which, in its essentials, has come to stay,
I shall act according to this law of personality, to wit, spiritual
courage. I shall explain the spiritualized naturalism to which we are
ascending in the same spirit that the scientist presents his
facts--impersonally, calmly, and simply. {3} Such, at least, is my
purpose and desire. What I write here is in its way a confession of
faith. The values and loyalties which I shall proclaim as true,
redemptive and invigorating are those which my own life and concrete
reflection have selected. In them I see the possibility of high
spiritual attainment.

The new view of the universe is founded upon, influenced by, and has
for its necessary setting, the exact knowledge which the various
special sciences, mental as well as physical, have been accumulating.
This knowledge is rounding into something of the nature of a whole
whose interpretation does not admit of doubt. Incomplete in detail
though his knowledge be, man is no longer in the dark as to the main
features of the world and his own origin and destiny. He knows that he
is an inhabitant of a small planet in one of the many solar systems of
the stellar universe, that he is the product of an age-long evolution
in which variation and survival have been the chief methods of advance,
that his mind as well as his body has its natural ancestry. While it
will always remain a wonder, so to speak, that there is a universe in
which and to which we awaken, it is equally certain that the only
sensible thing to do is to seek to find out its character and laws. Is
it not like exploring the chambers and corridors of a house in which
one shall live for a stated period?

As a matter of fact, man has always been curious about his world. Yet
before he hit upon the proper methods of investigation, he could only
guess and dream about it, under the sway of hopes and fears which too
easily threw themselves like gigantic shadows before him. The fire of
his untrained intelligence was feeble and unpenetrating and, so,
distorted the world which it {4} dimly revealed. The result was what
must be called the older religious view of the world--a view which saw
personal and super-personal agency at the heart of things. This
primitive interpretation of the world we shall be led to criticize,
but, in so doing, we shall be the servants of truth and of a more adult
spirituality.

It is not surprising that the patiently acquired knowledge, obtained by