the Church
itself. And this new mode may be gladly accepted, because it cannot
touch the nature and destiny of the _soul_ of man. We are not able to
view the perfect circle of things, but we are able to [p.190] trace a
segment of it in the fact of the unmistakably cosmic character of the
spiritual life. The progressive intensifying of the Life-process has
made the fact abundantly clear that Nature is not the final reality it
was supposed to be by the scientific mode of the past, but that it
signifies no more than a "human vista of reality." And, as we have
already observed in connection with the Theory of Knowledge, the nature
of that "vista" is determined by a mental process and a construction
beyond Nature. Nature appears as no more than an environment when once
the power of Eternal Life has appeared within the soul. An insistence on
this power and _its_ capacity has raised man to a level from which he
recognises the "priority of spirit" in spite of all the "palpableness of
sensuous impressions." Man thus appears great as against Nature; but
there is more than enough to make him humble when he views himself in
the light of that truth which constitutes the Spiritual and Eternal
Substance of Christianity.

Not only do we find the two different elements present in the
Christianity of our day; they are also apparent in the presentation of
Christianity found within the Gospels themselves. The miraculous
elements in the Gospels exhibit a number of contradictions; and an even
more serious objection to them is the fact that they come into direct
conflict [p.191] with the scientific interpretation of Nature. As Eucken
says: "To place a miracle in that one situation would mean an overthrow
of the total order of Nature, as this order has been set forth through
the fundamental work of modern investigation and through an incalculable
fulness of experiences. What would justify such a breach with the total
mode of reality ought to appear to us with overwhelming, indisputable
clearness. Has the traditional fact this degree of certainty, and cannot
it be explained in any other way? Who is able to assert this with entire
assurance? If the superiority of the Divine was, on this particular
occasion, to be proclaimed in a tangible manner, why did all this happen
for a small circle of believers alone, and why did it not happen to
others? There seems, however, to have been necessary a certain state of
the souls of the disciples to make them