Chapter IV: The World and the Will

I could not discuss, in my last lecture, the office of the reason as a source of religious insight without sketching for you what insight I personally regard as the most important result of the right use of reason. This sketch was of course, in my own mind, a part of an extended body of philosophical doctrine. It does not lie within the intent of these lectures to present a system of philosophy. I ought, nevertheless, to begin this lecture by saying a few words about the relation of my last discussion to certain religious and philosophical opinions of which you have all heard, and by indicating why it has seemed to me worth while to call your attention to the mere hint of a philosophy with which the last discussion closed. Having thus indicated the setting in which I want you to see the brief exposition of a general theory which I find to be indispensable for our main purpose, I shall devote the rest of this lecture to the task of connecting the insight which reason gives to us with the main purpose of our inquiry, namely, with the undertaking to know the nature and the way of salvation. Reason is of importance in so {120} far as what it shows us enables us to direct our will and to come into closer touch with truths which are not only theoretical, but also practical.

We shall therefore discuss at some length the relation of our rational knowledge to our active life, and the relation of our rational will to the world in which we are to work out our salvation if we can.