Certainly we shall find it most difficult to interpret these facts; they are confused, and more than one reading of them is possible.

But still we cannot leave them out and claim to have "faced reality." Hoeffding goes so far as to say that any real religion implies and must give us a world-view.[30] And I think it is true that any vividly lived spiritual life must, as soon as it passes beyond the level of mere feeling and involves reflection, involve too some more or less articulated conception of the spiritual universe, in harmony with which that life is to be lived.

This may be given to us by authority, in the form of creed: but if we do not thus receive it, we are committed to the building of our own City of God.

And to-day, that world-view, that spiritual landscape, must harmonize--if it is needed to help our living--with the outlook, the cosmic map, of the ordinary man.

If it be adequate, it will inevitably transcend this; but must not be in hopeless conflict with it.