rare, though of course not unknown, that Science
or Philosophy satisfies the spiritual needs--the purest of human
cravings. Nowadays, most of us realize that an anti-scientific attitude
of religion is impossible. If there were an opposition between "science"
and "religion," there would be no question as to which side would be
victorious. More particularly during the last seventy years, "religion,"
conscious of the opposition which a rather crude doctrine which was
called "science" had towards it, has been gradually, and often somewhat
ludicrously, trying to bring itself more into conformity with that
"science." The result is painful to the student of human nature; though
it has its amusing sides, just as had the militant denial, on the part
of those who were "on the side of the angels" about fifty years ago, of
certain deductions from facts. What is called a "conflict between
religion and science" always has ended in a victory for "science" and an
agnosticism which ousted religion. And thus many see that it is
desirable that the matured results of science should enter into the
fabric of our religious convictions. For the realization of this
purpose, the Open Court Company publishes two periodicals, _The Monist_,
a quarterly magazine devoted to the philosophy of science, and _The Open
Court_, an illustrated monthly devoted to the science of religion and
the religion of science. In addition, the Open Court Company publishes
books that directly or indirectly advance its aim--books on Philosophy,
which, in contrast with the old metaphysicism, lay the foundations of a
philosophy of science; books on the history of philosophies; books on
mathematics and other lines of thought which are indispensable for a
rational and scientific conception of the world; books that have a
bearing on the doctrine of Evolution; books on the history of Religions,
especially on the development of Christianity and on Higher Criticism;
and books on Comparative Religion, on Psychology, on Education, and on
Ethics. Above all, in all the works careful, sympathetic, and scholarly
criticism is aimed at. Criticism is the joint result of love of Truth
and independence of thought; rightly understood, it is not only a
preliminary to a work of synthesis, but it is part of synthesis itself.
No synthesis, in fact, is more than a discovery of Truth: from past
history we know that syntheses have often blinded men to the Truth,
though that was naturally not their i