Such an epoch was that which left to us our Gothic cathedrals. These are the creation of one of those classic ages "when all existing culture is cast or bent in obedience to the religious idea." When scientist, scholar and ecclesiastic spoke with one voice and listened to one message; when prince and peasant worshipped together the same divinities; when to be outside the religious community was to be cut off from the brotherhood of mankind. "The Church" was then co-extensive with civilisation: those without the fold were barbarians, hardly worthy of the name of man. That time of splendid harmony, however, is now past; no lamentations will restore it. We have reached another world. But it need not remain only a memory; it ought also to serve as an inspiration. The conditions of affairs during the classic ages of religion, however impossible at the moment, must remain our ideal. Head and heart must some day speak again with one voice, our hopes and beliefs must be consistent with our knowledge. Science must sanction that attitude towards existence which our highest instincts dictate. It is only too likely that this consummation is yet distant. Yet even if our generation has to reconcile itself to spiritual and moral discord, it should never overlook the existence of a happier ideal, and even the possibility of its fulfilment. Fortunately for the interests of religion, men feel they _must_ effect some kind of a reconciliation between the opposing demands which proceed from different sides of their nature. Each for himself tries to approximate science and religion, and the struggle to do this creates in each individual spiritual life. Tension sometimes creates light, and struggle engenders life. So long as there are men sufficiently _interested_ in religion to ask for a solution of its problems, religion will remain superior to the disintegration towards which all discord, if unchecked, proceeds. It is sometimes said that the religious harmony of the Middle Ages, of which we have spoken, having been due to imperfect knowledge, is never likely to repeat itself, unless we sink back into the ignorance of barbarism: and (it is urged) we know too much to be at peace. Having tasted of the fruits of knowledge, the human race is cast forth from its Paradise. This view is unduly pessimistic. There is no valid reason for excluding the possibility that our knowledge of reality and those ideal hopes which constitute our religion may actually coincide. Religion and science, approaching the problem of existence from contrary directions, may independently arrive at an identical solution. That the two actually do attack the enigma from different sides has led many people to regard the two as hostile forces. Such is not the case. Religion and science regard reality from different angles, but it is the same reality that is the object of their vision, and the goal of their search.