Page:Interpretations of Poetry and Religion.djvu/12

the firm basis for ideal constructions in society; religion, and art. Only as conditions of these human activities can the facts of nature and history become morally intelligible or practically important. In themselves they are trivial incidents, gossip of the Fates, cacklings of their inexhaustible garrulity. To regard the function of man as accomplished when these chance happenings have been recorded by him or contributed to by his impulsive action, is to ignore his reason, his privilege,—shared for the rest with every living creature,—of using Nature as food and substance for his own life. This human life is not merely animal and passionate. The best and keenest part of it consists in that very gift of creation and government which, together with all the transcendental functions of his own mind, man has significantly attributed to God as to his highest ideal. Not to see in this rational activity the purpose and standard of all life is to have left human nature half unread. It is to look to the removal of certain incidental obstacles in the work of reason as to the solution of its positive tasks. In comparison with such apathetic naturalism, all the errors and follies of religion are worthy of indulgent sympathy, since they represent an effort, however misguided, to interpret and to use the materials of experience for moral ends, and to measure the value of reality by its relation to the ideal.