talk in confusion. So, while we may not attempt here a
detailed and reasoned statement of religious belief, we may try to say
what is the fundamental attitude, both toward nature and toward man,
that lies underneath the religious experience. We have seen that we
are not stating that attitude very clearly nowadays in our pulpits;
hence we are often dealing there with sentimental or stereotyped or
humane or even pagan interpretations. Yet nothing is more fatal for
us; if we peddle other men's wares they will be very sure that we
despise our own.

We approach, then, the third and final level of experience to which we
referred in the first lecture. We have seen that the humanist accepts
the law of measure; he rests back upon the selected and certified
experience of his race; from within himself, as the noblest inhabitant
of the planet, and by the further critical observation of nature he
proposes to interpret and guide his life. He is convinced that this
combined authority of reason and observation will lead to the _summum
bonum_ of the golden mean in which unbridled self-expression will be
seen as equally unwise and indecent and ascetic repression as both
unworthy and unnecessary. It is important to again remind ourselves
that confidence in the human spirit as the master of its own fate,
and in reason and natural observation as offering it the means of this
self-control and understanding, are essential humanistic principles.
The humanist world is rational, social, ethical.

Over against this reasonable and disciplined view of man and of
his world stands naturalism. It exploits the defects of the classic
"virtue"; it is, so to speak, humanism run to seed. Just as religion
so often sinks into bigotry, cruelty and superstitition, so humanism,
in lesser souls, declines to egotism, license and sentimentality.
Naturalism, either by a shallow and insincere use of the materialistic
view of the universe, or by the exalting of wanton feeling and
whimsical fancy as ends in themselves, attempts the identification of
man with the natural order, permits him to conceive of each desire,
instinct, impulse, as, being natural, thereby defensible and
valuable. Hence it permits him to disregard the imposed laws of
civilization--those fixed points of a humane order--and to return
in principle, and so far as he dares in action, to the unlimited and
irresponsible individualism of the horde. Inevitably the law of the
jungle is deliberately exalt