264 Science Religion and Reality 



other causes have introduced more confusion into the study of the 

 subject. Thus there is a sense in which we could ascribe to lack 

 of the right interest nearly all the mistakes about the sphere of 

 religion. 



Even for practical purposes, nevertheless, it does not suffice to 

 say : Have a soul at peace with itself and be responsive to the high 

 things of life, and you will know. It does not suffice for two very 

 practical reasons. The first is that no one can determine when 

 this condition is fulfilled ; and the second, that, in actual discussion, 

 we could not bring our differences to the test of this criterion, even 

 if we had it. Moreover, the history of past discussion shows very 

 plainly that the workers in this field are not agreed about what 

 they mean by religion and that the matter cannot be so easily 

 determined. 



Nor is the difficulty of riding the marches so great, either 

 theoretically or practically, as Runze affirms. It is true that there 

 is only one world, known in one experience. But it is equally 

 true that, the more fully we recognise the world as one, the sharper 

 are the distinctions we draw in it and the more we see the reality 

 and significance of things by themselves ; and that, the more we 

 bring it within the unity of our thought, the more the nature of 

 our minds compels us to concentrate on one aspect of this experience 

 at a time, and, the more we do so, the more sharply we distinguish 

 one part of our knowledge from the rest. Thus all advance in 

 knowledge has meant discrimination and differentiation. 



Religion is no exception, for it has, with the process of time, 

 been more clearly distinguished from other concerns in practice 

 as well as theory. Thus, in primitive beliefs and practices, it is 

 extremely difficult to say what is religious, and still more what is 

 not : while, as we advance, it becomes ever plainer that religion 

 has its distinctive sphere, for, though it touches ever more widely 

 all aspects of human life, it does so in a way which is quite distinct 

 from the ways of science or social custom. But difficulty does 

 not save us from the necessity of trying to distinguish even primi- 

 tive religion from primitive science, or magic, or social custom. 

 On the contrary, the greater the confusion and the more diffi- 

 cult it is to distinguish, the more the attempt is necessary. And, 

 supposing that the confusion were throughout so great that it 

 seemed, from first to last, impossible to discover any mark by which 

 we could define religion so as to include all its phenomena and 



