ion, to the principle of unity, on which, as we have seen, both
reason and religion rest.

The "faith" to which religious spirits appeal against all the attacks of
doubt, "the love" of Browning, is really implicit reason; it is
"abbreviated" or concentrated knowledge; it is the manifold experiences
of life focussed into an intense unity. And, on the other hand, the
"reason" which they condemn is what Carlyle calls the logic-chopping
faculty. In taking the side of faith when troubled with difficulties
which they cannot lay, they are really defending the cause of reason
against that of the understanding. For it is quite true that the
understanding, that is, the reason as reflective or critical, can never
bring about either a moral or religious life. It cannot create a
religion, any more than physiology can produce men. The reflection which
brings doubt is always secondary; it can only exercise itself on a given
material. As Hegel frequently pointed out, it is not the function of
moral philosophy to create or to institute a morality or religion, but
to understand them. The facts must first be given; they must be actual
experiences of the human spirit. Moral philosophy and theology differ
from the moral or religious life, in the same way as geology differs
from the earth, or astronomy from the heavenly bodies. The latter are
facts; the former are theories about the facts. Religion is an attitude
of the human spirit towards the highest; morality is the realization of
character; and these are not to be confused with their reflective
interpretations. Much of the difficulty in these matters comes from the
lack of a clear distinction between _beliefs_ and _creeds_.

Further, not only are the utterances of the heart prior to the
deliverances of the intellect in this sense, but it may also be admitted
that the latter can never do full justice to the contents of the former.
So rich is character in content and so complex is spiritual life, that
we can never, by means of reflection, lift into clear consciousness all
the elements that enter into it. Into the organism of our experience,
which is our faith, there is continually absorbed the subtle influences
of our complex natural and social environment. We grow by means of them,
as the plant grows by feeding on the soil and the sunshine and dew. It
is as impossible for us to set forth, one by one, the truths and errors
which we have thus worked into our mental and moral life, as it is