By no amount of reasoning can we altogether eliminate all contingency from our world. Moreover, pure speculation alone will not enable us to get a determinate picture of the existing world. We must eliminate some of the conflicting possibilities, and this can be brought about only by experiment and observation.

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.

Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.

The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.

The business of the philosopher is well done if he succeeds in raising genuine doubt.

If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.