ome
diviner life than any mortal now experiences. Yet how can mortals thus
ignorant pretend to get insight into anything that is divinely
exalted?

Thus, both the sources of insight that we have thus far consulted
point beyond themselves. Each says, "If salvation is possible, then
human life must be able to come into touch with a life whose meaning
is superhuman." Our question is: "Is there, indeed, such a diviner
life?" In order to deal with this question, we have resolved to
consult still another source of insight, namely, our Reason. The
present lecture must deal with this source of insight.

I

"What does one mean by the Reason?" As I attempt to answer this
question, with an especial effort to show the relations of reason and
religion, I shall be aided by reminding you at the outset that, at the
present time, there is a widespread tendency to discredit the reason
as a source of any notable insight into life or into the universe. And
this tendency depends upon so defining the business of the reason as
sharply to oppose, on the one hand, intuition and reason, and, on the
other hand, reason and common-sense experience. That is, some of our
recent teachers tell us that the only sort of insight which can be of
any use in religion must be {81} won by intuitions and cannot be
obtained by what these teachers call the abstract reason. By
intuition, at least in the religious field, such men mean some sort of
direct feeling of the nature of things, some experience such as the
mystics have reported, or such as many religious people, whether
technical mystics or not, call illumination through faith. Intuitions
of this sort, they say, are our only guides in the religious field. As
opposed to such direct apprehension, the use of reason would mean the
effort to be guided by formulas, by explicitly stated abstract
principles, by processes of inference, by calculations, or by logical
demonstrations. James is prominent amongst those who thus oppose the
abstract reason to the revelations of intuition; and, especially in
his later works, he is never weary of emphasising the inarticulate
character of all our deepest sources of religious insight. When we get
true religious insight, so he teaches, we simply feel convinced that
these things are so. If we try to give reasons for our beliefs, James
holds that the reasons are inapt afterthoughts, the outcome of
sophistication, or are at best useful only in pu