Nineteenth-Century Science and Religion i8i 



example, would stand philosophy, in another religion, in another 

 art, and so on. The spirit is entire in all its functions, and their 

 variety comes solely from the dynamic ? ;centuation of one of its 

 aspects. 



How then can the relationship between science and religion 

 be understood ? Let me be permitted to outline here what seems 

 to me the right way of understanding this relationship, all the more 

 because my ideas on the subject are no longer exactly those put 

 forward in my book " The Idealistic Reaction against Science." 

 It is necessary first of all fo put on one side the old intellectualistic 

 conception of reality as a thing in itself, and of truth as the corre- 

 spondence of our ideas with this existence in itself To compare 

 our ideas with these things in themselves would be a desperate 

 undertaking ; and, moreover, it is not even possible to think of 

 an object without putting it in relationship with our consciousness. 

 Reality is the very life of our experience in its most concrete form, 

 and of which the Ego and the world are indivisible aspects. I have 

 experiences of myself only in relation to all the other beings and to 

 all the other activities of the world of experience, and I know all the 

 others only in relation to myself It is absurd to wish to transcend 

 this living relation, this concrete Unity of experience. In them 

 the Divine and the Human are not two realities which stand face 

 to face with each other. There is not on the one side the infinite, 

 and on the other the finite, drawn up with the sharp figures of 

 intellectualism, but they are fused and yet distinguished in such a 

 way that any logical transcription would misrepresent them. Love 

 and thou shalt understand. The Divine Life is not the simple 

 sum of our individual experiences, as if they were placed the one 

 beside the other, but it is a superior integration of them in one 

 dynamic whole. God is not exhausted within us, but He does not 

 live without us. His work is not without our work. His Creation 

 is not without our creation. Grace and providence are not gifts 

 which we receive passively, they are not preordained designs which 

 annul our spontaneous will, but aids for our activity. We co- 

 operate with God for the redemption of the world. He is not 

 suspended on high in a changeless Olympus, but lives, suffers, and 

 hopes with us. In this lies the profound truth of Christianity 

 which made God descend in sacrifice for Man. Is this Pantheism 

 or Theism, Immanence or Transcendence ? Let us leave to in- 

 tellectualism these sharp contrasts, which are the product of con- 



