If my interpretation of the reason thus gets its worth from the fact
that it attempts by a formula simply to illustrate the view which the
servants of the divine reason actually and practically translate into
life, and express through their spirit and through their deeds, you
may hereupon object that my view of the reason as a source of
religious insight still seems to you to be one which it is not easy to
translate into life at all. What does it profit a man, you will say,
to view the whole world as the object present to an all-embracing and
divine insight? How does such a view give a man the power to live more
reasonably than he otherwise would live? Is a world-embracing reason
that sees all things in their unity really that master of life whom
our simpler religious intuitions call upon us to seek as our Deliverer
from our natural chaos of desires? I have just asserted that there are
people who devote their lives to the service of such a divine reason.
But if the divine reason is eternal and perfect, and if it sees all
reality as an unity, and if this is its only function, how can any one
serve it at all? The eternal needs no help, you may insist, and
apparently has no concern for us. We need, for our {130} salvation,
something, or some personal deliverer, that can teach us not merely to
utter true assertions, but to live worthy lives. How does the insight
of the reason enlighten us in this respect? What would one do for a
divine Logos, for an all-observant and all-comprehending seer? Could
one love such a being, or devoutly commune with his perfect but
motionless wisdom? Is it true then, as I have just maintained it to be
true, that the insight of the reason, as I have expounded it in my
sketch of a philosophy, does really inspire the earnest and devoted
souls whose spirit I have attempted to express? Whatever they may
think of my philosophy, have I been just to their practical fervour
and to their energetic devotion? Do they merely say: God is
omniscient, therefore our life has its purpose defined, and we are
saved?
In brief, the insight of the reason, as I have been stating its dicta,
may seem to you, at best, to show us a sort of heaven which, as I
said, overarches our unwisdom with its starry clearness, but which as
you may now add we can neither reach, nor use, nor regard as a
rational inspiration of our active life. If it is real, it can observe
us, as it observes all reality. But can it save us? It can rise above
us. But can it enter into our will and give us a plan of life?
Granting the validity of the argument sketched in our last lecture,
what has the all-wise knower of truth to do with our salvation?
These are familiar objections to such a view as {131} mine. James
repeatedly urged them in his comment upon what he regarded as not
merely the fallibility, but the futility, or, as he said, the
"thinness" of the idealistic interpretation of the world of the
reason. Similar objections have been urged by many of the critics of
any doctrine similar to mine. Are these objections just?