ple language the profoundest truths of religion
and philosophy.

In order to show his quality I will endeavour to summarise his arguments
for the Existence of God, with as many quotations from his writings as
my space will permit.

"It is not enough to prove," he says, "that some sort of Being exists.
In the end, the only thing that matters is the character of that Being."
But how are we to set out on this quest since "Science will not allow
us a starting point at all"?

He answers that question by carrying the war into the scientific camp,
as he has a perfect right to do. "Science makes one colossal assumption
always; science assumes that the world is rational in this sense, that
when you have thought out thoroughly the implications of your
experience, the result is fact. . . . That is the basis of all science; it
is a colossal assumption, but science cannot move one step without it."

Science begins with its demand that the world should be seen as
coherent; it insists on looking at it, on investigating it, till it
is so seen. As long as there is any phenomenon left out of the
systematic coherence that you have discovered, science is
discontented and insists that either the system is wrongly or
imperfectly conceived or else the facts have not been correctly
stated.

This demand for "a coherent and comprehensive statement of the whole
field of fact" comes solely from reason. How do we get it? We have no
ground in experience for insisting that the world shall be regarded as
intelligent, as "all hanging together and making up one system." But
reason insists upon it. This gives us "a kinship between the mind of man
and the universe he lives in."

Now, when man puts his great question to the universe, and to every
phenomenon in that universe, _Why?_--Why is this what it is, what my
reason recognises it to be? is he not in truth asking, What is this
thing's purpose? What is it doing in the universe? What is its part in
the coherent system of all-things-together?

Now there is in our experience already one principle which does
answer the question "Why?" in such a way as to raise no further
questions; that is, the principle of Purpose. Let us take a very
simple illustration. Across many of the hills in Cumberland the way
from one village to another is marked by white stones placed at
short intervals. We may easily imagine a simple-minded person
aski