; 

 to man, these great truths must continue largely 

 matter of faith. 



And therefore we do not speak idly when we say 

 that reason finds its fulfilment not strictly in itself, 

 but above and beyond itself, in religion. Men do 

 not need religion to make it their interest to be good. 

 That is, most deeply, our human interest. Yet man 

 is in bondage. " The good that we approve we per- 

 form not; the evil that we allow not, that we do." 

 By a " pleasureless yielding " to " petty solicitations 

 of circumstance," we destroy ourselves. Deliverance 



