Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge

In these six Cambridge lectures, Hastings Rashdall mounts a rigorous defense of idealism against the rising tide of scientific materialism in early twentieth-century philosophy. Drawing on the tradition of Berkeley and Kant while responding to his contemporaries, Rashdall argues that matter cannot be understood as existing independently of consciousness. Our every encounter with the physical world is already mediated by mind, he contends, making it impossible to conceive of materiality as self-subsisting. From this epistemological foundation, he builds toward a metaphysical conclusion: if consciousness is the inescapable horizon of all experience, then ultimate reality must itself be mental, a universal Mind that undergirds and explains the universe's existence. The lectures then extend this argument into the domains of religion and ethics, proposing that genuine faith requires rational justification rather than mere dogma, and that moral consciousness points toward a divine moral order. These lectures capture a pivotal moment in philosophical history, when thinkers still vigorously contested the boundaries between mind, matter, and the divine. They remain essential reading for anyone interested in the intellectual tradition that sought to preserve space for spirit in an age increasingly dominated by mechanism.