Religion consists of conscious ideas, hopes, enthusiasms, and objects of worship; it operates by grace and flourishes by prayer.

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问题     Religion consists of conscious ideas, hopes, enthusiasms, and objects of worship; it operates by grace and flourishes by prayer. Reason, on the other hand, is a mere principle or potential order, on which indeed we may come to reflect but which exists in us ideally only, without variation or stress of any kind. We conform or do not conform to it; it does not urge or chide us, not call for any emotions on our part other than those naturally aroused by the various objects which it unfolds in their true nature and proportion. Rationality is nothing but a form, an ideal constitution which experience may more or less embody. Religion is a part of experience itself, a mass of sentiments and ideas. The one is an inviolate principle, the other a changing and struggling force. And yet this struggling and changing force of religion seems to direct man toward something eternal. It seems to make for an ultimate harmony within the soul and for an ultimate harmony between the soul and all that the soul depends upon. Religion, in its intent, is a more conscious and direct pursuit of the Life of Reason than is society, science, or art, for these approach and fill out the ideal life tentatively and piecemeal, hardly regarding the foal or caring for the ultimate justification of the instinctive aims.
    Nevertheless, we must confess that this religious pursuit of the Life of Reason has been singularly abortive. Those within the pale of each religion may prevail upon themselves, to express satisfaction with its results, thanks to a fond partiality in reading the past and generous draughts of hope for the future ; but any one regarding the various religions at once and comparing their achievements with what reason requires, must feel how terrible is the disappointment which they have one and all prepared for mankind. To confuse intelligence and dislocate sentiment by gratuitous fictions is a short-sighted way of pursuing happiness. Thus religion too often debauches the morality it comes to sanction and impedes the science it ought to fulfill.
    Religion pursues rationality through the imagination. When it explains events or assigns causes, it is an imaginative substitute for science. When it gives precepts, insinuates ideals, or remoulds aspiration, it is an imaginative substitute for wisdom-I mean for the deliberate and impartial pursuit of all food. The condition and the aims of life are both represented in religion poetically, but this poetry tends to arrogate to itself literal truth and moral authority, neither of which it possesses. Hence the depth and importance of religion becomes intelligible no less than its contradictions and practical disasters. Its object is the same as that of reason, but its method is to proceed by intuition and by unchecked poetical conceits.
As used in the passage, the author would define "wisdom" as ______.

选项 A、the pursuit of rationality through imagination
B、an unemotional search for the truth
C、a purposeful and unbiased quest for what is best
D、a short-sighted way of pursuing happiness

答案C

解析 文章第3段第3句“. . . wisdom-I mean for the deliberate and impartial pursuit of all food.”可知C选项“智慧是指有意识而又公正地追求一切好东西”是正确的。
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