RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Religion and Society ~ 403 ~ space, are to all appearance so accidental, so far removed from the whole scheme of the universe, that it is a priori all too probable that any meaning that the universe as a whole may have, would entirely transcend our terrestrial experience, and so be totally unintelligible to us” (p.112). Existentialism too convinces us that man, with his limitations, does not know how to discover a norm, which is beyond him. “Man is an ethical animal in a universe which contains no ethical element.” This is an oftenquoted statement of Joseph Wood Krutch (18931970) who writes in his best-seller, The Modern Temper, that no matter how great an effort a man makes, the two halves of his soul can hardly come together. And he does not know how to think as his intellect tells, or how to feel as his emotions tell him. And thus in his ruined and divided soul, he has become a laughing stock.” In this, Krutch is in error. And this is because he has stepped out of his domain. The basic point that I feel needs stressing here is that what has been proved is not that values do not exist, but that man