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question still arises: Is there any place left for a religion that can
be free from superstition, that can accept just so much of the foregoing
modern results as are indeed established, and that can yet supplement
them by an insight which may show the universe to be, after all,
something more than a mechanism? In sum, are we merely stones that
deflect the stream for a while, until the waters wear them away? Or are
there spiritual hopes of humanity which the mechanism of nature cannot
destroy? Is the philosophy of life capable of giving us something more
than a naturalism--humanized merely by the thought that man, being,
after all, a well-knit and plastic mechanism, can for a time mold nature
to his ends? So much for the great problem of modern insight. Let us
turn to consider the relation of the spirit of loyalty to this problem.

What light can a study of the spirit of loyalty, as I just defined
loyalty--what light, I say, can such a study throw upon this problem?
Very little--so some of you may say; for any discussion of the spirit of
loyalty can tell us nothing to make nature's mechanism more
comprehensible. One who favors loyalty as a way of solving life's
problems tells us about a certain ideal of human life,--an ideal which,
as I have asserted, does tend to solve our personal moral problems
precisely in so far as we are able to express this ideal in our
practical lives. In order to be loyal you indeed have no need to believe
in any of the well-known miracles of popular tradition. And equally, in
order to be loyal, you have no need, first, to decide whether nature is
or is not a mechanism; or whether the modern view of reality, as just
summarized, is or is not adequate; or whether the gods exist; or whether
man is or is not one of nature's products and temporarily well-knit and
plastic machines. Our doctrine of loyalty is founded not upon a decision
about nature's supposed mechanism, but upon a study of man's own inner
and deeper needs. It is a doctrine about the plan and the business of
human life. It seems, therefore, to be neutral as to every so-called
conflict between science and religion.

But now, in answer to these remarks, I have to show that the doctrine of
loyalty, once rightly understood, has yet a further application. It is a
doctrine that, when more fully interpreted, helps us toward a genuine
insight, not only into the plan of life, but into the nature of things.
The philosophy of loyalty has nothi