ndustrial overlord who spills the tears
of women for his ambition, the sweat of the children for his greed,
is as nothing beside the indignation with the natural order which any
biological study would arouse except as the scientist perceives that
indignation is, for him, beside the point and the religionist believes
that it proceeds from not seeing far enough into the process. This
is why there is an essential absurdity in any naturalistic system of
ethics. Even the clown can say,

"Here's a night that pities
Neither wise men nor fools."

This common attitude of the religionist toward nature as a remote
and cruel world, alien to our spirits, is abundantly reflected in
literature. It finds a sort of final consummation in the intuitive
insight, the bright understanding of the creative spirits of our race.
What Aristotle defines as the tragic emotions, the sense of the terror
and the pity of human life, arise partly from this perception of the
isolation always and keenly felt by dramatist and prophet and poet.
They know well that Nature does not exist by our law; that we neither
control nor understand it; is it not our friend?

There is, then, the law of identity between man and nature, found in
their common physical origin; there is also the law of difference. It
is on that aspect of reality that religion places its emphasis. It
is with this approach to understanding ourselves that preachers, as
distinguished from scientists, deal. Our present society is traveling
farther and farther away from reality in so far as it turns either to
the outside world of fact, or to the domain of natural law, expecting
to find in these the elements of insight for the fresh guidance of
the human spirit. Not there resides the secret of the beings of whom
Shelley said,

"We look before and after
And pine for what is not,
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught."

Instinct is a base, a prime factor, part of the matrix of personality.
But personality is not instinct; it is instinct plus a different
force; instinct transformed by spiritual insight and controlled by
moral discipline. The man of religion, therefore, finds himself not
in one but two worlds, not indeed mutually exclusive, having a common
origin, but nevertheless significantly distinct. Each is incomplete
without the other, each in a true sense non-existent without the
other. But that which is most vital to man's world is unknown in the
domain of nature.