heory and a forced
simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration
of things as they are. It is a theory where _simplex_ has become _sigillum
falsi_.

How all this affects the Religious Outlook.

These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which
are now continually cropping up, lead, as must be obvious, towards a
deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a
religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact
in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and
of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only
leading us towards mystery.

It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in
regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves
with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive
statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly
right in this, that "entelechy," "the idea of the whole," "co-operation,"
"guidance," "psychical factors," and the like, are only names for riddles,
and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.(106) The case here is
somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with
"antinomies." They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature
of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet
understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of
the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears
that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to
our knowledge. Thus the religious conception of the world gains something
here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which
appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and
depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For
in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and
development are examples of the way in which physical processes are
constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be
explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the
like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all "explanations" in
terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else,
are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them.
But the fact remains none the less.

May no