1 86 Science Religion and Reality 



them true if by means of them he succeeds in realising a concrete 

 agreement between his activity and the other energies. Philo- 

 sophical theories and religious intuitions must be verified in the 

 same way. We must submit to experiments, we must act with 

 them. Who can deny, indeed, that they are energies operating in 

 the world of history ? One religion will be more true than 

 another, not because our subjective intuition proclaims it such, but 

 because it succeeds in realising a higher level of the harmony of 

 spirits, a more integral concord of the experiences through which 

 we live. Further, our positive religion gives place to another 

 when the latter shows itself by experiment to be better able to 

 fulfil the same mission in life. It is of no use to ask, for example, 

 whether the dogmas of Christianity correspond to objective 

 entities ; its truth must be measured by its historic efficacy, and 

 by the organisation of souls into a concrete harmony which it has 

 been able to realise for so many centuries through the medium 

 of its dogmatic and ritual structure. Neither is it of any use to 

 examine abstractly, by logic or by emotion, whether the struc- 

 ture of Protestantism makes it superior to Catholicism. Historical 

 experiment alone can decide the value of the Reformation. 



Can we never attain in this way absolute and definite truth ? 

 Let it be so. But this is the only truth and the only reality of 

 which we can humanly speak and which has a meaning for us.^ 



^ In addition to my book The Idealistic Reaction against Science (London, 

 MacmiUan), see also my more recent works : La Guerra Etema e il Dramma 

 deir Esistenza (Naples, Perrellk), translated into French under the title L'Etemit^ 

 des Esprits (Paris, Alcan) ; La Teoria di Einstein e le mute'voli prospettrve del 

 Mondo (Palermo, Sandron) ; Relativismo e Idealismo (Naples, Perrella) ; // Pro- 

 blema di Die e il nuo'vo P/uralismo (Cittk di Castello, Casa Editrice // Seclo). 



