The intellect is so far of great consequence, and we must respect it as the thunderbolt of Vajrapani, which crushes everything that is mere sham and false. But at the same time we must also remember that the quintessence of religion like the house built on the solid rock never suffers on account of this destruction. Its foundation lies too deeply buried in human {84} heart to be damaged by knowledge or science. So long as there is a human heart warm with blood and burning with the fire of life, the intellect however powerful will never be able to trample it under foot. Indeed, the more severely the religious sentiment is tested in the crucible of the intellect, the more glorious and illuminating becomes its intrinsic virtue. The true religion is, therefore, never reluctant to appear before the tribunal of scientific investigation. In fact by ignoring the ultimate significance of the religious consciousness, science is digging its own grave. For what purpose has science other than the unravelling of the mysteries of nature and reading into the meaning of existence? And is this not what constitutes the foundation of religion? Science cannot be final, it must find its reason in religion; as a mere intellectual exercise it is not worthy of our serious consideration. _Religion and Metaphysics._ The French sociologist, M. Guyau, says in his _Irreligion of the Future_ (English translation p. 10): “Every positive and historical religion presents three distinctive and essential elements: (1) An attempt at a mythical and non-scientific explanation of natural phenomena (divine intervention, miracles, efficacious prayers, etc.), or of historical facts (incarnation of Jesus Christ or of Buddha, revelation, and so forth); (2) A system of dogmas, that is to say, of symbolic ideas, of imaginative beliefs, forcibly {85} imposed upon one’s faith as absolute verities, even though they are susceptible of no scientific demonstration or philosophical justification; (3) A cult and a system of rites, that is to say, of more or less immutable practices regarded as possessing a marvelous efficacy upon the course of things, a propitiatory virtue. A religion without myth, without dogma, without cult, without rite, is no more than that somewhat bastard product, ‘natural religion,’ which is resolvable to a system of metaphysical hypotheses.”