it
really exist? If so, in what shape does it exist? Does it act, as
well as exist? And in what form should we conceive of that "union"
with it of which religious geniuses are so convinced?

It is in answering these questions that the various theologies perform
their theoretic work, and that their divergencies most come to light.
They all agree that the "more" really exists; though some of them hold
it to exist in the shape of a personal god or gods, while others are
satisfied to conceive it as a stream of ideal tendency embedded in the
eternal structure of the world. They all agree, moreover, that it acts
as well as exists, and that something really is effected for the better
when you throw your life into its hands. It is when they treat of the
experience of "union" with it that their speculative differences appear
most clearly. Over this point pantheism and theism, nature and second
birth, works and grace and karma, immortality and reincarnation,
rationalism and mysticism, carry on inveterate disputes.

At the end of my lecture on Philosophy[353] I held out the notion that
an impartial science of religions might sift out from the midst of
their discrepancies a common body of doctrine which she might also
formulate in terms to which {501} physical science need not object.
This, I said, she might adopt as her own reconciling hypothesis, and
recommend it for general belief. I also said that in my last lecture I
should have to try my own hand at framing such an hypothesis.

[353] Above, p. 445.

The time has now come for this attempt. Who says "hypothesis"
renounces the ambition to be coercive in his arguments. The most I can
do is, accordingly, to offer something that may fit the facts so easily
that your scientific logic will find no plausible pretext for vetoing
your impulse to welcome it as true.

The "more," as we called it, and the meaning of our "union" with it,
form the nucleus of our inquiry. Into what definite description can
these words be translated, and for what definite facts do they stand?
It would never do for us to place ourselves offhand at the position of
a particular theology, the Christian theology, for example, and proceed
immediately to define the "more" as Jehovah, and the "union" as his
imputation to us of the righteousness of Christ. That would be unfair
to other religions, and, from our present standpoint at least, would be
an over-belief.

We must begin by using less parti