wing the
origin, the growth, and the possible function of that maniacal sort of
wisdom. True, the theologian commonly dreads a critic more than does the
geometer, but this happens only because the theologian has probably not
developed the import of his facts with any austerity or clearness, but
has distorted that ideal interpretation with all sorts of concessions
and side-glances at other tenets to which he is already pledged, so that
he justly fears, when his methods are exposed, that the religious heart
will be alienated from him and his conclusions be left with no foothold
in human nature. If he had not been guilty of such misrepresentation, no
history or criticism that reviewed his construction would do anything
but recommend it to all those who found in themselves the primary
religious facts and religious faculties which that construction had
faithfully interpreted in its ideal deductions and extensions. All who
perceived the facts would thus learn their import; and theology would
reveal to the soul her natural religion, just as Euclid reveals to
architects and navigators the structure of natural space, so that they
value his demonstrations not only for their hypothetical cogency but
for their practical relevance and truth.

[Sidenote: Logic dependent on fact for its importance,]

Now, like the geometer and ingenuous theologian that he was, Plato
developed the import of moral and logical experience. Even his
followers, though they might give rein to narrower and more fantastic
enthusiasms, often unveiled secrets, hidden in the oracular intent of
the heart, which might never have been disclosed but for their lessons.
But with a zeal unbecoming so well grounded a philosophy they turned
their backs upon the rest of wisdom, they disparaged the evidence of
sense, they grew hot against the ultimate practical sanctions furnished
by impulse and pleasure, they proscribed beauty in art (where Plato had
proscribed chiefly what to a fine sensibility is meretricious ugliness),
and in a word they sought to abolish all human activities other than the
one pre-eminent in themselves. In revenge for their hostility the great
world has never given them more than a distrustful admiration and,
confronted daily by the evident truths they denied, has encouraged
itself to forget the truths they asserted. For they had the bias of
reflection and man is born to do more than reflect; they attributed
reality and validity only to logical ideas,