The pivot round which the religious life, as we have traced it,
revolves, is the interest of the individual in his private
personal destiny. Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in
the history of human egotism. The gods believed in--whether by
crude savages or by men disciplined intellectually--agree with
each other in recognizing personal calls. Religious thought is
carried on in terms of personality, this being, in the world of
religion, the one fundamental fact. To-day, quite as much as at
any previous age, the religious individual tells you that the
divine meets him on the basis of his personal concerns.
Science, on the other hand, has ended by utterly repudiating the
personal point of view. She catalogues her elements and records
her laws indifferent as to what purpose may be shown forth by
them, and constructs her theories quite careless of their bearing
on human anxieties and fates. Though the scientist may
individually nourish a religion, and be a theist in his
irresponsible hours, the days are over when it could be said that
for Science herself the heavens declare the glory of God and the
firmament showeth his handiwork.
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