The right answer to these questions can never be got so long as the origin, nature, place, and purpose of religion remain misunderstood by its leaders no less than by its adherents. It is this misunderstanding which accounts for its contemporary failures and historic deficiencies. The proponents of religion exaggerate its consolations and services, while the opponents exaggerate its persecutions and crimes. In the upper ground above both, we may hope to discover a truer view, for every institution can be properly appraised only by justly noting both its merits and demerits. We may meditate on these questions and unfold a profounder analysis not only if we collect and collate the primitive cultures in a spirit of critical pitying superiority, but also if we listen in tentative, intellectual sympathy to what these cultures have to tell us about themselves. Then only may we learn that modern critics who concentrate only on the fabular side of religion are ill-balanced judges: its significance will be found to be much larger than that.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 1 : Origin, Purpose of Religions > # 59
