is absurd. This is no attempt to reduce Religion to a question
of mathematics, or demonstrate God in biological formulae. The
elimination of mystery from the universe is the elimination of Religion.
However far the scientific method may penetrate the Spiritual World,
there will always remain a region to be explored by a scientific faith.
"I shall never rise to the point of view which wishes to 'raise' faith
to knowledge. To me, the way of truth is to come through the knowledge
of my ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, and then, making that
my starting place, to raise my knowledge into faith."[18]

Lest this proclamation of mystery should seem alarming, let us add that
this mystery also is scientific. The one subject on which all scientific
men are agreed, the one theme on which all alike become eloquent, the
one strain of pathos in all their writing and speaking and thinking,
concerns that final uncertainty, that utter blackness of darkness
bounding their work on every side. If the light of Nature is to
illuminate for us the Spiritual Sphere, there may well be a black
Unknown, corresponding, at least at some points, to this zone of
darkness round the Natural World.

But the final gain would appear in the department of Theology. The
establishment of the Spiritual Laws on "the solid ground of Nature," to
which the mind trusts "which builds for aye," would offer a new basis
for certainty in Religion. It has been indicated that the authority of
Authority is waning. This is a plain fact. And it was inevitable.
Authority--man's Authority, that is--is for children. And there
necessarily comes a time when they add to the question, What shall I do?
or, What shall I believe? the adult's interrogation--Why? Now this
question is sacred, and must be answered.

"How truly its central position is impregnable," Herbert Spencer has
well discerned, "religion has never adequately realized. In the
devoutest faith, as we habitually see it, there lies hidden an innermost
core of scepticism; and it is this scepticism which causes that dread of
inquiry displayed by religion when face to face with science."[19]

True indeed; Religion has never realized how impregnable are many of its
positions. It has not yet been placed on that basis which would make
them impregnable. And in a transition period like the present, holding
Authority with one hand, the other feeling all around in the darkness
for some strong new support, Theology is sure