Part 24 (1/2)

The essence of the good not advent.i.tious but expressive.--A universal religion must interpret the whole world.--Double appeal of Christianity.--Hebrew metaphors become Greek myths.--Hebrew philosophy of history identified with Platonic cosmology.--The resulting orthodox system.--The brief drama of things.--Mythology is a language and must be understood to convey something by symbols Pages 83-98

CHAPTER VII

PAGAN CUSTOM AND BARBARIAN GENIUS INFUSED INTO CHRISTIANITY

Need of paganising Christianity.--Catholic piety more human than the liturgy.--Natural pieties.--Refuge taken in the supernatural.--The episodes of life consecrated mystically.--Paganism chastened, Hebraism liberalised.--The system post-rational and founded on despair.--External conversion of the barbarians.--Expression of the northern genius within Catholicism,--Internal discrepancies between the two.--Tradition and instinct at odds in Protestantism.--The Protestant spirit remote from that of the gospel.--Obstacles to humanism.--The Reformation and counter-reformation.--Protestantism an expression of character.--It has the spirit of life and of courage, but the voice of inexperience.--Its emanc.i.p.ation from Christianity Pages 99-126

CHAPTER VIII

CONFLICT OF MYTHOLOGY WITH MORAL TRUTH

Myth should dissolve with the advance of science.--But myth is confused with the moral values it expresses.--Neo-Platonic revision.--It made mythical ent.i.ties of abstractions.--Hypostasis ruins ideals.--The Stoic revision.--The ideal surrendered before the physical.--Parallel movements in Christianity.--Hebraism, if philosophical, must be pantheistic.--Pantheism, even when psychic, ignores ideals.--Truly divine action limited to what makes for the good.--Need of an opposing principle.--The standard of value is human.--Hope for happiness makes belief in G.o.d Pages 127-147

CHAPTER IX

THE CHRISTIAN COMPROMISE

Suspense between hope and disillusion.--Superficial solution.--But from what shall we be redeemed?--Typical att.i.tude of St. Augustine.--He achieves Platonism.--He identifies it with Christianity.--G.o.d the good.--Primary and secondary religion.--Ambiguous efficacy of the good in Plato.--Ambiguous goodness of the creator in Job.--The Manicheans.--All things good by nature.--The doctrine of creation demands that of the fall.--Original sin.--Forced abandonment of the ideal.--The problem among the Protestants.--Pantheism accepted.--Plainer scorn for the ideal.--The price of mythology is superst.i.tion. Pages 148-177

CHAPTER X

PIETY

The core of religion not theoretical.--Loyalty to the sources of our being.--The pious aeneas.--An ideal background required.--Piety accepts natural conditions and present tasks.--The leaders.h.i.+p of instinct is normal.--Embodiment essential to spirit.--Piety to the G.o.ds takes form from current ideals.--The religion of humanity.--Cosmic piety Pages 178-192

CHAPTER XI

SPIRITUALITY AND ITS CORRUPTIONS

To be spiritual is to live in view of the ideal.--Spirituality natural.--Primitive consciousness may be spiritual.--Spirit crossed by instrumentalities.--One foe of the spirit is worldliness.--The case for and against pleasure.--Upshot of worldly wisdom.--Two supposed escapes from vanity: fanaticism and mysticism.--Both are irrational.--Is there a third course?--Yes, for experience has intrinsic, inalienable values.--For these the religious imagination must supply an ideal standard Pages 193-213

CHAPTER XII

CHARITY

Possible tyranny of reason.--Everything has its rights.--Primary and secondary morality.--Uncharitable pagan justice is not just.--The doom of ancient republics.--Rational charity.--Its limits.--Its mythical supports.--There is intelligence in charity.--Buddhist and Christian forms of it.--Apparent division of the spiritual and the natural Pages 214-228

CHAPTER XIII

THE BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE

The length of life a subject for natural science.--”Psychical”

phenomena.--Hypertrophies of sense.--These possibilities affect physical existence only.--Moral grounds for the doctrine.--The necessary a.s.sumption of a future.--An a.s.sumption no evidence.--A solipsistic argument.--Absoluteness and immortality transferred to the G.o.ds.--Or to a divine principle in all beings.--In neither case is the individual immortal.--Possible forms of survival.--Arguments from retribution and need of opportunity.--Ign.o.ble temper of both.--False optimistic postulate involved.--Transition to ideality Pages 229-250