There is no form of religion, not even the most rarefied (which makes least claim because it has least content), that does not include in itself some minute Credo, some faith, implying attachment to a set of doctrines and conclusions however few. And it is always necessary to show that these conclusions are worthy of adherence, and that they are not at variance with conclusions and truths in regard to nature and the world drawn from other sources. And if we consider, not the efflorescences and artificial products of religion, but religion itself, it is certain that there is, and always must be, around it a borderland and fringe of religious world-theory, with which it is not indeed identical, but without which it is inconceivable; that is, a series of definite and characteristic convictions relating to the world and its existence, its meaning, its “whence” and “whither”; to man and his intelligence, his place and function in the world, his peculiar dignity, and his destiny; to time and space, to infinity and eternity, and to the depth and mystery of Being in general.
These convictions and their fundamental implications can be defined quite clearly, both singly and as a whole, and later we shall attempt so to define them. And it is of the greatest importance to religion that these presuppositions and postulates should have their legitimacy and validity vindicated. For they are at once the fundamental and the minimal postulates which religion must make in its outlook on the world, which it must make if it is to exist at all. And they are so constituted that, even when they are released from their primitive and naïve form and association, and permitted speculative development and freedom, they must, nevertheless, just because they contain a theory of the world, be brought into comparison, contact, or relation of some kind, whether hostile or friendly, with other world-conceptions of different origin. This relation will be hostile or friendly according to the form these other conceptions have taken. It is impossible to imagine any religious view of the world whose network of conceptions can have meshes so wide, or constituents so elastic and easily adjustable, that it will allow every theoretical conception of nature and the world to pass through it without violence or friction, offering to none either let or hindrance.