RELIGION AND The Rational Outlook By LATE SURENDRA NATH DASGUPTA (Author of the History of Indian Philosophy in five volumes and other important works on Philosophy, Literature and Aesthetics) ALLAHABAD LAW JOURNAL CO. LTD. ALLAHABAD 1954Copyright Reserved By The Publishers PUBLISHED QD PRINTED AT THE ALLAHABAD LAW JOURNAL PRESS 5 PRAYAG GREET, ALLAHABAD-2PREFACE In 1941 when my husband, the late Professor S, N. Das- gupta, was the Principal, Government Sanskrit College, Calcutta he was offered the Stephanos Nirmalendu lectureship in religion by the Calcutta University, G. C. Ghose, the donor and founder of this lectureship, had “weated a trust in order to perpetuate the memory of his only son, Nirmalendu. My husband accepted the offer and set himself to the task of writing out a comprehensive survey of all the religions of, the world, past and present. His health pad already been broken due to high blood-pressure and heart troubles. But as was customary with him, he did not spare himself and worked day and night to complete’ this monumental task. The work contains about thousand pages in typescript and was submitted to the Calcutta Univeisity. He delivered his lectures and the manuscript of the book written according to the conditions of the lectureship, is lying with the’ University authorities for publication. ‘The lectures gnd the duties conhected with them were over. But the occasion stirred him up to set out his own ideas and thoughts on religion and he considered the problems of religion critically from the standpoint of science, biology, psycho- logy and metaphysics. It was usual with him that if there was any occasion, any impetus given to him by queries from students or acquaintances or a relevant situation, his creative reaction was, tremeuidous; he could not stop there but his thought would go on and on in its creative process till it found its fullest expres sion in synthetic form in language. The artist in him was ever alert and could shape and chisel in finer and fuller moulds —all his re-actions to every thing that came his way, be it nature's beauty, an ordinary happening in life, or a subtle abstract prob- lem of philosophy or science. For a long time he had been thinking of writing his own system of philosophy. He had*thought the probjetns over and his programme was to write it out in¢wo volume He had dedi-