To the Editor of The Open Court:
I wish to express to you my full conviction that your article on modern theology in the April Open Court is really great.
Your proposition that there is on the one hand a Jesus legend which is to be valued on the same principles as any other legend, but that Christianity on the whole is not that, nor to any considerable degree a development from that, but that it is a gradual common-sense evolution from a Christ-idea, seems to be to be a very great and vital truth, which I am all the readier to accept because it satisfies my internal conviction of the truth and dignity of Christianity. It at once raises our special religion to a sovereign position,—by basing it in that development of Human Reason to which all truth must be referred.
It seems to me to be a magnificent and truly great idea, to which I give in my adhesion for what little value it may have.
CHARLES S. PEIRCE
Source: "A Letter from Mr. Peirce", The Open Court, v. XXII (No. 5), May, 1908, NO. 624, p. 319 (via Google Books), in response to "Problems of Modern Theology" in v. XXII (No. 4), April 1908, NO. 623, pp. 234–246 (via Google Books) by Paul Carus (The Open Court's editor).
