of the endless arguments
_pro_ and _con_, which has caused so many to distrust reason and
knowledge, and which has sometimes driven believers to the dangerous
expedient of making their faith dogmatic and absolute. Nor have the
opponents of "the faith" been slow to seize the opportunity thus offered
them. "From the moment that a religion solicits the aid of philosophy,
its ruin is inevitable," said Heine. "In the attempt at defence, it
prates itself into destruction. Religion, like every absolutism, must
not seek to justify itself. Prometheus is bound to the rock by a silent
force. Yea, Aeschylus permits not personified power to utter a single
word. It must remain mute. The moment that a religion ventures to print
a catechism supported by arguments, the moment that a political
absolutism publishes an official newspaper, both are near their end. But
therein consists our triumph: we have brought our adversaries to speech,
and they must reckon with us."[A] But, we may answer, religion is _not_
an absolutism; and, therefore, it is _not_ near its end when it ventures
to justify itself. On the contrary, no spiritual power, be it moral or
religious, can maintain its authority, if it assumes a despotic
attitude; for the human spirit inevitably moves towards freedom, and
that movement is the deepest necessity of its nature, which it cannot
escape. "Religion, on the ground of its sanctity, and law, on the ground
of its majesty, often resist the sifting of their claims. But in so
doing, they inevitably awake a not unjust suspicion that their claims
are ill-founded. They can command the unfeigned homage of man, only when
they have shown themselves able to stand the test of free inquiry."

[Footnote A: _Religion and Philosophy in Germany_.]

And if it is an error to suppose, with Browning, that the primary truths
of the moral and religious consciousness belong to a region which is
higher than knowledge, and can, from that side, be neither assailed nor
defended; it is also an error to suppose that reason is essentially
antagonistic to them. The facts of morality and religion are precisely
the richest facts of knowledge; and that faith is the most secure which
is most completely illumined by reason. Religion at its best is not a
dogmatic despotism, nor is reason a merely critical and destructive
faculty. If reason is loyal to the truth of religion on which it is
exercised, it will reach beneath all the conflict and clamour of
disputat