The "original" of the notion of causation is in our inner
personal experience, and only there can causes in the
old-fashioned sense be directly observed and described.
[339] When I read in a religious paper words like these:
"Perhaps the best thing we can say of God is that he is THE
INEVITABLE INFERENCE," I recognize the tendency to let religion
evaporate in intellectual terms. Would martyrs have sung in the
flames for a mere inference, however inevitable it might be?
Original religious men, like Saint Francis, Luther, Behmen, have
usually been enemies of the intellect's pretension to meddle with
religious things. Yet the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows
everywhere its shallowing effect. See how the ancient spirit of
Methodism evaporates under those wonderfully able rationalistic
booklets (which every one should read) of a philosopher like
Professor Bowne (The Christian Revelation, The Christian Life The
Atonement: Cincinnati and New York, 1898, 1899, 1900). See the
positively expulsive purpose of philosophy properly so called:--
"Religion," writes M. Vacherot (La Religion, Paris, 1869, pp.
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