1 82 Science Religion and Reality 



ceptual abstractions. We shall try in vain to define by a formula the 

 relation of the human with the divine, just as one would try in vain 

 to conceive abstractly the relation between two enamoured souls. 

 The concrete unity of experience must not be statically con- 

 ceived as the totality of a system which encloses the infinity of being 

 and exhausts time. From this intellectualistic conception, which 

 still persists in English neo-Hegelianism ; in Royce, for example, 

 spring the paradoxes of the real infinite, and the thought struggles 

 vainly with the effort to understand how, where everything is made 

 from eternity, there is still something to accomplish. These diffi- 

 culties disappear if for the absurd " Real infinity " we substitute 

 the idea of dynamic infinity and of an inexhaustible creation, and 

 if for the concept of an eternity which includes all time we 

 substitute that of an eternal production of time. 



Thus the problems of evil and of liberty are resolved into a 

 dynamic view. There is no longer, in fact, a preordained design, 

 there is no pre-established harmony. The concrete unity of the 

 universe, as I understand it, is not a static unity in which all harmony 

 is arranged from the beginning once and for all ; but it is a unity 

 which is realised progressively with the collaboration of the indi- 

 vidual activities which make up the world of experience. It is not 

 a gift from the beginning, but a laborious conquest which is achieved 

 little by little through the evolution of organisms and of human 

 societies. 



In this progressive realisation of superior harmonies the 

 religious life, with its age-long development, has a function which 

 cannot be replaced. Science and philosophy strive to order the 

 world of our symbols and concepts into the unity of an idea. But 

 the idea does not exhaust the reality ; the articulation of concepts 

 will never bring about the attainment of the fullness of life, in which, 

 therefore, our spirit does not find itself understood. Harmony 

 of thought is not sufficient ; we wish to feel ourselves to be truly 

 living souls. We do not wish merely to conceive, we wish also 

 to realise in sentiment and action the concrete unity of life. That 

 is exactly the meaning of religion. The love of our neighbour 

 and the love of God are at the bottom the same aspiration towards 

 this harmony of the lived experiences. Harmony and love must 

 not be understood statically, as a definite harmony in which 

 existence is filled, but as a concord which makes us hope for other 

 and more perfect concords, as the love which opens our soul to a 



