RELISION AND THE INHLLECTUALS
317
publicly as
it
is to get Protestant politicians to be honest about birth
control in states with many Catholic voters.
Despite derogation of the term
progress,
it is clear that there
has been remarkable human evolution in a comparatively brief
time, and that inner, spiritual developments and objective conquest
of external reality have been inextricably involved in a single his–
torical complex. The best theory of truth is a consistency theory that
most fully comprehends the varieties of subjective experience and
of objective facts. Such truth has to be defended now against the
forces of two kinds of dogmatic institutions. It is not easy to work
for social developments which will provide a richer communal im–
aginative and spiritual life and at the same time protect individual
freedom and rationality against the propaganda and censorship of
what is presented as a spiritual and religious revival. Such effort may
seem contradictory, and may require new meanings for revelation and
belief, but most of us are still sufficiently dialecticians to think that
out of such positive contradictions in history the unpredictable and
creative novelty emerges.
ALLAN DOWLING
Over a period of many centuries humanity set itself the
task of weaving an elaborate fabric of religious ·thought to clothe
itself against the nakedness of ignorance, and shield itself against
the terrifying awareness of death. It was also very important to those
who feared the effect of hostile material forces to believe in a power–
ful Parent-God to whom appeals could be made. God, or a group of
friendly deities, could guard us against the frightening forces of na- '
ture that were beyond our control, and the even more frightening
mysteries that were beyond our comprehension. Now, understandably,
in spite of the increase in knowledge and growth of the scientific at–
titude of mind, thousands of years of dependence have made it
difficult for us to give up the comforting garment of some well-es–
tablished faith.
Some such opening remarks are necessary if we are to under–
stand why anybody ever turned to religion at any time.
Can culture exist without a positive religion? T. S. Eliot says it
