to, (1) a better understanding of ethics, (2) more accurate
cosmical conceptions, (3) the clearer defining of life, (4) the
increasing immateriality of religions.

The future and final moments of religious thought.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MOMENTA OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

The records of the past can be studied variously. Events can be arranged
in the order of their occurrence: this is chronology or annals; in
addition to this, their connections and mutual relations as cause and
effect may be shown: this is historical science; or, thirdly, from a
general view of trains of related events some abstract aim as their
final cause may be theoretically deduced and confirmed by experience:
this is the philosophy of history. The doctrine of final causes, in its
old form as the _argumentum de appetitu_, has been superseded. Function
is not purpose; desire comes from the experience of pleasure, and
realizes its dreams, if at all, by the slow development of capacity. The
wish carries no warrant of gratification with it. No "argument from
design" can be adduced from the region where the laws of physical
necessity prevail. Those laws are not designed for an end.

When, however, in the unfolding of mind we reach the stage of notions,
we observe a growing power to accomplish desire, not only by altering
the individual or race organism, but also by bringing external objects
into unison with the desire, reversing the process common in the life of
sensation. This spectacle, however, is confined to man alone, and man as
guided by prospective volition, that is, by an object ahead.

When some such object is common to a nation or race, it exercises a wide
influence on its destiny, and is the key to much that otherwise would be
inexplicable in its actions. What we call national hopes, ambitions and
ideals are such objects. Sometimes they are distinctly recognized by the
nation, sometimes they are pursued almost unconsciously. They do not
correspond to things as they are, but as they are wished to be. Hence
there is nothing in them to insure their realization. They are like an
appetite, which may and may not develope the function which can gratify
it. They have been called "historic ideas," and their consideration is a
leading topic in modern historical science.

Reason claims the power of criticizing such ideas, and of distinguishing
in them between what is true and therefore obtainable, and what is false
and therefore