n all-inclusive and divine insight, which is thus the supreme
reality.

I have but sketched for you the contribution of reason to our quest.
This contribution will seem to many of you too abstract and too
contemplative to meet vital religious needs. In fact, what I have said
will mean little to you unless you come to see how it can be
translated into an adequate expression in our active life. To this
task of such a further interpretation of the mission of the reason as
a guide of life my next lecture shall be devoted.

{117}

IV

THE WORLD AND THE WILL

{118}

{119}

IV

THE WORLD AND THE WILL

I could not discuss, in my last lecture, the office of the reason as a
source of religious insight without sketching for you what insight I
personally regard as the most important result of the right use of
reason. This sketch was of course, in my own mind, a part of an
extended body of philosophical doctrine. It does not lie within the
intent of these lectures to present a system of philosophy. I ought,
nevertheless, to begin this lecture by saying a few words about the
relation of my last discussion to certain religious and philosophical
opinions of which you have all heard, and by indicating why it has
seemed to me worth while to call your attention to the mere hint of a
philosophy with which the last discussion closed. Having thus
indicated the setting in which I want you to see the brief exposition
of a general theory which I find to be indispensable for our main
purpose, I shall devote the rest of this lecture to the task of
connecting the insight which reason gives to us with the main purpose
of our inquiry, namely, with the undertaking to know the nature and
the way of salvation. Reason is of importance in so {120} far as what
it shows us enables us to direct our will and to come into closer
touch with truths which are not only theoretical, but also practical.

We shall therefore discuss at some length the relation of our rational
knowledge to our active life, and the relation of our rational will to
the world in which we are to work out our salvation if we can.

I

The nature and the teachings of the human reason have interested
philosophers from very nearly the beginning of philosophical inquiry.
What I told you about the subject in our former discussion reports a
decidedly mode