Yet even babies change, and change quickly, in their relations with the external world.
And though the universe with which man's childish spirit is in contact be a world of enduring values; yet, placed as we are in the stream of succession, part of the stuff of a changing world and linked at every point with it, our apprehensions of this life of spirit, the symbols we use to describe it--and we must use symbols--must inevitably change too.
Therefore from time to time some restatement becomes imperative, if actuality is not to be lost.

Whatever God meant man to do or to be, the whole universe assures us that He did not mean him to stand still.

Such a restatement, then, may reasonably be called a truly religious work; and I believe that it is indeed one of the chief works to which religion must find itself committed in the near future.

Hence my main object In this book is to recommend the consideration of this enduring fact of the life of the Spirit and what it can mean to us, from various points of view; thus helping to prepare the ground for that synthesis which we may not yet be able to achieve, but towards which we ought to look.

It is from this stand-point, and with this object of examining what we have, of sorting out if we can the permanent from the transitory, of noticing lacks and bridging cleavages, that we shall consider in turn the testimony of history, the position in respect of psychology, and the institutional personal and social aspects of the spiritual life.
In such a restatement, such a reference back to actual man, here at the present day as we have him--such a demand for a spiritual interpretation of the universe, which will allow us to fit in all his many-levelled experiences--I believe we have the way of approach to which religion to-day must look as its best hope.