I do not agree, because what you call religion I call only a reasoning about religion. The dogmas and creeds are not religion. They are summaries of the reasons that men give to explain those facts of life which are religion, just as philosophies are summaries of the theories men make to explain other facts of life. Both creeds and philosophies come from the reason. They are speculations, not facts. They are pessimistic twins of the brain. Religion is a different matter. It is a series of facts. What facts these are I have tried to shew chapter by chapter, and they are summarised in Chapter XXX., at the end. I will not anticipate it. What I am concerned with is whether religion is pessimistic or not. Never mind the dogmas and creeds; come to facts. When you read books written by men who are really religious, what is their tone? You may never agree with what is urged in them, but can you assert that they are pessimistic? It seems to me, on the contrary, that they are the reverse. And when you know people who are religious--not fanatics, but those men and women of sober minds who take their faith honestly and sincerely as a part of life, but not the whole--are they pessimistic? I am not speaking of any religion in particular, but of all religions. Can you see religious people, and live with them and hear them talk, and watch their lives, and not recognise that religion is to them a strength, a comfort, and resource against the evils of life? Never mind what the creeds say; watch what the believers _do_. Is life to them a sorry march to be made with downcast eyes of thought, to be trod with weary steps, to be regarded with contempt? The men who act thus are philosophers, not religious people.