Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/247

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THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF PHILOSOPHY.

philosophy that we can. In truth we shall never get too much.

But, for the rest, the reader must be reminded of one thing that was said in the opening chapter about the magnitude and boldness of the demands that religious philosophy makes in coming to the study of the world. We said that we will be satisfied only with the very best that we can get. We want to find some reality that our ideal aims can lead us to regard as of Infinite Worth. If we cannot find that, then the best possible aspect of reality must be chosen instead. We will not be satisfied with little, if we can get much. Our religious demands are boundless. We will not falsify the truth; nor yet will we dread any disaster to our ideal aims, however great the disappointment that would result from failure. But, while pursuing the truth with reverence, we will not withdraw our demands until we see that we can get no certain success in them.

We insist, therefore, that the religiously valuable reality in the world shall be, if so we can find it, a Supreme Reality, no mere chance outcome of special circumstances, but an ultimate aspect of things.

Furthermore, the special form that our ideal has taken demands another character in our object of religious satisfaction. It must be such as to support the realization of our particular ideal. If a power, it must aim at the unity of our lives; if in some other way approved as the deepest truth of thiugs, it must show us how our ideal either can be realized by us, or else is already realized at the heart of this truth.