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jasirs94 at Nov 22, 2016 06:55 PM

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The third man feels the overwhelming Plausibility of the N.A. Yet he confesses that, nevertheless, it may be a delusion; and he requires that it should be tested by its necessary consequences. Here he is met by the difficulty that there are not necessary consequences for a God who has created the universe of Ideas. But he meets this difficulty with the reply that if God Really be, He has certainly breathed into man enough of this spirit to shape the conduct of his life. He has indeed done the same for every race of animals. He has done no more than this for man: only man's life involves elements which we do not detect in the lower animals. His life is so conditioned as to require far more self control on his part; and the processes of this self control is what we mistake for pure reason. In fact we can only understand things, we can only form conceptions, so far as they might be applicable to the control of conduct in the widest sense. He is thus led back to Pragmatism, which, as a man of science he must already, though perhaps but half consciously have embraced. This Pragmatism implies faith in common-sense, in instinct, but only in common sense and instinct subjected to criticism. He will say then that the N.A. is simply the First Stage of a scientific Inquiry which must be complemented by ascertaining whether or not the theory of God's Reality is favorable or not to the Self Control of Man's Conduct.

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