Idealism And the Modern Age

n the modern world, democracy and economic rationalism. But what is this interest itself and wherein consists the substance of the religious tradition? I am aware of the many pitfalls in any attempt to define some essence of religion. It may reasonably be doubted whether any such definition is possible, or if possible, whether it can be of much service. Those two general characteristics of religion which have already claimed our attention?its undifferentiated quality, whereby it appears historically as the source of many varied interests which grow out of it, acquire definiteness and independence, and its uniqueness in that it responds to an over-world?these two qualities of religion make any definition a doubtful matter.1 There is no thought here of extracting the common element of all religions and reducing it to a ready formula. Any such universal and common feature would be utterly vague and indefinite as well as totally inadequate to express the central content of a single one of the historical religions. Nor shall we revert exclusively to the embryology of religion and look to primitive culture for the clearest disclosure of the essence of religion. The anthropologist who studies the massive, unconscious and primordial attempts of early man to build for himself a religionmay sometimes forget what Aristotle so well knew, that the real nature of anything which lives in time is not at all revealed in the early stages of its growth. It only is that which it has in...