,the ,varieties of ,religious ,experience ,a ,study in ,human ,nature ,being the ,gifford ,lectures on ,natural ,religion ,delivered at ,edinburgh in #aijaaijb ,by ,william ,james ,longmans1 ,green1 ,and ,co1 ,new ,york1 ,london1 ,bombay1 ,calcutta1 and ,madras #aiag ,,contents ,preface4 ,lecture ,i4 ,religion ,and ,neurology4 ,lecture ,,ii4 ,circumscription of the ,topic4 ,lecture ,,iii4 ,the ,reality ,of ,the ,unseen4 ,lectures ,,iv and ,v4 ,the ,religion ,of ,healthy,mindedness4 ,lectures ,,vi ,and ,,vii4 ,the ,sick ,soul4 ,lecture ,,viii4 ,the ,divided ,self1 ,and ,the ,process ,of ,its ,unification4 ,lecture ,,ix4 ,conversion4 ,lecture ,x4 ,conversion--,concluded4 ,lectures ,,xi1 ,,xii1 ,and ,,xiii4 ,saintliness4 ,lectures ,,xiv ,and ,,xv4 ,the ,value ,of ,saintliness4 ,lectures ,,xvi ,and ,,xvii4 ,mysticism4 ,lecture ,,xviii4 ,philosophy4 ,lecture ,,xix4 ,other ,characteristics4 ,lecture ,,xx4 ,conclusions4 ,postscript4 ,index4 ,footnotes ,title ,page ,to ,c4 ,p4 ,g4 ,,in ,,filial ,,gratitude ,,and ,,love ,,preface4 ,this book would never have been written had ,i not been honored with an appointment as ,gifford ,lecturer on ,natural ,religion at the ,university of ,edinburgh4 ,in casting about me for subjects of the two courses of ten lectures each for which ,i thus became responsible1 it seemed to me that the first course might well be a descriptive one on 8,man's ,religious ,appetites10 and the second a metaphysical one on 8,their ,satisfaction through ,philosophy40 ,but the unexpected growth of the psychological matter as ,i came to write it out has resulted in the second subject being postponed entirely1 and the description of man's religious constitution now fills the twenty lectures4 ,in ,lecture ,,xx ,i have suggested rather than stated my own philosophic conclusions1 and the reader who desires immediately to know them should turn to pages #eaaeai1 and to the 8,postscript0 of the book4 ,i hope to be able at some later day to express them in more explicit form4 ,in my belief that a large acquaintance with particulars often makes us wiser than the possession of abstract formulas1 however deep1 ,i have loaded the lectures with concrete examples1 and ,i have chosen these among the extremer expressions of the religious temperament4 ,to some readers ,i may consequently seem1 before they get beyond the middle of the book1 to offer a caricature of the subject4 ,such convulsions of piety1 they will say1 are not sane4 ,if1 however1 they will have the patience to read to the end1 ,i believe that this unfavorable impression will disappear2 for ,i there combine the religious impulses with other principles of common sense which serve as correctives of exaggeration1 and allow the individual reader to draw as moderate conclusions as he will4 ,my thanks for help in writing these lectures are due to ,edwin ,d4 ,starbuck1 of ,stanford ,university1 who made over to me his large collection of manuscript material2 to ,henry ,w4 ,rankin1 of ,east ,northfield1 a friend unseen but proved1 to whom ,i owe precious information2 to ,theodore ,flournoy1 of ,geneva1 to ,canning ,schiller1 of ,oxford1 and to my colleague ,benjamin ,rand1 for documents2 to my colleague ,dickinson ,s4 ,miller1 and to my friends1 ,thomas ,wren ,ward1 of ,new ,york1 and ,wincenty ,lutoslawski1 late of ,cracow1 for important suggestions and advice4 ,finally1 to conversations with the lamented ,thomas ,davidson and to the use of his books1 at ,glenmore1 above ,keene ,valley1 ,i owe more obligations than ,i can well express4 ,,harvard ,,university1 ,march1 #aijb4 ,,lecture ,i4 ,,religion ,,and ,,neurology4 ,it is with no small amount of trepidation that ,i take my place behind this desk1 and face this learned audience4 ,to us ,americans1 the experience of receiving instruction from the living voice1 as well as from the books1 of ,european scholars1 is very familiar4 ,at my own ,university of ,harvard1 not a winter passes without its harvest1 large or small1 of lectures from ,scottish1 ,english1 ,french1 or ,german representatives of the science or literature of their respective countries whom we have either induced to cross the ocean to address us1 or captured on the wing as they were visiting our land4 ,it seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the ,europeans talk4 ,the contrary habit1 of talking whilst the ,europeans listen1 we have not yet acquired2 and in him who first makes the adventure it begets a certain sense of apology being due for so presumptuous an act4 ,particularly must this be the case on a soil as sacred to the ,american imagination as that of ,edinburgh4 ,the glories of the philosophic chair of this university were deeply impressed on my imagination in boyhood4 ,professor ,fraser's ,essays in ,philosophy1 then just published1 was the first philosophic book ,i ever looked into1 and ,i well remember the awe struck feeling ,i received from the account of ,sir ,william ,hamilton's classroom therein contained4 ,hamilton's own lectures were the first philosophic writings ,i ever forced myself to study1 and after that ,i was immersed in ,dugald ,stewart and ,thomas ,brown4 ,such juvenile emotions of reverence never get outgrown2 and ,i confess that to find my humble self promoted from my native wilderness to be actually for the time an official here1 and transmuted into a colleague of these illustrious names1 carries with it a sense of dreamland quite as much as of reality4 ,but since ,i have received the honor of this appointment ,i have felt that it would never do to decline4 ,the academic career also has its heroic obligations1 so ,i stand here without further deprecatory words4 ,let me say only this1 that now that the current1 here and at ,aberdeen1 has begun to run from west to east1 ,i hope it may continue to do so4 ,as the years go by1 ,i hope that many of my countrymen may be asked to lecture in the ,scottish universities1 changing places with ,scotsmen lecturing in the ,united ,states2 ,i hope that our people may become in all these higher matters even as one people2 and that the peculiar philosophic temperament1 as well as the peculiar political temperament1 that goes with our ,english speech may more and more pervade and influence the world4 ,as regards the manner in which ,i shall have to administer this lectureship1 ,i am neither a theologian1 nor a scholar learned in the history of religions1 nor an anthropologist4 ,psychology is the only branch of learning in which ,i am particularly versed4 ,to the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution4 ,it would seem1 therefore1 that1 as a psychologist1 the natural thing for me would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities4 ,if the inquiry be psychological1 not religious institutions1 but rather religious feelings and religious impulses must be its subject1 and ,i must confine myself to those more developed subjective phenomena recorded in literature produced by articulate and fully selfconscious men1 in works of piety and autobiography4 ,interesting as the origins and early stages of a subject always are1 yet when one seeks earnestly for its full significance1 one must always look to its more completely evolved and perfect forms4 ,it follows from this that the documents that will most concern us will be those of the men who were most accomplished in the religious life and best able to give an intelligible account of their ideas and motives4 ,these men1 of course1 are either comparatively modern writers1 or else such earlier ones as have become religious classics4 ,the documents humains which we shall find most instructive need not then be sought for in the haunts of special erudition--they lie along the beaten highway2 and this circumstance1 which flows so naturally from the character of our problem1 suits admirably also your lecturer's lack of special theological learning4 ,i may take my citations1 my sentences and paragraphs of personal confession1 from books that most of you at some time will have had already in your hands1 and yet this will be no detriment to the value of my conclusions4 ,it is true that some more adventurous reader and investigator1 lecturing here in future1 may unearth from the shelves of libraries documents that will make a more delectable and curious entertainment to listen to than mine4 ,yet ,i doubt whether he will necessarily1 by his control of so much more outoftheway material1 get much closer to the essence of the matter in hand4 ,the question1 ,what are the religious propensities8 and the question1 ,what is their philosophic significance8 are two entirely different orders of question from the logical point of view2 and1 as a failure to recognize this fact distinctly may breed confusion1 ,i wish to insist upon the point a little before we enter into the documents and materials to which ,i have referred4 ,in recent books on logic1 distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything4 ,first1 what is the nature of it8 how did it come about8 what is its constitution1 origin1 and history8 ,and second1 ,what is its importance1 meaning1 or significance1 now that it is once here8 ,the answer to the one question is given in an existential judgment or proposition4 ,the answer to the other is a proposition of value1 what the ,germans call a ,werthurtheil1 or what we may1 if we like1 denominate a spiritual judgment4 ,neither judgment can be deduced immediately from the other4 ,they proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations1 and the mind combines them only by making them first separately1 and then adding them together4 ,in the matter of religions it is particularly easy to distinguish the two orders of question4 ,every religious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from natural antecedents4 ,what is nowadays called the higher criticism of the ,bible is only a study of the ,bible from this existential point of view1 neglected too much by the earlier church4 ,under just what biographic conditions did the sacred writers bring forth their various contributions to the holy volume8 ,and what had they exactly in their several individual minds1 when they delivered their utterances8 ,these are manifestly questions of historical fact1 and one does not see how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question3 of what use should such a volume1 with its manner of coming into existence so defined1 be to us as a guide to life and a revelation8 ,to answer this other question we must have already in our mind some sort of a general theory as to what the peculiarities in a thing should be which give it value for purposes of revelation2 and this theory itself would be what ,i just called a spiritual judgment4 ,combining it with our existential judgment1 we might indeed deduce another spiritual judgment as to the ,bible's worth4 ,thus if our theory of revelationvalue were to affirm that any book1 to possess it1 must have been composed automatically or not by the free caprice of the writer1 or that it must exhibit no scientific and historic errors and express no local or personal passions1 the ,bible would probably fare ill at our hands4 ,but if1 on the other hand1 our theory should allow that a book may well be a revelation in spite of errors and passions and deliberate human composition1 if only it be a true record of the inner experiences of greatsouled persons wrestling with the crises of their fate1 then the verdict would be much more favorable4 ,you see that the existential facts by themselves are insufficient for determining the value2 and the best adepts of the higher criticism accordingly never confound the existential with the spiritual problem4 ,with the same conclusions of fact before them1 some take one view1 and some another1 of the ,bible's value as a revelation1 according as their spiritual judgment as to the foundation of values differs4 ,i make these general remarks about the two sorts of judgment1 because there are many religious persons--some of you now present1 possibly1 are among them--who do not yet make a working use of the distinction1 and who may therefore feel at first a little startled at the purely existential point of view from which in the following lectures the phenomena of religious experience must be considered4 ,when ,i handle them biologically and psychologically as if they were mere curious facts of individual history1 some of you may think it a degradation of so sublime a subject1 and may even suspect me1 until my purpose gets more fully expressed1 of deliberately seeking to discredit the religious side of life4 ,such a result is of course absolutely alien to my intention2 and since such a prejudice on your part would seriously obstruct the due effect of much of what ,i have to relate1 ,i will devote a few more words to the point4 ,there can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life1 exclusively pursued1 does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric4 ,i speak not now of your ordinary religious believer1 who follows the conventional observances of his country1 whether it be ,buddhist1 ,christian1 or ,mohammedan4 ,his religion has been made for him by others1 communicated to him by tradition1 determined to fixed forms by imitation1 and retained by habit4 ,it would profit us little to study this secondhand religious life4 ,we must make search rather for the original experiences which were the patternsetters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct4 ,these experiences we can only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit1 but as an acute fever rather4 ,but such individuals are 8geniuses0 in the religious line2 and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography1 such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability4 ,even more perhaps than other kinds of genius1 religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations4 ,invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility4 ,often they have led a discordant inner life1 and had melancholy during a part of their career4 ,they have known no measure1 been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas2 and frequently they have fallen into trances1 heard voices1 seen visions1 and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological4 ,often1 moreover1 these pathological features in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influence4 ,if you ask for a concrete example1 there can be no better one than is furnished by the person of ,george ,fox4 ,the ,quaker religion which he founded is something which it is impossible to overpraise4 ,in a day of shams1 it was a religion of veracity rooted in spiritual inwardness1 and a return to something more like the original gospel truth than men had ever known in ,england4 ,so far as our ,christian sects today are evolving into liberality1 they are simply reverting in essence to the position which ,fox and the early ,quakers so long ago assumed4 ,no one can pretend for a moment that in point of spiritual sagacity and capacity1 ,fox's mind was unsound4 ,every one who confronted him personally1 from ,oliver ,cromwell down to county magistrates and jailers1 seems to have acknowledged his superior power4 ,yet from the point of view of his nervous constitution1 ,fox was a psychopath or dtraqu of the deepest dye4 ,his ,journal abounds in entries of this sort3-- 8,as ,i was walking with several friends1 ,i lifted up my head1 and saw three steeplehouse spires1 and they struck at my life4 ,i asked them what place that was8 ,they said1 ,lichfield4 ,immediately the word of the ,lord came to me1 that ,i must go thither4 ,being come to the house we were going to1 ,i wished the friends to walk into the house1 saying nothing to them of whither ,i was to go4 ,as soon as they were gone ,i stept away1 and went by my eye over hedge and ditch till ,i came within a mile of ,lichfield2 where1 in a great field1 shepherds were keeping their sheep4 ,then was ,i commanded by the ,lord to pull off my shoes4 ,i stood still1 for it was winter3 but the word of the ,lord was like a fire in me4 ,so ,i put off my shoes1 and left them with the shepherds2 and the poor shepherds trembled1 and were astonished4 ,then ,i walked on about a mile1 and as soon as ,i was got within the city1 the word of the ,lord came to me again1 saying3 ,cry1 #8,wo to the bloody city of ,lichfield6' ,so ,i went up and down the streets1 crying with a loud voice1 ,wo to the bloody city of ,lichfield6 ,it being market day1 ,i went into the marketplace1 and to and fro in the several parts of it1 and made stands1 crying as before1 ,wo to the bloody city of ,lichfield6 ,and no one laid hands on me4 ,as ,i went thus crying through the streets1 there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running down the streets1 and the marketplace appeared like a pool of blood4 ,when ,i had declared what was upon me1 and felt myself clear1 ,i went out of the town in peace2 and returning to the shepherds gave them some money1 and took my shoes of them again4 ,but the fire of the ,lord was so on my feet1 and all over me1 that ,i did not matter to put on my shoes again1 and was at a stand whether ,i should or no1 till ,i felt freedom from the ,lord so to do3 then1 after ,i had washed my feet1 ,i put on my shoes again4 ,after this a deep consideration came upon me1 for what reason ,i should be sent to cry against that city1 and call it ,the bloody city6 ,for though the parliament had the minister one while1 and the king another1 and much blood had been shed in the town during the wars between them1 yet there was no more than had befallen many other places4 ,but afterwards ,i came to understand1 that in the ,emperor ,diocletian's time a thousand ,christians were martyr'd in ,lichfield4 ,so ,i was to go1 without my shoes1 through the channel of their blood1 and into the pool of their blood in the marketplace1 that ,i might raise up the memorial of the blood of those martyrs1 which had been shed above a thousand years before1 and lay cold in their streets4 ,so the sense of this blood was upon me1 and ,i obeyed the word of the ,lord40 ,bent as we are on studying religion's existential conditions1 we cannot possibly ignore these pathological aspects of the subject4 ,we must describe and name them just as if they occurred in nonreligious men4 ,it is true that we instinctively recoil from seeing an object to which our emotions and affections are committed handled by the intellect as any other object is handled4 ,the first thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with something else4 ,but any object that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique4 ,probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a crustacean1 and thus dispose of it4 8,i am no such thing10 it would say2 8,i am ,,myself1 ,,myself alone40 ,the next thing the intellect does is to lay bare the causes in which the thing originates4 ,spinoza says3 8,i will analyze the actions and appetites of men as if it were a question of lines1 of planes1 and of solids40 ,and elsewhere he remarks that he will consider our passions and their properties with the same eye with which he looks on all other natural things1 since the consequences of our affections flow from their nature with the same necessity as it results from the nature of a triangle that its three angles should be equal to two right angles4 ,similarly ,m4 ,taine1 in the introduction to his history of ,english literature1 has written3 8,whether facts be moral or physical1 it makes no matter4 ,they always have their causes4 ,there are causes for ambition1 courage1 veracity1 just as there are for digestion1 muscular movement1 animal heat4 ,vice and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar40 ,when we read such proclamations of the intellect bent on showing the existential conditions of absolutely everything1 we feel--quite apart from our legitimate impatience at the somewhat ridiculous swagger of the program1 in view of what the authors are actually able to perform--menaced and negated in the springs of our innermost life4 ,such coldblooded assimilations threaten1 we think1 to undo our soul's vital secrets1 as if the same breath which should succeed in explaining their origin would simultaneously explain away their significance1 and make them appear of no more preciousness1 either1 than the useful groceries of which ,m4 ,taine speaks4 ,perhaps the commonest expression of this assumption that spiritual value is undone if lowly origin be asserted is seen in those comments which unsentimental people so often pass on their more sentimental acquaintances4 ,alfred believes in immortality so strongly because his temperament is so emotional4 ,fanny's extraordinary conscientiousness is merely a matter of overinstigated nerves4 ,william's melancholy about the universe is due to bad digestion--probably his liver is torpid4 ,eliza's delight in her church is a symptom of her hysterical constitution4 ,peter would be less troubled about his soul if he would take more exercise in the open air1 etc4 ,a more fully developed example of the same kind of reasoning is the fashion1 quite common nowadays among certain writers1 of criticising the religious emotions by showing a connection between them and the sexual life4 ,conversion is a crisis of puberty and adolescence4 ,the macerations of saints1 and the devotion of missionaries1 are only instances of the parental instinct of selfsacrifice gone astray4 ,for the hysterical nun1 starving for natural life1 ,christ is but an imaginary substitute for a more earthly object of affection4 ,and the like47#a7 ,we are surely all familiar in a general way with this method of discrediting states of mind for which we have an antipathy4 ,we all use it to some degree in criticising persons whose states of mind we regard as overstrained4 ,but when other people criticise our own more exalted soul flights by calling them 8nothing but0 expressions of our organic disposition1 we feel outraged and hurt1 for we know that1 whatever be our organism's peculiarities1 our mental states have their substantive value as revelations of the living truth2 and we wish that all this medical materialism could be made to hold its tongue4 ,medical materialism seems indeed a good appellation for the too simple minded system of thought which we are considering4 ,medical materialism finishes up ,saint ,paul by calling his vision on the road to ,damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex1 he being an epileptic4 ,it snuffs out ,saint ,teresa as an hysteric1 ,saint ,francis of ,assisi as an hereditary degenerate4 ,george ,fox's discontent with the shams of his age1 and his pining for spiritual veracity1 it treats as a symptom of a disordered colon4 ,carlyle's organtones of misery it accounts for by a gastroduodenal catarrh4 ,all such mental overtensions1 it says1 are1 when you come to the bottom of the matter1 mere affairs of diathesis 7auto intoxications most probably71 due to the perverted action of various glands which physiology will yet discover4 ,and medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of all such personages is successfully undermined47#b7 ,let us ourselves look at the matter in the largest possible way4 ,modern psychology1 finding definite psychophysical connections to hold good1 assumes as a convenient hypothesis that the dependence of mental states upon bodily conditions must be thoroughgoing and complete4 ,if we adopt the assumption1 then of course what medical materialism insists on must be true in a general way1 if not in every detail3 ,saint ,paul certainly had once an epileptoid1 if not an epileptic seizure2 ,george ,fox was an hereditary degenerate2 ,carlyle was undoubtedly autointoxicated by some organ or other1 no matter which1--and the rest4 ,but now1 ,i ask you1 how can such an existential account of facts of mental history decide in one way or another upon their spiritual significance8 ,according to the general postulate of psychology just referred to1 there is not a single one of our states of mind1 high or low1 healthy or morbid1 that has not some organic process as its condition4 ,scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are2 and if we only knew the facts intimately enough1 we should doubtless see 8the liver0 determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as it does those of the ,methodist under conviction anxious about his soul4 ,when it alters in one way the blood that percolates it1 we get the methodist1 when in another way1 we get the atheist form of mind4 ,so of all our raptures and our drynesses1 our longings and pantings1 our questions and beliefs4 ,they are equally organically founded1 be they of religious or of nonreligious content4 ,to plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind1 then1 in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value1 is quite illogical and arbitrary1 unless one have already worked out in advance some psychophysical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change4 ,otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings1 not even our scientific doctrines1 not even our disbeliefs1 could retain any value as revelations of the truth1 for every one of them without exception flows from the state of their possessor's body at the time4 ,it is needless to say that medical materialism draws in point of fact no such sweeping skeptical conclusion4 ,it is sure1 just as every simple man is sure1 that some states of mind are inwardly superior to others1 and reveal to us more truth1 and in this it simply makes use of an ordinary spiritual judgment4 ,it has no physiological theory of the production of these its favorite states1 by which it may accredit them2 and its attempt to discredit the states which it dislikes1 by vaguely associating them with nerves and liver1 and connecting them with names connoting bodily affliction1 is altogether illogical and inconsistent4 ,let us play fair in this whole matter1 and be quite candid with ourselves and with the facts4 ,when we think certain states of mind superior to others1 is it ever because of what we know concerning their organic antecedents8 ,no6 it is always for two entirely different reasons4 ,it is either because we take an immediate delight in them2 or else it is because we believe them to bring us good consequential fruits for life4 ,when we speak disparagingly of 8feverish fancies10 surely the feverprocess as such is not the ground of our disesteem--for aught we know to the contrary1 #ajc or #ajd ,fahrenheit might be a much more favorable temperature for truths to germinate and sprout in1 than the more ordinary bloodheat of #ig or #ih degrees4 ,it is either the disagreeableness itself of the fancies1 or their inability to bear the criticisms of the convalescent hour4 ,when we praise the thoughts which health brings1 health's peculiar chemical metabolisms have nothing to do with determining our judgment4 ,we know in fact almost nothing about these metabolisms4 ,it is the character of inner happiness in the thoughts which stamps them as good1 or else their consistency with our other opinions and their serviceability for our needs1 which make them pass for true in our esteem4 ,now the more intrinsic and the more remote of these criteria do not always hang together4 ,inner happiness and serviceability do not always agree4 ,what immediately feels most 8good0 is not always most 8true10 when measured by the verdict of the rest of experience4 ,the difference between ,philip drunk and ,philip sober is the classic instance in corroboration4 ,if merely 8feeling good0 could decide1 drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience4 ,but its revelations1 however acutely satisfying at the moment1 are inserted into an environment which refuses to bear them out for any length of time4 ,the consequence of this discrepancy of the two criteria is the uncertainty which still prevails over so many of our spiritual judgments4 ,there are moments of sentimental and mystical experience--we shall hereafter hear much of them--that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come4 ,but they come seldom1 and they do not come to every one2 and the rest of life makes either no connection with them1 or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them4 ,some persons follow more the voice of the moment in these cases1 some prefer to be guided by the average results4 ,hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings2 a discordancy which will be brought home to us acutely enough before these lectures end4 ,it is1 however1 a discordancy that can never be resolved by any merely medical test4 ,a good example of the impossibility of holding strictly to the medical tests is seen in the theory of the pathological causation of genius promulgated by recent authors4 8,genius10 said ,dr4 ,moreau1 8is but one of the many branches of the neuropathic tree40 8,genius10 says ,dr4 ,lombroso1 8is a symptom of hereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety1 and is allied to moral insanity40 8,whenever a man's life10 writes ,mr4 ,nisbet1 8is at once sufficiently illustrious and recorded with sufficient fullness to be a subject of profitable study1 he inevitably falls into the morbid category4444 ,and it is worthy of remark that1 as a rule1 the greater the genius1 the greater the unsoundness407#c7 ,now do these authors1 after having succeeded in establishing to their own satisfaction that the works of genius are fruits of disease1 consistently proceed thereupon to impugn the value of the fruits8 ,do they deduce a new spiritual judgment from their new doctrine of existential conditions8 ,do they frankly forbid us to admire the productions of genius from now onwards8 and say outright that no neuropath can ever be a revealer of new truth8 ,no6 their immediate spiritual instincts are too strong for them here1 and hold their own against inferences which1 in mere love of logical consistency1 medical materialism ought to be only too glad to draw4 ,one disciple of the school1 indeed1 has striven to impugn the value of works of genius in a wholesale way 7such works of contemporary art1 namely1 as he himself is unable to enjoy1 and they are many7 by using medical arguments47#d7 ,but for the most part the masterpieces are left unchallenged2 and the medical line of attack either confines itself to such secular productions as every one admits to be intrinsically eccentric1 or else addresses itself exclusively to religious manifestations4 ,and then it is because the religious manifestations have been already condemned because the critic dislikes them on internal or spiritual grounds4 ,in the natural sciences and industrial arts it never occurs to any one to try to refute opinions by showing up their author's neurotic constitution4 ,opinions here are invariably tested by logic and by experiment1 no matter what may be their author's neurological type4 ,it should be no otherwise with religious opinions4 ,their value can only be ascertained by spiritual judgments directly passed upon them1 judgments based on our own immediate feeling primarily2 and secondarily on what we can ascertain of their experiential relations to our moral needs and to the rest of what we hold as true4 ,immediate luminousness1 in short1 philosophical reasonableness1 and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria4 ,saint ,teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow1 and it would not now save her theology1 if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible4 ,and conversely if her theology can stand these other tests1 it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off her balance ,saint ,teresa may have been when she was with us here below4 ,you see that at bottom we are thrown back upon the general principles by which the empirical philosophy has always contended that we must be guided in our search for truth4 ,dogmatic philosophies have sought for tests for truth which might dispense us from appealing to the future4 ,some direct mark1 by noting which we can be protected immediately and absolutely1 now and forever1 against all mistake--such has been the darling dream of philosophic dogmatists4 ,it is clear that the origin of the truth would be an admirable criterion of this sort1 if only the various origins could be discriminated from one another from this point of view1 and the history of dogmatic opinion shows that origin has always been a favorite test4 ,origin in immediate intuition2 origin in pontifical authority2 origin in supernatural revelation1 as by vision1 hearing1 or unaccountable impression2 origin in direct possession by a higher spirit1 expressing itself in prophecy and warning2 origin in automatic utterance generally1--these origins have been stock warrants for the truth of one opinion after another which we find represented in religious history4 ,the medical materialists are therefore only so many belated dogmatists1 neatly turning the tables on their predecessors by using the criterion of origin in a destructive instead of an accreditive way4 ,they are effective with their talk of pathological origin only so long as supernatural origin is pleaded by the other side1 and nothing but the argument from origin is under discussion4 ,but the argument from origin has seldom been used alone1 for it is too obviously insufficient4 ,dr4 ,maudsley is perhaps the cleverest of the rebutters of supernatural religion on grounds of origin4 ,yet he finds himself forced to write3-- 8,what right have we to believe ,nature under any obligation to do her work by means of complete minds only8 ,she may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instrument for a particular purpose4 ,it is the work that is done1 and the quality in the worker by which it was done1 that is alone of moment2 and it may be no great matter from a cosmical standpoint1 if in other qualities of character he was singularly defective--if indeed he were hypocrite1 adulterer1 eccentric1 or lunatic4444 ,home we come again1 then1 to the old and last resort of certitude1--namely the common assent of mankind1 or of the competent by instruction and training among mankind407#e7 ,in other words1 not its origin1 but the way in which it works on the whole1 is ,dr4 ,maudsley's final test of a belief4 ,this is our own empiricist criterion2 and this criterion the stoutest insisters on supernatural origin have also been forced to use in the end4 ,among the visions and messages some have always been too patently silly1 among the trances and convulsive seizures some have been too fruitless for conduct and character1 to pass themselves off as significant1 still less as divine4 ,in the history of ,christian mysticism the problem how to discriminate between such messages and experiences as were really divine miracles1 and such others as the demon in his malice was able to counterfeit1 thus making the religious person twofold more the child of hell he was before1 has always been a difficult one to solve1 needing all the sagacity and experience of the best directors of conscience4 ,in the end it had to come to our empiricist criterion3 ,by their fruits ye shall know them1 not by their roots1 ,jonathan ,edwards's ,treatise on ,religious ,affections is an elaborate working out of this thesis4 ,the roots of a man's virtue are inaccessible to us4 ,no appearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace4 ,our practice is the only sure evidence1 even to ourselves1 that we are genuinely ,christians4 8,in forming a judgment of ourselves now10 ,edwards writes1 8we should certainly adopt that evidence which our supreme ,judge will chiefly make use of when we come to stand before him at the last day4444 ,there is not one grace of the ,spirit of ,god1 of the existence of which1 in any professor of religion1 ,christian practice is not the most decisive evidence4444 ,the degree in which our experience is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual and divine40 ,catholic writers are equally emphatic4 ,the good dispositions which a vision1 or voice1 or other apparent heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by which we may be sure they are not possible deceptions of the tempter4 ,says ,saint ,teresa3-- 8,like imperfect sleep which1 instead of giving more strength to the head1 doth but leave it the more exhausted1 the result of mere operations of the imagination is but to weaken the soul4 ,instead of nourishment and energy she reaps only lassitude and disgust3 whereas a genuine heavenly vision yields to her a harvest of ineffable spiritual riches1 and an admirable renewal of bodily strength4 ,i alleged these reasons to those who so often accused my visions of being the work of the enemy of mankind and the sport of my imagination4444 ,i showed them the jewels which the divine hand had left with me3--they were my actual dispositions4 ,all those who knew me saw that ,i was changed2 my confessor bore witness to the fact2 this improvement1 palpable in all respects1 far from being hidden1 was brilliantly evident to all men4 ,as for myself1 it was impossible to believe that if the demon were its author1 he could have used1 in order to lose me and lead me to hell1 an expedient so contrary to his own interests as that of uprooting my vices1 and filling me with masculine courage and other virtues instead1 for ,i saw clearly that a single one of these visions was enough to enrich me with all that wealth407#f7 ,i fear ,i may have made a longer excursus than was necessary1 and that fewer words would have dispelled the uneasiness which may have arisen among some of you as ,i announced my pathological programme4 ,at any rate you must all be ready now to judge the religious life by its results exclusively1 and ,i shall assume that the bugaboo of morbid origin will scandalize your piety no more4 ,still1 you may ask me1 if its results are to be the ground of our final spiritual estimate of a religious phenomenon1 why threaten us at all with so much existential study of its conditions8 ,why not simply leave pathological questions out8 ,to this ,i reply in two ways3 ,first1 ,i say1 irrepressible curiosity imperiously leads one on2 and ,i say1 secondly1 that it always leads to a better understanding of a thing's significance to consider its exaggerations and perversions1 its equivalents and substitutes and nearest relatives elsewhere4 ,not that we may thereby swamp the thing in the wholesale condemnation which we pass on its inferior congeners1 but rather that we may by contrast ascertain the more precisely in what its merits consist1 by learning at the same time to what particular dangers of corruption it may also be exposed4 ,insane conditions have this advantage1 that they isolate special factors of the mental life1 and enable us to inspect them unmasked by their more usual surroundings4 ,they play the part in mental anatomy which the scalpel and the microscope play in the anatomy of the body4 ,to understand a thing rightly we need to see it both out of its environment and in it1 and to have acquaintance with the whole range of its variations4 ,the study of hallucinations has in this way been for psychologists the key to their comprehension of normal sensation1 that of illusions has been the key to the right comprehension of perception4 ,morbid impulses and imperative conceptions1 8fixed ideas10 so called1 have thrown a flood of light on the psychology of the normal will2 and obsessions and delusions have performed the same service for that of the normal faculty of belief4 ,similarly1 the nature of genius has been illuminated by the attempts1 of which ,i already made mention1 to class it with psychopathical phenomena4 ,borderland insanity1 crankiness1 insane temperament1 loss of mental balance1 psychopathic degeneration 7to use a few of the many synonyms by which it has been called71 has certain peculiarities and liabilities which1 when combined with a superior quality of intellect in an individual1 make it more probable that he will make his mark and affect his age1 than if his temperament were less neurotic4 ,there is of course no special affinity between crankiness as such and superior intellect17#g7 for most psychopaths have feeble intellects1 and superior intellects more commonly have normal nervous systems4 ,but the psychopathic temperament1 whatever be the intellect with which it finds itself paired1 often brings with it ardor and excitability of character4 ,the cranky person has extraordinary emotional susceptibility4 ,he is liable to fixed ideas and obsessions4 ,his conceptions tend to pass immediately into belief and action2 and when he gets a new idea1 he has no rest till he proclaims it1 or in some way 8works it off40 8,what shall ,i think of it80 a common person says to himself about a vexed question2 but in a 8cranky0 mind 8,what must ,i do about it80 is the form the question tends to take4 ,in the autobiography of that highsouled woman1 ,mrs4 ,annie ,besant1 ,i read the following passage3 8,plenty of people wish well to any good cause1 but very few care to exert themselves to help it1 and still fewer will risk anything in its support4 #8,some one ought to do it1 but why should ,i8' is the ever rechoed phrase of weakkneed amiability4 #8,some one ought to do it1 so why not ,i8' is the cry of some earnest servant of man1 eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty4 ,between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution40 ,true enough6 and between these two sentences lie also the different destinies of the ordinary sluggard and the psychopathic man4 ,thus1 when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce--as in the endless permutations and combinations of human faculty1 they are bound to coalesce often enough--in the same individual1 we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries4 ,such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with their intellect4 ,their ideas possess them1 they inflict them1 for better or worse1 upon their companions or their age4 ,it is they who get counted when ,messrs ,lombroso1 ,nisbet1 and others invoke statistics to defend their paradox4 ,to pass now to religious phenomena1 take the melancholy which1 as we shall see1 constitutes an essential moment in every complete religious evolution4 ,take the happiness which achieved religious belief confers4 ,take the trancelike states of insight into truth which all religious mystics report47#h7 ,these are each and all of them special cases of kinds of human experience of much wider scope4 ,religious melancholy1 whatever peculiarities it may have qu religious1 is at any rate melancholy4 ,religious happiness is happiness4 ,religious trance is trance4 ,and the moment we renounce the absurd notion that a thing is exploded away as soon as it is classed with others1 or its origin is shown2 the moment we agree to stand by experimental results and inner quality1 in judging of values1--who does not see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive significance of religious melancholy and happiness1 or of religious trances1 far better by comparing them as conscientiously as we can with other varieties of melancholy1 happiness1 and trance1 than by refusing to consider their place in any more general series1 and treating them as if they were outside of nature's order altogether8 ,i hope that the course of these lectures will confirm us in this supposition4 ,as regards the psychopathic origin of so many religious phenomena1 that would not be in the least surprising or disconcerting1 even were such phenomena certified from on high to be the most precious of human experiences4 ,no one organism can possibly yield to its owner the whole body of truth4 ,few of us are not in some way infirm1 or even diseased2 and our very infirmities help us unexpectedly4 ,in the psychopathic temperament we have the emotionality which is the sine qu non of moral perception2 we have the intensity and tendency to emphasis which are the essence of practical moral vigor2 and we have the love of metaphysics and mysticism which carry one's interests beyond the surface of the sensible world4 ,what1 then1 is more natural than that this temperament should introduce one to regions of religious truth1 to corners of the universe1 which your robust ,philistine type of nervous system1 forever offering its biceps to be felt1 thumping its breast1 and thanking ,heaven that it hasn't a single morbid fibre in its composition1 would be sure to hide forever from its selfsatisfied possessors8 ,if there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm1 it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity4 ,and having said thus much1 ,i think that ,i may let the matter of religion and neuroticism drop4 ,the mass of collateral phenomena1 morbid or healthy1 with which the various religious phenomena must be compared in order to understand them better1 forms what in the slang of pedagogics is termed 8the apperceiving mass0 by which we comprehend them4 ,the only novelty that ,i can imagine this course of lectures to possess lies in the breadth of the apperceiving mass4 ,i may succeed in discussing religious experiences in a wider context than has been usual in university courses4 ,,lecture ,,ii4 ,,circumscription ,,of ,,the ,,topic4 ,most books on the philosophy of religion try to begin with a precise definition of what its essence consists of4 ,some of these wouldbe definitions may possibly come before us in later portions of this course1 and ,i shall not be pedantic enough to enumerate any of them to you now4 ,meanwhile the very fact that they are so many and so different from one another is enough to prove that the word 8religion0 cannot stand for any single principle or essence1 but is rather a collective name4 ,the theorizing mind tends always to the oversimplification of its materials4 ,this is the root of all that absolutism and onesided dogmatism by which both philosophy and religion have been infested4 ,let us not fall immediately into a onesided view of our subject1 but let us rather admit freely at the outset that we may very likely find no one essence1 but many characters which may alternately be equally important in religion4 ,if we should inquire for the essence of 8government10 for example1 one man might tell us it was authority1 another submission1 another police1 another an army1 another an assembly1 another a system of laws2 yet all the while it would be true that no concrete government can exist without all these things1 one of which is more important at one moment and others at another4 ,the man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence4 ,enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn1 he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening4 ,and why may not religion be a conception equally complex87#i7 ,consider also the 8religious sentiment0 which we see referred to in so many books1 as if it were a single sort of mental entity4 ,in the psychologies and in the philosophies of religion1 we find the authors attempting to specify just what entity it is4 ,one man allies it to the feeling of dependence2 one makes it a derivative from fear2 others connect it with the sexual life2 others still identify it with the feeling of the infinite2 and so on4 ,such different ways of conceiving it ought of themselves to arouse doubt as to whether it possibly can be one specific thing2 and the moment we are willing to treat the term 8religious sentiment0 as a collective name for the many sentiments which religious objects may arouse in alternation1 we see that it probably contains nothing whatever of a psychologically specific nature4 ,there is religious fear1 religious love1 religious awe1 religious joy1 and so forth4 ,but religious love is only man's natural emotion of love directed to a religious object2 religious fear is only the ordinary fear of commerce1 so to speak1 the common quaking of the human breast1 in so far as the notion of divine retribution may arouse it2 religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight1 or in a mountain gorge2 only this time it comes over us at the thought of our supernatural relations2 and similarly of all the various sentiments which may be called into play in the lives of religious persons4 ,as concrete states of mind1 made up of a feeling plus a specific sort of object1 religious emotions of course are psychic entities distinguishable from other concrete emotions2 but there is no ground for assuming a simple abstract 8religious emotion0 to exist as a distinct elementary mental affection by itself1 present in every religious experience without exception4 ,as there thus seems to be no one elementary religious emotion1 but only a common storehouse of emotions upon which religious objects may draw1 so there might conceivably also prove to be no one specific and essential kind of religious object1 and no one specific and essential kind of religious act4 ,the field of religion being as wide as this1 it is manifestly impossible that ,i should pretend to cover it4 ,my lectures must be limited to a fraction of the subject4 ,and1 although it would indeed be foolish to set up an abstract definition of religion's essence1 and then proceed to defend that definition against all comers1 yet this need not prevent me from taking my own narrow view of what religion shall consist in for the purpose of these lectures1 or1 out of the many meanings of the word1 from choosing the one meaning in which ,i wish to interest you particularly1 and proclaiming arbitrarily that when ,i say 8religion0 ,i mean that4 ,this1 in fact1 is what ,i must do1 and ,i will now preliminarily seek to mark out the field ,i choose4 ,one way to mark it out easily is to say what aspects of the subject we leave out4 ,at the outset we are struck by one great partition which divides the religious field4 ,on the one side of it lies institutional1 on the other personal religion4 ,as ,m4 ,p4 ,sabatier says1 one branch of religion keeps the divinity1 another keeps man most in view4 ,worship and sacrifice1 procedures for working on the dispositions of the deity1 theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization1 are the essentials of religion in the institutional branch4 ,were we to limit our view to it1 we should have to define religion as an external art1 the art of winning the favor of the gods4 ,in the more personal branch of religion it is on the contrary the inner dispositions of man himself which form the centre of interest1 his conscience1 his deserts1 his helplessness1 his incompleteness4 ,and although the favor of the ,god1 as forfeited or gained1 is still an essential feature of the story1 and theology plays a vital part therein1 yet the acts to which this sort of religion prompts are personal not ritual acts1 the individual transacts the business by himself alone1 and the ecclesiastical organization1 with its priests and sacraments and other gobetweens1 sinks to an altogether secondary place4 ,the relation goes direct from heart to heart1 from soul to soul1 between man and his maker4 ,now in these lectures ,i propose to ignore the institutional branch entirely1 to say nothing of the ecclesiastical organization1 to consider as little as possible the systematic theology and the ideas about the gods themselves1 and to confine myself as far as ,i can to personal religion pure and simple4 ,to some of you personal religion1 thus nakedly considered1 will no doubt seem too incomplete a thing to wear the general name4 8,it is a part of religion10 you will say1 8but only its unorganized rudiment2 if we are to name it by itself1 we had better call it man's conscience or morality than his religion4 ,the name #8religion' should be reserved for the fully organized system of feeling1 thought1 and institution1 for the ,church1 in short1 of which this personal religion1 so called1 is but a fractional element40 ,but if you say this1 it will only show the more plainly how much the question of definition tends to become a dispute about names4 ,rather than prolong such a dispute1 ,i am willing to accept almost any name for the personal religion of which ,i propose to treat4 ,call it conscience or morality1 if you yourselves prefer1 and not religion--under either name it will be equally worthy of our study4 ,as for myself1 ,i think it will prove to contain some elements which morality pure and simple does not contain1 and these elements ,i shall soon seek to point out2 so ,i will myself continue to apply the word 8religion0 to it2 and in the last lecture of all1 ,i will bring in the theologies and the ecclesiasticisms1 and say something of its relation to them4 ,in one sense at least the personal religion will prove itself more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism4 ,churches1 when once established1 live at secondhand upon tradition2 but the founders of every church owed their power originally to the fact of their direct personal communion with the divine4 ,not only the superhuman founders1 the ,christ1 the ,buddha1 ,mahomet1 but all the originators of ,christian sects have been in this case2--so personal religion should still seem the primordial thing1 even to those who continue to esteem it incomplete4 ,there are1 it is true1 other things in religion chronologically more primordial than personal devoutness in the moral sense4 ,fetishism and magic seem to have preceded inward piety historically--at least our records of inward piety do not reach back so far4 ,and if fetishism and magic be regarded as stages of religion1 one may say that personal religion in the inward sense and the genuinely spiritual ecclesiasticisms which it founds are phenomena of secondary or even tertiary order4 ,but1 quite apart from the fact that many anthropologists--for instance1 ,jevons and ,frazer--expressly oppose 8religion0 and 8magic0 to each other1 it is certain that the whole system of thought which leads to magic1 fetishism1 and the lower superstitions may just as well be called primitive science as called primitive religion4 ,the question thus becomes a verbal one again2 and our knowledge of all these early stages of thought and feeling is in any case so conjectural and imperfect that farther discussion would not be worth while4 ,religion1 therefore1 as ,i now ask you arbitrarily to take it1 shall mean for us the feelings1 acts1 and experiences of individual men in their solitude1 so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine4 ,since the relation may be either moral1 physical1 or ritual1 it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it1 theologies1 philosophies1 and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow4 ,in these lectures1 however1 as ,i have already said1 the immediate personal experiences will amply fill our time1 and we shall hardly consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all4 ,we escape much controversial matter by this arbitrary definition of our field4 ,but1 still1 a chance of controversy comes up over the word 8divine0 if we take it in the definition in too narrow a sense4 ,there are systems of thought which the world usually calls religious1 and yet which do not positively assume a ,god4 ,buddhism is in this case4 ,popularly1 of course1 the ,buddha himself stands in place of a ,god2 but in strictness the ,buddhistic system is atheistic4 ,modern transcendental idealism1 ,emersonianism1 for instance1 also seems to let ,god evaporate into abstract ,ideality4 ,not a deity in concreto1 not a superhuman person1 but the immanent divinity in things1 the essentially spiritual structure of the universe1 is the object of the transcendentalist cult4 ,in that address to the graduating class at ,divinity ,college in #ahch which made ,emerson famous1 the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance4 8,these laws10 said the speaker1 8execute themselves4 ,they are out of time1 out of space1 and not subject to circumstance3 ,thus1 in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire4 ,he who does a good deed is instantly ennobled4 ,he who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted4 ,he who puts off impurity thereby puts on purity4 ,if a man is at heart just1 then in so far is he ,god2 the safety of ,god1 the immortality of ,god1 the majesty of ,god1 do enter into that man with justice4 ,if a man dissemble1 deceive1 he deceives himself1 and goes out of acquaintance with his own being4 ,character is always known4 ,thefts never enrich2 alms never impoverish2 murder will speak out of stone walls4 ,the least admixture of a lie--for example1 the taint of vanity1 any attempt to make a good impression1 a favorable appearance--will instantly vitiate the effect4 ,but speak the truth1 and all things alive or brute are vouchers1 and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear your witness4 ,for all things proceed out of the same spirit1 which is differently named love1 justice1 temperance1 in its different applications1 just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes4 ,in so far as he roves from these ends1 a man bereaves himself of power1 of auxiliaries4 ,his being shrinks 444 he becomes less and less1 a mote1 a point1 until absolute badness is absolute death4 ,the perception of this law awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment1 and which makes our highest happiness4 ,wonderful is its power to charm and to command4 ,it is a mountain air4 ,it is the embalmer of the world4 ,it makes the sky and the hills sublime1 and the silent song of the stars is it4 ,it is the beatitude of man4 ,it makes him illimitable4 ,when he says #8,i ought'2 when love warns him2 when he chooses1 warned from on high1 the good and great deed2 then1 deep melodies wander through his soul from supreme wisdom4 ,then he can worship1 and be enlarged by his worship2 for he can never go behind this sentiment4 ,all the expressions of this sentiment are sacred and permanent in proportion to their purity4 ,they affect us more than all other compositions4 ,the sentences of the olden time1 which ejaculate this piety1 are still fresh and fragrant4 ,and the unique impression of ,jesus upon mankind1 whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world1 is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion407#aj7 ,such is the ,emersonian religion4 ,the universe has a divine soul of order1 which soul is moral1 being also the soul within the soul of man4 ,but whether this soul of the universe be a mere quality like the eye's brilliancy or the skin's softness1 or whether it be a selfconscious life like the eye's seeing or the skin's feeling1 is a decision that never unmistakably appears in ,emerson's pages4 ,it quivers on the boundary of these things1 sometimes leaning one way1 sometimes the other1 to suit the literary rather than the philosophic need4 ,whatever it is1 though1 it is active4 ,as much as if it were a ,god1 we can trust it to protect all ideal interests and keep the world's balance straight4 ,the sentences in which ,emerson1 to the very end1 gave utterance to this faith are as fine as anything in literature3 8,if you love and serve men1 you cannot by any hiding or stratagem escape the remuneration4 ,secret retributions are always restoring the level1 when disturbed1 of the divine justice4 ,it is impossible to tilt the beam4 ,all the tyrants and proprietors and monopolists of the world in vain set their shoulders to heave the bar4 ,settles forevermore the ponderous equator to its line1 and man and mote1 and star and sun1 must range to it1 or be pulverized by the recoil407#aa7 ,now it would be too absurd to say that the inner experiences that underlie such expressions of faith as this and impel the writer to their utterance are quite unworthy to be called religious experiences4 ,the sort of appeal that ,emersonian optimism1 on the one hand1 and ,buddhistic pessimism1 on the other1 make to the individual and the sort of response which he makes to them in his life are in fact indistinguishable from1 and in many respects identical with1 the best ,christian appeal and response4 ,we must therefore1 from the experiential point of view1 call these godless or quasigodless creeds 8religions02 and accordingly when in our definition of religion we speak of the individual's relation to 8what he considers the divine10 we must interpret the term 8divine0 very broadly1 as denoting any object that is godlike1 whether it be a concrete deity or not4 ,but the term 8godlike10 if thus treated as a floating general quality1 becomes exceedingly vague1 for many gods have flourished in religious history1 and their attributes have been discrepant enough4 ,what then is that essentially godlike quality--be it embodied in a concrete deity or not--our relation to which determines our character as religious men8 ,it will repay us to seek some answer to this question before we proceed farther4 ,for one thing1 gods are conceived to be first things in the way of being and power4 ,they overarch and envelop1 and from them there is no escape4 ,what relates to them is the first and last word in the way of truth4 ,whatever then were most primal and enveloping and deeply true might at this rate be treated as godlike1 and a man's religion might thus be identified with his attitude1 whatever it might be1 towards what he felt to be the primal truth4 ,such a definition as this would in a way be defensible4 ,religion1 whatever it is1 is a man's total reaction upon life1 so why not say that any total reaction upon life is a religion8 ,total reactions are different from casual reactions1 and total attitudes are different from usual or professional attitudes4 ,to get at them you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence1 intimate or alien1 terrible or amusing1 lovable or odious1 which in some degree every one possesses4 ,this sense of the world's presence1 appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament1 makes us either strenuous or careless1 devout or blasphemous1 gloomy or exultant1 about life at large2 and our reaction1 involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious as it is1 is the completest of all our answers to the question1 8,what is the character of this universe in which we dwell80 ,it expresses our individual sense of it in the most definite way4 ,why then not call these reactions our religion1 no matter what specific character they may have8 ,nonreligious as some of these reactions may be1 in one sense of the word 8religious10 they yet belong to the general sphere of the religious life1 and so should generically be classed as religious reactions4 8,he believes in ,no,god1 and he worships him10 said a colleague of mine of a student who was manifesting a fine atheistic ardor2 and the more fervent opponents of ,christian doctrine have often enough shown a temper which1 psychologically considered1 is indistinguishable from religious zeal4 ,but so very broad a use of the word 8religion0 would be inconvenient1 however defensible it might remain on logical grounds4 ,there are trifling1 sneering attitudes even towards the whole of life2 and in some men these attitudes are final and systematic4 ,it would strain the ordinary use of language too much to call such attitudes religious1 even though1 from the point of view of an unbiased critical philosophy1 they might conceivably be perfectly reasonable ways of looking upon life4 ,voltaire1 for example1 writes thus to a friend1 at the age of seventythree3 8,as for myself10 he says1 8weak as ,i am1 ,i carry on the war to the last moment1 ,i get a hundred pikethrusts1 ,i return two hundred1 and ,i laugh4 ,i see near my door ,geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing1 and ,i laugh again2 and1 thank ,god1 ,i can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does4 ,all comes out even at the end of the day1 and all comes out still more even when all the days are over40 ,much as we may admire such a robust old gamecock spirit in a valetudinarian1 to call it a religious spirit would be odd4 ,yet it is for the moment ,voltaire's reaction on the whole of life4 ,je m'en fiche is the vulgar ,french equivalent for our ,english ejaculation 8,who cares80 ,and the happy term je m'en fichisme recently has been invented to designate the systematic determination not to take anything in life too solemnly4 8,all is vanity0 is the relieving word in all difficult crises for this mode of thought1 which that exquisite literary genius ,renan took pleasure1 in his later days of sweet decay1 in putting into coquettishly sacrilegious forms which remain to us as excellent expressions of the 8all is vanity0 state of mind4 ,take the following passage1 for example1--we must hold to duty1 even against the evidence1 ,renan says1--but he then goes on3-- 8,there are many chances that the world may be nothing but a fairy pantomime of which no ,god has care4 ,we must therefore arrange ourselves so that on neither hypothesis we shall be completely wrong4 ,we must listen to the superior voices1 but in such a way that if the second hypothesis were true we should not have been too completely duped4 ,if in effect the world be not a serious thing1 it is the dogmatic people who will be the shallow ones1 and the worldly minded whom the theologians now call frivolous will be those who are really wise4 8,in utrumque paratus1 then4 ,be ready for anything--that perhaps is wisdom4 ,give ourselves up1 according to the hour1 to confidence1 to skepticism1 to optimism1 to irony1 and we may be sure that at certain moments at least we shall be with the truth4444 ,goodhumor is a philosophic state of mind2 it seems to say to ,nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us4 ,i maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile4 ,we owe it to the ,eternal to be virtuous2 but we have the right to add to this tribute our irony as a sort of personal reprisal4 ,in this way we return to the right quarter jest for jest2 we play the trick that has been played on us4 ,saint ,augustine's phrase3 ,lord1 if we are deceived1 it is by thee6 remains a fine one1 well suited to our modern feeling4 ,only we wish the ,eternal to know that if we accept the fraud1 we accept it knowingly and willingly4 ,we are resigned in advance to losing the interest on our investments of virtue1 but we wish not to appear ridiculous by having counted on them too securely407#ab7 ,surely all the usual associations of the word 8religion0 would have to be stripped away if such a systematic parti pris of irony were also to be denoted by the name4 ,for common men 8religion10 whatever more special meanings it may have1 signifies always a serious state of mind4 ,if any one phrase could gather its universal message1 that phrase would be1 8,all is not vanity in this ,universe1 whatever the appearances may suggest40 ,if it can stop anything1 religion as commonly apprehended can stop just such chaffing talk as ,renan's4 ,it favors gravity1 not pertness2 it says 8hush0 to all vain chatter and smart wit4 ,but if hostile to light irony1 religion is equally hostile to heavy grumbling and complaint4 ,the world appears tragic enough in some religions1 but the tragedy is realized as purging1 and a way of deliverance is held to exist4 ,we shall see enough of the religious melancholy in a future lecture2 but melancholy1 according to our ordinary use of language1 forfeits all title to be called religious when1 in ,marcus ,aurelius's racy words1 the sufferer simply lies kicking and screaming after the fashion of a sacrificed pig4 ,the mood of a ,schopenhauer or a ,nietzsche1--and in a less degree one may sometimes say the same of our own sad ,carlyle1--though often an ennobling sadness1 is almost as often only peevishness running away with the bit between its teeth4 ,the sallies of the two ,german authors remind one1 half the time1 of the sick shriekings of two dying rats4 ,they lack the purgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth4 ,there must be something solemn1 serious1 and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious4 ,if glad1 it must not grin or snicker2 if sad1 it must not scream or curse4 ,it is precisely as being solemn experiences that ,i wish to interest you in religious experiences4 ,so ,i propose--arbitrarily again1 if you please--to narrow our definition once more by saying that the word 8divine10 as employed therein1 shall mean for us not merely the primal and enveloping and real1 for that meaning if taken without restriction might well prove too broad4 ,the divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely1 and neither by a curse nor a jest4 ,but solemnity1 and gravity1 and all such emotional attributes1 admit of various shades2 and1 do what we will with our defining1 the truth must at last be confronted that we are dealing with a field of experience where there is not a single conception that can be sharply drawn4 ,the pretension1 under such conditions1 to be rigorously 8scientific0 or 8exact0 in our terms would only stamp us as lacking in understanding of our task4 ,things are more or less divine1 states of mind are more or less religious1 reactions are more or less total1 but the boundaries are always misty1 and it is everywhere a question of amount and degree4 ,nevertheless1 at their extreme of development1 there can never be any question as to what experiences are religious4 ,the divinity of the object and the solemnity of the reaction are too well marked for doubt4 ,hesitation as to whether a state of mind is 8religious10 or 8irreligious10 or 8moral10 or 8philosophical10 is only likely to arise when the state of mind is weakly characterized1 but in that case it will be hardly worthy of our study at all4 ,with states that can only by courtesy be called religious we need have nothing to do1 our only profitable business being with what nobody can possibly feel tempted to call anything else4 ,i said in my former lecture that we learn most about a thing when we view it under a microscope1 as it were1 or in its most exaggerated form4 ,this is as true of religious phenomena as of any other kind of fact4 ,the only cases likely to be profitable enough to repay our attention will therefore be cases where the religious spirit is unmistakable and extreme4 ,its fainter manifestations we may tranquilly pass by4 ,here1 for example1 is the total reaction upon life of ,frederick ,locker ,lampson1 whose autobiography1 entitled 8,confidences10 proves him to have been a most amiable man4 8,i am so far resigned to my lot that ,i feel small pain at the thought of having to part from what has been called the pleasant habit of existence1 the sweet fable of life4 ,i would not care to live my wasted life over again1 and so to prolong my span4 ,strange to say1 ,i have but little wish to be younger4 ,i submit with a chill at my heart4 ,i humbly submit because it is the ,divine ,will1 and my appointed destiny4 ,i dread the increase of infirmities that will make me a burden to those around me1 those dear to me4 ,no6 let me slip away as quietly and comfortably as ,i can4 ,let the end come1 if peace come with it4 8,i do not know that there is a great deal to be said for this world1 or our sojourn here upon it2 but it has pleased ,god so to place us1 and it must please me also4 ,i ask you1 what is human life8 ,is not it a maimed happiness--care and weariness1 weariness and care1 with the baseless expectation1 the strange cozenage of a brighter tomorrow8 ,at best it is but a froward child1 that must be played with and humored1 to keep it quiet till it falls asleep1 and then the care is over407#ac7 ,this is a complex1 a tender1 a submissive1 and a graceful state of mind4 ,for myself1 ,i should have no objection to calling it on the whole a religious state of mind1 although ,i dare say that to many of you it may seem too listless and halfhearted to merit so good a name4 ,but what matters it in the end whether we call such a state of mind religious or not8 ,it is too insignificant for our instruction in any case2 and its very possessor wrote it down in terms which he would not have used unless he had been thinking of more energetically religious moods in others1 with which he found himself unable to compete4 ,it is with these more energetic states that our sole business lies1 and we can perfectly well afford to let the minor notes and the uncertain border go4 ,it was the extremer cases that ,i had in mind a little while ago when ,i said that personal religion1 even without theology or ritual1 would prove to embody some elements that morality pure and simple does not contain4 ,you may remember that ,i promised shortly to point out what those elements were4 ,in a general way ,i can now say what ,i had in mind4 8,i accept the universe0 is reported to have been a favorite utterance of our ,new ,england transcendentalist1 ,margaret ,fuller2 and when some one repeated this phrase to ,thomas ,carlyle1 his sardonic comment is said to have been3 8,gad6 she'd better60 ,at bottom the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe4 ,do we accept it only in part and grudgingly1 or heartily and altogether8 ,shall our protests against certain things in it be radical and unforgiving1 or shall we think that1 even with evil1 there are ways of living that must lead to good8 ,if we accept the whole1 shall we do so as if stunned into submission1--as ,carlyle would have us--8,gad6 we'd better60--or shall we do so with enthusiastic assent8 ,morality pure and simple accepts the law of the whole which it finds reigning1 so far as to acknowledge and obey it1 but it may obey it with the heaviest and coldest heart1 and never cease to feel it as a yoke4 ,but for religion1 in its strong and fully developed manifestations1 the service of the highest never is felt as a yoke4 ,dull submission is left far behind1 and a mood of welcome1 which may fill any place on the scale between cheerful serenity and enthusiastic gladness1 has taken its place4 ,it makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accept the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity1 or with the passionate happiness of ,christian saints4 ,the difference is as great as that between passivity and activity1 as that between the defensive and the aggressive mood4 ,gradual as are the steps by which an individual may grow from one state into the other1 many as are the intermediate stages which different individuals represent1 yet when you place the typical extremes beside each other for comparison1 you feel that two discontinuous psychological universes confront you1 and that in passing from one to the other a 8critical point0 has been overcome4 ,if we compare stoic with ,christian ejaculations we see much more than a difference of doctrine2 rather is it a difference of emotional mood that parts them4 ,when ,marcus ,aurelius reflects on the eternal reason that has ordered things1 there is a frosty chill about his words which you rarely find in a ,jewish1 and never in a ,christian piece of religious writing4 ,the universe is 8accepted0 by all these writers2 but how devoid of passion or exultation the spirit of the ,roman ,emperor is6 ,compare his fine sentence3 8,if gods care not for me or my children1 here is a reason for it10 with ,job's cry3 8,though he slay me1 yet will ,i trust in him60 and you immediately see the difference ,i mean4 ,the anima mundi1 to whose disposal of his own personal destiny the ,stoic consents1 is there to be respected and submitted to1 but the ,christian ,god is there to be loved2 and the difference of emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and the tropics1 though the outcome in the way of accepting actual conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much the same4 8,it is a man's duty10 says ,marcus ,aurelius1 8to comfort himself and wait for the natural dissolution1 and not to be vexed1 but to find refreshment solely in these thoughts--first that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe2 and secondly that ,i need do nothing contrary to the ,god and deity within me2 for there is no man who can compel me to transgress47#ad7 ,he is an abscess on the universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our common nature1 through being displeased with the things which happen4 ,for the same nature produces these1 and has produced thee too4 ,and so accept everything which happens1 even if it seem disagreeable1 because it leads to this1 the health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity of ,zeus4 ,for he would not have brought on any man what he has brought1 if it were not useful for the whole4 ,the integrity of the whole is mutilated if thou cuttest off anything4 ,and thou dost cut off1 as far as it is in thy power1 when thou art dissatisfied1 and in a manner triest to put anything out of the way407#ae7 ,compare now this mood with that of the old ,christian author of the ,theologia ,germanica3-- 8,where men are enlightened with the true light1 they renounce all desire and choice1 and commit and commend themselves and all things to the eternal ,goodness1 so that every enlightened man could say3 #8,i would fain be to the ,eternal ,goodness what his own hand is to a man4' ,such men are in a state of freedom1 because they have lost the fear of pain or hell1 and the hope of reward or heaven1 and are living in pure submission to the eternal ,goodness1 in the perfect freedom of fervent love4 ,when a man truly perceiveth and considereth himself1 who and what he is1 and findeth himself utterly vile and wicked and unworthy1 he falleth into such a deep abasement that it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in heaven and earth should rise up against him4 ,and therefore he will not and dare not desire any consolation and release2 but he is willing to be unconsoled and unreleased2 and he doth not grieve over his sufferings1 for they are right in his eyes1 and he hath nothing to say against them4 ,this is what is meant by true repentance for sin2 and he who in this present time entereth into this hell1 none may console him4 ,now ,god hath not forsaken a man in this hell1 but ,he is laying his hand upon him1 that the man may not desire nor regard anything but the eternal ,good only4 ,and then1 when the man neither careth for nor desireth anything but the eternal ,good alone1 and seeketh not himself nor his own things1 but the honour of ,god only1 he is made a partaker of all manner of joy1 bliss1 peace1 rest1 and consolation1 and so the man is henceforth in the kingdom of heaven4 ,this hell and this heaven are two good safe ways for a man1 and happy is he who truly findeth them407#af7 ,how much more active and positive the impulse of the ,christian writer to accept his place in the universe is6 ,marcus ,aurelius agrees to the scheme--the ,german theologian agrees with it4 ,he literally abounds in agreement1 he runs out to embrace the divine decrees4 ,occasionally1 it is true1 the ,stoic rises to something like a ,christian warmth of sentiment1 as in the often quoted passage of ,marcus ,aurelius3-- 8,everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee1 ,o ,universe4 ,nothing for me is too early nor too late1 which is in due time for thee4 ,everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring1 ,o ,nature3 from thee are all things1 in thee are all things1 to thee all things return4 ,the poet says1 ,dear ,city of ,cecrops2 and wilt thou not say1 ,dear ,city of ,zeus807#ag7 ,but compare even as devout a passage as this with a genuine ,christian outpouring1 and it seems a little cold4 ,turn1 for instance1 to the ,imitation of ,christ3-- 8,lord1 thou knowest what is best2 let this or that be according as thou wilt4 ,give what thou wilt1 so much as thou wilt1 when thou wilt4 ,do with me as thou knowest best1 and as shall be most to thine honour4 ,place me where thou wilt1 and freely work thy will with me in all things4444 ,when could it be evil when thou wert near8 ,i had rather be poor for thy sake than rich without thee4 ,i choose rather to be a pilgrim upon the earth with thee1 than without thee to possess heaven4 ,where thou art1 there is heaven2 and where thou art not1 behold there death and hell407#ah7 ,it is a good rule in physiology1 when we are studying the meaning of an organ1 to ask after its most peculiar and characteristic sort of performance1 and to seek its office in that one of its functions which no other organ can possibly exert4 ,surely the same maxim holds good in our present quest4 ,the essence of religious experiences1 the thing by which we finally must judge them1 must be that element or quality in them which we can meet nowhere else4 ,and such a quality will be of course most prominent and easy to notice in those religious experiences which are most one sided1 exaggerated1 and intense4 ,now when we compare these intenser experiences with the experiences of tamer minds1 so cool and reasonable that we are tempted to call them philosophical rather than religious1 we find a character that is perfectly distinct4 ,that character1 it seems to me1 should be regarded as the practically important differentia of religion for our purpose2 and just what it is can easily be brought out by comparing the mind of an abstractly conceived ,christian with that of a moralist similarly conceived4 ,a life is manly1 stoical1 moral1 or philosophical1 we say1 in proportion as it is less swayed by paltry personal considerations and more by objective ends that call for energy1 even though that energy bring personal loss and pain4 ,this is the good side of war1 in so far as it calls for 8volunteers40 ,and for morality life is a war1 and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers4 ,even a sick man1 unable to be militant outwardly1 can carry on the moral warfare4 ,he can willfully turn his attention away from his own future1 whether in this world or the next4 ,he can train himself to indifference to his present drawbacks and immerse himself in whatever objective interests still remain accessible4 ,he can follow public news1 and sympathize with other people's affairs4 ,he can cultivate cheerful manners1 and be silent about his miseries4 ,he can contemplate whatever ideal aspects of existence his philosophy is able to present to him1 and practice whatever duties1 such as patience1 resignation1 trust1 his ethical system requires4 ,such a man lives on his loftiest1 largest plane4 ,he is a highhearted freeman and no pining slave4 ,and yet he lacks something which the ,christian par excellence1 the mystic and ascetic saint1 for example1 has in abundant measure1 and which makes of him a human being of an altogether different denomination4 ,the ,christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sickroom attitude1 and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show4 ,but whereas the merely moralistic spurning takes an effort of volition1 the ,christian spurning is the result of the excitement of a higher kind of emotion1 in the presence of which no exertion of volition is required4 ,the moralist must hold his breath and keep his muscles tense2 and so long as this athletic attitude is possible all goes well--morality suffices4 ,but the athletic attitude tends ever to break down1 and it inevitably does break down even in the most stalwart when the organism begins to decay1 or when morbid fears invade the mind4 ,to suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things4 ,what he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness1 to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him1 all decaying and failing as he is4 ,well1 we are all such helpless failures in the last resort4 ,the sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison inmates1 and death finally runs the robustest of us down4 ,and whenever we feel this1 such a sense of the vanity and provisionality of our voluntary career comes over us that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure1 and all our welldoing as the hollowest substitute for that wellbeing that our lives ought to be grounded in1 but1 alas6 are not4 ,and here religion comes to our rescue and takes our fate into her hands4 ,there is a state of mind1 known to religious men1 but to no others1 in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of ,god4 ,in this state of mind1 what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety1 and the hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday4 ,the time for tension in our soul is over1 and that of happy relaxation1 of calm deep breathing1 of an eternal present1 with no discordant future to be anxious about1 has arrived4 ,fear is not held in abeyance as it is by mere morality1 it is positively expunged and washed away4 ,we shall see abundant examples of this happy state of mind in later lectures of this course4 ,we shall see how infinitely passionate a thing religion at its highest flights can be4 ,like love1 like wrath1 like hope1 ambition1 jealousy1 like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse1 it adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else4 ,this enchantment1 coming as a gift when it does come1--a gift of our organism1 the physiologists will tell us1 a gift of ,god's grace1 the theologians say1--is either there or not there for us1 and there are persons who can no more become possessed by it than they can fall in love with a given woman by mere word of command4 ,religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the ,subject's range of life4 ,it gives him a new sphere of power4 ,when the outward battle is lost1 and the outer world disowns him1 it redeems and vivifies an interior world which otherwise would be an empty waste4 ,if religion is to mean anything definite for us1 it seems to me that we ought to take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion1 this enthusiastic temper of espousal1 in regions where morality strictly so called can at best but bow its head and acquiesce4 ,it ought to mean nothing short of this new reach of freedom for us1 with the struggle over1 the keynote of the universe sounding in our ears1 and everlasting possession spread before our eyes47#ai7 ,this sort of happiness in the absolute and everlasting is what we find nowhere but in religion4 ,it is parted off from all mere animal happiness1 all mere enjoyment of the present1 by that element of solemnity of which ,i have already made so much account4 ,solemnity is a hard thing to define abstractly1 but certain of its marks are patent enough4 ,a solemn state of mind is never crude or simple--it seems to contain a certain measure of its own opposite in solution4 ,a solemn joy preserves a sort of bitter in its sweetness2 a solemn sorrow is one to which we intimately consent4 ,but there are writers who1 realizing that happiness of a supreme sort is the prerogative of religion1 forget this complication1 and call all happiness1 as such1 religious4 ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis1 for example1 identifies religion with the entire field of the soul's liberation from oppressive moods4 8,the simplest functions of physiological life10 he writes1 8may be its ministers4 ,every one who is at all acquainted with the ,persian mystics knows how wine may be regarded as an instrument of religion4 ,indeed1 in all countries and in all ages1 some form of physical enlargement--singing1 dancing1 drinking1 sexual excitement--has been intimately associated with worship4 ,even the momentary expansion of the soul in laughter is1 to however slight an extent1 a religious exercise4444 ,whenever an impulse from the world strikes against the organism1 and the resultant is not discomfort or pain1 not even the muscular contraction of strenuous manhood1 but a joyous expansion or aspiration of the whole soul--there is religion4 ,it is the infinite for which we hunger1 and we ride gladly on every little wave that promises to bear us towards it407#bj7 ,but such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out4 ,the more commonplace happinesses which we get are 8reliefs10 occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened4 ,but in its most characteristic embodiments1 religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape4 ,it cares no longer to escape4 ,it consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice--inwardly it knows it to be permanently overcome4 ,if you ask how religion thus falls on the thorns and faces death1 and in the very act annuls annihilation1 ,i cannot explain the matter1 for it is religion's secret1 and to understand it you must yourself have been a religious man of the extremer type4 ,in our future examples1 even of the simplest and healthiestminded type of religious consciousness1 we shall find this complex sacrificial constitution1 in which a higher happiness holds a lower unhappiness in check4 ,in the ,louvre there is a picture1 by ,guido ,reni1 of ,st4 ,michael with his foot on ,satan's neck4 ,the richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there4 ,the richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there--that is1 the world is all the richer for having a devil in it1 so long as we keep our foot upon his neck4 ,in the religious consciousness1 that is just the position in which the fiend1 the negative or tragic principle1 is found2 and for that very reason the religious consciousness is so rich from the emotional point of view47#ba7 ,we shall see how in certain men and women it takes on a monstrously ascetic form4 ,there are saints who have literally fed on the negative principle1 on humiliation and privation1 and the thought of suffering and death1--their souls growing in happiness just in proportion as their outward state grew more intolerable4 ,no other emotion than religious emotion can bring a man to this peculiar pass4 ,and it is for that reason that when we ask our question about the value of religion for human life1 ,i think we ought to look for the answer among these violenter examples rather than among those of a more moderate hue4 ,having the phenomenon of our study in its acutest possible form to start with1 we can shade down as much as we please later4 ,and if in these cases1 repulsive as they are to our ordinary worldly way of judging1 we find ourselves compelled to acknowledge religion's value and treat it with respect1 it will have proved in some way its value for life at large4 ,by subtracting and toning down extravagances we may thereupon proceed to trace the boundaries of its legitimate sway4 ,to be sure1 it makes our task difficult to have to deal so much with eccentricities and extremes4 8,how can religion on the whole be the most important of all human functions10 you may ask1 8if every several manifestation of it in turn have to be corrected and sobered down and pruned away80 ,such a thesis seems a paradox impossible to sustain reasonably1--yet ,i believe that something like it will have to be our final contention4 ,that personal attitude which the individual finds himself impelled to take up towards what he apprehends to be the divine--and you will remember that this was our definition--will prove to be both a helpless and a sacrificial attitude4 ,that is1 we shall have to confess to at least some amount of dependence on sheer mercy1 and to practice some amount of renunciation1 great or small1 to save our souls alive4 ,the constitution of the world we live in requires it3-- 8,entbehren sollst du6 sollst entbehren6 ,das ist der ewige ,gesang ,der jedem an die ,ohren klingt1 ,den1 unser ganzes ,leben lang ,uns heiser jede ,stunde singt40 ,for when all is said and done1 we are in the end absolutely dependent on the universe2 and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort1 deliberately looked at and accepted1 we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of repose4 ,now in those states of mind which fall short of religion1 the surrender is submitted to as an imposition of necessity1 and the sacrifice is undergone at the very best without complaint4 ,in the religious life1 on the contrary1 surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused3 even unnecessary givingsup are added in order that the happiness may increase4 ,religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case is necessary2 and if it be the only agency that can accomplish this result1 its vital importance as a human faculty stands vindicated beyond dispute4 ,it becomes an essential organ of our life1 performing a function which no other portion of our nature can so successfully fulfill4 ,from the merely biological point of view1 so to call it1 this is a conclusion to which1 so far as ,i can now see1 we shall inevitably be led1 and led moreover by following the purely empirical method of demonstration which ,i sketched to you in the first lecture4 ,of the farther office of religion as a metaphysical revelation ,i will say nothing now4 ,but to foreshadow the terminus of one's investigations is one thing1 and to arrive there safely is another4 ,in the next lecture1 abandoning the extreme generalities which have engrossed us hitherto1 ,i propose that we begin our actual journey by addressing ourselves directly to the concrete facts4 ,,lecture ,,iii4 ,,the ,,reality ,,of ,,the ,,unseen4 ,were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible1 one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order1 and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto4 ,this belief and this adjustment are the religious attitude in the soul4 ,i wish during this hour to call your attention to some of the psychological peculiarities of such an attitude as this1 of belief in an object which we cannot see4 ,all our attitudes1 moral1 practical1 or emotional1 as well as religious1 are due to the 8objects0 of our consciousness1 the things which we believe to exist1 whether really or ideally1 along with ourselves4 ,such objects may be present to our senses1 or they may be present only to our thought4 ,in either case they elicit from us a reaction2 and the reaction due to things of thought is notoriously in many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences4 ,it may be even stronger4 ,the memory of an insult may make us angrier than the insult did when we received it4 ,we are frequently more ashamed of our blunders afterwards than we were at the moment of making them2 and in general our whole higher prudential and moral life is based on the fact that material sensations actually present may have a weaker influence on our action than ideas of remoter facts4 ,the more concrete objects of most men's religion1 the deities whom they worship1 are known to them only in idea4 ,it has been vouchsafed1 for example1 to very few ,christian believers to have had a sensible vision of their ,saviour2 though enough appearances of this sort are on record1 by way of miraculous exception1 to merit our attention later4 ,the whole force of the ,christian religion1 therefore1 so far as belief in the divine personages determines the prevalent attitude of the believer1 is in general exerted by the instrumentality of pure ideas1 of which nothing in the individual's past experience directly serves as a model4 ,but in addition to these ideas of the more concrete religious objects1 religion is full of abstract objects which prove to have an equal power4 ,god's attributes as such1 his holiness1 his justice1 his mercy1 his absoluteness1 his infinity1 his omniscience1 his triunity1 the various mysteries of the redemptive process1 the operation of the sacraments1 etc41 have proved fertile wells of inspiring meditation for ,christian believers47#bb7 ,we shall see later that the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison1 or contemplation of the higher divine truths4 ,such contemplations are expected 7and abundantly verify the expectation1 as we shall also see7 to influence the believer's subsequent attitude very powerfully for good4 ,immanuel ,kant held a curious doctrine about such objects of belief as ,god1 the design of creation1 the soul1 its freedom1 and the life hereafter4 ,these things1 he said1 are properly not objects of knowledge at all4 ,our conceptions always require a sensecontent to work with1 and as the words 8soul10 8,god10 8immortality10 cover no distinctive sensecontent whatever1 it follows that theoretically speaking they are words devoid of any significance4 ,yet strangely enough they have a definite meaning for our practice4 ,we can act as if there were a ,god2 feel as if we were free2 consider ,nature as if she were full of special designs2 lay plans as if we were to be immortal2 and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life4 ,our faith that these unintelligible objects actually exist proves thus to be a full equivalent in praktischer ,hinsicht1 as ,kant calls it1 or from the point of view of our action1 for a knowledge of what they might be1 in case we were permitted positively to conceive them4 ,so we have the strange phenomenon1 as ,kant assures us1 of a mind believing with all its strength in the real presence of a set of things of no one of which it can form any notion whatsoever4 ,my object in thus recalling ,kant's doctrine to your mind is not to express any opinion as to the accuracy of this particularly uncouth part of his philosophy1 but only to illustrate the characteristic of human nature which we are considering1 by an example so classical in its exaggeration4 ,the sentiment of reality can indeed attach itself so strongly to our object of belief that our whole life is polarized through and through1 so to speak1 by its sense of the existence of the thing believed in1 and yet that thing1 for purpose of definite description1 can hardly be said to be present to our mind at all4 ,it is as if a bar of iron1 without touch or sight1 with no representative faculty whatever1 might nevertheless be strongly endowed with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling2 and as if1 through the various arousals of its magnetism by magnets coming and going in its neighborhood1 it might be consciously determined to different attitudes and tendencies4 ,such a bar of iron could never give you an outward description of the agencies that had the power of stirring it so strongly2 yet of their presence1 and of their significance for its life1 it would be intensely aware through every fibre of its being4 ,it is not only the ,ideas of pure ,reason1 as ,kant styled them1 that have this power of making us vitally feel presences that we are impotent articulately to describe4 ,all sorts of higher abstractions bring with them the same kind of impalpable appeal4 ,remember those passages from ,emerson which ,i read at my last lecture4 ,the whole universe of concrete objects1 as we know them1 swims1 not only for such a transcendentalist writer1 but for all of us1 in a wider and higher universe of abstract ideas1 that lend it its significance4 ,as time1 space1 and the ether soak through all things1 so 7we feel7 do abstract and essential goodness1 beauty1 strength1 significance1 justice1 soak through all things good1 strong1 significant1 and just4 ,such ideas1 and others equally abstract1 form the background for all our facts1 the fountainhead of all the possibilities we conceive of4 ,they give its 8nature10 as we call it1 to every special thing4 ,everything we know is 8what0 it is by sharing in the nature of one of these abstractions4 ,we can never look directly at them1 for they are bodiless and featureless and footless1 but we grasp all other things by their means1 and in handling the real world we should be stricken with helplessness in just so far forth as we might lose these mental objects1 these adjectives and adverbs and predicates and heads of classification and conception4 ,this absolute determinability of our mind by abstractions is one of the cardinal facts in our human constitution4 ,polarizing and magnetizing us as they do1 we turn towards them and from them1 we seek them1 hold them1 hate them1 bless them1 just as if they were so many concrete beings4 ,and beings they are1 beings as real in the realm which they inhabit as the changing things of sense are in the realm of space4 ,plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this common human feeling1 that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has been known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since4 ,abstract ,beauty1 for example1 is for ,plato a perfectly definite individual being1 of which the intellect is aware as of something additional to all the perishing beauties of the earth4 8,the true order of going10 he says1 in the often quoted passage in his 8,banquet10 8is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which one mounts upwards for the sake of that other ,beauty1 going from one to two1 and from two to all fair forms1 and from fair forms to fair actions1 and from fair actions to fair notions1 until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute ,beauty1 and at last knows what the essence of ,beauty is407#bc7 ,in our last lecture we had a glimpse of the way in which a platonizing writer like ,emerson may treat the abstract divineness of things1 the moral structure of the universe1 as a fact worthy of worship4 ,in those various churches without a ,god which to day are spreading through the world under the name of ethical societies1 we have a similar worship of the abstract divine1 the moral law believed in as an ultimate object4 8,science0 in many minds is genuinely taking the place of a religion4 ,where this is so1 the scientist treats the 8,laws of ,nature0 as objective facts to be revered4 ,a brilliant school of interpretation of ,greek mythology would have it that in their origin the ,greek gods were only halfmetaphoric personifications of those great spheres of abstract law and order into which the natural world falls apart--the skysphere1 the oceansphere1 the earthsphere1 and the like2 just as even now we may speak of the smile of the morning1 the kiss of the breeze1 or the bite of the cold1 without really meaning that these phenomena of nature actually wear a human face47#bd7 ,as regards the origin of the ,greek gods1 we need not at present seek an opinion4 ,but the whole array of our instances leads to a conclusion something like this3 ,it is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality1 a feeling of objective presence1 a perception of what we may call 8something there10 more deep and more general than any of the special and particular 8senses0 by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed4 ,if this were so1 we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do1 by first exciting this sense of reality2 but anything else1 any idea1 for example1 that might similarly excite it1 would have that same prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess4 ,so far as religious conceptions were able to touch this reality feeling1 they would be believed in in spite of criticism1 even though they might be so vague and remote as to be almost unimaginable1 even though they might be such nonentities in point of whatness1 as ,kant makes the objects of his moral theology to be4 ,the most curious proofs of the existence of such an undifferentiated sense of reality as this are found in experiences of hallucination4 ,it often happens that an hallucination is imperfectly developed3 the person affected will feel a 8presence0 in the room1 definitely localized1 facing in one particular way1 real in the most emphatic sense of the word1 often coming suddenly1 and as suddenly gone2 and yet neither seen1 heard1 touched1 nor cognized in any of the usual 8sensible0 ways4 ,let me give you an example of this1 before ,i pass to the objects with whose presence religion is more peculiarly concerned4 ,an intimate friend of mine1 one of the keenest intellects ,i know1 has had several experiences of this sort4 ,he writes as follows in response to my inquiries3-- 8,i have several times within the past few years felt the socalled #8consciousness of a presence4' ,the experiences which ,i have in mind are clearly distinguishable from another kind of experience which ,i have had very frequently1 and which ,i fancy many persons would also call the #8consciousness of a presence4' ,but the difference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the difference between feeling a slight warmth originating ,i know not where1 and standing in the midst of a conflagration with all the ordinary senses alert4 8,it was about ,september1 #ahhd1 when ,i had the first experience4 ,on the previous night ,i had had1 after getting into bed at my rooms in ,college1 a vivid tactile hallucination of being grasped by the arm1 which made me get up and search the room for an intruder2 but the sense of presence properly so called came on the next night4 ,after ,i had got into bed and blown out the candle1 ,i lay awake awhile thinking on the previous night's experience1 when suddenly ,i felt something come into the room and stay close to my bed4 ,it remained only a minute or two4 ,i did not recognize it by any ordinary sense1 and yet there was a horribly unpleasant #8sensation' connected with it4 ,it stirred something more at the roots of my being than any ordinary perception4 ,the feeling had something of the quality of a very large tearing vital pain spreading chiefly over the chest1 but within the organism--and yet the feeling was not pain so much as abhorrence4 ,at all events1 something was present with me1 and ,i knew its presence far more surely than ,i have ever known the presence of any fleshly living creature4 ,i was conscious of its departure as of its coming3 an almost instantaneously swift going through the door1 and the #8horrible sensation' disappeared4 8,on the third night when ,i retired my mind was absorbed in some lectures which ,i was preparing1 and ,i was still absorbed in these when ,i became aware of the actual presence 7though not of the coming7 of the thing that was there the night before1 and of the #8horrible sensation4' ,i then mentally concentrated all my effort to charge this #8thing1' if it was evil1 to depart1 if it was not evil1 to tell me who or what it was1 and if it could not explain itself1 to go1 and that ,i would compel it to go4 ,it went as on the previous night1 and my body quickly recovered its normal state4 8,on two other occasions in my life ,i have had precisely the same #8horrible sensation4' ,once it lasted a full quarter of an hour4 ,in all three instances the certainty that there in outward space there stood something was indescribably stronger than the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presence of ordinary living people4 ,the something seemed close to me1 and intensely more real than any ordinary perception4 ,although ,i felt it to be like unto myself1 so to speak1 or finite1 small1 and distressful1 as it were1 ,i didn't recognize it as any individual being or person40 ,of course such an experience as this does not connect itself with the religious sphere4 ,yet it may upon occasion do so2 and the same correspondent informs me that at more than one other conjuncture he had the sense of presence developed with equal intensity and abruptness1 only then it was filled with a quality of joy4 8,there was not a mere consciousness of something there1 but fused in the central happiness of it1 a startling awareness of some ineffable good4 ,not vague either1 not like the emotional effect of some poem1 or scene1 or blossom1 of music1 but the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person1 and after it went1 the memory persisted as the one perception of reality4 ,everything else might be a dream1 but not that40 ,my friend1 as it oddly happens1 does not interpret these latter experiences theistically1 as signifying the presence of ,god4 ,but it would clearly not have been unnatural to interpret them as a revelation of the deity's existence4 ,when we reach the subject of mysticism1 we shall have much more to say upon this head4 ,lest the oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you1 ,i will venture to read you a couple of similar narratives1 much shorter1 merely to show that we are dealing with a wellmarked natural kind of fact4 ,in the first case1 which ,i take from the ,journal of the ,society for ,psychical ,research1 the sense of presence developed in a few moments into a distinctly visualized hallucination1--but ,i leave that part of the story out4 8,i had read10 the narrator says1 8some twenty minutes or so1 was thoroughly absorbed in the book1 my mind was perfectly quiet1 and for the time being my friends were quite forgotten1 when suddenly without a moment's warning my whole being seemed roused to the highest state of tension or aliveness1 and ,i was aware1 with an intenseness not easily imagined by those who had never experienced it1 that another being or presence was not only in the room1 but quite close to me4 ,i put my book down1 and although my excitement was great1 ,i felt quite collected1 and not conscious of any sense of fear4 ,without changing my position1 and looking straight at the fire1 ,i knew somehow that my friend ,a4 ,h4 was standing at my left elbow1 but so far behind me as to be hidden by the armchair in which ,i was leaning back4 ,moving my eyes round slightly without otherwise changing my position1 the lower portion of one leg became visible1 and ,i instantly recognized the grayblue material of trousers he often wore1 but the stuff appeared semi transparent1 reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency107#be7--;and hereupon the visual hallucination came4 ,another informant writes3-- 8,quite early in the night ,i was awakened4444 ,i felt as if ,i had been aroused intentionally1 and at first thought some one was breaking into the house4444 ,i then turned on my side to go to sleep again1 and immediately felt a consciousness of a presence in the room1 and singular to state1 it was not the consciousness of a live person1 but of a spiritual presence4 ,this may provoke a smile1 but ,i can only tell you the facts as they occurred to me4 ,i do not know how to better describe my sensations than by simply stating that ,i felt a consciousness of a spiritual presence4444 ,i felt also at the same time a strong feeling of superstitious dread1 as if something strange and fearful were about to happen407#bf7 ,professor ,flournoy of ,geneva gives me the following testimony of a friend of his1 a lady1 who has the gift of automatic or involuntary writing3-- 8,whenever ,i practice automatic writing1 what makes me feel that it is not due to a subconscious self is the feeling ,i always have of a foreign presence1 external to my body4 ,it is sometimes so definitely characterized that ,i could point to its exact position4 ,this impression of presence is impossible to describe4 ,it varies in intensity and clearness according to the personality from whom the writing professes to come4 ,if it is some one whom ,i love1 ,i feel it immediately1 before any writing has come4 ,my heart seems to recognize it40 ,in an earlier book of mine ,i have cited at full length a curious case of presence felt by a blind man4 ,the presence was that of the figure of a graybearded man dressed in a pepper and salt suit1 squeezing himself under the crack of the door and moving across the floor of the room towards a sofa4 ,the blind subject of this quasihallucination is an exceptionally intelligent reporter4 ,he is entirely without internal visual imagery and cannot represent light or colors to himself1 and is positive that his other senses1 hearing1 etc41 were not involved in this false perception4 ,it seems to have been an abstract conception rather1 with the feelings of reality and spatial outwardness directly attached to it--in other words1 a fully objectified and exteriorized idea4 ,such cases1 taken along with others which would be too tedious for quotation1 seem sufficiently to prove the existence in our mental machinery of a sense of present reality more diffused and general than that which our special senses yield4 ,for the psychologists the tracing of the organic seat of such a feeling would form a pretty problem--nothing could be more natural than to connect it with the muscular sense1 with the feeling that our muscles were innervating themselves for action4 ,whatsoever thus innervated our activity1 or 8made our flesh creep10--our senses are what do so oftenest1--might then appear real and present1 even though it were but an abstract idea4 ,but with such vague conjectures we have no concern at present1 for our interest lies with the faculty rather than with its organic seat4 ,like all positive affections of consciousness1 the sense of reality has its negative counterpart in the shape of a feeling of unreality by which persons may be haunted1 and of which one sometimes hears complaint3-- 8,when ,i reflect on the fact that ,i have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens10 says ,madame ,ackermann2 8when ,i see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as ,i am myself1 and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras1 ,i experience a strange feeling of being in a dream4 ,it seems to me as if ,i have loved and suffered and that erelong ,i shall die1 in a dream4 ,my last word will be1 #8,i have been dreaming4' 07#bg7 ,in another lecture we shall see how in morbid melancholy this sense of the unreality of things may become a carking pain1 and even lead to suicide4 ,we may now lay it down as certain that in the distinctively religious sphere of experience1 many persons 7how many we cannot tell7 possess the objects of their belief1 not in the form of mere conceptions which their intellect accepts as true1 but rather in the form of quasisensible realities directly apprehended4 ,as his sense of the real presence of these objects fluctuates1 so the believer alternates between warmth and coldness in his faith4 ,other examples will bring this home to one better than abstract description1 so ,i proceed immediately to cite some4 ,the first example is a negative one1 deploring the loss of the sense in question4 ,i have extracted it from an account given me by a scientific man of my acquaintance1 of his religious life4 ,it seems to me to show clearly that the feeling of reality may be something more like a sensation than an intellectual operation properly socalled4 8,between twenty and thirty ,i gradually became more and more agnostic and irreligious1 yet ,i cannot say that ,i ever lost that #8indefinite consciousness' which ,herbert ,spencer describes so well1 of an ,absolute ,reality behind phenomena4 ,for me this ,reality was not the pure ,unknowable of ,spencer's philosophy1 for although ,i had ceased my childish prayers to ,god1 and never prayed to ,it in a formal manner1 yet my more recent experience shows me to have been in a relation to ,it which practically was the same thing as prayer4 ,whenever ,i had any trouble1 especially when ,i had conflict with other people1 either domestically or in the way of business1 or when ,i was depressed in spirits or anxious about affairs1 ,i now recognize that ,i used to fall back for support upon this curious relation ,i felt myself to be in to this fundamental cosmical ,it4 ,it was on my side1 or ,i was on ,its side1 however you please to term it1 in the particular trouble1 and it always strengthened me and seemed to give me endless vitality to feel its underlying and supporting presence4 ,in fact1 it was an unfailing fountain of living justice1 truth1 and strength1 to which ,i instinctively turned at times of weakness1 and it always brought me out4 ,i know now that it was a personal relation ,i was in to it1 because of late years the power of communicating with it has left me1 and ,i am conscious of a perfectly definite loss4 ,i used never to fail to find it when ,i turned to it4 ,then came a set of years when sometimes ,i found it1 and then again ,i would be wholly unable to make connection with it4 ,i remember many occasions on which at night in bed1 ,i would be unable to get to sleep on account of worry4 ,i turned this way and that in the darkness1 and groped mentally for the familiar sense of that higher mind of my mind which had always seemed to be close at hand as it were1 closing the passage1 and yielding support1 but there was no electric current4 ,a blank was there instead of ,it3 ,i couldn't find anything4 ,now1 at the age of nearly fifty1 my power of getting into connection with it has entirely left me2 and ,i have to confess that a great help has gone out of my life4 ,life has become curiously dead and indifferent2 and ,i can now see that my old experience was probably exactly the same thing as the prayers of the orthodox1 only ,i did not call them by that name4 ,what ,i have spoken of as #8,it' was practically not ,spencer's ,unknowable1 but just my own instinctive and individual ,god1 whom ,i relied upon for higher sympathy1 but whom somehow ,i have lost40 ,nothing is more common in the pages of religious biography than the way in which seasons of lively and of difficult faith are described as alternating4 ,probably every religious person has the recollection of particular crises in which a directer vision of the truth1 a direct perception1 perhaps1 of a living ,god's existence1 swept in and overwhelmed the languor of the more ordinary belief4 ,in ,james ,russell ,lowell's correspondence there is a brief memorandum of an experience of this kind3-- 8,i had a revelation last ,friday evening4 ,i was at ,mary's1 and happening to say something of the presence of spirits 7of whom1 ,i said1 ,i was often dimly aware71 ,mr4 ,putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters4 ,as ,i was speaking1 the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the ,abyss4 ,i never before so clearly felt the ,spirit of ,god in me and around me4 ,the whole room seemed to me full of ,god4 ,the air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of ,something ,i knew not what4 ,i spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet4 ,i cannot tell you what this revelation was4 ,i have not yet studied it enough4 ,but ,i shall perfect it one day1 and then you shall hear it and acknowledge its grandeur407#bh7 ,here is a longer and more developed experience from a manuscript communication by a clergyman1--,i take it from ,starbuck's manuscript collection3-- 8,i remember the night1 and almost the very spot on the hilltop1 where my soul opened out1 as it were1 into the ,infinite1 and there was a rushing together of the two worlds1 the inner and the outer4 ,it was deep calling unto deep1--the deep that my own struggle had opened up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without1 reaching beyond the stars4 ,i stood alone with ,him who had made me1 and all the beauty of the world1 and love1 and sorrow1 and even temptation4 ,i did not seek ,him1 but felt the perfect unison of my spirit with ,his4 ,the ordinary sense of things around me faded4 ,for the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and exaltation remained4 ,it is impossible fully to describe the experience4 ,it was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards1 and almost bursting with its own emotion4 ,the perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence4 ,the darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen4 ,i could not any more have doubted that ,he was there than that ,i was4 ,indeed1 ,i felt myself to be1 if possible1 the less real of the two4 8,my highest faith in ,god and truest idea of him were then born in me4 ,i have stood upon the ,mount of ,vision since1 and felt the ,eternal round about me4 ,but never since has there come quite the same stirring of the heart4 ,then1 if ever1 ,i believe1 ,i stood face to face with ,god1 and was born anew of his spirit4 ,there was1 as ,i recall it1 no sudden change of thought or of belief1 except that my early crude conception had1 as it were1 burst into flower4 ,there was no destruction of the old1 but a rapid1 wonderful unfolding4 ,since that time no discussion that ,i have heard of the proofs of ,god's existence has been able to shake my faith4 ,having once felt the presence of ,god's spirit1 ,i have never lost it again for long4 ,my most assuring evidence of his existence is deeply rooted in that hour of vision1 in the memory of that supreme experience1 and in the conviction1 gained from reading and reflection1 that something the same has come to all who have found ,god4 ,i am aware that it may justly be called mystical4 ,i am not enough acquainted with philosophy to defend it from that or any other charge4 ,i feel that in writing of it ,i have overlaid it with words rather than put it clearly to your thought4 ,but1 such as it is1 ,i have described it as carefully as ,i now am able to do40 ,here is another document1 even more definite in character1 which1 the writer being a ,swiss1 ,i translate from the ,french original47#bi7 8,i was in perfect health3 we were on our sixth day of tramping1 and in good training4 ,we had come the day before from ,sixt to ,trient by ,buet4 ,i felt neither fatigue1 hunger1 nor thirst1 and my state of mind was equally healthy4 ,i had had at ,forlaz good news from home2 ,i was subject to no anxiety1 either near or remote1 for we had a good guide1 and there was not a shadow of uncertainty about the road we should follow4 ,i can best describe the condition in which ,i was by calling it a state of equilibrium4 ,when all at once ,i experienced a feeling of being raised above myself1 ,i felt the presence of ,god--,i tell of the thing just as ,i was conscious of it--as if his goodness and his power were penetrating me altogether4 ,the throb of emotion was so violent that ,i could barely tell the boys to pass on and not wait for me4 ,i then sat down on a stone1 unable to stand any longer1 and my eyes overflowed with tears4 ,i thanked ,god that in the course of my life he had taught me to know him1 that he sustained my life and took pity both on the insignificant creature and on the sinner that ,i was4 ,i begged him ardently that my life might be consecrated to the doing of his will4 ,i felt his reply1 which was that ,i should do his will from day to day1 in humility and poverty1 leaving him1 the ,almighty ,god1 to be judge of whether ,i should some time be called to bear witness more conspicuously4 ,then1 slowly1 the ecstasy left my heart2 that is1 ,i felt that ,god had withdrawn the communion which he had granted1 and ,i was able to walk on1 but very slowly1 so strongly was ,i still possessed by the interior emotion4 ,besides1 ,i had wept uninterruptedly for several minutes1 my eyes were swollen1 and ,i did not wish my companions to see me4 ,the state of ecstasy may have lasted four or five minutes1 although it seemed at the time to last much longer4 ,my comrades waited for me ten minutes at the cross of ,barine1 but ,i took about twentyfive or thirty minutes to join them1 for as well as ,i can remember1 they said that ,i had kept them back for about half an hour4 ,the impression had been so profound that in climbing slowly the slope ,i asked myself if it were possible that ,moses on ,sinai could have had a more intimate communication with ,god4 ,i think it well to add that in this ecstasy of mine ,god had neither form1 color1 odor1 nor taste2 moreover1 that the feeling of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization4 ,it was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiritual spirit4 ,but the more ,i seek words to express this intimate intercourse1 the more ,i feel the impossibility of describing the thing by any of our usual images4 ,at bottom the expression most apt to render what ,i felt is this3 ,god was present1 though invisible2 he fell under no one of my senses1 yet my consciousness perceived him40 ,the adjective 8mystical0 is technically applied1 most often1 to states that are of brief duration4 ,of course such hours of rapture as the last two persons describe are mystical experiences1 of which in a later lecture ,i shall have much to say4 ,meanwhile here is the abridged record of another mystical or semimystical experience1 in a mind evidently framed by nature for ardent piety4 ,i owe it to ,starbuck's collection4 ,the lady who gives the account is the daughter of a man well known in his time as a writer against ,christianity4 ,the suddenness of her conversion shows well how native the sense of ,god's presence must be to certain minds4 ,she relates that she was brought up in entire ignorance of ,christian doctrine1 but1 when in ,germany1 after being talked to by ,christian friends1 she read the ,bible and prayed1 and finally the plan of salvation flashed upon her like a stream of light4 8,to this day10 she writes1 8,i cannot understand dallying with religion and the commands of ,god4 ,the very instant ,i heard my ,father's cry calling unto me1 my heart bounded in recognition4 ,i ran1 ,i stretched forth my arms1 ,i cried aloud1 #8,here1 here ,i am1 my ,father4' ,oh1 happy child1 what should ,i do8 #8,love me1' answered my ,god4 #8,i do1 ,i do1' ,i cried passionately4 #8,come unto me1' called my ,father4 #8,i will1' my heart panted4 ,did ,i stop to ask a single question8 ,not one4 ,it never occurred to me to ask whether ,i was good enough1 or to hesitate over my unfitness1 or to find out what ,i thought of his church1 or 444 to wait until ,i should be satisfied4 ,satisfied6 ,i was satisfied4 ,had ,i not found my ,god and my ,father8 ,did he not love me8 ,had he not called me8 ,was there not a ,church into which ,i might enter8444 ,since then ,i have had direct answers to prayer--so significant as to be almost like talking with ,god and hearing his answer4 ,the idea of ,god's reality has never left me for one moment40 ,here is still another case1 the writer being a man aged twentyseven1 in which the experience1 probably almost as characteristic1 is less vividly described3-- 8,i have on a number of occasions felt that ,i had enjoyed a period of intimate communion with the divine4 ,these meetings came unasked and unexpected1 and seemed to consist merely in the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which usually surround and cover my life4444 ,once it was when from the summit of a high mountain ,i looked over a gashed and corrugated landscape extending to a long convex of ocean that ascended to the horizon1 and again from the same point when ,i could see nothing beneath me but a boundless expanse of white cloud1 on the blown surface of which a few high peaks1 including the one ,i was on1 seemed plunging about as if they were dragging their anchors4 ,what ,i felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity1 accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance than ,i had been wont to attach to life4 ,it is in this that ,i find my justification for saying that ,i have enjoyed communication with ,god4 ,of course the absence of such a being as this would be chaos4 ,i cannot conceive of life without its presence40 ,of the more habitual and so to speak chronic sense of ,god's presence the following sample from ,professor ,starbuck's manuscript collection may serve to give an idea4 ,it is from a man aged fortynine1--probably thousands of unpretending ,christians would write an almost identical account4 8,god is more real to me than any thought or thing or person4 ,i feel his presence positively1 and the more as ,i live in closer harmony with his laws as written in my body and mind4 ,i feel him in the sunshine or rain2 and awe mingled with a delicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings4 ,i talk to him as to a companion in prayer and praise1 and our communion is delightful4 ,he answers me again and again1 often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone1 but generally in strong mental impressions4 ,usually a text of ,scripture1 unfolding some new view of him and his love for me1 and care for my safety4 ,i could give hundreds of instances1 in school matters1 social problems1 financial difficulties1 etc4 ,that he is mine and ,i am his never leaves me1 it is an abiding joy4 ,without it life would be a blank1 a desert1 a shoreless1 trackless waste40 ,i subjoin some more examples from writers of different ages and sexes4 ,they are also from ,professor ,starbuck's collection1 and their number might be greatly multiplied4 ,the first is from a man twentyseven years old3-- 8,god is quite real to me4 ,i talk to him and often get answers4 ,thoughts sudden and distinct from any ,i have been entertaining come to my mind after asking ,god for his direction4 ,something over a year ago ,i was for some weeks in the direst perplexity4 ,when the trouble first appeared before me ,i was dazed1 but before long 7two or three hours7 ,i could hear distinctly a passage of ,scripture3 #8,my grace is sufficient for thee4' ,every time my thoughts turned to the trouble ,i could hear this quotation4 ,i don't think ,i ever doubted the existence of ,god1 or had him drop out of my consciousness4 ,god has frequently stepped into my affairs very perceptibly1 and ,i feel that he directs many little details all the time4 ,but on two or three occasions he has ordered ways for me very contrary to my ambitions and plans40 ,another statement 7none the less valuable psychologically for being so decidedly childish7 is that of a boy of seventeen3-- 8,sometimes as ,i go to church1 ,i sit down1 join in the service1 and before ,i go out ,i feel as if ,god was with me1 right side of me1 singing and reading the ,psalms with me4444 ,and then again ,i feel as if ,i could sit beside him1 and put my arms around him1 kiss him1 etc4 ,when ,i am taking ,holy ,communion at the altar1 ,i try to get with him and generally feel his presence40 ,i let a few other cases follow at random3-- 8,god surrounds me like the physical atmosphere4 ,he is closer to me than my own breath4 ,in him literally ,i live and move and have my being40-- 8,there are times when ,i seem to stand1 in his very presence1 to talk with him4 ,answers to prayer have come1 sometimes direct and overwhelming in their revelation of his presence and powers4 ,there are times when ,god seems far off1 but this is always my own fault40-- 8,i have the sense of a presence1 strong1 and at the same time soothing1 which hovers over me4 ,sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms40 ,such is the human ontological imagination1 and such is the convincingness of what it brings to birth4 ,unpicturable beings are realized1 and realized with an intensity almost like that of an hallucination4 ,they determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense1 by which each is haunted1 of the other being in the world4 ,a lover has notoriously this sense of the continuous being of his idol1 even when his attention is addressed to other matters and he no longer represents her features4 ,he cannot forget her2 she uninterruptedly affects him through and through4 ,i spoke of the convincingness of these feelings of reality1 and ,i must dwell a moment longer on that point4 ,they are as convincing to those who have them as any direct sensible experiences can be1 and they are1 as a rule1 much more convincing than results established by mere logic ever are4 ,one may indeed be entirely without them2 probably more than one of you here present is without them in any marked degree2 but if you do have them1 and have them at all strongly1 the probability is that you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth1 as revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument1 however unanswerable by you in words1 can expel from your belief4 ,the opinion opposed to mysticism in philosophy is sometimes spoken of as rationalism4 ,rationalism insists that all our beliefs ought ultimately to find for themselves articulate grounds4 ,such grounds1 for rationalism1 must consist of four things3 7#a7 definitely statable abstract principles2 7#b7 definite facts of sensation2 7#c7 definite hypotheses based on such facts2 and 7#d7 definite inferences logically drawn4 ,vague impressions of something indefinable have no place in the rationalistic system1 which on its positive side is surely a splendid intellectual tendency1 for not only are all our philosophies fruits of it1 but physical science 7amongst other good things7 is its result4 ,nevertheless1 if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists1 on the life of men that lies in them apart from their learning and science1 and that they inwardly and privately follow1 we have to confess that the part of it of which rationalism can give an account is relatively superficial4 ,it is the part that has the prestige undoubtedly1 for it has the loquacity1 it can challenge you for proofs1 and chop logic1 and put you down with words4 ,but it will fail to convince or convert you all the same1 if your dumb intuitions are opposed to its conclusions4 ,if you have intuitions at all1 they come from a deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits4 ,your whole subconscious life1 your impulses1 your faiths1 your needs1 your divinations1 have prepared the premises1 of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result2 and something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logicchopping rationalistic talk1 however clever1 that may contradict it4 ,this inferiority of the rationalistic level in founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for religion as when it argues against it4 ,that vast literature of proofs of ,god's existence drawn from the order of nature1 which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convincing1 today does little more than gather dust in libraries1 for the simple reason that our generation has ceased to believe in the kind of ,god it argued for4 ,whatever sort of a being ,god may be1 we know today that he is nevermore that mere external inventor of 8contrivances0 intended to make manifest his 8glory0 in which our greatgrandfathers took such satisfaction1 though just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to others or to ourselves4 ,i defy any of you here fully to account for your persuasion that if a ,god exist he must be a more cosmic and tragic personage than that ,being4 ,the truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere1 articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion4 ,then1 indeed1 our intuitions and our reason work together1 and great worldruling systems1 like that of the ,buddhist or of the ,catholic philosophy1 may grow up4 ,our impulsive belief is here always what sets up the original body of truth1 and our articulately verbalized philosophy is but its showy translation into formulas4 ,the unreasoned and immediate assurance is the deep thing in us1 the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibition4 ,instinct leads1 intelligence does but follow4 ,if a person feels the presence of a living ,god after the fashion shown by my quotations1 your critical arguments1 be they never so superior1 will vainly set themselves to change his faith4 ,please observe1 however1 that ,i do not yet say that it is better that the subconscious and nonrational should thus hold primacy in the religious realm4 ,i confine myself to simply pointing out that they do so hold it as a matter of fact4 ,so much for our sense of the reality of the religious objects4 ,let me now say a brief word more about the attitudes they characteristically awaken4 ,we have already agreed that they are solemn2 and we have seen reason to think that the most distinctive of them is the sort of joy which may result in extreme cases from absolute selfsurrender4 ,the sense of the kind of object to which the surrender is made has much to do with determining the precise complexion of the joy2 and the whole phenomenon is more complex than any simple formula allows4 ,in the literature of the subject1 sadness and gladness have each been emphasized in turn4 ,the ancient saying that the first maker of the ,gods was fear receives voluminous corroboration from every age of religious history2 but none the less does religious history show the part which joy has evermore tended to play4 ,sometimes the joy has been primary2 sometimes secondary1 being the gladness of deliverance from the fear4 ,this latter state of things1 being the more complex1 is also the more complete2 and as we proceed1 ,i think we shall have abundant reason for refusing to leave out either the sadness or the gladness1 if we look at religion with the breadth of view which it demands4 ,stated in the completest possible terms1 a man's religion involves both moods of contraction and moods of expansion of his being4 ,but the quantitative mixture and order of these moods vary so much from one age of the world1 from one system of thought1 and from one individual to another1 that you may insist either on the dread and the submission1 or on the peace and the freedom as the essence of the matter1 and still remain materially within the limits of the truth4 ,the constitutionally sombre and the constitutionally sanguine onlooker are bound to emphasize opposite aspects of what lies before their eyes4 ,the constitutionally sombre religious person makes even of his religious peace a very sober thing4 ,danger still hovers in the air about it4 ,flexion and contraction are not wholly checked4 ,it were sparrowlike and childish after our deliverance to explode into twittering laughter and caper cutting1 and utterly to forget the imminent hawk on bough4 ,lie low1 rather1 lie low2 for you are in the hands of a living ,god4 ,in the ,book of ,job1 for example1 the impotence of man and the omnipotence of ,god is the exclusive burden of its author's mind4 8,it is as high as heaven2 what canst thou do8--deeper than hell2 what canst thou know80 ,there is an astringent relish about the truth of this conviction which some men can feel1 and which for them is as near an approach as can be made to the feeling of religious joy4 8,in ,job10 says that coldly truthful writer1 the author of ,mark ,rutherford1 8,god reminds us that man is not the measure of his creation4 ,the world is immense1 constructed on no plan or theory which the intellect of man can grasp4 ,it is transcendent everywhere4 ,this is the burden of every verse1 and is the secret1 if there be one1 of the poem4 ,sufficient or insufficient1 there is nothing more4444 ,god is great1 we know not his ways4 ,he takes from us all we have1 but yet if we possess our souls in patience1 we may pass the valley of the shadow1 and come out in sunlight again4 ,we may or we may not6444 ,what more have we to say now than ,god said from the whirlwind over two thousand five hundred years ago807#cj7 ,if we turn to the sanguine onlooker1 on the other hand1 we find that deliverance is felt as incomplete unless the burden be altogether overcome and the danger forgotten4 ,such onlookers give us definitions that seem to the sombre minds of whom we have just been speaking to leave out all the solemnity that makes religious peace so different from merely animal joys4 ,in the opinion of some writers an attitude might be called religious1 though no touch were left in it of sacrifice or submission1 no tendency to flexion1 no bowing of the head4 ,any 8habitual and regulated admiration10 says ,professor ,j4 ,r4 ,seeley17#ca7 8is worthy to be called a religion02 and accordingly he thinks that our ,music1 our ,science1 and our socalled 8,civilization10 as these things are now organized and admiringly believed in1 form the more genuine religions of our time4 ,certainly the unhesitating and unreasoning way in which we feel that we must inflict our civilization upon 8lower0 races1 by means of ,hotchkiss guns1 etc41 reminds one of nothing so much as of the early spirit of ,islam spreading its religion by the sword4 ,in my last lecture ,i quoted to you the ultraradical opinion of ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis1 that laughter of any sort may be considered a religious exercise1 for it bears witness to the soul's emancipation4 ,i quoted this opinion in order to deny its adequacy4 ,but we must now settle our scores more carefully with this whole optimistic way of thinking4 ,it is far too complex to be decided offhand4 ,i propose accordingly that we make of religious optimism the theme of the next two lectures4 ,,lectures ,,iv ,,and ,v4 ,,the ,,religion ,,of ,,healthy,,mindedness4 ,if we were to ask the question3 8,what is human life's chief concern80 one of the answers we should receive would be3 8,it is happiness40 ,how to gain1 how to keep1 how to recover happiness1 is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do1 and of all they are willing to endure4 ,the hedonistic school in ethics deduces the moral life wholly from the experiences of happiness and unhappiness which different kinds of conduct bring2 and1 even more in the religious life than in the moral life1 happiness and unhappiness seem to be the poles round which the interest revolves4 ,we need not go so far as to say with the author whom ,i lately quoted that any persistent enthusiasm is1 as such1 religion1 nor need we call mere laughter a religious exercise2 but we must admit that any persistent enjoyment may produce the sort of religion which consists in a grateful admiration of the gift of so happy an existence2 and we must also acknowledge that the more complex ways of experiencing religion are new manners of producing happiness1 wonderful inner paths to a supernatural kind of happiness1 when the first gift of natural existence is unhappy1 as it so often proves itself to be4 ,with such relations between religion and happiness1 it is perhaps not surprising that men come to regard the happiness which a religious belief affords as a proof of its truth4 ,if a creed makes a man feel happy1 he almost inevitably adopts it4 ,such a belief ought to be true2 therefore it is true--such1 rightly or wrongly1 is one of the 8immediate inferences0 of the religious logic used by ordinary men4 8,the near presence of ,god's spirit10 says a ,german writer17#cb7 8may be experienced in its reality--indeed only experienced4 ,and the mark by which the spirit's existence and nearness are made irrefutably clear to those who have ever had the experience is the utterly incomparable feeling of happiness which is connected with the nearness1 and which is therefore not only a possible and altogether proper feeling for us to have here below1 but is the best and most indispensable proof of ,god's reality4 ,no other proof is equally convincing1 and therefore happiness is the point from which every efficacious new theology should start40 ,in the hour immediately before us1 ,i shall invite you to consider the simpler kinds of religious happiness1 leaving the more complex sorts to be treated on a later day4 ,in many persons1 happiness is congenital and irreclaimable4 8,cosmic emotion0 inevitably takes in them the form of enthusiasm and freedom4 ,i speak not only of those who are animally happy4 ,i mean those who1 when unhappiness is offered or proposed to them1 positively refuse to feel it1 as if it were something mean and wrong4 ,we find such persons in every age1 passionately flinging themselves upon their sense of the goodness of life1 in spite of the hardships of their own condition1 and in spite of the sinister theologies into which they may be born4 ,from the outset their religion is one of union with the divine4 ,the heretics who went before the reformation are lavishly accused by the church writers of antinomian practices1 just as the first ,christians were accused of indulgence in orgies by the ,romans4 ,it is probable that there never has been a century in which the deliberate refusal to think ill of life has not been idealized by a sufficient number of persons to form sects1 open or secret1 who claimed all natural things to be permitted4 ,saint ,augustine's maxim1 ,dilige et quod vis fac1--if you but love ,god1 you may do as you incline1--is morally one of the profoundest of observations1 yet it is pregnant1 for such persons1 with passports beyond the bounds of conventional morality4 ,according to their characters they have been refined or gross2 but their belief has been at all times systematic enough to constitute a definite religious attitude4 ,god was for them a giver of freedom1 and the sting of evil was overcome4 ,saint ,francis and his immediate disciples were1 on the whole1 of this company of spirits1 of which there are of course infinite varieties4 ,rousseau in the earlier years of his writing1 ,diderot1 ,b4 de ,saint ,pierre1 and many of the leaders of the eighteenth century antichristian movement were of this optimistic type4 ,they owed their influence to a certain authoritativeness in their feeling that ,nature1 if you will only trust her sufficiently1 is absolutely good4 ,it is to be hoped that we all have some friend1 perhaps more often feminine than masculine1 and young than old1 whose soul is of this sky blue tint1 whose affinities are rather with flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark human passions1 who can think no ill of man or ,god1 and in whom religious gladness1 being in possession from the outset1 needs no deliverance from any antecedent burden4 8,god has two families of children on this earth10 says ,francis ,w4 ,newman17#cc7 8the onceborn and the twiceborn10 and the once born he describes as follows3 8,they see ,god1 not as a strict ,judge1 not as a ,glorious ,potentate2 but as the animating ,spirit of a beautiful harmonious world1 ,beneficent and ,kind1 ,merciful as well as ,pure4 ,the same characters generally have no metaphysical tendencies3 they do not look back into themselves4 ,hence they are not distressed by their own imperfections3 yet it would be absurd to call them selfrighteous2 for they hardly think of themselves at all4 ,this childlike quality of their nature makes the opening of religion very happy to them3 for they no more shrink from ,god1 than a child from an emperor1 before whom the parent trembles3 in fact1 they have no vivid conception of any of the qualities in which the severer ,majesty of ,god consists47#cd7 ,he is to them the impersonation of ,kindness and ,beauty4 ,they read his character1 not in the disordered world of man1 but in romantic and harmonious nature4 ,of human sin they know perhaps little in their own hearts and not very much in the world2 and human suffering does but melt them to tenderness4 ,thus1 when they approach ,god1 no inward disturbance ensues2 and without being as yet spiritual1 they have a certain complacency and perhaps romantic sense of excitement in their simple worship40 ,in the ,romish ,church such characters find a more congenial soil to grow in than in ,protestantism1 whose fashions of feeling have been set by minds of a decidedly pessimistic order4 ,but even in ,protestantism they have been abundant enough2 and in its recent 8liberal0 developments of ,unitarianism and latitudinarianism generally1 minds of this order have played and still are playing leading and constructive parts4 ,emerson himself is an admirable example4 ,theodore ,parker is another1--here are a couple of characteristic passages from ,parker's correspondence47#ce7 8,orthodox scholars say3 #8,in the heathen classics you find no consciousness of sin4' ,it is very true--,god be thanked for it4 ,they were conscious of wrath1 of cruelty1 avarice1 drunkenness1 lust1 sloth1 cowardice1 and other actual vices1 and struggled and got rid of the deformities1 but they were not conscious of #8enmity against ,god1' and didn't sit down and whine and groan against non existent evil4 ,i have done wrong things enough in my life1 and do them now2 ,i miss the mark1 draw bow1 and try again4 ,but ,i am not conscious of hating ,god1 or man1 or right1 or love1 and ,i know there is much #8health in me'2 and in my body1 even now1 there dwelleth many a good thing1 spite of consumption and ,saint ,paul40 ,in another letter ,parker writes3 8,i have swum in clear sweet waters all my days2 and if sometimes they were a little cold1 and the stream ran adverse and something rough1 it was never too strong to be breasted and swum through4 ,from the days of earliest boyhood1 when ,i went stumbling through the grass1444 up to the graybearded manhood of this time1 there is none but has left me honey in the hive of memory that ,i now feed on for present delight4 ,when ,i recall the years 444 ,i am filled with a sense of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make a mortal so exceedingly rich4 ,but ,i must confess that the chiefest of all my delights is still the religious40 ,another good expression of the 8onceborn0 type of consciousness1 developing straight and natural1 with no element of morbid compunction or crisis1 is contained in the answer of ,dr4 ,edward ,everett ,hale1 the eminent ,unitarian preacher and writer1 to one of ,dr4 ,starbuck's circulars4 ,i quote a part of it3-- 8,i observe1 with profound regret1 the religious struggles which come into many biographies1 as if almost essential to the formation of the hero4 ,i ought to speak of these1 to say that any man has an advantage1 not to be estimated1 who is born1 as ,i was1 into a family where the religion is simple and rational2 who is trained in the theory of such a religion1 so that he never knows1 for an hour1 what these religious or irreligious struggles are4 ,i always knew ,god loved me1 and ,i was always grateful to him for the world he placed me in4 ,i always liked to tell him so1 and was always glad to receive his suggestions to me4444 ,i can remember perfectly that when ,i was coming to manhood1 the half philosophical novels of the time had a deal to say about the young men and maidens who were facing the #8problem of life4' ,i had no idea whatever what the problem of life was4 ,to live with all my might seemed to me easy2 to learn where there was so much to learn seemed pleasant and almost of course2 to lend a hand1 if one had a chance1 natural2 and if one did this1 why1 he enjoyed life because he could not help it1 and without proving to himself that he ought to enjoy it4444 ,a child who is early taught that he is ,god's child1 that he may live and move and have his being in ,god1 and that he has1 therefore1 infinite strength at hand for the conquering of any difficulty1 will take life more easily1 and probably will make more of it1 than one who is told that he is born the child of wrath and wholly incapable of good407#cf7 ,one can but recognize in such writers as these the presence of a temperament organically weighted on the side of cheer and fatally forbidden to linger1 as those of opposite temperament linger1 over the darker aspects of the universe4 ,in some individuals optimism may become quasipathological4 ,the capacity for even a transient sadness or a momentary humility seems cut off from them as by a kind of congenital ansthesia47#cg7 ,the supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is of course ,walt ,whitman4 8,his favorite occupation10 writes his disciple1 ,dr4 ,bucke1 8seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself1 looking at the grass1 the trees1 the flowers1 the vistas of light1 the varying aspects of the sky1 and listening to the birds1 the crickets1 the tree frogs1 and all the hundreds of natural sounds4 ,it was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people4 ,until ,i knew the man10 continues ,dr4 ,bucke1 8it had not occurred to me that any one could derive so much absolute happiness from these things as he did4 ,he was very fond of flowers1 either wild or cultivated2 liked all sorts4 ,i think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses4 ,perhaps1 indeed1 no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as ,walt ,whitman4 ,all natural objects seemed to have a charm for him4 ,all sights and sounds seemed to please him4 ,he appeared to like 7and ,i believe he did like7 all the men1 women1 and children he saw 7though ,i never knew him to say that he liked any one71 but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her1 and that he liked others also4 ,i never knew him to argue or dispute1 and he never spoke about money4 ,he always justified1 sometimes playfully1 sometimes quite seriously1 those who spoke harshly of himself or his writings1 and ,i often thought he even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies4 ,when ,i first knew him1 ,i used to think that he watched himself1 and would not allow his tongue to give expression to fretfulness1 antipathy1 complaint1 and remonstrance4 ,it did not occur to me as possible that these mental states could be absent in him4 ,after long observation1 however1 ,i satisfied myself that such absence or unconsciousness was entirely real4 ,he never spoke deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men1 or time in the world's history1 or against any trades or occupations--not even against any animals1 insects1 or inanimate things1 nor any of the laws of nature1 nor any of the results of those laws1 such as illness1 deformity1 and death4 ,he never complained or grumbled either at the weather1 pain1 illness1 or anything else4 ,he never swore4 ,he could not very well1 since he never spoke in anger and apparently never was angry4 ,he never exhibited fear1 and ,i do not believe he ever felt it407#ch7 ,walt ,whitman owes his importance in literature to the systematic expulsion from his writings of all contractile elements4 ,the only sentiments he allowed himself to express were of the expansive order2 and he expressed these in the first person1 not as your mere monstrously conceited individual might so express them1 but vicariously for all men1 so that a passionate and mystic ontological emotion suffuses his words1 and ends by persuading the reader that men and women1 life and death1 and all things are divinely good4 ,thus it has come about that many persons today regard ,walt ,whitman as the restorer of the eternal natural religion4 ,he has infected them with his own love of comrades1 with his own gladness that he and they exist4 ,societies are actually formed for his cult2 a periodical organ exists for its propagation1 in which the lines of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are already beginning to be drawn27#ci7 hymns are written by others in his peculiar prosody2 and he is even explicitly compared with the founder of the ,christian religion1 not altogether to the advantage of the latter4 ,whitman is often spoken of as a 8pagan40 ,the word nowadays means sometimes the mere natural animal man without a sense of sin2 sometimes it means a ,greek or ,roman with his own peculiar religious consciousness4 ,in neither of these senses does it fitly define this poet4 ,he is more than your mere animal man who has not tasted of the tree of good and evil4 ,he is aware enough of sin for a swagger to be present in his indifference towards it1 a conscious pride in his freedom from flexions and contractions1 which your genuine pagan in the first sense of the word would never show4 8,i could turn and live with animals1 they are so placid and self contained1 ,i stand and look at them long and long2 ,they do not sweat and whine about their condition4 ,they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins4 ,not one is dissatisfied1 not one is demented with the mania of owning things1 ,not one kneels to another1 nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago1 ,not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth407#dj7 ,no natural pagan could have written these wellknown lines4 ,but on the other hand ,whitman is less than a ,greek or ,roman2 for their consciousness1 even in ,homeric times1 was full to the brim of the sad mortality of this sunlit world1 and such a consciousness ,walt ,whitman resolutely refuses to adopt4 ,when1 for example1 ,achilles1 about to slay ,lycaon1 ,priam's young son1 hears him sue for mercy1 he stops to say3-- 8,ah1 friend1 thou too must die3 why thus lamentest thou8 ,patroclos too is dead1 who was better far than thou4444 ,over me too hang death and forceful fate4 ,there cometh morn or eve or some noonday when my life too some man shall take in battle1 whether with spear he smite1 or arrow from the string407#da7 ,then ,achilles savagely severs the poor boy's neck with his sword1 heaves him by the foot into the ,scamander1 and calls to the fishes of the river to eat the white fat of ,lycaon4 ,just as here the cruelty and the sympathy each ring true1 and do not mix or interfere with one another1 so did the ,greeks and ,romans keep all their sadnesses and gladnesses unmingled and entire4 ,instinctive good they did not reckon sin2 nor had they any such desire to save the credit of the universe as to make them insist1 as so many of us insist1 that what immediately appears as evil must be 8good in the making10 or something equally ingenious4 ,good was good1 and bad just bad1 for the earlier ,greeks4 ,they neither denied the ills of nature1--,walt ,whitman's verse1 8,what is called good is perfect and what is called bad is just as perfect10 would have been mere silliness to them1--nor did they1 in order to escape from those ills1 invent 8another and a better world0 of the imagination1 in which1 along with the ills1 the innocent goods of sense would also find no place4 ,this integrity of the instinctive reactions1 this freedom from all moral sophistry and strain1 gives a pathetic dignity to ancient pagan feeling4 ,and this quality ,whitman's outpourings have not got4 ,his optimism is too voluntary and defiant2 his gospel has a touch of bravado and an affected twist17#db7 and this diminishes its effect on many readers who yet are well disposed towards optimism1 and on the whole quite willing to admit that in important respects ,whitman is of the genuine lineage of the prophets4 ,if1 then1 we give the name of healthymindedness to the tendency which looks on all things and sees that they are good1 we find that we must distinguish between a more involuntary and a more voluntary or systematic way of being healthyminded4 ,in its involuntary variety1 healthy mindedness is a way of feeling happy about things immediately4 ,in its systematical variety1 it is an abstract way of conceiving things as good4 ,every abstract way of conceiving things selects some one aspect of them as their essence for the time being1 and disregards the other aspects4 ,systematic healthymindedness1 conceiving good as the essential and universal aspect of being1 deliberately excludes evil from its field of vision2 and although1 when thus nakedly stated1 this might seem a difficult feat to perform for one who is intellectually sincere with himself and honest about facts1 a little reflection shows that the situation is too complex to lie open to so simple a criticism4 ,in the first place1 happiness1 like every other emotional state1 has blindness and insensibility to opposing facts given it as its instinctive weapon for selfprotection against disturbance4 ,when happiness is actually in possession1 the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules4 ,to the man actively happy1 from whatever cause1 evil simply cannot then and there be believed in4 ,he must ignore it2 and to the bystander he may then seem perversely to shut his eyes to it and hush it up4 ,but more than this3 the hushing of it up may1 in a perfectly candid and honest mind1 grow into a deliberate religious policy1 or parti pris4 ,much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon4 ,it can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight2 its sting so often departs and turns into a relish when1 after vainly seeking to shun it1 we agree to face about and bear it cheerfully1 that a man is simply bound in honor1 with reference to many of the facts that seem at first to disconcert his peace1 to adopt this way of escape4 ,refuse to admit their badness2 despise their power2 ignore their presence2 turn your attention the other way2 and so far as you yourself are concerned at any rate1 though the facts may still exist1 their evil character exists no longer4 ,since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them1 it is the ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern4 ,the deliberate adoption of an optimistic turn of mind thus makes its entrance into philosophy4 ,and once in1 it is hard to trace its lawful bounds4 ,not only does the human instinct for happiness1 bent on self protection by ignoring1 keep working in its favor1 but higher inner ideals have weighty words to say4 ,the attitude of unhappiness is not only painful1 it is mean and ugly4 ,what can be more base and unworthy than the pining1 puling1 mumping mood1 no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered8 ,what is more injurious to others8 ,what less helpful as a way out of the difficulty8 ,it but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it1 and increases the total evil of the situation4 ,at all costs1 then1 we ought to reduce the sway of that mood2 we ought to scout it in ourselves and others1 and never show it tolerance4 ,but it is impossible to carry on this discipline in the subjective sphere without zealously emphasizing the brighter and minimizing the darker aspects of the objective sphere of things at the same time4 ,and thus our resolution not to indulge in misery1 beginning at a comparatively small point within ourselves1 may not stop until it has brought the entire frame of reality under a systematic conception optimistic enough to be congenial with its needs4 ,in all this ,i say nothing of any mystical insight or persuasion that the total frame of things absolutely must be good4 ,such mystical persuasion plays an enormous part in the history of the religious consciousness1 and we must look at it later with some care4 ,but we need not go so far at present4 ,more ordinary nonmystical conditions of rapture suffice for my immediate contention4 ,all invasive moral states and passionate enthusiasms make one feelingless to evil in some direction4 ,the common penalties cease to deter the patriot1 the usual prudences are flung by the lover to the winds4 ,when the passion is extreme1 suffering may actually be gloried in1 provided it be for the ideal cause1 death may lose its sting1 the grave its victory4 ,in these states1 the ordinary contrast of good and ill seems to be swallowed up in a higher denomination1 an omnipotent excitement which engulfs the evil1 and which the human being welcomes as the crowning experience of his life4 ,this1 he says1 is truly to live1 and ,i exult in the heroic opportunity and adventure4 ,the systematic cultivation of healthymindedness as a religious attitude is therefore consonant with important currents in human nature1 and is anything but absurd4 ,in fact1 we all do cultivate it more or less1 even when our professed theology should in consistency forbid it4 ,we divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can2 and the slaughter houses and indecencies without end on which our life is founded are huddled out of sight and never mentioned1 so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer and cleaner and better than the world that really is47#dc7 ,the advance of liberalism1 socalled1 in ,christianity1 during the past fifty years1 may fairly be called a victory of healthymindedness within the church over the morbidness with which the old hellfire theology was more harmoniously related4 ,we have now whole congregations whose preachers1 far from magnifying our consciousness of sin1 seem devoted rather to making little of it4 ,they ignore1 or even deny1 eternal punishment1 and insist on the dignity rather than on the depravity of man4 ,they look at the continual preoccupation of the oldfashioned ,christian with the salvation of his soul as something sickly and reprehensible rather than admirable2 and a sanguine and 8muscular0 attitude1 which to our forefathers would have seemed purely heathen1 has become in their eyes an ideal element of ,christian character4 ,i am not asking whether or not they are right1 ,i am only pointing out the change4 ,the persons to whom ,i refer have still retained for the most part their nominal connection with ,christianity1 in spite of their discarding of its more pessimistic theological elements4 ,but in that 8theory of evolution0 which1 gathering momentum for a century1 has within the past twentyfive years swept so rapidly over ,europe and ,america1 we see the ground laid for a new sort of religion of ,nature1 which has entirely displaced ,christianity from the thought of a large part of our generation4 ,the idea of a universal evolution lends itself to a doctrine of general meliorism and progress which fits the religious needs of the healthyminded so well that it seems almost as if it might have been created for their use4 ,accordingly we find 8evolutionism0 interpreted thus optimistically and embraced as a substitute for the religion they were born in1 by a multitude of our contemporaries who have either been trained scientifically1 or been fond of reading popular science1 and who had already begun to be inwardly dissatisfied with what seemed to them the harshness and irrationality of the orthodox ,christian scheme4 ,as examples are better than descriptions1 ,i will quote a document received in answer to ,professor ,starbuck's circular of questions4 ,the writer's state of mind may by courtesy be called a religion1 for it is his reaction on the whole nature of things1 it is systematic and reflective1 and it loyally binds him to certain inner ideals4 ,i think you will recognize in him1 coarse meated and incapable of wounded spirit as he is1 a sufficiently familiar contemporary type4 ,q4 ,what does ,religion mean to you8 ,a4 ,it means nothing2 and it seems1 so far as ,i can observe1 useless to others4 ,i am sixtyseven years of age and have resided in ,x4 fifty years1 and have been in business fortyfive1 consequently ,i have some little experience of life and men1 and some women too1 and ,i find that the most religious and pious people are as a rule those most lacking in uprightness and morality4 ,the men who do not go to church or have any religious convictions are the best4 ,praying1 singing of hymns1 and sermonizing are pernicious--they teach us to rely on some supernatural power1 when we ought to rely on ourselves4 ,i teetotally disbelieve in a ,god4 ,the ,godidea was begotten in ignorance1 fear1 and a general lack of any knowledge of ,nature4 ,if ,i were to die now1 being in a healthy condition for my age1 both mentally and physically1 ,i would just as lief1 yes1 rather1 die with a hearty enjoyment of music1 sport1 or any other rational pastime4 ,as a timepiece stops1 we die--there being no immortality in either case4 ,q4 ,what comes before your mind corresponding to the words ,god1 ,heaven1 ,angels1 etc48 ,a4 ,nothing whatever4 ,i am a man without a religion4 ,these words mean so much mythic bosh4 ,q4 ,have you had any experiences which appeared providential8 ,a4 ,none whatever4 ,there is no agency of the superintending kind4 ,a little judicious observation as well as knowledge of scientific law will convince any one of this fact4 ,q4 ,what things work most strongly on your emotions8 ,a4 ,lively songs and music2 ,pinafore instead of an ,oratorio4 ,i like ,scott1 ,burns1 ,byron1 ,longfellow1 especially ,shakespeare1 etc41 etc4 ,of songs1 the ,starspangled ,banner1 ,america1 ,marseillaise1 and all moral and soulstirring songs1 but wishywashy hymns are my detestation4 ,i greatly enjoy nature1 especially fine weather1 and until within a few years used to walk ,sundays into the country1 twelve miles often1 with no fatigue1 and bicycle forty or fifty4 ,i have dropped the bicycle4 ,i never go to church1 but attend lectures when there are any good ones4 ,all of my thoughts and cogitations have been of a healthy and cheerful kind1 for instead of doubts and fears ,i see things as they are1 for ,i endeavor to adjust myself to my environment4 ,this ,i regard as the deepest law4 ,mankind is a progressive animal4 ,i am satisfied he will have made a great advance over his present status a thousand years hence4 ,q4 ,what is your notion of sin8 ,a4 ,it seems to me that sin is a condition1 a disease1 incidental to man's development not being yet advanced enough4 ,morbidness over it increases the disease4 ,we should think that a million of years hence equity1 justice1 and mental and physical good order will be so fixed and organized that no one will have any idea of evil or sin4 ,q4 ,what is your temperament8 ,a4 ,nervous1 active1 wideawake1 mentally and physically4 ,sorry that ,nature compels us to sleep at all4 ,if we are in search of a broken and a contrite heart1 clearly we need not look to this brother4 ,his contentment with the finite incases him like a lobstershell and shields him from all morbid repining at his distance from the ,infinite4 ,we have in him an excellent example of the optimism which may be encouraged by popular science4 ,to my mind a current far more important and interesting religiously than that which sets in from natural science towards healthymindedness is that which has recently poured over ,america and seems to be gathering force every day1--,i am ignorant what foothold it may yet have acquired in ,great ,britain1--and to which1 for the sake of having a brief designation1 ,i will give the title of the 8,mindcure movement40 ,there are various sects of this 8,new ,thought10 to use another of the names by which it calls itself2 but their agreements are so profound that their differences may be neglected for my present purpose1 and ,i will treat the movement1 without apology1 as if it were a simple thing4 ,it is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life1 with both a speculative and a practical side4 ,in its gradual development during the last quarter of a century1 it has taken up into itself a number of contributory elements1 and it must now be reckoned with as a genuine religious power4 ,it has reached the stage1 for example1 when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff1 mechanically produced for the market1 to be to a certain extent supplied by publishers1--a phenomenon never observed1 ,i imagine1 until a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings4 ,one of the doctrinal sources of ,mindcure is the four ,gospels2 another is ,emersonianism or ,new ,england transcendentalism2 another is ,berkeleyan idealism2 another is spiritism1 with its messages of 8law0 and 8progress0 and 8development02 another the optimistic popular science evolutionism of which ,i have recently spoken2 and1 finally1 ,hinduism has contributed a strain4 ,but the most characteristic feature of the mindcure movement is an inspiration much more direct4 ,the leaders in this faith have had an intuitive belief in the allsaving power of healthyminded attitudes as such1 in the conquering efficacy of courage1 hope1 and trust1 and a correlative contempt for doubt1 fear1 worry1 and all nervously precautionary states of mind47#dd7 ,their belief has in a general way been corroborated by the practical experience of their disciples2 and this experience forms today a mass imposing in amount4 ,the blind have been made to see1 the halt to walk2 lifelong invalids have had their health restored4 ,the moral fruits have been no less remarkable4 ,the deliberate adoption of a healthyminded attitude has proved possible to many who never supposed they had it in them2 regeneration of character has gone on on an extensive scale2 and cheerfulness has been restored to countless homes4 ,the indirect influence of this has been great4 ,the mind cure principles are beginning so to pervade the air that one catches their spirit at secondhand4 ,one hears of the 8,gospel of ,relaxation10 of the 8,don't ,worry ,movement10 of people who repeat to themselves1 8,youth1 health1 vigor60 when dressing in the morning1 as their motto for the day4 ,complaints of the weather are getting to be forbidden in many households2 and more and more people are recognizing it to be bad form to speak of disagreeable sensations1 or to make much of the ordinary inconveniences and ailments of life4 ,these general tonic effects on public opinion would be good even if the more striking results were nonexistent4 ,but the latter abound so that we can afford to overlook the innumerable failures and selfdeceptions that are mixed in with them 7for in everything human failure is a matter of course71 and we can also overlook the verbiage of a good deal of the mindcure literature1 some of which is so moonstruck with optimism and so vaguely expressed that an academically trained intellect finds it almost impossible to read it at all4 ,the plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been due to practical fruits1 and the extremely practical turn of character of the ,american people has never been better shown than by the fact that this1 their only decidedly original contribution to the systematic philosophy of life1 should be so intimately knit up with concrete therapeutics4 ,to the importance of mindcure the medical and clerical professions in the ,united ,states are beginning1 though with much recalcitrancy and protesting1 to open their eyes4 ,it is evidently bound to develop still farther1 both speculatively and practically1 and its latest writers are far and away the ablest of the group47#de7 ,it matters nothing that1 just as there are hosts of persons who cannot pray1 so there are greater hosts who cannot by any possibility be influenced by the mindcurers' ideas4 ,for our immediate purpose1 the important point is that so large a number should exist who can be so influenced4 ,they form a psychic type to be studied with respect47#df7 ,to come now to a little closer quarters with their creed4 ,the fundamental pillar on which it rests is nothing more than the general basis of all religious experience1 the fact that man has a dual nature1 and is connected with two spheres of thought1 a shallower and a profounder sphere1 in either of which he may learn to live more habitually4 ,the shallower and lower sphere is that of the fleshly sensations1 instincts1 and desires1 of egotism1 doubt1 and the lower personal interests4 ,but whereas ,christian theology has always considered frowardness to be the essential vice of this part of human nature1 the mindcurers say that the mark of the beast in it is fear2 and this is what gives such an entirely new religious turn to their persuasion4 8,fear10 to quote a writer of the school1 8has had its uses in the evolutionary process1 and seems to constitute the whole of forethought in most animals2 but that it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is an absurdity4 ,i find that the fear element of forethought is not stimulating to those more civilized persons to whom duty and attraction are the natural motives1 but is weakening and deterrent4 ,as soon as it becomes unnecessary1 fear becomes a positive deterrent1 and should be entirely removed1 as dead flesh is removed from living tissue4 ,to assist in the analysis of fear1 and in the denunciation of its expressions1 ,i have coined the word fearthought to stand for the unprofitable element of forethought1 and have defined the word #8worry' as fearthought in contradistinction to forethought4 ,i have also defined fearthought as the selfimposed or self permitted suggestion of inferiority1 in order to place it where it really belongs1 in the category of harmful1 unnecessary1 and therefore not respectable things407#dg7 ,the 8miseryhabit10 the 8martyrhabit10 engendered by the prevalent 8fearthought10 get pungent criticism from the mindcure writers3-- 8,consider for a moment the habits of life into which we are born4 ,there are certain social conventions or customs and alleged requirements1 there is a theological bias1 a general view of the world4 ,there are conservative ideas in regard to our early training1 our education1 marriage1 and occupation in life4 ,following close upon this1 there is a long series of anticipations1 namely1 that we shall suffer certain children's diseases1 diseases of middle life1 and of old age2 the thought that we shall grow old1 lose our faculties1 and again become childlike2 while crowning all is the fear of death4 ,then there is a long line of particular fears and troublebearing expectations1 such1 for example1 as ideas associated with certain articles of food1 the dread of the east wind1 the terrors of hot weather1 the aches and pains associated with cold weather1 the fear of catching cold if one sits in a draught1 the coming of hayfever upon the #adth of ,august in the middle of the day1 and so on through a long list of fears1 dreads1 worriments1 anxieties1 anticipations1 expectations1 pessimisms1 morbidities1 and the whole ghostly train of fateful shapes which our fellowmen1 and especially physicians1 are ready to help us conjure up1 an array worthy to rank with ,bradley's #8unearthly ballet of bloodless categories4' 8,yet this is not all4 ,this vast array is swelled by innumerable volunteers from daily life1--the fear of accident1 the possibility of calamity1 the loss of property1 the chance of robbery1 of fire1 or the outbreak of war4 ,and it is not deemed sufficient to fear for ourselves4 ,when a friend is taken ill1 we must forthwith fear the worst and apprehend death4 ,if one meets with sorrow 444 sympathy means to enter into and increase the suffering407#dh7 8,man10 to quote another writer1 8often has fear stamped upon him before his entrance into the outer world2 he is reared in fear2 all his life is passed in bondage to fear of disease and death1 and thus his whole mentality becomes cramped1 limited1 and depressed1 and his body follows its shrunken pattern and specification4444 ,think of the millions of sensitive and responsive souls among our ancestors who have been under the dominion of such a perpetual nightmare6 ,is it not surprising that health exists at all8 ,nothing but the boundless divine love1 exuberance1 and vitality1 constantly poured in1 even though unconsciously to us1 could in some degree neutralize such an ocean of morbidity407#di7 ,although the disciples of the mindcure often use ,christian terminology1 one sees from such quotations how widely their notion of the fall of man diverges from that of ordinary ,christians47#ej7 ,their notion of man's higher nature is hardly less divergent1 being decidedly pantheistic4 ,the spiritual in man appears in the mindcure philosophy as partly conscious1 but chiefly subconscious2 and through the subconscious part of it we are already one with the ,divine without any miracle of grace1 or abrupt creation of a new inner man4 ,as this view is variously expressed by different writers1 we find in it traces of ,christian mysticism1 of transcendental idealism1 of vedantism1 and of the modern psychology of the subliminal self4 ,a quotation or two will put us at the central point of view3-- 8,the great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all1 that manifests itself in and through all4 ,this spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all is what ,i call ,god4 ,i care not what term you may use1 be it ,kindly ,light1 ,providence1 the ,over,soul1 ,omnipotence1 or whatever term may be most convenient1 so long as we are agreed in regard to the great central fact itself4 ,god then fills the universe alone1 so that all is from ,him and in ,him1 and there is nothing that is outside4 ,he is the life of our life1 our very life itself4 ,we are partakers of the life of ,god2 and though we differ from ,him in that we are individualized spirits1 while ,he is the ,infinite ,spirit1 including us1 as well as all else beside1 yet in essence the life of ,god and the life of man are identically the same1 and so are one4 ,they differ not in essence or quality2 they differ in degree4 8,the great central fact in human life is the coming into a conscious vital realization of our oneness with this ,infinite ,life1 and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow4 ,in just the degree that we come into a conscious realization of our oneness with the ,infinite ,life1 and open ourselves to this divine inflow1 do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the ,infinite ,life1 do we make ourselves channels through which the ,infinite ,intelligence and ,power can work4 ,in just the degree in which you realize your oneness with the ,infinite ,spirit1 you will exchange disease for ease1 inharmony for harmony1 suffering and pain for abounding health and strength4 ,to recognize our own divinity1 and our intimate relation to the ,universal1 is to attach the belts of our machinery to the powerhouse of the ,universe4 ,one need remain in hell no longer than one chooses to2 we can rise to any heaven we ourselves choose2 and when we choose so to rise1 all the higher powers of the ,universe combine to help us heavenward407#ea7 ,let me now pass from these abstracter statements to some more concrete accounts of experience with the mindcure religion4 ,i have many answers from correspondents--the only difficulty is to choose4 ,the first two whom ,i shall quote are my personal friends4 ,one of them1 a woman1 writing as follows1 expresses well the feeling of continuity with the ,infinite ,power1 by which all mindcure disciples are inspired4 8,the first underlying cause of all sickness1 weakness1 or depression is the human sense of separateness from that ,divine ,energy which we call ,god4 ,the soul which can feel and affirm in serene but jubilant confidence1 as did the ,nazarene3 #8,i and my ,father are one1' has no further need of healer1 or of healing4 ,this is the whole truth in a nutshell1 and other foundation for wholeness can no man lay than this fact of impregnable divine union4 ,disease can no longer attack one whose feet are planted on this rock1 who feels hourly1 momently1 the influx of the ,deific ,breath4 ,if one with ,omnipotence1 how can weariness enter the consciousness1 how illness assail that indomitable spark8 8,this possibility of annulling forever the law of fatigue has been abundantly proven in my own case2 for my earlier life bears a record of many1 many years of bedridden invalidism1 with spine and lower limbs paralyzed4 ,my thoughts were no more impure than they are today1 although my belief in the necessity of illness was dense and unenlightened2 but since my resurrection in the flesh1 ,i have worked as a healer unceasingly for fourteen years without a vacation1 and can truthfully assert that ,i have never known a moment of fatigue or pain1 although coming in touch constantly with excessive weakness1 illness1 and disease of all kinds4 ,for how can a conscious part of ,deity be sick8--since #8,greater is he that is with us than all that can strive against us4' 0 ,my second correspondent1 also a woman1 sends me the following statement3-- 8,life seemed difficult to me at one time4 ,i was always breaking down1 and had several attacks of what is called nervous prostration1 with terrible insomnia1 being on the verge of insanity2 besides having many other troubles1 especially of the digestive organs4 ,i had been sent away from home in charge of doctors1 had taken all the narcotics1 stopped all work1 been fed up1 and in fact knew all the doctors within reach4 ,but ,i never recovered permanently till this ,new ,thought took possession of me4 8,i think that the one thing which impressed me most was learning the fact that we must be in absolutely constant relation or mental touch 7this word is to me very expressive7 with that essence of life which permeates all and which we call ,god4 ,this is almost unrecognizable unless we live it into ourselves actually1 that is1 by a constant turning to the very innermost1 deepest consciousness of our real selves or of ,god in us1 for illumination from within1 just as we turn to the sun for light1 warmth1 and invigoration without4 ,when you do this consciously1 realizing that to turn inward to the light within you is to live in the presence of ,god or your divine self1 you soon discover the unreality of the objects to which you have hitherto been turning and which have engrossed you without4 8,i have come to disregard the meaning of this attitude for bodily health as such1 because that comes of itself1 as an incidental result1 and cannot be found by any special mental act or desire to have it1 beyond that general attitude of mind ,i have referred to above4 ,that which we usually make the object of life1 those outer things we are all so wildly seeking1 which we so often live and die for1 but which then do not give us peace and happiness1 they should all come of themselves as accessory1 and as the mere outcome or natural result of a far higher life sunk deep in the bosom of the spirit4 ,this life is the real seeking of the kingdom of ,god1 the desire for his supremacy in our hearts1 so that all else comes as that which shall be #8added unto you'--as quite incidental and as a surprise to us1 perhaps2 and yet it is the proof of the reality of the perfect poise in the very centre of our being4 8,when ,i say that we commonly make the object of our life that which we should not work for primarily1 ,i mean many things which the world considers praiseworthy and excellent1 such as success in business1 fame as author or artist1 physician or lawyer1 or renown in philanthropic undertakings4 ,such things should be results1 not objects4 ,i would also include pleasures of many kinds which seem harmless and good at the time1 and are pursued because many accept them--,i mean conventionalities1 sociabilities1 and fashions in their various development1 these being mostly approved by the masses1 although they may be unreal1 and even unhealthy superfluities40 ,here is another case1 more concrete1 also that of a woman4 ,i read you these cases without comment1--they express so many varieties of the state of mind we are studying4 8,i had been a sufferer from my childhood till my fortieth year4 ,details of illhealth are given which ,i omit4 ,i had been in ,vermont several months hoping for good from the change of air1 but steadily growing weaker1 when one day during the latter part of ,october1 while resting in the afternoon1 ,i suddenly heard as it were these words3 #8,you will be healed and do a work you never dreamed of4' ,these words were impressed upon my mind with such power ,i said at once that only ,god could have put them there4 ,i believed them in spite of myself and of my suffering and weakness1 which continued until ,christmas1 when ,i returned to ,boston4 ,within two days a young friend offered to take me to a mental healer 7this was ,january #g1 #ahha74 ,the healer said3 #8,there is nothing but ,mind2 we are expressions of the ,one ,mind2 body is only a mortal belief2 as a man thinketh so is he4' ,i could not accept all she said1 but ,i translated all that was there for me in this way3 #8,there is nothing but ,god2 ,i am created by ,him1 and am absolutely dependent upon ,him2 mind is given me to use2 and by just so much of it as ,i will put upon the thought of right action in body ,i shall be lifted out of bondage to my ignorance and fear and past experience4' ,that day ,i commenced accordingly to take a little of every food provided for the family1 constantly saying to myself3 #8,the ,power that created the stomach must take care of what ,i have eaten4' ,by holding these suggestions through the evening ,i went to bed and fell asleep1 saying3 #8,i am soul1 spirit1 just one with ,god's ,thought of me1' and slept all night without waking1 for the first time in several years the distressturns had usually recurred about two o'clock in the night4 ,i felt the next day like an escaped prisoner1 and believed ,i had found the secret that would in time give me perfect health4 ,within ten days ,i was able to eat anything provided for others1 and after two weeks ,i began to have my own positive mental suggestions of ,truth1 which were to me like steppingstones4 ,i will note a few of them2 they came about two weeks apart4 8#ast4 ,i am ,soul1 therefore it is well with me4 8#b;d4 ,i am ,soul1 therefore ,i am well4 8#c;d4 ,a sort of inner vision of myself as a fourfooted beast with a protuberance on every part of my body where ,i had suffering1 with my own face1 begging me to acknowledge it as myself4 ,i resolutely fixed my attention on being well1 and refused to even look at my old self in this form4 8#dth4 ,again the vision of the beast far in the background1 with faint voice4 ,again refusal to acknowledge4 8#eth4 ,once more the vision1 but only of my eyes with the longing look2 and again the refusal4 ,then came the conviction1 the inner consciousness1 that ,i was perfectly well and always had been1 for ,i was ,soul1 an expression of ,god's ,perfect ,thought4 ,that was to me the perfect and completed separation between what ,i was and what ,i appeared to be4 ,i succeeded in never losing sight after this of my real being1 by constantly affirming this truth1 and by degrees 7though it took me two years of hard work to get there7 ,i expressed health continuously throughout my whole body4 8,in my subsequent nineteen years' experience ,i have never known this ,truth to fail when ,i applied it1 though in my ignorance ,i have often failed to apply it1 but through my failures ,i have learned the simplicity and trustfulness of the little child40 ,but ,i fear that ,i risk tiring you by so many examples1 and ,i must lead you back to philosophic generalities again4 ,you see already by such records of experience how impossible it is not to class mindcure as primarily a religious movement4 ,its doctrine of the oneness of our life with ,god's life is in fact quite indistinguishable from an interpretation of ,christ's message which in these very ,gifford lectures has been defended by some of your very ablest ,scottish religious philosophers47#eb7 ,but philosophers usually profess to give a quasilogical explanation of the existence of evil1 whereas of the general fact of evil in the world1 the existence of the selfish1 suffering1 timorous finite consciousness1 the mindcurers1 so far as ,i am acquainted with them1 profess to give no speculative explanation4 ,evil is empirically there for them as it is for everybody1 but the practical point of view predominates1 and it would ill agree with the spirit of their system to spend time in worrying over it as a 8mystery0 or 8problem10 or in 8laying to heart0 the lesson of its experience1 after the manner of the ,evangelicals4 ,don't reason about it1 as ,dante says1 but give a glance and pass beyond6 ,it is ,avidhya1 ignorance6 something merely to be outgrown and left behind1 transcended and forgotten4 ,christian ,science socalled1 the sect of ,mrs4 ,eddy1 is the most radical branch of mindcure in its dealings with evil4 ,for it evil is simply a lie1 and any one who mentions it is a liar4 ,the optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay it the compliment even of explicit attention4 ,of course1 as our next lectures will show us1 this is a bad speculative omission1 but it is intimately linked with the practical merits of the system we are examining4 ,why regret a philosophy of evil1 a mindcurer would ask us1 if ,i can put you in possession of a life of good8 ,after all1 it is the life that tells2 and mindcure has developed a living system of mental hygiene which may well claim to have thrown all previous literature of the ,ditetik der ,seele into the shade4 ,this system is wholly and exclusively compacted of optimism3 8,pessimism leads to weakness4 ,optimism leads to power40 8,thoughts are things10 as one of the most vigorous mindcure writers prints in bold type at the bottom of each of his pages2 and if your thoughts are of health1 youth1 vigor1 and success1 before you know it these things will also be your outward portion4 ,no one can fail of the regenerative influence of optimistic thinking1 pertinaciously pursued4 ,every man owns indefeasibly this inlet to the divine4 ,fear1 on the contrary1 and all the contracted and egoistic modes of thought1 are inlets to destruction4 ,most mindcurers here bring in a doctrine that thoughts are 8forces10 and that1 by virtue of a law that like attracts like1 one man's thoughts draw to themselves as allies all the thoughts of the same character that exist the world over4 ,thus one gets1 by one's thinking1 reinforcements from elsewhere for the realization of one's desires2 and the great point in the conduct of life is to get the heavenly forces on one's side by opening one's own mind to their influx4 ,on the whole1 one is struck by a psychological similarity between the mindcure movement and the ,lutheran and ,wesleyan movements4 ,to the believer in moralism and works1 with his anxious query1 8,what shall ,i do to be saved80 ,luther and ,wesley replied3 8,you are saved now1 if you would but believe it40 ,and the mindcurers come with precisely similar words of emancipation4 ,they speak1 it is true1 to persons for whom the conception of salvation has lost its ancient theological meaning1 but who labor nevertheless with the same eternal human difficulty4 ,things are wrong with them2 and 8,what shall ,i do to be clear1 right1 sound1 whole1 well80 is the form of their question4 ,and the answer is3 8,you are well1 sound1 and clear already1 if you did but know it40 8,the whole matter may be summed up in one sentence10 says one of the authors whom ,i have already quoted1 8,god is well1 and so are you4 ,you must awaken to the knowledge of your real being40 ,the adequacy of their message to the mental needs of a large fraction of mankind is what gave force to those earlier gospels4 ,exactly the same adequacy holds in the case of the mindcure message1 foolish as it may sound upon its surface2 and seeing its rapid growth in influence1 and its therapeutic triumphs1 one is tempted to ask whether it may not be destined 7probably by very reason of the crudity and extravagance of many of its manifestations7#ec77 to play a part almost as great in the evolution of the popular religion of the future as did those earlier movements in their day4 ,but ,i here fear that ,i may begin to 8jar upon the nerves0 of some of the members of this academic audience4 ,such contemporary vagaries1 you may think1 should hardly take so large a place in dignified ,gifford lectures4 ,i can only beseech you to have patience4 ,the whole outcome of these lectures will1 ,i imagine1 be the emphasizing to your mind of the enormous diversities which the spiritual lives of different men exhibit4 ,their wants1 their susceptibilities1 and their capacities all vary and must be classed under different heads4 ,the result is that we have really different types of religious experience2 and1 seeking in these lectures closer acquaintance with the healthyminded type1 we must take it where we find it in most radical form4 ,the psychology of individual types of character has hardly begun even to be sketched as yet--our lectures may possibly serve as a crumblike contribution to the structure4 ,the first thing to bear in mind 7especially if we ourselves belong to the clericoacademic scientific type1 the officially and conventionally 8correct0 type1 8the deadly respectable0 type1 for which to ignore others is a besetting temptation7 is that nothing can be more stupid than to bar out phenomena from our notice1 merely because we are incapable of taking part in anything like them ourselves4 ,now the history of ,lutheran salvation by faith1 of methodistic conversions1 and of what ,i call the mindcure movement seems to prove the existence of numerous persons in whom--at any rate at a certain stage in their development--a change of character for the better1 so far from being facilitated by the rules laid down by official moralists1 will take place all the more successfully if those rules be exactly reversed4 ,official moralists advise us never to relax our strenuousness4 8,be vigilant1 day and night10 they adjure us2 8hold your passive tendencies in check2 shrink from no effort2 keep your will like a bow always bent40 ,but the persons ,i speak of find that all this conscious effort leads to nothing but failure and vexation in their hands1 and only makes them twofold more the children of hell they were before4 ,the tense and voluntary attitude becomes in them an impossible fever and torment4 ,their machinery refuses to run at all when the bearings are made so hot and the belts so tight4 ,under these circumstances the way to success1 as vouched for by innumerable authentic personal narrations1 is by an antimoralistic method1 by the 8surrender0 of which ,i spoke in my second lecture4 ,passivity1 not activity2 relaxation1 not intentness1 should be now the rule4 ,give up the feeling of responsibility1 let go your hold1 resign the care of your destiny to higher powers1 be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all1 and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief1 but often also1 in addition1 the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing4 ,this is the salvation through self despair1 the dying to be truly born1 of ,lutheran theology1 the passage into nothing of which ,jacob ,behmen writes4 ,to get to it1 a critical point must usually be passed1 a corner turned within one4 ,something must give way1 a native hardness must break down and liquefy2 and this event 7as we shall abundantly see hereafter7 is frequently sudden and automatic1 and leaves on the ,subject an impression that he has been wrought on by an external power4 ,whatever its ultimate significance may prove to be1 this is certainly one fundamental form of human experience4 ,some say that the capacity or incapacity for it is what divides the religious from the merely moralistic character4 ,with those who undergo it in its fullness1 no criticism avails to cast doubt on its reality4 ,they know2 for they have actually felt the higher powers1 in giving up the tension of their personal will4 ,a story which revivalist preachers often tell is that of a man who found himself at night slipping down the side of a precipice4 ,at last he caught a branch which stopped his fall1 and remained clinging to it in misery for hours4 ,but finally his fingers had to loose their hold1 and with a despairing farewell to life1 he let himself drop4 ,he fell just six inches4 ,if he had given up the struggle earlier1 his agony would have been spared4 ,as the mother earth received him1 so1 the preachers tell us1 will the everlasting arms receive us if we confide absolutely in them1 and give up the hereditary habit of relying on our personal strength1 with its precautions that cannot shelter and safeguards that never save4 ,the mindcurers have given the widest scope to this sort of experience4 ,they have demonstrated that a form of regeneration by relaxing1 by letting go1 psychologically indistinguishable from the ,lutheran justification by faith and the ,wesleyan acceptance of free grace1 is within the reach of persons who have no conviction of sin and care nothing for the ,lutheran theology4 ,it is but giving your little private convulsive self a rest1 and finding that a greater ,self is there4 ,the results1 slow or sudden1 or great or small1 of the combined optimism and expectancy1 the regenerative phenomena which ensue on the abandonment of effort1 remain firm facts of human nature1 no matter whether we adopt a theistic1 a pantheistic idealistic1 or a medicalmaterialistic view of their ultimate causal explanation47#ed7 ,when we take up the phenomena of revivalistic conversion1 we shall learn something more about all this4 ,meanwhile ,i will say a brief word about the mindcurer's methods4 ,they are of course largely suggestive4 ,the suggestive influence of environment plays an enormous part in all spiritual education4 ,but the word 8suggestion10 having acquired official status1 is unfortunately already beginning to play in many quarters the part of a wet blanket upon investigation1 being used to fend off all inquiry into the varying susceptibilities of individual cases4 8,suggestion0 is only another name for the power of ideas1 so far as they prove efficacious over belief and conduct4 ,ideas efficacious over some people prove inefficacious over others4 ,ideas efficacious at some times and in some human surroundings are not so at other times and elsewhere4 ,the ideas of ,christian churches are not efficacious in the therapeutic direction today1 whatever they may have been in earlier centuries2 and when the whole question is as to why the salt has lost its savor here or gained it there1 the mere blank waving of the word 8suggestion0 as if it were a banner gives no light4 ,dr4 ,goddard1 whose candid psychological essay on ,faith ,cures ascribes them to nothing but ordinary suggestion1 concludes by saying that 8,religion and by this he seems to mean our popular ,christianity has in it all there is in mental therapeutics1 and has it in its best form4 ,living up to our religious ideas will do anything for us that can be done40 ,and this in spite of the actual fact that the popular ,christianity does absolutely nothing1 or did nothing until mindcure came to the rescue47#ee7 ,an idea1 to be suggestive1 must come to the individual with the force of a revelation4 ,the mindcure with its gospel of healthymindedness has come as a revelation to many whose hearts the church ,christianity had left hardened4 ,it has let loose their springs of higher life4 ,in what can the originality of any religious movement consist1 save in finding a channel1 until then sealed up1 through which those springs may be set free in some group of human beings8 ,the force of personal faith1 enthusiasm1 and example1 and above all the force of novelty1 are always the prime suggestive agency in this kind of success4 ,if mindcure should ever become official1 respectable1 and intrenched1 these elements of suggestive efficacy will be lost4 ,in its acuter stages every religion must be a homeless ,arab of the desert4 ,the church knows this well enough1 with its everlasting inner struggle of the acute religion of the few against the chronic religion of the many1 indurated into an obstructiveness worse than that which irreligion opposes to the movings of the ,spirit4 8,we may pray10 says ,jonathan ,edwards1 8concerning all those saints that are not lively ,christians1 that they may either be enlivened1 or taken away2 if that be true that is often said by some at this day1 that these cold dead saints do more hurt than natural men1 and lead more souls to hell1 and that it would be well for mankind if they were all dead407#ef7 ,the next condition of success is the apparent existence1 in large numbers1 of minds who unite healthymindedness with readiness for regeneration by letting go4 ,protestantism has been too pessimistic as regards the natural man1 ,catholicism has been too legalistic and moralistic1 for either the one or the other to appeal in any generous way to the type of character formed of this peculiar mingling of elements4 ,however few of us here present may belong to such a type1 it is now evident that it forms a specific moral combination1 well represented in the world4 ,finally1 mindcure has made what in our protestant countries is an unprecedentedly great use of the subconscious life4 ,to their reasoned advice and dogmatic assertion1 its founders have added systematic exercise in passive relaxation1 concentration1 and meditation1 and have even invoked something like hypnotic practice4 ,i quote some passages at random3-- 8,the value1 the potency of ideals is the great practical truth on which the ,new ,thought most strongly insists1--the development namely from within outward1 from small to great47#eg7 ,consequently one's thought should be centred on the ideal outcome1 even though this trust be literally like a step in the dark47#eh7 ,to attain the ability thus effectively to direct the mind1 the ,new ,thought advises the practice of concentration1 or in other words1 the attainment of selfcontrol4 ,one is to learn to marshal the tendencies of the mind1 so that they may be held together as a unit by the chosen ideal4 ,to this end1 one should set apart times for silent meditation1 by one's self1 preferably in a room where the surroundings are favorable to spiritual thought4 ,in ,new ,thought terms1 this is called #8entering the silence4' 07#ei7 8,the time will come when in the busy office or on the noisy street you can enter into the silence by simply drawing the mantle of your own thoughts about you and realizing that there and everywhere the ,spirit of ,infinite ,life1 ,love1 ,wisdom1 ,peace1 ,power1 and ,plenty is guiding1 keeping1 protecting1 leading you4 ,this is the spirit of continual prayer47#fj7 ,one of the most intuitive men we ever met had a desk at a city office where several other gentlemen were doing business constantly1 and often talking loudly4 ,entirely undisturbed by the many various sounds about him1 this selfcentred faithful man would1 in any moment of perplexity1 draw the curtains of privacy so completely about him that he would be as fully inclosed in his own psychic aura1 and thereby as effectually removed from all distractions1 as though he were alone in some primeval wood4 ,taking his difficulty with him into the mystic silence in the form of a direct question1 to which he expected a certain answer1 he would remain utterly passive until the reply came1 and never once through many years' experience did he find himself disappointed or misled407#fa7 ,wherein1 ,i should like to know1 does this intrinsically differ from the practice of 8recollection0 which plays so great a part in ,catholic discipline8 ,otherwise called the practice of the presence of ,god 7and so known among ourselves1 as for instance in ,jeremy ,taylor71 it is thus defined by the eminent teacher ,alvarez de ,paz in his work on ,contemplation4 8,it is the recollection of ,god1 the thought of ,god1 which in all places and circumstances makes us see him present1 lets us commune respectfully and lovingly with him1 and fills us with desire and affection for him4444 ,would you escape from every ill8 ,never lose this recollection of ,god1 neither in prosperity nor in adversity1 nor on any occasion whichsoever it be4 ,invoke not1 to excuse yourself from this duty1 either the difficulty or the importance of your business1 for you can always remember that ,god sees you1 that you are under his eye4 ,if a thousand times an hour you forget him1 reanimate a thousand times the recollection4 ,if you cannot practice this exercise continuously1 at least make yourself as familiar with it as possible2 and1 like unto those who in a rigorous winter draw near the fire as often as they can1 go as often as you can to that ardent fire which will warm your soul407#fb7 ,all the external associations of the ,catholic discipline are of course unlike anything in mindcure thought1 but the purely spiritual part of the exercise is identical in both communions1 and in both communions those who urge it write with authority1 for they have evidently experienced in their own persons that whereof they tell4 ,compare again some mindcure utterances3-- 8,high1 healthful1 pure thinking can be encouraged1 promoted1 and strengthened4 ,its current can be turned upon grand ideals until it forms a habit and wears a channel4 ,by means of such discipline the mental horizon can be flooded with the sunshine of beauty1 wholeness1 and harmony4 ,to inaugurate pure and lofty thinking may at first seem difficult1 even almost mechanical1 but perseverance will at length render it easy1 then pleasant1 and finally delightful4 8,the soul's real world is that which it has built of its thoughts1 mental states1 and imaginations4 ,if we will1 we can turn our backs upon the lower and sensuous plane1 and lift ourselves into the realm of the spiritual and ,real1 and there gain a residence4 ,the assumption of states of expectancy and receptivity will attract spiritual sunshine1 and it will flow in as naturally as air inclines to a vacuum4444 ,whenever the thought is not occupied with one's daily duty or profession1 it should be sent aloft into the spiritual atmosphere4 ,there are quiet leisure moments by day1 and wakeful hours at night1 when this wholesome and delightful exercise may be engaged in to great advantage4 ,if one who has never made any systematic effort to lift and control the thought forces will1 for a single month1 earnestly pursue the course here suggested1 he will be surprised and delighted at the result1 and nothing will induce him to go back to careless1 aimless1 and superficial thinking4 ,at such favorable seasons the outside world1 with all its current of daily events1 is barred out1 and one goes into the silent sanctuary of the inner temple of soul to commune and aspire4 ,the spiritual hearing becomes delicately sensitive1 so that the #8still1 small voice' is audible1 the tumultuous waves of external sense are hushed1 and there is a great calm4 ,the ego gradually becomes conscious that it is face to face with the ,divine ,presence2 that mighty1 healing1 loving1 ,fatherly life which is nearer to us than we are to ourselves4 ,there is soulcontact with the ,parent,soul1 and an influx of life1 love1 virtue1 health1 and happiness from the ,inexhaustible ,fountain407#fc7 ,when we reach the subject of mysticism1 you will undergo so deep an immersion into these exalted states of consciousness as to be wet all over1 if ,i may so express myself2 and the cold shiver of doubt with which this little sprinkling may affect you will have long since passed away--doubt1 ,i mean1 as to whether all such writing be not mere abstract talk and rhetoric set down pour encourager les autres4 ,you will then be convinced1 ,i trust1 that these states of consciousness of 8union0 form a perfectly definite class of experiences1 of which the soul may occasionally partake1 and which certain persons may live by in a deeper sense than they live by anything else with which they have acquaintance4 ,this brings me to a general philosophical reflection with which ,i should like to pass from the subject of healthymindedness1 and close a topic which ,i fear is already only too long drawn out4 ,it concerns the relation of all this systematized healthymindedness and mindcure religion to scientific method and the scientific life4 ,in a later lecture ,i shall have to treat explicitly of the relation of religion to science on the one hand1 and to primeval savage thought on the other4 ,there are plenty of persons today--8scientists0 or 8positivists10 they are fond of calling themselves--who will tell you that religious thought is a mere survival1 an atavistic reversion to a type of consciousness which humanity in its more enlightened examples has long since left behind and outgrown4 ,if you ask them to explain themselves more fully1 they will probably say that for primitive thought everything is conceived of under the form of personality4 ,the savage thinks that things operate by personal forces1 and for the sake of individual ends4 ,for him1 even external nature obeys individual needs and claims1 just as if these were so many elementary powers4 ,now science1 on the other hand1 these positivists say1 has proved that personality1 so far from being an elementary force in nature1 is but a passive resultant of the really elementary forces1 physical1 chemical1 physiological1 and psychophysical1 which are all impersonal and general in character4 ,nothing individual accomplishes anything in the universe save in so far as it obeys and exemplifies some universal law4 ,should you then inquire of them by what means science has thus supplanted primitive thought1 and discredited its personal way of looking at things1 they would undoubtedly say it has been by the strict use of the method of experimental verification4 ,follow out science's conceptions practically1 they will say1 the conceptions that ignore personality altogether1 and you will always be corroborated4 ,the world is so made that all your expectations will be experientially verified so long1 and only so long1 as you keep the terms from which you infer them impersonal and universal4 ,but here we have mindcure1 with her diametrically opposite philosophy1 setting up an exactly identical claim4 ,live as if ,i were true1 she says1 and every day will practically prove you right4 ,that the controlling energies of nature are personal1 that your own personal thoughts are forces1 that the powers of the universe will directly respond to your individual appeals and needs1 are propositions which your whole bodily and mental experience will verify4 ,and that experience does largely verify these primeval religious ideas is proved by the fact that the mindcure movement spreads as it does1 not by proclamation and assertion simply1 but by palpable experiential results4 ,here1 in the very heyday of science's authority1 it carries on an aggressive warfare against the scientific philosophy1 and succeeds by using science's own peculiar methods and weapons4 ,believing that a higher power will take care of us in certain ways better than we can take care of ourselves1 if we only genuinely throw ourselves upon it and consent to use it1 it finds the belief1 not only not impugned1 but corroborated by its observation4 ,how conversions are thus made1 and converts confirmed1 is evident enough from the narratives which ,i have quoted4 ,i will quote yet another couple of shorter ones to give the matter a perfectly concrete turn4 ,here is one3-- 8,one of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two months after ,i first saw the healer4 ,i fell1 spraining my right ankle1 which ,i had done once four years before1 having then had to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months1 and carefully guarding it ever since4 ,as soon as ,i was on my feet ,i made the positive suggestion 7and felt it through all my being73 #8,there is nothing but ,god1 all life comes from him perfectly4 ,i cannot be sprained or hurt1 ,i will let him take care of it4' ,well1 ,i never had a sensation in it1 and ,i walked two miles that day40 ,the next case not only illustrates experiment and verification1 but also the element of passivity and surrender of which awhile ago ,i made such account4 8,i went into town to do some shopping one morning1 and ,i had not been gone long before ,i began to feel ill4 ,the ill feeling increased rapidly1 until ,i had pains in all my bones1 nausea and faintness1 headache1 all the symptoms in short that precede an attack of influenza4 ,i thought that ,i was going to have the grippe1 epidemic then in ,boston1 or something worse4 ,the mindcure teachings that ,i had been listening to all the winter thereupon came into my mind1 and ,i thought that here was an opportunity to test myself4 ,on my way home ,i met a friend1 and ,i refrained with some effort from telling her how ,i felt4 ,that was the first step gained4 ,i went to bed immediately1 and my husband wished to send for the doctor4 ,but ,i told him that ,i would rather wait until morning and see how ,i felt4 ,then followed one of the most beautiful experiences of my life4 8,i cannot express it in any other way than to say that ,i did #8lie down in the stream of life and let it flow over me4' ,i gave up all fear of any impending disease2 ,i was perfectly willing and obedient4 ,there was no intellectual effort1 or train of thought4 ,my dominant idea was3 #8,behold the handmaid of the ,lord3 be it unto me even as thou wilt1' and a perfect confidence that all would be well1 that all was well4 ,the creative life was flowing into me every instant1 and ,i felt myself allied with the ,infinite1 in harmony1 and full of the peace that passeth understanding4 ,there was no place in my mind for a jarring body4 ,i had no consciousness of time or space or persons2 but only of love and happiness and faith4 8,i do not know how long this state lasted1 nor when ,i fell asleep2 but when ,i woke up in the morning1 ,i was well40 ,these are exceedingly trivial instances17#fd7 but in them1 if we have anything at all1 we have the method of experiment and verification4 ,for the point ,i am driving at now1 it makes no difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded victims of their imagination or not4 ,that they seemed to themselves to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough to make them converts to the system4 ,and although it is evident that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results 7for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any more than every one can be cured by the first regular practitioner whom he calls in71 yet it would surely be pedantic and overscrupulous for those who can get their savage and primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such experimental ways as this1 to give them up at word of command for more scientific therapeutics4 ,what are we to think of all this8 ,has science made too wide a claim8 ,i believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are1 to say the least1 premature4 ,the experiences which we have been studying during this hour 7and a great many other kinds of religious experiences are like them7 plainly show the universe to be a more manysided affair than any sect1 even the scientific sect1 allows for4 ,what1 in the end1 are all our verifications but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of ideas 7conceptual systems7 that our minds have framed8 ,but why in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such system of ideas can be true8 ,the obvious outcome of our total experience is that the world can be handled according to many systems of ideas1 and is so handled by different men1 and will each time give some characteristic kind of profit1 for which he cares1 to the handler1 while at the same time some other kind of profit has to be omitted or postponed4 ,science gives to all of us telegraphy1 electric lighting1 and diagnosis1 and succeeds in preventing and curing a certain amount of disease4 ,religion in the shape of mindcure gives to some of us serenity1 moral poise1 and happiness1 and prevents certain forms of disease as well as science does1 or even better in a certain class of persons4 ,evidently1 then1 the science and the religion are both of them genuine keys for unlocking the world's treasure house to him who can use either of them practically4 ,just as evidently neither is exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use4 ,and why1 after all1 may not the world be so complex as to consist of many interpenetrating spheres of reality1 which we can thus approach in alternation by using different conceptions and assuming different attitudes1 just as mathematicians handle the same numerical and spatial facts by geometry1 by analytical geometry1 by algebra1 by the calculus1 or by quaternions1 and each time come out right8 ,on this view religion and science1 each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to life1 would be coeternal4 ,primitive thought1 with its belief in individualized personal forces1 seems at any rate as far as ever from being driven by science from the field today4 ,numbers of educated people still find it the directest experimental channel by which to carry on their intercourse with reality47#fe7 ,the case of mindcure lay so ready to my hand that ,i could not resist the temptation of using it to bring these last truths home to your attention1 but ,i must content myself today with this very brief indication4 ,in a later lecture the relations of religion both to science and to primitive thought will have to receive much more explicit attention4 ,appendix 7,see note to p4 #aba47 ,,case ,i4 8,my own experience is this3 ,i had long been ill1 and one of the first results of my illness1 a dozen years before1 had been a diplopia which deprived me of the use of my eyes for reading and writing almost entirely1 while a later one had been to shut me out from exercise of any kind under penalty of immediate and great exhaustion4 ,i had been under the care of doctors of the highest standing both in ,europe and ,america1 men in whose power to help me ,i had had great faith1 with no or ill result4 ,then1 at a time when ,i seemed to be rather rapidly losing ground1 ,i heard some things that gave me interest enough in mental healing to make me try it2 ,i had no great hope of getting any good from it--it was a chance ,i tried1 partly because my thought was interested by the new possibility it seemed to open1 partly because it was the only chance ,i then could see4 ,i went to ,x4 in ,boston1 from whom some friends of mine had got1 or thought that they had got1 great help2 the treatment was a silent one2 little was said1 and that little carried no conviction to my mind2 whatever influence was exerted was that of another person's thought or feeling silently projected on to my unconscious mind1 into my nervous system as it were1 as we sat still together4 ,i believed from the start in the possibility of such action1 for ,i knew the power of the mind to shape1 helping or hindering1 the body's nerveactivities1 and ,i thought telepathy probable1 although unproved1 but ,i had no belief in it as more than a possibility1 and no strong conviction nor any mystic or religious faith connected with my thought of it that might have brought imagination strongly into play4 8,i sat quietly with the healer for half an hour each day1 at first with no result2 then1 after ten days or so1 ,i became quite suddenly and swiftly conscious of a tide of new energy rising within me1 a sense of power to pass beyond old haltingplaces1 of power to break the bounds that1 though often tried before1 had long been veritable walls about my life1 too high to climb4 ,i began to read and walk as ,i had not done for years1 and the change was sudden1 marked1 and unmistakable4 ,this tide seemed to mount for some weeks1 three or four perhaps1 when1 summer having come1 ,i came away1 taking the treatment up again a few months later4 ,the lift ,i got proved permanent1 and left me slowly gaining ground instead of losing it1 but with this lift the influence seemed in a way to have spent itself1 and1 though my confidence in the reality of the power had gained immensely from this first experience1 and should have helped me to make further gain in health and strength if my belief in it had been the potent factor there1 ,i never after this got any result at all as striking or as clearly marked as this which came when ,i made trial of it first1 with little faith and doubtful expectation4 ,it is difficult to put all the evidence in such a matter into words1 to gather up into a distinct statement all that one bases one's conclusions on1 but ,i have always felt that ,i had abundant evidence to justify 7to myself1 at least7 the conclusion that ,i came to then1 and since have held to1 that the physical change which came at that time was1 first1 the result of a change wrought within me by a change of mental state2 and1 secondly1 that that change of mental state was not1 save in a very secondary way1 brought about through the influence of an excited imagination1 or a consciously received suggestion of an hypnotic sort4 ,lastly1 ,i believe that this change was the result of my receiving telepathically1 and upon a mental stratum quite below the level of immediate consciousness1 a healthier and more energetic attitude1 receiving it from another person whose thought was directed upon me with the intention of impressing the idea of this attitude upon me4 ,in my case the disease was distinctly what would be classed as nervous1 not organic2 but from such opportunities as ,i have had of observing1 ,i have come to the conclusion that the dividing line that has been drawn is an arbitrary one1 the nerves controlling the internal activities and the nutrition of the body throughout2 and ,i believe that the central nervous system1 by starting and inhibiting local centres1 can exercise a vast influence upon disease of any kind1 if it can be brought to bear4 ,in my judgment the question is simply how to bring it to bear1 and ,i think that the uncertainty and remarkable differences in the results obtained through mental healing do but show how ignorant we are as yet of the forces at work and of the means we should take to make them effective4 ,that these results are not due to chance coincidences my observation of myself and others makes me sure2 that the conscious mind1 the imagination1 enters into them as a factor in many cases is doubtless true1 but in many others1 and sometimes very extraordinary ones1 it hardly seems to enter in at all4 ,on the whole ,i am inclined to think that as the healing action1 like the morbid one1 springs from the plane of the normally unconscious mind1 so the strongest and most effective impressions are those which it receives1 in some as yet unknown1 subtle way1 directly from a healthier mind whose state1 through a hidden law of sympathy1 it reproduces40 ,,case ,,ii4 8,at the urgent request of friends1 and with no faith and hardly any hope 7possibly owing to a previous unsuccessful experience with a ,christian ,scientist71 our little daughter was placed under the care of a healer1 and cured of a trouble about which the physician had been very discouraging in his diagnosis4 ,this interested me1 and ,i began studying earnestly the method and philosophy of this method of healing4 ,gradually an inner peace and tranquillity came to me in so positive a way that my manner changed greatly4 ,my children and friends noticed the change and commented upon it4 ,all feelings of irritability disappeared4 ,even the expression of my face changed noticeably4 8,i had been bigoted1 aggressive1 and intolerant in discussion1 both in public and private4 ,i grew broadly tolerant and receptive toward the views of others4 ,i had been nervous and irritable1 coming home two or three times a week with a sick headache induced1 as ,i then supposed1 by dyspepsia and catarrh4 ,i grew serene and gentle1 and the physical troubles entirely disappeared4 ,i had been in the habit of approaching every business interview with an almost morbid dread4 ,i now meet every one with confidence and inner calm4 8,i may say that the growth has all been toward the elimination of selfishness4 ,i do not mean simply the grosser1 more sensual forms1 but those subtler and generally unrecognized kinds1 such as express themselves in sorrow1 grief1 regret1 envy1 etc4 ,it has been in the direction of a practical1 working realization of the immanence of ,god and the ,divinity of man's true1 inner self40 ,,lectures ,,vi ,,and ,,vii4 ,,the ,,sick ,,soul4 ,at our last meeting1 we considered the healthyminded temperament1 the temperament which has a constitutional incapacity for prolonged suffering1 and in which the tendency to see things optimistically is like a water of crystallization in which the individual's character is set4 ,we saw how this temperament may become the basis for a peculiar type of religion1 a religion in which good1 even the good of this world's life1 is regarded as the essential thing for a rational being to attend to4 ,this religion directs him to settle his scores with the more evil aspects of the universe by systematically declining to lay them to heart or make much of them1 by ignoring them in his reflective calculations1 or even1 on occasion1 by denying outright that they exist4 ,evil is a disease2 and worry over disease is itself an additional form of disease1 which only adds to the original complaint4 ,even repentance and remorse1 affections which come in the character of ministers of good1 may be but sickly and relaxing impulses4 ,the best repentance is to up and act for righteousness1 and forget that you ever had relations with sin4 ,spinoza's philosophy has this sort of healthymindedness woven into the heart of it1 and this has been one secret of its fascination4 ,he whom ,reason leads1 according to ,spinoza1 is led altogether by the influence over his mind of good4 ,knowledge of evil is an 8inadequate0 knowledge1 fit only for slavish minds4 ,so ,spinoza categorically condemns repentance4 ,when men make mistakes1 he says1-- 8,one might perhaps expect gnawings of conscience and repentance to help to bring them on the right path1 and might thereupon conclude 7as every one does conclude7 that these affections are good things4 ,yet when we look at the matter closely1 we shall find that not only are they not good1 but on the contrary deleterious and evil passions4 ,for it is manifest that we can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse4 ,harmful are these and evil1 inasmuch as they form a particular kind of sadness2 and the disadvantages of sadness10 he continues1 8,i have already proved1 and shown that we should strive to keep it from our life4 ,just so we should endeavor1 since uneasiness of conscience and remorse are of this kind of complexion1 to flee and shun these states of mind407#ff7 ,within the ,christian body1 for which repentance of sins has from the beginning been the critical religious act1 healthymindedness has always come forward with its milder interpretation4 ,repentance according to such healthyminded ,christians means getting away from the sin1 not groaning and writhing over its commission4 ,the ,catholic practice of confession and absolution is in one of its aspects little more than a systematic method of keeping healthymindedness on top4 ,by it a man's accounts with evil are periodically squared and audited1 so that he may start the clean page with no old debts inscribed4 ,any ,catholic will tell us how clean and fresh and free he feels after the purging operation4 ,martin ,luther by no means belonged to the healthyminded type in the radical sense in which we have discussed it1 and he repudiated priestly absolution for sin4 ,yet in this matter of repentance he had some very healthyminded ideas1 due in the main to the largeness of his conception of ,god4 8,when ,i was a monk10 he says1 8,i thought that ,i was utterly cast away1 if at any time ,i felt the lust of the flesh3 that is to say1 if ,i felt any evil motion1 fleshly lust1 wrath1 hatred1 or envy against any brother4 ,i assayed many ways to help to quiet my conscience1 but it would not be2 for the concupiscence and lust of my flesh did always return1 so that ,i could not rest1 but was continually vexed with these thoughts3 ,this or that sin thou hast committed3 thou art infected with envy1 with impatiency1 and such other sins3 therefore thou art entered into this holy order in vain1 and all thy good works are unprofitable4 ,but if then ,i had rightly understood these sentences of ,paul3 #8,the flesh lusteth contrary to the ,spirit1 and the ,spirit contrary to the flesh2 and these two are one against another1 so that ye cannot do the things that ye would do1' ,i should not have so miserably tormented myself1 but should have thought and said to myself1 as now commonly ,i do1 #8,martin1 thou shalt not utterly be without sin1 for thou hast flesh2 thou shalt therefore feel the battle thereof4' ,i remember that ,staupitz was wont to say1 #8,i have vowed unto ,god above a thousand times that ,i would become a better man3 but ,i never performed that which ,i vowed4 ,hereafter ,i will make no such vow3 for ,i have now learned by experience that ,i am not able to perform it4 ,unless1 therefore1 ,god be favorable and merciful unto me for ,christ's sake1 ,i shall not be able1 with all my vows and all my good deeds1 to stand before him4' ,this 7of ,staupitz's7 was not only a true1 but also a godly and a holy desperation2 and this must they all confess1 both with mouth and heart1 who will be saved4 ,for the godly trust not to their own righteousness4 ,they look unto ,christ their reconciler1 who gave his life for their sins4 ,moreover1 they know that the remnant of sin which is in their flesh is not laid to their charge1 but freely pardoned4 ,notwithstanding1 in the mean while they fight in spirit against the flesh1 lest they should fulfill the lusts thereof2 and although they feel the flesh to rage and rebel1 and themselves also do fall sometimes into sin through infirmity1 yet are they not discouraged1 nor think therefore that their state and kind of life1 and the works which are done according to their calling1 displease ,god2 but they raise up themselves by faith407#fg7 ,one of the heresies for which the ,jesuits got that spiritual genius1 ,molinos1 the founder of ,quietism1 so abominably condemned was his healthy minded opinion of repentance3-- 8,when thou fallest into a fault1 in what matter soever it be1 do not trouble nor afflict thyself for it4 ,for they are effects of our frail ,nature1 stained by ,original ,sin4 ,the common enemy will make thee believe1 as soon as thou fallest into any fault1 that thou walkest in error1 and therefore art out of ,god and his favor1 and herewith would he make thee distrust of the divine ,grace1 telling thee of thy misery1 and making a giant of it2 and putting it into thy head that every day thy soul grows worse instead of better1 whilst it so often repeats these failings4 ,o blessed ,soul1 open thine eyes2 and shut the gate against these diabolical suggestions1 knowing thy misery1 and trusting in the mercy divine4 ,would not he be a mere fool who1 running at tournament with others1 and falling in the best of the career1 should lie weeping on the ground and afflicting himself with discourses upon his fall8 ,man 7they would tell him71 lose no time1 get up and take the course again1 for he that rises again quickly and continues his race is as if he had never fallen4 ,if thou seest thyself fallen once and a thousand times1 thou oughtest to make use of the remedy which ,i have given thee1 that is1 a loving confidence in the divine mercy4 ,these are the weapons with which thou must fight and conquer cowardice and vain thoughts4 ,this is the means thou oughtest to use--not to lose time1 not to disturb thyself1 and reap no good407#fh7 ,now in contrast with such healthyminded views as these1 if we treat them as a way of deliberately minimizing evil1 stands a radically opposite view1 a way of maximizing evil1 if you please so to call it1 based on the persuasion that the evil aspects of our life are of its very essence1 and that the world's meaning most comes home to us when we lay them most to heart4 ,we have now to address ourselves to this more morbid way of looking at the situation4 ,but as ,i closed our last hour with a general philosophical reflection on the healthyminded way of taking life1 ,i should like at this point to make another philosophical reflection upon it before turning to that heavier task4 ,you will excuse the brief delay4 ,if we admit that evil is an essential part of our being and the key to the interpretation of our life1 we load ourselves down with a difficulty that has always proved burdensome in philosophies of religion4 ,theism1 whenever it has erected itself into a systematic philosophy of the universe1 has shown a reluctance to let ,god be anything less than ,allin,all4 ,in other words1 philosophic theism has always shown a tendency to become pantheistic and monistic1 and to consider the world as one unit of absolute fact2 and this has been at variance with popular or practical theism1 which latter has ever been more or less frankly pluralistic1 not to say polytheistic1 and shown itself perfectly well satisfied with a universe composed of many original principles1 provided we be only allowed to believe that the divine principle remains supreme1 and that the others are subordinate4 ,in this latter case ,god is not necessarily responsible for the existence of evil2 he would only be responsible if it were not finally overcome4 ,but on the monistic or pantheistic view1 evil1 like everything else1 must have its foundation in ,god2 and the difficulty is to see how this can possibly be the case if ,god be absolutely good4 ,this difficulty faces us in every form of philosophy in which the world appears as one flawless unit of fact4 ,such a unit is an ,individual1 and in it the worst parts must be as essential as the best1 must be as necessary to make the individual what he is2 since if any part whatever in an individual were to vanish or alter1 it would no longer be that individual at all4 ,the philosophy of absolute idealism1 so vigorously represented both in ,scotland and ,america today1 has to struggle with this difficulty quite as much as scholastic theism struggled in its time2 and although it would be premature to say that there is no speculative issue whatever from the puzzle1 it is perfectly fair to say that there is no clear or easy issue1 and that the only obvious escape from paradox here is to cut loose from the monistic assumption altogether1 and to allow the world to have existed from its origin in pluralistic form1 as an aggregate or collection of higher and lower things and principles1 rather than an absolutely unitary fact4 ,for then evil would not need to be essential2 it might be1 and may always have been1 an independent portion that had no rational or absolute right to live with the rest1 and which we might conceivably hope to see got rid of at last4 ,now the gospel of healthymindedness1 as we have described it1 casts its vote distinctly for this pluralistic view4 ,whereas the monistic philosopher finds himself more or less bound to say1 as ,hegel said1 that everything actual is rational1 and that evil1 as an element dialectically required1 must be pinned in and kept and consecrated and have a function awarded to it in the final system of truth1 healthymindedness refuses to say anything of the sort47#fi7 ,evil1 it says1 is emphatically irrational1 and not to be pinned in1 or preserved1 or consecrated in any final system of truth4 ,it is a pure abomination to the ,lord1 an alien unreality1 a waste element1 to be sloughed off and negated1 and the very memory of it1 if possible1 wiped out and forgotten4 ,the ideal1 so far from being co extensive with the whole actual1 is a mere extract from the actual1 marked by its deliverance from all contact with this diseased1 inferior1 and excrementitious stuff4 ,here we have the interesting notion fairly and squarely presented to us1 of there being elements of the universe which may make no rational whole in conjunction with the other elements1 and which1 from the point of view of any system which those other elements make up1 can only be considered so much irrelevance and accident--so much 8dirt10 as it were1 and matter out of place4 ,i ask you now not to forget this notion2 for although most philosophers seem either to forget it or to disdain it too much ever to mention it1 ,i believe that we shall have to admit it ourselves in the end as containing an element of truth4 ,the mindcure gospel thus once more appears to us as having dignity and importance4 ,we have seen it to be a genuine religion1 and no mere silly appeal to imagination to cure disease2 we have seen its method of experimental verification to be not unlike the method of all science2 and now here we find mindcure as the champion of a perfectly definite conception of the metaphysical structure of the world4 ,i hope that1 in view of all this1 you will not regret my having pressed it upon your attention at such length4 ,let us now say goodby for a while to all this way of thinking1 and turn towards those persons who cannot so swiftly throw off the burden of the consciousness of evil1 but are congenitally fated to suffer from its presence4 ,just as we saw that in healthymindedness there are shallower and profounder levels1 happiness like that of the mere animal1 and more regenerate sorts of happiness1 so also are there different levels of the morbid mind1 and the one is much more formidable than the other4 ,there are people for whom evil means only a maladjustment with things1 a wrong correspondence of one's life with the environment4 ,such evil as this is curable1 in principle at least1 upon the natural plane1 for merely by modifying either the self or the things1 or both at once1 the two terms may be made to fit1 and all go merry as a marriage bell again4 ,but there are others for whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things1 but something more radical and general1 a wrongness or vice in his essential nature1 which no alteration of the environment1 or any superficial rearrangement of the inner self1 can cure1 and which requires a supernatural remedy4 ,on the whole1 the ,latin races have leaned more towards the former way of looking upon evil1 as made up of ills and sins in the plural1 removable in detail2 while the ,germanic races have tended rather to think of ,sin in the singular1 and with a capital ,s1 as of something ineradicably ingrained in our natural subjectivity1 and never to be removed by any superficial piecemeal operations47#gj7 ,these comparisons of races are always open to exception1 but undoubtedly the northern tone in religion has inclined to the more intimately pessimistic persuasion1 and this way of feeling1 being the more extreme1 we shall find by far the more instructive for our study4 ,recent psychology has found great use for the word 8threshold0 as a symbolic designation for the point at which one state of mind passes into another4 ,thus we speak of the threshold of a man's consciousness in general1 to indicate the amount of noise1 pressure1 or other outer stimulus which it takes to arouse his attention at all4 ,one with a high threshold will doze through an amount of racket by which one with a low threshold would be immediately waked4 ,similarly1 when one is sensitive to small differences in any order of sensation1 we say he has a low 8differencethreshold0--his mind easily steps over it into the consciousness of the differences in question4 ,and just so we might speak of a 8painthreshold10 a 8fearthreshold10 a 8miserythreshold10 and find it quickly overpassed by the consciousness of some individuals1 but lying too high in others to be often reached by their consciousness4 ,the sanguine and healthyminded live habitually on the sunny side of their miseryline1 the depressed and melancholy live beyond it1 in darkness and apprehension4 ,there are men who seem to have started in life with a bottle or two of champagne inscribed to their credit2 whilst others seem to have been born close to the painthreshold1 which the slightest irritants fatally send them over4 ,does it not appear as if one who lived more habitually on one side of the painthreshold might need a different sort of religion from one who habitually lived on the other8 ,this question1 of the relativity of different types of religion to different types of need1 arises naturally at this point1 and will become a serious problem ere we have done4 ,but before we confront it in general terms1 we must address ourselves to the unpleasant task of hearing what the sick souls1 as we may call them in contrast to the healthyminded1 have to say of the secrets of their prisonhouse1 their own peculiar form of consciousness4 ,let us then resolutely turn our backs on the onceborn and their skyblue optimistic gospel2 let us not simply cry out1 in spite of all appearances1 8,hurrah for the ,universe6--,god's in his ,heaven1 all's right with the world40 ,let us see rather whether pity1 pain1 and fear1 and the sentiment of human helplessness may not open a profounder view and put into our hands a more complicated key to the meaning of the situation4 ,to begin with1 how can things so insecure as the successful experiences of this world afford a stable anchorage8 ,a chain is no stronger than its weakest link1 and life is after all a chain4 ,in the healthiest and most prosperous existence1 how many links of illness1 danger1 and disaster are always interposed8 ,unsuspectedly from the bottom of every fountain of pleasure1 as the old poet said1 something bitter rises up3 a touch of nausea1 a falling dead of the delight1 a whiff of melancholy1 things that sound a knell1 for fugitive as they may be1 they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper region and often have an appalling convincingness4 ,the buzz of life ceases at their touch as a pianostring stops sounding when the damper falls upon it4 ,of course the music can commence again2--and again and again1--at intervals4 ,but with this the healthyminded consciousness is left with an irremediable sense of precariousness4 ,it is a bell with a crack2 it draws its breath on sufferance and by an accident4 ,even if we suppose a man so packed with healthymindedness as never to have experienced in his own person any of these sobering intervals1 still1 if he is a reflecting being1 he must generalize and class his own lot with that of others2 and1 doing so1 he must see that his escape is just a lucky chance and no essential difference4 ,he might just as well have been born to an entirely different fortune4 ,and then indeed the hollow security6 ,what kind of a frame of things is it of which the best you can say is1 8,thank ,god1 it has let me off clear this time60 ,is not its blessedness a fragile fiction8 ,is not your joy in it a very vulgar glee1 not much unlike the snicker of any rogue at his success8 ,if indeed it were all success1 even on such terms as that6 ,but take the happiest man1 the one most envied by the world1 and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure4 ,either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves1 or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing1 and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting4 ,when such a conquering optimist as ,goethe can express himself in this wise1 how must it be with less successful men8 8,i will say nothing10 writes ,goethe in #ahbd1 8against the course of my existence4 ,but at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden1 and ,i can affirm that during the whole of my #ge years1 ,i have not had four weeks of genuine wellbeing4 ,it is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever40 ,what singlehanded man was ever on the whole as successful as ,luther8 yet when he had grown old1 he looked back on his life as if it were an absolute failure4 8,i am utterly weary of life4 ,i pray the ,lord will come forthwith and carry me hence4 ,let him come1 above all1 with his last ,judgment3 ,i will stretch out my neck1 the thunder will burst forth1 and ,i shall be at rest40--,and having a necklace of white agates in his hand at the time he added3 8,o ,god1 grant that it may come without delay4 ,i would readily eat up this necklace today1 for the ,judgment to come tomorrow40--,the ,electress ,dowager1 one day when ,luther was dining with her1 said to him3 8,doctor1 ,i wish you may live forty years to come40 8,madam10 replied he1 8rather than live forty years more1 ,i would give up my chance of ,paradise40 ,failure1 then1 failure6 so the world stamps us at every turn4 ,we strew it with our blunders1 our misdeeds1 our lost opportunities1 with all the memorials of our inadequacy to our vocation4 ,and with what a damning emphasis does it then blot us out6 ,no easy fine1 no mere apology or formal expiation1 will satisfy the world's demands1 but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood4 ,the subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humiliations incidental to these results4 ,and they are pivotal human experiences4 ,a process so ubiquitous and everlasting is evidently an integral part of life4 8,there is indeed one element in human destiny10 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson writes1 8that not blindness itself can controvert4 ,whatever else we are intended to do1 we are not intended to succeed2 failure is the fate allotted407#ga7 ,and our nature being thus rooted in failure1 is it any wonder that theologians should have held it to be essential1 and thought that only through the personal experience of humiliation which it engenders the deeper sense of life's significance is reached87#gb7 ,but this is only the first stage of the worldsickness4 ,make the human being's sensitiveness a little greater1 carry him a little farther over the miserythreshold1 and the good quality of the successful moments themselves when they occur is spoiled and vitiated4 ,all natural goods perish4 ,riches take wings2 fame is a breath2 love is a cheat2 youth and health and pleasure vanish4 ,can things whose end is always dust and disappointment be the real goods which our souls require8 ,back of everything is the great spectre of universal death1 the allencompassing blackness3-- 8,what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the ,sun8 ,i looked on all the works that my hands had wrought1 and behold1 all was vanity and vexation of spirit4 ,for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts2 as the one dieth1 so dieth the other2 all are of the dust1 and all turn to dust again4444 ,the dead know not anything1 neither have they any more a reward2 for the memory of them is forgotten4 ,also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished2 neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the ,sun4444 ,truly the light is sweet1 and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the ,sun3 but if a man live many years and rejoice in them all1 yet let him remember the days of darkness2 for they shall be many40 ,in short1 life and its negation are beaten up inextricably together4 ,but if the life be good1 the negation of it must be bad4 ,yet the two are equally essential facts of existence2 and all natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction4 ,the breath of the sepulchre surrounds it4 ,to a mind attentive to this state of things and rightly subject to the joydestroying chill which such a contemplation engenders1 the only relief that healthymindedness can give is by saying3 8,stuff and nonsense1 get out into the open air60 or 8,cheer up1 old fellow1 you'll be all right erelong1 if you will only drop your morbidness60 ,but in all seriousness1 can such bald animal talk as that be treated as a rational answer8 ,to ascribe religious value to mere happygolucky contentment with one's brief chance at natural good is but the very consecration of forgetfulness and superficiality4 ,our troubles lie indeed too deep for that cure4 ,the fact that we can die1 that we can be ill at all1 is what perplexes us2 the fact that we now for a moment live and are well is irrelevant to that perplexity4 ,we need a life not correlated with death1 a health not liable to illness1 a kind of good that will not perish1 a good in fact that flies beyond the ,goods of nature4 ,it all depends on how sensitive the soul may become to discords4 8,the trouble with me is that ,i believe too much in common happiness and goodness10 said a friend of mine whose consciousness was of this sort1 8and nothing can console me for their transiency4 ,i am appalled and disconcerted at its being possible40 ,and so with most of us3 a little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct1 a little loss of animal toughness1 a little irritable weakness and descent of the painthreshold1 will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view1 and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians4 ,the pride of life and glory of the world will shrivel4 ,it is after all but the standing quarrel of hot youth and hoary eld4 ,old age has the last word3 the purely naturalistic look at life1 however enthusiastically it may begin1 is sure to end in sadness4 ,this sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic1 agnostic1 or naturalistic scheme of philosophy4 ,let sanguine healthymindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting1 still the evil background is really there to be thought of1 and the skull will grin in at the banquet4 ,in the practical life of the individual1 we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with which it stands related4 ,its significance and framing give it the chief part of its value4 ,let it be known to lead nowhere1 and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy1 its glow and gilding vanish4 ,the old man1 sick with an insidious internal disease1 may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever1 but he knows his fate now1 for the doctors have revealed it2 and the knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions4 ,they are partners of death and the worm is their brother1 and they turn to a mere flatness4 ,the lustre of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibilities it goes with4 ,let our common experiences be enveloped in an eternal moral order2 let our suffering have an immortal significance2 let ,heaven smile upon the earth1 and deities pay their visits2 let faith and hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in2--and his days pass by with zest2 they stir with prospects1 they thrill with remoter values4 ,place round them on the contrary the curdling cold and gloom and absence of all permanent meaning which for pure naturalism and the popular science evolutionism of our time are all that is visible ultimately1 and the thrill stops short1 or turns rather to an anxious trembling4 ,for naturalism1 fed on recent cosmological speculations1 mankind is in a position similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake1 surrounded by cliffs over which there is no escape1 yet knowing that little by little the ice is melting1 and the inevitable day drawing near when the last film of it will disappear1 and to be drowned ignominiously will be the human creature's portion4 ,the merrier the skating1 the warmer and more sparkling the sun by day1 and the ruddier the bonfires at night1 the more poignant the sadness with which one must take in the meaning of the total situation4 ,the early ,greeks are continually held up to us in literary works as models of the healthyminded joyousness which the religion of nature may engender4 ,there was indeed much joyousness among the ,greeks--,homer's flow of enthusiasm for most things that the sun shines upon is steady4 ,but even in ,homer the reflective passages are cheerless17#gc7 and the moment the ,greeks grew systematically pensive and thought of ultimates1 they became unmitigated pessimists47#gd7 ,the jealousy of the gods1 the nemesis that follows too much happiness1 the allencompassing death1 fate's dark opacity1 the ultimate and unintelligible cruelty1 were the fixed background of their imagination4 ,the beautiful joyousness of their polytheism is only a poetic modern fiction4 ,they knew no joys comparable in quality of preciousness to those which we shall erelong see that ,brahmans1 ,buddhists1 ,christians1 ,mohammedans1 twiceborn people whose religion is nonnaturalistic1 get from their several creeds of mysticism and renunciation4 ,stoic insensibility and ,epicurean resignation were the farthest advance which the ,greek mind made in that direction4 ,the ,epicurean said3 8,seek not to be happy1 but rather to escape unhappiness2 strong happiness is always linked with pain2 therefore hug the safe shore1 and do not tempt the deeper raptures4 ,avoid disappointment by expecting little1 and by aiming low2 and above all do not fret40 ,the ,stoic said3 8,the only genuine good that life can yield a man is the free possession of his own soul2 all other goods are lies40 ,each of these philosophies is in its degree a philosophy of despair in nature's boons4 ,trustful selfabandonment to the joys that freely offer has entirely departed from both ,epicurean and ,stoic2 and what each proposes is a way of rescue from the resultant dust andashes state of mind4 ,the ,epicurean still awaits results from economy of indulgence and damping of desire4 ,the ,stoic hopes for no results1 and gives up natural good altogether4 ,there is dignity in both these forms of resignation4 ,they represent distinct stages in the sobering process which man's primitive intoxication with sensehappiness is sure to undergo4 ,in the one the hot blood has grown cool1 in the other it has become quite cold2 and although ,i have spoken of them in the past tense1 as if they were merely historic1 yet ,stoicism and ,epicureanism will probably be to all time typical attitudes1 marking a certain definite stage accomplished in the evolution of the worldsick soul47#ge7 ,they mark the conclusion of what we call the onceborn period1 and represent the highest flights of what twiceborn religion would call the purely natural man--,epicureanism1 which can only by great courtesy be called a religion1 showing his refinement1 and ,stoicism exhibiting his moral will4 ,they leave the world in the shape of an unreconciled contradiction1 and seek no higher unity4 ,compared with the complex ecstasies which the supernaturally regenerated ,christian may enjoy1 or the oriental pantheist indulge in1 their receipts for equanimity are expedients which seem almost crude in their simplicity4 ,please observe1 however1 that ,i am not yet pretending finally to judge any of these attitudes4 ,i am only describing their variety4 ,the securest way to the rapturous sorts of happiness of which the twice born make report has as an historic matter of fact been through a more radical pessimism than anything that we have yet considered4 ,we have seen how the lustre and enchantment may be rubbed off from the goods of nature4 ,but there is a pitch of unhappiness so great that the goods of nature may be entirely forgotten1 and all sentiment of their existence vanish from the mental field4 ,for this extremity of pessimism to be reached1 something more is needed than observation of life and reflection upon death4 ,the individual must in his own person become the prey of a pathological melancholy4 ,as the healthyminded enthusiast succeeds in ignoring evil's very existence1 so the subject of melancholy is forced in spite of himself to ignore that of all good whatever3 for him it may no longer have the least reality4 ,such sensitiveness and susceptibility to mental pain is a rare occurrence where the nervous constitution is entirely normal2 one seldom finds it in a healthy subject even where he is the victim of the most atrocious cruelties of outward fortune4 ,so we note here the neurotic constitution1 of which ,i said so much in my first lecture1 making its active entrance on our scene1 and destined to play a part in much that follows4 ,since these experiences of melancholy are in the first instance absolutely private and individual1 ,i can now help myself out with personal documents4 ,painful indeed they will be to listen to1 and there is almost an indecency in handling them in public4 ,yet they lie right in the middle of our path2 and if we are to touch the psychology of religion at all seriously1 we must be willing to forget conventionalities1 and dive below the smooth and lying official conversational surface4 ,one can distinguish many kinds of pathological depression4 ,sometimes it is mere passive joylessness and dreariness1 discouragement1 dejection1 lack of taste and zest and spring4 ,professor ,ribot has proposed the name anhedonia to designate this condition4 8,the state of anhedonia1 if ,i may coin a new word to pair off with analgesia10 he writes1 8has been very little studied1 but it exists4 ,a young girl was smitten with a liver disease which for some time altered her constitution4 ,she felt no longer any affection for her father and mother4 ,she would have played with her doll1 but it was impossible to find the least pleasure in the act4 ,the same things which formerly convulsed her with laughter entirely failed to interest her now4 ,esquirol observed the case of a very intelligent magistrate who was also a prey to hepatic disease4 ,every emotion appeared dead within him4 ,he manifested neither perversion nor violence1 but complete absence of emotional reaction4 ,if he went to the theatre1 which he did out of habit1 he could find no pleasure there4 ,the thought of his house1 of his home1 of his wife1 and of his absent children moved him as little1 he said1 as a theorem of ,euclid407#gf7 ,prolonged seasickness will in most persons produce a temporary condition of anhedonia4 ,every good1 terrestrial or celestial1 is imagined only to be turned from with disgust4 ,a temporary condition of this sort1 connected with the religious evolution of a singularly lofty character1 both intellectual and moral1 is well described by the ,catholic philosopher1 ,father ,gratry1 in his autobiographical recollections4 ,in consequence of mental isolation and excessive study at the ,polytechnic school1 young ,gratry fell into a state of nervous exhaustion with symptoms which he thus describes3-- 8,i had such a universal terror that ,i woke at night with a start1 thinking that the ,pantheon was tumbling on the ,polytechnic school1 or that the school was in flames1 or that the ,seine was pouring into the ,catacombs1 and that ,paris was being swallowed up4 ,and when these impressions were past1 all day long without respite ,i suffered an incurable and intolerable desolation1 verging on despair4 ,i thought myself1 in fact1 rejected by ,god1 lost1 damned6 ,i felt something like the suffering of hell4 ,before that ,i had never even thought of hell4 ,my mind had never turned in that direction4 ,neither discourses nor reflections had impressed me in that way4 ,i took no account of hell4 ,now1 and all at once1 ,i suffered in a measure what is suffered there4 8,but what was perhaps still more dreadful is that every idea of heaven was taken away from me3 ,i could no longer conceive of anything of the sort4 ,heaven did not seem to me worth going to4 ,it was like a vacuum2 a mythological elysium1 an abode of shadows less real than the earth4 ,i could conceive no joy1 no pleasure in inhabiting it4 ,happiness1 joy1 light1 affection1 love--all these words were now devoid of sense4 ,without doubt ,i could still have talked of all these things1 but ,i had become incapable of feeling anything in them1 of understanding anything about them1 of hoping anything from them1 or of believing them to exist4 ,there was my great and inconsolable grief6 ,i neither perceived nor conceived any longer the existence of happiness or perfection4 ,an abstract heaven over a naked rock4 ,such was my present abode for eternity407#gg7 ,so much for melancholy in the sense of incapacity for joyous feeling4 ,a much worse form of it is positive and active anguish1 a sort of psychical neuralgia wholly unknown to healthy life4 ,such anguish may partake of various characters1 having sometimes more the quality of loathing2 sometimes that of irritation and exasperation2 or again of selfmistrust and selfdespair2 or of suspicion1 anxiety1 trepidation1 fear4 ,the patient may rebel or submit2 may accuse himself1 or accuse outside powers2 and he may or he may not be tormented by the theoretical mystery of why he should so have to suffer4 ,most cases are mixed cases1 and we should not treat our classifications with too much respect4 ,moreover1 it is only a relatively small proportion of cases that connect themselves with the religious sphere of experience at all4 ,exasperated cases1 for instance1 as a rule do not4 ,i quote now literally from the first case of melancholy on which ,i lay my hand4 ,it is a letter from a patient in a ,french asylum4 8,i suffer too much in this hospital1 both physically and morally4 ,besides the burnings and the sleeplessness 7for ,i no longer sleep since ,i am shut up here1 and the little rest ,i get is broken by bad dreams1 and ,i am waked with a jump by nightmares1 dreadful visions1 lightning1 thunder1 and the rest71 fear1 atrocious fear1 presses me down1 holds me without respite1 never lets me go4 ,where is the justice in it all6 ,what have ,i done to deserve this excess of severity8 ,under what form will this fear crush me8 ,what would ,i not owe to any one who would rid me of my life6 ,eat1 drink1 lie awake all night1 suffer without interruption--such is the fine legacy ,i have received from my mother6 ,what ,i fail to understand is this abuse of power4 ,there are limits to everything1 there is a middle way4 ,but ,god knows neither middle way nor limits4 ,i say ,god1 but why8 ,all ,i have known so far has been the devil4 ,after all1 ,i am afraid of ,god as much as of the devil1 so ,i drift along1 thinking of nothing but suicide1 but with neither courage nor means here to execute the act4 ,as you read this1 it will easily prove to you my insanity4 ,the style and the ideas are incoherent enough--,i can see that myself4 ,but ,i cannot keep myself from being either crazy or an idiot2 and1 as things are1 from whom should ,i ask pity8 ,i am defenseless against the invisible enemy who is tightening his coils around me4 ,i should be no better armed against him even if ,i saw him1 or had seen him4 ,oh1 if he would but kill me1 devil take him6 ,death1 death1 once for all6 ,but ,i stop4 ,i have raved to you long enough4 ,i say raved1 for ,i can write no otherwise1 having neither brain nor thoughts left4 ,o ,god6 what a misfortune to be born6 ,born like a mushroom1 doubtless between an evening and a morning2 and how true and right ,i was when in our philosophyyear in college ,i chewed the cud of bitterness with the pessimists4 ,yes1 indeed1 there is more pain in life than gladness--it is one long agony until the grave4 ,think how gay it makes me to remember that this horrible misery of mine1 coupled with this unspeakable fear1 may last fifty1 one hundred1 who knows how many more years607#gh7 ,this letter shows two things4 ,first1 you see how the entire consciousness of the poor man is so choked with the feeling of evil that the sense of there being any good in the world is lost for him altogether4 ,his attention excludes it1 cannot admit it3 the sun has left his heaven4 ,and secondly you see how the querulous temper of his misery keeps his mind from taking a religious direction4 ,querulousness of mind tends in fact rather towards irreligion2 and it has played1 so far as ,i know1 no part whatever in the construction of religious systems4 ,religious melancholy must be cast in a more melting mood4 ,tolstoy has left us1 in his book called ,my ,confession1 a wonderful account of the attack of melancholy which led him to his own religious conclusions4 ,the latter in some respects are peculiar2 but the melancholy presents two characters which make it a typical document for our present purpose4 ,first it is a wellmarked case of anhedonia1 of passive loss of appetite for all life's values2 and second1 it shows how the altered and estranged aspect which the world assumed in consequence of this stimulated ,tolstoy's intellect to a gnawing1 carking questioning and effort for philosophic relief4 ,i mean to quote ,tolstoy at some length2 but before doing so1 ,i will make a general remark on each of these two points4 ,first on our spiritual judgments and the sense of value in general4 ,it is notorious that facts are compatible with opposite emotional comments1 since the same fact will inspire entirely different feelings in different persons1 and at different times in the same person2 and there is no rationally deducible connection between any outer fact and the sentiments it may happen to provoke4 ,these have their source in another sphere of existence altogether1 in the animal and spiritual region of the subject's being4 ,conceive yourself1 if possible1 suddenly stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you1 and try to imagine it as it exists1 purely by itself1 without your favorable or unfavorable1 hopeful or apprehensive comment4 ,it will be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and deadness4 ,no one portion of the universe would then have importance beyond another2 and the whole collection of its things and series of its events would be without significance1 character1 expression1 or perspective4 ,whatever of value1 interest1 or meaning our respective worlds may appear endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator's mind4 ,the passion of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this fact4 ,if it comes1 it comes2 if it does not come1 no process of reasoning can force it4 ,yet it transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms ,mont ,blanc from a corpselike gray to a rosy enchantment2 and it sets the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue to his life4 ,so with fear1 with indignation1 jealousy1 ambition1 worship4 ,if they are there1 life changes4 ,and whether they shall be there or not depends almost always upon nonlogical1 often on organic conditions4 ,and as the excited interest which these passions put into the world is our gift to the world1 just so are the passions themselves gifts1--gifts to us1 from sources sometimes low and sometimes high2 but almost always nonlogical and beyond our control4 ,how can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance1 the mystery1 the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well8 ,gifts1 either of the flesh or of the spirit2 and the spirit bloweth where it listeth2 and the world's materials lend their surface passively to all the gifts alike1 as the stagesetting receives indifferently whatever alternating colored lights may be shed upon it from the optical apparatus in the gallery4 ,meanwhile the practically real world for each one of us1 the effective world of the individual1 is the compound world1 the physical facts and emotional values in indistinguishable combination4 ,withdraw or pervert either factor of this complex resultant1 and the kind of experience we call pathological ensues4 ,in ,tolstoy's case the sense that life had any meaning whatever was for a time wholly withdrawn4 ,the result was a transformation in the whole expression of reality4 ,when we come to study the phenomenon of conversion or religious regeneration1 we shall see that a not infrequent consequence of the change operated in the subject is a transfiguration of the face of nature in his eyes4 ,a new heaven seems to shine upon a new earth4 ,in melancholiacs there is usually a similar change1 only it is in the reverse direction4 ,the world now looks remote1 strange1 sinister1 uncanny4 ,its color is gone1 its breath is cold1 there is no speculation in the eyes it glares with4 8,it is as if ,i lived in another century10 says one asylum patient4--8,i see everything through a cloud10 says another1 8things are not as they were1 and ,i am changed40--8,i see10 says a third1 8,i touch1 but the things do not come near me1 a thick veil alters the hue and look of everything40--8,persons move like shadows1 and sounds seem to come from a distant world40--8,there is no longer any past for me2 people appear so strange2 it is as if ,i could not see any reality1 as if ,i were in a theatre2 as if people were actors1 and everything were scenery2 ,i can no longer find myself2 ,i walk1 but why8 ,everything floats before my eyes1 but leaves no impression40--8,i weep false tears1 ,i have unreal hands3 the things ,i see are not real things40--,such are expressions that naturally rise to the lips of melancholy subjects describing their changed state47#gi7 ,now there are some subjects whom all this leaves a prey to the profoundest astonishment4 ,the strangeness is wrong4 ,the unreality cannot be4 ,a mystery is concealed1 and a metaphysical solution must exist4 ,if the natural world is so doublefaced and unhomelike1 what world1 what thing is real8 ,an urgent wondering and questioning is set up1 a poring theoretic activity1 and in the desperate effort to get into right relations with the matter1 the sufferer is often led to what becomes for him a satisfying religious solution4 ,at about the age of fifty1 ,tolstoy relates that he began to have moments of perplexity1 of what he calls arrest1 as if he knew not 8how to live10 or what to do4 ,it is obvious that these were moments in which the excitement and interest which our functions naturally bring had ceased4 ,life had been enchanting1 it was now flat sober1 more than sober1 dead4 ,things were meaningless whose meaning had always been selfevident4 ,the questions 8,why80 and 8,what next80 began to beset him more and more frequently4 ,at first it seemed as if such questions must be answerable1 and as if he could easily find the answers if he would take the time2 but as they ever became more urgent1 he perceived that it was like those first discomforts of a sick man1 to which he pays but little attention till they run into one continuous suffering1 and then he realizes that what he took for a passing disorder means the most momentous thing in the world for him1 means his death4 ,these questions 8,why80 8,wherefore80 8,what for80 found no response4 8,i felt10 says ,tolstoy1 8that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested1 that ,i had nothing left to hold on to1 and that morally my life had stopped4 ,an invincible force impelled me to get rid of my existence1 in one way or another4 ,it cannot be said exactly that ,i wished to kill myself1 for the force which drew me away from life was fuller1 more powerful1 more general than any mere desire4 ,it was a force like my old aspiration to live1 only it impelled me in the opposite direction4 ,it was an aspiration of my whole being to get out of life4 8,behold me then1 a man happy and in good health1 hiding the rope in order not to hang myself to the rafters of the room where every night ,i went to sleep alone2 behold me no longer going shooting1 lest ,i should yield to the too easy temptation of putting an end to myself with my gun4 8,i did not know what ,i wanted4 ,i was afraid of life2 ,i was driven to leave it2 and in spite of that ,i still hoped something from it4 8,all this took place at a time when so far as all my outer circumstances went1 ,i ought to have been completely happy4 ,i had a good wife who loved me and whom ,i loved2 good children and a large property which was increasing with no pains taken on my part4 ,i was more respected by my kinsfolk and acquaintance than ,i had ever been2 ,i was loaded with praise by strangers2 and without exaggeration ,i could believe my name already famous4 ,moreover ,i was neither insane nor ill4 ,on the contrary1 ,i possessed a physical and mental strength which ,i have rarely met in persons of my age4 ,i could mow as well as the peasants1 ,i could work with my brain eight hours uninterruptedly and feel no bad effects4 8,and yet ,i could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life4 ,and ,i was surprised that ,i had not understood this from the very beginning4 ,my state of mind was as if some wicked and stupid jest was being played upon me by some one4 ,one can live only so long as one is intoxicated1 drunk with life2 but when one grows sober one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat4 ,what is truest about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it2 it is cruel and stupid1 purely and simply4 8,the oriental fable of the traveler surprised in the desert by a wild beast is very old4 8,seeking to save himself from the fierce animal1 the traveler jumps into a well with no water in it2 but at the bottom of this well he sees a dragon waiting with open mouth to devour him4 ,and the unhappy man1 not daring to go out lest he should be the prey of the beast1 not daring to jump to the bottom lest he should be devoured by the dragon1 clings to the branches of a wild bush which grows out of one of the cracks of the well4 ,his hands weaken1 and he feels that he must soon give way to certain fate2 but still he clings1 and sees two mice1 one white1 the other black1 evenly moving round the bush to which he hangs1 and gnawing off its roots4 8,the traveler sees this and knows that he must inevitably perish2 but while thus hanging he looks about him and finds on the leaves of the bush some drops of honey4 ,these he reaches with his tongue and licks them off with rapture4 8,thus ,i hang upon the boughs of life1 knowing that the inevitable dragon of death is waiting ready to tear me1 and ,i cannot comprehend why ,i am thus made a martyr4 ,i try to suck the honey which formerly consoled me2 but the honey pleases me no longer1 and day and night the white mouse and the black mouse gnaw the branch to which ,i cling4 ,i can see but one thing3 the inevitable dragon and the mice--,i cannot turn my gaze away from them4 8,this is no fable1 but the literal incontestable truth which every one may understand4 ,what will be the outcome of what ,i do today8 ,of what ,i shall do tomorrow8 ,what will be the outcome of all my life8 ,why should ,i live8 ,why should ,i do anything8 ,is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death which awaits me does not undo and destroy8 8,these questions are the simplest in the world4 ,from the stupid child to the wisest old man1 they are in the soul of every human being4 ,without an answer to them1 it is impossible1 as ,i experienced1 for life to go on4 8 #8,but perhaps1' ,i often said to myself1 #8there may be something ,i have failed to notice or to comprehend4 ,it is not possible that this condition of despair should be natural to mankind4' ,and ,i sought for an explanation in all the branches of knowledge acquired by men4 ,i questioned painfully and protractedly and with no idle curiosity4 ,i sought1 not with indolence1 but laboriously and obstinately for days and nights together4 ,i sought like a man who is lost and seeks to save himself1--and ,i found nothing4 ,i became convinced1 moreover1 that all those who before me had sought for an answer in the sciences have also found nothing4 ,and not only this1 but that they have recognized that the very thing which was leading me to despair--the meaningless absurdity of life--is the only incontestable knowledge accessible to man40 ,to prove this point1 ,tolstoy quotes the ,buddha1 ,solomon1 and ,schopenhauer4 ,and he finds only four ways in which men of his own class and society are accustomed to meet the situation4 ,either mere animal blindness1 sucking the honey without seeing the dragon or the mice1--8and from such a way10 he says1 8,i can learn nothing1 after what ,i now know20 or reflective epicureanism1 snatching what it can while the day lasts1--which is only a more deliberate sort of stupefaction than the first2 or manly suicide2 or seeing the mice and dragon and yet weakly and plaintively clinging to the bush of life4 ,suicide was naturally the consistent course dictated by the logical intellect4 8,yet10 says ,tolstoy1 8whilst my intellect was working1 something else in me was working too1 and kept me from the deed--a consciousness of life1 as ,i may call it1 which was like a force that obliged my mind to fix itself in another direction and draw me out of my situation of despair4444 ,during the whole course of this year1 when ,i almost unceasingly kept asking myself how to end the business1 whether by the rope or by the bullet1 during all that time1 alongside of all those movements of my ideas and observations1 my heart kept languishing with another pining emotion4 ,i can call this by no other name than that of a thirst for ,god4 ,this craving for ,god had nothing to do with the movement of my ideas1--in fact1 it was the direct contrary of that movement1--but it came from my heart4 ,it was like a feeling of dread that made me seem like an orphan and isolated in the midst of all these things that were so foreign4 ,and this feeling of dread was mitigated by the hope of finding the assistance of some one407#hj7 ,of the process1 intellectual as well as emotional1 which1 starting from this idea of ,god1 led to ,tolstoy's recovery1 ,i will say nothing in this lecture1 reserving it for a later hour4 ,the only thing that need interest us now is the phenomenon of his absolute disenchantment with ordinary life1 and the fact that the whole range of habitual values may1 to a man as powerful and full of faculty as he was1 come to appear so ghastly a mockery4 ,when disillusionment has gone as far as this1 there is seldom a restitutio ad integrum4 ,one has tasted of the fruit of the tree1 and the happiness of ,eden never comes again4 ,the happiness that comes1 when any does come1--and often enough it fails to return in an acute form1 though its form is sometimes very acute1--is not the simple ignorance of ill1 but something vastly more complex1 including natural evil as one of its elements1 but finding natural evil no such stumblingblock and terror because it now sees it swallowed up in supernatural good4 ,the process is one of redemption1 not of mere reversion to natural health1 and the sufferer1 when saved1 is saved by what seems to him a second birth1 a deeper kind of conscious being than he could enjoy before4 ,we find a somewhat different type of religious melancholy enshrined in literature in ,john ,bunyan's autobiography4 ,tolstoy's preoccupations were largely objective1 for the purpose and meaning of life in general was what so troubled him2 but poor ,bunyan's troubles were over the condition of his own personal self4 ,he was a typical case of the psychopathic temperament1 sensitive of conscience to a diseased degree1 beset by doubts1 fears1 and insistent ideas1 and a victim of verbal automatisms1 both motor and sensory4 ,these were usually texts of ,scripture which1 sometimes damnatory and sometimes favorable1 would come in a halfhallucinatory form as if they were voices1 and fasten on his mind and buffet it between them like a shuttlecock4 ,added to this were a fearful melancholy selfcontempt and despair4 8,nay1 thought ,i1 now ,i grow worse and worse2 now ,i am farther from conversion than ever ,i was before4 ,if now ,i should have burned at the stake1 ,i could not believe that ,christ had love for me2 alas1 ,i could neither hear him1 nor see him1 nor feel him1 nor savor any of his things4 ,sometimes ,i would tell my condition to the people of ,god1 which1 when they heard1 they would pity me1 and would tell of the ,promises4 ,but they had as good have told me that ,i must reach the ,sun with my finger as have bidden me receive or rely upon the ,promise4 ,yet all this while as to the act of sinning1 ,i never was more tender than now2 ,i durst not take a pin or stick1 though but so big as a straw1 for my conscience now was sore1 and would smart at every touch2 ,i could not tell how to speak my words1 for fear ,i should misplace them4 ,oh1 how gingerly did ,i then go1 in all ,i did or said6 ,i found myself as on a miry bog that shook if ,i did but stir2 and was as there left both by ,god and ,christ1 and the spirit1 and all good things4 8,but my original and inward pollution1 that was my plague and my affliction4 ,by reason of that1 ,i was more loathsome in my own eyes than was a toad2 and ,i thought ,i was so in ,god's eyes too4 ,sin and corruption1 ,i said1 would as naturally bubble out of my heart as water would bubble out of a fountain4 ,i could have changed heart with anybody4 ,i thought none but the ,devil himself could equal me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind4 ,sure1 thought ,i1 ,i am forsaken of ,god2 and thus ,i continued a long while1 even for some years together4 8,and now ,i was sorry that ,god had made me a man4 ,the beasts1 birds1 fishes1 etc41 ,i blessed their condition1 for they had not a sinful nature2 they were not obnoxious to the wrath of ,god2 they were not to go to hellfire after death4 ,i could therefore have rejoiced1 had my condition been as any of theirs4 ,now ,i blessed the condition of the dog and toad1 yea1 gladly would ,i have been in the condition of the dog or horse1 for ,i knew they had no soul to perish under the everlasting weight of ,hell or ,sin1 as mine was like to do4 ,nay1 and though ,i saw this1 felt this1 and was broken to pieces with it1 yet that which added to my sorrow was1 that ,i could not find with all my soul that ,i did desire deliverance4 ,my heart was at times exceedingly hard4 ,if ,i would have given a thousand pounds for a tear1 ,i could not shed one2 no1 nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one4 8,i was both a burthen and a terror to myself2 nor did ,i ever so know1 as now1 what it was to be weary of my life1 and yet afraid to die4 ,how gladly would ,i have been anything but myself6 ,anything but a man6 and in any condition but my own407#ha7 ,poor patient ,bunyan1 like ,tolstoy1 saw the light again1 but we must also postpone that part of his story to another hour4 ,in a later lecture ,i will also give the end of the experience of ,henry ,alline1 a devoted evangelist who worked in ,nova ,scotia a hundred years ago1 and who thus vividly describes the highwater mark of the religious melancholy which formed its beginning4 ,the type was not unlike ,bunyan's4 8,everything ,i saw seemed to be a burden to me2 the earth seemed accursed for my sake3 all trees1 plants1 rocks1 hills1 and vales seemed to be dressed in mourning and groaning1 under the weight of the curse1 and everything around me seemed to be conspiring my ruin4 ,my sins seemed to be laid open2 so that ,i thought that every one ,i saw knew them1 and sometimes ,i was almost ready to acknowledge many things1 which ,i thought they knew3 yea sometimes it seemed to me as if every one was pointing me out as the most guilty wretch upon earth4 ,i had now so great a sense of the vanity and emptiness of all things here below1 that ,i knew the whole world could not possibly make me happy1 no1 nor the whole system of creation4 ,when ,i waked in the morning1 the first thought would be1 ,oh1 my wretched soul1 what shall ,i do1 where shall ,i go8 ,and when ,i laid down1 would say1 ,i shall be perhaps in hell before morning4 ,i would many times look on the beasts with envy1 wishing with all my heart ,i was in their place1 that ,i might have no soul to lose2 and when ,i have seen birds flying over my head1 have often thought within myself1 ,oh1 that ,i could fly away from my danger and distress6 ,oh1 how happy should ,i be1 if ,i were in their place607#hb7 ,envy of the placid beasts seems to be a very widespread affection in this type of sadness4 ,the worst kind of melancholy is that which takes the form of panic fear4 ,here is an excellent example1 for permission to print which ,i have to thank the sufferer4 ,the original is in ,french1 and though the subject was evidently in a bad nervous condition at the time of which he writes1 his case has otherwise the merit of extreme simplicity4 ,i translate freely4 8,whilst in this state of philosophic pessimism and general depression of spirits about my prospects1 ,i went one evening into a dressingroom in the twilight to procure some article that was there2 when suddenly there fell upon me without any warning1 just as if it came out of the darkness1 a horrible fear of my own existence4 ,simultaneously there arose in my mind the image of an epileptic patient whom ,i had seen in the asylum1 a blackhaired youth with greenish skin1 entirely idiotic1 who used to sit all day on one of the benches1 or rather shelves against the wall1 with his knees drawn up against his chin1 and the coarse gray undershirt1 which was his only garment1 drawn over them inclosing his entire figure4 ,he sat there like a sort of sculptured ,egyptian cat or ,peruvian mummy1 moving nothing but his black eyes and looking absolutely nonhuman4 ,this image and my fear entered into a species of combination with each other4 ,that shape am ,i1 ,i felt1 potentially4 ,nothing that ,i possess can defend me against that fate1 if the hour for it should strike for me as it struck for him4 ,there was such a horror of him1 and such a perception of my own merely momentary discrepancy from him1 that it was as if something hitherto solid within my breast gave way entirely1 and ,i became a mass of quivering fear4 ,after this the universe was changed for me altogether4 ,i awoke morning after morning with a horrible dread at the pit of my stomach1 and with a sense of the insecurity of life that ,i never knew before1 and that ,i have never felt since47#hc7 ,it was like a revelation2 and although the immediate feelings passed away1 the experience has made me sympathetic with the morbid feelings of others ever since4 ,it gradually faded1 but for months ,i was unable to go out into the dark alone4 8,in general ,i dreaded to be left alone4 ,i remember wondering how other people could live1 how ,i myself had ever lived1 so unconscious of that pit of insecurity beneath the surface of life4 ,my mother in particular1 a very cheerful person1 seemed to me a perfect paradox in her unconsciousness of danger1 which you may well believe ,i was very careful not to disturb by revelations of my own state of mind4 ,i have always thought that this experience of melancholia of mine had a religious bearing40 ,on asking this correspondent to explain more fully what he meant by these last words1 the answer he wrote was this3-- 8,i mean that the fear was so invasive and powerful that if ,i had not clung to scripturetexts like #8,the eternal ,god is my refuge1' etc41 #8,come unto me1 all ye that labor and are heavyladen1' etc41 #8,i am the resurrection and the life1' etc41 ,i think ,i should have grown really insane407#hd7 ,there is no need of more examples4 ,the cases we have looked at are enough4 ,one of them gives us the vanity of mortal things2 another the sense of sin2 and the remaining one describes the fear of the universe2--and in one or other of these three ways it always is that man's original optimism and selfsatisfaction get leveled with the dust4 ,in none of these cases was there any intellectual insanity or delusion about matters of fact2 but were we disposed to open the chapter of really insane melancholia1 with its hallucinations and delusions1 it would be a worse story still--desperation absolute and complete1 the whole universe coagulating about the sufferer into a material of overwhelming horror1 surrounding him without opening or end4 ,not the conception or intellectual perception of evil1 but the grisly bloodfreezing heartpalsying sensation of it close upon one1 and no other conception or sensation able to live for a moment in its presence4 ,how irrelevantly remote seem all our usual refined optimisms and intellectual and moral consolations in presence of a need of help like this6 ,here is the real core of the religious problem3 ,help6 help6 ,no prophet can claim to bring a final message unless he says things that will have a sound of reality in the ears of victims such as these4 ,but the deliverance must come in as strong a form as the complaint1 if it is to take effect2 and that seems a reason why the coarser religions1 revivalistic1 orgiastic1 with blood and miracles and supernatural operations1 may possibly never be displaced4 ,some constitutions need them too much4 ,arrived at this point1 we can see how great an antagonism may naturally arise between the healthyminded way of viewing life and the way that takes all this experience of evil as something essential4 ,to this latter way1 the morbidminded way1 as we might call it1 healthymindedness pure and simple seems unspeakably blind and shallow4 ,to the healthyminded way1 on the other hand1 the way of the sick soul seems unmanly and diseased4 ,with their grubbing in ratholes instead of living in the light2 with their manufacture of fears1 and preoccupation with every unwholesome kind of misery1 there is something almost obscene about these children of wrath and cravers of a second birth4 ,if religious intolerance and hanging and burning could again become the order of the day1 there is little doubt that1 however it may have been in the past1 the healthyminded would at present show themselves the less indulgent party of the two4 ,in our own attitude1 not yet abandoned1 of impartial onlookers1 what are we to say of this quarrel8 ,it seems to me that we are bound to say that morbidmindedness ranges over the wider scale of experience1 and that its survey is the one that overlaps4 ,the method of averting one's attention from evil1 and living simply in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work4 ,it will work with many persons2 it will work far more generally than most of us are ready to suppose2 and within the sphere of its successful operation there is nothing to be said against it as a religious solution4 ,but it breaks down impotently as soon as melancholy comes2 and even though one be quite free from melancholy one's self1 there is no doubt that healthymindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine1 because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality2 and they may after all be the best key to life's significance1 and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth4 ,the normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with1 moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn4 ,the lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact4 ,our civilization is founded on the shambles1 and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony4 ,if you protest1 my friend1 wait till you arrive there yourself6 ,to believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our imagination--they seem too much like mere museum specimens4 ,yet there is no tooth in any one of those museumskulls that did not daily through long years of the foretime hold fast to the body struggling in despair of some fated living victim4 ,forms of horror just as dreadful to their victims1 if on a smaller spatial scale1 fill the world about us to day4 ,here on our very hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse1 or holds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws4 ,crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are2 their loathsome existence fills every minute of every day that drags its length along2 and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey1 the deadly horror which an agitated melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation47#he7 ,it may indeed be that no religious reconciliation with the absolute totality of things is possible4 ,some evils1 indeed1 are ministerial to higher forms of good2 but it may be that there are forms of evil so extreme as to enter into no good system whatsoever1 and that1 in respect of such evil1 dumb submission or neglect to notice is the only practical resource4 ,this question must confront us on a later day4 ,but provisionally1 and as a mere matter of program and method1 since the evil facts are as genuine parts of nature as the good ones1 the philosophic presumption should be that they have some rational significance1 and that systematic healthymindedness1 failing as it does to accord to sorrow1 pain1 and death any positive and active attention whatever1 is formally less complete than systems that try at least to include these elements in their scope4 ,the completest religions would therefore seem to be those in which the pessimistic elements are best developed4 ,buddhism1 of course1 and ,christianity are the best known to us of these4 ,they are essentially religions of deliverance3 the man must die to an unreal life before he can be born into the real life4 ,in my next lecture1 ,i will try to discuss some of the psychological conditions of this second birth4 ,fortunately from now onward we shall have to deal with more cheerful subjects than those which we have recently been dwelling on4 ,,lecture ,,viii4 ,,the ,,divided ,,self1 ,,and ,,the ,,process ,,of ,,its ,,unification4 ,the last lecture was a painful one1 dealing as it did with evil as a pervasive element of the world we live in4 ,at the close of it we were brought into full view of the contrast between the two ways of looking at life which are characteristic respectively of what we called the healthy minded1 who need to be born only once1 and of the sick souls1 who must be twiceborn in order to be happy4 ,the result is two different conceptions of the universe of our experience4 ,in the religion of the onceborn the world is a sort of rectilinear or onestoried affair1 whose accounts are kept in one denomination1 whose parts have just the values which naturally they appear to have1 and of which a simple algebraic sum of pluses and minuses will give the total worth4 ,happiness and religious peace consist in living on the plus side of the account4 ,in the religion of the twice born1 on the other hand1 the world is a doublestoried mystery4 ,peace cannot be reached by the simple addition of pluses and elimination of minuses from life4 ,natural good is not simply insufficient in amount and transient1 there lurks a falsity in its very being4 ,cancelled as it all is by death if not by earlier enemies1 it gives no final balance1 and can never be the thing intended for our lasting worship4 ,it keeps us from our real good1 rather2 and renunciation and despair of it are our first step in the direction of the truth4 ,there are two lives1 the natural and the spiritual1 and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other4 ,in their extreme forms1 of pure naturalism and pure salvationism1 the two types are violently contrasted2 though here as in most other current classifications1 the radical extremes are somewhat ideal abstractions1 and the concrete human beings whom we oftenest meet are intermediate varieties and mixtures4 ,practically1 however1 you all recognize the difference3 you understand1 for example1 the disdain of the methodist convert for the mere skyblue healthyminded moralist2 and you likewise enter into the aversion of the latter to what seems to him the diseased subjectivism of the ,methodist1 dying to live1 as he calls it1 and making of paradox and the inversion of natural appearances the essence of ,god's truth47#hf7 ,the psychological basis of the twiceborn character seems to be a certain discordancy or heterogeneity in the native temperament of the subject1 an incompletely unified moral and intellectual constitution4 8,homo duplex1 homo duplex60 writes ,alphonse ,daudet4 8,the first time that ,i perceived that ,i was two was at the death of my brother ,henri1 when my father cried out so dramatically1 #8,he is dead1 he is dead6' ,while my first self wept1 my second self thought1 #8,how truly given was that cry1 how fine it would be at the theatre4' ,i was then fourteen years old4 8,this horrible duality has often given me matter for reflection4 ,oh1 this terrible second me1 always seated whilst the other is on foot1 acting1 living1 suffering1 bestirring itself4 ,this second me that ,i have never been able to intoxicate1 to make shed tears1 or put to sleep4 ,and how it sees into things1 and how it mocks607#hg7 ,recent works on the psychology of character have had much to say upon this point47#hh7 ,some persons are born with an inner constitution which is harmonious and well balanced from the outset4 ,their impulses are consistent with one another1 their will follows without trouble the guidance of their intellect1 their passions are not excessive1 and their lives are little haunted by regrets4 ,others are oppositely constituted2 and are so in degrees which may vary from something so slight as to result in a merely odd or whimsical inconsistency1 to a discordancy of which the consequences may be inconvenient in the extreme4 ,of the more innocent kinds of heterogeneity ,i find a good example in ,mrs4 ,annie ,besant's autobiography4 8,i have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength1 and have paid heavily for the weakness4 ,as a child ,i used to suffer tortures of shyness1 and if my shoelace was untied would feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed on the unlucky string2 as a girl ,i would shrink away from strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked1 so that ,i was full of eager gratitude to any one who noticed me kindly2 as the young mistress of a house ,i was afraid of my servants1 and would let careless work pass rather than bear the pain of reproving the illdoer2 when ,i have been lecturing and debating with no lack of spirit on the platform1 ,i have preferred to go without what ,i wanted at the hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it4 ,combative on the platform in defense of any cause ,i cared for1 ,i shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house1 and am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter in public4 ,how often have ,i passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to reprove1 and how often have ,i jeered at myself for a fraud as the doughty platform combatant1 when shrinking from blaming some lad or lass for doing their work badly4 ,an unkind look or word has availed to make me shrink into myself as a snail into its shell1 while1 on the platform1 opposition makes me speak my best407#hi7 ,this amount of inconsistency will only count as amiable weakness2 but a stronger degree of heterogeneity may make havoc of the subject's life4 ,there are persons whose existence is little more than a series of zigzags1 as now one tendency and now another gets the upper hand4 ,their spirit wars with their flesh1 they wish for incompatibles1 wayward impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans1 and their lives are one long drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdemeanors and mistakes4 ,heterogeneous personality has been explained as the result of inheritance--the traits of character of incompatible and antagonistic ancestors are supposed to be preserved alongside of each other47#ij7 ,this explanation may pass for what it is worth--it certainly needs corroboration4 ,but whatever the cause of heterogeneous personality may be1 we find the extreme examples of it in the psychopathic temperament1 of which ,i spoke in my first lecture4 ,all writers about that temperament make the inner heterogeneity prominent in their descriptions4 ,frequently1 indeed1 it is only this trait that leads us to ascribe that temperament to a man at all4 ,a 8dgnr suprieur0 is simply a man of sensibility in many directions1 who finds more difficulty than is common in keeping his spiritual house in order and running his furrow straight1 because his feelings and impulses are too keen and too discrepant mutually4 ,in the haunting and insistent ideas1 in the irrational impulses1 the morbid scruples1 dreads1 and inhibitions which beset the psychopathic temperament when it is thoroughly pronounced1 we have exquisite examples of heterogeneous personality4 ,bunyan had an obsession of the words1 8,sell ,christ for this1 sell him for that1 sell him1 sell him60 which would run through his mind a hundred times together1 until one day out of breath with retorting1 8,i will not1 ,i will not10 he impulsively said1 8,let him go if he will10 and this loss of the battle kept him in despair for over a year4 ,the lives of the saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions1 ascribed invariably to the direct agency of ,satan4 ,the phenomenon connects itself with the life of the subconscious self1 socalled1 of which we must erelong speak more directly4 ,now in all of us1 however constituted1 but to a degree the greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations1 and to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic1 does the normal evolution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of the inner self4 ,the higher and the lower feelings1 the useful and the erring impulses1 begin by being a comparative chaos within us--they must end by forming a stable system of functions in right subordination4 ,unhappiness is apt to characterize the period of ordermaking and struggle4 ,if the individual be of tender conscience and religiously quickened1 the unhappiness will take the form of moral remorse and compunction1 of feeling inwardly vile and wrong1 and of standing in false relations to the author of one's being and appointer of one's spiritual fate4 ,this is the religious melancholy and 8conviction of sin0 that have played so large a part in the history of ,protestant ,christianity4 ,the man's interior is a battleground for what he feels to be two deadly hostile selves1 one actual1 the other ideal4 ,as ,victor ,hugo makes his ,mahomet say3-- 8,je suis le champ vil des sublimes combats3 ,tantt l'homme d'en haut1 et tantt l'homme d'en bas2 ,et le mal dans ma bouche avec le bien alterne1 ,comme dans le dsert le sable et la citerne40 ,wrong living1 impotent aspirations2 8,what ,i would1 that do ,i not2 but what ,i hate1 that do ,i10 as ,saint ,paul says2 selfloathing1 selfdespair2 an unintelligible and intolerable burden to which one is mysteriously the heir4 ,let me quote from some typical cases of discordant personality1 with melancholy in the form of selfcondemnation and sense of sin4 ,saint ,augustine's case is a classic example4 ,you all remember his halfpagan1 half,christian bringing up at ,carthage1 his emigration to ,rome and ,milan1 his adoption of ,manicheism and subsequent skepticism1 and his restless search for truth and purity of life2 and finally how1 distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his breast1 and ashamed of his own weakness of will1 when so many others whom he knew and knew of had thrown off the shackles of sensuality and dedicated themselves to chastity and the higher life1 he heard a voice in the garden say1 8,sume1 lege0 7take and read71 and opening the ,bible at random1 saw the text1 8not in chambering and wantonness10 etc41 which seemed directly sent to his address1 and laid the inner storm to rest forever47#ia7 ,augustine's psychological genius has given an account of the trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed4 8,the new will which ,i began to have was not yet strong enough to overcome that other will1 strengthened by long indulgence4 ,so these two wills1 one old1 one new1 one carnal1 the other spiritual1 contended with each other and disturbed my soul4 ,i understood by my own experience what ,i had read1 #8flesh lusteth against spirit1 and spirit against flesh4' ,it was myself indeed in both the wills1 yet more myself in that which ,i approved in myself than in that which ,i disapproved in myself4 ,yet it was through myself that habit had attained so fierce a mastery over me1 because ,i had willingly come whither ,i willed not4 ,still bound to earth1 ,i refused1 ,o ,god1 to fight on thy side1 as much afraid to be freed from all bonds1 as ,i ought to have feared being trammeled by them4 8,thus the thoughts by which ,i meditated upon thee were like the efforts of one who would awake1 but being overpowered with sleepiness is soon asleep again4 ,often does a man when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs defer to shake it off1 and though not approving it1 encourage it2 even so ,i was sure it was better to surrender to thy love than to yield to my own lusts1 yet1 though the former course convinced me1 the latter pleased and held me bound4 ,there was naught in me to answer thy call1 #8,awake1 thou sleeper1' but only drawling1 drowsy words1 #8,presently2 yes1 presently2 wait a little while4' ,but the #8presently' had no #8present1' and the #8little while' grew long4444 ,for ,i was afraid thou wouldst hear me too soon1 and heal me at once of my disease of lust1 which ,i wished to satiate rather than to see extinguished4 ,with what lashes of words did ,i not scourge my own soul4 ,yet it shrank back2 it refused1 though it had no excuse to offer4444 ,i said within myself3 #8,come1 let it be done now1' and as ,i said it1 ,i was on the point of the resolve4 ,i all but did it1 yet ,i did not do it4 ,and ,i made another effort1 and almost succeeded1 yet ,i did not reach it1 and did not grasp it1 hesitating to die to death1 and live to life2 and the evil to which ,i was so wonted held me more than the better life ,i had not tried407#ib7 ,there could be no more perfect description of the divided will1 when the higher wishes lack just that last acuteness1 that touch of explosive intensity1 of dynamogenic quality 7to use the slang of the psychologists71 that enables them to burst their shell1 and make irruption efficaciously into life and quell the lower tendencies forever4 ,in a later lecture we shall have much to say about this higher excitability4 ,i find another good description of the divided will in the autobiography of ,henry ,alline1 the ,nova ,scotian evangelist1 of whose melancholy ,i read a brief account in my last lecture4 ,the poor youth's sins were1 as you will see1 of the most harmless order1 yet they interfered with what proved to be his truest vocation1 so they gave him great distress4 8,i was now very moral in my life1 but found no rest of conscience4 ,i now began to be esteemed in young company1 who knew nothing of my mind all this while1 and their esteem began to be a snare to my soul1 for ,i soon began to be fond of carnal mirth1 though ,i still flattered myself that if ,i did not get drunk1 nor curse1 nor swear1 there would be no sin in frolicking and carnal mirth1 and ,i thought ,god would indulge young people with some 7what ,i called simple or civil7 recreation4 ,i still kept a round of duties1 and would not suffer myself to run into any open vices1 and so got along very well in time of health and prosperity1 but when ,i was distressed or threatened by sickness1 death1 or heavy storms of thunder1 my religion would not do1 and ,i found there was something wanting1 and would begin to repent my going so much to frolics1 but when the distress was over1 the devil and my own wicked heart1 with the solicitations of my associates1 and my fondness for young company1 were such strong allurements1 ,i would again give way1 and thus ,i got to be very wild and rude1 at the same time kept up my rounds of secret prayer and reading2 but ,god1 not willing ,i should destroy myself1 still followed me with his calls1 and moved with such power upon my conscience1 that ,i could not satisfy myself with my diversions1 and in the midst of my mirth sometimes would have such a sense of my lost and undone condition1 that ,i would wish myself from the company1 and after it was over1 when ,i went home1 would make many promises that ,i would attend no more on these frolics1 and would beg forgiveness for hours and hours2 but when ,i came to have the temptation again1 ,i would give way3 no sooner would ,i hear the music and drink a glass of wine1 but ,i would find my mind elevated and soon proceed to any sort of merriment or diversion1 that ,i thought was not debauched or openly vicious2 but when ,i returned from my carnal mirth ,i felt as guilty as ever1 and could sometimes not close my eyes for some hours after ,i had gone to my bed4 ,i was one of the most unhappy creatures on earth4 8,sometimes ,i would leave the company 7often speaking to the fiddler to cease from playing1 as if ,i was tired71 and go out and walk about crying and praying1 as if my very heart would break1 and beseeching ,god that he would not cut me off1 nor give me up to hardness of heart4 ,oh1 what unhappy hours and nights ,i thus wore away6 ,when ,i met sometimes with merry companions1 and my heart was ready to sink1 ,i would labor to put on as cheerful a countenance as possible1 that they might not distrust anything1 and sometimes would begin some discourse with young men or young women on purpose1 or propose a merry song1 lest the distress of my soul would be discovered1 or mistrusted1 when at the same time ,i would then rather have been in a wilderness in exile1 than with them or any of their pleasures or enjoyments4 ,thus for many months when ,i was in company1 ,i would act the hypocrite and feign a merry heart1 but at the same time would endeavor as much as ,i could to shun their company1 oh wretched and unhappy mortal that ,i was6 ,everything ,i did1 and wherever ,i went1 ,i was still in a storm1 and yet ,i continued to be the chief contriver and ringleader of the frolics for many months after2 though it was a toil and torment to attend them2 but the devil and my own wicked heart drove me about like a slave1 telling me that ,i must do this and do that1 and bear this and bear that1 and turn here and turn there1 to keep my credit up1 and retain the esteem of my associates3 and all this while ,i continued as strict as possible in my duties1 and left no stone unturned to pacify my conscience1 watching even against my thoughts1 and praying continually wherever ,i went3 for ,i did not think there was any sin in my conduct1 when ,i was among carnal company1 because ,i did not take any satisfaction there1 but only followed it1 ,i thought1 for sufficient reasons4 8,but still1 all that ,i did or could do1 conscience would roar night and day40 ,saint ,augustine and ,alline both emerged into the smooth waters of inner unity and peace1 and ,i shall next ask you to consider more closely some of the peculiarities of the process of unification1 when it occurs4 ,it may come gradually1 or it may occur abruptly2 it may come through altered feelings1 or through altered powers of action2 or it may come through new intellectual insights1 or through experiences which we shall later have to designate as 8mystical40 ,however it come1 it brings a characteristic sort of relief2 and never such extreme relief as when it is cast into the religious mould4 ,happiness6 happiness6 religion is only one of the ways in which men gain that gift4 ,easily1 permanently1 and successfully1 it often transforms the most intolerable misery into the profoundest and most enduring happiness4 ,but to find religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity2 and the process of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner discord is a general psychological process1 which may take place with any sort of mental material1 and need not necessarily assume the religious form4 ,in judging of the religious types of regeneration which we are about to study1 it is important to recognize that they are only one species of a genus that contains other types as well4 ,for example1 the new birth may be away from religion into incredulity2 or it may be from moral scrupulosity into freedom and license2 or it may be produced by the irruption into the individual's life of some new stimulus or passion1 such as love1 ambition1 cupidity1 revenge1 or patriotic devotion4 ,in all these instances we have precisely the same psychological form of event1--a firmness1 stability1 and equilibrium succeeding a period of storm and stress and inconsistency4 ,in these nonreligious cases the new man may also be born either gradually or suddenly4 ,the ,french philosopher ,jouffroy has left an eloquent memorial of his own 8counterconversion10 as the transition from orthodoxy to infidelity has been well styled by ,mr4 ,starbuck4 ,jouffroy's doubts had long harassed him2 but he dates his final crisis from a certain night when his disbelief grew fixed and stable1 and where the immediate result was sadness at the illusions he had lost4 8,i shall never forget that night of ,december10 writes ,jouffroy1 8in which the veil that concealed from me my own incredulity was torn4 ,i hear again my steps in that narrow naked chamber where long after the hour of sleep had come ,i had the habit of walking up and down4 ,i see again that moon1 halfveiled by clouds1 which now and again illuminated the frigid windowpanes4 ,the hours of the night flowed on and ,i did not note their passage4 ,anxiously ,i followed my thoughts1 as from layer to layer they descended towards the foundation of my consciousness1 and1 scattering one by one all the illusions which until then had screened its windings from my view1 made them every moment more clearly visible4 8,vainly ,i clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the fragments of his vessel2 vainly1 frightened at the unknown void in which ,i was about to float1 ,i turned with them towards my childhood1 my family1 my country1 all that was dear and sacred to me3 the inflexible current of my thought was too strong1--parents1 family1 memory1 beliefs1 it forced me to let go of everything4 ,the investigation went on more obstinate and more severe as it drew near its term1 and did not stop until the end was reached4 ,i knew then that in the depth of my mind nothing was left that stood erect4 8,this moment was a frightful one2 and when towards morning ,i threw myself exhausted on my bed1 ,i seemed to feel my earlier life1 so smiling and so full1 go out like a fire1 and before me another life opened1 sombre and unpeopled1 where in future ,i must live alone1 alone with my fatal thought which had exiled me thither1 and which ,i was tempted to curse4 ,the days which followed this discovery were the saddest of my life407#ic7 ,in ,john ,foster's ,essay on ,decision of ,character1 there is an account of a case of sudden conversion to avarice1 which is illustrative enough to quote3-- ,a young man1 it appears1 8wasted1 in two or three years1 a large patrimony in profligate revels with a number of worthless associates who called themselves his friends1 and who1 when his last means were exhausted1 treated him of course with neglect or contempt4 ,reduced to absolute want1 he one day went out of the house with an intention to put an end to his life2 but wandering awhile almost unconsciously1 he came to the brow of an eminence which overlooked what were lately his estates4 ,here he sat down1 and remained fixed in thought a number of hours1 at the end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement1 exulting emotion4 ,he had formed his resolution1 which was1 that all these estates should be his again2 he had formed his plan1 too1 which he instantly began to execute4 ,he walked hastily forward1 determined to seize the first opportunity1 of however humble a kind1 to gain any money1 though it were ever so despicable a trifle1 and resolved absolutely not to spend1 if he could help it1 a farthing of whatever he might obtain4 ,the first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a house4 ,he offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to be laid1 and was employed4 ,he received a few pence for the labor2 and then1 in pursuance of the saving part of his plan1 requested some small gratuity of meat and drink1 which was given him4 ,he then looked out for the next thing that might chance2 and went1 with indefatigable industry1 through a succession of servile employments in different places1 of longer and shorter duration1 still scrupulous in avoiding1 as far as possible1 the expense of a penny4 ,he promptly seized every opportunity which could advance his design1 without regarding the meanness of occupation or appearance4 ,by this method he had gained1 after a considerable time1 money enough to purchase in order to sell again a few cattle1 of which he had taken pains to understand the value4 ,he speedily but cautiously turned his first gains into second advantages2 retained without a single deviation his extreme parsimony2 and thus advanced by degrees into larger transactions and incipient wealth4 ,i did not hear1 or have forgotten1 the continued course of his life1 but the final result was1 that he more than recovered his lost possessions1 and died an inveterate miser1 worth #fj1jjj407id7 ,let me turn now to the kind of case1 the religious case1 namely1 that immediately concerns us4 ,here is one of the simplest possible type1 an account of the conversion to the systematic religion of healthymindedness of a man who must already have been naturally of the healthyminded type4 ,it shows how1 when the fruit is ripe1 a touch will make it fall4 ,mr4 ,horace ,fletcher1 in his little book called ,menticulture1 relates that a friend with whom he was talking of the selfcontrol attained by the ,japanese through their practice of the ,buddhist discipline said3-- 8 #8,you must first get rid of anger and worry4' #8,but1' said ,i1 #8is that possible8' #8,yes1' replied he2 #8it is possible to the ,japanese1 and ought to be possible to us4' 8,on my way back ,i could think of nothing else but the words #8get rid1 get rid'2 and the idea must have continued to possess me during my sleeping hours1 for the first consciousness in the morning brought back the same thought1 with the revelation of a discovery1 which framed itself into the reasoning1 #8,if it is possible to get rid of anger and worry1 why is it necessary to have them at all8' ,i felt the strength of the argument1 and at once accepted the reasoning4 ,the baby had discovered that it could walk4 ,it would scorn to creep any longer4 8,from the instant ,i realized that these cancer spots of worry and anger were removable1 they left me4 ,with the discovery of their weakness they were exorcised4 ,from that time life has had an entirely different aspect4 8,although from that moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from the depressing passions has been a reality to me1 it took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position2 but1 as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented themselves over and over again1 and ,i have been unable to feel them in the slightest degree1 ,i no longer dread or guard against them1 and ,i am amazed at my increased energy and vigor of mind2 at my strength to meet situations of all kinds1 and at my disposition to love and appreciate everything4 8,i have had occasion to travel more than ten thousand miles by rail since that morning4 ,the same ,pullman porter1 conductor1 hotelwaiter1 peddler1 bookagent1 cabman1 and others who were formerly a source of annoyance and irritation have been met1 but ,i am not conscious of a single incivility4 ,all at once the whole world has turned good to me4 ,i have become1 as it were1 sensitive only to the rays of good4 8,i could recount many experiences which prove a brandnew condition of mind1 but one will be sufficient4 ,without the slightest feeling of annoyance or impatience1 ,i have seen a train that ,i had planned to take with a good deal of interested and pleasurable anticipation move out of the station without me1 because my baggage did not arrive4 ,the porter from the hotel came running and panting into the station just as the train pulled out of sight4 ,when he saw me1 he looked as if he feared a scolding1 and began to tell of being blocked in a crowded street and unable to get out4 ,when he had finished1 ,i said to him3 #8,it doesn't matter at all1 you couldn't help it1 so we will try again to morrow4 ,here is your fee1 ,i am sorry you had all this trouble in earning it4' ,the look of surprise that came over his face was so filled with pleasure that ,i was repaid on the spot for the delay in my departure4 ,next day he would not accept a cent for the service1 and he and ,i are friends for life4 8,during the first weeks of my experience ,i was on guard only against worry and anger2 but1 in the mean time1 having noticed the absence of the other depressing and dwarfing passions1 ,i began to trace a relationship1 until ,i was convinced that they are all growths from the two roots ,i have specified4 ,i have felt the freedom now for so long a time that ,i am sure of my relation toward it2 and ,i could no more harbor any of the thieving and depressing influences that once ,i nursed as a heritage of humanity than a fop would voluntarily wallow in a filthy gutter4 8,there is no doubt in my mind that pure ,christianity and pure ,buddhism1 and the ,mental ,sciences and all ,religions1 fundamentally teach what has been a discovery to me2 but none of them have presented it in the light of a simple and easy process of elimination4 ,at one time ,i wondered if the elimination would not yield to indifference and sloth4 ,in my experience1 the contrary is the result4 ,i feel such an increased desire to do something useful that it seems as if ,i were a boy again and the energy for play had returned4 ,i could fight as readily as 7and better than7 ever1 if there were occasion for it4 ,it does not make one a coward4 ,it can't1 since fear is one of the things eliminated4 ,i notice the absence of timidity in the presence of any audience4 ,when a boy1 ,i was standing under a tree which was struck by lightning1 and received a shock from the effects of which ,i never knew exemption until ,i had dissolved partnership with worry4 ,since then1 lightning and thunder have been encountered under conditions which would formerly have caused great depression and discomfort1 without my experiencing a trace of either4 ,surprise is also greatly modified1 and one is less liable to become startled by unexpected sights or noises4 8,as far as ,i am individually concerned1 ,i am not bothering myself at present as to what the results of this emancipated condition may be4 ,i have no doubt that the perfect health aimed at by ,christian ,science may be one of the possibilities1 for ,i note a marked improvement in the way my stomach does its duty in assimilating the food ,i give it to handle1 and ,i am sure it works better to the sound of a song than under the friction of a frown4 ,neither am ,i wasting any of this precious time formulating an idea of a future existence or a future ,heaven4 ,the ,heaven that ,i have within myself is as attractive as any that has been promised or that ,i can imagine2 and ,i am willing to let the growth lead where it will1 as long as the anger and their brood have no part in misguiding it407#ie7 ,the older medicine used to speak of two ways1 lysis and crisis1 one gradual1 the other abrupt1 in which one might recover from a bodily disease4 ,in the spiritual realm there are also two ways1 one gradual1 the other sudden1 in which inner unification may occur4 ,tolstoy and ,bunyan may again serve us as examples1 examples1 as it happens1 of the gradual way1 though it must be confessed at the outset that it is hard to follow these windings of the hearts of others1 and one feels that their words do not reveal their total secret4 ,howe'er this be1 ,tolstoy1 pursuing his unending questioning1 seemed to come to one insight after another4 ,first he perceived that his conviction that life was meaningless took only this finite life into account4 ,he was looking for the value of one finite term in that of another1 and the whole result could only be one of those indeterminate equations in mathematics which end with #jj4 ,yet this is as far as the reasoning intellect by itself can go1 unless irrational sentiment or faith brings in the infinite4 ,believe in the infinite as common people do1 and life grows possible again4 8,since mankind has existed1 wherever life has been1 there also has been the faith that gave the possibility of living4 ,faith is the sense of life1 that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself1 but continues to live on4 ,it is the force whereby we live4 ,if ,man did not believe that he must live for something1 he would not live at all4 ,the idea of an infinite ,god1 of the divinity of the soul1 of the union of men's actions with ,god--these are ideas elaborated in the infinite secret depths of human thought4 ,they are ideas without which there would be no life1 without which ,i myself10 said ,tolstoy1 8would not exist4 ,i began to see that ,i had no right to rely on my individual reasoning and neglect these answers given by faith1 for they are the only answers to the question40 ,yet how believe as the common people believe1 steeped as they are in grossest superstition8 ,it is impossible1--but yet their life6 their life6 ,it is normal4 ,it is happy6 ,it is an answer to the question6 ,little by little1 ,tolstoy came to the settled conviction--he says it took him two years to arrive there--that his trouble had not been with life in general1 not with the common life of common men1 but with the life of the upper1 intellectual1 artistic classes1 the life which he had personally always led1 the cerebral life1 the life of conventionality1 artificiality1 and personal ambition4 ,he had been living wrongly and must change4 ,to work for animal needs1 to abjure lies and vanities1 to relieve common wants1 to be simple1 to believe in ,god1 therein lay happiness again4 8,i remember10 he says1 8one day in early spring1 ,i was alone in the forest1 lending my ear to its mysterious noises4 ,i listened1 and my thought went back to what for these three years it always was busy with--the quest of ,god4 ,but the idea of him1 ,i said1 how did ,i ever come by the idea8 8,and again there arose in me1 with this thought1 glad aspirations towards life4 ,everything in me awoke and received a meaning4444 ,why do ,i look farther8 a voice within me asked4 ,he is there3 he1 without whom one cannot live4 ,to acknowledge ,god and to live are one and the same thing4 ,god is what life is4 ,well1 then6 live1 seek ,god1 and there will be no life without him4444 8,after this1 things cleared up within me and about me better than ever1 and the light has never wholly died away4 ,i was saved from suicide4 ,just how or when the change took place ,i cannot tell4 ,but as insensibly and gradually as the force of life had been annulled within me1 and ,i had reached my moral deathbed1 just as gradually and imperceptibly did the energy of life come back4 ,and what was strange was that this energy that came back was nothing new4 ,it was my ancient juvenile force of faith1 the belief that the sole purpose of my life was to be better4 ,i gave up the life of the conventional world1 recognizing it to be no life1 but a parody on life1 which its superfluities simply keep us from comprehending10--and ,tolstoy thereupon embraced the life of the peasants1 and has felt right and happy1 or at least relatively so1 ever since47#if7 ,as ,i interpret his melancholy1 then1 it was not merely an accidental vitiation of his humors1 though it was doubtless also that4 ,it was logically called for by the clash between his inner character and his outer activities and aims4 ,although a literary artist1 ,tolstoy was one of those primitive oaks of men to whom the superfluities and insincerities1 the cupidities1 complications1 and cruelties of our polite civilization are profoundly unsatisfying1 and for whom the eternal veracities lie with more natural and animal things4 ,his crisis was the getting of his soul in order1 the discovery of its genuine habitat and vocation1 the escape from falsehoods into what for him were ways of truth4 ,it was a case of heterogeneous personality tardily and slowly finding its unity and level4 ,and though not many of us can imitate ,tolstoy1 not having enough1 perhaps1 of the aboriginal human marrow in our bones1 most of us may at least feel as if it might be better for us if we could4 ,bunyan's recovery seems to have been even slower4 ,for years together he was alternately haunted with texts of ,scripture1 now up and now down1 but at last with an ever growing relief in his salvation through the blood of ,christ4 8,my peace would be in and out twenty times a day2 comfort now and trouble presently2 peace now and before ,i could go a furlong as full of guilt and fear as ever heart could hold40 ,when a good text comes home to him1 8,this10 he writes1 8gave me good encouragement for the space of two or three hours02 or 8,this was a good day to me1 ,i hope ,i shall not forget it02 or 8,the glory of these words was then so weighty on me that ,i was ready to swoon as ,i sat2 yet not with grief and trouble1 but with solid joy and peace02 or 8,this made a strange seizure on my spirit2 it brought light with it1 and commanded a silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that before did use1 like masterless hellhounds1 to roar and bellow and make a hideous noise within me4 ,it showed me that ,jesus ,christ had not quite forsaken and cast off my ,soul40 ,such periods accumulate until he can write3 8,and now remained only the hinder part of the tempest1 for the thunder was gone beyond me1 only some drops would still remain1 that now and then would fall upon me02--and at last3 8,now did my chains fall off my legs indeed2 ,i was loosed from my afflictions and irons2 my temptations also fled away2 so that from that time1 those dreadful ,scriptures of ,god left off to trouble me2 now went ,i also home rejoicing1 for the grace and love of ,god4444 ,now could ,i see myself in ,heaven and ,earth at once2 in ,heaven by my ,christ1 by my ,head1 by my ,righteousness and ,life1 though on ,earth by my body or person4444 ,christ was a precious ,christ to my soul that night2 ,i could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through ,christ40 ,bunyan became a minister of the gospel1 and in spite of his neurotic constitution1 and of the twelve years he lay in prison for his non conformity1 his life was turned to active use4 ,he was a peacemaker and doer of good1 and the immortal ,allegory which he wrote has brought the very spirit of religious patience home to ,english hearts4 ,but neither ,bunyan nor ,tolstoy could become what we have called healthy minded4 ,they had drunk too deeply of the cup of bitterness ever to forget its taste1 and their redemption is into a universe two stories deep4 ,each of them realized a good which broke the effective edge of his sadness2 yet the sadness was preserved as a minor ingredient in the heart of the faith by which it was overcome4 ,the fact of interest for us is that as a matter of fact they could and did find something welling up in the inner reaches of their consciousness1 by which such extreme sadness could be overcome4 ,tolstoy does well to talk of it as that by which men live2 for that is exactly what it is1 a stimulus1 an excitement1 a faith1 a force that reinfuses the positive willingness to live1 even in full presence of the evil perceptions that erewhile made life seem unbearable4 ,for ,tolstoy's perceptions of evil appear within their sphere to have remained unmodified4 ,his later works show him implacable to the whole system of official values3 the ignobility of fashionable life2 the infamies of empire2 the spuriousness of the church1 the vain conceit of the professions2 the meannesses and cruelties that go with great success2 and every other pompous crime and lying institution of this world4 ,to all patience with such things his experience has been for him a permanent ministry of death4 ,bunyan also leaves this world to the enemy4 8,i must first pass a sentence of death10 he says1 8upon everything that can properly be called a thing of this life1 even to reckon myself1 my wife1 my children1 my health1 my enjoyments1 and all1 as dead to me1 and myself as dead to them2 to trust in ,god through ,christ1 as touching the world to come2 and as touching this world1 to count the grave my house1 to make my bed in darkness1 and to say to corruption1 ,thou art my father1 and to the worm1 ,thou art my mother and sister4444 ,the parting with my wife and my poor children hath often been to me as the pulling of my flesh from my bones1 especially my poor blind child who lay nearer my heart than all ,i had besides4 ,poor child1 thought ,i1 what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world6 ,thou must be beaten1 must beg1 suffer hunger1 cold1 nakedness1 and a thousand calamities1 though ,i cannot now endure that the wind should blow upon thee4 ,but yet ,i must venture you all with ,god1 though it goeth to the quick to leave you407#ig7 ,the 8hue of resolution0 is there1 but the full flood of ecstatic liberation seems never to have poured over poor ,john ,bunyan's soul4 ,these examples may suffice to acquaint us in a general way with the phenomenon technically called 8,conversion40 ,in the next lecture ,i shall invite you to study its peculiarities and concomitants in some detail4 ,,lecture ,,ix4 ,,conversion4 ,to be converted1 to be regenerated1 to receive grace1 to experience religion1 to gain an assurance1 are so many phrases which denote the process1 gradual or sudden1 by which a self hitherto divided1 and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy1 becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy1 in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities4 ,this at least is what conversion signifies in general terms1 whether or not we believe that a direct divine operation is needed to bring such a moral change about4 ,before entering upon a minuter study of the process1 let me enliven our understanding of the definition by a concrete example4 ,i choose the quaint case of an unlettered man1 ,stephen ,h4 ,bradley1 whose experience is related in a scarce ,american pamphlet47#ih7 ,i select this case because it shows how in these inner alterations one may find one unsuspected depth below another1 as if the possibilities of character lay disposed in a series of layers or shells1 of whose existence we have no premonitory knowledge4 ,bradley thought that he had been already fully converted at the age of fourteen4 8,i thought ,i saw the ,saviour1 by faith1 in human shape1 for about one second in the room1 with arms extended1 appearing to say to me1 ,come4 ,the next day ,i rejoiced with trembling2 soon after1 my happiness was so great that ,i said that ,i wanted to die2 this world had no place in my affections1 as ,i knew of1 and every day appeared as solemn to me as the ,sabbath4 ,i had an ardent desire that all mankind might feel as ,i did2 ,i wanted to have them all love ,god supremely4 ,previous to this time ,i was very selfish and selfrighteous2 but now ,i desired the welfare of all mankind1 and could with a feeling heart forgive my worst enemies1 and ,i felt as if ,i should be willing to bear the scoffs and sneers of any person1 and suffer anything for ,his sake1 if ,i could be the means in the hands of ,god1 of the conversion of one soul40 ,nine years later1 in #ahbi1 ,mr4 ,bradley heard of a revival of religion that had begun in his neighborhood4 8,many of the young converts10 he says1 8would come to me when in meeting and ask me if ,i had religion1 and my reply generally was1 ,i hope ,i have4 ,this did not appear to satisfy them2 they said they knew they had it4 ,i requested them to pray for me1 thinking with myself1 that if ,i had not got religion now1 after so long a time professing to be a ,christian1 that it was time ,i had1 and hoped their prayers would be answered in my behalf4 8,one ,sabbath1 ,i went to hear the ,methodist at the ,academy4 ,he spoke of the ushering in of the day of general judgment2 and he set it forth in such a solemn and terrible manner as ,i never heard before4 ,the scene of that day appeared to be taking place1 and so awakened were all the powers of my mind that1 like ,felix1 ,i trembled involuntarily on the bench where ,i was sitting1 though ,i felt nothing at heart4 ,the next day evening ,i went to hear him again4 ,he took his text from ,revelation3 #8,and ,i saw the dead1 small and great1 stand before ,god4' ,and he represented the terrors of that day in such a manner that it appeared as if it would melt the heart of stone4 ,when he finished his discourse1 an old gentleman turned to me and said1 #8,this is what ,i call preaching4' ,i thought the same2 but my feelings were still unmoved by what he said1 and ,i did not enjoy religion1 but ,i believe he did4 8,i will now relate my experience of the power of the ,holy ,spirit which took place on the same night4 ,had any person told me previous to this that ,i could have experienced the power of the ,holy ,spirit in the manner which ,i did1 ,i could not have believed it1 and should have thought the person deluded that told me so4 ,i went directly home after the meeting1 and when ,i got home ,i wondered what made me feel so stupid4 ,i retired to rest soon after ,i got home1 and felt indifferent to the things of religion until ,i began to be exercised by the ,holy ,spirit1 which began in about five minutes after1 in the following manner3-- 8,at first1 ,i began to feel my heart beat very quick all on a sudden1 which made me at first think that perhaps something is going to ail me1 though ,i was not alarmed1 for ,i felt no pain4 ,my heart increased in its beating1 which soon convinced me that it was the ,holy ,spirit from the effect it had on me4 ,i began to feel exceedingly happy and humble1 and such a sense of unworthiness as ,i never felt before4 ,i could not very well help speaking out1 which ,i did1 and said1 ,lord1 ,i do not deserve this happiness1 or words to that effect1 while there was a stream 7resembling air in feeling7 came into my mouth and heart in a more sensible manner than that of drinking anything1 which continued1 as near as ,i could judge1 five minutes or more1 which appeared to be the cause of such a palpitation of my heart4 ,it took complete possession of my soul1 and ,i am certain that ,i desired the ,lord1 while in the midst of it1 not to give me any more happiness1 for it seemed as if ,i could not contain what ,i had got4 ,my heart seemed as if it would burst1 but it did not stop until ,i felt as if ,i was unutterably full of the love and grace of ,god4 ,in the mean time while thus exercised1 a thought arose in my mind1 what can it mean8 and all at once1 as if to answer it1 my memory became exceedingly clear1 and it appeared to me just as if the ,new ,testament was placed open before me1 eighth chapter of ,romans1 and as light as if some candle lighted was held for me to read the #bfth and #bgth verses of that chapter1 and ,i read these words3 #8,the ,spirit helpeth our infirmities with groanings which cannot be uttered4' ,and all the time that my heart was abeating1 it made me groan like a person in distress1 which was not very easy to stop1 though ,i was in no pain at all1 and my brother being in bed in another room came and opened the door1 and asked me if ,i had got the toothache4 ,i told him no1 and that he might get to sleep4 ,i tried to stop4 ,i felt unwilling to go to sleep myself1 ,i was so happy1 fearing ,i should lose it--thinking within myself #8,my willing soul would stay ,in such a frame as this4' ,and while ,i lay reflecting1 after my heart stopped beating1 feeling as if my soul was full of the ,holy ,spirit1 ,i thought that perhaps there might be angels hovering round my bed4 ,i felt just as if ,i wanted to converse with them1 and finally ,i spoke1 saying1 #8,o ye affectionate angels6 how is it that ye can take so much interest in our welfare1 and we take so little interest in our own4' ,after this1 with difficulty ,i got to sleep2 and when ,i awoke in the morning my first thoughts were3 ,what has become of my happiness8 and1 feeling a degree of it in my heart1 ,i asked for more1 which was given to me as quick as thought4 ,i then got up to dress myself1 and found to my surprise that ,i could but just stand4 ,it appeared to me as if it was a little heaven upon earth4 ,my soul felt as completely raised above the fears of death as of going to sleep2 and like a bird in a cage1 ,i had a desire1 if it was the will of ,god1 to get released from my body and to dwell with ,christ1 though willing to live to do good to others1 and to warn sinners to repent4 ,i went downstairs feeling as solemn as if ,i had lost all my friends1 and thinking with myself1 that ,i would not let my parents know it until ,i had first looked into the ,testament4 ,i went directly to the shelf and looked into it1 at the eighth chapter of ,romans1 and every verse seemed to almost speak and to confirm it to be truly the ,word of ,god1 and as if my feelings corresponded with the meaning of the word4 ,i then told my parents of it1 and told them that ,i thought that they must see that when ,i spoke1 that it was not my own voice1 for it appeared so to me4 ,my speech seemed entirely under the control of the ,spirit within me2 ,i do not mean that the words which ,i spoke were not my own1 for they were4 ,i thought that ,i was influenced similar to the ,apostles on the day of ,pentecost 7with the exception of having power to give it to others1 and doing what they did74 ,after breakfast ,i went round to converse with my neighbors on religion1 which ,i could not have been hired to have done before this1 and at their request ,i prayed with them1 though ,i had never prayed in public before4 8,i now feel as if ,i had discharged my duty by telling the truth1 and hope by the blessing of ,god1 it may do some good to all who shall read it4 ,he has fulfilled his promise in sending the ,holy ,spirit down into our hearts1 or mine at least1 and ,i now defy all the ,deists and ,atheists in the world to shake my faith in ,christ40 ,so much for ,mr4 ,bradley and his conversion1 of the effect of which upon his later life we gain no information4 ,now for a minuter survey of the constituent elements of the conversion process4 ,if you open the chapter on ,association1 of any treatise on ,psychology1 you will read that a man's ideas1 aims1 and objects form diverse internal groups and systems1 relatively independent of one another4 ,each 8aim0 which he follows awakens a certain specific kind of interested excitement1 and gathers a certain group of ideas together in subordination to it as its associates2 and if the aims and excitements are distinct in kind1 their groups of ideas may have little in common4 ,when one group is present and engrosses the interest1 all the ideas connected with other groups may be excluded from the mental field4 ,the ,president of the ,united ,states when1 with paddle1 gun1 and fishingrod1 he goes camping in the wilderness for a vacation1 changes his system of ideas from top to bottom4 ,the presidential anxieties have lapsed into the background entirely2 the official habits are replaced by the habits of a son of nature1 and those who knew the man only as the strenuous magistrate would not 8know him for the same person0 if they saw him as the camper4 ,if now he should never go back1 and never again suffer political interests to gain dominion over him1 he would be for practical intents and purposes a permanently transformed being4 ,our ordinary alterations of character1 as we pass from one of our aims to another1 are not commonly called transformations1 because each of them is so rapidly succeeded by another in the reverse direction2 but whenever one aim grows so stable as to expel definitively its previous rivals from the individual's life1 we tend to speak of the phenomenon1 and perhaps to wonder at it1 as a 8transformation40 ,these alternations are the completest of the ways in which a self may be divided4 ,a less complete way is the simultaneous coexistence of two or more different groups of aims1 of which one practically holds the right of way and instigates activity1 whilst the others are only pious wishes1 and never practically come to anything4 ,saint ,augustine's aspirations to a purer life1 in our last lecture1 were for a while an example4 ,another would be the ,president in his full pride of office1 wondering whether it were not all vanity1 and whether the life of a woodchopper were not the wholesomer destiny4 ,such fleeting aspirations are mere velleitates1 whimsies4 ,they exist on the remoter outskirts of the mind1 and the real self of the man1 the centre of his energies1 is occupied with an entirely different system4 ,as life goes on1 there is a constant change of our interests1 and a consequent change of place in our systems of ideas1 from more central to more peripheral1 and from more peripheral to more central parts of consciousness4 ,i remember1 for instance1 that one evening when ,i was a youth1 my father read aloud from a ,boston newspaper that part of ,lord ,gifford's will which founded these four lectureships4 ,at that time ,i did not think of being a teacher of philosophy3 and what ,i listened to was as remote from my own life as if it related to the planet ,mars4 ,yet here ,i am1 with the ,gifford system part and parcel of my very self1 and all my energies1 for the time being1 devoted to successfully identifying myself with it4 ,my soul stands now planted in what once was for it a practically unreal object1 and speaks from it as from its proper habitat and centre4 ,when ,i say 8,soul10 you need not take me in the ontological sense unless you prefer to2 for although ontological language is instinctive in such matters1 yet ,buddhists or ,humians can perfectly well describe the facts in the phenomenal terms which are their favorites4 ,for them the soul is only a succession of fields of consciousness3 yet there is found in each field a part1 or subfield1 which figures as focal and contains the excitement1 and from which1 as from a centre1 the aim seems to be taken4 ,talking of this part1 we involuntarily apply words of perspective to distinguish it from the rest1 words like 8here10 8this10 8now10 8mine10 or 8me02 and we ascribe to the other parts the positions 8there10 8then10 8that10 8his0 or 8thine10 8it10 8not me40 ,but a 8here0 can change to a 8there10 and a 8there0 become a 8here10 and what was 8mine0 and what was 8not mine0 change their places4 ,what brings such changes about is the way in which emotional excitement alters4 ,things hot and vital to us today are cold tomorrow4 ,it is as if seen from the hot parts of the field that the other parts appear to us1 and from these hot parts personal desire and volition make their sallies4 ,they are in short the centres of our dynamic energy1 whereas the cold parts leave us indifferent and passive in proportion to their coldness4 ,whether such language be rigorously exact is for the present of no importance4 ,it is exact enough1 if you recognize from your own experience the facts which ,i seek to designate by it4 ,now there may be great oscillation in the emotional interest1 and the hot places may shift before one almost as rapidly as the sparks that run through burntup paper4 ,then we have the wavering and divided self we heard so much of in the previous lecture4 ,or the focus of excitement and heat1 the point of view from which the aim is taken1 may come to lie permanently within a certain system2 and then1 if the change be a religious one1 we call it a conversion1 especially if it be by crisis1 or sudden4 ,let us hereafter1 in speaking of the hot place in a man's consciousness1 the group of ideas to which he devotes himself1 and from which he works1 call it the habitual centre of his personal energy4 ,it makes a great difference to a man whether one set of his ideas1 or another1 be the centre of his energy2 and it makes a great difference1 as regards any set of ideas which he may possess1 whether they become central or remain peripheral in him4 ,to say that a man is 8converted0 means1 in these terms1 that religious ideas1 previously peripheral in his consciousness1 now take a central place1 and that religious aims form the habitual centre of his energy4 ,now if you ask of psychology just how the excitement shifts in a man's mental system1 and why aims that were peripheral become at a certain moment central1 psychology has to reply that although she can give a general description of what happens1 she is unable in a given case to account accurately for all the single forces at work4 ,neither an outside observer nor the ,subject who undergoes the process can explain fully how particular experiences are able to change one's centre of energy so decisively1 or why they so often have to bide their hour to do so4 ,we have a thought1 or we perform an act1 repeatedly1 but on a certain day the real meaning of the thought peals through us for the first time1 or the act has suddenly turned into a moral impossibility4 ,all we know is that there are dead feelings1 dead ideas1 and cold beliefs1 and there are hot and live ones2 and when one grows hot and alive within us1 everything has to re crystallize about it4 ,we may say that the heat and liveliness mean only the 8motor efficacy10 long deferred but now operative1 of the idea2 but such talk itself is only circumlocution1 for whence the sudden motor efficacy8 ,and our explanations then get so vague and general that one realizes all the more the intense individuality of the whole phenomenon4 ,in the end we fall back on the hackneyed symbolism of a mechanical equilibrium4 ,a mind is a system of ideas1 each with the excitement it arouses1 and with tendencies impulsive and inhibitive1 which mutually check or reinforce one another4 ,the collection of ideas alters by subtraction or by addition in the course of experience1 and the tendencies alter as the organism gets more aged4 ,a mental system may be undermined or weakened by this interstitial alteration just as a building is1 and yet for a time keep upright by dead habit4 ,but a new perception1 a sudden emotional shock1 or an occasion which lays bare the organic alteration1 will make the whole fabric fall together2 and then the centre of gravity sinks into an attitude more stable1 for the new ideas that reach the centre in the rearrangement seem now to be locked there1 and the new structure remains permanent4 ,formed associations of ideas and habits are usually factors of retardation in such changes of equilibrium4 ,new information1 however acquired1 plays an accelerating part in the changes2 and the slow mutation of our instincts and propensities1 under the 8unimaginable touch of time0 has an enormous influence4 ,moreover1 all these influences may work subconsciously or half unconsciously47#ii7 ,and when you get a ,subject in whom the subconscious life--of which ,i must speak more fully soon--is largely developed1 and in whom motives habitually ripen in silence1 you get a case of which you can never give a full account1 and in which1 both to the ,subject and the onlookers1 there may appear an element of marvel4 ,emotional occasions1 especially violent ones1 are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements4 ,the sudden and explosive ways in which love1 jealousy1 guilt1 fear1 remorse1 or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody47#ajj7 ,hope1 happiness1 security1 resolve1 emotions characteristic of conversion1 can be equally explosive4 ,and emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them4 ,in his recent work on the ,psychology of ,religion1 ,professor ,starbuck of ,california has shown by a statistical inquiry how closely parallel in its manifestations the ordinary 8conversion0 which occurs in young people brought up in evangelical circles is to that growth into a larger spiritual life which is a normal phase of adolescence in every class of human beings4 ,the age is the same1 falling usually between fourteen and seventeen4 ,the symptoms are the same1--sense of incompleteness and imperfection2 brooding1 depression1 morbid introspection1 and sense of sin2 anxiety about the hereafter2 distress over doubts1 and the like4 ,and the result is the same1--a happy relief and objectivity1 as the confidence in self gets greater through the adjustment of the faculties to the wider outlook4 ,in spontaneous religious awakening1 apart from revivalistic examples1 and in the ordinary storm and stress and moultingtime of adolescence1 we also may meet with mystical experiences1 astonishing the subjects by their suddenness1 just as in revivalistic conversion4 ,the analogy1 in fact1 is complete2 and ,starbuck's conclusion as to these ordinary youthful conversions would seem to be the only sound one3 ,conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon1 incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity4 8,theology10 says ,dr4 ,starbuck1 8takes the adolescent tendencies and builds upon them2 it sees that the essential thing in adolescent growth is bringing the person out of childhood into the new life of maturity and personal insight4 ,it accordingly brings those means to bear which will intensify the normal tendencies4 ,it shortens up the period of duration of storm and stress40 ,the conversion phenomena of 8conviction of sin0 last1 by this investigator's statistics1 about one fifth as long as the periods of adolescent storm and stress phenomena of which he also got statistics1 but they are very much more intense4 ,bodily accompaniments1 loss of sleep and appetite1 for example1 are much more frequent in them4 8,the essential distinction appears to be that conversion intensifies but shortens the period by bringing the person to a definite crisis407#aja7 ,the conversions which ,dr4 ,starbuck here has in mind are of course mainly those of very commonplace persons1 kept true to a preappointed type by instruction1 appeal1 and example4 ,the particular form which they affect is the result of suggestion and imitation47#ajb7 ,if they went through their growthcrisis in other faiths and other countries1 although the essence of the change would be the same 7since it is one in the main so inevitable71 its accidents would be different4 ,in ,catholic lands1 for example1 and in our own ,episcopalian sects1 no such anxiety and conviction of sin is usual as in sects that encourage revivals4 ,the sacraments being more relied on in these more strictly ecclesiastical bodies1 the individual's personal acceptance of salvation needs less to be accentuated and led up to4 ,but every imitative phenomenon must once have had its original1 and ,i propose that for the future we keep as close as may be to the more first hand and original forms of experience4 ,these are more likely to be found in sporadic adult cases4 ,professor ,leuba1 in a valuable article on the psychology of conversion17#ajc7 subordinates the theological aspect of the religious life almost entirely to its moral aspect4 ,the religious sense he defines as 8the feeling of unwholeness1 of moral imperfection1 of sin1 to use the technical word1 accompanied by the yearning after the peace of unity40 8,the word #8religion1' 0 he says1 8is getting more and more to signify the conglomerate of desires and emotions springing from the sense of sin and its release02 and he gives a large number of examples1 in which the sin ranges from drunkenness to spiritual pride1 to show that the sense of it may beset one and crave relief as urgently as does the anguish of the sickened flesh or any form of physical misery4 ,undoubtedly this conception covers an immense number of cases4 ,a good one to use as an example is that of ,mr4 ,s4 ,h4 ,hadley1 who after his conversion became an active and useful rescuer of drunkards in ,new ,york4 ,his experience runs as follows3-- 8,one ,tuesday evening ,i sat in a saloon in ,harlem1 a homeless1 friendless1 dying drunkard4 ,i had pawned or sold everything that would bring a drink4 ,i could not sleep unless ,i was dead drunk4 ,i had not eaten for days1 and for four nights preceding ,i had suffered with delirium tremens1 or the horrors1 from midnight till morning4 ,i had often said1 #8,i will never be a tramp4 ,i will never be cornered1 for when that time comes1 if ever it comes1 ,i will find a home in the bottom of the river4' ,but the ,lord so ordered it that when that time did come ,i was not able to walk one quarter of the way to the river4 ,as ,i sat there thinking1 ,i seemed to feel some great and mighty presence4 ,i did not know then what it was4 ,i did learn afterwards that it was ,jesus1 the sinner's friend4 ,i walked up to the bar and pounded it with my fist till ,i made the glasses rattle4 ,those who stood by drinking looked on with scornful curiosity4 ,i said ,i would never take another drink1 if ,i died on the street1 and really ,i felt as though that would happen before morning4 ,something said1 #8,if you want to keep this promise1 go and have yourself locked up4' ,i went to the nearest station house and had myself locked up4 8,i was placed in a narrow cell1 and it seemed as though all the demons that could find room came in that place with me4 ,this was not all the company ,i had1 either4 ,no1 praise the ,lord2 that dear ,spirit that came to me in the saloon was present1 and said1 ,pray4 ,i did pray1 and though ,i did not feel any great help1 ,i kept on praying4 ,as soon as ,i was able to leave my cell ,i was taken to the police court and remanded back to the cell4 ,i was finally released1 and found my way to my brother's house1 where every care was given me4 ,while lying in bed the admonishing ,spirit never left me1 and when ,i arose the following ,sabbath morning ,i felt that day would decide my fate1 and toward evening it came into my head to go to ,jerry ,m',auley's ,mission4 ,i went4 ,the house was packed1 and with great difficulty ,i made my way to the space near the platform4 ,there ,i saw the apostle to the drunkard and the outcast--that man of ,god1 ,jerry ,m',auley4 ,he rose1 and amid deep silence told his experience4 ,there was a sincerity about this man that carried conviction with it1 and ,i found myself saying1 #8,i wonder if ,god can save me8' ,i listened to the testimony of twentyfive or thirty persons1 every one of whom had been saved from rum1 and ,i made up my mind that ,i would be saved or die right there4 ,when the invitation was given1 ,i knelt down with a crowd of drunkards4 ,jerry made the first prayer4 ,then ,mrs4 ,m',auley prayed fervently for us4 ,oh1 what a conflict was going on for my poor soul6 ,a blessed whisper said1 #8,come'2 the devil said1 #8,be careful4' ,i halted but a moment1 and then1 with a breaking heart1 ,i said1 #8,dear ,jesus1 can you help me8' ,never with mortal tongue can ,i describe that moment4 ,although up to that moment my soul had been filled with indescribable gloom1 ,i felt the glorious brightness of the noonday sun shine into my heart4 ,i felt ,i was a free man4 ,oh1 the precious feeling of safety1 of freedom1 of resting on ,jesus6 ,i felt that ,christ with all his brightness and power had come into my life2 that1 indeed1 old things had passed away and all things had become new4 8,from that moment till now ,i have never wanted a drink of whiskey1 and ,i have never seen money enough to make me take one4 ,i promised ,god that night that if he would take away the appetite for strong drink1 ,i would work for him all my life4 ,he has done his part1 and ,i have been trying to do mine407#ajd7 ,dr4 ,leuba rightly remarks that there is little doctrinal theology in such an experience1 which starts with the absolute need of a higher helper1 and ends with the sense that he has helped us4 ,he gives other cases of drunkards' conversions which are purely ethical1 containing1 as recorded1 no theological beliefs whatever4 ,john ,b4 ,gough's case1 for instance1 is practically1 says ,dr4 ,leuba1 the conversion of an atheist--neither ,god nor ,jesus being mentioned47#aje7 ,but in spite of the importance of this type of regeneration1 with little or no intellectual readjustment1 this writer surely makes it too exclusive4 ,it corresponds to the subjectively centred form of morbid melancholy1 of which ,bunyan and ,alline were examples4 ,but we saw in our seventh lecture that there are objective forms of melancholy also1 in which the lack of rational meaning of the universe1 and of life anyhow1 is the burden that weighs upon one--you remember ,tolstoy's case47#ajf7 ,so there are distinct elements in conversion1 and their relations to individual lives deserve to be discriminated47#ajg7 ,some persons1 for instance1 never are1 and possibly never under any circumstances could be1 converted4 ,religious ideas cannot become the centre of their spiritual energy4 ,they may be excellent persons1 servants of ,god in practical ways1 but they are not children of his kingdom4 ,they are either incapable of imagining the invisible2 or else1 in the language of devotion1 they are lifelong subjects of 8barrenness0 and 8dryness40 ,such inaptitude for religious faith may in some cases be intellectual in its origin4 ,their religious faculties may be checked in their natural tendency to expand1 by beliefs about the world that are inhibitive1 the pessimistic and materialistic beliefs1 for example1 within which so many good souls1 who in former times would have freely indulged their religious propensities1 find themselves nowadays1 as it were1 frozen2 or the agnostic vetoes upon faith as something weak and shameful1 under which so many of us today lie cowering1 afraid to use our instincts4 ,in many persons such inhibitions are never overcome4 ,to the end of their days they refuse to believe1 their personal energy never gets to its religious centre1 and the latter remains inactive in perpetuity4 ,in other persons the trouble is profounder4 ,there are men ansthetic on the religious side1 deficient in that category of sensibility4 ,just as a bloodless organism can never1 in spite of all its goodwill1 attain to the reckless 8animal spirits0 enjoyed by those of sanguine temperament2 so the nature which is spiritually barren may admire and envy faith in others1 but can never compass the enthusiasm and peace which those who are temperamentally qualified for faith enjoy4 ,all this may1 however1 turn out eventually to have been a matter of temporary inhibition4 ,even late in life some thaw1 some release may take place1 some bolt be shot back in the barrenest breast1 and the man's hard heart may soften and break into religious feeling4 ,such cases more than any others suggest the idea that sudden conversion is by miracle4 ,so long as they exist1 we must not imagine ourselves to deal with irretrievably fixed classes4 ,now there are two forms of mental occurrence in human beings1 which lead to a striking difference in the conversion process1 a difference to which ,professor ,starbuck has called attention4 ,you know how it is when you try to recollect a forgotten name4 ,usually you help the recall by working for it1 by mentally running over the places1 persons1 and things with which the word was connected4 ,but sometimes this effort fails3 you feel then as if the harder you tried the less hope there would be1 as though the name were jammed1 and pressure in its direction only kept it all the more from rising4 ,and then the opposite expedient often succeeds4 ,give up the effort entirely2 think of something altogether different1 and in half an hour the lost name comes sauntering into your mind1 as ,emerson says1 as carelessly as if it had never been invited4 ,some hidden process was started in you by the effort1 which went on after the effort ceased1 and made the result come as if it came spontaneously4 ,a certain music teacher1 says ,dr4 ,starbuck1 says to her pupils after the thing to be done has been clearly pointed out1 and unsuccessfully attempted3 8,stop trying and it will do itself607#ajh7 ,there is thus a conscious and voluntary way and an involuntary and unconscious way in which mental results may get accomplished2 and we find both ways exemplified in the history of conversion1 giving us two types1 which ,starbuck calls the volitional type and the type by self surrender respectively4 ,in the volitional type the regenerative change is usually gradual1 and consists in the building up1 piece by piece1 of a new set of moral and spiritual habits4 ,but there are always critical points here at which the movement forward seems much more rapid4 ,this psychological fact is abundantly illustrated by ,dr4 ,starbuck4 ,our education in any practical accomplishment proceeds apparently by jerks and starts1 just as the growth of our physical bodies does4 8,an athlete 444 sometimes awakens suddenly to an understanding of the fine points of the game and to a real enjoyment of it1 just as the convert awakens to an appreciation of religion4 ,if he keeps on engaging in the sport1 there may come a day when all at once the game plays itself through him--when he loses himself in some great contest4 ,in the same way1 a musician may suddenly reach a point at which pleasure in the technique of the art entirely falls away1 and in some moment of inspiration he becomes the instrument through which music flows4 ,the writer has chanced to hear two different married persons1 both of whose wedded lives had been beautiful from the beginning1 relate that not until a year or more after marriage did they awake to the full blessedness of married life4 ,so it is with the religious experience of these persons we are studying407#aji7 ,we shall erelong hear still more remarkable illustrations of subconsciously maturing processes eventuating in results of which we suddenly grow conscious4 ,sir ,william ,hamilton and ,professor ,laycock of ,edinburgh were among the first to call attention to this class of effects2 but ,dr4 ,carpenter first1 unless ,i am mistaken1 introduced the term 8unconscious cerebration10 which has since then been a popular phrase of explanation4 ,the facts are now known to us far more extensively than he could know them1 and the adjective 8unconscious10 being for many of them almost certainly a misnomer1 is better replaced by the vaguer term 8subconscious0 or 8subliminal40 ,of the volitional type of conversion it would be easy to give examples17#aaj7 but they are as a rule less interesting than those of the selfsurrender type1 in which the subconscious effects are more abundant and often startling4 ,i will therefore hurry to the latter1 the more so because the difference between the two types is after all not radical4 ,even in the most voluntarily builtup sort of regeneration there are passages of partial selfsurrender interposed2 and in the great majority of all cases1 when the will has done its uttermost towards bringing one close to the complete unification aspired after1 it seems that the very last step must be left to other forces and performed without the help of its activity4 ,in other words1 selfsurrender becomes then indispensable4 8,the personal will10 says ,dr4 ,starbuck1 8must be given up4 ,in many cases relief persistently refuses to come until the person ceases to resist1 or to make an effort in the direction he desires to go40 8,i had said ,i would not give up2 but when my will was broken1 it was all over10 writes one of ,starbuck's correspondents4--,another says3 8,i simply said3 #8,lord1 ,i have done all ,i can2 ,i leave the whole matter with ,thee2' and immediately there came to me a great peace40--,another3 8,all at once it occurred to me that ,i might be saved1 too1 if ,i would stop trying to do it all myself1 and follow ,jesus3 somehow ,i lost my load40--,another3 8,i finally ceased to resist1 and gave myself up1 though it was a hard struggle4 ,gradually the feeling came over me that ,i had done my part1 and ,god was willing to do his407#aaa7--8,lord1 ,thy will be done2 damn or save60 cries ,john ,nelson17#aab7 exhausted with the anxious struggle to escape damnation2 and at that moment his soul was filled with peace4 ,dr4 ,starbuck gives an interesting1 and it seems to me a true1 account--so far as conceptions so schematic can claim truth at all--of the reasons why selfsurrender at the last moment should be so indispensable4 ,to begin with1 there are two things in the mind of the candidate for conversion3 first1 the present incompleteness or wrongness1 the 8sin0 which he is eager to escape from2 and1 second1 the positive ideal which he longs to compass4 ,now with most of us the sense of our present wrongness is a far more distinct piece of our consciousness than is the imagination of any positive ideal we can aim at4 ,in a majority of cases1 indeed1 the 8sin0 almost exclusively engrosses the attention1 so that conversion is 8a process of struggling away from sin rather than of striving towards righteousness407#aac7 ,a man's conscious wit and will1 so far as they strain towards the ideal1 are aiming at something only dimly and inaccurately imagined4 ,yet all the while the forces of mere organic ripening within him are going on towards their own prefigured result1 and his conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies behind the scenes1 which in their way work towards rearrangement2 and the rearrangement towards which all these deeper forces tend is pretty surely definite1 and definitely different from what he consciously conceives and determines4 ,it may consequently be actually interfered with 7jammed1 as it were1 like the lost word when we seek too energetically to recall it71 by his voluntary efforts slanting from the true direction4 ,starbuck seems to put his finger on the root of the matter when he says that to exercise the personal will is still to live in the region where the imperfect self is the thing most emphasized4 ,where1 on the contrary1 the subconscious forces take the lead1 it is more probably the better self in posse which directs the operation4 ,instead of being clumsily and vaguely aimed at from without1 it is then itself the organizing centre4 ,what then must the person do8 8,he must relax10 says ,dr4 ,starbuck1--8that is1 he must fall back on the larger ,power that makes for righteousness1 which has been welling up in his own being1 and let it finish in its own way the work it has begun4444 ,the act of yielding1 in this point of view1 is giving one's self over to the new life1 making it the centre of a new personality1 and living1 from within1 the truth of it which had before been viewed objectively407#aad7 8,man's extremity is ,god's opportunity0 is the theological way of putting this fact of the need of selfsurrender2 whilst the physiological way of stating it would be1 8,let one do all in one's power1 and one's nervous system will do the rest40 ,both statements acknowledge the same fact47#aae7 ,to state it in terms of our own symbolism3 ,when the new centre of personal energy has been subconsciously incubated so long as to be just ready to open into flower1 8hands off0 is the only word for us1 it must burst forth unaided6 ,we have used the vague and abstract language of psychology4 ,but since1 in any terms1 the crisis described is the throwing of our conscious selves upon the mercy of powers which1 whatever they may be1 are more ideal than we are actually1 and make for our redemption1 you see why selfsurrender has been and always must be regarded as the vital turningpoint of the religious life1 so far as the religious life is spiritual and no affair of outer works and ritual and sacraments4 ,one may say that the whole development of ,christianity in inwardness has consisted in little more than the greater and greater emphasis attached to this crisis of self surrender4 ,from ,catholicism to ,lutheranism1 and then to ,calvinism2 from that to ,wesleyanism2 and from this1 outside of technical ,christianity altogether1 to pure 8liberalism0 or transcendental idealism1 whether or not of the mindcure type1 taking in the medival mystics1 the quietists1 the pietists1 and quakers by the way1 we can trace the stages of progress towards the idea of an immediate spiritual help1 experienced by the individual in his forlornness and standing in no essential need of doctrinal apparatus or propitiatory machinery4 ,psychology and religion are thus in perfect harmony up to this point1 since both admit that there are forces seemingly outside of the conscious individual that bring redemption to his life4 ,nevertheless psychology1 defining these forces as 8subconscious10 and speaking of their effects as due to 8incubation10 or 8cerebration10 implies that they do not transcend the individual's personality2 and herein she diverges from ,christian theology1 which insists that they are direct supernatural operations of the ,deity4 ,i propose to you that we do not yet consider this divergence final1 but leave the question for a while in abeyance--continued inquiry may enable us to get rid of some of the apparent discord4 ,revert1 then1 for a moment more to the psychology of selfsurrender4 ,when you find a man living on the ragged edge of his consciousness1 pent in to his sin and want and incompleteness1 and consequently inconsolable1 and then simply tell him that all is well with him1 that he must stop his worry1 break with his discontent1 and give up his anxiety1 you seem to him to come with pure absurdities4 ,the only positive consciousness he has tells him that all is not well1 and the better way you offer sounds simply as if you proposed to him to assert coldblooded falsehoods4 8,the will to believe0 cannot be stretched as far as that4 ,we can make ourselves more faithful to a belief of which we have the rudiments1 but we cannot create a belief out of whole cloth when our perception actively assures us of its opposite4 ,the better mind proposed to us comes in that case in the form of a pure negation of the only mind we have1 and we cannot actively will a pure negation4 ,there are only two ways in which it is possible to get rid of anger1 worry1 fear1 despair1 or other undesirable affections4 ,one is that an opposite affection should overpoweringly break over us1 and the other is by getting so exhausted with the struggle that we have to stop1--so we drop down1 give up1 and don't care any longer4 ,our emotional braincentres strike work1 and we lapse into a temporary apathy4 ,now there is documentary proof that this state of temporary exhaustion not infrequently forms part of the conversion crisis4 ,so long as the egoistic worry of the sick soul guards the door1 the expansive confidence of the soul of faith gains no presence4 ,but let the former faint away1 even but for a moment1 and the latter can profit by the opportunity1 and1 having once acquired possession1 may retain it4 ,carlyle's ,teufelsdrckh passes from the everlasting ,no to the everlasting ,yes through a 8,centre of ,indifference40 ,let me give you a good illustration of this feature in the conversion process4 ,that genuine saint1 ,david ,brainerd1 describes his own crisis in the following words3-- 8,one morning1 while ,i was walking in a solitary place as usual1 ,i at once saw that all my contrivances and projects to effect or procure deliverance and salvation for myself were utterly in vain2 ,i was brought quite to a stand1 as finding myself totally lost4 ,i saw that it was forever impossible for me to do anything towards helping or delivering myself1 that ,i had made all the pleas ,i ever could have made to all eternity2 and that all my pleas were vain1 for ,i saw that selfinterest had led me to pray1 and that ,i had never once prayed from any respect to the glory of ,god4 ,i saw that there was no necessary connection between my prayers and the bestowment of divine mercy2 that they laid not the least obligation upon ,god to bestow his grace upon me2 and that there was no more virtue or goodness in them than there would be in my paddling with my hand in the water4 ,i saw that ,i had been heaping up my devotions before ,god1 fasting1 praying1 etc41 pretending1 and indeed really thinking sometimes that ,i was aiming at the glory of ,god2 whereas ,i never once truly intended it1 but only my own happiness4 ,i saw that as ,i had never done anything for ,god1 ,i had no claim on anything from him but perdition1 on account of my hypocrisy and mockery4 ,when ,i saw evidently that ,i had regard to nothing but selfinterest1 then my duties appeared a vile mockery and a continual course of lies1 for the whole was nothing but selfworship1 and an horrid abuse of ,god4 8,i continued1 as ,i remember1 in this state of mind1 from ,friday morning till the ,sabbath evening following 7,july #ab1 #agci71 when ,i was walking again in the same solitary place4 ,here1 in a mournful melancholy state ,i was attempting to pray2 but found no heart to engage in that or any other duty2 my former concern1 exercise1 and religious affections were now gone4 ,i thought that the ,spirit of ,god had quite left me2 but still was not distressed2 yet disconsolate1 as if there was nothing in heaven or earth could make me happy4 ,having been thus endeavoring to pray--though1 as ,i thought1 very stupid and senseless--for near half an hour2 then1 as ,i was walking in a thick grove1 unspeakable glory seemed to open to the apprehension of my soul4 ,i do not mean any external brightness1 nor any imagination of a body of light1 but it was a new inward apprehension or view that ,i had of ,god1 such as ,i never had before1 nor anything which had the least resemblance to it4 ,i had no particular apprehension of any one person in the ,trinity1 either the ,father1 the ,son1 or the ,holy ,ghost2 but it appeared to be ,divine glory4 ,my soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable1 to see such a ,god1 such a glorious ,divine ,being2 and ,i was inwardly pleased and satisfied that he should be ,god over all for ever and ever4 ,my soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency of ,god that ,i was even swallowed up in him2 at least to that degree that ,i had no thought about my own salvation1 and scarce reflected that there was such a creature as myself4 ,i continued in this state of inward joy1 peace1 and astonishing1 till near dark without any sensible abatement2 and then began to think and examine what ,i had seen2 and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following4 ,i felt myself in a new world1 and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do4 ,at this time1 the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom1 suitableness1 and excellency1 that ,i wondered ,i should ever think of any other way of salvation2 was amazed that ,i had not dropped my own contrivances1 and complied with this lovely1 blessed1 and excellent way before4 ,if ,i could have been saved by my own duties or any other way that ,i had formerly contrived1 my whole soul would now have refused it4 ,i wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation1 entirely by the righteousness of ,christ407#aaf7 ,i have italicized the passage which records the exhaustion of the anxious emotion hitherto habitual4 ,in a large proportion1 perhaps the majority1 of reports1 the writers speak as if the exhaustion of the lower and the entrance of the higher emotion were simultaneous17#aag7 yet often again they speak as if the higher actively drove the lower out4 ,this is undoubtedly true in a great many instances1 as we shall presently see4 ,but often there seems little doubt that both conditions--subconscious ripening of the one affection and exhaustion of the other--must simultaneously have conspired1 in order to produce the result4 ,t4 ,w4 ,b41 a convert of ,nettleton's1 being brought to an acute paroxysm of conviction of sin1 ate nothing all day1 locked himself in his room in the evening in complete despair1 crying aloud1 8,how long1 ,o ,lord1 how long80 8,after repeating this and similar language10 he says1 8several times1 ,i seemed to sink away into a state of insensibility4 ,when ,i came to myself again ,i was on my knees1 praying not for myself but for others4 ,i felt submission to the will of ,god1 willing that he should do with me as should seem good in his sight4 ,my concern seemed all lost in concern for others407#aah7 ,our great ,american revivalist ,finney writes3 8,i said to myself3 #8,what is this8 ,i must have grieved the ,holy ,ghost entirely away4 ,i have lost all my conviction4 ,i have not a particle of concern about my soul2 and it must be that the ,spirit has left me4' #8,why6' thought ,i1 #8,i never was so far from being concerned about my own salvation in my life4'444 ,i tried to recall my convictions1 to get back again the load of sin under which ,i had been laboring4 ,i tried in vain to make myself anxious4 ,i was so quiet and peaceful that ,i tried to feel concerned about that1 lest it should be the result of my having grieved the ,spirit away407#aai7 ,but beyond all question there are persons in whom1 quite independently of any exhaustion in the ,subject's capacity for feeling1 or even in the absence of any acute previous feeling1 the higher condition1 having reached the due degree of energy1 bursts through all barriers and sweeps in like a sudden flood4 ,these are the most striking and memorable cases1 the cases of instantaneous conversion to which the conception of divine grace has been most peculiarly attached4 ,i have given one of them at length--the case of ,mr4 ,bradley4 ,but ,i had better reserve the other cases and my comments on the rest of the subject for the following lecture4 ,,lecture ,x4 ,,conversion--,,concluded4 ,in this lecture we have to finish the subject of ,conversion1 considering at first those striking instantaneous instances of which ,saint ,paul's is the most eminent1 and in which1 often amid tremendous emotional excitement or perturbation of the senses1 a complete division is established in the twinkling of an eye between the old life and the new4 ,conversion of this type is an important phase of religious experience1 owing to the part which it has played in ,protestant theology1 and it behooves us to study it conscientiously on that account4 ,i think ,i had better cite two or three of these cases before proceeding to a more generalized account4 ,one must know concrete instances first2 for1 as ,professor ,agassiz used to say1 one can see no farther into a generalization than just so far as one's previous acquaintance with particulars enables one to take it in4 ,i will go back1 then1 to the case of our friend ,henry ,alline1 and quote his report of the #bfth of ,march1 #agge1 on which his poor divided mind became unified for good4 8,as ,i was about sunset wandering in the fields lamenting my miserable lost and undone condition1 and almost ready to sink under my burden1 ,i thought ,i was in such a miserable case as never any man was before4 ,i returned to the house1 and when ,i got to the door1 just as ,i was stepping off the threshold1 the following impressions came into my mind like a powerful but small still voice4 ,you have been seeking1 praying1 reforming1 laboring1 reading1 hearing1 and meditating1 and what have you done by it towards your salvation8 ,are you any nearer to conversion now than when you first began8 ,are you any more prepared for heaven1 or fitter to appear before the impartial bar of ,god1 than when you first began to seek8 8,it brought such conviction on me that ,i was obliged to say that ,i did not think ,i was one step nearer than at first1 but as much condemned1 as much exposed1 and as miserable as before4 ,i cried out within myself1 ,o ,lord ,god1 ,i am lost1 and if thou1 ,o ,lord1 dost not find out some new way1 ,i know nothing of1 ,i shall never be saved1 for the ways and methods ,i have prescribed to myself have all failed me1 and ,i am willing they should fail4 ,o ,lord1 have mercy6 ,o ,lord1 have mercy6 8,these discoveries continued until ,i went into the house and sat down4 ,after ,i sat down1 being all in confusion1 like a drowning man that was just giving up to sink1 and almost in an agony1 ,i turned very suddenly round in my chair1 and seeing part of an old ,bible lying in one of the chairs1 ,i caught hold of it in great haste2 and opening it without any premeditation1 cast my eyes on the #chth ,psalm1 which was the first time ,i ever saw the word of ,god3 it took hold of me with such power that it seemed to go through my whole soul1 so that it seemed as if ,god was praying in1 with1 and for me4 ,about this time my father called the family to attend prayers2 ,i attended1 but paid no regard to what he said in his prayer1 but continued praying in those words of the ,psalm4 ,oh1 help me1 help me6 cried ,i1 thou ,redeemer of souls1 and save me1 or ,i am gone forever2 thou canst this night1 if thou pleasest1 with one drop of thy blood atone for my sins1 and appease the wrath of an angry ,god4 ,at that instant of time when ,i gave all up to him to do with me as he pleased1 and was willing that ,god should rule over me at his pleasure1 redeeming love broke into my soul with repeated scriptures1 with such power that my whole soul seemed to be melted down with love2 the burden of guilt and condemnation was gone1 darkness was expelled1 my heart humbled and filled with gratitude1 and my whole soul1 that was a few minutes ago groaning under mountains of death1 and crying to an unknown ,god for help1 was now filled with immortal love1 soaring on the wings of faith1 freed from the chains of death and darkness1 and crying out1 ,my ,lord and my ,god2 thou art my rock and my fortress1 my shield and my high tower1 my life1 my joy1 my present and my everlasting portion4 ,looking up1 ,i thought ,i saw that same light he had on more than one previous occasion seen subjectively a bright blaze of light1 though it appeared different2 and as soon as ,i saw it1 the design was opened to me1 according to his promise1 and ,i was obliged to cry out3 ,enough1 enough1 ,o blessed ,god6 ,the work of conversion1 the change1 and the manifestations of it are no more disputable than that light which ,i see1 or anything that ever ,i saw4 8,in the midst of all my joys1 in less than half an hour after my soul was set at liberty1 the ,lord discovered to me my labor in the ministry and call to preach the gospel4 ,i cried out1 ,amen1 ,lord1 ,i'll go2 send me1 send me4 ,i spent the greatest part of the night in ecstasies of joy1 praising and adoring the ,ancient of ,days for his free and unbounded grace4 ,after ,i had been so long in this transport and heavenly frame that my nature seemed to require sleep1 ,i thought to close my eyes for a few moments2 then the devil stepped in1 and told me that if ,i went to sleep1 ,i should lose it all1 and when ,i should awake in the morning ,i would find it to be nothing but a fancy and delusion4 ,i immediately cried out1 ,o ,lord ,god1 if ,i am deceived1 undeceive me4 8,i then closed my eyes for a few minutes1 and seemed to be refreshed with sleep2 and when ,i awoke1 the first inquiry was1 ,where is my ,god8 ,and in an instant of time1 my soul seemed awake in and with ,god1 and surrounded by the arms of everlasting love4 ,about sunrise ,i arose with joy to relate to my parents what ,god had done for my soul1 and declared to them the miracle of ,god's unbounded grace4 ,i took a ,bible to show them the words that were impressed by ,god on my soul the evening before2 but when ,i came to open the ,bible1 it appeared all new to me4 8,i so longed to be useful in the cause of ,christ1 in preaching the gospel1 that it seemed as if ,i could not rest any longer1 but go ,i must and tell the wonders of redeeming love4 ,i lost all taste for carnal pleasures1 and carnal company1 and was enabled to forsake them407#abj7 ,young ,mr4 ,alline1 after the briefest of delays1 and with no booklearning but his ,bible1 and no teaching save that of his own experience1 became a ,christian minister1 and thenceforward his life was fit to rank1 for its austerity and singlemindedness1 with that of the most devoted saints4 ,but happy as he became in his strenuous way1 he never got his taste for even the most innocent carnal pleasures back4 ,we must class him1 like ,bunyan and ,tolstoy1 amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint4 ,his redemption was into another universe than this mere natural world1 and life remained for him a sad and patient trial4 ,years later we can find him making such an entry as this in his diary3 8,on ,wednesday the #abth ,i preached at a wedding1 and had the happiness thereby to be the means of excluding carnal mirth40 ,the next case ,i will give is that of a correspondent of ,professor ,leuba1 printed in the latter's article1 already cited1 in vol4 vi4 of the ,american ,journal of ,psychology4 ,this subject was an ,oxford graduate1 the son of a clergyman1 and the story resembles in many points the classic case of ,colonel ,gardiner1 which everybody may be supposed to know4 ,here it is1 somewhat abridged3-- 8,between the period of leaving ,oxford and my conversion ,i never darkened the door of my father's church1 although ,i lived with him for eight years1 making what money ,i wanted by journalism1 and spending it in high carousal with any one who would sit with me and drink it away4 ,so ,i lived1 sometimes drunk for a week together1 and then a terrible repentance1 and would not touch a drop for a whole month4 8,in all this period1 that is1 up to thirtythree years of age1 ,i never had a desire to reform on religious grounds4 ,but all my pangs were due to some terrible remorse ,i used to feel after a heavy carousal1 the remorse taking the shape of regret after my folly in wasting my life in such a way--a man of superior talents and education4 ,this terrible remorse turned me gray in one night1 and whenever it came upon me ,i was perceptibly grayer the next morning4 ,what ,i suffered in this way is beyond the expression of words4 ,it was hellfire in all its most dreadful tortures4 ,often did ,i vow that if ,i got over #8this time' ,i would reform4 ,alas1 in about three days ,i fully recovered1 and was as happy as ever4 ,so it went on for years1 but1 with a physique like a rhinoceros1 ,i always recovered1 and as long as ,i let drink alone1 no man was as capable of enjoying life as ,i was4 8,i was converted in my own bedroom in my father's rectory house at precisely three o'clock in the afternoon of a hot ,july day 7,july #ac1 #ahhf74 ,i was in perfect health1 having been off from the drink for nearly a month4 ,i was in no way troubled about my soul4 ,in fact1 ,god was not in my thoughts that day4 ,a young lady friend sent me a copy of ,professor ,drummond's ,natural ,law in the ,spiritual ,world1 asking me my opinion of it as a literary work only4 ,being proud of my critical talents and wishing to enhance myself in my new friend's esteem1 ,i took the book to my bedroom for quiet1 intending to give it a thorough study1 and then write her what ,i thought of it4 ,it was here that ,god met me face to face1 and ,i shall never forget the meeting4 #8,he that hath the ,son hath life eternal1 he that hath not the ,son hath not life4' ,i had read this scores of times before1 but this made all the difference4 ,i was now in ,god's presence and my attention was absolutely #8soldered' on to this verse1 and ,i was not allowed to proceed with the book till ,i had fairly considered what these words really involved4 ,only then was ,i allowed to proceed1 feeling all the while that there was another being in my bedroom1 though not seen by me4 ,the stillness was very marvelous1 and ,i felt supremely happy4 ,it was most unquestionably shown me1 in one second of time1 that ,i had never touched the ,eternal3 and that if ,i died then1 ,i must inevitably be lost4 ,i was undone4 ,i knew it as well as ,i now know ,i am saved4 ,the ,spirit of ,god showed it me in ineffable love2 there was no terror in it2 ,i felt ,god's love so powerfully upon me that only a mighty sorrow crept over me that ,i had lost all through my own folly2 and what was ,i to do8 ,what could ,i do8 ,i did not repent even2 ,god never asked me to repent4 ,all ,i felt was #8,i am undone1' and ,god cannot help it1 although he loves me4 ,no fault on the part of the ,almighty4 ,all the time ,i was supremely happy3 ,i felt like a little child before his father4 ,i had done wrong1 but my ,father did not scold me1 but loved me most wondrously4 ,still my doom was sealed4 ,i was lost to a certainty1 and being naturally of a brave disposition ,i did not quail under it1 but deep sorrow for the past1 mixed with regret for what ,i had lost1 took hold upon me1 and my soul thrilled within me to think it was all over4 ,then there crept in upon me so gently1 so lovingly1 so unmistakably1 a way of escape1 and what was it after all8 ,the old1 old story over again1 told in the simplest way3 #8,there is no name under heaven whereby ye can be saved except that of the ,lord ,jesus ,christ4' ,no words were spoken to me2 my soul seemed to see my ,saviour in the spirit1 and from that hour to this1 nearly nine years now1 there has never been in my life one doubt that the ,lord ,jesus ,christ and ,god the ,father both worked upon me that afternoon in ,july1 both differently1 and both in the most perfect love conceivable1 and ,i rejoiced there and then in a conversion so astounding that the whole village heard of it in less than twentyfour hours4 8,but a time of trouble was yet to come4 ,the day after my conversion ,i went into the hayfield to lend a hand with the harvest1 and not having made any promise to ,god to abstain or drink in moderation only1 ,i took too much and came home drunk4 ,my poor sister was heartbroken2 and ,i felt ashamed of myself and got to my bedroom at once1 where she followed me1 weeping copiously4 ,she said ,i had been converted and fallen away instantly4 ,but although ,i was quite full of drink 7not muddled1 however71 ,i knew that ,god's work begun in me was not going to be wasted4 ,about midday ,i made on my knees the first prayer before ,god for twenty years4 ,i did not ask to be forgiven2 ,i felt that was no good1 for ,i would be sure to fall again4 ,well1 what did ,i do8 ,i committed myself to him in the profoundest belief that my individuality was going to be destroyed1 that he would take all from me1 and ,i was willing4 ,in such a surrender lies the secret of a holy life4 ,from that hour drink has had no terrors for me3 ,i never touch it1 never want it4 ,the same thing occurred with my pipe3 after being a regular smoker from my twelfth year the desire for it went at once1 and has never returned4 ,so with every known sin1 the deliverance in each case being permanent and complete4 ,i have had no temptation since conversion1 ,god seemingly having shut out ,satan from that course with me4 ,he gets a free hand in other ways1 but never on sins of the flesh4 ,since ,i gave up to ,god all ownership in my own life1 he has guided me in a thousand ways1 and has opened my path in a way almost incredible to those who do not enjoy the blessing of a truly surrendered life40 ,so much for our graduate of ,oxford1 in whom you notice the complete abolition of an ancient appetite as one of the conversion's fruits4 ,the most curious record of sudden conversion with which ,i am acquainted is that of ,m4 ,alphonse ,ratisbonne1 a freethinking ,french ,jew1 to ,catholicism1 at ,rome in #ahdb4 ,in a letter to a clerical friend1 written a few months later1 the convert gives a palpitating account of the circumstances47#aba7 ,the predisposing conditions appear to have been slight4 ,he had an elder brother who had been converted and was a ,catholic priest4 ,he was himself irreligious1 and nourished an antipathy to the apostate brother and generally to his 8cloth40 ,finding himself at ,rome in his twentyninth year1 he fell in with a ,french gentleman who tried to make a proselyte of him1 but who succeeded no farther after two or three conversations than to get him to hang 7half jocosely7 a religious medal round his neck1 and to accept and read a copy of a short prayer to the ,virgin4 ,m4 ,ratisbonne represents his own part in the conversations as having been of a light and chaffing order2 but he notes the fact that for some days he was unable to banish the words of the prayer from his mind1 and that the night before the crisis he had a sort of nightmare1 in the imagery of which a black cross with no ,christ upon it figured4 ,nevertheless1 until noon of the next day he was free in mind and spent the time in trivial conversations4 ,i now give his own words4 8,if at this time any one had accosted me1 saying3 #8,alphonse1 in a quarter of an hour you shall be adoring ,jesus ,christ as your ,god and ,saviour2 you shall lie prostrate with your face upon the ground in a humble church2 you shall be smiting your breast at the foot of a priest2 you shall pass the carnival in a college of ,jesuits to prepare yourself to receive baptism1 ready to give your life for the ,catholic faith2 you shall renounce the world and its pomps and pleasures2 renounce your fortune1 your hopes1 and if need be1 your betrothed2 the affections of your family1 the esteem of your friends1 and your attachment to the ,jewish people2 you shall have no other aspiration than to follow ,christ and bear his cross till death2'--if1 ,i say1 a prophet had come to me with such a prediction1 ,i should have judged that only one person could be more mad than he1--whosoever1 namely1 might believe in the possibility of such senseless folly becoming true4 ,and yet that folly is at present my only wisdom1 my sole happiness4 8,coming out of the caf ,i met the carriage of ,monsieur ,b4 the proselyting friend4 ,he stopped and invited me in for a drive1 but first asked me to wait for a few minutes whilst he attended to some duty at the church of ,san ,andrea delle ,fratte4 ,instead of waiting in the carriage1 ,i entered the church myself to look at it4 ,the church of ,san ,andrea was poor1 small1 and empty2 ,i believe that ,i found myself there almost alone4 ,no work of art attracted my attention2 and ,i passed my eyes mechanically over its interior without being arrested by any particular thought4 ,i can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and turning before me as ,i mused4 ,in an instant the dog had disappeared1 the whole church had vanished1 ,i no longer saw anything1 444 or more truly ,i saw1 ,o my ,god1 one thing alone4 8,heavens1 how can ,i speak of it8 ,oh no6 human words cannot attain to expressing the inexpressible4 ,any description1 however sublime it might be1 could be but a profanation of the unspeakable truth4 8,i was there prostrate on the ground1 bathed in my tears1 with my heart beside itself1 when ,m4 ,b4 called me back to life4 ,i could not reply to the questions which followed from him one upon the other4 ,but finally ,i took the medal which ,i had on my breast1 and with all the effusion of my soul ,i kissed the image of the ,virgin1 radiant with grace1 which it bore4 ,oh1 indeed1 it was ,she6 ,it was indeed ,she6 ,what he had seen had been a vision of the ,virgin4 8,i did not know where ,i was3 ,i did not know whether ,i was ,alphonse or another4 ,i only felt myself changed and believed myself another me2 ,i looked for myself in myself and did not find myself4 ,in the bottom of my soul ,i felt an explosion of the most ardent joy2 ,i could not speak2 ,i had no wish to reveal what had happened4 ,but ,i felt something solemn and sacred within me which made me ask for a priest4 ,i was led to one2 and there1 alone1 after he had given me the positive order1 ,i spoke as best ,i could1 kneeling1 and with my heart still trembling4 ,i could give no account to myself of the truth of which ,i had acquired a knowledge and a faith4 ,all that ,i can say is that in an instant the bandage had fallen from my eyes2 and not one bandage only1 but the whole manifold of bandages in which ,i had been brought up4 ,one after another they rapidly disappeared1 even as the mud and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun4 8,i came out as from a sepulchre1 from an abyss of darkness2 and ,i was living1 perfectly living4 ,but ,i wept1 for at the bottom of that gulf ,i saw the extreme of misery from which ,i had been saved by an infinite mercy2 and ,i shuddered at the sight of my iniquities1 stupefied1 melted1 overwhelmed with wonder and with gratitude4 ,you may ask me how ,i came to this new insight1 for truly ,i had never opened a book of religion nor even read a single page of the ,bible1 and the dogma of original sin is either entirely denied or forgotten by the ,hebrews of today1 so that ,i had thought so little about it that ,i doubt whether ,i ever knew its name4 ,but how came ,i1 then1 to this perception of it8 ,i can answer nothing save this1 that on entering that church ,i was in darkness altogether1 and on coming out of it ,i saw the fullness of the light4 ,i can explain the change no better than by the simile of a profound sleep or the analogy of one born blind who should suddenly open his eyes to the day4 ,he sees1 but cannot define the light which bathes him and by means of which he sees the objects which excite his wonder4 ,if we cannot explain physical light1 how can we explain the light which is the truth itself8 ,and ,i think ,i remain within the limits of veracity when ,i say that without having any knowledge of the letter of religious doctrine1 ,i now intuitively perceived its sense and spirit4 ,better than if ,i saw them1 ,i felt those hidden things2 ,i felt them by the inexplicable effects they produced in me4 ,it all happened in my interior mind2 and those impressions1 more rapid than thought1 shook my soul1 revolved and turned it1 as it were1 in another direction1 towards other aims1 by other paths4 ,i express myself badly4 ,but do you wish1 ,lord1 that ,i should inclose in poor and barren words sentiments which the heart alone can understand80 ,i might multiply cases almost indefinitely1 but these will suffice to show you how real1 definite1 and memorable an event a sudden conversion may be to him who has the experience4 ,throughout the height of it he undoubtedly seems to himself a passive spectator or undergoer of an astounding process performed upon him from above4 ,there is too much evidence of this for any doubt of it to be possible4 ,theology1 combining this fact with the doctrines of election and grace1 has concluded that the spirit of ,god is with us at these dramatic moments in a peculiarly miraculous way1 unlike what happens at any other juncture of our lives4 ,at that moment1 it believes1 an absolutely new nature is breathed into us1 and we become partakers of the very substance of the ,deity4 ,that the conversion should be instantaneous seems called for on this view1 and the ,moravian ,protestants appear to have been the first to see this logical consequence4 ,the ,methodists soon followed suit1 practically if not dogmatically1 and a short time ere his death1 ,john ,wesley wrote3-- 8,in ,london alone ,i found #feb members of our ,society who were exceeding clear in their experience1 and whose testimony ,i could see no reason to doubt4 ,and every one of these 7without a single exception7 has declared that his deliverance from sin was instantaneous2 that the change was wrought in a moment4 ,had half of these1 or one third1 or one in twenty1 declared it was gradually wrought in them1 ,i should have believed this1 with regard to them1 and thought that some were gradually sanctified and some instantaneously4 ,but as ,i have not found1 in so long a space of time1 a single person speaking thus1 ,i cannot but believe that sanctification is commonly1 if not always1 an instantaneous work40 ,tyerman's ,life of ,wesley1 i4 #dfc4 ,all this while the more usual sects of ,protestantism have set no such store by instantaneous conversion4 ,for them as for the ,catholic ,church1 ,christ's blood1 the sacraments1 and the individual's ordinary religious duties are practically supposed to suffice to his salvation1 even though no acute crisis of selfdespair and surrender followed by relief should be experienced4 ,for ,methodism1 on the contrary1 unless there have been a crisis of this sort1 salvation is only offered1 not effectively received1 and ,christ's sacrifice in so far forth is incomplete4 ,methodism surely here follows1 if not the healthierminded1 yet on the whole the profounder spiritual instinct4 ,the individual models which it has set up as typical and worthy of imitation are not only the more interesting dramatically1 but psychologically they have been the more complete4 ,in the fully evolved ,revivalism of ,great ,britain and ,america we have1 so to speak1 the codified and stereotyped procedure to which this way of thinking has led4 ,in spite of the unquestionable fact that saints of the onceborn type exist1 that there may be a gradual growth in holiness without a cataclysm2 in spite of the obvious leakage 7as one may say7 of much mere natural goodness into the scheme of salvation2 revivalism has always assumed that only its own type of religious experience can be perfect2 you must first be nailed on the cross of natural despair and agony1 and then in the twinkling of an eye be miraculously released4 ,it is natural that those who personally have traversed such an experience should carry away a feeling of its being a miracle rather than a natural process4 ,voices are often heard1 lights seen1 or visions witnessed2 automatic motor phenomena occur2 and it always seems1 after the surrender of the personal will1 as if an extraneous higher power had flooded in and taken possession4 ,moreover the sense of renovation1 safety1 cleanness1 rightness1 can be so marvelous and jubilant as well to warrant one's belief in a radically new substantial nature4 8,conversion10 writes the ,new ,england ,puritan1 ,joseph ,alleine1 8is not the putting in a patch of holiness2 but with the true convert holiness is woven into all his powers1 principles1 and practice4 ,the sincere ,christian is quite a new fabric1 from the foundation to the topstone4 ,he is a new man1 a new creature40 ,and ,jonathan ,edwards says in the same strain3 8,those gracious influences which are the effects of the ,spirit of ,god are altogether supernatural--are quite different from anything that unregenerate men experience4 ,they are what no improvement1 or composition of natural qualifications or principles will ever produce2 because they not only differ from what is natural1 and from everything that natural men experience in degree and circumstances1 but also in kind1 and are of a nature far more excellent4 ,from hence it follows that in gracious affections there are also new perceptions and sensations entirely different in their nature and kind from anything experienced by the same saints before they were sanctified4444 ,the conceptions which the saints have of the loveliness of ,god1 and that kind of delight which they experience in it1 are quite peculiar1 and entirely different from anything which a natural man can possess1 or of which he can form any proper notion40 ,and that such a glorious transformation as this ought of necessity to be preceded by despair is shown by ,edwards in another passage4 8,surely it cannot be unreasonable10 he says1 8that before ,god delivers us from a state of sin and liability to everlasting woe1 he should give us some considerable sense of the evil from which he delivers us1 in order that we may know and feel the importance of salvation1 and be enabled to appreciate the value of what ,god is pleased to do for us4 ,as those who are saved are successively in two extremely different states--first in a state of condemnation and then in a state of justification and blessedness--and as ,god1 in the salvation of men1 deals with them as rational and intelligent creatures1 it appears agreeable to this wisdom1 that those who are saved should be made sensible of their ,being1 in those two different states4 ,in the first place1 that they should be made sensible of their state of condemnation2 and afterwards1 of their state of deliverance and happiness40 ,such quotations express sufficiently well for our purpose the doctrinal interpretation of these changes4 ,whatever part suggestion and imitation may have played in producing them in men and women in excited assemblies1 they have at any rate been in countless individual instances an original and unborrowed experience4 ,were we writing the story of the mind from the purely naturalhistory point of view1 with no religious interest whatever1 we should still have to write down man's liability to sudden and complete conversion as one of his most curious peculiarities4 ,what1 now1 must we ourselves think of this question8 ,is an instantaneous conversion a miracle in which ,god is present as he is present in no change of heart less strikingly abrupt8 ,are there two classes of human beings1 even among the apparently regenerate1 of which the one class really partakes of ,christ's nature while the other merely seems to do so8 ,or1 on the contrary1 may the whole phenomenon of regeneration1 even in these startling instantaneous examples1 possibly be a strictly natural process1 divine in its fruits1 of course1 but in one case more and in another less so1 and neither more nor less divine in its mere causation and mechanism than any other process1 high or low1 of man's interior life8 ,before proceeding to answer this question1 ,i must ask you to listen to some more psychological remarks4 ,at our last lecture1 ,i explained the shifting of men's centres of personal energy within them and the lighting up of new crises of emotion4 ,i explained the phenomena as partly due to explicitly conscious processes of thought and will1 but as due largely also to the subconscious incubation and maturing of motives deposited by the experiences of life4 ,when ripe1 the results hatch out1 or burst into flower4 ,i have now to speak of the subconscious region1 in which such processes of flowering may occur1 in a somewhat less vague way4 ,i only regret that my limits of time here force me to be so short4 ,the expression 8field of consciousness0 has but recently come into vogue in the psychology books4 ,until quite lately the unit of mental life which figured most was the single 8idea0 supposed to be a definitely outlined thing4 ,but at present psychologists are tending1 first1 to admit that the actual unit is more probably the total mental state1 the entire wave of consciousness or field of objects present to the thought at any time2 and1 second1 to see that it is impossible to outline this wave1 this field1 with any definiteness4 ,as our mental fields succeed one another1 each has its centre of interest1 around which the objects of which we are less and less attentively conscious fade to a margin so faint that its limits are unassignable4 ,some fields are narrow fields and some are wide fields4 ,usually when we have a wide field we rejoice1 for we then see masses of truth together1 and often get glimpses of relations which we divine rather than see1 for they shoot beyond the field into still remoter regions of objectivity1 regions which we seem rather to be about to perceive than to perceive actually4 ,at other times1 of drowsiness1 illness1 or fatigue1 our fields may narrow almost to a point1 and we find ourselves correspondingly oppressed and contracted4 ,different individuals present constitutional differences in this matter of width of field4 ,your great organizing geniuses are men with habitually vast fields of mental vision1 in which a whole programme of future operations will appear dotted out at once1 the rays shooting far ahead into definite directions of advance4 ,in common people there is never this magnificent inclusive view of a topic4 ,they stumble along1 feeling their way1 as it were1 from point to point1 and often stop entirely4 ,in certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark1 without memory of the past or thought of the future1 and with the present narrowed down to some one simple emotion or sensation of the body4 ,the important fact which this 8field0 formula commemorates is the indetermination of the margin4 ,inattentively realized as is the matter which the margin contains1 it is nevertheless there1 and helps both to guide our behavior and to determine the next movement of our attention4 ,it lies around us like a 8magnetic field10 inside of which our centre of energy turns like a compassneedle1 as the present phase of consciousness alters into its successor4 ,our whole past store of memories floats beyond this margin1 ready at a touch to come in2 and the entire mass of residual powers1 impulses1 and knowledges that constitute our empirical self stretches continuously beyond it4 ,so vaguely drawn are the outlines between what is actual and what is only potential at any moment of our conscious life1 that it is always hard to say of certain mental elements whether we are conscious of them or not4 ,the ordinary psychology1 admitting fully the difficulty of tracing the marginal outline1 has nevertheless taken for granted1 first1 that all the consciousness the person now has1 be the same focal or marginal1 inattentive or attentive1 is there in the 8field0 of the moment1 all dim and impossible to assign as the latter's outline may be2 and1 second1 that what is absolutely extramarginal is absolutely nonexistent1 and cannot be a fact of consciousness at all4 ,and having reached this point1 ,i must now ask you to recall what ,i said in my last lecture about the subconscious life4 ,i said1 as you may recollect1 that those who first laid stress upon these phenomena could not know the facts as we now know them4 ,my first duty now is to tell you what ,i meant by such a statement4 ,i cannot but think that the most important step forward that has occurred in psychology since ,i have been a student of that science is the discovery1 first made in #ahhf1 that1 in certain subjects at least1 there is not only the consciousness of the ordinary field1 with its usual centre and margin1 but an addition thereto in the shape of a set of memories1 thoughts1 and feelings which are extramarginal and outside of the primary consciousness altogether1 but yet must be classed as conscious facts of some sort1 able to reveal their presence by unmistakable signs4 ,i call this the most important step forward because1 unlike the other advances which psychology has made1 this discovery has revealed to us an entirely unsuspected peculiarity in the constitution of human nature4 ,no other step forward which psychology has made can proffer any such claim as this4 ,in particular this discovery of a consciousness existing beyond the field1 or subliminally as ,mr4 ,myers terms it1 casts light on many phenomena of religious biography4 ,that is why ,i have to advert to it now1 although it is naturally impossible for me in this place to give you any account of the evidence on which the admission of such a consciousness is based4 ,you will find it set forth in many recent books1 ,binet's ,alterations of ,personality7#abb7 being perhaps as good a one as any to recommend4 ,the human material on which the demonstration has been made has so far been rather limited and1 in part at least1 eccentric1 consisting of unusually suggestible hypnotic subjects1 and of hysteric patients4 ,yet the elementary mechanisms of our life are presumably so uniform that what is shown to be true in a marked degree of some persons is probably true in some degree of all1 and may in a few be true in an extraordinarily high degree4 ,the most important consequence of having a strongly developed ultra marginal life of this sort is that one's ordinary fields of consciousness are liable to incursions from it of which the subject does not guess the source1 and which1 therefore1 take for him the form of unaccountable impulses to act1 or inhibitions of action1 of obsessive ideas1 or even of hallucinations of sight or hearing4 ,the impulses may take the direction of automatic speech or writing1 the meaning of which the subject himself may not understand even while he utters it2 and generalizing this phenomenon1 ,mr4 ,myers has given the name of automatism1 sensory or motor1 emotional or intellectual1 to this whole sphere of effects1 due to 8uprushes0 into the ordinary consciousness of energies originating in the subliminal parts of the mind4 ,the simplest instance of an automatism is the phenomenon of posthypnotic suggestion1 socalled4 ,you give to a hypnotized subject1 adequately susceptible1 an order to perform some designated act--usual or eccentric1 it makes no difference--after he wakes from his hypnotic sleep4 ,punctually1 when the signal comes or the time elapses upon which you have told him that the act must ensue1 he performs it2--but in so doing he has no recollection of your suggestion1 and he always trumps up an improvised pretext for his behavior if the act be of an eccentric kind4 ,it may even be suggested to a subject to have a vision or to hear a voice at a certain interval after waking1 and when the time comes the vision is seen or the voice heard1 with no inkling on the subject's part of its source4 ,in the wonderful explorations by ,binet1 ,janet1 ,breuer1 ,freud1 ,mason1 ,prince1 and others1 of the subliminal consciousness of patients with hysteria1 we have revealed to us whole systems of underground life1 in the shape of memories of a painful sort which lead a parasitic existence1 buried outside of the primary fields of consciousness1 and making irruptions thereinto with hallucinations1 pains1 convulsions1 paralyses of feeling and of motion1 and the whole procession of symptoms of hysteric disease of body and of mind4 ,alter or abolish by suggestion these subconscious memories1 and the patient immediately gets well4 ,his symptoms were automatisms1 in ,mr4 ,myers's sense of the word4 ,these clinical records sound like fairytales when one first reads them1 yet it is impossible to doubt their accuracy2 and1 the path having been once opened by these first observers1 similar observations have been made elsewhere4 ,they throw1 as ,i said1 a wholly new light upon our natural constitution4 ,and it seems to me that they make a farther step inevitable4 ,interpreting the unknown after the analogy of the known1 it seems to me that hereafter1 wherever we meet with a phenomenon of automatism1 be it motor impulses1 or obsessive idea1 or unaccountable caprice1 or delusion1 or hallucination1 we are bound first of all to make search whether it be not an explosion1 into the fields of ordinary consciousness1 of ideas elaborated outside of those fields in subliminal regions of the mind4 ,we should look1 therefore1 for its source in the ,subject's subconscious life4 ,in the hypnotic cases1 we ourselves create the source by our suggestion1 so we know it directly4 ,in the hysteric cases1 the lost memories which are the source have to be extracted from the patient's ,subliminal by a number of ingenious methods1 for an account of which you must consult the books4 ,in other pathological cases1 insane delusions1 for example1 or psychopathic obsessions1 the source is yet to seek1 but by analogy it also should be in subliminal regions which improvements in our methods may yet conceivably put on tap4 ,there lies the mechanism logically to be assumed1--but the assumption involves a vast program of work to be done in the way of verification1 in which the religious experiences of man must play their part47#abc7 ,and thus ,i return to our own specific subject of instantaneous conversions4 ,you remember the cases of ,alline1 ,bradley1 ,brainerd1 and the graduate of ,oxford converted at three in the afternoon4 ,similar occurrences abound1 some with and some without luminous visions1 all with a sense of astonished happiness1 and of being wrought on by a higher control4 ,if1 abstracting altogether from the question of their value for the future spiritual life of the individual1 we take them on their psychological side exclusively1 so many peculiarities in them remind us of what we find outside of conversion that we are tempted to class them along with other automatisms1 and to suspect that what makes the difference between a sudden and a gradual convert is not necessarily the presence of divine miracle in the case of one and of something less divine in that of the other1 but rather a simple psychological peculiarity1 the fact1 namely1 that in the recipient of the more instantaneous grace we have one of those ,subjects who are in possession of a large region in which mental work can go on subliminally1 and from which invasive experiences1 abruptly upsetting the equilibrium of the primary consciousness1 may come4 ,i do not see why ,methodists need object to such a view4 ,pray go back and recollect one of the conclusions to which ,i sought to lead you in my very first lecture4 ,you may remember how ,i there argued against the notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin4 ,our spiritual judgment1 ,i said1 our opinion of the significance and value of a human event or condition1 must be decided on empirical grounds exclusively4 ,if the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good1 we ought to idealize and venerate it1 even though it be a piece of natural psychology2 if not1 we ought to make short work with it1 no matter what supernatural being may have infused it4 ,well1 how is it with these fruits8 ,if we except the class of preminent saints of whom the names illumine history1 and consider only the usual run of 8saints10 the shopkeeping churchmembers and ordinary youthful or middleaged recipients of instantaneous conversion1 whether at revivals or in the spontaneous course of methodistic growth1 you will probably agree that no splendor worthy of a wholly supernatural creature fulgurates from them1 or sets them apart from the mortals who have never experienced that favor4 ,were it true that a suddenly converted man as such is1 as ,edwards says17#abd7 of an entirely different kind from a natural man1 partaking as he does directly of ,christ's substance1 there surely ought to be some exquisite classmark1 some distinctive radiance attaching even to the lowliest specimen of this genus1 to which no one of us could remain insensible1 and which1 so far as it went1 would prove him more excellent than ever the most highly gifted among mere natural men4 ,but notoriously there is no such radiance4 ,converted men as a class are indistinguishable from natural men2 some natural men even excel some converted men in their fruits2 and no one ignorant of doctrinal theology could guess by mere everyday inspection of the 8accidents0 of the two groups of persons before him1 that their substance differed as much as divine differs from human substance4 ,the believers in the nonnatural character of sudden conversion have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable classmark distinctive of all true converts4 ,the supernormal incidents1 such as voices and visions and overpowering impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts1 the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisis of change1 may all come by way of nature1 or worse still1 be counterfeited by ,satan4 ,the real witness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the genuine child of ,god1 the permanently patient heart1 the love of self eradicated4 ,and this1 it has to be admitted1 is also found in those who pass no crisis1 and may even be found outside of ,christianity altogether4 ,throughout ,jonathan ,edwards's admirably rich and delicate description of the supernaturally infused condition1 in his ,treatise on ,religious ,affections1 there is not one decisive trait1 not one mark1 that unmistakably parts it off from what may possibly be only an exceptionally high degree of natural goodness4 ,in fact1 one could hardly read a clearer argument than this book unwittingly offers in favor of the thesis that no chasm exists between the orders of human excellence1 but that here as elsewhere1 nature shows continuous differences1 and generation and regeneration are matters of degree4 ,all which denial of two objective classes of human beings separated by a chasm must not leave us blind to the extraordinary momentousness of the fact of his conversion to the individual himself who gets converted4 ,there are higher and lower limits of possibility set to each personal life4 ,if a flood but goes above one's head1 its absolute elevation becomes a matter of small importance2 and when we touch our own upper limit and live in our own highest centre of energy1 we may call ourselves saved1 no matter how much higher some one else's centre may be4 ,a small man's salvation will always be a great salvation and the greatest of all facts for him1 and we should remember this when the fruits of our ordinary evangelicism look discouraging4 ,who knows how much less ideal still the lives of these spiritual grubs and earthworms1 these ,crumps and ,stigginses1 might have been1 if such poor grace as they have received had never touched them at all87#abe7 ,if we roughly arrange human beings in classes1 each class standing for a grade of spiritual excellence1 ,i believe we shall find natural men and converts both sudden and gradual in all the classes4 ,the forms which regenerative change effects have1 then1 no general spiritual significance1 but only a psychological significance4 ,we have seen how ,starbuck's laborious statistical studies tend to assimilate conversion to ordinary spiritual growth4 ,another ,american psychologist1 ,prof4 ,george ,a4 ,coe17#abf7 has analyzed the cases of seventyseven converts or excandidates for conversion1 known to him1 and the results strikingly confirm the view that sudden conversion is connected with the possession of an active subliminal self4 ,examining his subjects with reference to their hypnotic sensibility and to such automatisms as hypnagogic hallucinations1 odd impulses1 religious dreams about the time of their conversion1 etc41 he found these relatively much more frequent in the group of converts whose transformation had been 8striking10 8striking0 transformation being defined as a change which1 though not necessarily instantaneous1 seems to the subject of it to be distinctly different from a process of growth1 however rapid47#abg7 ,candidates for conversion at revivals are1 as you know1 often disappointed3 they experience nothing striking4 ,professor ,coe had a number of persons of this class among his seventyseven subjects1 and they almost all1 when tested by hypnotism1 proved to belong to a subclass which he calls 8spontaneous10 that is1 fertile in self suggestions1 as distinguished from a 8passive0 subclass1 to which most of the subjects of striking transformation belonged4 ,his inference is that selfsuggestion of impossibility had prevented the influence upon these persons of an environment which1 on the more 8passive0 subjects1 had easily brought forth the effects they looked for4 ,sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions1 and ,professor ,coe's numbers are small4 ,but his methods were careful1 and the results tally with what one might expect2 and they seem1 on the whole1 to justify his practical conclusion1 which is that if you should expose to a converting influence a subject in whom three factors unite3 first1 pronounced emotional sensibility2 second1 tendency to automatisms2 and third1 suggestibility of the passive type2 you might then safely predict the result3 there would be a sudden conversion1 a transformation of the striking kind4 ,does this temperamental origin diminish the significance of the sudden conversion when it has occurred8 ,not in the least1 as ,professor ,coe well says2 for 8the ultimate test of religious values is nothing psychological1 nothing definable in terms of how it happens1 but something ethical1 definable only in terms of what is attained407#abh7 ,as we proceed farther in our inquiry we shall see that what is attained is often an altogether new level of spiritual vitality1 a relatively heroic level1 in which impossible things have become possible1 and new energies and endurances are shown4 ,the personality is changed1 the man is born anew1 whether or not his psychological idiosyncrasies are what give the particular shape to his metamorphosis4 8,sanctification0 is the technical name of this result2 and erelong examples of it shall be brought before you4 ,in this lecture ,i have still only to add a few remarks on the assurance and peace which fill the hour of change itself4 ,one word more1 though1 before proceeding to that point1 lest the final purpose of my explanation of suddenness by subliminal activity be misunderstood4 ,i do indeed believe that if the ,subject have no liability to such subconscious activity1 or if his conscious fields have a hard rind of a margin that resists incursions from beyond it1 his conversion must be gradual if it occur1 and must resemble any simple growth into new habits4 ,his possession of a developed subliminal self1 and of a leaky or pervious margin1 is thus a conditio sine qua non of the ,subject's becoming converted in the instantaneous way4 ,but if you1 being orthodox ,christians1 ask me as a psychologist whether the reference of a phenomenon to a subliminal self does not exclude the notion of the direct presence of the ,deity altogether1 ,i have to say frankly that as a psychologist ,i do not see why it necessarily should4 ,the lower manifestations of the ,subliminal1 indeed1 fall within the resources of the personal subject3 his ordinary sensematerial1 inattentively taken in and subconsciously remembered and combined1 will account for all his usual automatisms4 ,but just as our primary wideawake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material1 so it is logically conceivable that if there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us1 the psychological condition of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which alone should yield access to them4 ,the hubbub of the waking life might close a door which in the dreamy ,subliminal might remain ajar or open4 ,thus that perception of external control which is so essential a feature in conversion might1 in some cases at any rate1 be interpreted as the orthodox interpret it3 forces transcending the finite individual might impress him1 on condition of his being what we may call a subliminal human specimen4 ,but in any case the value of these forces would have to be determined by their effects1 and the mere fact of their transcendency would of itself establish no presumption that they were more divine than diabolical4 ,i confess that this is the way in which ,i should rather see the topic left lying in your minds until ,i come to a much later lecture1 when ,i hope once more to gather these dropped threads together into more definitive conclusions4 ,the notion of a subconscious self certainly ought not at this point of our inquiry to be held to exclude all notion of a higher penetration4 ,if there be higher powers able to impress us1 they may get access to us only through the subliminal door4 7,see below1 p4 #eae ff47 ,let us turn now to the feelings which immediately fill the hour of the conversion experience4 ,the first one to be noted is just this sense of higher control4 ,it is not always1 but it is very often present4 ,we saw examples of it in ,alline1 ,bradley1 ,brainerd1 and elsewhere4 ,the need of such a higher controlling agency is well expressed in the short reference which the eminent ,french ,protestant ,adolphe ,monod makes to the crisis of his own conversion4 ,it was at ,naples in his early manhood1 in the summer of #ahbg4 8,my sadness10 he says1 8was without limit1 and having got entire possession of me1 it filled my life from the most indifferent external acts to the most secret thoughts1 and corrupted at their source my feelings1 my judgment1 and my happiness4 ,it was then that ,i saw that to expect to put a stop to this disorder by my reason and my will1 which were themselves diseased1 would be to act like a blind man who should pretend to correct one of his eyes by the aid of the other equally blind one4 ,i had then no resource save in some influence from without4 ,i remembered the promise of the ,holy ,ghost2 and what the positive declarations of the ,gospel had never succeeded in bringing home to me1 ,i learned at last from necessity1 and believed1 for the first time in my life1 in this promise1 in the only sense in which it answered the needs of my soul1 in that1 namely1 of a real external supernatural action1 capable of giving me thoughts1 and taking them away from me1 and exerted on me by a ,god as truly master of my heart as he is of the rest of nature4 ,renouncing then all merit1 all strength1 abandoning all my personal resources1 and acknowledging no other title to his mercy than my own utter misery1 ,i went home and threw myself on my knees1 and prayed as ,i never yet prayed in my life4 ,from this day onwards a new interior life began for me3 not that my melancholy had disappeared1 but it had lost its sting4 ,hope had entered into my heart1 and once entered on the path1 the ,god of ,jesus ,christ1 to whom ,i then had learned to give myself up1 little by little did the rest407#abi7 ,it is needless to remind you once more of the admirable congruity of ,protestant theology with the structure of the mind as shown in such experiences4 ,in the extreme of melancholy the self that consciously is can do absolutely nothing4 ,it is completely bankrupt and without resource1 and no works it can accomplish will avail4 ,redemption from such subjective conditions must be a free gift or nothing1 and grace through ,christ's accomplished sacrifice is such a gift4 8,god10 says ,luther1 8is the ,god of the humble1 the miserable1 the oppressed1 and the desperate1 and of those that are brought even to nothing2 and his nature is to give sight to the blind1 to comfort the brokenhearted1 to justify sinners1 to save the very desperate and damned4 ,now that pernicious and pestilent opinion of man's own righteousness1 which will not be a sinner1 unclean1 miserable1 and damnable1 but righteous and holy1 suffereth not ,god to come to his own natural and proper work4 ,therefore ,god must take this maul in hand 7the law1 ,i mean7 to beat in pieces and bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence1 that she may so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly forlorn and damned4 ,but here lieth the difficulty1 that when a man is terrified and cast down1 he is so little able to raise himself up again and say1 #8,now ,i am bruised and afflicted enough2 now is the time of grace2 now is the time to hear ,christ4' ,the foolishness of man's heart is so great that then he rather seeketh to himself more laws to satisfy his conscience4 #8,if ,i live1' saith he1 #8,i will amend my life3 ,i will do this1 ,i will do that4' ,but here1 except thou do the quite contrary1 except thou send ,moses away with his law1 and in these terrors and this anguish lay hold upon ,christ who died for thy sins1 look for no salvation4 ,thy cowl1 thy shaven crown1 thy chastity1 thy obedience1 thy poverty1 thy works1 thy merits8 what shall all these do8 what shall the law of ,moses avail8 ,if ,i1 wretched and damnable sinner1 through works or merits could have loved the ,son of ,god1 and so come to him1 what needed he to deliver himself for me8 ,if ,i1 being a wretch and damned sinner1 could be redeemed by any other price1 what needed the ,son of ,god to be given8 ,but because there was no other price1 therefore he delivered neither sheep1 ox1 gold1 nor silver1 but even ,god himself1 entirely and wholly #8for me1' even #8for me1' ,i say1 a miserable1 wretched sinner4 ,now1 therefore1 ,i take comfort and apply this to myself4 ,and this manner of applying is the very true force and power of faith4 ,for he died not to justify the righteous1 but the unrighteous1 and to make them the children of ,god407#acj7 ,that is1 the more literally lost you are1 the more literally you are the very being whom ,christ's sacrifice has already saved4 ,nothing in ,catholic theology1 ,i imagine1 has ever spoken to sick souls as straight as this message from ,luther's personal experience4 ,as ,protestants are not all sick souls1 of course reliance on what ,luther exults in calling the dung of one's merits1 the filthy puddle of one's own righteousness1 has come to the front again in their religion2 but the adequacy of his view of ,christianity to the deeper parts of our human mental structure is shown by its wildfire contagiousness when it was a new and quickening thing4 ,faith that ,christ has genuinely done his work was part of what ,luther meant by faith1 which so far is faith in a fact intellectually conceived of4 ,but this is only one part of ,luther's faith1 the other part being far more vital4 ,this other part is something not intellectual but immediate and intuitive1 the assurance1 namely1 that ,i1 this individual ,i1 just as ,i stand1 without one plea1 etc41 am saved now and forever47#aca7 ,professor ,leuba is undoubtedly right in contending that the conceptual belief about ,christ's work1 although so often efficacious and antecedent1 is really accessory and nonessential1 and that the 8joyous conviction0 can also come by far other channels than this conception4 ,it is to the joyous conviction itself1 the assurance that all is well with one1 that he would give the name of faith par excellence4 8,when the sense of estrangement10 he writes1 8fencing man about in a narrowly limited ego1 breaks down1 the individual finds himself #8at one with all creation4' ,he lives in the universal life2 he and man1 he and nature1 he and ,god1 are one4 ,that state of confidence1 trust1 union with all things1 following upon the achievement of moral unity1 is the ,faithstate4 ,various dogmatic beliefs suddenly1 on the advent of the faithstate1 acquire a character of certainty1 assume a new reality1 become an object of faith4 ,as the ground of assurance here is not rational1 argumentation is irrelevant4 ,but such conviction being a mere casual offshoot of the faithstate1 it is a gross error to imagine that the chief practical value of the faithstate is its power to stamp with the seal of reality certain particular theological conceptions47#acb7 ,on the contrary1 its value lies solely in the fact that it is the psychic correlate of a biological growth reducing contending desires to one direction2 a growth which expresses itself in new affective states and new reactions2 in larger1 nobler1 more ,christlike activities4 ,the ground of the specific assurance in religious dogmas is then an affective experience4 ,the objects of faith may even be preposterous2 the affective stream will float them along1 and invest them with unshakable certitude4 ,the more startling the affective experience1 the less explicable it seems1 the easier it is to make it the carrier of unsubstantiated notions407#acc7 ,the characteristics of the affective experience which1 to avoid ambiguity1 should1 ,i think1 be called the state of assurance rather than the faith state1 can be easily enumerated1 though it is probably difficult to realize their intensity1 unless one have been through the experience one's self4 ,the central one is the loss of all the worry1 the sense that all is ultimately well with one1 the peace1 the harmony1 the willingness to be1 even though the outer conditions should remain the same4 ,the certainty of ,god's 8grace10 of 8justification10 8salvation10 is an objective belief that usually accompanies the change in ,christians2 but this may be entirely lacking and yet the affective peace remain the same--you will recollect the case of the ,oxford graduate3 and many might be given where the assurance of personal salvation was only a later result4 ,a passion of willingness1 of acquiescence1 of admiration1 is the glowing centre of this state of mind4 ,the second feature is the sense of perceiving truths not known before4 ,the mysteries of life become lucid1 as ,professor ,leuba says2 and often1 nay usually1 the solution is more or less unutterable in words4 ,but these more intellectual phenomena may be postponed until we treat of mysticism4 ,a third peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change which the world often appears to undergo4 8,an appearance of newness beautifies every object10 the precise opposite of that other sort of newness1 that dreadful unreality and strangeness in the appearance of the world1 which is experienced by melancholy patients1 and of which you may recall my relating some examples47#acd7 ,this sense of clean and beautiful newness within and without is one of the commonest entries in conversion records4 ,jonathan ,edwards thus describes it in himself3-- 8,after this my sense of divine things gradually increased1 and became more and more lively1 and had more of that inward sweetness4 ,the appearance of everything was altered2 there seemed to be1 as it were1 a calm1 sweet cast1 or appearance of divine glory1 in almost everything4 ,god's excellency1 his wisdom1 his purity and love1 seemed to appear in everything2 in the sun1 moon1 and stars2 in the clouds and blue sky2 in the grass1 flowers1 and trees2 in the water and all nature2 which used greatly to fix my mind4 ,and scarce anything1 among all the works of nature1 was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning2 formerly nothing had been so terrible to me4 ,before1 ,i used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder1 and to be struck with terror when ,i saw a thunderstorm rising2 but now1 on the contrary1 it rejoices me407#ace7 ,billy ,bray1 an excellent little illiterate ,english evangelist1 records his sense of newness thus3-- 8,i said to the ,lord3 #8,thou hast said1 they that ask shall receive1 they that seek shall find1 and to them that knock the door shall be opened1 and ,i have faith to believe it4' ,in an instant the ,lord made me so happy that ,i cannot express what ,i felt4 ,i shouted for joy4 ,i praised ,god with my whole heart4444 ,i think this was in ,november1 #ahbc1 but what day of the month ,i do not know4 ,i remember this1 that everything looked new to me1 the people1 the fields1 the cattle1 the trees4 ,i was like a new man in a new world4 ,i spent the greater part of my time in praising the ,lord407#acf7 ,starbuck and ,leuba both illustrate this sense of newness by quotations4 ,i take the two following from ,starbuck's manuscript collection4 ,one1 a woman1 says3-- 8,i was taken to a campmeeting1 mother and religious friends seeking and praying for my conversion4 ,my emotional nature was stirred to its depths2 confessions of depravity and pleading with ,god for salvation from sin made me oblivious of all surroundings4 ,i plead for mercy1 and had a vivid realization of forgiveness and renewal of my nature4 ,when rising from my knees ,i exclaimed1 #8,old things have passed away1 all things have become new4' ,it was like entering another world1 a new state of existence4 ,natural objects were glorified1 my spiritual vision was so clarified that ,i saw beauty in every material object in the universe1 the woods were vocal with heavenly music2 my soul exulted in the love of ,god1 and ,i wanted everybody to share in my joy40 ,the next case is that of a man3-- 8,i know not how ,i got back into the encampment1 but found myself staggering up to ,rev4 ----'s ,holiness tent--and as it was full of seekers and a terrible noise inside1 some groaning1 some laughing1 and some shouting1 and by a large oak1 ten feet from the tent1 ,i fell on my face by a bench1 and tried to pray1 and every time ,i would call on ,god1 something like a man's hand would strangle me by choking4 ,i don't know whether there were any one around or near me or not4 ,i thought ,i should surely die if ,i did not get help1 but just as often as ,i would pray1 that unseen hand was felt on my throat and my breath squeezed off4 ,finally something said3 #8,venture on the atonement1 for you will die anyway if you don't4' ,so ,i made one final struggle to call on ,god for mercy1 with the same choking and strangling1 determined to finish the sentence of prayer for ,mercy1 if ,i did strangle and die1 and the last ,i remember that time was falling back on the ground with the same unseen hand on my throat4 ,i don't know how long ,i lay there or what was going on4 ,none of my folks were present4 ,when ,i came to myself1 there were a crowd around me praising ,god4 ,the very heavens seemed to open and pour down rays of light and glory4 ,not for a moment only1 but all day and night1 floods of light and glory seemed to pour through my soul1 and oh1 how ,i was changed1 and everything became new4 ,my horses and hogs and even everybody seemed changed40 ,this man's case introduces the feature of automatisms1 which in suggestible subjects have been so startling a feature at revivals since1 in ,edwards's1 ,wesley's1 and ,whitfield's time1 these became a regular means of gospel propagation4 ,they were at first supposed to be semimiraculous proofs of 8power0 on the part of the ,holy ,ghost2 but great divergence of opinion quickly arose concerning them4 ,edwards1 in his ,thoughts on the ,revival of ,religion in ,new ,england1 has to defend them against their critics2 and their value has long been matter of debate even within the revivalistic denominations47#acg7 ,they undoubtedly have no essential spiritual significance1 and although their presence makes his conversion more memorable to the convert1 it has never been proved that converts who show them are more persevering or fertile in good fruits than those whose change of heart has had less violent accompaniments4 ,on the whole1 unconsciousness1 convulsions1 visions1 involuntary vocal utterances1 and suffocation1 must be simply ascribed to the subject's having a large subliminal region1 involving nervous instability4 ,this is often the subject's own view of the matter afterwards4 ,one of ,starbuck's correspondents writes1 for instance3-- 8,i have been through the experience which is known as conversion4 ,my explanation of it is this3 the subject works his emotions up to the breaking point1 at the same time resisting their physical manifestations1 such as quickened pulse1 etc41 and then suddenly lets them have their full sway over his body4 ,the relief is something wonderful1 and the pleasurable effects of the emotions are experienced to the highest degree40 ,there is one form of sensory automatism which possibly deserves special notice on account of its frequency4 ,i refer to hallucinatory or pseudo hallucinatory luminous phenomena1 photisms1 to use the term of the psychologists4 ,saint ,paul's blinding heavenly vision seems to have been a phenomenon of this sort2 so does ,constantine's cross in the sky4 ,the last case but one which ,i quoted mentions floods of light and glory4 ,henry ,alline mentions a light1 about whose externality he seems uncertain4 ,colonel ,gardiner sees a blazing light4 ,president ,finney writes3-- 8,all at once the glory of ,god shone upon and round about me in a manner almost marvelous4444 ,a light perfectly ineffable shone in my soul1 that almost prostrated me on the ground4444 ,this light seemed like the brightness of the sun in every direction4 ,it was too intense for the eyes4444 ,i think ,i knew something then1 by actual experience1 of that light that prostrated ,paul on the way to ,damascus4 ,it was surely a light such as ,i could not have endured long407#ach7 ,such reports of photisms are indeed far from uncommon4 ,here is another from ,starbuck's collection1 where the light appeared evidently external3-- 8,i had attended a series of revival services for about two weeks off and on4 ,had been invited to the altar several times1 all the time becoming more deeply impressed1 when finally ,i decided ,i must do this1 or ,i should be lost4 ,realization of conversion was very vivid1 like a ton's weight being lifted from my heart2 a strange light which seemed to light up the whole room 7for it was dark72 a conscious supreme bliss which caused me to repeat #8,glory to ,god' for a long time4 ,decided to be ,god's child for life1 and to give up my pet ambition1 wealth and social position4 ,my former habits of life hindered my growth somewhat1 but ,i set about overcoming these systematically1 and in one year my whole nature was changed1 i4e41 my ambitions were of a different order40 ,here is another one of ,starbuck's cases1 involving a luminous element3-- 8,i had been clearly converted twentythree years before1 or rather reclaimed4 ,my experience in regeneration was then clear and spiritual1 and ,i had not backslidden4 ,but ,i experienced entire sanctification on the #aeth day of ,march1 #ahic1 about eleven o'clock in the morning4 ,the particular accompaniments of the experience were entirely unexpected4 ,i was quietly sitting at home singing selections out of ,pentecostal ,hymns4 ,suddenly there seemed to be a something sweeping into me and inflating my entire being--such a sensation as ,i had never experienced before4 ,when this experience came1 ,i seemed to be conducted around a large1 capacious1 welllighted room4 ,as ,i walked with my invisible conductor and looked around1 a clear thought was coined in my mind1 #8,they are not here1 they are gone4' ,as soon as the thought was definitely formed in my mind1 though no word was spoken1 the ,holy ,spirit impressed me that ,i was surveying my own soul4 ,then1 for the first time in all my life1 did ,i know that ,i was cleansed from all sin1 and filled with the fullness of ,god40 ,leuba quotes the case of a ,mr4 ,peek1 where the luminous affection reminds one of the chromatic hallucinations produced by the intoxicant cactus buds called mescal by the ,mexicans3-- 8,when ,i went in the morning into the fields to work1 the glory of ,god appeared in all his visible creation4 ,i well remember we reaped oats1 and how every straw and head of the oats seemed1 as it were1 arrayed in a kind of rainbow glory1 or to glow1 if ,i may so express it1 in the glory of ,god407#aci7 ,the most characteristic of all the elements of the conversion crisis1 and the last one of which ,i shall speak1 is the ecstasy of happiness produced4 ,we have already heard several accounts of it1 but ,i will add a couple more4 ,president ,finney's is so vivid that ,i give it at length3-- 8,all my feelings seemed to rise and flow out2 and the utterance of my heart was1 #8,i want to pour my whole soul out to ,god4' ,the rising of my soul was so great that ,i rushed into the back room of the front office1 to pray4 ,there was no fire and no light in the room2 nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light4 ,as ,i went in and shut the door after me1 it seemed as if ,i met the ,lord ,jesus ,christ face to face4 ,it did not occur to me then1 nor did it for some time afterwards1 that it was wholly a mental state4 ,on the contrary1 it seemed to me that ,i saw him as ,i would see any other man4 ,he said nothing1 but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet4 ,i have always since regarded this as a most remarkable state of mind2 for it seemed to me a reality that he stood before me1 and ,i fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to him4 ,i wept aloud like a child1 and made such confessions as ,i could with my choked utterance4 ,it seemed to me that ,i bathed his feet with my tears2 and yet ,i had no distinct impression that ,i touched him1 that ,i recollect4 ,i must have continued in this state for a good while2 but my mind was too much absorbed with the interview to recollect anything that ,i said4 ,but ,i know1 as soon as my mind became calm enough to break off from the interview1 ,i returned to the front office1 and found that the fire that ,i had made of large wood was nearly burned out4 ,but as ,i turned and was about to take a seat by the fire1 ,i received a mighty baptism of the ,holy ,ghost4 ,without any expectation of it1 without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me1 without any recollection that ,i had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world1 the ,holy ,spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me1 body and soul4 ,i could feel the impression1 like a wave of electricity1 going through and through me4 ,indeed1 it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love2 for ,i could not express it in any other way4 ,it seemed like the very breath of ,god4 ,i can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me1 like immense wings4 8,no words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart4 ,i wept aloud with joy and love2 and ,i do not know but ,i should say ,i literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart4 ,these waves came over me1 and over me1 and over me1 one after the other1 until ,i recollect ,i cried out1 #8,i shall die if these waves continue to pass over me4' ,i said1 #8,lord1 ,i cannot bear any more2' yet ,i had no fear of death4 8,how long ,i continued in this state1 with this baptism continuing to roll over me and go through me1 ,i do not know4 ,but ,i know it was late in the evening when a member of my choir--for ,i was the leader of the choir--came into the office to see me4 ,he was a member of the church4 ,he found me in this state of loud weeping1 and said to me1 #8,mr4 ,finney1 what ails you8' ,i could make him no answer for some time4 ,he then said1 #8,are you in pain8' ,i gathered myself up as best ,i could1 and replied1 #8,no1 but so happy that ,i cannot live4' 0 ,i just now quoted ,billy ,bray2 ,i cannot do better than give his own brief account of his postconversion feelings3-- 8,i can't help praising the ,lord4 ,as ,i go along the street1 ,i lift up one foot1 and it seems to say #8,glory'2 and ,i lift up the other1 and it seems to say #8,amen'2 and so they keep up like that all the time ,i am walking407#adj7 ,one word1 before ,i close this lecture1 on the question of the transiency or permanence of these abrupt conversions4 ,some of you1 ,i feel sure1 knowing that numerous backslidings and relapses take place1 make of these their apperceiving mass for interpreting the whole subject1 and dismiss it with a pitying smile at so much 8hysterics40 ,psychologically1 as well as religiously1 however1 this is shallow4 ,it misses the point of serious interest1 which is not so much the duration as the nature and quality of these shiftings of character to higher levels4 ,men lapse from every level--we need no statistics to tell us that4 ,love is1 for instance1 well known not to be irrevocable1 yet1 constant or inconstant1 it reveals new flights and reaches of ideality while it lasts4 ,these revelations form its significance to men and women1 whatever be its duration4 ,so with the conversion experience3 that it should for even a short time show a human being what the highwater mark of his spiritual capacity is1 this is what constitutes its importance1--an importance which backsliding cannot diminish1 although persistence might increase it4 ,as a matter of fact1 all the more striking instances of conversion1 all those1 for instance1 which ,i have quoted1 have been permanent4 ,the case of which there might be most doubt1 on account of its suggesting so strongly an epileptoid seizure1 was the case of ,m4 ,ratisbonne4 ,yet ,i am informed that ,ratisbonne's whole future was shaped by those few minutes4 ,he gave up his project of marriage1 became a priest1 founded at ,jerusalem1 where he went to dwell1 a mission of nuns for the conversion of the ,jews1 showed no tendency to use for egotistic purposes the notoriety given him by the peculiar circumstances of his conversion1--which1 for the rest1 he could seldom refer to without tears1--and in short remained an exemplary son of the ,church until he died1 late in the #hj's1 if ,i remember rightly4 ,the only statistics ,i know of1 on the subject of the duration of conversions1 are those collected for ,professor ,starbuck by ,miss ,johnston4 ,they embrace only a hundred persons1 evangelical churchmembers1 more than half being ,methodists4 ,according to the statement of the subjects themselves1 there had been backsliding of some sort in nearly all the cases1 #ic per cent4 of the women1 #gg per cent4 of the men4 ,discussing the returns more minutely1 ,starbuck finds that only #f per cent4 are relapses from the religious faith which the conversion confirmed1 and that the backsliding complained of is in most only a fluctuation in the ardor of sentiment4 ,only six of the hundred cases report a change of faith4 ,starbuck's conclusion is that the effect of conversion is to bring with it 8a changed attitude towards life1 which is fairly constant and permanent1 although the feelings fluctuate4444 ,in other words1 the persons who have passed through conversion1 having once taken a stand for the religious life1 tend to feel themselves identified with it1 no matter how much their religious enthusiasm declines407#ada7 ,,lectures ,,xi1 ,,xii1 ,,and ,,xiii4 ,,saintliness4 ,the last lecture left us in a state of expectancy4 ,what may the practical fruits for life have been1 of such movingly happy conversions as those we heard of8 ,with this question the really important part of our task opens1 for you remember that we began all this empirical inquiry not merely to open a curious chapter in the natural history of human consciousness1 but rather to attain a spiritual judgment as to the total value and positive meaning of all the religious trouble and happiness which we have seen4 ,we must1 therefore1 first describe the fruits of the religious life1 and then we must judge them4 ,this divides our inquiry into two distinct parts4 ,let us without further preamble proceed to the descriptive task4 ,it ought to be the pleasantest portion of our business in these lectures4 ,some small pieces of it1 it is true1 may be painful1 or may show human nature in a pathetic light1 but it will be mainly pleasant1 because the best fruits of religious experience are the best things that history has to show4 ,they have always been esteemed so2 here if anywhere is the genuinely strenuous life2 and to call to mind a succession of such examples as ,i have lately had to wander through1 though it has been only in the reading of them1 is to feel encouraged and uplifted and washed in better moral air4 ,the highest flights of charity1 devotion1 trust1 patience1 bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves have been flown for religious ideals4 ,i can do no better than quote1 as to this1 some remarks which ,sainte,beuve in his ,history of ,port,royal makes on the results of conversion or the state of grace4 8,even from the purely human point of view10 ,sainte,beuve says1 8the phenomenon of grace must still appear sufficiently extraordinary1 eminent1 and rare1 both in its nature and in its effects1 to deserve a closer study4 ,for the soul arrives thereby at a certain fixed and invincible state1 a state which is genuinely heroic1 and from out of which the greatest deeds which it ever performs are executed4 ,through all the different forms of communion1 and all the diversity of the means which help to produce this state1 whether it be reached by a jubilee1 by a general confession1 by a solitary prayer and effusion1 whatever in short be the place and the occasion1 it is easy to recognize that it is fundamentally one state in spirit and in fruits4 ,penetrate a little beneath the diversity of circumstances1 and it becomes evident that in ,christians of different epochs it is always one and the same modification by which they are affected3 there is veritably a single fundamental and identical spirit of piety and charity1 common to those who have received grace2 an inner state which before all things is one of love and humility1 of infinite confidence in ,god1 and of severity for one's self1 accompanied with tenderness for others4 ,the fruits peculiar to this condition of the soul have the same savor in all1 under distant suns and in different surroundings1 in ,saint ,teresa of ,avila just as in any ,moravian brother of ,herrnhut407#adb7 ,sainte,beuve has here only the more eminent instances of regeneration in mind1 and these are of course the instructive ones for us also to consider4 ,these devotees have often laid their course so differently from other men that1 judging them by worldly law1 we might be tempted to call them monstrous aberrations from the path of nature4 ,i begin1 therefore1 by asking a general psychological question as to what the inner conditions are which may make one human character differ so extremely from another4 ,i reply at once that where the character1 as something distinguished from the intellect1 is concerned1 the causes of human diversity lie chiefly in our differing susceptibilities of emotional excitement1 and in the different impulses and inhibitions which these bring in their train4 ,let me make this more clear4 ,speaking generally1 our moral and practical attitude1 at any given time1 is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us1 impulses pushing us one way and obstructions and inhibitions holding us back4 8,yes6 yes60 say the impulses2 8,no6 no60 say the inhibitions4 ,few people who have not expressly reflected on the matter realize how constantly this factor of inhibition is upon us1 how it contains and moulds us by its restrictive pressure almost as if we were fluids pent within the cavity of a jar4 ,the influence is so incessant that it becomes subconscious4 ,all of you1 for example1 sit here with a certain constraint at this moment1 and entirely without express consciousness of the fact1 because of the influence of the occasion4 ,if left alone in the room1 each of you would probably involuntarily rearrange himself1 and make his attitude more 8free and easy40 ,but proprieties and their inhibitions snap like cobwebs if any great emotional excitement supervenes4 ,i have seen a dandy appear in the street with his face covered with shavinglather because a house across the way was on fire2 and a woman will run among strangers in her nightgown if it be a question of saving her baby's life or her own4 ,take a self indulgent woman's life in general4 ,she will yield to every inhibition set by her disagreeable sensations1 lie late in bed1 live upon tea or bromides1 keep indoors from the cold4 ,every difficulty finds her obedient to its 8no40 ,but make a mother of her1 and what have you8 ,possessed by maternal excitement1 she now confronts wakefulness1 weariness1 and toil without an instant of hesitation or a word of complaint4 ,the inhibitive power of pain over her is extinguished wherever the baby's interests are at stake4 ,the inconveniences which this creature occasions have become1 as ,james ,hinton says1 the glowing heart of a great joy1 and indeed are now the very conditions whereby the joy becomes most deep4 ,this is an example of what you have already heard of as the 8expulsive power of a higher affection40 ,but be the affection high or low1 it makes no difference1 so long as the excitement it brings be strong enough4 ,in one of ,henry ,drummond's discourses he tells of an inundation in ,india where an eminence with a bungalow upon it remained unsubmerged1 and became the refuge of a number of wild animals and reptiles in addition to the human beings who were there4 ,at a certain moment a royal ,bengal tiger appeared swimming towards it1 reached it1 and lay panting like a dog upon the ground in the midst of the people1 still possessed by such an agony of terror that one of the ,englishmen could calmly step up with a rifle and blow out its brains4 ,the tiger's habitual ferocity was temporarily quelled by the emotion of fear1 which became sovereign1 and formed a new centre for his character4 ,sometimes no emotional state is sovereign1 but many contrary ones are mixed together4 ,in that case one hears both 8yeses0 and 8noes10 and the 8will0 is called on then to solve the conflict4 ,take a soldier1 for example1 with his dread of cowardice impelling him to advance1 his fears impelling him to run1 and his propensities to imitation pushing him towards various courses if his comrades offer various examples4 ,his person becomes the seat of a mass of interferences2 and he may for a time simply waver1 because no one emotion prevails4 ,there is a pitch of intensity1 though1 which1 if any emotion reach it1 enthrones that one as alone effective and sweeps its antagonists and all their inhibitions away4 ,the fury of his comrades' charge1 once entered on1 will give this pitch of courage to the soldier2 the panic of their rout will give this pitch of fear4 ,in these sovereign excitements1 things ordinarily impossible grow natural because the inhibitions are annulled4 ,their 8no6 no60 not only is not heard1 it does not exist4 ,obstacles are then like tissuepaper hoops to the circus rider--no impediment2 the flood is higher than the dam they make4 8,lass sie betteln gehn wenn sie hungrig sind60 cries the grenadier1 frantic over his ,emperor's capture1 when his wife and babes are suggested2 and men pent into a burning theatre have been known to cut their way through the crowd with knives47#adc7 ,one mode of emotional excitability is exceedingly important in the composition of the energetic character1 from its peculiarly destructive power over inhibitions4 ,i mean what in its lower form is mere irascibility1 susceptibility to wrath1 the fighting temper2 and what in subtler ways manifests itself as impatience1 grimness1 earnestness1 severity of character4 ,earnestness means willingness to live with energy1 though energy bring pain4 ,the pain may be pain to other people or pain to one's self--it makes little difference2 for when the strenuous mood is on one1 the aim is to break something1 no matter whose or what4 ,nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does it2 for1 as ,moltke says of war1 destruction pure and simple is its essence4 ,this is what makes it so invaluable an ally of every other passion4 ,the sweetest delights are trampled on with a ferocious pleasure the moment they offer themselves as checks to a cause by which our higher indignations are elicited4 ,it costs then nothing to drop friendships1 to renounce long rooted privileges and possessions1 to break with social ties4 ,rather do we take a stern joy in the astringency and desolation2 and what is called weakness of character seems in most cases to consist in the inaptitude for these sacrificial moods1 of which one's own inferior self and its pet softnesses must often be the targets and the victims47#add7 ,so far ,i have spoken of temporary alterations produced by shifting excitements in the same person4 ,but the relatively fixed differences of character of different persons are explained in a precisely similar way4 ,in a man with a liability to a special sort of emotion1 whole ranges of inhibition habitually vanish1 which in other men remain effective1 and other sorts of inhibition take their place4 ,when a person has an inborn genius for certain emotions1 his life differs strangely from that of ordinary people1 for none of their usual deterrents check him4 ,your mere aspirant to a type of character1 on the contrary1 only shows1 when your natural lover1 fighter1 or reformer1 with whom the passion is a gift of nature1 comes along1 the hopeless inferiority of voluntary to instinctive action4 ,he has deliberately to overcome his inhibitions2 the genius with the inborn passion seems not to feel them at all2 he is free of all that inner friction and nervous waste4 ,to a ,fox1 a ,garibaldi1 a ,general ,booth1 a ,john ,brown1 a ,louise ,michel1 a ,bradlaugh1 the obstacles omnipotent over those around them are as if nonexistent4 ,could the rest of us so disregard them1 there might be many such heroes1 for many have the wish to live for similar ideals1 and only the adequate degree of inhibition quenching fury is lacking47#ade7 ,the difference between willing and merely wishing1 between having ideals that are creative and ideals that are but pinings and regrets1 thus depends solely either on the amount of steampressure chronically driving the character in the ideal direction1 or on the amount of ideal excitement transiently acquired4 ,given a certain amount of love1 indignation1 generosity1 magnanimity1 admiration1 loyalty1 or enthusiasm of self surrender1 the result is always the same4 ,that whole raft of cowardly obstructions1 which in tame persons and dull moods are sovereign impediments to action1 sinks away at once4 ,our conventionality17#adf7 our shyness1 laziness1 and stinginess1 our demands for precedent and permission1 for guarantee and surety1 our small suspicions1 timidities1 despairs1 where are they now8 ,severed like cobwebs1 broken like bubbles in the sun-- 8,wo sind die ,sorge nun und ,noth ,die mich noch gestern wollt' erschlaffen8 ,ich schm' mich dess' im ,morgenroth40 ,the flood we are borne on rolls them so lightly under that their very contact is unfelt4 ,set free of them1 we float and soar and sing4 ,this auroral openness and uplift gives to all creative ideal levels a bright and caroling quality1 which is nowhere more marked than where the controlling emotion is religious4 8,the true monk10 writes an ,italian mystic1 8takes nothing with him but his lyre40 ,we may now turn from these psychological generalities to those fruits of the religious state which form the special subject of our present lecture4 ,the man who lives in his religious centre of personal energy1 and is actuated by spiritual enthusiasms1 differs from his previous carnal self in perfectly definite ways4 ,the new ardor which burns in his breast consumes in its glow the lower 8noes0 which formerly beset him1 and keeps him immune against infection from the entire groveling portion of his nature4 ,magnanimities once impossible are now easy2 paltry conventionalities and mean incentives once tyrannical hold no sway4 ,the stone wall inside of him has fallen1 the hardness in his heart has broken down4 ,the rest of us can1 ,i think1 imagine this by recalling our state of feeling in those temporary 8melting moods0 into which either the trials of real life1 or the theatre1 or a novel sometimes throw us4 ,especially if we weep6 ,for it is then as if our tears broke through an inveterate inner dam1 and let all sorts of ancient peccancies and moral stagnancies drain away1 leaving us now washed and soft of heart and open to every nobler leading4 ,with most of us the customary hardness quickly returns1 but not so with saintly persons4 ,many saints1 even as energetic ones as ,teresa and ,loyola1 have possessed what the church traditionally reveres as a special grace1 the socalled gift of tears4 ,in these persons the melting mood seems to have held almost uninterrupted control4 ,and as it is with tears and melting moods1 so it is with other exalted affections4 ,their reign may come by gradual growth or by a crisis2 but in either case it may have 8come to stay40 ,at the end of the last lecture we saw this permanence to be true of the general paramountcy of the higher insight1 even though in the ebbs of emotional excitement meaner motives might temporarily prevail and backsliding might occur4 ,but that lower temptations may remain completely annulled1 apart from transient emotion and as if by alteration of the man's habitual nature1 is also proved by documentary evidence in certain cases4 ,before embarking on the general natural history of the regenerate character1 let me convince you of this curious fact by one or two examples4 ,the most numerous are those of reformed drunkards4 ,you recollect the case of ,mr4 ,hadley in the last lecture2 the ,jerry ,mc,auley ,water ,street ,mission abounds in similar instances47#adg7 ,you also remember the graduate of ,oxford1 converted at three in the afternoon1 and getting drunk in the hayfield the next day1 but after that permanently cured of his appetite4 8,from that hour drink has had no terrors for me3 ,i never touch it1 never want it4 ,the same thing occurred with my pipe1 444 the desire for it went at once and has never returned4 ,so with every known sin1 the deliverance in each case being permanent and complete4 ,i have had no temptations since conversion40 ,here is an analogous case from ,starbuck's manuscript collection3-- 8,i went into the old ,adelphi ,theatre1 where there was a ,holiness meeting1 444 and ,i began saying1 #8,lord1 ,lord1 ,i must have this blessing4' ,then what was to me an audible voice said3 #8,are you willing to give up everything to the ,lord8' and question after question kept coming up1 to all of which ,i said3 #8,yes1 ,lord2 yes1 ,lord6' until this came3 #8,why do you not accept it now8' and ,i said3 #8,i do1 ,lord4'--,i felt no particular joy1 only a trust4 ,just then the meeting closed1 and1 as ,i went out on the street1 ,i met a gentleman smoking a fine cigar1 and a cloud of smoke came into my face1 and ,i took a long1 deep breath of it1 and praise the ,lord1 all my appetite for it was gone4 ,then as ,i walked along the street1 passing saloons where the fumes of liquor came out1 ,i found that all my taste and longing for that accursed stuff was gone4 ,glory to ,god6 444 ,but for ten or eleven long years after that ,i was in the wilderness with its ups and downs4 ,my appetite for liquor never came back40 ,the classic case of ,colonel ,gardiner is that of a man cured of sexual temptation in a single hour4 ,to ,mr4 ,spears the colonel said1 8,i was effectually cured of all inclination to that sin ,i was so strongly addicted to that ,i thought nothing but shooting me through the head could have cured me of it2 and all desire and inclination to it was removed1 as entirely as if ,i had been a sucking child2 nor did the temptation return to this day40 ,mr4 ,webster's words on the same subject are these3 8,one thing ,i have heard the colonel frequently say1 that he was much addicted to impurity before his acquaintance with religion2 but that1 so soon as he was enlightened from above1 he felt the power of the ,holy ,ghost changing his nature so wonderfully that his sanctification in this respect seemed more remarkable than in any other407#adh7 ,such rapid abolition of ancient impulses and propensities reminds us so strongly of what has been observed as the result of hypnotic suggestion that it is difficult not to believe that subliminal influences play the decisive part in these abrupt changes of heart1 just as they do in hypnotism47#adi7 ,suggestive therapeutics abound in records of cure1 after a few sittings1 of inveterate bad habits with which the patient1 left to ordinary moral and physical influences1 had struggled in vain4 ,both drunkenness and sexual vice have been cured in this way1 action through the subliminal seeming thus in many individuals to have the prerogative of inducing relatively stable change4 ,if the grace of ,god miraculously operates1 it probably operates through the subliminal door1 then4 ,but just how anything operates in this region is still unexplained1 and we shall do well now to say goodby to the process of transformation altogether1--leaving it1 if you like1 a good deal of a psychological or theological mystery1--and to turn our attention to the fruits of the religious condition1 no matter in what way they may have been produced47#aej7 ,the collective name for the ripe fruits of religion in a character is ,saintliness47#aea7 ,the saintly character is the character for which spiritual emotions are the habitual centre of the personal energy2 and there is a certain composite photograph of universal saintliness1 the same in all religions1 of which the features can easily be traced47#aeb7 ,they are these3-- #a4 ,a feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world's selfish little interests2 and a conviction1 not merely intellectual1 but as it were sensible1 of the existence of an ,ideal ,power4 ,in ,christian saintliness this power is always personified as ,god2 but abstract moral ideals1 civic or patriotic utopias1 or inner visions of holiness or right may also be felt as the true lords and enlargers of our life1 in ways which ,i described in the lecture on the ,reality of the ,unseen47#aec7 #b4 ,a sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power with our own life1 and a willing selfsurrender to its control4 #c4 ,an immense elation and freedom1 as the outlines of the confining selfhood melt down4 #d4 ,a shifting of the emotional centre towards loving and harmonious affections1 towards 8yes1 yes0 and away from 8no10 where the claims of the nonego are concerned4 ,these fundamental inner conditions have characteristic practical consequences1 as follows3-- a4 ,asceticism4--,the selfsurrender may become so passionate as to turn into selfimmolation4 ,it may then so overrule the ordinary inhibitions of the flesh that the saint finds positive pleasure in sacrifice and asceticism1 measuring and expressing as they do the degree of his loyalty to the higher power4 b4 ,strength of ,soul4--,the sense of enlargement of life may be so uplifting that personal motives and inhibitions1 commonly omnipotent1 become too insignificant for notice1 and new reaches of patience and fortitude open out4 ,fears and anxieties go1 and blissful equanimity takes their place4 ,come heaven1 come hell1 it makes no difference now6 8,we forbid ourselves all seeking after popularity1 all ambition to appear important4 ,we pledge ourselves to abstain from falsehood1 in all its degrees4 ,we promise not to create or encourage illusions as to what is possible1 by what we say or write4 ,we promise to one another active sincerity1 which strives to see truth clearly1 and which never fears to declare what it sees4 8,we promise deliberate resistance to the tidal waves of fashion1 to the #8booms' and panics of the public mind1 to all the forms of weakness and of fear4 8,we forbid ourselves the use of sarcasm4 ,of serious things we will speak seriously and unsmilingly1 without banter and without the appearance of banter2--and even so of all things1 for there are serious ways of being light of heart4 8,we will put ourselves forward always for what we are1 simply and without false humility1 as well as without pedantry1 affectation1 or pride40 c4 ,purity4--,the shifting of the emotional centre brings with it1 first1 increase of purity4 ,the sensitiveness to spiritual discords is enhanced1 and the cleansing of existence from brutal and sensual elements becomes imperative4 ,occasions of contact with such elements are avoided3 the saintly life must deepen its spiritual consistency and keep unspotted from the world4 ,in some temperaments this need of purity of spirit takes an ascetic turn1 and weaknesses of the flesh are treated with relentless severity4 d4 ,charity4--,the shifting of the emotional centre brings1 secondly1 increase of charity1 tenderness for fellowcreatures4 ,the ordinary motives to antipathy1 which usually set such close bounds to tenderness among human beings1 are inhibited4 ,the saint loves his enemies1 and treats loathsome beggars as his brothers4 ,i now have to give some concrete illustrations of these fruits of the spiritual tree4 ,the only difficulty is to choose1 for they are so abundant4 ,since the sense of ,presence of a higher and friendly ,power seems to be the fundamental feature in the spiritual life1 ,i will begin with that4 ,in our narratives of conversion we saw how the world might look shining and transfigured to the convert17#aed7 and1 apart from anything acutely religious1 we all have moments when the universal life seems to wrap us round with friendliness4 ,in youth and health1 in summer1 in the woods or on the mountains1 there come days when the weather seems all whispering with peace1 hours when the goodness and beauty of existence enfold us like a dry warm climate1 or chime through us as if our inner ears were subtly ringing with the world's security4 ,thoreau writes3-- 8,once1 a few weeks after ,i came to the woods1 for an hour ,i doubted whether the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life4 ,to be alone was somewhat unpleasant4 ,but1 in the midst of a gentle rain1 while these thoughts prevailed1 ,i was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in ,nature1 in the very pattering of the drops1 and in every sight and sound around my house1 an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once1 like an atmosphere1 sustaining me1 as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant1 and ,i have never thought of them since4 ,every little pineneedle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me4 ,i was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me1 that ,i thought no place could ever be strange to me again407#aee7 ,in the ,christian consciousness this sense of the enveloping friendliness becomes most personal and definite4 8,the compensation10 writes a ,german author1 8for the loss of that sense of personal independence which man so unwillingly gives up1 is the disappearance of all fear from one's life1 the quite indescribable and inexplicable feeling of an inner security1 which one can only experience1 but which1 once it has been experienced1 one can never forget407#aef7 ,i find an excellent description of this state of mind in a sermon by ,mr4 ,voysey3-- 8,it is the experience of myriads of trustful souls1 that this sense of ,god's unfailing presence with them in their going out and in their coming in1 and by night and day1 is a source of absolute repose and confident calmness4 ,it drives away all fear of what may befall them4 ,that nearness of ,god is a constant security against terror and anxiety4 ,it is not that they are at all assured of physical safety1 or deem themselves protected by a love which is denied to others1 but that they are in a state of mind equally ready to be safe or to meet with injury4 ,if injury befall them1 they will be content to bear it because the ,lord is their keeper1 and nothing can befall them without his will4 ,if it be his will1 then injury is for them a blessing and no calamity at all4 ,thus and thus only is the trustful man protected and shielded from harm4 ,and ,i for one--by no means a thickskinned or hardnerved man--am absolutely satisfied with this arrangement1 and do not wish for any other kind of immunity from danger and catastrophe4 ,quite as sensitive to pain as the most highly strung organism1 ,i yet feel that the worst of it is conquered1 and the sting taken out of it altogether1 by the thought that ,god is our loving and sleepless keeper1 and that nothing can hurt us without his will407#aeg7 ,more excited expressions of this condition are abundant in religious literature4 ,i could easily weary you with their monotony4 ,here is an account from ,mrs4 ,jonathan ,edwards3-- 8,last night10 ,mrs4 ,edwards writes1 8was the sweetest night ,i ever had in my life4 ,i never before1 for so long a time together1 enjoyed so much of the light and rest and sweetness of heaven in my soul1 but without the least agitation of body during the whole time4 ,part of the night ,i lay awake1 sometimes asleep1 and sometimes between sleeping and waking4 ,but all night ,i continued in a constant1 clear1 and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of ,christ's excellent love1 of his nearness to me1 and of my dearness to him2 with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him4 ,i seemed to myself to perceive a glow of divine love come down from the heart of ,christ in heaven into my heart in a constant stream1 like a stream or pencil of sweet light4 ,at the same time my heart and soul all flowed out in love to ,christ1 so that there seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of heavenly love1 and ,i appeared to myself to float or swim1 in these bright1 sweet beams1 like the motes swimming in the beams of the sun1 or the streams of his light which come in at the window4 ,i think that what ,i felt each minute was worth more than all the outward comfort and pleasure which ,i had enjoyed in my whole life put together4 ,it was pleasure1 without the least sting1 or any interruption4 ,it was a sweetness1 which my soul was lost in2 it seemed to be all that my feeble frame could sustain4 ,there was but little difference1 whether ,i was asleep or awake1 but if there was any difference1 the sweetness was greatest while ,i was asleep47#aeh7 ,as ,i awoke early the next morning1 it seemed to me that ,i had entirely done with myself4 ,i felt that the opinions of the world concerning me were nothing1 and that ,i had no more to do with any outward interest of my own than with that of a person whom ,i never saw4 ,the glory of ,god seemed to swallow up every wish and desire of my heart4444 ,after retiring to rest and sleeping a little while1 ,i awoke1 and was led to reflect on ,god's mercy to me1 in giving me1 for many years1 a willingness to die2 and after that1 in making me willing to live1 that ,i might do and suffer whatever he called me to here4 ,i also thought how ,god had graciously given me an entire resignation to his will1 with respect to the kind and manner of death that ,i should die2 having been made willing to die on the rack1 or at the stake1 and if it were ,god's will1 to die in darkness4 ,but now it occurred to me1 ,i used to think of living no longer than to the ordinary age of man4 ,upon this ,i was led to ask myself1 whether ,i was not willing to be kept out of heaven even longer2 and my whole heart seemed immediately to reply3 ,yes1 a thousand years1 and a thousand in horror1 if it be most for the honor of ,god1 the torment of my body being so great1 awful1 and overwhelming that none could bear to live in the country where the spectacle was seen1 and the torment of my mind being vastly greater4 ,and it seemed to me that ,i found a perfect willingness1 quietness1 and alacrity of soul in consenting that it should be so1 if it were most for the glory of ,god1 so that there was no hesitation1 doubt1 or darkness in my mind4 ,the glory of ,god seemed to overcome me and swallow me up1 and every conceivable suffering1 and everything that was terrible to my nature1 seemed to shrink to nothing before it4 ,this resignation continued in its clearness and brightness the rest of the night1 and all the next day1 and the night following1 and on ,monday in the forenoon1 without interruption or abatement407#aei7 ,the annals of ,catholic saintship abound in records as ecstatic or more ecstatic than this4 8,often the assaults of the divine love10 it is said of the ,sister ,sraphique de la ,martinire1 8reduced her almost to the point of death4 ,she used tenderly to complain of this to ,god4 #8,i cannot support it1' she used to say4 #8,bear gently with my weakness1 or ,i shall expire under the violence of your love4' 07#afj7 ,let me pass next to the ,charity and ,brotherly ,love which are a usual fruit of saintliness1 and have always been reckoned essential theological virtues1 however limited may have been the kinds of service which the particular theology enjoined4 ,brotherly love would follow logically from the assurance of ,god's friendly presence1 the notion of our brotherhood as men being an immediate inference from that of ,god's fatherhood of us all4 ,when ,christ utters the precepts3 8,love your enemies1 bless them that curse you1 do good to them that hate you1 and pray for them which despitefully use you1 and persecute you10 he gives for a reason3 8,that ye may be the children of your ,father which is in heaven3 for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good1 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust40 ,one might therefore be tempted to explain both the humility as to one's self and the charity towards others which characterize spiritual excitement1 as results of the allleveling character of theistic belief4 ,but these affections are certainly not mere derivatives of theism4 ,we find them in ,stoicism1 in ,hinduism1 and in ,buddhism in the highest possible degree4 ,they harmonize with paternal theism beautifully2 but they harmonize with all reflection whatever upon the dependence of mankind on general causes2 and we must1 ,i think1 consider them not subordinate but cordinate parts of that great complex excitement in the study of which we are engaged4 ,religious rapture1 moral enthusiasm1 ontological wonder1 cosmic emotion1 are all unifying states of mind1 in which the sand and grit of the selfhood incline to disappear1 and tenderness to rule4 ,the best thing is to describe the condition integrally as a characteristic affection to which our nature is liable1 a region in which we find ourselves at home1 a sea in which we swim2 but not to pretend to explain its parts by deriving them too cleverly from one another4 ,like love or fear1 the faithstate is a natural psychic complex1 and carries charity with it by organic consequence4 ,jubilation is an expansive affection1 and all expansive affections are selfforgetful and kindly so long as they endure4 ,we find this the case even when they are pathological in origin4 ,in his instructive work1 la ,tristesse et la ,joie17#afa7 ,m4 ,georges ,dumas compares together the melancholy and the joyous phase of circular insanity1 and shows that1 while selfishness characterizes the one1 the other is marked by altruistic impulses4 ,no human being so stingy and useless as was ,marie in her melancholy period6 ,but the moment the happy period begins1 8sympathy and kindness become her characteristic sentiments4 ,she displays a universal goodwill1 not only of intention1 but in act4444 ,she becomes solicitous of the health of other patients1 interested in getting them out1 desirous to procure wool to knit socks for some of them4 ,never since she has been under my observation have ,i heard her in her joyous period utter any but charitable opinions407#afb7 ,and later1 ,dr4 ,dumas says of all such joyous conditions that 8unselfish sentiments and tender emotions are the only affective states to be found in them4 ,the subject's mind is closed against envy1 hatred1 and vindictiveness1 and wholly transformed into benevolence1 indulgence1 and mercy407#afc7 ,there is thus an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness1 and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise4 ,along with the happiness1 this increase of tenderness is often noted in narratives of conversion4 8,i began to work for others02--8,i had more tender feeling for my family and friends02--8,i spoke at once to a person with whom ,i had been angry02--8,i felt for every one1 and loved my friends better02--8,i felt every one to be my friend02--these are so many expressions from the records collected by ,professor ,starbuck47#afd7 8,when10 says ,mrs4 ,edwards1 continuing the narrative from which ,i made quotation a moment ago1 8,i arose on the morning of the ,sabbath1 ,i felt a love to all mankind1 wholly peculiar in its strength and sweetness1 far beyond all that ,i had ever felt before4 ,the power of that love seemed inexpressible4 ,i thought1 if ,i were surrounded by enemies1 who were venting their malice and cruelty upon me1 in tormenting me1 it would still be impossible that ,i should cherish any feelings towards them but those of love1 and pity1 and ardent desires for their happiness4 ,i never before felt so far from a disposition to judge and censure others1 as ,i did that morning4 ,i realized also1 in an unusual and very lively manner1 how great a part of ,christianity lies in the performance of our social and relative duties to one another4 ,the same joyful sense continued throughout the day--a sweet love to ,god and all mankind40 ,whatever be the explanation of the charity1 it may efface all usual human barriers47#afe7 ,here1 for instance1 is an example of ,christian nonresistance from ,richard ,weaver's autobiography4 ,weaver was a collier1 a semiprofessional pugilist in his younger days1 who became a much beloved evangelist4 ,fighting1 after drinking1 seems to have been the sin to which he originally felt his flesh most perversely inclined4 ,after his first conversion he had a backsliding1 which consisted in pounding a man who had insulted a girl4 ,feeling that1 having once fallen1 he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb1 he got drunk and went and broke the jaw of another man who had lately challenged him to fight and taunted him with cowardice for refusing as a ,christian man2--,i mention these incidents to show how genuine a change of heart is implied in the later conduct which he describes as follows3-- 8,i went down the drift and found the boy crying because a fellow workman was trying to take the wagon from him by force4 ,i said to him3-- 8 #8,tom1 you mustn't take that wagon4' 8,he swore at me1 and called me a ,methodist devil4 ,i told him that ,god did not tell me to let him rob me4 ,he cursed again1 and said he would push the wagon over me4 8 #8,well1' ,i said1 #8let us see whether the devil and thee are stronger than the ,lord and me4' 8,and the ,lord and ,i proving stronger than the devil and he1 he had to get out of the way1 or the wagon would have gone over him4 ,so ,i gave the wagon to the boy4 ,then said ,tom3-- 8 #8,i've a good mind to smack thee on the face4' 8 #8,well1' ,i said1 #8if that will do thee any good1 thou canst do it4' ,so he struck me on the face4 8,i turned the other cheek to him1 and said1 #8,strike again4' 8,he struck again and again1 till he had struck me five times4 ,i turned my cheek for the sixth stroke2 but he turned away cursing4 ,i shouted after him3 #8,the ,lord forgive thee1 for ,i do1 and the ,lord save thee4' 8,this was on a ,saturday2 and when ,i went home from the coalpit my wife saw my face was swollen1 and asked what was the matter with it4 ,i said3 #8,i've been fighting1 and ,i've given a man a good thrashing4' 8,she burst out weeping1 and said1 #8,o ,richard1 what made you fight8' ,then ,i told her all about it2 and she thanked the ,lord ,i had not struck back4 8,but the ,lord had struck1 and his blows have more effect than man's4 ,monday came4 ,the devil began to tempt me1 saying3 #8,the other men will laugh at thee for allowing ,tom to treat thee as he did on ,saturday4' ,i cried1 #8,get thee behind me1 ,satan2'--and went on my way to the coalpit4 8,tom was the first man ,i saw4 ,i said #8,goodmorning1' but got no reply4 8,he went down first4 ,when ,i got down1 ,i was surprised to see him sitting on the wagonroad waiting for me4 ,when ,i came to him he burst into tears and said3 #8,richard1 will you forgive me for striking you8' 8 #8,i have forgiven thee1' said ,i2 #8ask ,god to forgive thee4 ,the ,lord bless thee4' ,i gave him my hand1 and we went each to his work407#aff7 8,love your enemies60 ,mark you1 not simply those who happen not to be your friends1 but your enemies1 your positive and active enemies4 ,either this is a mere ,oriental hyperbole1 a bit of verbal extravagance1 meaning only that we should1 as far as we can1 abate our animosities1 or else it is sincere and literal4 ,outside of certain cases of intimate individual relation1 it seldom has been taken literally4 ,yet it makes one ask the question3 ,can there in general be a level of emotion so unifying1 so obliterative of differences between man and man1 that even enmity may come to be an irrelevant circumstance and fail to inhibit the friendlier interests aroused8 ,if positive wellwishing could attain so supreme a degree of excitement1 those who were swayed by it might well seem superhuman beings4 ,their life would be morally discrete from the life of other men1 and there is no saying1 in the absence of positive experience of an authentic kind1--for there are few active examples in our scriptures1 and the ,buddhistic examples are legendary17#afg7--what the effects might be3 they might conceivably transform the world4 ,psychologically and in principle1 the precept 8,love your enemies0 is not selfcontradictory4 ,it is merely the extreme limit of a kind of magnanimity with which1 in the shape of pitying tolerance of our oppressors1 we are fairly familiar4 ,yet if radically followed1 it would involve such a breach with our instinctive springs of action as a whole1 and with the present world's arrangements1 that a critical point would practically be passed1 and we should be born into another kingdom of being4 ,religious emotion makes us feel that other kingdom to be close at hand1 within our reach4 ,the inhibition of instinctive repugnance is proved not only by the showing of love to enemies1 but by the showing of it to any one who is personally loathsome4 ,in the annals of saintliness we find a curious mixture of motives impelling in this direction4 ,asceticism plays its part2 and along with charity pure and simple1 we find humility or the desire to disclaim distinction and to grovel on the common level before ,god4 ,certainly all three principles were at work when ,francis of ,assisi and ,ignatius ,loyola exchanged their garments with those of filthy beggars4 ,all three are at work when religious persons consecrate their lives to the care of leprosy or other peculiarly unpleasant diseases4 ,the nursing of the sick is a function to which the religious seem strongly drawn1 even apart from the fact that church traditions set that way4 ,but in the annals of this sort of charity we find fantastic excesses of devotion recorded which are only explicable by the frenzy of selfimmolation simultaneously aroused4 ,francis of ,assisi kisses his lepers2 ,margaret ,mary ,alacoque1 ,francis ,xavier1 ,st4 ,john of ,god1 and others are said to have cleansed the sores and ulcers of their patients with their respective tongues2 and the lives of such saints as ,elizabeth of ,hungary and ,madame de ,chantal are full of a sort of reveling in hospital purulence1 disagreeable to read of1 and which makes us admire and shudder at the same time4 ,so much for the human love aroused by the faithstate4 ,let me next speak of the ,equanimity1 ,resignation1 ,fortitude1 and ,patience which it brings4 8,a paradise of inward tranquillity0 seems to be faith's usual result2 and it is easy1 even without being religious one's self1 to understand this4 ,a moment back1 in treating of the sense of ,god's presence1 ,i spoke of the unaccountable feeling of safety which one may then have4 ,and1 indeed1 how can it possibly fail to steady the nerves1 to cool the fever1 and appease the fret1 if one be sensibly conscious that1 no matter what one's difficulties for the moment may appear to be1 one's life as a whole is in the keeping of a power whom one can absolutely trust8 ,in deeply religious men the abandonment of self to this power is passionate4 ,whoever not only says1 but feels1 8,god's will be done10 is mailed against every weakness2 and the whole historic array of martyrs1 missionaries1 and religious reformers is there to prove the tranquilmindedness1 under naturally agitating or distressing circumstances1 which selfsurrender brings4 ,the temper of the tranquilmindedness differs1 of course1 according as the person is of a constitutionally sombre or of a constitutionally cheerful cast of mind4 ,in the sombre it partakes more of resignation and submission2 in the cheerful it is a joyous consent4 ,as an example of the former temper1 ,i quote part of a letter from ,professor ,lagneau1 a venerated teacher of philosophy who lately died1 a great invalid1 at ,paris3-- 8,my life1 for the success of which you send good wishes1 will be what it is able to be4 ,i ask nothing from it1 ,i expect nothing from it4 ,for long years now ,i exist1 think1 and act1 and am worth what ,i am worth1 only through the despair which is my sole strength and my sole foundation4 ,may it preserve for me1 even in these last trials to which ,i am coming1 the courage to do without the desire of deliverance4 ,i ask nothing more from the ,source whence all strength cometh1 and if that is granted1 your wishes will have been accomplished407#afh7 ,there is something pathetic and fatalistic about this1 but the power of such a tone as a protection against outward shocks is manifest4 ,pascal is another ,frenchman of pessimistic natural temperament4 ,he expresses still more amply the temper of selfsurrendering submissiveness3-- 8,deliver me1 ,lord10 he writes in his prayers1 8from the sadness at my proper suffering which selflove might give1 but put into me a sadness like your own4 ,let my sufferings appease your choler4 ,make them an occasion for my conversion and salvation4 ,i ask you neither for health nor for sickness1 for life nor for death2 but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness1 my life and my death1 for your glory1 for my salvation1 and for the use of the ,church and of your saints1 of whom ,i would by your grace be one4 ,you alone know what is expedient for me2 you are the sovereign master2 do with me according to your will4 ,give to me1 or take away from me1 only conform my will to yours4 ,i know but one thing1 ,lord1 that it is good to follow you1 and bad to offend you4 ,apart from that1 ,i know not what is good or bad in anything4 ,i know not which is most profitable to me1 health or sickness1 wealth or poverty1 nor anything else in the world4 ,that discernment is beyond the power of men or angels1 and is hidden among the secrets of your ,providence1 which ,i adore1 but do not seek to fathom407#afi7 ,when we reach more optimistic temperaments1 the resignation grows less passive4 ,examples are sown so broadcast throughout history that ,i might well pass on without citation4 ,as it is1 ,i snatch at the first that occurs to my mind4 ,madame ,guyon1 a frail creature physically1 was yet of a happy native disposition4 ,she went through many perils with admirable serenity of soul4 ,after being sent to prison for heresy1-- 8,some of my friends10 she writes1 8wept bitterly at the hearing of it1 but such was my state of acquiescence and resignation that it failed to draw any tears from me4444 ,there appeared to be in me then1 as ,i find it to be in me now1 such an entire loss of what regards myself1 that any of my own interests gave me little pain or pleasure2 ever wanting to will or wish for myself only the very thing which ,god does40 ,in another place she writes3 8,we all of us came near perishing in a river which we found it necessary to pass4 ,the carriage sank in the quicksand4 ,others who were with us threw themselves out in excessive fright4 ,but ,i found my thoughts so much taken up with ,god that ,i had no distinct sense of danger4 ,it is true that the thought of being drowned passed across my mind1 but it cost no other sensation or reflection in me than this--that ,i felt quite contented and willing it were so1 if it were my heavenly ,father's choice40 ,sailing from ,nice to ,genoa1 a storm keeps her eleven days at sea4 8,as the irritated waves dashed round us10 she writes1 8,i could not help experiencing a certain degree of satisfaction in my mind4 ,i pleased myself with thinking that those mutinous billows1 under the command of ,him who does all things rightly1 might probably furnish me with a watery grave4 ,perhaps ,i carried the point too far1 in the pleasure which ,i took in thus seeing myself beaten and bandied by the swelling waters4 ,those who were with me took notice of my intrepidity407#agj7 ,the contempt of danger which religious enthusiasm produces may be even more buoyant still4 ,i take an example from that charming recent autobiography1 8,with ,christ at ,sea10 by ,frank ,bullen4 ,a couple of days after he went through the conversion on shipboard of which he there gives an account1-- 8,it was blowing stiffly10 he writes1 8and we were carrying a press of canvas to get north out of the bad weather4 ,shortly after four bells we hauled down the flyingjib1 and ,i sprang out astride the boom to furl it4 ,i was sitting astride the boom when suddenly it gave way with me4 ,the sail slipped through my fingers1 and ,i fell backwards1 hanging head downwards over the seething tumult of shining foam under the ship's bows1 suspended by one foot4 ,but ,i felt only high exultation in my certainty of eternal life4 ,although death was divided from me by a hair's breadth1 and ,i was acutely conscious of the fact1 it gave me no sensation but joy4 ,i suppose ,i could have hung there no longer than five seconds1 but in that time ,i lived a whole age of delight4 ,but my body asserted itself1 and with a desperate gymnastic effort ,i regained the boom4 ,how ,i furled the sail ,i don't know1 but ,i sang at the utmost pitch of my voice praises to ,god that went pealing out over the dark waste of waters407#aga7 ,the annals of martyrdom are of course the signal field of triumph for religious imperturbability4 ,let me cite as an example the statement of a humble sufferer1 persecuted as a ,huguenot under ,louis ,,xiv43-- 8,they shut all the doors10 ,blanche ,gamond writes1 8and ,i saw six women1 each with a bunch of willow rods as thick as the hand could hold1 and a yard long4 ,he gave me the order1 #8,undress yourself1' which ,i did4 ,he said1 #8,you are leaving on your shift2 you must take it off4' ,they had so little patience that they took it off themselves1 and ,i was naked from the waist up4 ,they brought a cord with which they tied me to a beam in the kitchen4 ,they drew the cord tight with all their strength and asked me1 #8,does it hurt you8' and then they discharged their fury upon me1 exclaiming as they struck me1 #8,pray now to your ,god4' ,it was the ,roulette woman who held this language4 ,but at this moment ,i received the greatest consolation that ,i can ever receive in my life1 since ,i had the honor of being whipped for the name of ,christ1 and in addition of being crowned with his mercy and his consolations4 ,why can ,i not write down the inconceivable influences1 consolations1 and peace which ,i felt interiorly8 ,to understand them one must have passed by the same trial2 they were so great that ,i was ravished1 for there where afflictions abound grace is given superabundantly4 ,in vain the women cried1 #8,we must double our blows2 she does not feel them1 for she neither speaks nor cries4' ,and how should ,i have cried1 since ,i was swooning with happiness within807#agb7 ,the transition from tenseness1 selfresponsibility1 and worry1 to equanimity1 receptivity1 and peace1 is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium1 those changes of the personal centre of energy1 which ,i have analyzed so often2 and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about1 not by doing1 but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down4 ,this abandonment of selfresponsibility seems to be the fundamental act in specifically religious1 as distinguished from moral practice4 ,it antedates theologies and is independent of philosophies4 ,mindcure1 theosophy1 stoicism1 ordinary neurological hygiene1 insist on it as emphatically as ,christianity does1 and it is capable of entering into closest marriage with every speculative creed47#agc7 ,christians who have it strongly live in what is called 8recollection10 and are never anxious about the future1 nor worry over the outcome of the day4 ,of ,saint ,catharine of ,genoa it is said that 8she took cognizance of things1 only as they were presented to her in succession1 moment by moment40 ,to her holy soul1 8the divine moment was the present moment1444 and when the present moment was estimated in itself and in its relations1 and when the duty that was involved in it was accomplished1 it was permitted to pass away as if it had never been1 and to give way to the facts and duties of the moment which came after407#agd7 ,hinduism1 mindcure1 and theosophy all lay great emphasis upon this concentration of the consciousness upon the moment at hand4 ,the next religious symptom which ,i will note is what ,i have called ,purity of ,life4 ,the saintly person becomes exceedingly sensitive to inner inconsistency or discord1 and mixture and confusion grow intolerable4 ,all the mind's objects and occupations must be ordered with reference to the special spiritual excitement which is now its keynote4 ,whatever is unspiritual taints the pure water of the soul and is repugnant4 ,mixed with this exaltation of the moral sensibilities there is also an ardor of sacrifice1 for the beloved deity's sake1 of everything unworthy of him4 ,sometimes the spiritual ardor is so sovereign that purity is achieved at a stroke--we have seen examples4 ,usually it is a more gradual conquest4 ,billy ,bray's account of his abandonment of tobacco is a good example of the latter form of achievement4 8,i had been a smoker as well as a drunkard1 and ,i used to love my tobacco as much as ,i loved my meat1 and ,i would rather go down into the mine without my dinner than without my pipe4 ,in the days of old1 the ,lord spoke by the mouths of his servants1 the prophets2 now he speaks to us by the spirit of his ,son4 ,i had not only the feeling part of religion1 but ,i could hear the small1 still voice within speaking to me4 ,when ,i took the pipe to smoke1 it would be applied within1 #8,it is an idol1 a lust2 worship the ,lord with clean lips4' ,so1 ,i felt it was not right to smoke4 ,the ,lord also sent a woman to convince me4 ,i was one day in a house1 and ,i took out my pipe to light it at the fire1 and ,mary ,hawke--for that was the woman's name--said1 #8,do you not feel it is wrong to smoke8' ,i said that ,i felt something inside telling me that it was an idol1 a lust1 and she said that was the ,lord4 ,then ,i said1 #8,now1 ,i must give it up1 for the ,lord is telling me of it inside1 and the woman outside1 so the tobacco must go1 love it as ,i may4' ,there and then ,i took the tobacco out of my pocket1 and threw it into the fire1 and put the pipe under my foot1 #8ashes to ashes1 dust to dust4' ,and ,i have not smoked since4 ,i found it hard to break off old habits1 but ,i cried to the ,lord for help1 and he gave me strength1 for he has said1 #8,call upon me in the day of trouble1 and ,i will deliver thee4' ,the day after ,i gave up smoking ,i had the toothache so bad that ,i did not know what to do4 ,i thought this was owing to giving up the pipe1 but ,i said ,i would never smoke again1 if ,i lost every tooth in my head4 ,i said1 #8,lord1 thou hast told us ,my yoke is easy and my burden is light1' and when ,i said that1 all the pain left me4 ,sometimes the thought of the pipe would come back to me very strong2 but the ,lord strengthened me against the habit1 and1 bless his name1 ,i have not smoked since40 ,bray's biographer writes that after he had given up smoking1 he thought that he would chew a little1 but he conquered this dirty habit1 too4 8,on one occasion10 ,bray said1 8when at a prayer meeting at ,hicks ,mill1 ,i heard the ,lord say to me1 #8,worship me with clean lips4' ,so1 when we got up from our knees1 ,i took the quid out of my mouth and #8whipped 'en' threw it under the form4 ,but1 when we got on our knees again1 ,i put another quid into my mouth4 ,then the ,lord said to me again1 #8,worship me with clean lips4' ,so ,i took the quid out of my mouth1 and whipped 'en under the form again1 and said1 #8,yes1 ,lord1 ,i will4' ,from that time ,i gave up chewing as well as smoking1 and have been a free man40 ,the ascetic forms which the impulse for veracity and purity of life may take are often pathetic enough4 ,the early ,quakers1 for example1 had hard battles to wage against the worldliness and insincerity of the ecclesiastical ,christianity of their time4 ,yet the battle that cost them most wounds was probably that which they fought in defense of their own right to social veracity and sincerity in their theeing and thouing1 in not doffing the hat or giving titles of respect4 ,it was laid on ,george ,fox that these conventional customs were a lie and a sham1 and the whole body of his followers thereupon renounced them1 as a sacrifice to truth1 and so that their acts and the spirit they professed might be more in accord4 8,when the ,lord sent me into the world10 says ,fox in his ,journal1 8he forbade me to put off my hat to any1 high or low3 and ,i was required to #8thee' and #8thou' all men and women1 without any respect to rich or poor1 great or small4 ,and as ,i traveled up and down1 ,i was not to bid people ,goodmorning1 or ,goodevening1 neither might ,i bow or scrape with my leg to any one4 ,this made the sects and professions rage4 ,oh6 the rage that was in the priests1 magistrates1 professors1 and people of all sorts3 and especially in priests and professors3 for though #8thou' to a single person was according to their accidence and grammar rules1 and according to the ,bible1 yet they could not bear to hear it3 and because ,i could not put off my hat to them1 it set them all into a rage4444 ,oh6 the scorn1 heat1 and fury that arose6 ,oh6 the blows1 punchings1 beatings1 and imprisonments that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men6 ,some had their hats violently plucked off and thrown away1 so that they quite lost them4 ,the bad language and evil usage we received on this account is hard to be expressed1 besides the danger we were sometimes in of losing our lives for this matter1 and that by the great professors of ,christianity1 who thereby discovered they were not true believers4 ,and though it was but a small thing in the eye of man1 yet a wonderful confusion it brought among all professors and priests3 but1 blessed be the ,lord1 many came to see the vanity of that custom of putting off hats to men1 and felt the weight of ,truth's testimony against it40 ,in the autobiography of ,thomas ,elwood1 an early ,quaker1 who at one time was secretary to ,john ,milton1 we find an exquisitely quaint and candid account of the trials he underwent both at home and abroad1 in following ,fox's canons of sincerity4 ,the anecdotes are too lengthy for citation2 but ,elwood sets down his manner of feeling about these things in a shorter passage1 which ,i will quote as a characteristic utterance of spiritual sensibility3-- 8,by this divine light1 then10 says ,elwood1 8,i saw that though ,i had not the evil of the common uncleanliness1 debauchery1 profaneness1 and pollutions of the world to put away1 because ,i had1 through the great goodness of ,god and a civil education1 been preserved out of those grosser evils1 yet ,i had many other evils to put away and to cease from2 some of which were not by the world1 which lies in wickedness 7#a ,john v4 #ai71 accounted evils1 but by the light of ,christ were made manifest to me to be evils1 and as such condemned in me4 8,as particularly those fruits and effects of pride that discover themselves in the vanity and superfluity of apparel2 which ,i took too much delight in4 ,this evil of my doings ,i was required to put away and cease from2 and judgment lay upon me till ,i did so4 8,i took off from my apparel those unnecessary trimmings of lace1 ribbons1 and useless buttons1 which had no real service1 but were set on only for that which was by mistake called ornament2 and ,i ceased to wear rings4 8,again1 the giving of flattering titles to men between whom and me there was not any relation to which such titles could be pretended to belong4 ,this was an evil ,i had been much addicted to1 and was accounted a ready artist in2 therefore this evil also was ,i required to put away and cease from4 ,so that thenceforward ,i durst not say1 ,sir1 ,master1 ,my ,lord1 ,madam 7or ,my ,dame72 or say ,your ,servant to any one to whom ,i did not stand in the real relation of a servant1 which ,i had never done to any4 8,again1 respect of persons1 in uncovering the head and bowing the knee or body in salutation1 was a practice ,i had been much in the use of2 and this1 being one of the vain customs of the world1 introduced by the spirit of the world1 instead of the true honor which this is a false representation of1 and used in deceit as a token of respect by persons one to another1 who bear no real respect one to another2 and besides this1 being a type and a proper emblem of that divine honor which all ought to pay to ,almighty ,god1 and which all of all sorts1 who take upon them the ,christian name1 appear in when they offer their prayers to him1 and therefore should not be given to men2--,i found this to be one of those evils which ,i had been too long doing2 therefore ,i was now required to put it away and cease from it4 8,again1 the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person1 you to one1 instead of thou1 contrary to the pure1 plain1 and single language of truth1 thou to one1 and you to more than one1 which had always been used by ,god to men1 and men to ,god1 as well as one to another1 from the oldest record of time till corrupt men1 for corrupt ends1 in later and corrupt times1 to flatter1 fawn1 and work upon the corrupt nature in men1 brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one1 which has since corrupted the modern languages1 and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men2--this evil custom ,i had been as forward in as others1 and this ,i was now called out of and required to cease from4 8,these and many more evil customs which had sprung up in the night of darkness and general apostasy from the truth and true religion were now1 by the inshining of this pure ray of divine light in my conscience1 gradually discovered to me to be what ,i ought to cease from1 shun1 and stand a witness against407#age7 ,these early ,quakers were ,puritans indeed4 ,the slightest inconsistency between profession and deed jarred some of them to active protest4 ,john ,woolman writes in his diary3-- 8,in these journeys ,i have been where much cloth hath been dyed2 and have at sundry times walked over ground where much of their dyestuffs has drained away4 ,this hath produced a longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of spirit1 cleanness of person1 and cleanness about their houses and garments4 ,dyes being invented partly to please the eye1 and partly to hide dirt1 ,i have felt in this weak state1 when traveling in dirtiness1 and affected with unwholesome scents1 a strong desire that the nature of dyeing cloth to hide dirt may be more fully considered4 8,washing our garments to keep them sweet is cleanly1 but it is the opposite to real cleanliness to hide dirt in them4 ,through giving way to hiding dirt in our garments a spirit which would conceal that which is disagreeable is strengthened4 ,real cleanliness becometh a holy people2 but hiding that which is not clean by coloring our garments seems contrary to the sweetness of sincerity4 ,through some sorts of dyes cloth is rendered less useful4 ,and if the value of dyestuffs1 and expense of dyeing1 and the damage done to cloth1 were all added together1 and that cost applied to keeping all sweet and clean1 how much more would real cleanliness prevail4 8,thinking often on these things1 the use of hats and garments dyed with a dye hurtful to them1 and wearing more clothes in summer than are useful1 grew more uneasy to me2 believing them to be customs which have not their foundation in pure wisdom4 ,the apprehension of being singular from my beloved friends was a strait upon me2 and thus ,i continued in the use of some things1 contrary to my judgment1 about nine months4 ,then ,i thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur1 but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me4 ,on this account ,i was under close exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in #agfb1 greatly desiring to be rightly directed2 when1 being deeply bowed in spirit before the ,lord1 ,i was made willing to submit to what ,i apprehended was required of me2 and when ,i returned home1 got a hat of the natural color of the fur4 8,in attending meetings1 this singularity was a trial to me1 and more especially at this time1 as white hats were used by some who were fond of following the changeable modes of dress1 and as some friends1 who knew not from what motives ,i wore it1 grew shy of me1 ,i felt my way for a time shut up in the exercise of the ministry4 ,some friends were apprehensive that my wearing such a hat savored of an affected singularity3 those who spoke with me in a friendly way1 ,i generally informed in a few words1 that ,i believed my wearing it was not in my own will40 ,when the craving for moral consistency and purity is developed to this degree1 the subject may well find the outer world too full of shocks to dwell in1 and can unify his life and keep his soul unspotted only by withdrawing from it4 ,that law which impels the artist to achieve harmony in his composition by simply dropping out whatever jars1 or suggests a discord1 rules also in the spiritual life4 ,to omit1 says ,stevenson1 is the one art in literature3 8,if ,i knew how to omit1 ,i should ask no other knowledge40 ,and life1 when full of disorder and slackness and vague superfluity1 can no more have what we call character than literature can have it under similar conditions4 ,so monasteries and communities of sympathetic devotees open their doors1 and in their changeless order1 characterized by omissions quite as much as constituted of actions1 the holyminded person finds that inner smoothness and cleanness which it is torture to him to feel violated at every turn by the discordancy and brutality of secular existence4 ,that the scrupulosity of purity may be carried to a fantastic extreme must be admitted4 ,in this it resembles ,asceticism1 to which further symptom of saintliness we had better turn next4 ,the adjective 8ascetic0 is applied to conduct originating on diverse psychological levels1 which ,i might as well begin by distinguishing from one another4 #a4 ,asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood1 disgusted with too much ease4 #b4 ,temperance in meat and drink1 simplicity of apparel1 chastity1 and nonpampering of the body generally1 may be fruits of the love of purity1 shocked by whatever savors of the sensual4 #c4 ,they may also be fruits of love1 that is1 they may appeal to the subject in the light of sacrifices which he is happy in making to the ,deity whom he acknowledges4 #d4 ,again1 ascetic mortifications and torments may be due to pessimistic feelings about the self1 combined with theological beliefs concerning expiation4 ,the devotee may feel that he is buying himself free1 or escaping worse sufferings hereafter1 by doing penance now4 #e4 ,in psychopathic persons1 mortifications may be entered on irrationally1 by a sort of obsession or fixed idea which comes as a challenge and must be worked off1 because only thus does the subject get his interior consciousness feeling right again4 #f4 ,finally1 ascetic exercises may in rarer instances be prompted by genuine perversions of the bodily sensibility1 in consequence of which normally paingiving stimuli are actually felt as pleasures4 ,i will try to give an instance under each of these heads in turn2 but it is not easy to get them pure1 for in cases pronounced enough to be immediately classed as ascetic1 several of the assigned motives usually work together4 ,moreover1 before citing any examples at all1 ,i must invite you to some general psychological considerations which apply to all of them alike4 ,a strange moral transformation has within the past century swept over our ,western world4 ,we no longer think that we are called on to face physical pain with equanimity4 ,it is not expected of a man that he should either endure it or inflict much of it1 and to listen to the recital of cases of it makes our flesh creep morally as well as physically4 ,the way in which our ancestors looked upon pain as an eternal ingredient of the world's order1 and both caused and suffered it as a matterofcourse portion of their day's work1 fills us with amazement4 ,we wonder that any human beings could have been so callous4 ,the result of this historic alteration is that even in the ,mother ,church herself1 where ascetic discipline has such a fixed traditional prestige as a factor of merit1 it has largely come into desuetude1 if not discredit4 ,a believer who flagellates or 8macerates0 himself today arouses more wonder and fear than emulation4 ,many ,catholic writers who admit that the times have changed in this respect do so resignedly2 and even add that perhaps it is as well not to waste feelings in regretting the matter1 for to return to the heroic corporeal discipline of ancient days might be an extravagance4 ,where to seek the easy and the pleasant seems instinctive--and instinctive it appears to be in man2 any deliberate tendency to pursue the hard and painful as such and for their own sakes might well strike one as purely abnormal4 ,nevertheless1 in moderate degrees it is natural and even usual to human nature to court the arduous4 ,it is only the extreme manifestations of the tendency that can be regarded as a paradox4 ,the psychological reasons for this lie near the surface4 ,when we drop abstractions and take what we call our will in the act1 we see that it is a very complex function4 ,it involves both stimulations and inhibitions2 it follows generalized habits2 it is escorted by reflective criticisms2 and it leaves a good or a bad taste of itself behind1 according to the manner of the performance4 ,the result is that1 quite apart from the immediate pleasure which any sensible experience may give us1 our own general moral attitude in procuring or undergoing the experience brings with it a secondary satisfaction or distaste4 ,some men and women1 indeed1 there are who can live on smiles and the word 8yes0 forever4 ,but for others 7indeed for most71 this is too tepid and relaxed a moral climate4 ,passive happiness is slack and insipid1 and soon grows mawkish and intolerable4 ,some austerity and wintry negativity1 some roughness1 danger1 stringency1 and effort1 some 8no6 no60 must be mixed in1 to produce the sense of an existence with character and texture and power4 ,the range of individual differences in this respect is enormous2 but whatever the mixture of yeses and noes may be1 the person is infallibly aware when he has struck it in the right proportion for him4 ,this1 he feels1 is my proper vocation1 this is the optimum1 the law1 the life for me to live4 ,here ,i find the degree of equilibrium1 safety1 calm1 and leisure which ,i need1 or here ,i find the challenge1 passion1 fight1 and hardship without which my soul's energy expires4 ,every individual soul1 in short1 like every individual machine or organism1 has its own best conditions of efficiency4 ,a given machine will run best under a certain steampressure1 a certain amperage2 an organism under a certain diet1 weight1 or exercise4 ,you seem to do best1 ,i heard a doctor say to a patient1 at about #adj millimeters of arterial tension4 ,and it is just so with our sundry souls3 some are happiest in calm weather2 some need the sense of tension1 of strong volition1 to make them feel alive and well4 ,for these latter souls1 whatever is gained from day to day must be paid for by sacrifice and inhibition1 or else it comes too cheap and has no zest4 ,now when characters of this latter sort become religious1 they are apt to turn the edge of their need of effort and negativity against their natural self2 and the ascetic life gets evolved as a consequence4 ,when ,professor ,tyndall in one of his lectures tells us that ,thomas ,carlyle put him into his bathtub every morning of a freezing ,berlin winter1 he proclaimed one of the lowest grades of asceticism4 ,even without ,carlyle1 most of us find it necessary to our soul's health to start the day with a rather cool immersion4 ,a little farther along the scale we get such statements as this1 from one of my correspondents1 an agnostic3-- 8,often at night in my warm bed ,i would feel ashamed to depend so on the warmth1 and whenever the thought would come over me ,i would have to get up1 no matter what time of night it was1 and stand for a minute in the cold1 just so as to prove my manhood40 ,such cases as these belong simply to our head #a4 ,in the next case we probably have a mixture of heads #b and #c--the asceticism becomes far more systematic and pronounced4 ,the writer is a ,protestant1 whose sense of moral energy could doubtless be gratified on no lower terms1 and ,i take his case from ,starbuck's manuscript collection4 8,i practiced fasting and mortification of the flesh4 ,i secretly made burlap shirts1 and put the burrs next the skin1 and wore pebbles in my shoes4 ,i would spend nights flat on my back on the floor without any covering40 ,the ,roman ,church has organized and codified all this sort of thing1 and given it a marketvalue in the shape of 8merit40 ,but we see the cultivation of hardship cropping out under every sky and in every faith1 as a spontaneous need of character4 ,thus we read of ,channing1 when first settled as a ,unitarian minister1 that-- 8,he was now more simple than ever1 and seemed to have become incapable of any form of selfindulgence4 ,he took the smallest room in the house for his study1 though he might easily have commanded one more light1 airy1 and in every way more suitable2 and chose for his sleeping chamber an attic which he shared with a younger brother4 ,the furniture of the latter might have answered for the cell of an anchorite1 and consisted of a hard mattress on a cotbedstead1 plain wooden chairs and table1 with matting on the floor4 ,it was without fire1 and to cold he was throughout life extremely sensitive2 but he never complained or appeared in any way to be conscious of inconvenience4 #8,i recollect1' says his brother1 #8after one most severe night1 that in the morning he sportively thus alluded to his suffering3 8,if my bed were my country1 ,i should be somewhat like ,bonaparte3 ,i have no control except over the part which ,i occupy2 the instant ,i move1 frost takes possession40 ' ,in sickness only would he change for the time his apartment and accept a few comforts4 ,the dress too that he habitually adopted was of most inferior quality2 and garments were constantly worn which the world would call mean1 though an almost feminine neatness preserved him from the least appearance of neglect407#agf7 ,channing's asceticism1 such as it was1 was evidently a compound of hardihood and love of purity4 ,the democracy which is an offshoot of the enthusiasm of humanity1 and of which ,i will speak later under the head of the cult of poverty1 doubtless bore also a share4 ,certainly there was no pessimistic element in his case4 ,in the next case we have a strongly pessimistic element1 so that it belongs under head #d4 ,john ,cennick was ,methodism's first lay preacher4 ,in #agce he was convicted of sin1 while walking in ,cheapside1-- 8,and at once left off songsinging1 cardplaying1 and attending theatres4 ,sometimes he wished to go to a popish monastery1 to spend his life in devout retirement4 ,at other times he longed to live in a cave1 sleeping on fallen leaves1 and feeding on forest fruits4 ,he fasted long and often1 and prayed nine times a day4444 ,fancying dry bread too great an indulgence for so great a sinner as himself1 he began to feed on potatoes1 acorns1 crabs1 and grass2 and often wished that he could live on roots and herbs4 ,at length1 in #agcg1 he found peace with ,god1 and went on his way rejoicing407#agg7 ,in this poor man we have morbid melancholy and fear1 and the sacrifices made are to purge out sin1 and to buy safety4 ,the hopelessness of ,christian theology in respect of the flesh and the natural man generally has1 in systematizing fear1 made of it one tremendous incentive to self mortification4 ,it would be quite unfair1 however1 in spite of the fact that this incentive has often been worked in a mercenary way for hortatory purposes1 to call it a mercenary incentive4 ,the impulse to expiate and do penance is1 in its first intention1 far too immediate and spontaneous an expression of selfdespair and anxiety to be obnoxious to any such reproach4 ,in the form of loving sacrifice1 of spending all we have to show our devotion1 ascetic discipline of the severest sort may be the fruit of highly optimistic religious feeling4 ,m4 ,vianney1 the cur of ,ars1 was a ,french country priest1 whose holiness was exemplary4 ,we read in his life the following account of his inner need of sacrifice3-- 8 #8,on this path1' ,m4 ,vianney said1 #8it is only the first step that costs4 ,there is in mortification a balm and a savor without which one cannot live when once one has made their acquaintance4 ,there is but one way in which to give one's self to ,god1--that is1 to give one's self entirely1 and to keep nothing for one's self4 ,the little that one keeps is only good to double one and make one suffer4' ,accordingly he imposed it on himself that he should never smell a flower1 never drink when parched with thirst1 never drive away a fly1 never show disgust before a repugnant object1 never complain of anything that had to do with his personal comfort1 never sit down1 never lean upon his elbows when he was kneeling4 ,the ,cur of ,ars was very sensitive to cold1 but he would never take means to protect himself against it4 ,during a very severe winter1 one of his missionaries contrived a false floor to his confessional and placed a metal case of hot water beneath4 ,the trick succeeded1 and the ,saint was deceived3 #8,god is very good1' he said with emotion4 #8,this year1 through all the cold1 my feet have always been warm4' 07#agh7 ,in this case the spontaneous impulse to make sacrifices for the pure love of ,god was probably the uppermost conscious motive4 ,we may class it1 then1 under our head #c4 ,some authors think that the impulse to sacrifice is the main religious phenomenon4 ,it is a prominent1 a universal phenomenon certainly1 and lies deeper than any special creed4 ,here1 for instance1 is what seems to be a spontaneous example of it1 simply expressing what seemed right at the time between the individual and his ,maker4 ,cotton ,mather1 the ,new ,england ,puritan divine1 is generally reputed a rather grotesque pedant2 yet what is more touchingly simple than his relation of what happened when his wife came to die8 8,when ,i saw to what a point of resignation ,i was now called of the ,lord10 he says1 8,i resolved1 with his help1 therein to glorify him4 ,so1 two hours before my lovely consort expired1 ,i kneeled by her bedside1 and ,i took into my two hands a dear hand1 the dearest in the world4 ,with her thus in my hands1 ,i solemnly and sincerely gave her up unto the ,lord3 and in token of my real ,resignation1 ,i gently put her out of my hands1 and laid away a most lovely hand1 resolving that ,i would never touch it more4 ,this was the hardest1 and perhaps the bravest action that ever ,i did4 ,she 444 told me that she signed and sealed my act of resignation4 ,and though before that she called for me continually1 she after this never asked for me any more407#agi7 ,father ,vianney's asceticism taken in its totality was simply the result of a permanent flood of high spiritual enthusiasm1 longing to make proof of itself4 ,the ,roman ,church has1 in its incomparable fashion1 collected all the motives towards asceticism together1 and so codified them that any one wishing to pursue ,christian perfection may find a practical system mapped out for him in any one of a number of readymade manuals47#ahj7 ,the dominant ,church notion of perfection is of course the negative one of avoidance of sin4 ,sin proceeds from concupiscence1 and concupiscence from our carnal passions and temptations1 chief of which are pride1 sensuality in all its forms1 and the loves of worldly excitement and possession4 ,all these sources of sin must be resisted2 and discipline and austerities are a most efficacious mode of meeting them4 ,hence there are always in these books chapters on selfmortification4 ,but whenever a procedure is codified1 the more delicate spirit of it evaporates1 and if we wish the undiluted ascetic spirit1--the passion of selfcontempt wreaking itself on the poor flesh1 the divine irrationality of devotion making a sacrificial gift of all it has 7its sensibilities1 namely7 to the object of its adoration1--we must go to autobiographies1 or other individual documents4 ,saint ,john of the ,cross1 a ,spanish mystic who flourished--or rather who existed1 for there was little that suggested flourishing about him--in the sixteenth century1 will supply a passage suitable for our purpose4 8,first of all1 carefully excite in yourself an habitual affectionate will in all things to imitate ,jesus ,christ4 ,if anything agreeable offers itself to your senses1 yet does not at the same time tend purely to the honor and glory of ,god1 renounce it and separate yourself from it for the love of ,christ1 who all his life long had no other taste or wish than to do the will of his ,father whom he called his meat and nourishment4 ,for example1 you take satisfaction in hearing of things in which the glory of ,god bears no part4 ,deny yourself this satisfaction1 mortify your wish to listen4 ,you take pleasure in seeing objects which do not raise your mind to ,god3 refuse yourself this pleasure1 and turn away your eyes4 ,the same with conversations and all other things4 ,act similarly1 so far as you are able1 with all the operations of the senses1 striving to make yourself free from their yokes4 8,the radical remedy lies in the mortification of the four great natural passions1 joy1 hope1 fear1 and grief4 ,you must seek to deprive these of every satisfaction and leave them as it were in darkness and the void4 ,let your soul therefore turn always3 8,not to what is most easy1 but to what is hardest2 8,not to what tastes best1 but to what is most distasteful2 8,not to what most pleases1 but to what disgusts2 8,not to matter of consolation1 but to matter for desolation rather2 8,not to rest1 but to labor2 8,not to desire the more1 but the less2 8,not to aspire to what is highest and most precious1 but to what is lowest and most contemptible2 8,not to will anything1 but to will nothing2 8,not to seek the best in everything1 but to seek the worst1 so that you may enter for the love of ,christ into a complete destitution1 a perfect poverty of spirit1 and an absolute renunciation of everything in this world4 8,embrace these practices with all the energy of your soul and you will find in a short time great delights and unspeakable consolations4 8,despise yourself1 and wish that others should despise you4 8,speak to your own disadvantage1 and desire others to do the same2 8,conceive a low opinion of yourself1 and find it good when others hold the same2 8,to enjoy the taste of all things1 have no taste for anything4 8,to know all things1 learn to know nothing4 8,to possess all things1 resolve to possess nothing4 8,to be all things1 be willing to be nothing4 8,to get to where you have no taste for anything1 go through whatever experiences you have no taste for4 8,to learn to know nothing1 go whither you are ignorant4 8,to reach what you possess not1 go whithersoever you own nothing4 8,to be what you are not1 experience what you are not40 ,these later verses play with that vertigo of selfcontradiction which is so dear to mysticism4 ,those that come next are completely mystical1 for in them ,saint ,john passes from ,god to the more metaphysical notion of the ,all4 8,when you stop at one thing1 you cease to open yourself to the ,all4 8,for to come to the ,all you must give up the ,all4 8,and if you should attain to owning the ,all1 you must own it1 desiring ,nothing4 8,in this spoliation1 the soul finds its tranquillity and rest4 ,profoundly established in the centre of its own nothingness1 it can be assailed by naught that comes from below2 and since it no longer desires anything1 what comes from above cannot depress it2 for its desires alone are the causes of its woes407#aha7 ,and now1 as a more concrete example of heads #d and #e1 in fact of all our heads together1 and of the irrational extreme to which a psychopathic individual may go in the line of bodily austerity1 ,i will quote the sincere ,suso's account of his own selftortures4 ,suso1 you will remember1 was one of the fourteenth century ,german mystics2 his autobiography1 written in the third person1 is a classic religious document4 8,he was in his youth of a temperament full of fire and life2 and when this began to make itself felt1 it was very grievous to him2 and he sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjection4 ,he wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain1 until the blood ran from him1 so that he was obliged to leave them off4 ,he secretly caused an undergarment to be made for him2 and in the undergarment he had strips of leather fixed1 into which a hundred and fifty brass nails1 pointed and filed sharp1 were driven1 and the points of the nails were always turned towards the flesh4 ,he had this garment made very tight1 and so arranged as to go round him and fasten in front1 in order that it might fit the closer to his body1 and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh2 and it was high enough to reach upwards to his navel4 ,in this he used to sleep at night4 ,now in summer1 when it was hot1 and he was very tired and ill from his journeyings1 or when he held the office of lecturer1 he would sometimes1 as he lay thus in bonds1 and oppressed with toil1 and tormented also by noxious insects1 cry aloud and give way to fretfulness1 and twist round and round in agony1 as a worm does when run through with a pointed needle4 ,it often seemed to him as if he were lying upon an anthill1 from the torture caused by the insects2 for if he wished to sleep1 or when he had fallen asleep1 they vied with one another47#ahb7 ,sometimes he cried to ,almighty ,god in the fullness of his heart3 ,alas6 ,gentle ,god1 what a dying is this6 ,when a man is killed by murderers or strong beasts of prey it is soon over2 but ,i lie dying here under the cruel insects1 and yet cannot die4 ,the nights in winter were never so long1 nor was the summer so hot1 as to make him leave off this exercise4 ,on the contrary1 he devised something farther--two leathern loops into which he put his hands1 and fastened one on each side his throat1 and made the fastenings so secure that even if his cell had been on fire about him1 he could not have helped himself4 ,this he continued until his hands and arms had become almost tremulous with the strain1 and then he devised something else3 two leather gloves2 and he caused a brazier to fit them all over with sharppointed brass tacks1 and he used to put them on at night1 in order that if he should try while asleep to throw off the hair undergarment1 or relieve himself from the gnawings of the vile insects1 the tacks might then stick into his body4 ,and so it came to pass4 ,if ever he sought to help himself with his hands in his sleep1 he drove the sharp tacks into his breast1 and tore himself1 so that his flesh festered4 ,when after many weeks the wounds had healed1 he tore himself again and made fresh wounds4 8,he continued this tormenting exercise for about sixteen years4 ,at the end of this time1 when his blood was now chilled1 and the fire of his temperament destroyed1 there appeared to him in a vision on ,whitsunday1 a messenger from heaven1 who told him that ,god required this of him no longer4 ,whereupon he discontinued it1 and threw all these things away into a running stream40 ,suso then tells how1 to emulate the sorrows of his crucified ,lord1 he made himself a cross with thirty protruding iron needles and nails4 ,this he bore on his bare back between his shoulders day and night4 8,the first time that he stretched out this cross upon his back his tender frame was struck with terror at it1 and blunted the sharp nails slightly against a stone4 ,but soon1 repenting of this womanly cowardice1 he pointed them all again with a file1 and placed once more the cross upon him4 ,it made his back1 where the bones are1 bloody and seared4 ,whenever he sat down or stood up1 it was as if a hedgehogskin were on him4 ,if any one touched him unawares1 or pushed against his clothes1 it tore him40 ,suso next tells of his penitences by means of striking this cross and forcing the nails deeper into the flesh1 and likewise of his selfscourgings1--a dreadful story1--and then goes on as follows3 8,at this same period the ,servitor procured an old castaway door1 and he used to lie upon it at night without any bedclothes to make him comfortable1 except that he took off his shoes and wrapped a thick cloak round him4 ,he thus secured for himself a most miserable bed2 for hard peastalks lay in humps under his head1 the cross with the sharp nails stuck into his back1 his arms were locked fast in bonds1 the horsehair undergarment was round his loins1 and the cloak too was heavy and the door hard4 ,thus he lay in wretchedness1 afraid to stir1 just like a log1 and he would send up many a sigh to ,god4 8,in winter he suffered very much from the frost4 ,if he stretched out his feet they lay bare on the floor and froze1 if he gathered them up the blood became all on fire in his legs1 and this was great pain4 ,his feet were full of sores1 his legs dropsical1 his knees bloody and seared1 his loins covered with scars from the horsehair1 his body wasted1 his mouth parched with intense thirst1 and his hands tremulous from weakness4 ,amid these torments he spent his nights and days2 and he endured them all out of the greatness of the love which he bore in his heart to the ,divine and ,eternal ,wisdom1 our ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 whose agonizing sufferings he sought to imitate4 ,after a time he gave up this penitential exercise of the door1 and instead of it he took up his abode in a very small cell1 and used the bench1 which was so narrow and short that he could not stretch himself upon it1 as his bed4 ,in this hole1 or upon the door1 he lay at night in his usual bonds1 for about eight years4 ,it was also his custom1 during the space of twentyfive years1 provided he was staying in the convent1 never to go after compline in winter into any warm room1 or to the convent stove to warm himself1 no matter how cold it might be1 unless he was obliged to do so for other reasons4 ,throughout all these years he never took a bath1 either a water or a sweating bath2 and this he did in order to mortify his comfortseeking body4 ,he practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would neither receive nor touch a penny1 either with leave or without it4 ,for a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body1 save only his hands and feet407#ahc7 ,i spare you the recital of poor ,suso's selfinflicted tortures from thirst4 ,it is pleasant to know that after his fortieth year1 ,god showed him by a series of visions that he had sufficiently broken down the natural man1 and that he might leave these exercises off4 ,his case is distinctly pathological1 but he does not seem to have had the alleviation1 which some ascetics have enjoyed1 of an alteration of sensibility capable of actually turning torment into a perverse kind of pleasure4 ,of the founder of the ,sacred ,heart order1 for example1 we read that 8,her love of pain and suffering was insatiable4444 ,she said that she could cheerfully live till the day of judgment1 provided she might always have matter for suffering for ,god2 but that to live a single day without suffering would be intolerable4 ,she said again that she was devoured with two unassuageable fevers1 one for the holy communion1 the other for suffering1 humiliation1 and annihilation4 #8,nothing but pain1' she continually said in her letters1 #8makes my life supportable4' 07#ahd7 ,so much for the phenomena to which the ascetic impulse will in certain persons give rise4 ,in the ecclesiastically consecrated character three minor branches of selfmortification have been recognized as indispensable pathways to perfection4 ,i refer to the chastity1 obedience1 and poverty which the monk vows to observe2 and upon the heads of obedience and poverty ,i will make a few remarks4 ,first1 of ,obedience4 ,the secular life of our twentieth century opens with this virtue held in no high esteem4 ,the duty of the individual to determine his own conduct and profit or suffer by the consequences seems1 on the contrary1 to be one of our best rooted contemporary ,protestant social ideals4 ,so much so that it is difficult even imaginatively to comprehend how men possessed of an inner life of their own could ever have come to think the subjection of its will to that of other finite creatures recommendable4 ,i confess that to myself it seems something of a mystery4 ,yet it evidently corresponds to a profound interior need of many persons1 and we must do our best to understand it4 ,on the lowest possible plane1 one sees how the expediency of obedience in a firm ecclesiastical organization must have led to its being viewed as meritorious4 ,next1 experience shows that there are times in every one's life when one can be better counseled by others than by one's self4 ,inability to decide is one of the commonest symptoms of fatigued nerves2 friends who see our troubles more broadly1 often see them more wisely than we do2 so it is frequently an act of excellent virtue to consult and obey a doctor1 a partner1 or a wife4 ,but1 leaving these lower prudential regions1 we find1 in the nature of some of the spiritual excitements which we have been studying1 good reasons for idealizing obedience4 ,obedience may spring from the general religious phenomenon of inner softening and selfsurrender and throwing one's self on higher powers4 ,so saving are these attitudes felt to be that in themselves1 apart from utility1 they become ideally consecrated2 and in obeying a man whose fallibility we see through thoroughly1 we1 nevertheless1 may feel much as we do when we resign our will to that of infinite wisdom4 ,add selfdespair and the passion of selfcrucifixion to this1 and obedience becomes an ascetic sacrifice1 agreeable quite irrespective of whatever prudential uses it might have4 ,it is as a sacrifice1 a mode of 8mortification10 that obedience is primarily conceived by ,catholic writers1 a 8sacrifice which man offers to ,god1 and of which he is himself both the priest and the victim4 ,by poverty he immolates his exterior possessions2 by chastity he immolates his body2 by obedience he completes the sacrifice1 and gives to ,god all that he yet holds as his own1 his two most precious goods1 his intellect and his will4 ,the sacrifice is then complete and unreserved1 a genuine holocaust1 for the entire victim is now consumed for the honor of ,god407#ahe7 ,accordingly1 in ,catholic discipline1 we obey our superior not as mere man1 but as the representative of ,christ4 ,obeying ,god in him by our intention1 obedience is easy4 ,but when the textbook theologians marshal collectively all their reasons for recommending it1 the mixture sounds to our ears rather odd4 8,one of the great consolations of the monastic life10 says a ,jesuit authority1 8is the assurance we have that in obeying we can commit no fault4 ,the ,superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this thing or that1 but you are certain that you commit no fault so long as you obey1 because ,god will only ask you if you have duly performed what orders you received1 and if you can furnish a clear account in that respect1 you are absolved entirely4 ,whether the things you did were opportune1 or whether there were not something better that might have been done1 these are questions not asked of you1 but rather of your ,superior4 ,the moment what you did was done obediently1 ,god wipes it out of your account1 and charges it to the ,superior4 ,so that ,saint ,jerome well exclaimed1 in celebrating the advantages of obedience1 #8,oh1 sovereign liberty6 ,oh1 holy and blessed security by which one becomes almost impeccable6' 8,saint ,john ,climachus is of the same sentiment when he calls obedience an excuse before ,god4 ,in fact1 when ,god asks why you have done this or that1 and you reply1 it is because ,i was so ordered by my ,superiors1 ,god will ask for no other excuse4 ,as a passenger in a good vessel with a good pilot need give himself no farther concern1 but may go to sleep in peace1 because the pilot has charge over all1 and #8watches for him'2 so a religious person who lives under the yoke of obedience goes to heaven as if while sleeping1 that is1 while leaning entirely on the conduct of his ,superiors1 who are the pilots of his vessel1 and keep watch for him continually4 ,it is no small thing1 of a truth1 to be able to cross the stormy sea of life on the shoulders and in the arms of another1 yet that is just the grace which ,god accords to those who live under the yoke of obedience4 ,their ,superior bears all their burdens4444 ,a certain grave doctor said that he would rather spend his life in picking up straws by obedience1 than by his own responsible choice busy himself with the loftiest works of charity1 because one is certain of following the will of ,god in whatever one may do from obedience1 but never certain in the same degree of anything which we may do of our own proper movement407#ahf7 ,one should read the letters in which ,ignatius ,loyola recommends obedience as the backbone of his order1 if one would gain insight into the full spirit of its cult47#ahg7 ,they are too long to quote2 but ,ignatius's belief is so vividly expressed in a couple of sayings reported by companions that1 though they have been so often cited1 ,i will ask your permission to copy them once more3-- 8,i ought10 an early biographer reports him as saying1 8on entering religion1 and thereafter1 to place myself entirely in the hands of ,god1 and of him who takes ,his place by ,his authority4 ,i ought to desire that my ,superior should oblige me to give up my own judgment1 and conquer my own mind4 ,i ought to set up no difference between one ,superior and another1 444 but recognize them all as equal before ,god1 whose place they fill4 ,for if ,i distinguish persons1 ,i weaken the spirit of obedience4 ,in the hands of my ,superior1 ,i must be a soft wax1 a thing1 from which he is to require whatever pleases him1 be it to write or receive letters1 to speak or not to speak to such a person1 or the like2 and ,i must put all my fervor in executing zealously and exactly what ,i am ordered4 ,i must consider myself as a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will2 be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please any one2 like a stick in the hand of an old man1 who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suits him4 ,so must ,i be under the hands of the ,order1 to serve it in the way it judges most useful4 8,i must never ask of the ,superior to be sent to a particular place1 to be employed in a particular duty4444 ,i must consider nothing as belonging to me personally1 and as regards the things ,i use1 be like a statue which lets itself be stripped and never opposes resistance407#ahh7 ,the other saying is reported by ,rodriguez in the chapter from which ,i a moment ago made quotations4 ,when speaking of the ,pope's authority1 ,rodriguez writes3-- 8,saint ,ignatius said1 when general of his company1 that if the ,holy ,father were to order him to set sail in the first bark which he might find in the port of ,ostia1 near ,rome1 and to abandon himself to the sea1 without a mast1 without sails1 without oars or rudder or any of the things that are needful for navigation or subsistence1 he would obey not only with alacrity1 but without anxiety or repugnance1 and even with a great internal satisfaction407#ahi7 ,with a solitary concrete example of the extravagance to which the virtue we are considering has been carried1 ,i will pass to the topic next in order4 8,sister ,marie ,claire of ,port ,royal had been greatly imbued with the holiness and excellence of ,m4 de ,langres4 ,this prelate1 soon after he came to ,port ,royal1 said to her one day1 seeing her so tenderly attached to ,mother ,anglique1 that it would perhaps be better not to speak to her again4 ,marie ,claire1 greedy of obedience1 took this inconsiderate word for an oracle of ,god1 and from that day forward remained for several years without once speaking to her sister407#aij7 ,our next topic shall be ,poverty1 felt at all times and under all creeds as one adornment of a saintly life4 ,since the instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature1 this is one more example of the ascetic paradox4 ,yet it appears no paradox at all1 but perfectly reasonable1 the moment one recollects how easily higher excitements hold lower cupidities in check4 ,having just quoted the ,jesuit ,rodriguez on the subject of obedience1 ,i will1 to give immediately a concrete turn to our discussion of poverty1 also read you a page from his chapter on this latter virtue4 ,you must remember that he is writing instructions for monks of his own order1 and bases them all on the text1 8,blessed are the poor in spirit40 8,if any one of you10 he says1 8will know whether or not he is really poor in spirit1 let him consider whether he loves the ordinary consequences and effects of poverty1 which are hunger1 thirst1 cold1 fatigue1 and the denudation of all conveniences4 ,see if you are glad to wear a wornout habit full of patches4 ,see if you are glad when something is lacking to your meal1 when you are passed by in serving it1 when what you receive is distasteful to you1 when your cell is out of repair4 ,if you are not glad of these things1 if instead of loving them you avoid them1 then there is proof that you have not attained the perfection of poverty of spirit40 ,rodriguez then goes on to describe the practice of poverty in more detail4 8,the first point is that which ,saint ,ignatius proposes in his constitutions1 when he says1 #8,let no one use anything as if it were his private possession4' #8,a religious person1' he says1 #8ought in respect to all the things that he uses1 to be like a statue which one may drape with clothing1 but which feels no grief and makes no resistance when one strips it again4 ,it is in this way that you should feel towards your clothes1 your books1 your cell1 and everything else that you make use of2 if ordered to quit them1 or to exchange them for others1 have no more sorrow than if you were a statue being uncovered4 ,in this way you will avoid using them as if they were your private possession4 ,but if1 when you give up your cell1 or yield possession of this or that object or exchange it for another1 you feel repugnance and are not like a statue1 that shows that you view these things as if they were your private property4' 8,and this is why our holy founder wished the superiors to test their monks somewhat as ,god tested ,abraham1 and to put their poverty and their obedience to trial1 that by this means they may become acquainted with the degree of their virtue1 and gain a chance to make ever farther progress in perfection1 444 making the one move out of his room when he finds it comfortable and is attached to it2 taking away from another a book of which he is fond2 or obliging a third to exchange his garment for a worse one4 ,otherwise we should end by acquiring a species of property in all these several objects1 and little by little the wall of poverty that surrounds us and constitutes our principal defense would be thrown down4 ,the ancient fathers of the desert used often thus to treat their companions4444 ,saint ,dositheus1 being sicknurse1 desired a certain knife1 and asked ,saint ,dorotheus for it1 not for his private use1 but for employment in the infirmary of which he had charge4 ,whereupon ,saint ,dorotheus answered him3 #8,ha6 ,dositheus1 so that knife pleases you so much6 ,will you be the slave of a knife or the slave of ,jesus ,christ8 ,do you not blush with shame at wishing that a knife should be your master8 ,i will not let you touch it4' ,which reproach and refusal had such an effect upon the holy disciple that since that time he never touched the knife again40 444 8,therefore1 in our rooms10 ,father ,rodriguez continues1 8there must be no other furniture than a bed1 a table1 a bench1 and a candlestick1 things purely necessary1 and nothing more4 ,it is not allowed among us that our cells should be ornamented with pictures or aught else1 neither armchairs1 carpets1 curtains1 nor any sort of cabinet or bureau of any elegance4 ,neither is it allowed us to keep anything to eat1 either for ourselves or for those who may come to visit us4 ,we must ask permission to go to the refectory even for a glass of water2 and finally we may not keep a book in which we can write a line1 or which we may take away with us4 ,one cannot deny that thus we are in great poverty4 ,but this poverty is at the same time a great repose and a great perfection4 ,for it would be inevitable1 in case a religious person were allowed to own superfluous possessions1 that these things would greatly occupy his mind1 be it to acquire them1 to preserve them1 or to increase them2 so that in not permitting us at all to own them1 all these inconveniences are remedied4 ,among the various good reasons why the company forbids secular persons to enter our cells1 the principal one is that thus we may the easier be kept in poverty4 ,after all1 we are all men1 and if we were to receive people of the world into our rooms1 we should not have the strength to remain within the bounds prescribed1 but should at least wish to adorn them with some books to give the visitors a better opinion of our scholarship407#aia7 ,since ,hindu fakirs1 ,buddhist monks1 and ,mohammedan dervishes unite with ,jesuits and ,franciscans in idealizing poverty as the loftiest individual state1 it is worth while to examine into the spiritual grounds for such a seemingly unnatural opinion4 ,and first1 of those which lie closest to common human nature4 ,the opposition between the men who have and the men who are is immemorial4 ,though the gentleman1 in the oldfashioned sense of the man who is well born1 has usually in point of fact been predaceous and reveled in lands and goods1 yet he has never identified his essence with these possessions1 but rather with the personal superiorities1 the courage1 generosity1 and pride supposed to be his birthright4 ,to certain huckstering kinds of consideration he thanked ,god he was forever inaccessible1 and if in life's vicissitudes he should become destitute through their lack1 he was glad to think that with his sheer valor he was all the freer to work out his salvation4 8,wer nur selbst was htte10 says ,lessing's ,tempelherr1 in ,nathan the ,wise1 8mein ,gott1 mein ,gott1 ich habe nichts60 ,this ideal of the wellborn man without possessions was embodied in knighterrantry and templardom2 and1 hideously corrupted as it has always been1 it still dominates sentimentally1 if not practically1 the military and aristocratic view of life4 ,we glorify the soldier as the man absolutely unencumbered4 ,owning nothing but his bare life1 and willing to toss that up at any moment when the cause commands him1 he is the representative of unhampered freedom in ideal directions4 ,the laborer who pays with his person day by day1 and has no rights invested in the future1 offers also much of this ideal detachment4 ,like the savage1 he may make his bed wherever his right arm can support him1 and from his simple and athletic attitude of observation1 the propertyowner seems buried and smothered in ignoble externalities and trammels1 8wading in straw and rubbish to his knees40 ,the claims which things make are corrupters of manhood1 mortgages on the soul1 and a drag anchor on our progress towards the empyrean4 8,everything ,i meet with10 writes ,whitefield1 8seems to carry this voice with it1--#8,go thou and preach the ,gospel2 be a pilgrim on earth2 have no party or certain dwelling place4' ,my heart echoes back1 #8,lord ,jesus1 help me to do or suffer thy will4 ,when thou seest me in danger of nestling1--in pity--in tender pity1--put a thorn in my nest to prevent me from it4' 07#aib7 ,the loathing of 8capital0 with which our laboring classes today are growing more and more infected seems largely composed of this sound sentiment of antipathy for lives based on mere having4 ,as an anarchist poet writes3-- 8,not by accumulating riches1 but by giving away that which you have1 8,shall you become beautiful2 8,you must undo the wrappings1 not case yourself in fresh ones2 8,not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy1 but rather by discarding them 444 8,for a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back1 but rather what he can leave behind2 8,knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is an impediment407#aic7 ,in short1 lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being1 and in the interest of action people subject to spiritual excitement throw away possessions as so many clogs4 ,only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away4 ,sloth and cowardice creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to guard4 ,when a brother novice came to ,saint ,francis1 saying3 8,father1 it would be a great consolation to me to own a psalter1 but even supposing that our general should concede to me this indulgence1 still ,i should like also to have your consent10 ,francis put him off with the examples of ,charlemagne1 ,roland1 and ,oliver1 pursuing the infidels in sweat and labor1 and finally dying on the field of battle4 8,so care not10 he said1 8for owning books and knowledge1 but care rather for works of goodness40 ,and when some weeks later the novice came again to talk of his craving for the psalter1 ,francis said3 8,after you have got your psalter you will crave a breviary2 and after you have got your breviary you will sit in your stall like a grand prelate1 and will say to your brother3 #8,hand me my breviary4' 444 ,and thenceforward he denied all such requests1 saying3 #8,a man possesses of learning only so much as comes out of him in action1 and a monk is a good preacher only so far as his deeds proclaim him such1 for every tree is known by its fruits4' 07#aid7 ,but beyond this more worthily athletic attitude involved in doing and being1 there is1 in the desire of not having1 something profounder still1 something related to that fundamental mystery of religious experience1 the satisfaction found in absolute surrender to the larger power4 ,so long as any secular safeguard is retained1 so long as any residual prudential guarantee is clung to1 so long the surrender is incomplete1 the vital crisis is not passed1 fear still stands sentinel1 and mistrust of the divine obtains3 we hold by two anchors1 looking to ,god1 it is true1 after a fashion1 but also holding by our proper machinations4 ,in certain medical experiences we have the same critical point to overcome4 ,a drunkard1 or a morphine or cocaine maniac1 offers himself to be cured4 ,he appeals to the doctor to wean him from his enemy1 but he dares not face blank abstinence4 ,the tyrannical drug is still an anchor to windward3 he hides supplies of it among his clothing2 arranges secretly to have it smuggled in in case of need4 ,even so an incompletely regenerate man still trusts in his own expedients4 ,his money is like the sleeping potion which the chronically wakeful patient keeps beside his bed2 he throws himself on ,god1 but if he should need the other help1 there it will be also4 ,every one knows cases of this incomplete and ineffective desire for reform1--drunkards whom1 with all their selfreproaches and resolves1 one perceives to be quite unwilling seriously to contemplate never being drunk again6 ,really to give up anything on which we have relied1 to give it up definitively1 8for good and all0 and forever1 signifies one of those radical alterations of character which came under our notice in the lectures on conversion4 ,in it the inner man rolls over into an entirely different position of equilibrium1 lives in a new centre of energy from this time on1 and the turningpoint and hinge of all such operations seems usually to involve the sincere acceptance of certain nakednesses and destitutions4 ,accordingly1 throughout the annals of the saintly life1 we find this ever recurring note3 ,fling yourself upon ,god's providence without making any reserve whatever1--take no thought for the morrow1--sell all you have and give it to the poor1--only when the sacrifice is ruthless and reckless will the higher safety really arrive4 ,as a concrete example let me read a page from the biography of ,antoinette ,bourignon1 a good woman1 much persecuted in her day by both ,protestants and ,catholics1 because she would not take her religion at second hand4 ,when a young girl1 in her father's house1-- 8,she spent whole nights in prayer1 oft repeating3 ,lord1 what wilt thou have me to do8 ,and being one night in a most profound penitence1 she said from the bottom of her heart3 #8,o my ,lord6 ,what must ,i do to please thee8 ,for ,i have nobody to teach me4 ,speak to my soul and it will hear thee4' ,at that instant she heard1 as if another had spoke within her3 ,forsake all earthly things4 ,separate thyself from the love of the creatures4 ,deny thyself4 ,she was quite astonished1 not understanding this language1 and mused long on these three points1 thinking how she could fulfill them4 ,she thought she could not live without earthly things1 nor without loving the creatures1 nor without loving herself4 ,yet she said1 #8,by thy ,grace ,i will do it1 ,lord6' ,but when she would perform her promise1 she knew not where to begin4 ,having thought on the religious in monasteries1 that they forsook all earthly things by being shut up in a cloister1 and the love of themselves by subjecting of their wills1 she asked leave of her father to enter into a cloister of the barefoot ,carmelites1 but he would not permit it1 saying he would rather see her laid in her grave4 ,this seemed to her a great cruelty1 for she thought to find in the cloister the true ,christians she had been seeking1 but she found afterwards that he knew the cloisters better than she2 for after he had forbidden her1 and told her he would never permit her to be a religious1 nor give her any money to enter there1 yet she went to ,father ,laurens1 the ,director1 and offered to serve in the monastery and work hard for her bread1 and be content with little1 if he would receive her4 ,at which he smiled and said3 ,that cannot be4 ,we must have money to build2 we take no maids without money2 you must find the way to get it1 else there is no entry here4 8,this astonished her greatly1 and she was thereby undeceived as to the cloisters1 resolving to forsake all company and live alone till it should please ,god to show her what she ought to do and whither to go4 ,she asked always earnestly1 #8,when shall ,i be perfectly thine1 ,o my ,god8' ,and she thought he still answered her1 ,when thou shalt no longer possess anything1 and shalt die to thyself4 #8,and where shall ,i do that1 ,lord8' ,he answered her1 ,in the desert4 ,this made so strong an impression on her soul that she aspired after this2 but being a maid of eighteen years only1 she was afraid of unlucky chances1 and was never used to travel1 and knew no way4 ,she laid aside all these doubts and said1 #8,lord1 thou wilt guide me how and where it shall please thee4 ,it is for thee that ,i do it4 ,i will lay aside my habit of a maid1 and will take that of a hermit that ,i may pass unknown4' ,having then secretly made ready this habit1 while her parents thought to have married her1 her father having promised her to a rich ,french merchant1 she prevented the time1 and on ,easter evening1 having cut her hair1 put on the habit1 and slept a little1 she went out of her chamber about four in the morning1 taking nothing but one penny to buy bread for that day4 ,and it being said to her in the going out1 ,where is thy faith8 in a penny8 she threw it away1 begging pardon of ,god for her fault1 and saying1 #8,no1 ,lord1 my faith is not in a penny1 but in thee alone4' ,thus she went away wholly delivered from the heavy burthen of the cares and good things of this world1 and found her soul so satisfied that she no longer wished for anything upon earth1 resting entirely upon ,god1 with this only fear lest she should be discovered and be obliged to return home2 for she felt already more content in this poverty than she had done for all her life in all the delights of the world407#aie7 ,the penny was a small financial safeguard1 but an effective spiritual obstacle4 ,not till it was thrown away could the character settle into the new equilibrium completely4 ,over and above the mystery of selfsurrender1 there are in the cult of poverty other religious mysteries4 ,there is the mystery of veracity3 8,naked came ,i into the world10 etc41--whoever first said that1 possessed this mystery4 ,my own bare entity must fight the battle--shams cannot save me4 ,there is also the mystery of democracy1 or sentiment of the equality before ,god of all his creatures4 ,this sentiment 7which seems in general to have been more widespread in ,mohammedan than in ,christian lands7 tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness4 ,those who have it spurn dignities and honors1 privileges and advantages1 preferring1 as ,i said in a former lecture1 to grovel on the common level before the face of ,god4 ,it is not exactly the sentiment of humility1 though it comes so close to it in practice4 ,it is humanity1 rather1 refusing to enjoy anything that others do not share4 ,a profound moralist1 writing of ,christ's saying1 8,sell all thou hast and follow me10 proceeds as follows3-- 8,christ may have meant3 ,if you love mankind absolutely you will as a result not care for any possessions whatever1 and this seems a very likely proposition4 ,but it is one thing to believe that a proposition is probably true2 it is another thing to see it as a fact4 ,if you loved mankind as ,christ loved them1 you would see his conclusion as a fact4 ,it would be obvious4 ,you would sell your goods1 and they would be no loss to you4 ,these truths1 while literal to ,christ1 and to any mind that has ,christ's love for mankind1 become parables to lesser natures4 ,there are in every generation people who1 beginning innocently1 with no predetermined intention of becoming saints1 find themselves drawn into the vortex by their interest in helping mankind1 and by the understanding that comes from actually doing it4 ,the abandonment of their old mode of life is like dust in the balance4 ,it is done gradually1 incidentally1 imperceptibly4 ,thus the whole question of the abandonment of luxury is no question at all1 but a mere incident to another question1 namely1 the degree to which we abandon ourselves to the remorseless logic of our love for others407#aif7 ,but in all these matters of sentiment one must have 8been there0 one's self in order to understand them4 ,no ,american can ever attain to understanding the loyalty of a ,briton towards his king1 of a ,german towards his emperor2 nor can a ,briton or ,german ever understand the peace of heart of an ,american in having no king1 no ,kaiser1 no spurious nonsense1 between him and the common ,god of all4 ,if sentiments as simple as these are mysteries which one must receive as gifts of birth1 how much more is this the case with those subtler religious sentiments which we have been considering6 ,one can never fathom an emotion or divine its dictates by standing outside of it4 ,in the glowing hour of excitement1 however1 all incomprehensibilities are solved1 and what was so enigmatical from without becomes transparently obvious4 ,each emotion obeys a logic of its own1 and makes deductions which no other logic can draw4 ,piety and charity live in a different universe from worldly lusts and fears1 and form another centre of energy altogether4 ,as in a supreme sorrow lesser vexations may become a consolation2 as a supreme love may turn minor sacrifices into gain2 so a supreme trust may render common safeguards odious1 and in certain glows of generous excitement it may appear unspeakably mean to retain one's hold of personal possessions4 ,the only sound plan1 if we are ourselves outside the pale of such emotions1 is to observe as well as we are able those who feel them1 and to record faithfully what we observe2 and this1 ,i need hardly say1 is what ,i have striven to do in these last two descriptive lectures1 which ,i now hope will have covered the ground sufficiently for our present needs4 ,,lectures ,,xiv ,,and ,,xv4 ,,the ,,value ,,of ,,saintliness4 ,we have now passed in review the more important of the phenomena which are regarded as fruits of genuine religion and characteristics of men who are devout4 ,today we have to change our attitude from that of description to that of appreciation2 we have to ask whether the fruits in question can help us to judge the absolute value of what religion adds to human life4 ,were ,i to parody ,kant1 ,i should say that a 8,critique of pure ,saintliness0 must be our theme4 ,if1 in turning to this theme1 we could descend upon our subject from above like ,catholic theologians1 with our fixed definitions of man and man's perfection and our positive dogmas about ,god1 we should have an easy time of it4 ,man's perfection would be the fulfillment of his end2 and his end would be union with his ,maker4 ,that union could be pursued by him along three paths1 active1 purgative1 and contemplative1 respectively2 and progress along either path would be a simple matter to measure by the application of a limited number of theological and moral conceptions and definitions4 ,the absolute significance and value of any bit of religious experience we might hear of would thus be given almost mathematically into our hands4 ,if convenience were everything1 we ought now to grieve at finding ourselves cut off from so admirably convenient a method as this4 ,but we did cut ourselves off from it deliberately in those remarks which you remember we made1 in our first lecture1 about the empirical method2 and it must be confessed that after that act of renunciation we can never hope for cleancut and scholastic results4 ,we cannot divide man sharply into an animal and a rational part4 ,we cannot distinguish natural from supernatural effects2 nor among the latter know which are favors of ,god1 and which are counterfeit operations of the demon4 ,we have merely to collect things together without any special a priori theological system1 and out of an aggregate of piecemeal judgments as to the value of this and that experience--judgments in which our general philosophic prejudices1 our instincts1 and our common sense are our only guides--decide that on the whole one type of religion is approved by its fruits1 and another type condemned4 8,on the whole10--,i fear we shall never escape complicity with that qualification1 so dear to your practical man1 so repugnant to your systematizer6 ,i also fear that as ,i make this frank confession1 ,i may seem to some of you to throw our compass overboard1 and to adopt caprice as our pilot4 ,skepticism or wayward choice1 you may think1 can be the only results of such a formless method as ,i have taken up4 ,a few remarks in deprecation of such an opinion1 and in farther explanation of the empiricist principles which ,i profess1 may therefore appear at this point to be in place4 ,abstractly1 it would seem illogical to try to measure the worth of a religion's fruits in merely human terms of value4 ,how can you measure their worth without considering whether the ,god really exists who is supposed to inspire them8 ,if he really exists1 then all the conduct instituted by men to meet his wants must necessarily be a reasonable fruit of his religion1--it would be unreasonable only in case he did not exist4 ,if1 for instance1 you were to condemn a religion of human or animal sacrifices by virtue of your subjective sentiments1 and if all the while a deity were really there demanding such sacrifices1 you would be making a theoretical mistake by tacitly assuming that the deity must be non existent2 you would be setting up a theology of your own as much as if you were a scholastic philosopher4 ,to this extent1 to the extent of disbelieving peremptorily in certain types of deity1 ,i frankly confess that we must be theologians4 ,if disbeliefs can be said to constitute a theology1 then the prejudices1 instincts1 and common sense which ,i chose as our guides make theological partisans of us whenever they make certain beliefs abhorrent4 ,but such commonsense prejudices and instincts are themselves the fruit of an empirical evolution4 ,nothing is more striking than the secular alteration that goes on in the moral and religious tone of men1 as their insight into nature and their social arrangements progressively develop4 ,after an interval of a few generations the mental climate proves unfavorable to notions of the deity which at an earlier date were perfectly satisfactory3 the older gods have fallen below the common secular level1 and can no longer be believed in4 ,today a deity who should require bleeding sacrifices to placate him would be too sanguinary to be taken seriously4 ,even if powerful historical credentials were put forward in his favor1 we would not look at them4 ,once1 on the contrary1 his cruel appetites were of themselves credentials4 ,they positively recommended him to men's imaginations in ages when such coarse signs of power were respected and no others could be understood4 ,such deities then were worshiped because such fruits were relished4 ,doubtless historic accidents always played some later part1 but the original factor in fixing the figure of the gods must always have been psychological4 ,the deity to whom the prophets1 seers1 and devotees who founded the particular cult bore witness was worth something to them personally4 ,they could use him4 ,he guided their imagination1 warranted their hopes1 and controlled their will1--or else they required him as a safeguard against the demon and a curber of other people's crimes4 ,in any case1 they chose him for the value of the fruits he seemed to them to yield4 ,so soon as the fruits began to seem quite worthless2 so soon as they conflicted with indispensable human ideals1 or thwarted too extensively other values2 so soon as they appeared childish1 contemptible1 or immoral when reflected on1 the deity grew discredited1 and was erelong neglected and forgotten4 ,it was in this way that the ,greek and ,roman gods ceased to be believed in by educated pagans2 it is thus that we ourselves judge of the ,hindu1 ,buddhist1 and ,mohammedan theologies2 ,protestants have so dealt with the ,catholic notions of deity1 and liberal ,protestants with older ,protestant notions2 it is thus that ,chinamen judge of us1 and that all of us now living will be judged by our descendants4 ,when we cease to admire or approve what the definition of a deity implies1 we end by deeming that deity incredible4 ,few historic changes are more curious than these mutations of theological opinion4 ,the monarchical type of sovereignty was1 for example1 so ineradicably planted in the mind of our own forefathers that a dose of cruelty and arbitrariness in their deity seems positively to have been required by their imagination4 ,they called the cruelty 8retributive justice10 and a ,god without it would certainly have struck them as not 8sovereign0 enough4 ,but today we abhor the very notion of eternal suffering inflicted2 and that arbitrary dealingout of salvation and damnation to selected individuals1 of which ,jonathan ,edwards could persuade himself that he had not only a conviction1 but a 8delightful conviction10 as of a doctrine 8exceeding pleasant1 bright1 and sweet10 appears to us1 if sovereignly anything1 sovereignly irrational and mean4 ,not only the cruelty1 but the paltriness of character of the gods believed in by earlier centuries also strikes later centuries with surprise4 ,we shall see examples of it from the annals of ,catholic saintship which make us rub our ,protestant eyes4 ,ritual worship in general appears to the modern transcendentalist1 as well as to the ultrapuritanic type of mind1 as if addressed to a deity of an almost absurdly childish character1 taking delight in toyshop furniture1 tapers and tinsel1 costume and mumbling and mummery1 and finding his 8glory0 incomprehensibly enhanced thereby2--just as on the other hand the formless spaciousness of pantheism appears quite empty to ritualistic natures1 and the gaunt theism of evangelical sects seems intolerably bald and chalky and bleak4 ,luther1 says ,emerson1 would have cut off his right hand rather than nail his theses to the door at ,wittenberg1 if he had supposed that they were destined to lead to the pale negations of ,boston ,unitarianism4 ,so far1 then1 although we are compelled1 whatever may be our pretensions to empiricism1 to employ some sort of a standard of theological probability of our own whenever we assume to estimate the fruits of other men's religion1 yet this very standard has been begotten out of the drift of common life4 ,it is the voice of human experience within us1 judging and condemning all gods that stand athwart the pathway along which it feels itself to be advancing4 ,experience1 if we take it in the largest sense1 is thus the parent of those disbeliefs which1 it was charged1 were inconsistent with the experiential method4 ,the inconsistency1 you see1 is immaterial1 and the charge may be neglected4 ,if we pass from disbeliefs to positive beliefs1 it seems to me that there is not even a formal inconsistency to be laid against our method4 ,the gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use1 the gods whose demands on us are reinforcements of our demands on ourselves and on one another4 ,what ,i then propose to do is1 briefly stated1 to test saintliness by common sense1 to use human standards to help us decide how far the religious life commends itself as an ideal kind of human activity4 ,if it commends itself1 then any theological beliefs that may inspire it1 in so far forth will stand accredited4 ,if not1 then they will be discredited1 and all without reference to anything but human working principles4 ,it is but the elimination of the humanly unfit1 and the survival of the humanly fittest1 applied to religious beliefs2 and if we look at history candidly and without prejudice1 we have to admit that no religion has ever in the long run established or proved itself in any other way4 ,religions have approved themselves2 they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning4 ,when they violated other needs too strongly1 or when other faiths came which served the same needs better1 the first religions were supplanted4 ,the needs were always many1 and the tests were never sharp4 ,so the reproach of vagueness and subjectivity and 8on the whole0ness1 which can with perfect legitimacy be addressed to the empirical method as we are forced to use it1 is after all a reproach to which the entire life of man in dealing with these matters is obnoxious4 ,no religion has ever yet owed its prevalence to 8apodictic certainty40 ,in a later lecture ,i will ask whether objective certainty can ever be added by theological reasoning to a religion that already empirically prevails4 ,one word1 also1 about the reproach that in following this sort of an empirical method we are handing ourselves over to systematic skepticism4 ,since it is impossible to deny secular alterations in our sentiments and needs1 it would be absurd to affirm that one's own age of the world can be beyond correction by the next age4 ,skepticism cannot1 therefore1 be ruled out by any set of thinkers as a possibility against which their conclusions are secure2 and no empiricist ought to claim exemption from this universal liability4 ,but to admit one's liability to correction is one thing1 and to embark upon a sea of wanton doubt is another4 ,of willfully playing into the hands of skepticism we cannot be accused4 ,he who acknowledges the imperfectness of his instrument1 and makes allowance for it in discussing his observations1 is in a much better position for gaining truth than if he claimed his instrument to be infallible4 ,or is dogmatic or scholastic theology less doubted in point of fact for claiming1 as it does1 to be in point of right undoubtable8 ,and if not1 what command over truth would this kind of theology really lose if1 instead of absolute certainty1 she only claimed reasonable probability for her conclusions8 ,if we claim only reasonable probability1 it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp4 ,pretty surely it will be more than we could have had1 if we were unconscious of our liability to err4 ,nevertheless1 dogmatism will doubtless continue to condemn us for this confession4 ,the mere outward form of inalterable certainty is so precious to some minds that to renounce it explicitly is for them out of the question4 ,they will claim it even where the facts most patently pronounce its folly4 ,but the safe thing is surely to recognize that all the insights of creatures of a day like ourselves must be provisional4 ,the wisest of critics is an altering being1 subject to the better insight of the morrow1 and right at any moment1 only 8up to date0 and 8on the whole40 ,when larger ranges of truth open1 it is surely best to be able to open ourselves to their reception1 unfettered by our previous pretensions4 8,heartily know1 when halfgods go1 the gods arrive40 ,the fact of diverse judgments about religious phenomena is therefore entirely unescapable1 whatever may be one's own desire to attain the irreversible4 ,but apart from that fact1 a more fundamental question awaits us1 the question whether men's opinions ought to be expected to be absolutely uniform in this field4 ,ought all men to have the same religion8 ,ought they to approve the same fruits and follow the same leadings8 ,are they so like in their inner needs that1 for hard and soft1 for proud and humble1 for strenuous and lazy1 for healthyminded and despairing1 exactly the same religious incentives are required8 ,or are different functions in the organism of humanity allotted to different types of man1 so that some may really be the better for a religion of consolation and reassurance1 whilst others are better for one of terror and reproof8 ,it might conceivably be so2 and we shall1 ,i think1 more and more suspect it to be so as we go on4 ,and if it be so1 how can any possible judge or critic help being biased in favor of the religion by which his own needs are best met8 ,he aspires to impartiality2 but he is too close to the struggle not to be to some degree a participant1 and he is sure to approve most warmly those fruits of piety in others which taste most good and prove most nourishing to him4 ,i am well aware of how anarchic much of what ,i say may sound4 ,expressing myself thus abstractly and briefly1 ,i may seem to despair of the very notion of truth4 ,but ,i beseech you to reserve your judgment until we see it applied to the details which lie before us4 ,i do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal4 ,but ,i reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability4 ,i am no lover of disorder and doubt as such4 ,rather do ,i fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly4 ,that we can gain more and more of it by moving always in the right direction1 ,i believe as much as any one1 and ,i hope to bring you all to my way of thinking before the termination of these lectures4 ,till then1 do not1 ,i pray you1 harden your minds irrevocably against the empiricism which ,i profess4 ,i will waste no more words1 then1 in abstract justification of my method1 but seek immediately to use it upon the facts4 ,in critically judging of the value of religious phenomena1 it is very important to insist on the distinction between religion as an individual personal function1 and religion as an institutional1 corporate1 or tribal product4 ,i drew this distinction1 you may remember1 in my second lecture4 ,the word 8religion10 as ordinarily used1 is equivocal4 ,a survey of history shows us that1 as a rule1 religious geniuses attract disciples1 and produce groups of sympathizers4 ,when these groups get strong enough to 8organize0 themselves1 they become ecclesiastical institutions with corporate ambitions of their own4 ,the spirit of politics and the lust of dogmatic rule are then apt to enter and to contaminate the originally innocent thing2 so that when we hear the word 8religion0 nowadays1 we think inevitably of some 8church0 or other2 and to some persons the word 8church0 suggests so much hypocrisy and tyranny and meanness and tenacity of superstition that in a wholesale undiscerning way they glory in saying that they are 8down0 on religion altogether4 ,even we who belong to churches do not exempt other churches than our own from the general condemnation4 ,but in this course of lectures ecclesiastical institutions hardly concern us at all4 ,the religious experience which we are studying is that which lives itself out within the private breast4 ,firsthand individual experience of this kind has always appeared as a heretical sort of innovation to those who witnessed its birth4 ,naked comes it into the world and lonely2 and it has always1 for a time at least1 driven him who had it into the wilderness1 often into the literal wilderness out of doors1 where the ,buddha1 ,jesus1 ,mohammed1 ,st4 ,francis1 ,george ,fox1 and so many others had to go4 ,george ,fox expresses well this isolation2 and ,i can do no better at this point than read to you a page from his ,journal1 referring to the period of his youth when religion began to ferment within him seriously4 8,i fasted much10 ,fox says1 8walked abroad in solitary places many days1 and often took my ,bible1 and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places until night came on2 and frequently in the night walked mournfully about by myself2 for ,i was a man of sorrows in the time of the first workings of the ,lord in me4 8,during all this time ,i was never joined in profession of religion with any1 but gave up myself to the ,lord1 having forsaken all evil company1 taking leave of father and mother1 and all other relations1 and traveled up and down as a stranger on the earth1 which way the ,lord inclined my heart2 taking a chamber to myself in the town where ,i came1 and tarrying sometimes more1 sometimes less in a place3 for ,i durst not stay long in a place1 being afraid both of professor and profane1 lest1 being a tender young man1 ,i should be hurt by conversing much with either4 ,for which reason ,i kept much as a stranger1 seeking heavenly wisdom and getting knowledge from the ,lord2 and was brought off from outward things1 to rely on the ,lord alone4 ,as ,i had forsaken the priests1 so ,i left the separate preachers also1 and those called the most experienced people2 for ,i saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition4 ,and when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone so that ,i had nothing outwardly to help me1 nor could tell what to do2 then1 oh then1 ,i heard a voice which said1 #8,there is one1 even ,jesus ,christ1 that can speak to thy condition4' ,when ,i heard it1 my heart did leap for joy4 ,then the ,lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition4 ,i had not fellowship with any people1 priests1 nor professors1 nor any sort of separated people4 ,i was afraid of all carnal talk and talkers1 for ,i could see nothing but corruptions4 ,when ,i was in the deep1 under all shut up1 ,i could not believe that ,i should ever overcome2 my troubles1 my sorrows1 and my temptations were so great that ,i often thought ,i should have despaired1 ,i was so tempted4 ,but when ,christ opened to me how he was tempted by the same devil1 and had overcome him1 and had bruised his head2 and that through him and his power1 life1 grace1 and spirit1 ,i should overcome also1 ,i had confidence in him4 ,if ,i had had a king's diet1 palace1 and attendance1 all would have been as nothing2 for nothing gave me comfort but the ,lord by his power4 ,i saw professors1 priests1 and people were whole and at ease in that condition which was my misery1 and they loved that which ,i would have been rid of4 ,but the ,lord did stay my desires upon himself1 and my care was cast upon him alone407#aig7 ,a genuine firsthand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses1 the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman4 ,if his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others1 it becomes a definite and labeled heresy4 ,but if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution1 it becomes itself an orthodoxy2 and when a religion has become an orthodoxy1 its day of inwardness is over3 the spring is dry2 the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn4 ,the new church1 in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster1 can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit1 and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration4 ,unless1 indeed1 by adopting new movements of the spirit it can make capital out of them and use them for its selfish corporate designs6 ,of protective action of this politic sort1 promptly or tardily decided on1 the dealings of the ,roman ecclesiasticism with many individual saints and prophets yield examples enough for our instruction4 ,the plain fact is that men's minds are built1 as has been often said1 in watertight compartments4 ,religious after a fashion1 they yet have many other things in them beside their religion1 and unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain4 ,the basenesses so commonly charged to religion's account are thus1 almost all of them1 not chargeable at all to religion proper1 but rather to religion's wicked practical partner1 the spirit of corporate dominion4 ,and the bigotries are most of them in their turn chargeable to religion's wicked intellectual partner1 the spirit of dogmatic dominion1 the passion for laying down the law in the form of an absolutely closedin theoretic system4 ,the ecclesiastical spirit in general is the sum of these two spirits of dominion2 and ,i beseech you never to confound the phenomena of mere tribal or corporate psychology which it presents with those manifestations of the purely interior life which are the exclusive object of our study4 ,the baiting of ,jews1 the hunting of ,albigenses and ,waldenses1 the stoning of ,quakers and ducking of ,methodists1 the murdering of ,mormons and the massacring of ,armenians1 express much rather that aboriginal human neophobia1 that pugnacity of which we all share the vestiges1 and that inborn hatred of the alien and of eccentric and nonconforming men as aliens1 than they express the positive piety of the various perpetrators4 ,piety is the mask1 the inner force is tribal instinct4 ,you believe as little as ,i do1 in spite of the ,christian unction with which the ,german emperor addressed his troops upon their way to ,china1 that the conduct which he suggested1 and in which other ,christian armies went beyond them1 had anything whatever to do with the interior religious life of those concerned in the performance4 ,well1 no more for past atrocities than for this atrocity should we make piety responsible4 ,at most we may blame piety for not availing to check our natural passions1 and sometimes for supplying them with hypocritical pretexts4 ,but hypocrisy also imposes obligations1 and with the pretext usually couples some restriction2 and when the passion gust is over1 the piety may bring a reaction of repentance which the irreligious natural man would not have shown4 ,for many of the historic aberrations which have been laid to her charge1 religion as such1 then1 is not to blame4 ,yet of the charge that over zealousness or fanaticism is one of her liabilities we cannot wholly acquit her1 so ,i will next make a remark upon that point4 ,but ,i will preface it by a preliminary remark which connects itself with much that follows4 ,our survey of the phenomena of saintliness has unquestionably produced in your minds an impression of extravagance4 ,is it necessary1 some of you have asked1 as one example after another came before us1 to be quite so fantastically good as that8 ,we who have no vocation for the extremer ranges of sanctity will surely be let off at the last day if our humility1 asceticism1 and devoutness prove of a less convulsive sort4 ,this practically amounts to saying that much that it is legitimate to admire in this field need nevertheless not be imitated1 and that religious phenomena1 like all other human phenomena1 are subject to the law of the golden mean4 ,political reformers accomplish their successive tasks in the history of nations by being blind for the time to other causes4 ,great schools of art work out the effects which it is their mission to reveal1 at the cost of a onesidedness for which other schools must make amends4 ,we accept a ,john ,howard1 a ,mazzini1 a ,botticelli1 a ,michael ,angelo1 with a kind of indulgence4 ,we are glad they existed to show us that way1 but we are glad there are also other ways of seeing and taking life4 ,so of many of the saints whom we have looked at4 ,we are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme1 but we shrink from advising others to follow the example4 ,the conduct we blame ourselves for not following lies nearer to the middle line of human effort4 ,it is less dependent on particular beliefs and doctrines4 ,it is such as wears well in different ages1 such as under different skies all judges are able to commend4 ,the fruits of religion1 in other words1 are1 like all human products1 liable to corruption by excess4 ,common sense must judge them4 ,it need not blame the votary2 but it may be able to praise him only conditionally1 as one who acts faithfully according to his lights4 ,he shows us heroism in one way1 but the unconditionally good way is that for which no indulgence need be asked4 ,we find that error by excess is exemplified by every saintly virtue4 ,excess1 in human faculties1 means usually onesidedness or want of balance2 for it is hard to imagine an essential faculty too strong1 if only other faculties equally strong be there to coperate with it in action4 ,strong affections need a strong will2 strong active powers need a strong intellect2 strong intellect needs strong sympathies1 to keep life steady4 ,if the balance exist1 no one faculty can possibly be too strong--we only get the stronger allround character4 ,in the life of saints1 technically so called1 the spiritual faculties are strong1 but what gives the impression of extravagance proves usually on examination to be a relative deficiency of intellect4 ,spiritual excitement takes pathological forms whenever other interests are too few and the intellect too narrow4 ,we find this exemplified by all the saintly attributes in turn--devout love of ,god1 purity1 charity1 asceticism1 all may lead astray4 ,i will run over these virtues in succession4 ,first of all let us take ,devoutness4 ,when unbalanced1 one of its vices is called ,fanaticism4 ,fanaticism 7when not a mere expression of ecclesiastical ambition7 is only loyalty carried to a convulsive extreme4 ,when an intensely loyal and narrow mind is once grasped by the feeling that a certain superhuman person is worthy of its exclusive devotion1 one of the first things that happens is that it idealizes the devotion itself4 ,to adequately realize the merits of the idol gets to be considered the one great merit of the worshiper2 and the sacrifices and servilities by which savage tribesmen have from time immemorial exhibited their faithfulness to chieftains are now outbid in favor of the deity4 ,vocabularies are exhausted and languages altered in the attempt to praise him enough2 death is looked on as gain if it attract his grateful notice2 and the personal attitude of being his devotee becomes what one might almost call a new and exalted kind of professional specialty within the tribe47#aih7 ,the legends that gather round the lives of holy persons are fruits of this impulse to celebrate and glorify4 ,the ,buddha7#aii7 and ,mohammed7#bjj7 and their companions and many ,christian saints are incrusted with a heavy jewelry of anecdotes which are meant to be honorific1 but are simply abgeschmackt and silly1 and form a touching expression of man's misguided propensity to praise4 ,an immediate consequence of this condition of mind is jealousy for the deity's honor4 ,how can the devotee show his loyalty better than by sensitiveness in this regard8 ,the slightest affront or neglect must be resented1 the deity's enemies must be put to shame4 ,in exceedingly narrow minds and active wills1 such a care may become an engrossing preoccupation2 and crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the ,god4 ,theologies representing the gods as mindful of their glory1 and churches with imperialistic policies1 have conspired to fan this temper to a glow1 so that intolerance and persecution have come to be vices associated by some of us inseparably with the saintly mind4 ,they are unquestionably its besetting sins4 ,the saintly temper is a moral temper1 and a moral temper has often to be cruel4 ,it is a partisan temper1 and that is cruel4 ,between his own and ,jehovah's enemies a ,david knows no difference2 a ,catherine of ,siena1 panting to stop the warfare among ,christians which was the scandal of her epoch1 can think of no better method of union among them than a crusade to massacre the ,turks2 ,luther finds no word of protest or regret over the atrocious tortures with which the ,anabaptist leaders were put to death2 and a ,cromwell praises the ,lord for delivering his enemies into his hands for 8execution40 ,politics come in in all such cases2 but piety finds the partnership not quite unnatural4 ,so1 when 8freethinkers0 tell us that religion and fanaticism are twins1 we cannot make an unqualified denial of the charge4 ,fanaticism must then be inscribed on the wrong side of religion's account1 so long as the religious person's intellect is on the stage which the despotic kind of ,god satisfies4 ,but as soon as the ,god is represented as less intent on his own honor and glory1 it ceases to be a danger4 ,fanaticism is found only where the character is masterful and aggressive4 ,in gentle characters1 where devoutness is intense and the intellect feeble1 we have an imaginative absorption in the love of ,god to the exclusion of all practical human interests1 which1 though innocent enough1 is too onesided to be admirable4 ,a mind too narrow has room but for one kind of affection4 ,when the love of ,god takes possession of such a mind1 it expels all human loves and human uses4 ,there is no ,english name for such a sweet excess of devotion1 so ,i will refer to it as a theopathic condition4 ,the blessed ,margaret ,mary ,alacoque may serve as an example4 8,to be loved here upon the earth10 her recent biographer exclaims3 8to be loved by a noble1 elevated1 distinguished being2 to be loved with fidelity1 with devotion1--what enchantment6 ,but to be loved by ,god6 and loved by him to distraction aim jusq' la folie6--,margaret melted away with love at the thought of such a thing4 ,like ,saint ,philip of ,neri in former times1 or like ,saint ,francis ,xavier1 she said to ,god3 #8,hold back1 ,o my ,god1 these torrents which overwhelm me1 or else enlarge my capacity for their reception4' 07#bja7 ,the most signal proofs of ,god's love which ,margaret ,mary received were her hallucinations of sight1 touch1 and hearing1 and the most signal in turn of these were the revelations of ,christ's sacred heart1 8surrounded with rays more brilliant than the ,sun1 and transparent like a crystal4 ,the wound which he received on the cross visibly appeared upon it4 ,there was a crown of thorns round about this divine ,heart1 and a cross above it40 ,at the same time ,christ's voice told her that1 unable longer to contain the flames of his love for mankind1 he had chosen her by a miracle to spread the knowledge of them4 ,he thereupon took out her mortal heart1 placed it inside of his own and inflamed it1 and then replaced it in her breast1 adding3 8,hitherto thou hast taken the name of my slave1 hereafter thou shalt be called the wellbeloved disciple of my ,sacred ,heart40 ,in a later vision the ,saviour revealed to her in detail the 8great design0 which he wished to establish through her instrumentality4 8,i ask of thee to bring it about that every first ,friday after the week of holy ,sacrament shall be made into a special holy day for honoring my ,heart by a general communion and by services intended to make honorable amends for the indignities which it has received4 ,and ,i promise thee that my ,heart will dilate to shed with abundance the influences of its love upon all those who pay to it these honors1 or who bring it about that others do the same40 8,this revelation10 says ,mgr4 ,bougaud1 8is unquestionably the most important of all the revelations which have illumined the ,church since that of the ,incarnation and of the ,lord's ,supper4444 ,after the ,eucharist1 the supreme effort of the ,sacred ,heart407#bjb7 ,well1 what were its good fruits for ,margaret ,mary's life8 ,apparently little else but sufferings and prayers and absences of mind and swoons and ecstasies4 ,she became increasingly useless about the convent1 her absorption in ,christ's love1-- 8which grew upon her daily1 rendering her more and more incapable of attending to external duties4 ,they tried her in the infirmary1 but without much success1 although her kindness1 zeal1 and devotion were without bounds1 and her charity rose to acts of such a heroism that our readers would not bear the recital of them4 ,they tried her in the kitchen1 but were forced to give it up as hopeless--everything dropped out of her hands4 ,the admirable humility with which she made amends for her clumsiness could not prevent this from being prejudicial to the order and regularity which must always reign in a community4 ,they put her in the school1 where the little girls cherished her1 and cut pieces out of her clothes for relics as if she were already a saint1 but where she was too absorbed inwardly to pay the necessary attention4 ,poor dear sister1 even less after her visions than before them was she a denizen of earth1 and they had to leave her in her heaven407#bjc7 ,poor dear sister1 indeed6 ,amiable and good1 but so feeble of intellectual outlook that it would be too much to ask of us1 with our ,protestant and modern education1 to feel anything but indulgent pity for the kind of saintship which she embodies4 ,a lower example still of theopathic saintliness is that of ,saint ,gertrude1 a ,benedictine nun of the thirteenth century1 whose 8,revelations10 a wellknown mystical authority1 consist mainly of proofs of ,christ's partiality for her undeserving person4 ,assurances of his love1 intimacies and caresses and compliments of the most absurd and puerile sort1 addressed by ,christ to ,gertrude as an individual1 form the tissue of this paltryminded recital47#bjd7 ,in reading such a narrative1 we realize the gap between the thirteenth and the twentieth century1 and we feel that saintliness of character may yield almost absolutely worthless fruits if it be associated with such inferior intellectual sympathies4 ,what with science1 idealism1 and democracy1 our own imagination has grown to need a ,god of an entirely different temperament from that ,being interested exclusively in dealing out personal favors1 with whom our ancestors were so contented4 ,smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness1 a ,god indifferent to everything but adulation1 and full of partiality for his individual favorites1 lacks an essential element of largeness2 and even the best professional sainthood of former centuries1 pent in as it is to such a conception1 seems to us curiously shallow and unedifying4 ,take ,saint ,teresa1 for example1 one of the ablest women1 in many respects1 of whose life we have the record4 ,she had a powerful intellect of the practical order4 ,she wrote admirable descriptive psychology1 possessed a will equal to any emergency1 great talent for politics and business1 a buoyant disposition1 and a firstrate literary style4 ,she was tenaciously aspiring1 and put her whole life at the service of her religious ideals4 ,yet so paltry were these1 according to our present way of thinking1 that 7although ,i know that others have been moved differently7 ,i confess that my only feeling in reading her has been pity that so much vitality of soul should have found such poor employment4 ,in spite of the sufferings which she endured1 there is a curious flavor of superficiality about her genius4 ,a ,birmingham anthropologist1 ,dr4 ,jordan1 has divided the human race into two types1 whom he calls 8shrews0 and 8nonshrews0 respectively47#bje7 ,the shrewtype is defined as possessing an 8active unimpassioned temperament40 ,in other words1 shrews are the 8motors10 rather than the 8sensories107#bjf7 and their expressions are as a rule more energetic than the feelings which appear to prompt them4 ,saint ,teresa1 paradoxical as such a judgment may sound1 was a typical shrew1 in this sense of the term4 ,the bustle of her style1 as well as of her life1 proves it4 ,not only must she receive unheardof personal favors and spiritual graces from her ,saviour1 but she must immediately write about them and exploiter them professionally1 and use her expertness to give instruction to those less privileged4 ,her voluble egotism2 her sense1 not of radical bad being1 as the really contrite have it1 but of her 8faults0 and 8imperfections0 in the plural2 her stereotyped humility and return upon herself1 as covered with 8confusion0 at each new manifestation of ,god's singular partiality for a person so unworthy1 are typical of shrewdom3 a paramountly feeling nature would be objectively lost in gratitude1 and silent4 ,she had some public instincts1 it is true2 she hated the ,lutherans1 and longed for the church's triumph over them2 but in the main her idea of religion seems to have been that of an endless amatory flirtation--if one may say so without irreverence--between the devotee and the deity2 and apart from helping younger nuns to go in this direction by the inspiration of her example and instruction1 there is absolutely no human use in her1 or sign of any general human interest4 ,yet the spirit of her age1 far from rebuking her1 exalted her as superhuman4 ,we have to pass a similar judgment on the whole notion of saintship based on merits4 ,any ,god who1 on the one hand1 can care to keep a pedantically minute account of individual shortcomings1 and on the other can feel such partialities1 and load particular creatures with such insipid marks of favor1 is too smallminded a ,god for our credence4 ,when ,luther1 in his immense manly way1 swept off by a stroke of his hand the very notion of a debit and credit account kept with individuals by the ,almighty1 he stretched the soul's imagination and saved theology from puerility4 ,so much for mere devotion1 divorced from the intellectual conceptions which might guide it towards bearing useful human fruit4 ,the next saintly virtue in which we find excess is ,purity4 ,in theopathic characters1 like those whom we have just considered1 the love of ,god must not be mixed with any other love4 ,father and mother1 sisters1 brothers1 and friends are felt as interfering distractions2 for sensitiveness and narrowness1 when they occur together1 as they often do1 require above all things a simplified world to dwell in4 ,variety and confusion are too much for their powers of comfortable adaptation4 ,but whereas your aggressive pietist reaches his unity objectively1 by forcibly stamping disorder and divergence out1 your retiring pietist reaches his subjectively1 leaving disorder in the world at large1 but making a smaller world in which he dwells himself and from which he eliminates it altogether4 ,thus1 alongside of the church militant with its prisons1 dragonnades1 and inquisition methods1 we have the church fugient1 as one might call it1 with its hermitages1 monasteries1 and sectarian organizations1 both churches pursuing the same object--to unify the life17#bjg7 and simplify the spectacle presented to the soul4 ,a mind extremely sensitive to inner discords will drop one external relation after another1 as interfering with the absorption of consciousness in spiritual things4 ,amusements must go first1 then conventional 8society10 then business1 then family duties1 until at last seclusion1 with a subdivision of the day into hours for stated religious acts1 is the only thing that can be borne4 ,the lives of saints are a history of successive renunciations of complication1 one form of contact with the outer life being dropped after another1 to save the purity of inner tone47#bjh7 8,is it not better10 a young sister asks her ,superior1 8that ,i should not speak at all during the hour of recreation1 so as not to run the risk1 by speaking1 of falling into some sin of which ,i might not be conscious807#bji7 ,if the life remains a social one at all1 those who take part in it must follow one identical rule4 ,embosomed in this monotony1 the zealot for purity feels clean and free once more4 ,the minuteness of uniformity maintained in certain sectarian communities1 whether monastic or not1 is something almost inconceivable to a man of the world4 ,costume1 phraseology1 hours1 and habits are absolutely stereotyped1 and there is no doubt that some persons are so made as to find in this stability an incomparable kind of mental rest4 ,we have no time to multiply examples1 so ,i will let the case of ,saint ,louis of ,gonzaga serve as a type of excess in purification4 ,i think you will agree that this youth carried the elimination of the external and discordant to a point which we cannot unreservedly admire4 ,at the age of ten1 his biographer says3-- 8,the inspiration came to him to consecrate to the ,mother of ,god his own virginity--that being to her the most agreeable of possible presents4 ,without delay1 then1 and with all the fervor there was in him1 joyous of heart1 and burning with love1 he made his vow of perpetual chastity4 ,mary accepted the offering of his innocent heart1 and obtained for him from ,god1 as a recompense1 the extraordinary grace of never feeling during his entire life the slightest touch of temptation against the virtue of purity4 ,this was an altogether exceptional favor1 rarely accorded even to ,saints themselves1 and all the more marvelous in that ,louis dwelt always in courts and among great folks1 where danger and opportunity are so unusually frequent4 ,it is true that ,louis from his earliest childhood had shown a natural repugnance for whatever might be impure or unvirginal1 and even for relations of any sort whatever between persons of opposite sex4 ,but this made it all the more surprising that he should1 especially since this vow1 feel it necessary to have recourse to such a number of expedients for protecting against even the shadow of danger the virginity which he had thus consecrated4 ,one might suppose that if any one could have contented himself with the ordinary precautions1 prescribed for all ,christians1 it would assuredly have been he4 ,but no6 ,in the use of preservatives and means of defense1 in flight from the most insignificant occasions1 from every possibility of peril1 just as in the mortification of his flesh1 he went farther than the majority of saints4 ,he1 who by an extraordinary protection of ,god's grace was never tempted1 measured all his steps as if he were threatened on every side by particular dangers4 ,thenceforward he never raised his eyes1 either when walking in the streets1 or when in society4 ,not only did he avoid all business with females even more scrupulously than before1 but he renounced all conversation and every kind of social recreation with them1 although his father tried to make him take part2 and he commenced only too early to deliver his innocent body to austerities of every kind407#baj7 ,at the age of twelve1 we read of this young man that 8if by chance his mother sent one of her maids of honor to him with a message1 he never allowed her to come in1 but listened to her through the barely opened door1 and dismissed her immediately4 ,he did not like to be alone with his own mother1 whether at table or in conversation2 and when the rest of the company withdrew1 he sought also a pretext for retiring4444 ,several great ladies1 relatives of his1 he avoided learning to know even by sight2 and he made a sort of treaty with his father1 engaging promptly and readily to accede to all his wishes1 if he might only be excused from all visits to ladies40 7,ibid41 p4 #ga47 ,when he was seventeen years old ,louis joined the ,jesuit order7#baa7 against his father's passionate entreaties1 for he was heir of a princely house2 and when a year later the father died1 he took the loss as a 8particular attention0 to himself on ,god's part1 and wrote letters of stilted good advice1 as from a spiritual superior1 to his grieving mother4 ,he soon became so good a monk that if any one asked him the number of his brothers and sisters1 he had to reflect and count them over before replying4 ,a ,father asked him one day if he were never troubled by the thought of his family1 to which1 8,i never think of them except when praying for them10 was his only answer4 ,never was he seen to hold in his hand a flower or anything perfumed1 that he might take pleasure in it4 ,on the contrary1 in the hospital1 he used to seek for whatever was most disgusting1 and eagerly snatch the bandages of ulcers1 etc41 from the hands of his companions4 ,he avoided worldly talk1 and immediately tried to turn every conversation on to pious subjects1 or else he remained silent4 ,he systematically refused to notice his surroundings4 ,being ordered one day to bring a book from the rector's seat in the refectory1 he had to ask where the rector sat1 for in the three months he had eaten bread there1 so carefully did he guard his eyes that he had not noticed the place4 ,one day1 during recess1 having looked by chance on one of his companions1 he reproached himself as for a grave sin against modesty4 ,he cultivated silence1 as preserving from sins of the tongue2 and his greatest penance was the limit which his superiors set to his bodily penances4 ,he sought after false accusations and unjust reprimands as opportunities of humility2 and such was his obedience that1 when a roommate1 having no more paper1 asked him for a sheet1 he did not feel free to give it to him without first obtaining the permission of the superior1 who1 as such1 stood in the place of ,god1 and transmitted his orders4 ,i can find no other sorts of fruit than these of ,louis's saintship4 ,he died in #aeia1 in his twentyninth year1 and is known in the ,church as the patron of all young people4 ,on his festival1 the altar in the chapel devoted to him in a certain church in ,rome 8is embosomed in flowers1 arranged with exquisite taste2 and a pile of letters may be seen at its foot1 written to the ,saint by young men and women1 and directed to #8,paradiso4' ,they are supposed to be burnt unread except by ,san ,luigi1 who must find singular petitions in these pretty little missives1 tied up now with a green ribbon1 expressive of hope1 now with a red one1 emblematic of love10 etc47#bab7 ,our final judgment of the worth of such a life as this will depend largely on our conception of ,god1 and of the sort of conduct he is best pleased with in his creatures4 ,the ,catholicism of the sixteenth century paid little heed to social righteousness2 and to leave the world to the devil whilst saving one's own soul was then accounted no discreditable scheme4 ,today1 rightly or wrongly1 helpfulness in general human affairs is1 in consequence of one of those secular mutations in moral sentiment of which ,i spoke1 deemed an essential element of worth in character2 and to be of some public or private use is also reckoned as a species of divine service4 ,other early ,jesuits1 especially the missionaries among them1 the ,xaviers1 ,brbeufs1 ,jogues1 were objective minds1 and fought in their way for the world's welfare2 so their lives today inspire us4 ,but when the intellect1 as in this ,louis1 is originally no larger than a pin's head1 and cherishes ideas of ,god of corresponding smallness1 the result1 notwithstanding the heroism put forth1 is on the whole repulsive4 ,purity1 we see in the objectlesson1 is not the one thing needful2 and it is better that a life should contract many a dirtmark1 than forfeit usefulness in its efforts to remain unspotted4 ,proceeding onwards in our search of religious extravagance1 we next come upon excesses of ,tenderness and ,charity4 ,here saintliness has to face the charge of preserving the unfit1 and breeding parasites and beggars4 8,resist not evil10 8,love your enemies10 these are saintly maxims of which men of this world find it hard to speak without impatience4 ,are the men of this world right1 or are the saints in possession of the deeper range of truth8 ,no simple answer is possible4 ,here1 if anywhere1 one feels the complexity of the moral life1 and the mysteriousness of the way in which facts and ideals are interwoven4 ,perfect conduct is a relation between three terms3 the actor1 the objects for which he acts1 and the recipients of the action4 ,in order that conduct should be abstractly perfect1 all three terms1 intention1 execution1 and reception1 should be suited to one another4 ,the best intention will fail if it either work by false means or address itself to the wrong recipient4 ,thus no critic or estimator of the value of conduct can confine himself to the actor's animus alone1 apart from the other elements of the performance4 ,as there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it1 so reasonable arguments1 challenges to magnanimity1 and appeals to sympathy or justice1 are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boaconstrictors4 ,the saint may simply give the universe into the hands of the enemy by his trustfulness4 ,he may by nonresistance cut off his own survival4 ,herbert ,spencer tells us that the perfect man's conduct will appear perfect only when the environment is perfect3 to no inferior environment is it suitably adapted4 ,we may paraphrase this by cordially admitting that saintly conduct would be the most perfect conduct conceivable in an environment where all were saints already2 but by adding that in an environment where few are saints1 and many the exact reverse of saints1 it must be ill adapted4 ,we must frankly confess1 then1 using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices1 that in the world that actually is1 the virtues of sympathy1 charity1 and nonresistance may be1 and often have been1 manifested in excess4 ,the powers of darkness have systematically taken advantage of them4 ,the whole modern scientific organization of charity is a consequence of the failure of simply giving alms4 ,the whole history of constitutional government is a commentary on the excellence of resisting evil1 and when one cheek is smitten1 of smiting back and not turning the other cheek also4 ,you will agree to this in general1 for in spite of the ,gospel1 in spite of ,quakerism1 in spite of ,tolstoi1 you believe in fighting fire with fire1 in shooting down usurpers1 locking up thieves1 and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers4 ,and yet you are sure1 as ,i am sure1 that were the world confined to these hardheaded1 hardhearted1 and hardfisted methods exclusively1 were there no one prompt to help a brother first1 and find out afterwards whether he were worthy2 no one willing to drown his private wrongs in pity for the wronger's person2 no one ready to be duped many a time rather than live always on suspicion2 no one glad to treat individuals passionately and impulsively rather than by general rules of prudence2 the world would be an infinitely worse place than it is now to live in4 ,the tender grace1 not of a day that is dead1 but of a day yet to be born somehow1 with the golden rule grown natural1 would be cut out from the perspective of our imaginations4 ,the saints1 existing in this way1 may1 with their extravagances of human tenderness1 be prophetic4 ,nay1 innumerable times they have proved themselves prophetic4 ,treating those whom they met1 in spite of the past1 in spite of all appearances1 as worthy1 they have stimulated them to be worthy1 miraculously transformed them by their radiant example and by the challenge of their expectation4 ,from this point of view we may admit the human charity which we find in all saints1 and the great excess of it which we find in some saints1 to be a genuinely creative social force1 tending to make real a degree of virtue which it alone is ready to assume as possible4 ,the saints are authors1 auctores1 increasers1 of goodness4 ,the potentialities of development in human souls are unfathomable4 ,so many who seemed irretrievably hardened have in point of fact been softened1 converted1 regenerated1 in ways that amazed the subjects even more than they surprised the spectators1 that we never can be sure in advance of any man that his salvation by the way of love is hopeless4 ,we have no right to speak of human crocodiles and boa constrictors as of fixedly incurable beings4 ,we know not the complexities of personality1 the smouldering emotional fires1 the other facets of the characterpolyhedron1 the resources of the subliminal region4 ,st4 ,paul long ago made our ancestors familiar with the idea that every soul is virtually sacred4 ,since ,christ died for us all without exception1 ,st4 ,paul said1 we must despair of no one4 ,this belief in the essential sacredness of every one expresses itself today in all sorts of humane customs and reformatory institutions1 and in a growing aversion to the death penalty and to brutality in punishment4 ,the saints1 with their extravagance of human tenderness1 are the great torchbearers of this belief1 the tip of the wedge1 the clearers of the darkness4 ,like the single drops which sparkle in the sun as they are flung far ahead of the advancing edge of a wavecrest or of a flood1 they show the way and are forerunners4 ,the world is not yet with them1 so they often seem in the midst of the world's affairs to be preposterous4 ,yet they are impregnators of the world1 vivifiers and animaters of potentialities of goodness which but for them would lie forever dormant4 ,it is not possible to be quite as mean as we naturally are1 when they have passed before us4 ,one fire kindles another2 and without that overtrust in human worth which they show1 the rest of us would lie in spiritual stagnancy4 ,momentarily considered1 then1 the saint may waste his tenderness and be the dupe and victim of his charitable fever1 but the general function of his charity in social evolution is vital and essential4 ,if things are ever to move upward1 some one must be ready to take the first step1 and assume the risk of it4 ,no one who is not willing to try charity1 to try non resistance as the saint is always willing1 can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed4 ,when they do succeed1 they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldly prudence4 ,force destroys enemies2 and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety4 ,but nonresistance1 when successful1 turns enemies into friends2 and charity regenerates its objects4 ,these saintly methods are1 as ,i said1 creative energies2 and genuine saints find in the elevated excitement with which their faith endows them an authority and impressiveness which makes them irresistible in situations where men of shallower nature cannot get on at all without the use of worldly prudence4 ,this practical proof that worldly wisdom may be safely transcended is the saint's magic gift to mankind47#bac7 ,not only does his vision of a better world console us for the generally prevailing prose and barrenness2 but even when on the whole we have to confess him ill adapted1 he makes some converts1 and the environment gets better for his ministry4 ,he is an effective ferment of goodness1 a slow transmuter of the earthly into a more heavenly order4 ,in this respect the ,utopian dreams of social justice in which many contemporary socialists and anarchists indulge are1 in spite of their impracticability and nonadaptation to present environmental conditions1 analogous to the saint's belief in an existent kingdom of heaven4 ,they help to break the edge of the general reign of hardness1 and are slow leavens of a better order4 ,the next topic in order is ,asceticism1 which ,i fancy you are all ready to consider without argument a virtue liable to extravagance and excess4 ,the optimism and refinement of the modern imagination has1 as ,i have already said elsewhere1 changed the attitude of the church towards corporeal mortification1 and a ,suso or a ,saint ,peter of ,alcantara7#bad7 appear to us today rather in the light of tragic mountebanks than of sane men inspiring us with respect4 ,if the inner dispositions are right1 we ask1 what need of all this torment1 this violation of the outer nature8 ,it keeps the outer nature too important4 ,any one who is genuinely emancipated from the flesh will look on pleasures and pains1 abundance and privation1 as alike irrelevant and indifferent4 ,he can engage in actions and experience enjoyments without fear of corruption or enslavement4 ,as the ,bhagavad,gita says1 only those need renounce worldly actions who are still inwardly attached thereto4 ,if one be really unattached to the fruits of action1 one may mix in the world with equanimity4 ,i quoted in a former lecture ,saint ,augustine's antinomian saying3 ,if you only love ,god enough1 you may safely follow all your inclinations4 8,he needs no devotional practices10 is one of ,ramakrishna's maxims1 8whose heart is moved to tears at the mere mention of the name of ,hari407#bae7 ,and the ,buddha1 in pointing out what he called 8the middle way0 to his disciples1 told them to abstain from both extremes1 excessive mortification being as unreal and unworthy as mere desire and pleasure4 ,the only perfect life1 he said1 is that of inner wisdom1 which makes one thing as indifferent to us as another1 and thus leads to rest1 to peace1 and to ,nirvna47#baf7 ,we find accordingly that as ascetic saints have grown older1 and directors of conscience more experienced1 they usually have shown a tendency to lay less stress on special bodily mortifications4 ,catholic teachers have always professed the rule that1 since health is needed for efficiency in ,god's service1 health must not be sacrificed to mortification4 ,the general optimism and healthymindedness of liberal ,protestant circles today makes mortification for mortification's sake repugnant to us4 ,we can no longer sympathize with cruel deities1 and the notion that ,god can take delight in the spectacle of sufferings selfinflicted in his honor is abhorrent4 ,in consequence of all these motives you probably are disposed1 unless some special utility can be shown in some individual's discipline1 to treat the general tendency to asceticism as pathological4 ,yet ,i believe that a more careful consideration of the whole matter1 distinguishing between the general good intention of asceticism and the uselessness of some of the particular acts of which it may be guilty1 ought to rehabilitate it in our esteem4 ,for in its spiritual meaning asceticism stands for nothing less than for the essence of the twiceborn philosophy4 ,it symbolizes1 lamely enough no doubt1 but sincerely1 the belief that there is an element of real wrongness in this world1 which is neither to be ignored nor evaded1 but which must be squarely met and overcome by an appeal to the soul's heroic resources1 and neutralized and cleansed away by suffering4 ,as against this view1 the ultraoptimistic form of the onceborn philosophy thinks we may treat evil by the method of ignoring4 ,let a man who1 by fortunate health and circumstances1 escapes the suffering of any great amount of evil in his own person1 also close his eyes to it as it exists in the wider universe outside his private experience1 and he will be quit of it altogether1 and can sail through life happily on a healthyminded basis4 ,but we saw in our lectures on melancholy how precarious this attempt necessarily is4 ,moreover it is but for the individual2 and leaves the evil outside of him1 unredeemed and unprovided for in his philosophy4 ,no such attempt can be a general solution of the problem2 and to minds of sombre tinge1 who naturally feel life as a tragic mystery1 such optimism is a shallow dodge or mean evasion4 ,it accepts1 in lieu of a real deliverance1 what is a lucky personal accident merely1 a cranny to escape by4 ,it leaves the general world unhelped and still in the clutch of ,satan4 ,the real deliverance1 the twiceborn folk insist1 must be of universal application4 ,pain and wrong and death must be fairly met and overcome in higher excitement1 or else their sting remains essentially unbroken4 ,if one has ever taken the fact of the prevalence of tragic death in this world's history fairly into his mind1--freezing1 drowning1 entombment alive1 wild beasts1 worse men1 and hideous diseases1--he can with difficulty1 it seems to me1 continue his own career of worldly prosperity without suspecting that he may all the while not be really inside the game1 that he may lack the great initiation4 ,well1 this is exactly what asceticism thinks2 and it voluntarily takes the initiation4 ,life is neither farce nor genteel comedy1 it says1 but something we must sit at in mourning garments1 hoping its bitter taste will purge us of our folly4 ,the wild and the heroic are indeed such rooted parts of it that healthymindedness pure and simple1 with its sentimental optimism1 can hardly be regarded by any thinking man as a serious solution4 ,phrases of neatness1 cosiness1 and comfort can never be an answer to the sphinx's riddle4 ,in these remarks ,i am leaning only upon mankind's common instinct for reality1 which in point of fact has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism4 ,in heroism1 we feel1 life's supreme mystery is hidden4 ,we tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction4 ,on the other hand1 no matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be1 if he be willing to risk death1 and still more if he suffer it heroically1 in the service he has chosen1 the fact consecrates him forever4 ,inferior to ourselves in this or that way1 if yet we cling to life1 and he is able 8to fling it away like a flower0 as caring nothing for it1 we account him in the deepest way our born superior4 ,each of us in his own person feels that a highhearted indifference to life would expiate all his shortcomings4 ,the metaphysical mystery1 thus recognized by common sense1 that he who feeds on death that feeds on men possesses life supereminently and excellently1 and meets best the secret demands of the universe1 is the truth of which asceticism has been the faithful champion4 ,the folly of the cross1 so inexplicable by the intellect1 has yet its indestructible vital meaning4 ,representatively1 then1 and symbolically1 and apart from the vagaries into which the unenlightened intellect of former times may have let it wander1 asceticism must1 ,i believe1 be acknowledged to go with the profounder way of handling the gift of existence4 ,naturalistic optimism is mere syllabub and flattery and spongecake in comparison4 ,the practical course of action for us1 as religious men1 would therefore1 it seems to me1 not be simply to turn our backs upon the ascetic impulse1 as most of us today turn them1 but rather to discover some outlet for it of which the fruits in the way of privation and hardship might be objectively useful4 ,the older monastic asceticism occupied itself with pathetic futilities1 or terminated in the mere egotism of the individual1 increasing his own perfection47#bag7 ,but is it not possible for us to discard most of these older forms of mortification1 and yet find saner channels for the heroism which inspired them8 ,does not1 for example1 the worship of material luxury and wealth1 which constitutes so large a portion of the 8spirit0 of our age1 make somewhat for effeminacy and unmanliness8 ,is not the exclusively sympathetic and facetious way in which most children are brought up today--so different from the education of a hundred years ago1 especially in evangelical circles--in danger1 in spite of its many advantages1 of developing a certain trashiness of fibre8 ,are there not hereabouts some points of application for a renovated and revised ascetic discipline8 ,many of you would recognize such dangers1 but would point to athletics1 militarism1 and individual and national enterprise and adventure as the remedies4 ,these contemporary ideals are quite as remarkable for the energy with which they make for heroic standards of life1 as contemporary religion is remarkable for the way in which it neglects them47#bah7 ,war and adventure assuredly keep all who engage in them from treating themselves too tenderly4 ,they demand such incredible efforts1 depth beyond depth of exertion1 both in degree and in duration1 that the whole scale of motivation alters4 ,discomfort and annoyance1 hunger and wet1 pain and cold1 squalor and filth1 cease to have any deterrent operation whatever4 ,death turns into a commonplace matter1 and its usual power to check our action vanishes4 ,with the annulling of these customary inhibitions1 ranges of new energy are set free1 and life seems cast upon a higher plane of power4 ,the beauty of war in this respect is that it is so congruous with ordinary human nature4 ,ancestral evolution has made us all potential warriors2 so the most insignificant individual1 when thrown into an army in the field1 is weaned from whatever excess of tenderness towards his precious person he may bring with him1 and may easily develop into a monster of insensibility4 ,but when we compare the military type of selfseverity with that of the ascetic saint1 we find a worldwide difference in all their spiritual concomitants4 8 #8,live and let live1' 0 writes a clearheaded ,austrian officer1 8is no device for an army4 ,contempt for one's own comrades1 for the troops of the enemy1 and1 above all1 fierce contempt for one's own person1 are what war demands of every one4 ,far better is it for an army to be too savage1 too cruel1 too barbarous1 than to possess too much sentimentality and human reasonableness4 ,if the soldier is to be good for anything as a soldier1 he must be exactly the opposite of a reasoning and thinking man4 ,the measure of goodness in him is his possible use in war4 ,war1 and even peace1 require of the soldier absolutely peculiar standards of morality4 ,the recruit brings with him common moral notions1 of which he must seek immediately to get rid4 ,for him victory1 success1 must be everything4 ,the most barbaric tendencies in men come to life again in war1 and for war's uses they are incommensurably good407#bai7 ,these words are of course literally true4 ,the immediate aim of the soldier's life is1 as ,moltke said1 destruction1 and nothing but destruction2 and whatever constructions wars result in are remote and non military4 ,consequently the soldier cannot train himself to be too feelingless to all those usual sympathies and respects1 whether for persons or for things1 that make for conservation4 ,yet the fact remains that war is a school of strenuous life and heroism2 and1 being in the line of aboriginal instinct1 is the only school that as yet is universally available4 ,but when we gravely ask ourselves whether this wholesale organization of irrationality and crime be our only bulwark against effeminacy1 we stand aghast at the thought1 and think more kindly of ascetic religion4 ,one hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat4 ,what we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war3 something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does1 and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible4 ,i have often thought that in the old monkish povertyworship1 in spite of the pedantry which infested it1 there might be something like that moral equivalent of war which we are seeking4 ,may not voluntarily accepted poverty be 8the strenuous life10 without the need of crushing weaker peoples8 ,poverty indeed is the strenuous life1--without brass bands or uniforms or hysteric popular applause or lies or circumlocutions2 and when one sees the way in which wealthgetting enters as an ideal into the very bone and marrow of our generation1 one wonders whether a revival of the belief that poverty is a worthy religious vocation may not be 8the transformation of military courage10 and the spiritual reform which our time stands most in need of4 ,among us ,englishspeaking peoples especially do the praises of poverty need once more to be boldly sung4 ,we have grown literally afraid to be poor4 ,we despise any one who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life4 ,if he does not join the general scramble and pant with the moneymaking street1 we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition4 ,we have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant3 the liberation from material attachments1 the unbribed soul1 the manlier indifference1 the paying our way by what we are or do and not by what we have1 the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly1--the more athletic trim1 in short1 the moral fighting shape4 ,when we of the socalled better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship2 when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic1 and quake at the thought of having a child without a bankaccount and doomed to manual labor1 it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion4 ,it is true that so far as wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies1 wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen4 ,but wealth does this in only a portion of the actual cases4 ,elsewhere the desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption4 ,there are thousands of conjunctures in which a wealthbound man must be a slave1 whilst a man for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman4 ,think of the strength which personal indifference to poverty would give us if we were devoted to unpopular causes4 ,we need no longer hold our tongues or fear to vote the revolutionary or reformatory ticket4 ,our stocks might fall1 our hopes of promotion vanish1 our salaries stop1 our club doors close in our faces2 yet1 while we lived1 we would imperturbably bear witness to the spirit1 and our example would help to set free our generation4 ,the cause would need its funds1 but we its servants would be potent in proportion as we personally were contented with our poverty4 ,i recommend this matter to your serious pondering1 for it is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers4 ,i have now said all that ,i can usefully say about the several fruits of religion as they are manifested in saintly lives1 so ,i will make a brief review and pass to my more general conclusions4 ,our question1 you will remember1 is as to whether religion stands approved by its fruits1 as these are exhibited in the saintly type of character4 ,single attributes of saintliness may1 it is true1 be temperamental endowments1 found in nonreligious individuals4 ,but the whole group of them forms a combination which1 as such1 is religious1 for it seems to flow from the sense of the divine as from its psychological centre4 ,whoever possesses strongly this sense comes naturally to think that the smallest details of this world derive infinite significance from their relation to an unseen divine order4 ,the thought of this order yields him a superior denomination of happiness1 and a steadfastness of soul with which no other can compare4 ,in social relations his serviceability is exemplary2 he abounds in impulses to help4 ,his help is inward as well as outward1 for his sympathy reaches souls as well as bodies1 and kindles unsuspected faculties therein4 ,instead of placing happiness where common men place it1 in comfort1 he places it in a higher kind of inner excitement1 which converts discomforts into sources of cheer and annuls unhappiness4 ,so he turns his back upon no duty1 however thankless2 and when we are in need of assistance1 we can count upon the saint lending his hand with more certainty than we can count upon any other person4 ,finally1 his humble mindedness and his ascetic tendencies save him from the petty personal pretensions which so obstruct our ordinary social intercourse1 and his purity gives us in him a clean man for a companion4 ,felicity1 purity1 charity1 patience1 selfseverity1--these are splendid excellencies1 and the saint of all men shows them in the completest possible measure4 ,but1 as we saw1 all these things together do not make saints infallible4 ,when their intellectual outlook is narrow1 they fall into all sorts of holy excesses1 fanaticism or theopathic absorption1 selftorment1 prudery1 scrupulosity1 gullibility1 and morbid inability to meet the world4 ,by the very intensity of his fidelity to the paltry ideals with which an inferior intellect may inspire him1 a saint can be even more objectionable and damnable than a superficial carnal man would be in the same situation4 ,we must judge him not sentimentally only1 and not in isolation1 but using our own intellectual standards1 placing him in his environment1 and estimating his total function4 ,now in the matter of intellectual standards1 we must bear in mind that it is unfair1 where we find narrowness of mind1 always to impute it as a vice to the individual1 for in religious and theological matters he probably absorbs his narrowness from his generation4 ,moreover1 we must not confound the essentials of saintliness1 which are those general passions of which ,i have spoken1 with its accidents1 which are the special determinations of these passions at any historical moment4 ,in these determinations the saints will usually be loyal to the temporary idols of their tribe4 ,taking refuge in monasteries was as much an idol of the tribe in the middle ages1 as bearing a hand in the world's work is today4 ,saint ,francis or ,saint ,bernard1 were they living today1 would undoubtedly be leading consecrated lives of some sort1 but quite as undoubtedly they would not lead them in retirement4 ,our animosity to special historic manifestations must not lead us to give away the saintly impulses in their essential nature to the tender mercies of inimical critics4 ,the most inimical critic of the saintly impulses whom ,i know is ,nietzsche4 ,he contrasts them with the worldly passions as we find these embodied in the predaceous military character1 altogether to the advantage of the latter4 ,your born saint1 it must be confessed1 has something about him which often makes the gorge of a carnal man rise1 so it will be worth while to consider the contrast in question more fully4 ,dislike of the saintly nature seems to be a negative result of the biologically useful instinct of welcoming leadership1 and glorifying the chief of the tribe4 ,the chief is the potential1 if not the actual tyrant1 the masterful1 overpowering man of prey4 ,we confess our inferiority and grovel before him4 ,we quail under his glance1 and are at the same time proud of owning so dangerous a lord4 ,such instinctive and submissive hero worship must have been indispensable in primeval tribal life4 ,in the endless wars of those times1 leaders were absolutely needed for the tribe's survival4 ,if there were any tribes who owned no leaders1 they can have left no issue to narrate their doom4 ,the leaders always had good consciences1 for conscience in them coalesced with will1 and those who looked on their face were as much smitten with wonder at their freedom from inner restraint as with awe at the energy of their outward performances4 ,compared with these beaked and taloned graspers of the world1 saints are herbivorous animals1 tame and harmless barnyard poultry4 ,there are saints whose beard you may1 if you ever care to1 pull with impunity4 ,such a man excites no thrills of wonder veiled in terror2 his conscience is full of scruples and returns2 he stuns us neither by his inward freedom nor his outward power2 and unless he found within us an altogether different faculty of admiration to appeal to1 we should pass him by with contempt4 ,in point of fact1 he does appeal to a different faculty4 ,renacted in human nature is the fable of the wind1 the sun1 and the traveler4 ,the sexes embody the discrepancy4 ,the woman loves the man the more admiringly the stormier he shows himself1 and the world deifies its rulers the more for being willful and unaccountable4 ,but the woman in turn subjugates the man by the mystery of gentleness in beauty1 and the saint has always charmed the world by something similar4 ,mankind is susceptible and suggestible in opposite directions1 and the rivalry of influences is unsleeping4 ,the saintly and the worldly ideal pursue their feud in literature as much as in real life4 ,for ,nietzsche the saint represents little but sneakingness and slavishness4 ,he is the sophisticated invalid1 the degenerate par excellence1 the man of insufficient vitality4 ,his prevalence would put the human type in danger4 8,the sick are the greatest danger for the well4 ,the weaker1 not the stronger1 are the strong's undoing4 ,it is not fear of our fellowman1 which we should wish to see diminished2 for fear rouses those who are strong to become terrible in turn themselves1 and preserves the hardearned and successful type of humanity4 ,what is to be dreaded by us more than any other doom is not fear1 but rather the great disgust1 not fear1 but rather the great pity--disgust and pity for our human fellows4444 ,the morbid are our greatest peril--not the #8bad' men1 not the predatory beings4 ,those born wrong1 the miscarried1 the broken--they it is1 the weakest1 who are undermining the vitality of the race1 poisoning our trust in life1 and putting humanity in question4 ,every look of them is a sigh1--#8,would ,i were something other6 ,i am sick and tired of what ,i am4' ,in this swampsoil of selfcontempt1 every poisonous weed flourishes1 and all so small1 so secret1 so dishonest1 and so sweetly rotten4 ,here swarm the worms of sensitiveness and resentment2 here the air smells odious with secrecy1 with what is not to be acknowledged2 here is woven endlessly the net of the meanest of conspiracies1 the conspiracy of those who suffer against those who succeed and are victorious2 here the very aspect of the victorious is hated--as if health1 success1 strength1 pride1 and the sense of power were in themselves things vicious1 for which one ought eventually to make bitter expiation4 ,oh1 how these people would themselves like to inflict the expiation1 how they thirst to be the hangmen6 ,and all the while their duplicity never confesses their hatred to be hatred407#bbj7 ,poor ,nietzsche's antipathy is itself sickly enough1 but we all know what he means1 and he expresses well the clash between the two ideals4 ,the carnivorousminded 8strong man10 the adult male and cannibal1 can see nothing but mouldiness and morbidness in the saint's gentleness and self severity1 and regards him with pure loathing4 ,the whole feud revolves essentially upon two pivots3 ,shall the seen world or the unseen world be our chief sphere of adaptation8 and must our means of adaptation in this seen world be aggressiveness or nonresistance8 ,the debate is serious4 ,in some sense and to some degree both worlds must be acknowledged and taken account of2 and in the seen world both aggressiveness and nonresistance are needful4 ,it is a question of emphasis1 of more or less4 ,is the saint's type or the strongman's type the more ideal8 ,it has often been supposed1 and even now1 ,i think1 it is supposed by most persons1 that there can be one intrinsically ideal type of human character4 ,a certain kind of man1 it is imagined1 must be the best man absolutely and apart from the utility of his function1 apart from economical considerations4 ,the saint's type1 and the knight's or gentleman's type1 have always been rival claimants of this absolute ideality2 and in the ideal of military religious orders both types were in a manner blended4 ,according to the empirical philosophy1 however1 all ideals are matters of relation4 ,it would be absurd1 for example1 to ask for a definition of 8the ideal horse10 so long as dragging drays and running races1 bearing children1 and jogging about with tradesmen's packages all remain as indispensable differentiations of equine function4 ,you may take what you call a general allround animal as a compromise1 but he will be inferior to any horse of a more specialized type1 in some one particular direction4 ,we must not forget this now when1 in discussing saintliness1 we ask if it be an ideal type of manhood4 ,we must test it by its economical relations4 ,i think that the method which ,mr4 ,spencer uses in his ,data of ,ethics will help to fix our opinion4 ,ideality in conduct is altogether a matter of adaptation4 ,a society where all were invariably aggressive would destroy itself by inner friction1 and in a society where some are aggressive1 others must be nonresistant1 if there is to be any kind of order4 ,this is the present constitution of society1 and to the mixture we owe many of our blessings4 ,but the aggressive members of society are always tending to become bullies1 robbers1 and swindlers2 and no one believes that such a state of things as we now live in is the millennium4 ,it is meanwhile quite possible to conceive an imaginary society in which there should be no aggressiveness1 but only sympathy and fairness1--any small community of true friends now realizes such a society4 ,abstractly considered1 such a society on a large scale would be the millennium1 for every good thing might be realized there with no expense of friction4 ,to such a millennial society the saint would be entirely adapted4 ,his peaceful modes of appeal would be efficacious over his companions1 and there would be no one extant to take advantage of his nonresistance4 ,the saint is therefore abstractly a higher type of man than the 8strong man10 because he is adapted to the highest society conceivable1 whether that society ever be concretely possible or not4 ,the strong man would immediately tend by his presence to make that society deteriorate4 ,it would become inferior in everything save in a certain kind of bellicose excitement1 dear to men as they now are4 ,but if we turn from the abstract question to the actual situation1 we find that the individual saint may be well or ill adapted1 according to particular circumstances4 ,there is1 in short1 no absoluteness in the excellence of sainthood4 ,it must be confessed that as far as this world goes1 any one who makes an outandout saint of himself does so at his peril4 ,if he is not a large enough man1 he may appear more insignificant and contemptible1 for all his saintship1 than if he had remained a worldling47#bba7 ,accordingly religion has seldom been so radically taken in our ,western world that the devotee could not mix it with some worldly temper4 ,it has always found good men who could follow most of its impulses1 but who stopped short when it came to nonresistance4 ,christ himself was fierce upon occasion4 ,cromwells1 ,stonewall ,jacksons1 ,gordons1 show that ,christians can be strong men also4 ,how is success to be absolutely measured when there are so many environments and so many ways of looking at the adaptation8 ,it cannot be measured absolutely2 the verdict will vary according to the point of view adopted4 ,from the biological point of view ,saint ,paul was a failure1 because he was beheaded4 ,yet he was magnificently adapted to the larger environment of history2 and so far as any saint's example is a leaven of righteousness in the world1 and draws it in the direction of more prevalent habits of saintliness1 he is a success1 no matter what his immediate bad fortune may be4 ,the greatest saints1 the spiritual heroes whom every one acknowledges1 the ,francises1 ,bernards1 ,luthers1 ,loyolas1 ,wesleys1 ,channings1 ,moodys1 ,gratrys1 the ,phillips ,brookses1 the ,agnes ,joneses1 ,margaret ,hallahans1 and ,dora ,pattisons1 are successes from the outset4 ,they show themselves1 and there is no question2 every one perceives their strength and stature4 ,their sense of mystery in things1 their passion1 their goodness1 irradiate about them and enlarge their outlines while they soften them4 ,they are like pictures with an atmosphere and background2 and1 placed alongside of them1 the strong men of this world and no other seem as dry as sticks1 as hard and crude as blocks of stone or brickbats4 ,in a general way1 then1 and 8on the whole107#bbb7 our abandonment of theological criteria1 and our testing of religion by practical common sense and the empirical method1 leave it in possession of its towering place in history4 ,economically1 the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world's welfare4 ,the great saints are immediate successes2 the smaller ones are at least heralds and harbingers1 and they may be leavens also1 of a better mundane order4 ,let us be saints1 then1 if we can1 whether or not we succeed visibly and temporally4 ,but in our ,father's house are many mansions1 and each of us must discover for himself the kind of religion and the amount of saintship which best comports with what he believes to be his powers and feels to be his truest mission and vocation4 ,there are no successes to be guaranteed and no set orders to be given to individuals1 so long as we follow the methods of empirical philosophy4 ,this is my conclusion so far4 ,i know that on some of your minds it leaves a feeling of wonder that such a method should have been applied to such a subject1 and this in spite of all those remarks about empiricism which ,i made at the beginning of ,lecture ,,xiii47#bbc7 ,how1 you say1 can religion1 which believes in two worlds and an invisible order1 be estimated by the adaptation of its fruits to this world's order alone8 ,it is its truth1 not its utility1 you insist1 upon which our verdict ought to depend4 ,if religion is true1 its fruits are good fruits1 even though in this world they should prove uniformly ill adapted and full of naught but pathos4 ,it goes back1 then1 after all1 to the question of the truth of theology4 ,the plot inevitably thickens upon us2 we cannot escape theoretical considerations4 ,i propose1 then1 that to some degree we face the responsibility4 ,religious persons have often1 though not uniformly1 professed to see truth in a special manner4 ,that manner is known as mysticism4 ,i will consequently now proceed to treat at some length of mystical phenomena1 and after that1 though more briefly1 ,i will consider religious philosophy4 ,,lectures ,,xvi ,,and ,,xvii4 ,,mysticism4 ,over and over again in these lectures ,i have raised points and left them open and unfinished until we should have come to the subject of ,mysticism4 ,some of you1 ,i fear1 may have smiled as you noted my reiterated postponements4 ,but now the hour has come when mysticism must be faced in good earnest1 and those broken threads wound up together4 ,one may say truly1 ,i think1 that personal religious experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness2 so for us1 who in these lectures are treating personal experience as the exclusive subject of our study1 such states of consciousness ought to form the vital chapter from which the other chapters get their light4 ,whether my treatment of mystical states will shed more light or darkness1 ,i do not know1 for my own constitution shuts me out from their enjoyment almost entirely1 and ,i can speak of them only at second hand4 ,but though forced to look upon the subject so externally1 ,i will be as objective and receptive as ,i can2 and ,i think ,i shall at least succeed in convincing you of the reality of the states in question1 and of the paramount importance of their function4 ,first of all1 then1 ,i ask1 ,what does the expression 8mystical states of consciousness0 mean8 ,how do we part off mystical states from other states8 ,the words 8mysticism0 and 8mystical0 are often used as terms of mere reproach1 to throw at any opinion which we regard as vague and vast and sentimental1 and without a base in either facts or logic4 ,for some writers a 8mystic0 is any person who believes in thoughttransference1 or spirit return4 ,employed in this way the word has little value3 there are too many less ambiguous synonyms4 ,so1 to keep it useful by restricting it1 ,i will do what ,i did in the case of the word 8religion10 and simply propose to you four marks which1 when an experience has them1 may justify us in calling it mystical for the purpose of the present lectures4 ,in this way we shall save verbal disputation1 and the recriminations that generally go therewith4 #a4 ,ineffability4--,the handiest of the marks by which ,i classify a state of mind as mystical is negative4 ,the subject of it immediately says that it defies expression1 that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words4 ,it follows from this that its quality must be directly experienced2 it cannot be imparted or transferred to others4 ,in this peculiarity mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect4 ,no one can make clear to another who has never had a certain feeling1 in what the quality or worth of it consists4 ,one must have musical ears to know the value of a symphony2 one must have been in love one's self to understand a lover's state of mind4 ,lacking the heart or ear1 we cannot interpret the musician or the lover justly1 and are even likely to consider him weakminded or absurd4 ,the mystic finds that most of us accord to his experiences an equally incompetent treatment4 #b4 ,noetic quality4--,although so similar to states of feeling1 mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge4 ,they are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect4 ,they are illuminations1 revelations1 full of significance and importance1 all inarticulate though they remain2 and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for aftertime4 ,these two characters will entitle any state to be called mystical1 in the sense in which ,i use the word4 ,two other qualities are less sharply marked1 but are usually found4 ,these are3-- #c4 ,transiency4--,mystical states cannot be sustained for long4 ,except in rare instances1 half an hour1 or at most an hour or two1 seems to be the limit beyond which they fade into the light of common day4 ,often1 when faded1 their quality can but imperfectly be reproduced in memory2 but when they recur it is recognized2 and from one recurrence to another it is susceptible of continuous development in what is felt as inner richness and importance4 #d4 ,passivity4--,although the oncoming of mystical states may be facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations1 as by fixing the attention1 or going through certain bodily performances1 or in other ways which manuals of mysticism prescribe2 yet when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in1 the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance1 and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power4 ,this latter peculiarity connects mystical states with certain definite phenomena of secondary or alternative personality1 such as prophetic speech1 automatic writing1 or the mediumistic trance4 ,when these latter conditions are well pronounced1 however1 there may be no recollection whatever of the phenomenon1 and it may have no significance for the subject's usual inner life1 to which1 as it were1 it makes a mere interruption4 ,mystical states1 strictly so called1 are never merely interruptive4 ,some memory of their content always remains1 and a profound sense of their importance4 ,they modify the inner life of the subject between the times of their recurrence4 ,sharp divisions in this region are1 however1 difficult to make1 and we find all sorts of gradations and mixtures4 ,these four characteristics are sufficient to mark out a group of states of consciousness peculiar enough to deserve a special name and to call for careful study4 ,let it then be called the mystical group4 ,our next step should be to gain acquaintance with some typical examples4 ,professional mystics at the height of their development have often elaborately organized experiences and a philosophy based thereupon4 ,but you remember what ,i said in my first lecture3 phenomena are best understood when placed within their series1 studied in their germ and in their overripe decay1 and compared with their exaggerated and degenerated kindred4 ,the range of mystical experience is very wide1 much too wide for us to cover in the time at our disposal4 ,yet the method of serial study is so essential for interpretation that if we really wish to reach conclusions we must use it4 ,i will begin1 therefore1 with phenomena which claim no special religious significance1 and end with those of which the religious pretensions are extreme4 ,the simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one4 8,i've heard that said all my life10 we exclaim1 8but ,i never realized its full meaning until now40 8,when a fellowmonk10 said ,luther1 8one day repeated the words of the ,creed3 #8,i believe in the forgiveness of sins1' ,i saw the ,scripture in an entirely new light2 and straightway ,i felt as if ,i were born anew4 ,it was as if ,i had found the door of paradise thrown wide open407#bbd7 ,this sense of deeper significance is not confined to rational propositions4 ,single words17#bbe7 and conjunctions of words1 effects of light on land and sea1 odors and musical sounds1 all bring it when the mind is tuned aright4 ,most of us can remember the strangely moving power of passages in certain poems read when we were young1 irrational doorways as they were through which the mystery of fact1 the wildness and the pang of life1 stole into our hearts and thrilled them4 ,the words have now perhaps become mere polished surfaces for us2 but lyric poetry and music are alive and significant only in proportion as they fetch these vague vistas of a life continuous with our own1 beckoning and inviting1 yet ever eluding our pursuit4 ,we are alive or dead to the eternal inner message of the arts according as we have kept or lost this mystical susceptibility4 ,a more pronounced step forward on the mystical ladder is found in an extremely frequent phenomenon1 that sudden feeling1 namely1 which sometimes sweeps over us1 of having 8been here before10 as if at some indefinite past time1 in just this place1 with just these people1 we were already saying just these things4 ,as ,tennyson writes3 8,moreover1 something is or seems1 ,that touches me with mystic gleams1 ,like glimpses of forgotten dreams-- 8,of something felt1 like something here2 ,of something done1 ,i know not where2 ,such as no language may declare407#bbf7 ,sir ,james ,crichton,browne has given the technical name of 8dreamy states0 to these sudden invasions of vaguely reminiscent consciousness47#bbg7 ,they bring a sense of mystery and of the metaphysical duality of things1 and the feeling of an enlargement of perception which seems imminent but which never completes itself4 ,in ,dr4 ,crichton,browne's opinion they connect themselves with the perplexed and scared disturbances of self consciousness which occasionally precede epileptic attacks4 ,i think that this learned alienist takes a rather absurdly alarmist view of an intrinsically insignificant phenomenon4 ,he follows it along the downward ladder1 to insanity2 our path pursues the upward ladder chiefly4 ,the divergence shows how important it is to neglect no part of a phenomenon's connections1 for we make it appear admirable or dreadful according to the context by which we set it off4 ,somewhat deeper plunges into mystical consciousness are met with in yet other dreamy states4 ,such feelings as these which ,charles ,kingsley describes are surely far from being uncommon1 especially in youth3-- 8,when ,i walk the fields1 ,i am oppressed now and then with an innate feeling that everything ,i see has a meaning1 if ,i could but understand it4 ,and this feeling of being surrounded with truths which ,i cannot grasp amounts to indescribable awe sometimes4444 ,have you not felt that your real soul was imperceptible to your mental vision1 except in a few hallowed moments807#bbh7 ,a much more extreme state of mystical consciousness is described by ,j4 ,a4 ,symonds2 and probably more persons than we suspect could give parallels to it from their own experience4 8,suddenly10 writes ,symonds1 8at church1 or in company1 or when ,i was reading1 and always1 ,i think1 when my muscles were at rest1 ,i felt the approach of the mood4 ,irresistibly it took possession of my mind and will1 lasted what seemed an eternity1 and disappeared in a series of rapid sensations which resembled the awakening from ansthetic influence4 ,one reason why ,i disliked this kind of trance was that ,i could not describe it to myself4 ,i cannot even now find words to render it intelligible4 ,it consisted in a gradual but swiftly progressive obliteration of space1 time1 sensation1 and the multitudinous factors of experience which seem to qualify what we are pleased to call our ,self4 ,in proportion as these conditions of ordinary consciousness were subtracted1 the sense of an underlying or essential consciousness acquired intensity4 ,at last nothing remained but a pure1 absolute1 abstract ,self4 ,the universe became without form and void of content4 ,but ,self persisted1 formidable in its vivid keenness1 feeling the most poignant doubt about reality1 ready1 as it seemed1 to find existence break as breaks a bubble round about it4 ,and what then8 ,the apprehension of a coming dissolution1 the grim conviction that this state was the last state of the conscious ,self1 the sense that ,i had followed the last thread of being to the verge of the abyss1 and had arrived at demonstration of eternal ,maya or illusion1 stirred or seemed to stir me up again4 ,the return to ordinary conditions of sentient existence began by my first recovering the power of touch1 and then by the gradual though rapid influx of familiar impressions and diurnal interests4 ,at last ,i felt myself once more a human being2 and though the riddle of what is meant by life remained unsolved1 ,i was thankful for this return from the abyss--this deliverance from so awful an initiation into the mysteries of skepticism4 8,this trance recurred with diminishing frequency until ,i reached the age of twentyeight4 ,it served to impress upon my growing nature the phantasmal unreality of all the circumstances which contribute to a merely phenomenal consciousness4 ,often have ,i asked myself with anguish1 on waking from that formless state of denuded1 keenly sentient being1 ,which is the unreality8--the trance of fiery1 vacant1 apprehensive1 skeptical ,self from which ,i issue1 or these surrounding phenomena and habits which veil that inner ,self and build a self of fleshandblood conventionality8 ,again1 are men the factors of some dream1 the dreamlike unsubstantiality of which they comprehend at such eventful moments8 ,what would happen if the final stage of the trance were reached807#bbi7 ,in a recital like this there is certainly something suggestive of pathology47#bcj7 ,the next step into mystical states carries us into a realm that public opinion and ethical philosophy have long since branded as pathological1 though private practice and certain lyric strains of poetry seem still to bear witness to its ideality4 ,i refer to the consciousness produced by intoxicants and ansthetics1 especially by alcohol4 ,the sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature1 usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour4 ,sobriety diminishes1 discriminates1 and says no2 drunkenness expands1 unites1 and says yes4 ,it is in fact the great exciter of the ,yes function in man4 ,it brings its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant core4 ,it makes him for the moment one with truth4 ,not through mere perversity do men run after it4 ,to the poor and the unlettered it stands in the place of symphony concerts and of literature2 and it is part of the deeper mystery and tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we immediately recognize as excellent should be vouchsafed to so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in its totality is so degrading a poisoning4 ,the drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness1 and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole4 ,nitrous oxide and ether1 especially nitrous oxide1 when sufficiently diluted with air1 stimulate the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary degree4 ,depth beyond depth of truth seems revealed to the inhaler4 ,this truth fades out1 however1 or escapes1 at the moment of coming to2 and if any words remain over in which it seemed to clothe itself1 they prove to be the veriest nonsense4 ,nevertheless1 the sense of a profound meaning having been there persists2 and ,i know more than one person who is persuaded that in the nitrous oxide trance we have a genuine metaphysical revelation4 ,some years ago ,i myself made some observations on this aspect of nitrous oxide intoxication1 and reported them in print4 ,one conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time1 and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken4 ,it is that our normal waking consciousness1 rational consciousness as we call it1 is but one special type of consciousness1 whilst all about it1 parted from it by the filmiest of screens1 there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different4 ,we may go through life without suspecting their existence2 but apply the requisite stimulus1 and at a touch they are there in all their completeness1 definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation4 ,no account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded4 ,how to regard them is the question1--for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness4 ,yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas1 and open a region though they fail to give a map4 ,at any rate1 they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality4 ,looking back on my own experiences1 they all converge towards a kind of insight to which ,i cannot help ascribing some metaphysical significance4 ,the keynote of it is invariably a reconciliation4 ,it is as if the opposites of the world1 whose contradictoriness and conflict make all our difficulties and troubles1 were melted into unity4 ,not only do they1 as contrasted species1 belong to one and the same genus1 but one of the species1 the nobler and better one1 is itself the genus1 and so soaks up and absorbs its opposite into itself4 ,this is a dark saying1 ,i know1 when thus expressed in terms of common logic1 but ,i cannot wholly escape from its authority4 ,i feel as if it must mean something1 something like what the ,hegelian philosophy means1 if one could only lay hold of it more clearly4 ,those who have ears to hear1 let them hear2 to me the living sense of its reality only comes in the artificial mystic state of mind47#bca7 ,i just now spoke of friends who believe in the ansthetic revelation4 ,for them too it is a monistic insight1 in which the other in its various forms appears absorbed into the ,one4 8,into this pervading genius10 writes one of them1 8we pass1 forgetting and forgotten1 and thenceforth each is all1 in ,god4 ,there is no higher1 no deeper1 no other1 than the life in which we are founded4 #8,the ,one remains1 the many change and pass2' and each and every one of us is the ,one that remains4444 ,this is the ultimatum4444 ,as sure as being--whence is all our care--so sure is content1 beyond duplexity1 antithesis1 or trouble1 where ,i have triumphed in a solitude that ,god is not above407#bcb7 ,this has the genuine religious mystic ring6 ,i just now quoted ,j4 ,a4 ,symonds4 ,he also records a mystical experience with chloroform1 as follows3-- 8,after the choking and stifling had passed away1 ,i seemed at first in a state of utter blankness2 then came flashes of intense light1 alternating with blackness1 and with a keen vision of what was going on in the room around me1 but no sensation of touch4 ,i thought that ,i was near death2 when1 suddenly1 my soul became aware of ,god1 who was manifestly dealing with me1 handling me1 so to speak1 in an intense personal present reality4 ,i felt him streaming in like light upon me4444 ,i cannot describe the ecstasy ,i felt4 ,then1 as ,i gradually awoke from the influence of the ansthetics1 the old sense of my relation to the world began to return1 the new sense of my relation to ,god began to fade4 ,i suddenly leapt to my feet on the chair where ,i was sitting1 and shrieked out1 #8,it is too horrible1 it is too horrible1 it is too horrible1' meaning that ,i could not bear this disillusionment4 ,then ,i flung myself on the ground1 and at last awoke covered with blood1 calling to the two surgeons 7who were frightened71 #8,why did you not kill me8 ,why would you not let me die8' ,only think of it4 ,to have felt for that long dateless ecstasy of vision the very ,god1 in all purity and tenderness and truth and absolute love1 and then to find that ,i had after all had no revelation1 but that ,i had been tricked by the abnormal excitement of my brain4 8,yet1 this question remains1 ,is it possible that the inner sense of reality which succeeded1 when my flesh was dead to impressions from without1 to the ordinary sense of physical relations1 was not a delusion but an actual experience8 ,is it possible that ,i1 in that moment1 felt what some of the saints have said they always felt1 the undemonstrable but irrefragable certainty of ,god807#bcc7 ,with this we make connection with religious mysticism pure and simple4 ,symonds's question takes us back to those examples which you will remember my quoting in the lecture on the ,reality of the ,unseen1 of sudden realization of the immediate presence of ,god4 ,the phenomenon in one shape or another is not uncommon4 8,i know10 writes ,mr4 ,trine1 8an officer on our police force who has told me that many times when off duty1 and on his way home in the evening1 there comes to him such a vivid and vital realization of his oneness with this ,infinite ,power1 and this ,spirit of ,infinite ,peace so takes hold of and so fills him1 that it seems as if his feet could hardly keep to the pavement1 so buoyant and so exhilarated does he become by reason of this inflowing tide407#bcd7 ,certain aspects of nature seem to have a peculiar power of awakening such mystical moods47#bce7 ,most of the striking cases which ,i have collected have occurred out of doors4 ,literature has commemorated this fact in many passages of great beauty--this extract1 for example1 from ,amiel's ,journal ,intime3-- 8,shall ,i ever again have any of those prodigious reveries which sometimes came to me in former days8 ,one day1 in youth1 at sunrise1 sitting in the ruins of the castle of ,faucigny2 and again in the mountains1 under the noonday sun1 above ,lavey1 lying at the foot of a tree and visited by three butterflies2 once more at night upon the shingly shore of the ,northern ,ocean1 my back upon the sand and my vision ranging through the milky way2--such grand and spacious1 immortal1 cosmogonic reveries1 when one reaches to the stars1 when one owns the infinite6 ,moments divine1 ecstatic hours2 in which our thought flies from world to world1 pierces the great enigma1 breathes with a respiration broad1 tranquil1 and deep as the respiration of the ocean1 serene and limitless as the blue firmament2 444 instants of irresistible intuition in which one feels one's self great as the universe1 and calm as a god4444 ,what hours1 what memories6 ,the vestiges they leave behind are enough to fill us with belief and enthusiasm1 as if they were visits of the ,holy ,ghost407#bcf7 ,here is a similar record from the memoirs of that interesting ,german idealist1 ,malwida von ,meysenbug3-- 8,i was alone upon the seashore as all these thoughts flowed over me1 liberating and reconciling2 and now again1 as once before in distant days in the ,alps of ,dauphin1 ,i was impelled to kneel down1 this time before the illimitable ocean1 symbol of the ,infinite4 ,i felt that ,i prayed as ,i had never prayed before1 and knew now what prayer really is3 to return from the solitude of individuation into the consciousness of unity with all that is1 to kneel down as one that passes away1 and to rise up as one imperishable4 ,earth1 heaven1 and sea resounded as in one vast worldencircling harmony4 ,it was as if the chorus of all the great who had ever lived were about me4 ,i felt myself one with them1 and it appeared as if ,i heard their greeting3 #8,thou too belongest to the company of those who overcome4' 07#bcg7 ,the wellknown passage from ,walt ,whitman is a classical expression of this sporadic type of mystical experience4 8,i believe in you1 my ,soul 444 ,loaf with me on the grass1 loose the stop from your throat2444 ,only the lull ,i like1 the hum of your valved voice4 ,i mind how once we lay1 such a transparent summer morning4 ,swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth1 ,and ,i know that the hand of ,god is the promise of my own1 ,and ,i know that the spirit of ,god is the brother of my own1 ,and that all the men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters and lovers1 ,and that a kelson of the creation is love407#bch7 ,i could easily give more instances1 but one will suffice4 ,i take it from the ,autobiography of ,j4 ,trevor47#bci7 8,one brilliant ,sunday morning1 my wife and boys went to the ,unitarian ,chapel in ,macclesfield4 ,i felt it impossible to accompany them--as though to leave the sunshine on the hills1 and go down there to the chapel1 would be for the time an act of spiritual suicide4 ,and ,i felt such need for new inspiration and expansion in my life4 ,so1 very reluctantly and sadly1 ,i left my wife and boys to go down into the town1 while ,i went further up into the hills with my stick and my dog4 ,in the loveliness of the morning1 and the beauty of the hills and valleys1 ,i soon lost my sense of sadness and regret4 ,for nearly an hour ,i walked along the road to the #8,cat and ,fiddle1' and then returned4 ,on the way back1 suddenly1 without warning1 ,i felt that ,i was in ,heaven--an inward state of peace and joy and assurance indescribably intense1 accompanied with a sense of being bathed in a warm glow of light1 as though the external condition had brought about the internal effect--a feeling of having passed beyond the body1 though the scene around me stood out more clearly and as if nearer to me than before1 by reason of the illumination in the midst of which ,i seemed to be placed4 ,this deep emotion lasted1 though with decreasing strength1 until ,i reached home1 and for some time after1 only gradually passing away40 ,the writer adds that having had further experiences of a similar sort1 he now knows them well4 8,the spiritual life10 he writes1 8justifies itself to those who live it2 but what can we say to those who do not understand8 ,this1 at least1 we can say1 that it is a life whose experiences are proved real to their possessor1 because they remain with him when brought closest into contact with the objective realities of life4 ,dreams cannot stand this test4 ,we wake from them to find that they are but dreams4 ,wanderings of an overwrought brain do not stand this test4 ,these highest experiences that ,i have had of ,god's presence have been rare and brief--flashes of consciousness which have compelled me to exclaim with surprise--,god is here6--or conditions of exaltation and insight1 less intense1 and only gradually passing away4 ,i have severely questioned the worth of these moments4 ,to no soul have ,i named them1 lest ,i should be building my life and work on mere phantasies of the brain4 ,but ,i find that1 after every questioning and test1 they stand out today as the most real experiences of my life1 and experiences which have explained and justified and unified all past experiences and all past growth4 ,indeed1 their reality and their farreaching significance are ever becoming more clear and evident4 ,when they came1 ,i was living the fullest1 strongest1 sanest1 deepest life4 ,i was not seeking them4 ,what ,i was seeking1 with resolute determination1 was to live more intensely my own life1 as against what ,i knew would be the adverse judgment of the world4 ,it was in the most real seasons that the ,real ,presence came1 and ,i was aware that ,i was immersed in the infinite ocean of ,god407#bdj7 ,even the least mystical of you must by this time be convinced of the existence of mystical moments as states of consciousness of an entirely specific quality1 and of the deep impression which they make on those who have them4 ,a ,canadian psychiatrist1 ,dr4 ,r4 ,m4 ,bucke1 gives to the more distinctly characterized of these phenomena the name of cosmic consciousness4 8,cosmic consciousness in its more striking instances is not10 ,dr4 ,bucke says1 8simply an expansion or extension of the self conscious mind with which we are all familiar1 but the superaddition of a function as distinct from any possessed by the average man as selfconsciousness is distinct from any function possessed by one of the higher animals40 8,the prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is a consciousness of the cosmos1 that is1 of the life and order of the universe4 ,along with the consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment which alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence--would make him almost a member of a new species4 ,to this is added a state of moral exaltation1 an indescribable feeling of elevation1 elation1 and joyousness1 and a quickening of the moral sense1 which is fully as striking1 and more important than is the enhanced intellectual power4 ,with these come what may be called a sense of immortality1 a consciousness of eternal life1 not a conviction that he shall have this1 but the consciousness that he has it already407#bda7 ,it was ,dr4 ,bucke's own experience of a typical onset of cosmic consciousness in his own person which led him to investigate it in others4 ,he has printed his conclusions in a highly interesting volume1 from which ,i take the following account of what occurred to him3-- 8,i had spent the evening in a great city1 with two friends1 reading and discussing poetry and philosophy4 ,we parted at midnight4 ,i had a long drive in a hansom to my lodging4 ,my mind1 deeply under the influence of the ideas1 images1 and emotions called up by the reading and talk1 was calm and peaceful4 ,i was in a state of quiet1 almost passive enjoyment1 not actually thinking1 but letting ideas1 images1 and emotions flow of themselves1 as it were1 through my mind4 ,all at once1 without warning of any kind1 ,i found myself wrapped in a flamecolored cloud4 ,for an instant ,i thought of fire1 an immense conflagration somewhere close by in that great city2 the next1 ,i knew that the fire was within myself4 ,directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation1 of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe4 ,among other things1 ,i did not merely come to believe1 but ,i saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter1 but is1 on the contrary1 a living ,presence2 ,i became conscious in myself of eternal life4 ,it was not a conviction that ,i would have eternal life1 but a consciousness that ,i possessed eternal life then2 ,i saw that all men are immortal2 that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all2 that the foundation principle of the world1 of all the worlds1 is what we call love1 and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain4 ,the vision lasted a few seconds and was gone2 but the memory of it and the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed4 ,i knew that what the vision showed was true4 ,i had attained to a point of view from which ,i saw that it must be true4 ,that view1 that conviction1 ,i may say that consciousness1 has never1 even during periods of the deepest depression1 been lost407#bdb7 ,we have now seen enough of this cosmic or mystic consciousness1 as it comes sporadically4 ,we must next pass to its methodical cultivation as an element of the religious life4 ,hindus1 ,buddhists1 ,mohammedans1 and ,christians all have cultivated it methodically4 ,in ,india1 training in mystical insight has been known from time immemorial under the name of yoga4 ,yoga means the experimental union of the individual with the divine4 ,it is based on persevering exercise2 and the diet1 posture1 breathing1 intellectual concentration1 and moral discipline vary slightly in the different systems which teach it4 ,the yogi1 or disciple1 who has by these means overcome the obscurations of his lower nature sufficiently1 enters into the condition termed samdhi1 8and comes face to face with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know40 ,he learns-- 8,that the mind itself has a higher state of existence1 beyond reason1 a superconscious state1 and that when the mind gets to that higher state1 then this knowledge beyond reasoning comes4444 ,all the different steps in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious state or samdhi4444 ,just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness1 so there is another work which is above consciousness1 and which1 also1 is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism4444 ,there is no feeling of ,i1 and yet the mind works1 desireless1 free from restlessness1 objectless1 bodiless4 ,then the ,truth shines in its full effulgence1 and we know ourselves--for ,samdhi lies potential in us all--for what we truly are1 free1 immortal1 omnipotent1 loosed from the finite1 and its contrasts of good and evil altogether1 and identical with the ,atman or ,universal ,soul407#bdc7 ,the ,vedantists say that one may stumble into superconsciousness sporadically1 without the previous discipline1 but it is then impure4 ,their test of its purity1 like our test of religion's value1 is empirical3 its fruits must be good for life4 ,when a man comes out of ,samdhi1 they assure us that he remains 8enlightened1 a sage1 a prophet1 a saint1 his whole character changed1 his life changed1 illumined407#bdd7 ,the ,buddhists use the word 8samdhi0 as well as the ,hindus2 but 8dhyna0 is their special word for higher states of contemplation4 ,there seem to be four stages recognized in dhyna4 ,the first stage comes through concentration of the mind upon one point4 ,it excludes desire1 but not discernment or judgment3 it is still intellectual4 ,in the second stage the intellectual functions drop off1 and the satisfied sense of unity remains4 ,in the third stage the satisfaction departs1 and indifference begins1 along with memory and selfconsciousness4 ,in the fourth stage the indifference1 memory1 and selfconsciousness are perfected4 ,just what 8memory0 and 8selfconsciousness0 mean in this connection is doubtful4 ,they cannot be the faculties familiar to us in the lower life4 ,higher stages still of contemplation are mentioned--a region where there exists nothing1 and where the meditator says3 8,there exists absolutely nothing10 and stops4 ,then he reaches another region where he says3 8,there are neither ideas nor absence of ideas10 and stops again4 ,then another region where1 8having reached the end of both idea and perception1 he stops finally40 ,this would seem to be1 not yet ,nirvna1 but as close an approach to it as this life affords47#bde7 ,in the ,mohammedan world the ,sufi sect and various dervish bodies are the possessors of the mystical tradition4 ,the ,sufis have existed in ,persia from the earliest times1 and as their pantheism is so at variance with the hot and rigid monotheism of the ,arab mind1 it has been suggested that ,sufism must have been inoculated into ,islam by ,hindu influences4 ,we ,christians know little of ,sufism1 for its secrets are disclosed only to those initiated4 ,to give its existence a certain liveliness in your minds1 ,i will quote a ,moslem document1 and pass away from the subject4 ,al,ghazzali1 a ,persian philosopher and theologian1 who flourished in the eleventh century1 and ranks as one of the greatest doctors of the ,moslem church1 has left us one of the few autobiographies to be found outside of ,christian literature4 ,strange that a species of book so abundant among ourselves should be so little represented elsewhere--the absence of strictly personal confessions is the chief difficulty to the purely literary student who would like to become acquainted with the inwardness of religions other than the ,christian4 ,m4 ,schmlders has translated a part of ,al,ghazzali's autobiography into ,french37#bdf7-- 8,the ,science of the ,sufis10 says the ,moslem author1 8aims at detaching the heart from all that is not ,god1 and at giving to it for sole occupation the meditation of the divine being4 ,theory being more easy for me than practice1 ,i read certain books until ,i understood all that can be learned by study and hearsay4 ,then ,i recognized that what pertains most exclusively to their method is just what no study can grasp1 but only transport1 ecstasy1 and the transformation of the soul4 ,how great1 for example1 is the difference between knowing the definitions of health1 of satiety1 with their causes and conditions1 and being really healthy or filled4 ,how different to know in what drunkenness consists1--as being a state occasioned by a vapor that rises from the stomach1--and being drunk effectively4 ,without doubt1 the drunken man knows neither the definition of drunkenness nor what makes it interesting for science4 ,being drunk1 he knows nothing2 whilst the physician1 although not drunk1 knows well in what drunkenness consists1 and what are its predisposing conditions4 ,similarly there is a difference between knowing the nature of abstinence1 and being abstinent or having one's soul detached from the world4--,thus ,i had learned what words could teach of ,sufism1 but what was left could be learned neither by study nor through the ears1 but solely by giving one's self up to ecstasy and leading a pious life4 8,reflecting on my situation1 ,i found myself tied down by a multitude of bonds--temptations on every side4 ,considering my teaching1 ,i found it was impure before ,god4 ,i saw myself struggling with all my might to achieve glory and to spread my name4 ,here follows an account of his six months' hesitation to break away from the conditions of his life at ,bagdad1 at the end of which he fell ill with a paralysis of the tongue4 ,then1 feeling my own weakness1 and having entirely given up my own will1 ,i repaired to ,god like a man in distress who has no more resources4 ,he answered1 as he answers the wretch who invokes him4 ,my heart no longer felt any difficulty in renouncing glory1 wealth1 and my children4 ,so ,i quitted ,bagdad1 and reserving from my fortune only what was indispensable for my subsistence1 ,i distributed the rest4 ,i went to ,syria1 where ,i remained about two years1 with no other occupation than living in retreat and solitude1 conquering my desires1 combating my passions1 training myself to purify my soul1 to make my character perfect1 to prepare my heart for meditating on ,god--all according to the methods of the ,sufis1 as ,i had read of them4 8,this retreat only increased my desire to live in solitude1 and to complete the purification of my heart and fit it for meditation4 ,but the vicissitudes of the times1 the affairs of the family1 the need of subsistence1 changed in some respects my primitive resolve1 and interfered with my plans for a purely solitary life4 ,i had never yet found myself completely in ecstasy1 save in a few single hours2 nevertheless1 ,i kept the hope of attaining this state4 ,every time that the accidents led me astray1 ,i sought to return2 and in this situation ,i spent ten years4 ,during this solitary state things were revealed to me which it is impossible either to describe or to point out4 ,i recognized for certain that the ,sufis are assuredly walking in the path of ,god4 ,both in their acts and in their inaction1 whether internal or external1 they are illumined by the light which proceeds from the prophetic source4 ,the first condition for a ,sufi is to purge his heart entirely of all that is not ,god4 ,the next key of the contemplative life consists in the humble prayers which escape from the fervent soul1 and in the meditations on ,god in which the heart is swallowed up entirely4 ,but in reality this is only the beginning of the ,sufi life1 the end of ,sufism being total absorption in ,god4 ,the intuitions and all that precede are1 so to speak1 only the threshold for those who enter4 ,from the beginning1 revelations take place in so flagrant a shape that the ,sufis see before them1 whilst wide awake1 the angels and the souls of the prophets4 ,they hear their voices and obtain their favors4 ,then the transport rises from the perception of forms and figures to a degree which escapes all expression1 and which no man may seek to give an account of without his words involving sin4 8,whoever has had no experience of the transport knows of the true nature of prophetism nothing but the name4 ,he may meanwhile be sure of its existence1 both by experience and by what he hears the ,sufis say4 ,as there are men endowed only with the sensitive faculty who reject what is offered them in the way of objects of the pure understanding1 so there are intellectual men who reject and avoid the things perceived by the prophetic faculty4 ,a blind man can understand nothing of colors save what he has learned by narration and hearsay4 ,yet ,god has brought prophetism near to men in giving them all a state analogous to it in its principal characters4 ,this state is sleep4 ,if you were to tell a man who was himself without experience of such a phenomenon that there are people who at times swoon away so as to resemble dead men1 and who in dreams yet perceive things that are hidden1 he would deny it and give his reasons4 ,nevertheless1 his arguments would be refuted by actual experience4 ,wherefore1 just as the understanding is a stage of human life in which an eye opens to discern various intellectual objects uncomprehended by sensation2 just so in the prophetic the sight is illumined by a light which uncovers hidden things and objects which the intellect fails to reach4 ,the chief properties of prophetism are perceptible only during the transport1 by those who embrace the ,sufi life4 ,the prophet is endowed with qualities to which you possess nothing analogous1 and which consequently you cannot possibly understand4 ,how should you know their true nature1 since one knows only what one can comprehend8 ,but the transport which one attains by the method of the ,sufis is like an immediate perception1 as if one touched the objects with one's hand407#bdg7 ,this incommunicableness of the transport is the keynote of all mysticism4 ,mystical truth exists for the individual who has the transport1 but for no one else4 ,in this1 as ,i have said1 it resembles the knowledge given to us in sensations more than that given by conceptual thought4 ,thought1 with its remoteness and abstractness1 has often enough in the history of philosophy been contrasted unfavorably with sensation4 ,it is a commonplace of metaphysics that ,god's knowledge cannot be discursive but must be intuitive1 that is1 must be constructed more after the pattern of what in ourselves is called immediate feeling1 than after that of proposition and judgment4 ,but our immediate feelings have no content but what the five senses supply2 and we have seen and shall see again that mystics may emphatically deny that the senses play any part in the very highest type of knowledge which their transports yield4 ,in the ,christian church there have always been mystics4 ,although many of them have been viewed with suspicion1 some have gained favor in the eyes of the authorities4 ,the experiences of these have been treated as precedents1 and a codified system of mystical theology has been based upon them1 in which everything legitimate finds its place47#bdh7 ,the basis of the system is 8orison0 or meditation1 the methodical elevation of the soul towards ,god4 ,through the practice of orison the higher levels of mystical experience may be attained4 ,it is odd that ,protestantism1 especially evangelical ,protestantism1 should seemingly have abandoned everything methodical in this line4 ,apart from what prayer may lead to1 ,protestant mystical experience appears to have been almost exclusively sporadic4 ,it has been left to our mindcurers to reintroduce methodical meditation into our religious life4 ,the first thing to be aimed at in orison is the mind's detachment from outer sensations1 for these interfere with its concentration upon ideal things4 ,such manuals as ,saint ,ignatius's ,spiritual ,exercises recommend the disciple to expel sensation by a graduated series of efforts to imagine holy scenes4 ,the acme of this kind of discipline would be a semi hallucinatory monoideism--an imaginary figure of ,christ1 for example1 coming fully to occupy the mind4 ,sensorial images of this sort1 whether literal or symbolic1 play an enormous part in mysticism47#bdi7 ,but in certain cases imagery may fall away entirely1 and in the very highest raptures it tends to do so4 ,the state of consciousness becomes then insusceptible of any verbal description4 ,mystical teachers are unanimous as to this4 ,saint ,john of the ,cross1 for instance1 one of the best of them1 thus describes the condition called the 8union of love10 which1 he says1 is reached by 8dark contemplation40 ,in this the ,deity compenetrates the soul1 but in such a hidden way that the soul-- 8finds no terms1 no means1 no comparison whereby to render the sublimity of the wisdom and the delicacy of the spiritual feeling with which she is filled4444 ,we receive this mystical knowledge of ,god clothed in none of the kinds of images1 in none of the sensible representations1 which our mind makes use of in other circumstances4 ,accordingly in this knowledge1 since the senses and the imagination are not employed1 we get neither form nor impression1 nor can we give any account or furnish any likeness1 although the mysterious and sweettasting wisdom comes home so clearly to the inmost parts of our soul4 ,fancy a man seeing a certain kind of thing for the first time in his life4 ,he can understand it1 use and enjoy it1 but he cannot apply a name to it1 nor communicate any idea of it1 even though all the while it be a mere thing of sense4 ,how much greater will be his powerlessness when it goes beyond the senses6 ,this is the peculiarity of the divine language4 ,the more infused1 intimate1 spiritual1 and supersensible it is1 the more does it exceed the senses1 both inner and outer1 and impose silence upon them4444 ,the soul then feels as if placed in a vast and profound solitude1 to which no created thing has access1 in an immense and boundless desert1 desert the more delicious the more solitary it is4 ,there1 in this abyss of wisdom1 the soul grows by what it drinks in from the wellsprings of the comprehension of love1 444 and recognizes1 however sublime and learned may be the terms we employ1 how utterly vile1 insignificant1 and improper they are1 when we seek to discourse of divine things by their means407#bej7 ,i cannot pretend to detail to you the sundry stages of the ,christian mystical life47#bea7 ,our time would not suffice1 for one thing2 and moreover1 ,i confess that the subdivisions and names which we find in the ,catholic books seem to me to represent nothing objectively distinct4 ,so many men1 so many minds3 ,i imagine that these experiences can be as infinitely varied as are the idiosyncrasies of individuals4 ,the cognitive aspects of them1 their value in the way of revelation1 is what we are directly concerned with1 and it is easy to show by citation how strong an impression they leave of being revelations of new depths of truth4 ,saint ,teresa is the expert of experts in describing such conditions1 so ,i will turn immediately to what she says of one of the highest of them1 the 8orison of union40 8,in the orison of union10 says ,saint ,teresa1 8the soul is fully awake as regards ,god1 but wholly asleep as regards things of this world and in respect of herself4 ,during the short time the union lasts1 she is as it were deprived of every feeling1 and even if she would1 she could not think of any single thing4 ,thus she needs to employ no artifice in order to arrest the use of her understanding3 it remains so stricken with inactivity that she neither knows what she loves1 nor in what manner she loves1 nor what she wills4 ,in short1 she is utterly dead to the things of the world and lives solely in ,god4444 ,i do not even know whether in this state she has enough life left to breathe4 ,it seems to me she has not2 or at least that if she does breathe1 she is unaware of it4 ,her intellect would fain understand something of what is going on within her1 but it has so little force now that it can act in no way whatsoever4 ,so a person who falls into a deep faint appears as if dead4444 8,thus does ,god1 when he raises a soul to union with himself1 suspend the natural action of all her faculties4 ,she neither sees1 hears1 nor understands1 so long as she is united with ,god4 ,but this time is always short1 and it seems even shorter than it is4 ,god establishes himself in the interior of this soul in such a way1 that when she returns to herself1 it is wholly impossible for her to doubt that she has been in ,god1 and ,god in her4 ,this truth remains so strongly impressed on her that1 even though many years should pass without the condition returning1 she can neither forget the favor she received1 nor doubt of its reality4 ,if you1 nevertheless1 ask how it is possible that the soul can see and understand that she has been in ,god1 since during the union she has neither sight nor understanding1 ,i reply that she does not see it then1 but that she sees it clearly later1 after she has returned to herself1 not by any vision1 but by a certitude which abides with her and which ,god alone can give her4 ,i knew a person who was ignorant of the truth that ,god's mode of being in everything must be either by presence1 by power1 or by essence1 but who1 after having received the grace of which ,i am speaking1 believed this truth in the most unshakable manner4 ,so much so that1 having consulted a halflearned man who was as ignorant on this point as she had been before she was enlightened1 when he replied that ,god is in us only by #8grace1' she disbelieved his reply1 so sure she was of the true answer2 and when she came to ask wiser doctors1 they confirmed her in her belief1 which much consoled her4444 8,but how1 you will repeat1 can one have such certainty in respect to what one does not see8 ,this question1 ,i am powerless to answer4 ,these are secrets of ,god's omnipotence which it does not appertain to me to penetrate4 ,all that ,i know is that ,i tell the truth2 and ,i shall never believe that any soul who does not possess this certainty has ever been really united to ,god407#beb7 ,the kinds of truth communicable in mystical ways1 whether these be sensible or supersensible1 are various4 ,some of them relate to this world1--visions of the future1 the reading of hearts1 the sudden understanding of texts1 the knowledge of distant events1 for example2 but the most important revelations are theological or metaphysical4 8,saint ,ignatius confessed one day to ,father ,laynez that a single hour of meditation at ,manresa had taught him more truths about heavenly things than all the teachings of all the doctors put together could have taught him4444 ,one day in orison1 on the steps of the choir of the ,dominican church1 he saw in a distinct manner the plan of divine wisdom in the creation of the world4 ,on another occasion1 during a procession1 his spirit was ravished in ,god1 and it was given him to contemplate1 in a form and images fitted to the weak understanding of a dweller on the earth1 the deep mystery of the holy ,trinity4 ,this last vision flooded his heart with such sweetness1 that the mere memory of it in after times made him shed abundant tears407#bec7 ,similarly with ,saint ,teresa4 8,one day1 being in orison10 she writes1 8it was granted me to perceive in one instant how all things are seen and contained in ,god4 ,i did not perceive them in their proper form1 and nevertheless the view ,i had of them was of a sovereign clearness1 and has remained vividly impressed upon my soul4 ,it is one of the most signal of all the graces which the ,lord has granted me4444 ,the view was so subtile and delicate that the understanding cannot grasp it407#bed7 ,she goes on to tell how it was as if the ,deity were an enormous and sovereignly limpid diamond1 in which all our actions were contained in such a way that their full sinfulness appeared evident as never before4 ,on another day1 she relates1 while she was reciting the ,athanasian ,creed1-- 8,our ,lord made me comprehend in what way it is that one ,god can be in three ,persons4 ,he made me see it so clearly that ,i remained as extremely surprised as ,i was comforted1 444 and now1 when ,i think of the holy ,trinity1 or hear ,it spoken of1 ,i understand how the three adorable ,persons form only one ,god and ,i experience an unspeakable happiness40 ,on still another occasion1 it was given to ,saint ,teresa to see and understand in what wise the ,mother of ,god had been assumed into her place in ,heaven47#bee7 ,the deliciousness of some of these states seems to be beyond anything known in ordinary consciousness4 ,it evidently involves organic sensibilities1 for it is spoken of as something too extreme to be borne1 and as verging on bodily pain47#bef7 ,but it is too subtle and piercing a delight for ordinary words to denote4 ,god's touches1 the wounds of his spear1 references to ebriety and to nuptial union have to figure in the phraseology by which it is shadowed forth4 ,intellect and senses both swoon away in these highest states of ecstasy4 8,if our understanding comprehends10 says ,saint ,teresa1 8it is in a mode which remains unknown to it1 and it can understand nothing of what it comprehends4 ,for my own part1 ,i do not believe that it does comprehend1 because1 as ,i said1 it does not understand itself to do so4 ,i confess that it is all a mystery in which ,i am lost407#beg7 ,in the condition called raptus or ravishment by theologians1 breathing and circulation are so depressed that it is a question among the doctors whether the soul be or be not temporarily dissevered from the body4 ,one must read ,saint ,teresa's descriptions and the very exact distinctions which she makes1 to persuade one's self that one is dealing1 not with imaginary experiences1 but with phenomena which1 however rare1 follow perfectly definite psychological types4 ,to the medical mind these ecstasies signify nothing but suggested and imitated hypnoid states1 on an intellectual basis of superstition1 and a corporeal one of degeneration and hysteria4 ,undoubtedly these pathological conditions have existed in many and possibly in all the cases1 but that fact tells us nothing about the value for knowledge of the consciousness which they induce4 ,to pass a spiritual judgment upon these states1 we must not content ourselves with superficial medical talk1 but inquire into their fruits for life4 ,their fruits appear to have been various4 ,stupefaction1 for one thing1 seems not to have been altogether absent as a result4 ,you may remember the helplessness in the kitchen and schoolroom of poor ,margaret ,mary ,alacoque4 ,many other ecstatics would have perished but for the care taken of them by admiring followers4 ,the 8otherworldliness0 encouraged by the mystical consciousness makes this overabstraction from practical life peculiarly liable to befall mystics in whom the character is naturally passive and the intellect feeble2 but in natively strong minds and characters we find quite opposite results4 ,the great ,spanish mystics1 who carried the habit of ecstasy as far as it has often been carried1 appear for the most part to have shown indomitable spirit and energy1 and all the more so for the trances in which they indulged4 ,saint ,ignatius was a mystic1 but his mysticism made him assuredly one of the most powerfully practical human engines that ever lived4 ,saint ,john of the ,cross1 writing of the intuitions and 8touches0 by which ,god reaches the substance of the soul1 tells us that-- 8,they enrich it marvelously4 ,a single one of them may be sufficient to abolish at a stroke certain imperfections of which the soul during its whole life had vainly tried to rid itself1 and to leave it adorned with virtues and loaded with supernatural gifts4 ,a single one of these intoxicating consolations may reward it for all the labors undergone in its life--even were they numberless4 ,invested with an invincible courage1 filled with an impassioned desire to suffer for its ,god1 the soul then is seized with a strange torment--that of not being allowed to suffer enough407#beh7 ,saint ,teresa is as emphatic1 and much more detailed4 ,you may perhaps remember a passage ,i quoted from her in my first lecture47#bei7 ,there are many similar pages in her autobiography4 ,where in literature is a more evidently veracious account of the formation of a new centre of spiritual energy1 than is given in her description of the effects of certain ecstasies which in departing leave the soul upon a higher level of emotional excitement8 8,often1 infirm and wrought upon with dreadful pains before the ecstasy1 the soul emerges from it full of health and admirably disposed for action 444 as if ,god had willed that the body itself1 already obedient to the soul's desires1 should share in the soul's happiness4444 ,the soul after such a favor is animated with a degree of courage so great that if at that moment its body should be torn to pieces for the cause of ,god1 it would feel nothing but the liveliest comfort4 ,then it is that promises and heroic resolutions spring up in profusion in us1 soaring desires1 horror of the world1 and the clear perception of our proper nothingness4444 ,what empire is comparable to that of a soul who1 from this sublime summit to which ,god has raised her1 sees all the things of earth beneath her feet1 and is captivated by no one of them8 ,how ashamed she is of her former attachments6 ,how amazed at her blindness6 ,what lively pity she feels for those whom she recognizes still shrouded in the darkness6444 ,she groans at having ever been sensitive to points of honor1 at the illusion that made her ever see as honor what the world calls by that name4 ,now she sees in this name nothing more than an immense lie of which the world remains a victim4 ,she discovers1 in the new light from above1 that in genuine honor there is nothing spurious1 that to be faithful to this honor is to give our respect to what deserves to be respected really1 and to consider as nothing1 or as less than nothing1 whatsoever perishes and is not agreeable to ,god4444 ,she laughs when she sees grave persons1 persons of orison1 caring for points of honor for which she now feels profoundest contempt4 ,it is suitable to the dignity of their rank to act thus1 they pretend1 and it makes them more useful to others4 ,but she knows that in despising the dignity of their rank for the pure love of ,god they would do more good in a single day than they would effect in ten years by preserving it4444 ,she laughs at herself that there should ever have been a time in her life when she made any case of money1 when she ever desired it4444 ,oh6 if human beings might only agree together to regard it as so much useless mud1 what harmony would then reign in the world6 ,with what friendship we would all treat each other if our interest in honor and in money could but disappear from earth6 ,for my own part1 ,i feel as if it would be a remedy for all our ills407#bfj7 ,mystical conditions may1 therefore1 render the soul more energetic in the lines which their inspiration favors4 ,but this could be reckoned an advantage only in case the inspiration were a true one4 ,if the inspiration were erroneous1 the energy would be all the more mistaken and misbegotten4 ,so we stand once more before that problem of truth which confronted us at the end of the lectures on saintliness4 ,you will remember that we turned to mysticism precisely to get some light on truth4 ,do mystical states establish the truth of those theological affections in which the saintly life has its root8 ,in spite of their repudiation of articulate selfdescription1 mystical states in general assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift4 ,it is possible to give the outcome of the majority of them in terms that point in definite philosophical directions4 ,one of these directions is optimism1 and the other is monism4 ,we pass into mystical states from out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more1 as from a smallness into a vastness1 and at the same time as from an unrest to a rest4 ,we feel them as reconciling1 unifying states4 ,they appeal to the yesfunction more than to the nofunction in us4 ,in them the unlimited absorbs the limits and peacefully closes the account4 ,their very denial of every adjective you may propose as applicable to the ultimate truth1--,he1 the ,self1 the ,atman1 is to be described by 8,no6 no60 only1 say the ,upanishads17#bfa7--though it seems on the surface to be a nofunction1 is a denial made on behalf of a deeper yes4 ,whoso calls the ,absolute anything in particular1 or says that it is this1 seems implicitly to shut it off from being that--it is as if he lessened it4 ,so we deny the 8this10 negating the negation which it seems to us to imply1 in the interests of the higher affirmative attitude by which we are possessed4 ,the fountainhead of ,christian mysticism is ,dionysius the ,areopagite4 ,he describes the absolute truth by negatives exclusively4 8,the cause of all things is neither soul nor intellect2 nor has it imagination1 opinion1 or reason1 or intelligence2 nor is it reason or intelligence2 nor is it spoken or thought4 ,it is neither number1 nor order1 nor magnitude1 nor littleness1 nor equality1 nor inequality1 nor similarity1 nor dissimilarity4 ,it neither stands1 nor moves1 nor rests4444 ,it is neither essence1 nor eternity1 nor time4 ,even intellectual contact does not belong to it4 ,it is neither science nor truth4 ,it is not even royalty or wisdom2 not one2 not unity2 not divinity or goodness2 nor even spirit as we know it10 etc41 ad libitum47#bfb7 ,but these qualifications are denied by ,dionysius1 not because the truth falls short of them1 but because it so infinitely excels them4 ,it is above them4 ,it is superlucent1 supersplendent1 superessential1 supersublime1 super everything that can be named4 ,like ,hegel in his logic1 mystics journey towards the positive pole of truth only by the 8,methode der ,absoluten ,negativitt407#bfc7 ,thus come the paradoxical expressions that so abound in mystical writings4 ,as when ,eckhart tells of the still desert of the ,godhead1 8where never was seen difference1 neither ,father1 ,son1 nor ,holy ,ghost1 where there is no one at home1 yet where the spark of the soul is more at peace than in itself407#bfd7 ,as when ,boehme writes of the ,primal ,love1 that 8it may fitly be compared to ,nothing1 for it is deeper than any ,thing1 and is as nothing with respect to all things1 forasmuch as it is not comprehensible by any of them4 ,and because it is nothing respectively1 it is therefore free from all things1 and is that only good1 which a man cannot express or utter what it is1 there being nothing to which it may be compared1 to express it by407#bfe7 ,or as when ,angelus ,silesius sings3-- 8,gott ist ein lauter ,nichts1 ihn rhrt kein ,nun noch ,hier2 ,je mehr du nach ihm greiffst1 je mehr entwind er dir407#bff7 ,to this dialectical use1 by the intellect1 of negation as a mode of passage towards a higher kind of affirmation1 there is correlated the subtlest of moral counterparts in the sphere of the personal will4 ,since denial of the finite self and its wants1 since asceticism of some sort1 is found in religious experience to be the only doorway to the larger and more blessed life1 this moral mystery intertwines and combines with the intellectual mystery in all mystical writings4 8,love10 continues ,behmen1 is ,nothing1 for 8when thou art gone forth wholly from the ,creature and from that which is visible1 and art become ,nothing to all that is ,nature and ,creature1 then thou art in that eternal ,one1 which is ,god himself1 and then thou shalt feel within thee the highest virtue of ,love4444 ,the treasure of treasures for the soul is where she goeth out of the ,somewhat into that ,nothing out of which all things may be made4 ,the soul here saith1 ,i have nothing1 for ,i am utterly stripped and naked2 ,i can do nothing1 for ,i have no manner of power1 but am as water poured out2 ,i am nothing1 for all that ,i am is no more than an image of ,being1 and only ,god is to me ,i ,,am2 and so1 sitting down in my own ,nothingness1 ,i give glory to the eternal ,being1 and will nothing of myself1 that so ,god may will all in me1 being unto me my ,god and all things407#bfg7 ,in ,paul's language1 ,i live1 yet not ,i1 but ,christ liveth in me4 ,only when ,i become as nothing can ,god enter in and no difference between his life and mine remain outstanding47#bfh7 ,this overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the ,absolute is the great mystic achievement4 ,in mystic states we both become one with the ,absolute and we become aware of our oneness4 ,this is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition1 hardly altered by differences of clime or creed4 ,in ,hinduism1 in ,neoplatonism1 in ,sufism1 in ,christian mysticism1 in ,whitmanism1 we find the same recurring note1 so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think1 and which brings it about that the mystical classics have1 as has been said1 neither birthday nor native land4 ,perpetually telling of the unity of man with ,god1 their speech antedates languages1 and they do not grow old47#bfi7 8,that art ,thou60 say the ,upanishads1 and the ,vedantists add3 8,not a part1 not a mode of ,that1 but identically ,that1 that absolute ,spirit of the ,world40 8,as pure water poured into pure water remains the same1 thus1 ,o ,gautama1 is the ,self of a thinker who knows4 ,water in water1 fire in fire1 ether in ether1 no one can distinguish them2 likewise a man whose mind has entered into the ,self407#bgj7 8 #8,every man1' says the ,sufi ,gulshan,rz1 #8whose heart is no longer shaken by any doubt1 knows with certainty that there is no being save only ,one4444 ,in his divine majesty the me1 the we1 the thou1 are not found1 for in the ,one there can be no distinction4 ,every being who is annulled and entirely separated from himself1 hears resound outside of him this voice and this echo3 ,i am ,god3 he has an eternal way of existing1 and is no longer subject to death4' 07#bga7 ,in the vision of ,god1 says ,plotinus1 8what sees is not our reason1 but something prior and superior to our reason4444 ,he who thus sees does not properly see1 does not distinguish or imagine two things4 ,he changes1 he ceases to be himself1 preserves nothing of himself4 ,absorbed in ,god1 he makes but one with him1 like a centre of a circle coinciding with another centre407#bgb7 8,here10 writes ,suso1 8the spirit dies1 and yet is all alive in the marvels of the ,godhead 444 and is lost in the stillness of the glorious dazzling obscurity and of the naked simple unity4 ,it is in this modeless where that the highest bliss is to be found407#bgc7 8,ich bin so gross als ,gott10 sings ,angelus ,silesius again1 8,er ist als ich so klein2 ,er kann nicht ber mich1 ich unter ihm nicht sein407#bgd7 ,in mystical literature such selfcontradictory phrases as 8dazzling obscurity10 8whispering silence10 8teeming desert10 are continually met with4 ,they prove that not conceptual speech1 but music rather1 is the element through which we are best spoken to by mystical truth4 ,many mystical scriptures are indeed little more than musical compositions4 8,he who would hear the voice of ,nada1 #8the ,soundless ,sound1' and comprehend it1 he has to learn the nature of ,dhran4444 ,when to himself his form appears unreal1 as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams2 when he has ceased to hear the many1 he may discern the ,,one--the inner sound which kills the outer4444 ,for then the soul will hear1 and will remember4 ,and then to the inner ear will speak ,,the ,,voice ,,of ,,the ,,silence4444 ,and now thy ,self is lost in ,,self1 thyself unto ,,thyself1 merged in that ,,self from which thou first didst radiate4444 ,behold6 thou hast become the ,light1 thou hast become the ,sound1 thou art thy ,master and thy ,god4 ,thou art ,,thyself the object of thy search3 the ,,voice unbroken1 that resounds throughout eternities1 exempt from change1 from sin exempt1 the seven sounds in one1 the ,,voice ,,of ,,the ,,silence4 ,om tat ,sat407#bge7 ,these words1 if they do not awaken laughter as you receive them1 probably stir chords within you which music and language touch in common4 ,music gives us ontological messages which nonmusical criticism is unable to contradict1 though it may laugh at our foolishness in minding them4 ,there is a verge of the mind which these things haunt2 and whispers therefrom mingle with the operations of our understanding1 even as the waters of the infinite ocean send their waves to break among the pebbles that lie upon our shores4 8,here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end4 ,where we stand1 ,could we know the next high seamark set beyond these waves that gleam1 ,we should know what never man hath known1 nor eye of man hath scanned4444 ,ah1 but here man's heart leaps1 yearning towards the gloom with venturous glee1 ,from the shore that hath no shore beyond it1 set in all the sea407#bgf7 ,that doctrine1 for example1 that eternity is timeless1 that our 8immortality10 if we live in the eternal1 is not so much future as already now and here1 which we find so often expressed today in certain philosophic circles1 finds its support in a 8hear1 hear60 or an 8amen10 which floats up from that mysteriously deeper level47#bgg7 ,we recognize the passwords to the mystical region as we hear them1 but we cannot use them ourselves2 it alone has the keeping of 8the password primeval407#bgh7 ,i have now sketched with extreme brevity and insufficiency1 but as fairly as ,i am able in the time allowed1 the general traits of the mystic range of consciousness4 ,it is on the whole pantheistic and optimistic1 or at least the opposite of pessimistic4 ,it is antinaturalistic1 and harmonizes best with twicebornness and socalled otherworldly states of mind4 ,my next task is to inquire whether we can invoke it as authoritative4 ,does it furnish any warrant for the truth of the twicebornness and supernaturality and pantheism which it favors8 ,i must give my answer to this question as concisely as ,i can4 ,in brief my answer is this1--and ,i will divide it into three parts3-- 7#a7 ,mystical states1 when well developed1 usually are1 and have the right to be1 absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come4 7#b7 ,no authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically4 7#c7 ,they break down the authority of the nonmystical or rationalistic consciousness1 based upon the understanding and the senses alone4 ,they show it to be only one kind of consciousness4 ,they open out the possibility of other orders of truth1 in which1 so far as anything in us vitally responds to them1 we may freely continue to have faith4 ,i will take up these points one by one4 #a4 ,as a matter of psychological fact1 mystical states of a wellpronounced and emphatic sort are usually authoritative over those who have them47#bgi7 ,they have been 8there10 and know4 ,it is vain for rationalism to grumble about this4 ,if the mystical truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can live by1 what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in another way8 ,we can throw him into a prison or a madhouse1 but we cannot change his mind--we commonly attach it only the more stubbornly to its beliefs47#bhj7 ,it mocks our utmost efforts1 as a matter of fact1 and in point of logic it absolutely escapes our jurisdiction4 ,our own more 8rational0 beliefs are based on evidence exactly similar in nature to that which mystics quote for theirs4 ,our senses1 namely1 have assured us of certain states of fact2 but mystical experiences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us4 ,the records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them1 they are absolutely sensational in their epistemological quality1 if ,i may be pardoned the barbarous expression1--that is1 they are face to face presentations of what seems immediately to exist4 ,the mystic is1 in short1 invulnerable1 and must be left1 whether we relish it or not1 in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed4 ,faith1 says ,tolstoy1 is that by which men live4 ,and faithstate and mystic state are practically convertible terms4 #b4 ,but ,i now proceed to add that mystics have no right to claim that we ought to accept the deliverance of their peculiar experiences1 if we are ourselves outsiders and feel no private call thereto4 ,the utmost they can ever ask of us in this life is to admit that they establish a presumption4 ,they form a consensus and have an unequivocal outcome2 and it would be odd1 mystics might say1 if such a unanimous type of experience should prove to be altogether wrong4 ,at bottom1 however1 this would only be an appeal to numbers1 like the appeal of rationalism the other way2 and the appeal to numbers has no logical force4 ,if we acknowledge it1 it is for 8suggestive10 not for logical reasons3 we follow the majority because to do so suits our life4 ,but even this presumption from the unanimity of mystics is far from being strong4 ,in characterizing mystic states as pantheistic1 optimistic1 etc41 ,i am afraid ,i oversimplified the truth4 ,i did so for expository reasons1 and to keep the closer to the classic mystical tradition4 ,the classic religious mysticism1 it now must be confessed1 is only a 8privileged case40 ,it is an extract1 kept true to type by the selection of the fittest specimens and their preservation in 8schools40 ,it is carved out from a much larger mass2 and if we take the larger mass as seriously as religious mysticism has historically taken itself1 we find that the supposed unanimity largely disappears4 ,to begin with1 even religious mysticism itself1 the kind that accumulates traditions and makes schools1 is much less unanimous than ,i have allowed4 ,it has been both ascetic and antinomianly selfindulgent within the ,christian church47#bha7 ,it is dualistic in ,sankhya1 and monistic in ,vedanta philosophy4 ,i called it pantheistic2 but the great ,spanish mystics are anything but pantheists4 ,they are with few exceptions nonmetaphysical minds1 for whom 8the category of personality0 is absolute4 ,the 8union0 of man with ,god is for them much more like an occasional miracle than like an original identity47#bhb7 ,how different again1 apart from the happiness common to all1 is the mysticism of ,walt ,whitman1 ,edward ,carpenter1 ,richard ,jefferies1 and other naturalistic pantheists1 from the more distinctively ,christian sort47#bhc7 ,the fact is that the mystical feeling of enlargement1 union1 and emancipation has no specific intellectual content whatever of its own4 ,it is capable of forming matrimonial alliances with material furnished by the most diverse philosophies and theologies1 provided only they can find a place in their framework for its peculiar emotional mood4 ,we have no right1 therefore1 to invoke its prestige as distinctively in favor of any special belief1 such as that in absolute idealism1 or in the absolute monistic identity1 or in the absolute goodness1 of the world4 ,it is only relatively in favor of all these things--it passes out of common human consciousness in the direction in which they lie4 ,so much for religious mysticism proper4 ,but more remains to be told1 for religious mysticism is only one half of mysticism4 ,the other half has no accumulated traditions except those which the textbooks on insanity supply4 ,open any one of these1 and you will find abundant cases in which 8mystical ideas0 are cited as characteristic symptoms of enfeebled or deluded states of mind4 ,in delusional insanity1 paranoia1 as they sometimes call it1 we may have a diabolical mysticism1 a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down4 ,the same sense of ineffable importance in the smallest events1 the same texts and words coming with new meanings1 the same voices and visions and leadings and missions1 the same controlling by extraneous powers2 only this time the emotion is pessimistic3 instead of consolations we have desolations2 the meanings are dreadful2 and the powers are enemies to life4 ,it is evident that from the point of view of their psychological mechanism1 the classic mysticism and these lower mysticisms spring from the same mental level1 from that great subliminal or transmarginal region of which science is beginning to admit the existence1 but of which so little is really known4 ,that region contains every kind of matter3 8seraph and snake0 abide there side by side4 ,to come from thence is no infallible credential4 ,what comes must be sifted and tested1 and run the gauntlet of confrontation with the total context of experience1 just like what comes from the outer world of sense4 ,its value must be ascertained by empirical methods1 so long as we are not mystics ourselves4 ,once more1 then1 ,i repeat that nonmystics are under no obligation to acknowledge in mystical states a superior authority conferred on them by their intrinsic nature47#bhd7 #c4 ,yet1 ,i repeat once more1 the existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of nonmystical states to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe4 ,as a rule1 mystical states merely add a supersensuous meaning to the ordinary outward data of consciousness4 ,they are excitements like the emotions of love or ambition1 gifts to our spirit by means of which facts already objectively before us fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our active life4 ,they do not contradict these facts as such1 or deny anything that our senses have immediately seized47#bhe7 ,it is the rationalistic critic rather who plays the part of denier in the controversy1 and his denials have no strength1 for there never can be a state of facts to which new meaning may not truthfully be added1 provided the mind ascend to a more enveloping point of view4 ,it must always remain an open question whether mystical states may not possibly be such superior points of view1 windows through which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive world4 ,the difference of the views seen from the different mystical windows need not prevent us from entertaining this supposition4 ,the wider world would in that case prove to have a mixed constitution like that of this world1 that is all4 ,it would have its celestial and its infernal regions1 its tempting and its saving moments1 its valid experiences and its counterfeit ones1 just as our world has them2 but it would be a wider world all the same4 ,we should have to use its experiences by selecting and subordinating and substituting just as is our custom in this ordinary naturalistic world2 we should be liable to error just as we are now2 yet the counting in of that wider world of meanings1 and the serious dealing with it1 might1 in spite of all the perplexity1 be indispensable stages in our approach to the final fullness of the truth4 ,in this shape1 ,i think1 we have to leave the subject4 ,mystical states indeed wield no authority due simply to their being mystical states4 ,but the higher ones among them point in directions to which the religious sentiments even of nonmystical men incline4 ,they tell of the supremacy of the ideal1 of vastness1 of union1 of safety1 and of rest4 ,they offer us hypotheses1 hypotheses which we may voluntarily ignore1 but which as thinkers we cannot possibly upset4 ,the supernaturalism and optimism to which they would persuade us may1 interpreted in one way or another1 be after all the truest of insights into the meaning of this life4 8,oh1 the little more1 and how much it is2 and the little less1 and what worlds away60 ,it may be that possibility and permission of this sort are all that the religious consciousness requires to live on4 ,in my last lecture ,i shall have to try to persuade you that this is the case4 ,meanwhile1 however1 ,i am sure that for many of my readers this diet is too slender4 ,if supernaturalism and inner union with the divine are true1 you think1 then not so much permission1 as compulsion to believe1 ought to be found4 ,philosophy has always professed to prove religious truth by coercive argument2 and the construction of philosophies of this kind has always been one favorite function of the religious life1 if we use this term in the large historic sense4 ,but religious philosophy is an enormous subject1 and in my next lecture ,i can only give that brief glance at it which my limits will allow4 ,,lecture ,,xviii4 ,,philosophy4 ,the subject of ,saintliness left us face to face with the question1 ,is the sense of divine presence a sense of anything objectively true8 ,we turned first to mysticism for an answer1 and found that although mysticism is entirely willing to corroborate religion1 it is too private 7and also too various7 in its utterances to be able to claim a universal authority4 ,but philosophy publishes results which claim to be universally valid if they are valid at all1 so we now turn with our question to philosophy4 ,can philosophy stamp a warrant of veracity upon the religious man's sense of the divine8 ,i imagine that many of you at this point begin to indulge in guesses at the goal to which ,i am tending4 ,i have undermined the authority of mysticism1 you say1 and the next thing ,i shall probably do is to seek to discredit that of philosophy4 ,religion1 you expect to hear me conclude1 is nothing but an affair of faith1 based either on vague sentiment1 or on that vivid sense of the reality of things unseen of which in my second lecture and in the lecture on ,mysticism ,i gave so many examples4 ,it is essentially private and individualistic2 it always exceeds our powers of formulation2 and although attempts to pour its contents into a philosophic mould will probably always go on1 men being what they are1 yet these attempts are always secondary processes which in no way add to the authority1 or warrant the veracity1 of the sentiments from which they derive their own stimulus and borrow whatever glow of conviction they may themselves possess4 ,in short1 you suspect that ,i am planning to defend feeling at the expense of reason1 to rehabilitate the primitive and unreflective1 and to dissuade you from the hope of any ,theology worthy of the name4 ,to a certain extent ,i have to admit that you guess rightly4 ,i do believe that feeling is the deeper source of religion1 and that philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products1 like translations of a text into another tongue4 ,but all such statements are misleading from their brevity1 and it will take the whole hour for me to explain to you exactly what ,i mean4 ,when ,i call theological formulas secondary products1 ,i mean that in a world in which no religious feeling had ever existed1 ,i doubt whether any philosophic theology could ever have been framed4 ,i doubt if dispassionate intellectual contemplation of the universe1 apart from inner unhappiness and need of deliverance on the one hand and mystical emotion on the other1 would ever have resulted in religious philosophies such as we now possess4 ,men would have begun with animistic explanations of natural fact1 and criticised these away into scientific ones1 as they actually have done4 ,in the science they would have left a certain amount of 8psychical research10 even as they now will probably have to readmit a certain amount4 ,but highflying speculations like those of either dogmatic or idealistic theology1 these they would have had no motive to venture on1 feeling no need of commerce with such deities4 ,these speculations must1 it seems to me1 be classed as overbeliefs1 buildingsout performed by the intellect into directions of which feeling originally supplied the hint4 ,but even if religious philosophy had to have its first hint supplied by feeling1 may it not have dealt in a superior way with the matter which feeling suggested8 ,feeling is private and dumb1 and unable to give an account of itself4 ,it allows that its results are mysteries and enigmas1 declines to justify them rationally1 and on occasion is willing that they should even pass for paradoxical and absurd4 ,philosophy takes just the opposite attitude4 ,her aspiration is to reclaim from mystery and paradox whatever territory she touches4 ,to find an escape from obscure and wayward personal persuasion to truth objectively valid for all thinking men has ever been the intellect's most cherished ideal4 ,to redeem religion from unwholesome privacy1 and to give public status and universal right of way to its deliverances1 has been reason's task4 ,i believe that philosophy will always have opportunity to labor at this task47#bhf7 ,we are thinking beings1 and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions4 ,even in soliloquizing with ourselves1 we construe our feelings intellectually4 ,both our personal ideals and our religious and mystical experiences must be interpreted congruously with the kind of scenery which our thinking mind inhabits4 ,the philosophic climate of our time inevitably forces its own clothing on us4 ,moreover1 we must exchange our feelings with one another1 and in doing so we have to speak1 and to use general and abstract verbal formulas4 ,conceptions and constructions are thus a necessary part of our religion2 and as moderator amid the clash of hypotheses1 and mediator among the criticisms of one man's constructions by another1 philosophy will always have much to do4 ,it would be strange if ,i disputed this1 when these very lectures which ,i am giving are 7as you will see more clearly from now onwards7 a laborious attempt to extract from the privacies of religious experience some general facts which can be defined in formulas upon which everybody may agree4 ,religious experience1 in other words1 spontaneously and inevitably engenders myths1 superstitions1 dogmas1 creeds1 and metaphysical theologies1 and criticisms of one set of these by the adherents of another4 ,of late1 impartial classifications and comparisons have become possible1 alongside of the denunciations and anathemas by which the commerce between creeds used exclusively to be carried on4 ,we have the beginnings of a 8,science of ,religions10 socalled2 and if these lectures could ever be accounted a crumblike contribution to such a science1 ,i should be made very happy4 ,but all these intellectual operations1 whether they be constructive or comparative and critical1 presuppose immediate experiences as their subjectmatter4 ,they are interpretative and inductive operations1 operations after the fact1 consequent upon religious feeling1 not cordinate with it1 not independent of what it ascertains4 ,the intellectualism in religion which ,i wish to discredit pretends to be something altogether different from this4 ,it assumes to construct religious objects out of the resources of logical reason alone1 or of logical reason drawing rigorous inference from nonsubjective facts4 ,it calls its conclusions dogmatic theology1 or philosophy of the absolute1 as the case may be2 it does not call them science of religions4 ,it reaches them in an a priori way1 and warrants their veracity4 ,warranted systems have ever been the idols of aspiring souls4 ,all inclusive1 yet simple2 noble1 clean1 luminous1 stable1 rigorous1 true2--what more ideal refuge could there be than such a system would offer to spirits vexed by the muddiness and accidentality of the world of sensible things8 ,accordingly1 we find inculcated in the theological schools of today1 almost as much as in those of the foretime1 a disdain for merely possible or probable truth1 and of results that only private assurance can grasp4 ,scholastics and idealists both express this disdain4 ,principal ,john ,caird1 for example1 writes as follows in his ,introduction to the ,philosophy of ,religion3-- 8,religion must indeed be a thing of the heart2 but in order to elevate it from the region of subjective caprice and waywardness1 and to distinguish between that which is true and false in religion1 we must appeal to an objective standard4 ,that which enters the heart must first be discerned by the intelligence to be true4 ,it must be seen as having in its own nature a right to dominate feeling1 and as constituting the principle by which feeling must be judged47#bhg7 ,in estimating the religious character of individuals1 nations1 or races1 the first question is1 not how they feel1 but what they think and believe--not whether their religion is one which manifests itself in emotions1 more or less vehement and enthusiastic1 but what are the conceptions of ,god and divine things by which these emotions are called forth4 ,feeling is necessary in religion1 but it is by the content or intelligent basis of a religion1 and not by feeling1 that its character and worth are to be determined407#bhh7 ,cardinal ,newman1 in his work1 ,the ,idea of a ,university1 gives more emphatic expression still to this disdain for sentiment47#bhi7 ,theology1 he says1 is a science in the strictest sense of the word4 ,i will tell you1 he says1 what it is not--not 8physical evidences0 for ,god1 not 8natural religion10 for these are but vague subjective interpretations3-- 8,if10 he continues1 8the ,supreme ,being is powerful or skillful1 just so far as the telescope shows power1 or the microscope shows skill1 if his moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame1 or his will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs1 if his ,essence is just as high and deep and broad as the universe and no more2 if this be the fact1 then will ,i confess that there is no specific science about ,god1 that theology is but a name1 and a protest in its behalf an hypocrisy4 ,then1 pious as it is to think of ,him1 while the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes by1 still such piety is nothing more than a poetry of thought1 or an ornament of language1 a certain view taken of ,nature which one man has and another has not1 which gifted minds strike out1 which others see to be admirable and ingenious1 and which all would be the better for adopting4 ,it is but the theology of ,nature1 just as we talk of the philosophy or the romance of history1 or the poetry of childhood1 or the picturesque or the sentimental or the humorous1 or any other abstract quality which the genius or the caprice of the individual1 or the fashion of the day1 or the consent of the world1 recognizes in any set of objects which are subjected to its contemplation4 ,i do not see much difference between avowing that there is no ,god1 and implying that nothing definite can be known for certain about ,him40 ,what ,i mean by ,theology1 continues ,newman1 is none of these things3 8,i simply mean the ,science of ,god1 or the truths we know about ,god1 put into a system1 just as we have a science of the stars and call it astronomy1 or of the crust of the earth and call it geology40 ,in both these extracts we have the issue clearly set before us3 ,feeling valid only for the individual is pitted against reason valid universally4 ,the test is a perfectly plain one of fact4 ,theology based on pure reason must in point of fact convince men universally4 ,if it did not1 wherein would its superiority consist8 ,if it only formed sects and schools1 even as sentiment and mysticism form them1 how would it fulfill its programme of freeing us from personal caprice and waywardness8 ,this perfectly definite practical test of the pretensions of philosophy to found religion on universal reason simplifies my procedure today4 ,i need not discredit philosophy by laborious criticism of its arguments4 ,it will suffice if ,i show that as a matter of history it fails to prove its pretension to be 8objectively0 convincing4 ,in fact1 philosophy does so fail4 ,it does not banish differences2 it founds schools and sects just as feeling does4 ,i believe1 in fact1 that the logical reason of man operates in this field of divinity exactly as it has always operated in love1 or in patriotism1 or in politics1 or in any other of the wider affairs of life1 in which our passions or our mystical intuitions fix our beliefs beforehand4 ,it finds arguments for our conviction1 for indeed it has to find them4 ,it amplifies and defines our faith1 and dignifies it and lends it words and plausibility4 ,it hardly ever engenders it2 it cannot now secure it47#bij7 ,lend me your attention while ,i run through some of the points of the older systematic theology4 ,you find them in both ,protestant and ,catholic manuals1 best of all in the innumerable textbooks published since ,pope ,leo's ,encyclical recommending the study of ,saint ,thomas4 ,i glance first at the arguments by which dogmatic theology establishes ,god's existence1 after that at those by which it establishes his nature47#bia7 ,the arguments for ,god's existence have stood for hundreds of years with the waves of unbelieving criticism breaking against them1 never totally discrediting them in the ears of the faithful1 but on the whole slowly and surely washing out the mortar from between their joints4 ,if you have a ,god already whom you believe in1 these arguments confirm you4 ,if you are atheistic1 they fail to set you right4 ,the proofs are various4 ,the 8cosmological0 one1 socalled1 reasons from the contingence of the world to a ,first ,cause which must contain whatever perfections the world itself contains4 ,the 8argument from design0 reasons1 from the fact that ,nature's laws are mathematical1 and her parts benevolently adapted to each other1 that this cause is both intellectual and benevolent4 ,the 8moral argument0 is that the moral law presupposes a lawgiver4 ,the 8argument ex consensu gentium0 is that the belief in ,god is so widespread as to be grounded in the rational nature of man1 and should therefore carry authority with it4 ,as ,i just said1 ,i will not discuss these arguments technically4 ,the bare fact that all idealists since ,kant have felt entitled either to scout or to neglect them shows that they are not solid enough to serve as religion's allsufficient foundation4 ,absolutely impersonal reasons would be in duty bound to show more general convincingness4 ,causation is indeed too obscure a principle to bear the weight of the whole structure of theology4 ,as for the argument from design1 see how ,darwinian ideas have revolutionized it4 ,conceived as we now conceive them1 as so many fortunate escapes from almost limitless processes of destruction1 the benevolent adaptations which we find in ,nature suggest a deity very different from the one who figured in the earlier versions of the argument47#bib7 ,the fact is that these arguments do but follow the combined suggestions of the facts and of our feeling4 ,they prove nothing rigorously4 ,they only corroborate our preexistent partialities4 ,if philosophy can do so little to establish ,god's existence1 how stands it with her efforts to define his attributes8 ,it is worth while to look at the attempts of systematic theology in this direction4 ,since ,god is ,first ,cause1 this science of sciences says1 he differs from all his creatures in possessing existence a se4 ,from this 8aseity0 on ,god's part1 theology deduces by mere logic most of his other perfections4 ,for instance1 he must be both necessary and absolute1 cannot not be1 and cannot in any way be determined by anything else4 ,this makes ,him absolutely unlimited from without1 and unlimited also from within2 for limitation is nonbeing2 and ,god is being itself4 ,this unlimitedness makes ,god infinitely perfect4 ,moreover1 ,god is ,one1 and ,only1 for the infinitely perfect can admit no peer4 ,he is ,spiritual1 for were ,he composed of physical parts1 some other power would have to combine them into the total1 and his aseity would thus be contradicted4 ,he is therefore both simple and nonphysical in nature4 ,he is simple metaphysically also1 that is to say1 his nature and his existence cannot be distinct1 as they are in finite substances which share their formal natures with one another1 and are individual only in their material aspect4 ,since ,god is one and only1 his essentia and his esse must be given at one stroke4 ,this excludes from his being all those distinctions1 so familiar in the world of finite things1 between potentiality and actuality1 substance and accidents1 being and activity1 existence and attributes4 ,we can talk1 it is true1 of ,god's powers1 acts1 and attributes1 but these discriminations are only 8virtual10 and made from the human point of view4 ,in ,god all these points of view fall into an absolute identity of being4 ,this absence of all potentiality in ,god obliges ,him to be immutable4 ,he is actuality1 through and through4 ,were there anything potential about ,him1 ,he would either lose or gain by its actualization1 and either loss or gain would contradict his perfection4 ,he cannot1 therefore1 change4 ,furthermore1 ,he is immense1 boundless2 for could ,he be outlined in space1 ,he would be composite1 and this would contradict his indivisibility4 ,he is therefore omnipresent1 indivisibly there1 at every point of space4 ,he is similarly wholly present at every point of time1--in other words eternal4 ,for if ,he began in time1 ,he would need a prior cause1 and that would contradict his aseity4 ,if ,he ended1 it would contradict his necessity4 ,if ,he went through any succession1 it would contradict his immutability4 ,he has intelligence and will and every other creature perfection1 for we have them1 and effectus nequit superare causam4 ,in ,him1 however1 they are absolutely and eternally in act1 and their object1 since ,god can be bounded by naught that is external1 can primarily be nothing else than ,god himself4 ,he knows himself1 then1 in one eternal indivisible act1 and wills himself with an infinite selfpleasure47#bic7 ,since ,he must of logical necessity thus love and will himself1 ,he cannot be called 8free0 ad intra1 with the freedom of contrarieties that characterizes finite creatures4 ,ad extra1 however1 or with respect to his creation1 ,god is free4 ,he cannot need to create1 being perfect in being and in happiness already4 ,he wills to create1 then1 by an absolute freedom4 ,being thus a substance endowed with intellect and will and freedom1 ,god is a person2 and a living person also1 for ,he is both object and subject of his own activity1 and to be this distinguishes the living from the lifeless4 ,he is thus absolutely selfsufficient3 his selfknowledge and selflove are both of them infinite and adequate1 and need no extraneous conditions to perfect them4 ,he is omniscient1 for in knowing himself as ,cause ,he knows all creature things and events by implication4 ,his knowledge is previsive1 for ,he is present to all time4 ,even our free acts are known beforehand to ,him1 for otherwise his wisdom would admit of successive moments of enrichment1 and this would contradict his immutability4 ,he is omnipotent for everything that does not involve logical contradiction4 ,he can make being--in other words his power includes creation4 ,if what ,he creates were made of his own substance1 it would have to be infinite in essence1 as that substance is2 but it is finite2 so it must be nondivine in substance4 ,if it were made of a substance1 an eternally existing matter1 for example1 which ,god found there to his hand1 and to which ,he simply gave its form1 that would contradict ,god's definition as ,first ,cause1 and make ,him a mere mover of something caused already4 ,the things he creates1 then1 ,he creates ex nihilo1 and gives them absolute being as so many finite substances additional to himself4 ,the forms which he imprints upon them have their prototypes in his ideas4 ,but as in ,god there is no such thing as multiplicity1 and as these ideas for us are manifold1 we must distinguish the ideas as they are in ,god and the way in which our minds externally imitate them4 ,we must attribute them to ,him only in a terminative sense1 as differing aspects1 from the finite point of view1 of his unique essence4 ,god of course is holy1 good1 and just4 ,he can do no evil1 for ,he is positive being's fullness1 and evil is negation4 ,it is true that ,he has created physical evil in places1 but only as a means of wider good1 for bonum totius preminet bonum partis4 ,moral evil ,he cannot will1 either as end or means1 for that would contradict his holiness4 ,by creating free beings ,he permits it only1 neither his justice nor his goodness obliging ,him to prevent the recipients of freedom from misusing the gift4 ,as regards ,god's purpose in creating1 primarily it can only have been to exercise his absolute freedom by the manifestation to others of his glory4 ,from this it follows that the others must be rational beings1 capable in the first place of knowledge1 love1 and honor1 and in the second place of happiness1 for the knowledge and love of ,god is the mainspring of felicity4 ,in so far forth one may say that ,god's secondary purpose in creating is love4 ,i will not weary you by pursuing these metaphysical determinations farther1 into the mysteries of ,god's ,trinity1 for example4 ,what ,i have given will serve as a specimen of the orthodox philosophical theology of both ,catholics and ,protestants4 ,newman1 filled with enthusiasm at ,god's list of perfections1 continues the passage which ,i began to quote to you by a couple of pages of a rhetoric so magnificent that ,i can hardly refrain from adding them1 in spite of the inroad they would make upon our time47#bid7 ,he first enumerates ,god's attributes sonorously1 then celebrates his ownership of everything in earth and ,heaven1 and the dependence of all that happens upon his permissive will4 ,he gives us scholastic philosophy 8touched with emotion10 and every philosophy should be touched with emotion to be rightly understood4 ,emotionally1 then1 dogmatic theology is worth something to minds of the type of ,newman's4 ,it will aid us to estimate what it is worth intellectually1 if at this point ,i make a short digression4 ,what ,god hath joined together1 let no man put asunder4 ,the ,continental schools of philosophy have too often overlooked the fact that man's thinking is organically connected with his conduct4 ,it seems to me to be the chief glory of ,english and ,scottish thinkers to have kept the organic connection in view4 ,the guiding principle of ,british philosophy has in fact been that every difference must make a difference1 every theoretical difference somewhere issue in a practical difference1 and that the best method of discussing points of theory is to begin by ascertaining what practical difference would result from one alternative or the other being true4 ,what is the particular truth in question known as8 ,in what facts does it result8 ,what is its cashvalue in terms of particular experience8 ,this is the characteristic ,english way of taking up a question4 ,in this way1 you remember1 ,locke takes up the question of personal identity4 ,what you mean by it is just your chain of particular memories1 says he4 ,that is the only concretely verifiable part of its significance4 ,all further ideas about it1 such as the oneness or manyness of the spiritual substance on which it is based1 are therefore void of intelligible meaning2 and propositions touching such ideas may be indifferently affirmed or denied4 ,so ,berkeley with his 8matter40 ,the cash value of matter is our physical sensations4 ,that is what it is known as1 all that we concretely verify of its conception4 ,that1 therefore1 is the whole meaning of the term 8matter0--any other pretended meaning is mere wind of words4 ,hume does the same thing with causation4 ,it is known as habitual antecedence1 and as tendency on our part to look for something definite to come4 ,apart from this practical meaning it has no significance whatever1 and books about it may be committed to the flames1 says ,hume4 ,dugald ,stewart and ,thomas ,brown1 ,james ,mill1 ,john ,mill1 and ,professor ,bain1 have followed more or less consistently the same method2 and ,shadworth ,hodgson has used the principle with full explicitness4 ,when all is said and done1 it was ,english and ,scotch writers1 and not ,kant1 who introduced 8the critical method0 into philosophy1 the one method fitted to make philosophy a study worthy of serious men4 ,for what seriousness can possibly remain in debating philosophic propositions that will never make an appreciable difference to us in action8 ,and what could it matter1 if all propositions were practically indifferent1 which of them we should agree to call true or which false8 ,an ,american philosopher of eminent originality1 ,mr4 ,charles ,sanders ,peirce1 has rendered thought a service by disentangling from the particulars of its application the principle by which these men were instinctively guided1 and by singling it out as fundamental and giving to it a ,greek name4 ,he calls it the principle of pragmatism1 and he defends it somewhat as follows37#bie7-- ,thought in movement has for its only conceivable motive the attainment of belief1 or thought at rest4 ,only when our thought about a subject has found its rest in belief can our action on the subject firmly and safely begin4 ,beliefs1 in short1 are rules for action2 and the whole function of thinking is but one step in the production of active habits4 ,if there were any part of a thought that made no difference in the thought's practical consequences1 then that part would be no proper element of the thought's significance4 ,to develop a thought's meaning we need therefore only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce2 that conduct is for us its sole significance2 and the tangible fact at the root of all our thought distinctions is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice4 ,to attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object1 we need then only consider what sensations1 immediate or remote1 we are conceivably to expect from it1 and what conduct we must prepare in case the object should be true4 ,our conception of these practical consequences is for us the whole of our conception of the object1 so far as that conception has positive significance at all4 ,this is the principle of ,peirce1 the principle of pragmatism4 ,such a principle will help us on this occasion to decide1 among the various attributes set down in the scholastic inventory of ,god's perfections1 whether some be not far less significant than others4 ,if1 namely1 we apply the principle of pragmatism to ,god's metaphysical attributes1 strictly so called1 as distinguished from his moral attributes1 ,i think that1 even were we forced by a coercive logic to believe them1 we still should have to confess them to be destitute of all intelligible significance4 ,take ,god's aseity1 for example2 or his necessariness2 his immateriality2 his 8simplicity0 or superiority to the kind of inner variety and succession which we find in finite beings1 his indivisibility1 and lack of the inner distinctions of being and activity1 substance and accident1 potentiality and actuality1 and the rest2 his repudiation of inclusion in a genus2 his actualized infinity2 his 8personality10 apart from the moral qualities which it may comport2 his relations to evil being permissive and not positive2 his selfsufficiency1 selflove1 and absolute felicity in himself3--candidly speaking1 how do such qualities as these make any definite connection with our life8 ,and if they severally call for no distinctive adaptations of our conduct1 what vital difference can it possibly make to a man's religion whether they be true or false8 ,for my own part1 although ,i dislike to say aught that may grate upon tender associations1 ,i must frankly confess that even though these attributes were faultlessly deduced1 ,i cannot conceive of its being of the smallest consequence to us religiously that any one of them should be true4 ,pray1 what specific act can ,i perform in order to adapt myself the better to ,god's simplicity8 ,or how does it assist me to plan my behavior1 to know that his happiness is anyhow absolutely complete8 ,in the middle of the century just past1 ,mayne ,reid was the great writer of books of outof door adventure4 ,he was forever extolling the hunters and fieldobservers of living animals' habits1 and keeping up a fire of invective against the 8closetnaturalists10 as he called them1 the collectors and classifiers1 and handlers of skeletons and skins4 ,when ,i was a boy1 ,i used to think that a closetnaturalist must be the vilest type of wretch under the sun4 ,but surely the systematic theologians are the closetnaturalists of the deity1 even in ,captain ,mayne ,reid's sense4 ,what is their deduction of metaphysical attributes but a shuffling and matching of pedantic dictionaryadjectives1 aloof from morals1 aloof from human needs1 something that might be worked out from the mere word 8,god0 by one of those logical machines of wood and brass which recent ingenuity has contrived as well as by a man of flesh and blood4 ,they have the trail of the serpent over them4 ,one feels that in the theologians' hands1 they are only a set of titles obtained by a mechanical manipulation of synonyms2 verbality has stepped into the place of vision1 professionalism into that of life4 ,instead of bread we have a stone2 instead of a fish1 a serpent4 ,did such a conglomeration of abstract terms give really the gist of our knowledge of the deity1 schools of theology might indeed continue to flourish1 but religion1 vital religion1 would have taken its flight from this world4 ,what keeps religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems of concatenated adjectives1 and something different from faculties of theology and their professors4 ,all these things are aftereffects1 secondary accretions upon those phenomena of vital conversation with the unseen divine1 of which ,i have shown you so many instances1 renewing themselves in scula sculorum in the lives of humble private men4 ,so much for the metaphysical attributes of ,god6 ,from the point of view of practical religion1 the metaphysical monster which they offer to our worship is an absolutely worthless invention of the scholarly mind4 ,what shall we now say of the attributes called moral8 ,pragmatically1 they stand on an entirely different footing4 ,they positively determine fear and hope and expectation1 and are foundations for the saintly life4 ,it needs but a glance at them to show how great is their significance4 ,god's holiness1 for example3 being holy1 ,god can will nothing but the good4 ,being omnipotent1 he can secure its triumph4 ,being omniscient1 he can see us in the dark4 ,being just1 he can punish us for what he sees4 ,being loving1 he can pardon too4 ,being unalterable1 we can count on him securely4 ,these qualities enter into connection with our life1 it is highly important that we should be informed concerning them4 ,that ,god's purpose in creation should be the manifestation of his glory is also an attribute which has definite relations to our practical life4 ,among other things it has given a definite character to worship in all ,christian countries4 ,if dogmatic theology really does prove beyond dispute that a ,god with characters like these exists1 she may well claim to give a solid basis to religious sentiment4 ,but verily1 how stands it with her arguments8 ,it stands with them as ill as with the arguments for his existence4 ,not only do post,kantian idealists reject them root and branch1 but it is a plain historic fact that they never have converted any one who has found in the moral complexion of the world1 as he experienced it1 reasons for doubting that a good ,god can have framed it4 ,to prove ,god's goodness by the scholastic argument that there is no nonbeing in his essence would sound to such a witness simply silly4 ,no6 the book of ,job went over this whole matter once for all and definitively4 ,ratiocination is a relatively superficial and unreal path to the deity3 8,i will lay mine hand upon my mouth2 ,i have heard of ,thee by the hearing of the ear1 but now mine eye seeth ,thee40 ,an intellect perplexed and baffled1 yet a trustful sense of presence--such is the situation of the man who is sincere with himself and with the facts1 but who remains religious still47#bif7 ,we must therefore1 ,i think1 bid a definitive goodby to dogmatic theology4 ,in all sincerity our faith must do without that warrant4 ,modern idealism1 ,i repeat1 has said goodby to this theology forever4 ,can modern idealism give faith a better warrant1 or must she still rely on her poor self for witness8 ,the basis of modern idealism is ,kant's doctrine of the ,transcendental ,ego of ,apperception4 ,by this formidable term ,kant merely meant the fact that the consciousness 8,i think them0 must 7potentially or actually7 accompany all our objects4 ,former skeptics had said as much1 but the 8,i0 in question had remained for them identified with the personal individual4 ,kant abstracted and depersonalized it1 and made it the most universal of all his categories1 although for ,kant himself the ,transcendental ,ego had no theological implications4 ,it was reserved for his successors to convert ,kant's notion of ,bewusstsein berhaupt1 or abstract consciousness1 into an infinite concrete selfconsciousness which is the soul of the world1 and in which our sundry personal selfconsciousnesses have their being4 ,it would lead me into technicalities to show you even briefly how this transformation was in point of fact effected4 ,suffice it to say that in the ,hegelian school1 which today so deeply influences both ,british and ,american thinking1 two principles have borne the brunt of the operation4 ,the first of these principles is that the old logic of identity never gives us more than a postmortem dissection of disjecta membra1 and that the fullness of life can be construed to thought only by recognizing that every object which our thought may propose to itself involves the notion of some other object which seems at first to negate the first one4 ,the second principle is that to be conscious of a negation is already virtually to be beyond it4 ,the mere asking of a question or expression of a dissatisfaction proves that the answer or the satisfaction is already imminent2 the finite1 realized as such1 is already the infinite in posse4 ,applying these principles1 we seem to get a propulsive force into our logic which the ordinary logic of a bare1 stark selfidentity in each thing never attains to4 ,the objects of our thought now act within our thought1 act as objects act when given in experience4 ,they change and develop4 ,they introduce something other than themselves along with them2 and this other1 at first only ideal or potential1 presently proves itself also to be actual4 ,it supersedes the thing at first supposed1 and both verifies and corrects it1 in developing the fullness of its meaning4 ,the program is excellent2 the universe is a place where things are followed by other things that both correct and fulfill them2 and a logic which gave us something like this movement of fact would express truth far better than the traditional schoollogic1 which never gets of its own accord from anything to anything else1 and registers only predictions and subsumptions1 or static resemblances and differences4 ,nothing could be more unlike the methods of dogmatic theology than those of this new logic4 ,let me quote in illustration some passages from the ,scottish transcendentalist whom ,i have already named4 8,how are we to conceive10 ,principal ,caird writes1 8of the reality in which all intelligence rests80 ,he replies3 8,two things may without difficulty be proved1 viz41 that this reality is an absolute ,spirit1 and conversely that it is only in communion with this absolute ,spirit or ,intelligence that the finite ,spirit can realize itself4 ,it is absolute2 for the faintest movement of human intelligence would be arrested1 if it did not presuppose the absolute reality of intelligence1 of thought itself4 ,doubt or denial themselves presuppose and indirectly affirm it4 ,when ,i pronounce anything to be true1 ,i pronounce it1 indeed1 to be relative to thought1 but not to be relative to my thought1 or to the thought of any other individual mind4 ,from the existence of all individual minds as such ,i can abstract2 ,i can think them away4 ,but that which ,i cannot think away is thought or self consciousness itself1 in its independence and absoluteness1 or1 in other words1 an ,absolute ,thought or ,self,consciousness40 ,here1 you see1 ,principal ,caird makes the transition which ,kant did not make3 he converts the omnipresence of consciousness in general as a condition of 8truth0 being anywhere possible1 into an omnipresent universal consciousness1 which he identifies with ,god in his concreteness4 ,he next proceeds to use the principle that to acknowledge your limits is in essence to be beyond them2 and makes the transition to the religious experience of individuals in the following words3-- 8,if ,man were only a creature of transient sensations and impulses1 of an ever coming and going succession of intuitions1 fancies1 feelings1 then nothing could ever have for him the character of objective truth or reality4 ,but it is the prerogative of man's spiritual nature that he can yield himself up to a thought and will that are infinitely larger than his own4 ,as a thinking1 selfconscious being1 indeed1 he may be said1 by his very nature1 to live in the atmosphere of the ,universal ,life4 ,as a thinking being1 it is possible for me to suppress and quell in my consciousness every movement of selfassertion1 every notion and opinion that is merely mine1 every desire that belongs to me as this particular ,self1 and to become the pure medium of a thought that is universal--in one word1 to live no more my own life1 but let my consciousness be possessed and suffused by the ,infinite and ,eternal life of spirit4 ,and yet it is just in this renunciation of self that ,i truly gain myself1 or realize the highest possibilities of my own nature4 ,for whilst in one sense we give up self to live the universal and absolute life of reason1 yet that to which we thus surrender ourselves is in reality our truer self4 ,the life of absolute reason is not a life that is foreign to us40 ,nevertheless1 ,principal ,caird goes on to say1 so far as we are able outwardly to realize this doctrine1 the balm it offers remains incomplete4 ,whatever we may be in posse1 the very best of us in actu falls very short of being absolutely divine4 ,social morality1 love1 and self sacrifice even1 merge our ,self only in some other finite self or selves4 ,they do not quite identify it with the ,infinite4 ,man's ideal destiny1 infinite in abstract logic1 might thus seem in practice forever unrealizable4 8,is there1 then10 our author continues1 8no solution of the contradiction between the ideal and the actual8 ,we answer1 ,there is such a solution1 but in order to reach it we are carried beyond the sphere of morality into that of religion4 ,it may be said to be the essential characteristic of religion as contrasted with morality1 that it changes aspiration into fruition1 anticipation into realization2 that instead of leaving man in the interminable pursuit of a vanishing ideal1 it makes him the actual partaker of a divine or infinite life4 ,whether we view religion from the human side or the divine--as the surrender of the soul to ,god1 or as the life of ,god in the soul--in either aspect it is of its very essence that the ,infinite has ceased to be a faroff vision1 and has become a present reality4 ,the very first pulsation of the spiritual life1 when we rightly apprehend its significance1 is the indication that the division between the ,spirit and its object has vanished1 that the ideal has become real1 that the finite has reached its goal and become suffused with the presence and life of the ,infinite4 8,oneness of mind and will with the divine mind and will is not the future hope and aim of religion1 but its very beginning and birth in the soul4 ,to enter on the religious life is to terminate the struggle4 ,in that act which constitutes the beginning of the religious life--call it faith1 or trust1 or selfsurrender1 or by whatever name you will--there is involved the identification of the finite with a life which is eternally realized4 ,it is true indeed that the religious life is progressive2 but understood in the light of the foregoing idea1 religious progress is not progress towards1 but within the sphere of the ,infinite4 ,it is not the vain attempt by endless finite additions or increments to become possessed of infinite wealth1 but it is the endeavor1 by the constant exercise of spiritual activity1 to appropriate that infinite inheritance of which we are already in possession4 ,the whole future of the religious life is given in its beginning1 but it is given implicitly4 ,the position of the man who has entered on the religious life is that evil1 error1 imperfection1 do not really belong to him3 they are excrescences which have no organic relation to his true nature3 they are already virtually1 as they will be actually1 suppressed and annulled1 and in the very process of being annulled they become the means of spiritual progress4 ,though he is not exempt from temptation and conflict1 yet in that inner sphere in which his true life lies1 the struggle is over1 the victory already achieved4 ,it is not a finite but an infinite life which the spirit lives4 ,every pulsebeat of its existence is the expression and realization of the life of ,god407#big7 ,you will readily admit that no description of the phenomena of the religious consciousness could be better than these words of your lamented preacher and philosopher4 ,they reproduce the very rapture of those crises of conversion of which we have been hearing2 they utter what the mystic felt but was unable to communicate2 and the saint1 in hearing them1 recognizes his own experience4 ,it is indeed gratifying to find the content of religion reported so unanimously4 ,but when all is said and done1 has ,principal ,caird--and ,i only use him as an example of that whole mode of thinking--transcended the sphere of feeling and of the direct experience of the individual1 and laid the foundations of religion in impartial reason8 ,has he made religion universal by coercive reasoning1 transformed it from a private faith into a public certainty8 ,has he rescued its affirmations from obscurity and mystery8 ,i believe that he has done nothing of the kind1 but that he has simply reaffirmed the individual's experiences in a more generalized vocabulary4 ,and again1 ,i can be excused from proving technically that the transcendentalist reasonings fail to make religion universal1 for ,i can point to the plain fact that a majority of scholars1 even religiously disposed ones1 stubbornly refuse to treat them as convincing4 ,the whole of ,germany1 one may say1 has positively rejected the ,hegelian argumentation4 ,as for ,scotland1 ,i need only mention ,professor ,fraser's and ,professor ,pringle,pattison's memorable criticisms1 with which so many of you are familiar47#bih7 ,once more1 ,i ask1 if transcendental idealism were as objectively and absolutely rational as it pretends to be1 could it possibly fail so egregiously to be persuasive8 ,what religion reports1 you must remember1 always purports to be a fact of experience3 the divine is actually present1 religion says1 and between it and ourselves relations of give and take are actual4 ,if definite perceptions of fact like this cannot stand upon their own feet1 surely abstract reasoning cannot give them the support they are in need of4 ,conceptual processes can class facts1 define them1 interpret them2 but they do not produce them1 nor can they reproduce their individuality4 ,there is always a plus1 a thisness1 which feeling alone can answer for4 ,philosophy in this sphere is thus a secondary function1 unable to warrant faith's veracity1 and so ,i revert to the thesis which ,i announced at the beginning of this lecture4 ,in all sad sincerity ,i think we must conclude that the attempt to demonstrate by purely intellectual processes the truth of the deliverances of direct religious experience is absolutely hopeless4 ,it would be unfair to philosophy1 however1 to leave her under this negative sentence4 ,let me close1 then1 by briefly enumerating what she can do for religion4 ,if she will abandon metaphysics and deduction for criticism and induction1 and frankly transform herself from theology into science of religions1 she can make herself enormously useful4 ,the spontaneous intellect of man always defines the divine which it feels in ways that harmonize with its temporary intellectual prepossessions4 ,philosophy can by comparison eliminate the local and the accidental from these definitions4 ,both from dogma and from worship she can remove historic incrustations4 ,by confronting the spontaneous religious constructions with the results of natural science1 philosophy can also eliminate doctrines that are now known to be scientifically absurd or incongruous4 ,sifting out in this way unworthy formulations1 she can leave a residuum of conceptions that at least are possible4 ,with these she can deal as hypotheses1 testing them in all the manners1 whether negative or positive1 by which hypotheses are ever tested4 ,she can reduce their number1 as some are found more open to objection4 ,she can perhaps become the champion of one which she picks out as being the most closely verified or verifiable4 ,she can refine upon the definition of this hypothesis1 distinguishing between what is innocent overbelief and symbolism in the expression of it1 and what is to be literally taken4 ,as a result1 she can offer mediation between different believers1 and help to bring about consensus of opinion4 ,she can do this the more successfully1 the better she discriminates the common and essential from the individual and local elements of the religious beliefs which she compares4 ,i do not see why a critical ,science of ,religions of this sort might not eventually command as general a public adhesion as is commanded by a physical science4 ,even the personally nonreligious might accept its conclusions on trust1 much as blind persons now accept the facts of optics--it might appear as foolish to refuse them4 ,yet as the science of optics has to be fed in the first instance1 and continually verified later1 by facts experienced by seeing persons2 so the science of religions would depend for its original material on facts of personal experience1 and would have to square itself with personal experience through all its critical reconstructions4 ,it could never get away from concrete life1 or work in a conceptual vacuum4 ,it would forever have to confess1 as every science confesses1 that the subtlety of nature flies beyond it1 and that its formulas are but approximations4 ,philosophy lives in words1 but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation4 ,there is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught1 and for which reflection comes too late4 ,no one knows this as well as the philosopher4 ,he must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun1 for his profession condemns him to this industry1 but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy4 ,his formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs seen outside the instrument2 they lack the depth1 the motion1 the vitality4 ,in the religious sphere1 in particular1 belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience4 ,in my next lecture ,i will try to complete my rough description of religious experience2 and in the lecture after that1 which is the last one1 ,i will try my own hand at formulating conceptually the truth to which it is a witness4 ,,lecture ,,xix4 ,,other ,,characteristics4 ,we have wound our way back1 after our excursion through mysticism and philosophy1 to where we were before3 the uses of religion1 its uses to the individual who has it1 and the uses of the individual himself to the world1 are the best arguments that truth is in it4 ,we return to the empirical philosophy3 the true is what works well1 even though the qualification 8on the whole0 may always have to be added4 ,in this lecture we must revert to description again1 and finish our picture of the religious consciousness by a word about some of its other characteristic elements4 ,then1 in a final lecture1 we shall be free to make a general review and draw our independent conclusions4 ,the first point ,i will speak of is the part which the sthetic life plays in determining one's choice of a religion4 ,men1 ,i said awhile ago1 involuntarily intellectualize their religious experience4 ,they need formulas1 just as they need fellowship in worship4 ,i spoke1 therefore1 too contemptuously of the pragmatic uselessness of the famous scholastic list of attributes of the deity1 for they have one use which ,i neglected to consider4 ,the eloquent passage in which ,newman enumerates them7#bii7 puts us on the track of it4 ,intoning them as he would intone a cathedral service1 he shows how high is their sthetic value4 ,it enriches our bare piety to carry these exalted and mysterious verbal additions just as it enriches a church to have an organ and old brasses1 marbles and frescoes and stained windows4 ,epithets lend an atmosphere and overtones to our devotion4 ,they are like a hymn of praise and service of glory1 and may sound the more sublime for being incomprehensible4 ,minds like ,newman's7#cjj7 grow as jealous of their credit as heathen priests are of that of the jewelry and ornaments that blaze upon their idols4 ,among the buildingsout of religion which the mind spontaneously indulges in1 the sthetic motive must never be forgotten4 ,i promised to say nothing of ecclesiastical systems in these lectures4 ,i may be allowed1 however1 to put in a word at this point on the way in which their satisfaction of certain sthetic needs contributes to their hold on human nature4 ,although some persons aim most at intellectual purity and simplification1 for others richness is the supreme imaginative requirement47#cja7 ,when one's mind is strongly of this type1 an individual religion will hardly serve the purpose4 ,the inner need is rather of something institutional and complex1 majestic in the hierarchic interrelatedness of its parts1 with authority descending from stage to stage1 and at every stage objects for adjectives of mystery and splendor1 derived in the last resort from the ,godhead who is the fountain and culmination of the system4 ,one feels then as if in presence of some vast incrusted work of jewelry or architecture2 one hears the multitudinous liturgical appeal2 one gets the honorific vibration coming from every quarter4 ,compared with such a noble complexity1 in which ascending and descending movements seem in no way to jar upon stability1 in which no single item1 however humble1 is insignificant1 because so many august institutions hold it in its place1 how flat does evangelical ,protestantism appear1 how bare the atmosphere of those isolated religious lives whose boast it is that 8man in the bush with ,god may meet407#cjb7 ,what a pulverization and leveling of what a gloriously piledup structure6 ,to an imagination used to the perspectives of dignity and glory1 the naked gospel scheme seems to offer an almshouse for a palace4 ,it is much like the patriotic sentiment of those brought up in ancient empires4 ,how many emotions must be frustrated of their object1 when one gives up the titles of dignity1 the crimson lights and blare of brass1 the gold embroidery1 the plumed troops1 the fear and trembling1 and puts up with a president in a black coat who shakes hands with you1 and comes1 it may be1 from a 8home0 upon a veldt or prairie with one sittingroom and a ,bible on its centretable4 ,it pauperizes the monarchical imagination6 ,the strength of these sthetic sentiments makes it rigorously impossible1 it seems to me1 that ,protestantism1 however superior in spiritual profundity it may be to ,catholicism1 should at the present day succeed in making many converts from the more venerable ecclesiasticism4 ,the latter offers a so much richer pasturage and shade to the fancy1 has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey1 is so indulgent in its multiform appeals to human nature1 that ,protestantism will always show to ,catholic eyes the almshouse physiognomy4 ,the bitter negativity of it is to the ,catholic mind incomprehensible4 ,to intellectual ,catholics many of the antiquated beliefs and practices to which the ,church gives countenance are1 if taken literally1 as childish as they are to ,protestants4 ,but they are childish in the pleasing sense of 8childlike0--innocent and amiable1 and worthy to be smiled on in consideration of the undeveloped condition of the dear people's intellects4 ,to the ,protestant1 on the contrary1 they are childish in the sense of being idiotic falsehoods4 ,he must stamp out their delicate and lovable redundancy1 leaving the ,catholic to shudder at his literalness4 ,he appears to the latter as morose as if he were some hardeyed1 numb1 monotonous kind of reptile4 ,the two will never understand each other--their centres of emotional energy are too different4 ,rigorous truth and human nature's intricacies are always in need of a mutual interpreter47#cjc7 ,so much for the sthetic diversities in the religious consciousness4 ,in most books on religion1 three things are represented as its most essential elements4 ,these are ,sacrifice1 ,confession1 and ,prayer4 ,i must say a word in turn of each of these elements1 though briefly4 ,first of ,sacrifice4 ,sacrifices to gods are omnipresent in primeval worship2 but1 as cults have grown refined1 burnt offerings and the blood of hegoats have been superseded by sacrifices more spiritual in their nature4 ,judaism1 ,islam1 and ,buddhism get along without ritual sacrifice2 so does ,christianity1 save in so far as the notion is preserved in transfigured form in the mystery of ,christ's atonement4 ,these religions substitute offerings of the heart1 renunciations of the inner self1 for all those vain oblations4 ,in the ascetic practices which ,islam1 ,buddhism1 and the older ,christianity encourage we see how indestructible is the idea that sacrifice of some sort is a religious exercise4 ,in lecturing on asceticism ,i spoke of its significance as symbolic of the sacrifices which life1 whenever it is taken strenuously1 calls for47#cjd7 ,but1 as ,i said my say about those1 and as these lectures expressly avoid earlier religious usages and questions of derivation1 ,i will pass from the subject of ,sacrifice altogether and turn to that of ,confession4 ,in regard to ,confession ,i will also be most brief1 saying my word about it psychologically1 not historically4 ,not nearly as widespread as sacrifice1 it corresponds to a more inward and moral stage of sentiment4 ,it is part of the general system of purgation and cleansing which one feels one's self in need of1 in order to be in right relations to one's deity4 ,for him who confesses1 shams are over and realities have begun2 he has exteriorized his rottenness4 ,if he has not actually got rid of it1 he at least no longer smears it over with a hypocritical show of virtue--he lives at least upon a basis of veracity4 ,the complete decay of the practice of confession in ,anglo,saxon communities is a little hard to account for4 ,reaction against popery is of course the historic explanation1 for in popery confession went with penances and absolution1 and other inadmissible practices4 ,but on the side of the sinner himself it seems as if the need ought to have been too great to accept so summary a refusal of its satisfaction4 ,one would think that in more men the shell of secrecy would have had to open1 the pentin abscess to burst and gain relief1 even though the ear that heard the confession were unworthy4 ,the ,catholic church1 for obvious utilitarian reasons1 has substituted auricular confession to one priest for the more radical act of public confession4 ,we ,englishspeaking ,protestants1 in the general selfreliance and unsociability of our nature1 seem to find it enough if we take ,god alone into our confidence47#cje7 ,the next topic on which ,i must comment is ,prayer1--and this time it must be less briefly4 ,we have heard much talk of late against prayer1 especially against prayers for better weather and for the recovery of sick people4 ,as regards prayers for the sick1 if any medical fact can be considered to stand firm1 it is that in certain environments prayer may contribute to recovery1 and should be encouraged as a therapeutic measure4 ,being a normal factor of moral health in the person1 its omission would be deleterious4 ,the case of the weather is different4 ,notwithstanding the recency of the opposite belief17#cjf7 every one now knows that droughts and storms follow from physical antecedents1 and that moral appeals cannot avert them4 ,but petitional prayer is only one department of prayer2 and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine1 we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched4 ,prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion4 8,religion10 says a liberal ,french theologian1 8is an intercourse1 a conscious and voluntary relation1 entered into by a soul in distress with the mysterious power upon which it feels itself to depend1 and upon which its fate is contingent4 ,this intercourse with ,god is realized by prayer4 ,prayer is religion in act2 that is1 prayer is real religion4 ,it is prayer that distinguishes the religious phenomenon from such similar or neighboring phenomena as purely moral or sthetic sentiment4 ,religion is nothing if it be not the vital act by which the entire mind seeks to save itself by clinging to the principle from which it draws its life4 ,this act is prayer1 by which term ,i understand no vain exercise of words1 no mere repetition of certain sacred formul1 but the very movement itself of the soul1 putting itself in a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power of which it feels the presence1--it may be even before it has a name by which to call it4 ,wherever this interior prayer is lacking1 there is no religion2 wherever1 on the other hand1 this prayer rises and stirs the soul1 even in the absence of forms or of doctrines1 we have living religion4 ,one sees from this why #8natural religion1' socalled1 is not properly a religion4 ,it cuts man off from prayer4 ,it leaves him and ,god in mutual remoteness1 with no intimate commerce1 no interior dialogue1 no interchange1 no action of ,god in man1 no return of man to ,god4 ,at bottom this pretended religion is only a philosophy4 ,born at epochs of rationalism1 of critical investigations1 it never was anything but an abstraction4 ,an artificial and dead creation1 it reveals to its examiner hardly one of the characters proper to religion407#cjg7 ,it seems to me that the entire series of our lectures proves the truth of ,m4 ,sabatier's contention4 ,the religious phenomenon1 studied as an inner fact1 and apart from ecclesiastical or theological complications1 has shown itself to consist everywhere1 and at all its stages1 in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related4 ,this intercourse is realized at the time as being both active and mutual4 ,if it be not effective2 if it be not a give and take relation2 if nothing be really transacted while it lasts2 if the world is in no whit different for its having taken place2 then prayer1 taken in this wide meaning of a sense that something is transacting1 is of course a feeling of what is illusory1 and religion must on the whole be classed1 not simply as containing elements of delusion1--these undoubtedly everywhere exist1--but as being rooted in delusion altogether1 just as materialists and atheists have always said it was4 ,at most there might remain1 when the direct experiences of prayer were ruled out as false witnesses1 some inferential belief that the whole order of existence must have a divine cause4 ,but this way of contemplating nature1 pleasing as it would doubtless be to persons of a pious taste1 would leave to them but the spectators' part at a play1 whereas in experimental religion and the prayerful life1 we seem ourselves to be actors1 and not in a play1 but in a very serious reality4 ,the genuineness of religion is thus indissolubly bound up with the question whether the prayerful consciousness be or be not deceitful4 ,the conviction that something is genuinely transacted in this consciousness is the very core of living religion4 ,as to what is transacted1 great differences of opinion have prevailed4 ,the unseen powers have been supposed1 and are yet supposed1 to do things which no enlightened man can nowadays believe in4 ,it may well prove that the sphere of influence in prayer is subjective exclusively1 and that what is immediately changed is only the mind of the praying person4 ,but however our opinion of prayer's effects may come to be limited by criticism1 religion1 in the vital sense in which these lectures study it1 must stand or fall by the persuasion that effects of some sort genuinely do occur4 ,through prayer1 religion insists1 things which cannot be realized in any other manner come about3 energy which but for prayer would be bound is by prayer set free and operates in some part1 be it objective or subjective1 of the world of facts4 ,this postulate is strikingly expressed in a letter written by the late ,frederic ,w4 ,h4 ,myers to a friend1 who allows me to quote from it4 ,it shows how independent the prayerinstinct is of usual doctrinal complications4 ,mr4 ,myers writes3-- 8,i am glad that you have asked me about prayer1 because ,i have rather strong ideas on the subject4 ,first consider what are the facts4 ,there exists around us a spiritual universe1 and that universe is in actual relation with the material4 ,from the spiritual universe comes the energy which maintains the material2 the energy which makes the life of each individual spirit4 ,our spirits are supported by a perpetual indrawal of this energy1 and the vigor of that indrawal is perpetually changing1 much as the vigor of our absorption of material nutriment changes from hour to hour4 8,i call these #8facts' because ,i think that some scheme of this kind is the only one consistent with our actual evidence2 too complex to summarize here4 ,how1 then1 should we act on these facts8 ,plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible1 and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal4 ,prayer is the general name for that attitude of open and earnest expectancy4 ,if we then ask to whom to pray1 the answer 7strangely enough7 must be that that does not much matter4 ,the prayer is not indeed a purely subjective thing2--it means a real increase in intensity of absorption of spiritual power or grace2--but we do not know enough of what takes place in the spiritual world to know how the prayer operates2--who is cognizant of it1 or through what channel the grace is given4 ,better let children pray to ,christ1 who is at any rate the highest individual spirit of whom we have any knowledge4 ,but it would be rash to say that ,christ himself hears us2 while to say that ,god hears us is merely to restate the first principle1--that grace flows in from the infinite spiritual world40 ,let us reserve the question of the truth or falsehood of the belief that power is absorbed until the next lecture1 when our dogmatic conclusions1 if we have any1 must be reached4 ,let this lecture still confine itself to the description of phenomena2 and as a concrete example of an extreme sort1 of the way in which the prayerful life may still be led1 let me take a case with which most of you must be acquainted1 that of ,george ,mller of ,bristol1 who died in #ahih4 ,mller's prayers were of the crassest petitional order4 ,early in life he resolved on taking certain ,bible promises in literal sincerity1 and on letting himself be fed1 not by his own worldly foresight1 but by the ,lord's hand4 ,he had an extraordinarily active and successful career1 among the fruits of which were the distribution of over two million copies of the ,scripture text1 in different languages2 the equipment of several hundred missionaries2 the circulation of more than a hundred and eleven million of scriptural books1 pamphlets1 and tracts2 the building of five large orphanages1 and the keeping and educating of thousands of orphans2 finally1 the establishment of schools in which over a hundred and twentyone thousand youthful and adult pupils were taught4 ,in the course of this work ,mr4 ,mller received and administered nearly a million and a half of pounds sterling1 and traveled over two hundred thousand miles of sea and land47#cjh7 ,during the sixtyeight years of his ministry1 he never owned any property except his clothes and furniture1 and cash in hand2 and he left1 at the age of eightysix1 an estate worth only a hundred and sixty pounds4 ,his method was to let his general wants be publicly known1 but not to acquaint other people with the details of his temporary necessities4 ,for the relief of the latter1 he prayed directly to the ,lord1 believing that sooner or later prayers are always answered if one have trust enough4 8,when ,i lose such a thing as a key10 he writes1 8,i ask the ,lord to direct me to it1 and ,i look for an answer to my prayer2 when a person with whom ,i have made an appointment does not come1 according to the fixed time1 and ,i begin to be inconvenienced by it1 ,i ask the ,lord to be pleased to hasten him to me1 and ,i look for an answer2 when ,i do not understand a passage of the word of ,god1 ,i lift up my heart to the ,lord that he would be pleased by his ,holy ,spirit to instruct me1 and ,i expect to be taught1 though ,i do not fix the time when1 and the manner how it should be2 when ,i am going to minister in the ,word1 ,i seek help from the ,lord1 and 444 am not cast down1 but of good cheer because ,i look for his assistance40 ,mller's custom was to never run up bills1 not even for a week4 8,as the ,lord deals out to us by the day1 444 the week's payment might become due and we have no money to meet it2 and thus those with whom we deal might be inconvenienced by us1 and we be found acting against the commandment of the ,lord3 #8,owe no man anything4' ,from this day and henceforward whilst the ,lord gives to us our supplies by the day1 we purpose to pay at once for every article as it is purchased1 and never to buy anything except we can pay for it at once1 however much it may seem to be needed1 and however much those with whom we deal may wish to be paid only by the week40 ,the articles needed of which ,mller speaks were the food1 fuel1 etc41 of his orphanages4 ,somehow1 near as they often come to going without a meal1 they hardly ever seem actually to have done so4 8,greater and more manifest nearness of the ,lord's presence ,i have never had than when after breakfast there were no means for dinner for more than a hundred persons2 or when after dinner there were no means for the tea1 and yet the ,lord provided the tea2 and all this without one single human being having been informed about our need4444 ,through ,grace my mind is so fully assured of the faithfulness of the ,lord1 that in the midst of the greatest need1 ,i am enabled in peace to go about my other work4 ,indeed1 did not the ,lord give me this1 which is the result of trusting in him1 ,i should scarcely be able to work at all2 for it is now comparatively a rare thing that a day comes when ,i am not in need for one or another part of the work407#cji7 ,in building his orphanages simply by prayer and faith1 ,mller affirms that his prime motive was 8to have something to point to as a visible proof that our ,god and ,father is the same faithful ,god that he ever was1--as willing as ever to prove himself the living ,god1 in our day as formerly1 to all that put their trust in him407#caj7 ,for this reason he refused to borrow money for any of his enterprises4 8,how does it work when we thus anticipate ,god by going our own way8 ,we certainly weaken faith instead of increasing it2 and each time we work thus a deliverance of our own we find it more and more difficult to trust in ,god1 till at last we give way entirely to our natural fallen reason and unbelief prevails4 ,how different if one is enabled to wait ,god's own time1 and to look alone to him for help and deliverance6 ,when at last help comes1 after many seasons of prayer it may be1 how sweet it is1 and what a present recompense6 ,dear ,christian reader1 if you have never walked in this path of obedience before1 do so now1 and you will then know experimentally the sweetness of the joy which results from it407#caa7 ,when the supplies came in but slowly1 ,mller always considered that this was for the trial of his faith and patience4 ,when his faith and patience had been sufficiently tried1 the ,lord would send more means4 8,and thus it has proved10--,i quote from his diary1--8for today was given me the sum of #bjej pounds1 of which #bjjj are for the building fund of a certain house1 and #ej for present necessities4 ,it is impossible to describe my joy in ,god when ,i received this donation4 ,i was neither excited nor surprised2 for ,i look out for answers to my prayers4 ,i believe that ,god hears me4 ,yet my heart was so full of joy that ,i could only sit before ,god1 and admire him1 like ,david in #b ,samuel vii4 ,at last ,i cast myself flat down upon my face and burst forth in thanksgiving to ,god and in surrendering my heart afresh to him for his blessed service407#cab7 ,george ,mller's is a case extreme in every respect1 and in no respect more so than in the extraordinary narrowness of the man's intellectual horizon4 ,his ,god was1 as he often said1 his business partner4 ,he seems to have been for ,mller little more than a sort of supernatural clergyman interested in the congregation of tradesmen and others in ,bristol who were his saints1 and in the orphanages and other enterprises1 but unpossessed of any of those vaster and wilder and more ideal attributes with which the human imagination elsewhere has invested him4 ,mller1 in short1 was absolutely unphilosophical4 ,his intensely private and practical conception of his relations with the ,deity continued the traditions of the most primitive human thought47#cac7 ,when we compare a mind like his with such a mind as1 for example1 ,emerson's or ,phillips ,brooks's1 we see the range which the religions consciousness covers4 ,there is an immense literature relating to answers to petitional prayer4 ,the evangelical journals are filled with such answers1 and books are devoted to the subject17#cad7 but for us ,mller's case will suffice4 ,a less sturdy beggarlike fashion of leading the prayerful life is followed by innumerable other ,christians4 ,persistence in leaning on the ,almighty for support and guidance will1 such persons say1 bring with it proofs1 palpable but much more subtle1 of his presence and active influence4 ,the following description of a 8led0 life1 by a ,german writer whom ,i have already quoted1 would no doubt appear to countless ,christians in every country as if transcribed from their own personal experience4 ,one finds in this guided sort of life1 says ,dr4 ,hilty1-- 8,that books and words 7and sometimes people7 come to one's cognizance just at the very moment in which one needs them2 that one glides over great dangers as if with shut eyes1 remaining ignorant of what would have terrified one or led one astray1 until the peril is past--this being especially the case with temptations to vanity and sensuality2 that paths on which one ought not to wander are1 as it were1 hedged off with thorns2 but that on the other side great obstacles are suddenly removed2 that when the time has come for something1 one suddenly receives a courage that formerly failed1 or perceives the root of a matter that until then was concealed1 or discovers thoughts1 talents1 yea1 even pieces of knowledge and insight1 in one's self1 of which it is impossible to say whence they come2 finally1 that persons help us or decline to help us1 favor us or refuse us1 as if they had to do so against their will1 so that often those indifferent or even unfriendly to us yield us the greatest service and furtherance4 7,god takes often their worldly goods1 from those whom he leads1 at just the right moment1 when they threaten to impede the effort after higher interests47 8,besides all this1 other noteworthy things come to pass1 of which it is not easy to give account4 ,there is no doubt whatever that now one walks continually through #8open doors' and on the easiest roads1 with as little care and trouble as it is possible to imagine4 8,furthermore one finds one's self settling one's affairs neither too early nor too late1 whereas they were wont to be spoiled by untimeliness1 even when the preparations had been well laid4 ,in addition to this1 one does them with perfect tranquillity of mind1 almost as if they were matters of no consequence1 like errands done by us for another person1 in which case we usually act more calmly than when we act in our own concerns4 ,again1 one finds that one can wait for everything patiently1 and that is one of life's great arts4 ,one finds also that each thing comes duly1 one thing after the other1 so that one gains time to make one's footing sure before advancing farther4 ,and then everything occurs to us at the right moment1 just what we ought to do1 etc41 and often in a very striking way1 just as if a third person were keeping watch over those things which we are in easy danger of forgetting4 8,often1 too1 persons are sent to us at the right time1 to offer or ask for what is needed1 and what we should never have had the courage or resolution to undertake of our own accord4 8,through all these experiences one finds that one is kindly and tolerant of other people1 even of such as are repulsive1 negligent1 or illwilled1 for they also are instruments of good in ,god's hand1 and often most efficient ones4 ,without these thoughts it would be hard for even the best of us always to keep our equanimity4 ,but with the consciousness of divine guidance1 one sees many a thing in life quite differently from what would otherwise be possible4 8,all these are things that every human being knows1 who has had experience of them2 and of which the most speaking examples could be brought forward4 ,the highest resources of worldly wisdom are unable to attain that which1 under divine leading1 comes to us of its own accord407#cae7 ,such accounts as this shade away into others where the belief is1 not that particular events are tempered more towardly to us by a superintending providence1 as a reward for our reliance1 but that by cultivating the continuous sense of our connection with the power that made things as they are1 we are tempered more towardly for their reception4 ,the outward face of nature need not alter1 but the expressions of meaning in it alter4 ,it was dead and is alive again4 ,it is like the difference between looking on a person without love1 or upon the same person with love4 ,in the latter case intercourse springs into new vitality4 ,so when one's affections keep in touch with the divinity of the world's authorship1 fear and egotism fall away2 and in the equanimity that follows1 one finds in the hours1 as they succeed each other1 a series of purely benignant opportunities4 ,it is as if all doors were opened1 and all paths freshly smoothed4 ,we meet a new world when we meet the old world in the spirit which this kind of prayer infuses4 ,such a spirit was that of ,marcus ,aurelius and ,epictetus47#caf7 ,it is that of mindcurers1 of the transcendentalists1 and of the socalled 8liberal0 ,christians4 ,as an expression of it1 ,i will quote a page from one of ,martineau's sermons3-- 8,the universe1 open to the eye today1 looks as it did a thousand years ago3 and the morning hymn of ,milton does but tell the beauty with which our own familiar sun dressed the earliest fields and gardens of the world4 ,we see what all our fathers saw4 ,and if we cannot find ,god in your house or in mine1 upon the roadside or the margin of the sea2 in the bursting seed or opening flower2 in the day duty or the night musing2 in the general laugh and the secret grief2 in the procession of life1 ever entering afresh1 and solemnly passing by and dropping off2 ,i do not think we should discern him any more on the grass of ,eden1 or beneath the moonlight of ,gethsemane4 ,depend upon it1 it is not the want of greater miracles1 but of the soul to perceive such as are allowed us still1 that makes us push all the sanctities into the far spaces we cannot reach4 ,the devout feel that wherever ,god's hand is1 there is miracle3 and it is simply an indevoutness which imagines that only where miracle is1 can there be the real hand of ,god4 ,the customs of ,heaven ought surely to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies2 the dear old ways1 of which the ,most ,high is never tired1 than the strange things which he does not love well enough ever to repeat4 ,and he who will but discern beneath the sun1 as he rises any morning1 the supporting finger of the ,almighty1 may recover the sweet and reverent surprise with which ,adam gazed on the first dawn in ,paradise4 ,it is no outward change1 no shifting in time or place2 but only the loving meditation of the pure in heart1 that can reawaken the ,eternal from the sleep within our souls3 that can render him a reality again1 and reassert for him once more his ancient name of #8the ,living ,god4' 07#cag7 ,when we see all things in ,god1 and refer all things to him1 we read in common matters superior expressions of meaning4 ,the deadness with which custom invests the familiar vanishes1 and existence as a whole appears transfigured4 ,the state of a mind thus awakened from torpor is well expressed in these words1 which ,i take from a friend's letter3-- 8,if we occupy ourselves in summing up all the mercies and bounties we are privileged to have1 we are overwhelmed by their number 7so great that we can imagine ourselves unable to give ourselves time even to begin to review the things we may imagine we have not74 ,we sum them and realize that we are actually killed with ,god's kindness2 that we are surrounded by bounties upon bounties1 without which all would fall4 ,should we not love it2 should we not feel buoyed up by the ,eternal ,arms80 ,sometimes this realization that facts are of divine sending1 instead of being habitual1 is casual1 like a mystical experience4 ,father ,gratry gives this instance from his youthful melancholy period3-- 8,one day ,i had a moment of consolation1 because ,i met with something which seemed to me ideally perfect4 ,it was a poor drummer beating the tattoo in the streets of ,paris4 ,i walked behind him in returning to the school on the evening of a holiday4 ,his drum gave out the tattoo in such a way that1 at that moment at least1 however peevish ,i were1 ,i could find no pretext for fault finding4 ,it was impossible to conceive more nerve or spirit1 better time or measure1 more clearness or richness1 than were in this drumming4 ,ideal desire could go no farther in that direction4 ,i was enchanted and consoled2 the perfection of this wretched act did me good4 ,good is at least possible1 ,i said1 since the ideal can thus sometimes get embodied407#cah7 ,in ,snancour's novel of ,obermann a similar transient lifting of the veil is recorded4 ,in ,paris streets1 on a ,march day1 he comes across a flower in bloom1 a jonquil3 8,it was the strongest expression of desire3 it was the first perfume of the year4 ,i felt all the happiness destined for man4 ,this unutterable harmony of souls1 the phantom of the ideal world1 arose in me complete4 ,i never felt anything so great or so instantaneous4 ,i know not what shape1 what analogy1 what secret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a limitless beauty4444 ,i shall never inclose in a conception this power1 this immensity that nothing will express2 this form that nothing will contain2 this ideal of a better world which one feels1 but which1 it seems1 nature has not made actual407#cai7 ,we heard in previous lectures of the vivified face of the world as it may appear to converts after their awakening47#cbj7 ,as a rule1 religious persons generally assume that whatever natural facts connect themselves in any way with their destiny are significant of the divine purposes with them4 ,through prayer the purpose1 often far from obvious1 comes home to them1 and if it be 8trial10 strength to endure the trial is given4 ,thus at all stages of the prayerful life we find the persuasion that in the process of communion energy from on high flows in to meet demand1 and becomes operative within the phenomenal world4 ,so long as this operativeness is admitted to be real1 it makes no essential difference whether its immediate effects be subjective or objective4 ,the fundamental religious point is that in prayer1 spiritual energy1 which otherwise would slumber1 does become active1 and spiritual work of some kind is effected really4 ,so much for ,prayer1 taken in the wide sense of any kind of communion4 ,as the core of religion1 we must return to it in the next lecture4 ,the last aspect of the religious life which remains for me to touch upon is the fact that its manifestations so frequently connect themselves with the subconscious part of our existence4 ,you may remember what ,i said in my opening lecture7#cba7 about the prevalence of the psychopathic temperament in religious biography4 ,you will in point of fact hardly find a religious leader of any kind in whose life there is no record of automatisms4 ,i speak not merely of savage priests and prophets1 whose followers regard automatic utterance and action as by itself tantamount to inspiration1 ,i speak of leaders of thought and subjects of intellectualized experience4 ,saint ,paul had his visions1 his ecstasies1 his gift of tongues1 small as was the importance he attached to the latter4 ,the whole array of ,christian saints and heresiarchs1 including the greatest1 the ,bernards1 the ,loyolas1 the ,luthers1 the ,foxes1 the ,wesleys1 had their visions1 voices1 rapt conditions1 guiding impressions1 and 8openings40 ,they had these things1 because they had exalted sensibility1 and to such things persons of exalted sensibility are liable4 ,in such liability there lie1 however1 consequences for theology4 ,beliefs are strengthened wherever automatisms corroborate them4 ,incursions from beyond the transmarginal region have a peculiar power to increase conviction4 ,the inchoate sense of presence is infinitely stronger than conception1 but strong as it may be1 it is seldom equal to the evidence of hallucination4 ,saints who actually see or hear their ,saviour reach the acme of assurance4 ,motor automatisms1 though rarer1 are1 if possible1 even more convincing than sensations4 ,the subjects here actually feel themselves played upon by powers beyond their will4 ,the evidence is dynamic2 the ,god or spirit moves the very organs of their body47#cbb7 ,the great field for this sense of being the instrument of a higher power is of course 8inspiration40 ,it is easy to discriminate between the religious leaders who have been habitually subject to inspiration and those who have not4 ,in the teachings of the ,buddha1 of ,jesus1 of ,saint ,paul 7apart from his gift of tongues71 of ,saint ,augustine1 of ,huss1 of ,luther1 of ,wesley1 automatic or semiautomatic composition appears to have been only occasional4 ,in the ,hebrew prophets1 on the contrary1 in ,mohammed1 in some of the ,alexandrians1 in many minor ,catholic saints1 in ,fox1 in ,joseph ,smith1 something like it appears to have been frequent1 sometimes habitual4 ,we have distinct professions of being under the direction of a foreign power1 and serving as its mouthpiece4 ,as regards the ,hebrew prophets1 it is extraordinary1 writes an author who has made a careful study of them1 to see-- 8,how1 one after another1 the same features are reproduced in the prophetic books4 ,the process is always extremely different from what it would be if the prophet arrived at his insight into spiritual things by the tentative efforts of his own genius4 ,there is something sharp and sudden about it4 ,he can lay his finger1 so to speak1 on the moment when it came4 ,and it always comes in the form of an overpowering force from without1 against which he struggles1 but in vain4 ,listen1 for instance1 to the opening of the book of ,jeremiah4 ,read through in like manner the first two chapters of the prophecy of ,ezekiel4 8,it is not1 however1 only at the beginning of his career that the prophet passes through a crisis which is clearly not selfcaused4 ,scattered all through the prophetic writings are expressions which speak of some strong and irresistible impulse coming down upon the prophet1 determining his attitude to the events of his time1 constraining his utterance1 making his words the vehicle of a higher meaning than their own4 ,for instance1 this of ,isaiah's3 #8,the ,lord spake thus to me with a strong hand1'--an emphatic phrase which denotes the overmastering nature of the impulse1--#8and instructed me that ,i should not walk in the way of this people4' 444 ,or passages like this from ,ezekiel3 #8,the hand of the ,lord ,god fell upon me1' #8,the hand of the ,lord was strong upon me4' ,the one standing characteristic of the prophet is that he speaks with the authority of ,jehovah himself4 ,hence it is that the prophets one and all preface their addresses so confidently1 #8,the ,word of the ,lord1' or #8,thus saith the ,lord4' ,they have even the audacity to speak in the first person1 as if ,jehovah himself were speaking4 ,as in ,isaiah3 #8,hearken unto me1 ,o ,jacob1 and ,israel my called2 ,i am ,he1 ,i am the ,first1 ,i also am the last1'--and so on4 ,the personality of the prophet sinks entirely into the background2 he feels himself for the time being the mouthpiece of the ,almighty407#cbc7 8,we need to remember that prophecy was a profession1 and that the prophets formed a professional class4 ,there were schools of the prophets1 in which the gift was regularly cultivated4 ,a group of young men would gather round some commanding figure--a ,samuel or an ,elisha--and would not only record or spread the knowledge of his sayings and doings1 but seek to catch themselves something of his inspiration4 ,it seems that music played its part in their exercises4444 ,it is perfectly clear that by no means all of these ,sons of the prophets ever succeeded in acquiring more than a very small share in the gift which they sought4 ,it was clearly possible to #8counterfeit' prophecy4 ,sometimes this was done deliberately4444 ,but it by no means follows that in all cases where a false message was given1 the giver of it was altogether conscious of what he was doing407#cbd7 ,here1 to take another ,jewish case1 is the way in which ,philo of ,alexandria describes his inspiration3-- 8,sometimes1 when ,i have come to my work empty1 ,i have suddenly become full2 ideas being in an invisible manner showered upon me1 and implanted in me from on high2 so that through the influence of divine inspiration1 ,i have become greatly excited1 and have known neither the place in which ,i was1 nor those who were present1 nor myself1 nor what ,i was saying1 nor what ,i was writing2 for then ,i have been conscious of a richness of interpretation1 an enjoyment of light1 a most penetrating insight1 a most manifest energy in all that was to be done2 having such effect on my mind as the clearest ocular demonstration would have on the eyes407#cbe7 ,if we turn to ,islam1 we find that ,mohammed's revelations all came from the subconscious sphere4 ,to the question in what way he got them1-- 8,mohammed is said to have answered that sometimes he heard a knell as from a bell1 and that this had the strongest effect on him2 and when the angel went away1 he had received the revelation4 ,sometimes again he held converse with the angel as with a man1 so as easily to understand his words4 ,the later authorities1 however1 444 distinguish still other kinds4 ,in the ,itgn 7#ajc7 the following are enumerated3 #a1 revelations with sound of bell1 #b1 by inspiration of the holy spirit in ,m4's heart1 #c1 by ,gabriel in human form1 #d1 by ,god immediately1 either when awake 7as in his journey to heaven7 or in dream4444 ,in ,almawhib alladunya the kinds are thus given3 #a1 ,dream1 #b1 ,inspiration of ,gabriel in the ,prophet's heart1 #c1 ,gabriel taking ,dahya's form1 #d1 with the bell sound1 etc41 #e1 ,gabriel in propri person 7only twice71 #f1 revelation in heaven1 #g1 ,god appearing in person1 but veiled1 #h1 ,god revealing himself immediately without veil4 ,others add two other stages1 namely3 #a1 ,gabriel in the form of still another man1 #b1 ,god showing himself personally in dream407#cbf7 ,in none of these cases is the revelation distinctly motor4 ,in the case of ,joseph ,smith 7who had prophetic revelations innumerable in addition to the revealed translation of the gold plates which resulted in the ,book of ,mormon71 although there may have been a motor element1 the inspiration seems to have been predominantly sensorial4 ,he began his translation by the aid of the 8peepstones0 which he found1 or thought or said that he found1 with the gold plates1--apparently a case of 8crystal gazing40 ,for some of the other revelations he used the peepstones1 but seems generally to have asked the ,lord for more direct instruction47#cbg7 ,other revelations are described as 8openings0--,fox's1 for example1 were evidently of the kind known in spiritistic circles of today as 8impressions40 ,as all effective initiators of change must needs live to some degree upon this psychopathic level of sudden perception or conviction of new truth1 or of impulse to action so obsessive that it must be worked off1 ,i will say nothing more about so very common a phenomenon4 ,when1 in addition to these phenomena of inspiration1 we take religious mysticism into the account1 when we recall the striking and sudden unifications of a discordant self which we saw in conversion1 and when we review the extravagant obsessions of tenderness1 purity1 and selfseverity met with in saintliness1 we cannot1 ,i think1 avoid the conclusion that in religion we have a department of human nature with unusually close relations to the transmarginal or subliminal region4 ,if the word 8subliminal0 is offensive to any of you1 as smelling too much of psychical research or other aberrations1 call it by any other name you please1 to distinguish it from the level of full sunlit consciousness4 ,call this latter the ,aregion of personality1 if you care to1 and call the other the ,bregion4 ,the ,bregion1 then1 is obviously the larger part of each of us1 for it is the abode of everything that is latent and the reservoir of everything that passes unrecorded or unobserved4 ,it contains1 for example1 such things as all our momentarily inactive memories1 and it harbors the springs of all our obscurely motived passions1 impulses1 likes1 dislikes1 and prejudices4 ,our intuitions1 hypotheses1 fancies1 superstitions1 persuasions1 convictions1 and in general all our nonrational operations1 come from it4 ,it is the source of our dreams1 and apparently they may return to it4 ,in it arise whatever mystical experiences we may have1 and our automatisms1 sensory or motor2 our life in hypnotic and 8hypnoid0 conditions1 if we are subjects to such conditions2 our delusions1 fixed ideas1 and hysterical accidents1 if we are hysteric subjects2 our supra normal cognitions1 if such there be1 and if we are telepathic subjects4 ,it is also the fountainhead of much that feeds our religion4 ,in persons deep in the religious life1 as we have now abundantly seen1--and this is my conclusion1--the door into this region seems unusually wide open2 at any rate1 experiences making their entrance through that door have had emphatic influence in shaping religious history4 ,with this conclusion ,i turn back and close the circle which ,i opened in my first lecture1 terminating thus the review which ,i then announced of inner religious phenomena as we find them in developed and articulate human individuals4 ,i might easily1 if the time allowed1 multiply both my documents and my discriminations1 but a broad treatment is1 ,i believe1 in itself better1 and the most important characteristics of the subject lie1 ,i think1 before us already4 ,in the next lecture1 which is also the last one1 we must try to draw the critical conclusions which so much material may suggest4 ,,lecture ,,xx4 ,,conclusions4 ,the material of our study of human nature is now spread before us2 and in this parting hour1 set free from the duty of description1 we can draw our theoretical and practical conclusions4 ,in my first lecture1 defending the empirical method1 ,i foretold that whatever conclusions we might come to could be reached by spiritual judgments only1 appreciations of the significance for life of religion1 taken 8on the whole40 ,our conclusions cannot be as sharp as dogmatic conclusions would be1 but ,i will formulate them1 when the time comes1 as sharply as ,i can4 ,summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the religious life1 as we have found them1 it includes the following beliefs3-- #a4 ,that the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance2 #b4 ,that union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end2 #c4 ,that prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof--be that spirit 8,god0 or 8law0--is a process wherein work is really done1 and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects1 psychological or material1 within the phenomenal world4 ,religion includes also the following psychological characteristics3-- #d4 ,a new zest which adds itself like a gift to life1 and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism4 #e4 ,an assurance of safety and a temper of peace1 and1 in relation to others1 a preponderance of loving affections4 ,in illustrating these characteristics by documents1 we have been literally bathed in sentiment4 ,in rereading my manuscript1 ,i am almost appalled at the amount of emotionality which ,i find in it4 ,after so much of this1 we can afford to be dryer and less sympathetic in the rest of the work that lies before us4 ,the sentimentality of many of my documents is a consequence of the fact that ,i sought them among the extravagances of the subject4 ,if any of you are enemies of what our ancestors used to brand as enthusiasm1 and are1 nevertheless1 still listening to me now1 you have probably felt my selection to have been sometimes almost perverse1 and have wished ,i might have stuck to soberer examples4 ,i reply that ,i took these extremer examples as yielding the profounder information4 ,to learn the secrets of any science1 we go to expert specialists1 even though they may be eccentric persons1 and not to commonplace pupils4 ,we combine what they tell us with the rest of our wisdom1 and form our final judgment independently4 ,even so with religion4 ,we who have pursued such radical expressions of it may now be sure that we know its secrets as authentically as any one can know them who learns them from another2 and we have next to answer1 each of us for himself1 the practical question3 what are the dangers in this element of life8 and in what proportion may it need to be restrained by other elements1 to give the proper balance8 ,but this question suggests another one which ,i will answer immediately and get it out of the way1 for it has more than once already vexed us47#cbh7 ,ought it to be assumed that in all men the mixture of religion with other elements should be identical8 ,ought it1 indeed1 to be assumed that the lives of all men should show identical religious elements8 ,in other words1 is the existence of so many religious types and sects and creeds regrettable8 ,to these questions ,i answer 8,no0 emphatically4 ,and my reason is that ,i do not see how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such different powers as human individuals are1 should have exactly the same functions and the same duties4 ,no two of us have identical difficulties1 nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions4 ,each1 from his peculiar angle of observation1 takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble1 which each must deal with in a unique manner4 ,one of us must soften himself1 another must harden himself2 one must yield a point1 another must stand firm1--in order the better to defend the position assigned him4 ,if an ,emerson were forced to be a ,wesley1 or a ,moody forced to be a ,whitman1 the total human consciousness of the divine would suffer4 ,the divine can mean no single quality1 it must mean a group of qualities1 by being champions of which in alternation1 different men may all find worthy missions4 ,each attitude being a syllable in human nature's total message1 it takes the whole of us to spell the meaning out completely4 ,so a 8god of battles0 must be allowed to be the god for one kind of person1 a god of peace and heaven and home1 the god for another4 ,we must frankly recognize the fact that we live in partial systems1 and that parts are not interchangeable in the spiritual life4 ,if we are peevish and jealous1 destruction of the self must be an element of our religion2 why need it be one if we are good and sympathetic from the outset8 ,if we are sick souls1 we require a religion of deliverance2 but why think so much of deliverance1 if we are healthyminded87#cbi7 ,unquestionably1 some men have the completer experience and the higher vocation1 here just as in the social world2 but for each man to stay in his own experience1 whate'er it be1 and for others to tolerate him there1 is surely best4 ,but1 you may now ask1 would not this onesidedness be cured if we should all espouse the science of religions as our own religion8 ,in answering this question ,i must open again the general relations of the theoretic to the active life4 ,knowledge about a thing is not the thing itself4 ,you remember what ,al ,ghazzali told us in the ,lecture on ,mysticism1--that to understand the causes of drunkenness1 as a physician understands them1 is not to be drunk4 ,a science might come to understand everything about the causes and elements of religion1 and might even decide which elements were qualified1 by their general harmony with other branches of knowledge1 to be considered true2 and yet the best man at this science might be the man who found it hardest to be personally devout4 ,tout savoir c'est tout pardonner4 ,the name of ,renan would doubtless occur to many persons as an example of the way in which breadth of knowledge may make one only a dilettante in possibilities1 and blunt the acuteness of one's living faith47#ccj7 ,if religion be a function by which either ,god's cause or man's cause is to be really advanced1 then he who lives the life of it1 however narrowly1 is a better servant than he who merely knows about it1 however much4 ,knowledge about life is one thing2 effective occupation of a place in life1 with its dynamic currents passing through your being1 is another4 ,for this reason1 the science of religions may not be an equivalent for living religion2 and if we turn to the inner difficulties of such a science1 we see that a point comes when she must drop the purely theoretic attitude1 and either let her knots remain uncut1 or have them cut by active faith4 ,to see this1 suppose that we have our science of religions constituted as a matter of fact4 ,suppose that she has assimilated all the necessary historical material and distilled out of it as its essence the same conclusions which ,i myself a few moments ago pronounced4 ,suppose that she agrees that religion1 wherever it is an active thing1 involves a belief in ideal presences1 and a belief that in our prayerful communion with them17#cca7 work is done1 and something real comes to pass4 ,she has now to exert her critical activity1 and to decide how far1 in the light of other sciences and in that of general philosophy1 such beliefs can be considered true4 ,dogmatically to decide this is an impossible task4 ,not only are the other sciences and the philosophy still far from being completed1 but in their present state we find them full of conflicts4 ,the sciences of nature know nothing of spiritual presences1 and on the whole hold no practical commerce whatever with the idealistic conceptions towards which general philosophy inclines4 ,the scientist1 socalled1 is1 during his scientific hours at least1 so materialistic that one may well say that on the whole the influence of science goes against the notion that religion should be recognized at all4 ,and this antipathy to religion finds an echo within the very science of religions itself4 ,the cultivator of this science has to become acquainted with so many groveling and horrible superstitions that a presumption easily arises in his mind that any belief that is religious probably is false4 ,in the 8prayerful communion0 of savages with such mumbojumbos of deities as they acknowledge1 it is hard for us to see what genuine spiritual work--even though it were work relative only to their dark savage obligations--can possibly be done4 ,the consequence is that the conclusions of the science of religions are as likely to be adverse as they are to be favorable to the claim that the essence of religion is true4 ,there is a notion in the air about us that religion is probably only an anachronism1 a case of 8survival10 an atavistic relapse into a mode of thought which humanity in its more enlightened examples has outgrown2 and this notion our religious anthropologists at present do little to counteract4 ,this view is so widespread at the present day that ,i must consider it with some explicitness before ,i pass to my own conclusions4 ,let me call it the 8,survival theory10 for brevity's sake4 ,the pivot round which the religious life1 as we have traced it1 revolves1 is the interest of the individual in his private personal destiny4 ,religion1 in short1 is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism4 ,the gods believed in--whether by crude savages or by men disciplined intellectually--agree with each other in recognizing personal calls4 ,religious thought is carried on in terms of personality1 this being1 in the world of religion1 the one fundamental fact4 ,today1 quite as much as at any previous age1 the religious individual tells you that the divine meets him on the basis of his personal concerns4 ,science1 on the other hand1 has ended by utterly repudiating the personal point of view4 ,she catalogues her elements and records her laws indifferent as to what purpose may be shown forth by them1 and constructs her theories quite careless of their bearing on human anxieties and fates4 ,though the scientist may individually nourish a religion1 and be a theist in his irresponsible hours1 the days are over when it could be said that for ,science herself the heavens declare the glory of ,god and the firmament showeth his handiwork4 ,our solar system1 with its harmonies1 is seen now as but one passing case of a certain sort of moving equilibrium in the heavens1 realized by a local accident in an appalling wilderness of worlds where no life can exist4 ,in a span of time which as a cosmic interval will count but as an hour1 it will have ceased to be4 ,the ,darwinian notion of chance production1 and subsequent destruction1 speedy or deferred1 applies to the largest as well as to the smallest facts4 ,it is impossible1 in the present temper of the scientific imagination1 to find in the driftings of the cosmic atoms1 whether they work on the universal or on the particular scale1 anything but a kind of aimless weather1 doing and undoing1 achieving no proper history1 and leaving no result4 ,nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to feel a sympathy4 ,in the vast rhythm of her processes1 as the scientific mind now follows them1 she appears to cancel herself4 ,the books of natural theology which satisfied the intellects of our grandfathers seem to us quite grotesque17#ccb7 representing1 as they did1 a ,god who conformed the largest things of nature to the paltriest of our private wants4 ,the ,god whom science recognizes must be a ,god of universal laws exclusively1 a ,god who does a wholesale1 not a retail business4 ,he cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals4 ,the bubbles on the foam which coats a stormy sea are floating episodes1 made and unmade by the forces of the wind and water4 ,our private selves are like those bubbles1--epiphenomena1 as ,clifford1 ,i believe1 ingeniously called them2 their destinies weigh nothing and determine nothing in the world's irremediable currents of events4 ,you see how natural it is1 from this point of view1 to treat religion as a mere survival1 for religion does in fact perpetuate the traditions of the most primeval thought4 ,to coerce the spiritual powers1 or to square them and get them on our side1 was1 during enormous tracts of time1 the one great object in our dealings with the natural world4 ,for our ancestors1 dreams1 hallucinations1 revelations1 and cockandbull stories were inextricably mixed with facts4 ,up to a comparatively recent date such distinctions as those between what has been verified and what is only conjectured1 between the impersonal and the personal aspects of existence1 were hardly suspected or conceived4 ,whatever you imagined in a lively manner1 whatever you thought fit to be true1 you affirmed confidently2 and whatever you affirmed1 your comrades believed4 ,truth was what had not yet been contradicted1 most things were taken into the mind from the point of view of their human suggestiveness1 and the attention confined itself exclusively to the sthetic and dramatic aspects of events47#ccc7 ,how indeed could it be otherwise8 ,the extraordinary value1 for explanation and prevision1 of those mathematical and mechanical modes of conception which science uses1 was a result that could not possibly have been expected in advance4 ,weight1 movement1 velocity1 direction1 position1 what thin1 pallid1 uninteresting ideas6 ,how could the richer animistic aspects of ,nature1 the peculiarities and oddities that make phenomena picturesquely striking or expressive1 fail to have been first singled out and followed by philosophy as the more promising avenue to the knowledge of ,nature's life8 ,well1 it is still in these richer animistic and dramatic aspects that religion delights to dwell4 ,it is the terror and beauty of phenomena1 the 8promise0 of the dawn and of the rainbow1 the 8voice0 of the thunder1 the 8gentleness0 of the summer rain1 the 8sublimity0 of the stars1 and not the physical laws which these things follow1 by which the religious mind still continues to be most impressed2 and just as of yore1 the devout man tells you that in the solitude of his room or of the fields he still feels the divine presence1 that inflowings of help come in reply to his prayers1 and that sacrifices to this unseen reality fill him with security and peace4 ,pure anachronism6 says the survivaltheory2--anachronism for which deanthropomorphization of the imagination is the remedy required4 ,the less we mix the private with the cosmic1 the more we dwell in universal and impersonal terms1 the truer heirs of ,science we become4 ,in spite of the appeal which this impersonality of the scientific attitude makes to a certain magnanimity of temper1 ,i believe it to be shallow1 and ,i can now state my reason in comparatively few words4 ,that reason is that1 so long as we deal with the cosmic and the general1 we deal only with the symbols of reality1 but as soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena as such1 we deal with realities in the completest sense of the term4 ,i think ,i can easily make clear what ,i mean by these words4 ,the world of our experience consists at all times of two parts1 an objective and a subjective part1 of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter1 and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed4 ,the objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of1 the subjective part is the inner 8state0 in which the thinking comes to pass4 ,what we think of may be enormous1--the cosmic times and spaces1 for example1--whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of mind4 ,yet the cosmic objects1 so far as the experience yields them1 are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point at outwardly1 while the inner state is our very experience itself2 its reality and that of our experience are one4 ,a conscious field plus its object as felt or thought of plus an attitude towards the object plus the sense of a self to whom the attitude belongs--such a concrete bit of personal experience may be a small bit1 but it is a solid bit as long as it lasts2 not hollow1 not a mere abstract element of experience1 such as the 8object0 is when taken all alone4 ,it is a full fact1 even though it be an insignificant fact2 it is of the kind to which all realities whatsoever must belong2 the motor currents of the world run through the like of it2 it is on the line connecting real events with real events4 ,that unsharable feeling which each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny as he privately feels it rolling out on fortune's wheel may be disparaged for its egotism1 may be sneered at as unscientific1 but it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality1 and any wouldbe existent that should lack such a feeling1 or its analogue1 would be a piece of reality only half made up47#ccd7 ,if this be true1 it is absurd for science to say that the egotistic elements of experience should be suppressed4 ,the axis of reality runs solely through the egotistic places1--they are strung upon it like so many beads4 ,to describe the world with all the various feelings of the individual pinch of destiny1 all the various spiritual attitudes1 left out from the description--they being as describable as anything else--would be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the equivalent for a solid meal4 ,religion makes no such blunder4 ,the individual's religion may be egotistic1 and those private realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough2 but at any rate it always remains infinitely less hollow and abstract1 as far as it goes1 than a science which prides itself on taking no account of anything private at all4 ,a bill of fare with one real raisin on it instead of the word 8raisin10 with one real egg instead of the word 8egg10 might be an inadequate meal1 but it would at least be a commencement of reality4 ,the contention of the survivaltheory that we ought to stick to nonpersonal elements exclusively seems like saying that we ought to be satisfied forever with reading the naked bill of fare4 ,i think1 therefore1 that however particular questions connected with our individual destinies may be answered1 it is only by acknowledging them as genuine questions1 and living in the sphere of thought which they open up1 that we become profound4 ,but to live thus is to be religious2 so ,i unhesitatingly repudiate the survivaltheory of religion1 as being founded on an egregious mistake4 ,it does not follow1 because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion1 that we should therefore leave off being religious at all47#cce7 ,by being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard4 ,our responsible concern is with our private destiny1 after all4 ,you see now why ,i have been so individualistic throughout these lectures1 and why ,i have seemed so bent on rehabilitating the element of feeling in religion and subordinating its intellectual part4 ,individuality is founded in feeling2 and the recesses of feeling1 the darker1 blinder strata of character1 are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making1 and directly perceive how events happen1 and how work is actually done47#ccf7 ,compared with this world of living individualized feelings1 the world of generalized objects which the intellect contemplates is without solidity or life4 ,as in stereoscopic or kinetoscopic pictures seen outside the instrument1 the third dimension1 the movement1 the vital element1 are not there4 ,we get a beautiful picture of an express train supposed to be moving1 but where in the picture1 as ,i have heard a friend say1 is the energy or the fifty miles an hour87#ccg7 ,let us agree1 then1 that ,religion1 occupying herself with personal destinies and keeping thus in contact with the only absolute realities which we know1 must necessarily play an eternal part in human history4 ,the next thing to decide is what she reveals about those destinies1 or whether indeed she reveals anything distinct enough to be considered a general message to mankind4 ,we have done as you see1 with our preliminaries1 and our final summing up can now begin4 ,i am well aware that after all the palpitating documents which ,i have quoted1 and all the perspectives of emotioninspiring institution and belief that my previous lectures have opened1 the dry analysis to which ,i now advance may appear to many of you like an anticlimax1 a taperingoff and flattening out of the subject1 instead of a crescendo of interest and result4 ,i said awhile ago that the religious attitude of ,protestants appears povertystricken to the ,catholic imagination4 ,still more poverty stricken1 ,i fear1 may my final summing up of the subject appear at first to some of you4 ,on which account ,i pray you now to bear this point in mind1 that in the present part of it ,i am expressly trying to reduce religion to its lowest admissible terms1 to that minimum1 free from individualistic excrescences1 which all religions contain as their nucleus1 and on which it may be hoped that all religious persons may agree4 ,that established1 we should have a result which might be small1 but would at least be solid2 and on it and round it the ruddier additional beliefs on which the different individuals make their venture might be grafted1 and flourish as richly as you please4 ,i shall add my own over belief 7which will be1 ,i confess1 of a somewhat pallid kind1 as befits a critical philosopher71 and you will1 ,i hope1 also add your overbeliefs1 and we shall soon be in the varied world of concrete religious constructions once more4 ,for the moment1 let me dryly pursue the analytic part of the task4 ,both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct1 and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought4 ,when we survey the whole field of religion1 we find a great variety in the thoughts that have prevailed there2 but the feelings on the one hand and the conduct on the other are almost always the same1 for ,stoic1 ,christian1 and ,buddhist saints are practically indistinguishable in their lives4 ,the theories which ,religion generates1 being thus variable1 are secondary2 and if you wish to grasp her essence1 you must look to the feelings and the conduct as being the more constant elements4 ,it is between these two elements that the short circuit exists on which she carries on her principal business1 while the ideas and symbols and other institutions form looplines which may be perfections and improvements1 and may even some day all be united into one harmonious system1 but which are not to be regarded as organs with an indispensable function1 necessary at all times for religious life to go on4 ,this seems to me the first conclusion which we are entitled to draw from the phenomena we have passed in review4 ,the next step is to characterize the feelings4 ,to what psychological order do they belong8 ,the resultant outcome of them is in any case what ,kant calls a 8sthenic0 affection1 an excitement of the cheerful1 expansive1 8dynamogenic0 order which1 like any tonic1 freshens our vital powers4 ,in almost every lecture1 but especially in the lectures on ,conversion and on ,saintliness1 we have seen how this emotion overcomes temperamental melancholy and imparts endurance to the ,subject1 or a zest1 or a meaning1 or an enchantment and glory to the common objects of life47#cch7 ,the name of 8faithstate10 by which ,professor ,leuba designates it1 is a good one47#cci7 ,it is a biological as well as a psychological condition1 and ,tolstoy is absolutely accurate in classing faith among the forces by which men live47#cdj7 ,the total absence of it1 anhedonia17#cda7 means collapse4 ,the faithstate may hold a very minimum of intellectual content4 ,we saw examples of this in those sudden raptures of the divine presence1 or in such mystical seizures as ,dr4 ,bucke described47#cdb7 ,it may be a mere vague enthusiasm1 half spiritual1 half vital1 a courage1 and a feeling that great and wondrous things are in the air47#cdc7 ,when1 however1 a positive intellectual content is associated with a faith state1 it gets invincibly stamped in upon belief17#cdd7 and this explains the passionate loyalty of religious persons everywhere to the minutest details of their so widely differing creeds4 ,taking creeds and faithstate together1 as forming 8religions10 and treating these as purely subjective phenomena1 without regard to the question of their 8truth10 we are obliged1 on account of their extraordinary influence upon action and endurance1 to class them amongst the most important biological functions of mankind4 ,their stimulant and ansthetic effect is so great that ,professor ,leuba1 in a recent article17#cde7 goes so far as to say that so long as men can use their ,god1 they care very little who he is1 or even whether he is at all4 8,the truth of the matter can be put10 says ,leuba1 8in this way3 ,god is not known1 he is not understood2 he is used--sometimes as meatpurveyor1 sometimes as moral support1 sometimes as friend1 sometimes as an object of love4 ,if he proves himself useful1 the religious consciousness asks for no more than that4 ,does ,god really exist8 ,how does he exist8 ,what is he8 are so many irrelevant questions4 ,not ,god1 but life1 more life1 a larger1 richer1 more satisfying life1 is1 in the last analysis1 the end of religion4 ,the love of life1 at any and every level of development1 is the religious impulse407#cdf7 ,at this purely subjective rating1 therefore1 ,religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics4 ,it would seem that she cannot be a mere anachronism and survival1 but must exert a permanent function1 whether she be with or without intellectual content1 and whether1 if she have any1 it be true or false4 ,we must next pass beyond the point of view of merely subjective utility1 and make inquiry into the intellectual content itself4 ,first1 is there1 under all the discrepancies of the creeds1 a common nucleus to which they bear their testimony unanimously8 ,and second1 ought we to consider the testimony true8 ,i will take up the first question first1 and answer it immediately in the affirmative4 ,the warring gods and formulas of the various religions do indeed cancel each other1 but there is a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet4 ,it consists of two parts3-- #a4 ,an uneasiness2 and #b4 ,its solution4 #a4 ,the uneasiness1 reduced to its simplest terms1 is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand4 #b4 ,the solution is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers4 ,in those more developed minds which alone we are studying1 the wrongness takes a moral character1 and the salvation takes a mystical tinge4 ,i think we shall keep well within the limits of what is common to all such minds if we formulate the essence of their religious experience in terms like these3-- ,the individual1 so far as he suffers from his wrongness and criticises it1 is to that extent consciously beyond it1 and in at least possible touch with something higher1 if anything higher exist4 ,along with the wrong part there is thus a better part of him1 even though it may be but a most helpless germ4 ,with which part he should identify his real being is by no means obvious at this stage2 but when stage #b 7the stage of solution or salvation7 arrives17#cdg7 the man identifies his real being with the germinal higher part of himself2 and does so in the following way4 ,he becomes conscious that this higher part is conterminous and continuous with a ,,more of the same quality1 which is operative in the universe outside of him1 and which he can keep in working touch with1 and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck4 ,it seems to me that all the phenomena are accurately describable in these very simple general terms47#cdh7 ,they allow for the divided self and the struggle2 they involve the change of personal centre and the surrender of the lower self2 they express the appearance of exteriority of the helping power and yet account for our sense of union with it27#cdi7 and they fully justify our feelings of security and joy4 ,there is probably no autobiographic document1 among all those which ,i have quoted1 to which the description will not well apply4 ,one need only add such specific details as will adapt it to various theologies and various personal temperaments1 and one will then have the various experiences reconstructed in their individual forms4 ,so far1 however1 as this analysis goes1 the experiences are only psychological phenomena4 ,they possess1 it is true1 enormous biological worth4 ,spiritual strength really increases in the subject when he has them1 a new life opens for him1 and they seem to him a place of conflux where the forces of two universes meet2 and yet this may be nothing but his subjective way of feeling things1 a mood of his own fancy1 in spite of the effects produced4 ,i now turn to my second question3 ,what is the objective 8truth0 of their content87#cej7 ,the part of the content concerning which the question of truth most pertinently arises is that 8,,more of the same quality0 with which our own higher self appears in the experience to come into harmonious working relation4 ,is such a 8more0 merely our own notion1 or does it really exist8 ,if so1 in what shape does it exist8 ,does it act1 as well as exist8 ,and in what form should we conceive of that 8union0 with it of which religious geniuses are so convinced8 ,it is in answering these questions that the various theologies perform their theoretic work1 and that their divergencies most come to light4 ,they all agree that the 8more0 really exists2 though some of them hold it to exist in the shape of a personal god or gods1 while others are satisfied to conceive it as a stream of ideal tendency embedded in the eternal structure of the world4 ,they all agree1 moreover1 that it acts as well as exists1 and that something really is effected for the better when you throw your life into its hands4 ,it is when they treat of the experience of 8union0 with it that their speculative differences appear most clearly4 ,over this point pantheism and theism1 nature and second birth1 works and grace and karma1 immortality and reincarnation1 rationalism and mysticism1 carry on inveterate disputes4 ,at the end of my lecture on ,philosophy7#cea7 ,i held out the notion that an impartial science of religions might sift out from the midst of their discrepancies a common body of doctrine which she might also formulate in terms to which physical science need not object4 ,this1 ,i said1 she might adopt as her own reconciling hypothesis1 and recommend it for general belief4 ,i also said that in my last lecture ,i should have to try my own hand at framing such an hypothesis4 ,the time has now come for this attempt4 ,who says 8hypothesis0 renounces the ambition to be coercive in his arguments4 ,the most ,i can do is1 accordingly1 to offer something that may fit the facts so easily that your scientific logic will find no plausible pretext for vetoing your impulse to welcome it as true4 ,the 8more10 as we called it1 and the meaning of our 8union0 with it1 form the nucleus of our inquiry4 ,into what definite description can these words be translated1 and for what definite facts do they stand8 ,it would never do for us to place ourselves offhand at the position of a particular theology1 the ,christian theology1 for example1 and proceed immediately to define the 8more0 as ,jehovah1 and the 8union0 as his imputation to us of the righteousness of ,christ4 ,that would be unfair to other religions1 and1 from our present standpoint at least1 would be an overbelief4 ,we must begin by using less particularized terms2 and1 since one of the duties of the science of religions is to keep religion in connection with the rest of science1 we shall do well to seek first of all a way of describing the 8more10 which psychologists may also recognize as real4 ,the subconscious self is nowadays a wellaccredited psychological entity2 and ,i believe that in it we have exactly the mediating term required4 ,apart from all religious considerations1 there is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any time aware of4 ,the exploration of the transmarginal field has hardly yet been seriously undertaken1 but what ,mr4 ,myers said in #ahib in his essay on the ,subliminal ,consciousness7#ceb7 is as true as when it was first written3 8,each of us is in reality an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows--an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation4 ,the ,self manifests through the organism2 but there is always some part of the ,self unmanifested2 and always1 as it seems1 some power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve407#cec7 ,much of the content of this larger background against which our conscious being stands out in relief is insignificant4 ,imperfect memories1 silly jingles1 inhibitive timidities1 8dissolutive0 phenomena of various sorts1 as ,myers calls them1 enter into it for a large part4 ,but in it many of the performances of genius seem also to have their origin2 and in our study of conversion1 of mystical experiences1 and of prayer1 we have seen how striking a part invasions from this region play in the religious life4 ,let me then propose1 as an hypothesis1 that whatever it may be on its farther side1 the 8more0 with which in religious experience we feel ourselves connected is on its hither side the subconscious continuation of our conscious life4 ,starting thus with a recognized psychological fact as our basis1 we seem to preserve a contact with 8science0 which the ordinary theologian lacks4 ,at the same time the theologian's contention that the religious man is moved by an external power is vindicated1 for it is one of the peculiarities of invasions from the subconscious region to take on objective appearances1 and to suggest to the ,subject an external control4 ,in the religious life the control is felt as 8higher02 but since on our hypothesis it is primarily the higher faculties of our own hidden mind which are controlling1 the sense of union with the power beyond us is a sense of something1 not merely apparently1 but literally true4 ,this doorway into the subject seems to me the best one for a science of religions1 for it mediates between a number of different points of view4 ,yet it is only a doorway1 and difficulties present themselves as soon as we step through it1 and ask how far our transmarginal consciousness carries us if we follow it on its remoter side4 ,here the overbeliefs begin3 here mysticism and the conversionrapture and ,vedantism and transcendental idealism bring in their monistic interpretations7#ced7 and tell us that the finite self rejoins the absolute self1 for it was always one with ,god and identical with the soul of the world47#cee7 ,here the prophets of all the different religions come with their visions1 voices1 raptures1 and other openings1 supposed by each to authenticate his own peculiar faith4 ,those of us who are not personally favored with such specific revelations must stand outside of them altogether and1 for the present at least1 decide that1 since they corroborate incompatible theological doctrines1 they neutralize one another and leave no fixed result4 ,if we follow any one of them1 or if we follow philosophical theory and embrace monistic pantheism on nonmystical grounds1 we do so in the exercise of our individual freedom1 and build out our religion in the way most congruous with our personal susceptibilities4 ,among these susceptibilities intellectual ones play a decisive part4 ,although the religious question is primarily a question of life1 of living or not living in the higher union which opens itself to us as a gift1 yet the spiritual excitement in which the gift appears a real one will often fail to be aroused in an individual until certain particular intellectual beliefs or ideas which1 as we say1 come home to him1 are touched47#cef7 ,these ideas will thus be essential to that individual's religion2--which is as much as to say that overbeliefs in various directions are absolutely indispensable1 and that we should treat them with tenderness and tolerance so long as they are not intolerant themselves4 ,as ,i have elsewhere written1 the most interesting and valuable things about a man are usually his overbeliefs4 ,disregarding the overbeliefs1 and confining ourselves to what is common and generic1 we have in the fact that the conscious person is continuous with a wider self through which saving experiences come17#ceg7 a positive content of religious experience which1 it seems to me1 is literally and objectively true as far as it goes4 ,if ,i now proceed to state my own hypothesis about the farther limits of this extension of our personality1 ,i shall be offering my own overbelief--though ,i know it will appear a sorry underbelief to some of you--for which ,i can only bespeak the same indulgence which in a converse case ,i should accord to yours4 ,the further limits of our being plunge1 it seems to me1 into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 8understandable0 world4 ,name it the mystical region1 or the supernatural region1 whichever you choose4 ,so far as our ideal impulses originate in this region 7and most of them do originate in it1 for we find them possessing us in a way for which we cannot articulately account71 we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world1 for we belong in the most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong4 ,yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal1 for it produces effects in this world4 ,when we commune with it1 work is actually done upon our finite personality1 for we are turned into new men1 and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change47#ceh7 ,but that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself1 so ,i feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal4 ,god is the natural appellation1 for us ,christians at least1 for the supreme reality1 so ,i will call this higher part of the universe by the name of ,god47#cei7 ,we and ,god have business with each other2 and in opening ourselves to his influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled4 ,the universe1 at those parts of it which our personal being constitutes1 takes a turn genuinely for the worse or for the better in proportion as each one of us fulfills or evades ,god's demands4 ,as far as this goes ,i probably have you with me1 for ,i only translate into schematic language what ,i may call the instinctive belief of mankind3 ,god is real since he produces real effects4 ,the real effects in question1 so far as ,i have as yet admitted them1 are exerted on the personal centres of energy of the various subjects1 but the spontaneous faith of most of the subjects is that they embrace a wider sphere than this4 ,most religious men believe 7or 8know10 if they be mystical7 that not only they themselves1 but the whole universe of beings to whom the ,god is present1 are secure in his parental hands4 ,there is a sense1 a dimension1 they are sure1 in which we are all saved1 in spite of the gates of hell and all adverse terrestrial appearances4 ,god's existence is the guarantee of an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved4 ,this world may indeed1 as science assures us1 some day burn up or freeze2 but if it is part of his order1 the old ideals are sure to be brought elsewhere to fruition1 so that where ,god is1 tragedy is only provisional and partial1 and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things4 ,only when this farther step of faith concerning ,god is taken1 and remote objective consequences are predicted1 does religion1 as it seems to me1 get wholly free from the first immediate subjective experience1 and bring a real hypothesis into play4 ,a good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain1 otherwise it is not prolific enough4 ,god1 meaning only what enters into the religious man's experience of union1 falls short of being an hypothesis of this more useful order4 ,he needs to enter into wider cosmic relations in order to justify the subject's absolute confidence and peace4 ,that the ,god with whom1 starting from the hither side of our own extra marginal self1 we come at its remoter margin into commerce should be the absolute worldruler1 is of course a very considerable overbelief4 ,over belief as it is1 though1 it is an article of almost every one's religion4 ,most of us pretend in some way to prop it upon our philosophy1 but the philosophy itself is really propped upon this faith4 ,what is this but to say that ,religion1 in her fullest exercise of function1 is not a mere illumination of facts already elsewhere given1 not a mere passion1 like love1 which views things in a rosier light4 ,it is indeed that1 as we have seen abundantly4 ,but it is something more1 namely1 a postulator of new facts as well4 ,the world interpreted religiously is not the materialistic world over again1 with an altered expression2 it must have1 over and above the altered expression1 a natural constitution different at some point from that which a materialistic world would have4 ,it must be such that different events can be expected in it1 different conduct must be required4 ,this thoroughly 8pragmatic0 view of religion has usually been taken as a matter of course by common men4 ,they have interpolated divine miracles into the field of nature1 they have built a heaven out beyond the grave4 ,it is only transcendentalist metaphysicians who think that1 without adding any concrete details to ,nature1 or subtracting any1 but by simply calling it the expression of absolute spirit1 you make it more divine just as it stands4 ,i believe the pragmatic way of taking religion to be the deeper way4 ,it gives it body as well as soul1 it makes it claim1 as everything real must claim1 some characteristic realm of fact as its very own4 ,what the more characteristically divine facts are1 apart from the actual inflow of energy in the faithstate and the prayerstate1 ,i know not4 ,but the over belief on which ,i am ready to make my personal venture is that they exist4 ,the whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist1 and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also2 and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete1 yet the two become continuous at certain points1 and higher energies filter in4 ,by being faithful in my poor measure to this overbelief1 ,i seem to myself to keep more sane and true4 ,i can1 of course1 put myself into the sectarian scientist's attitude1 and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and of scientific laws and objects may be all4 ,but whenever ,i do this1 ,i hear that inward monitor of which ,w4 ,k4 ,clifford once wrote1 whispering the word 8bosh60 ,humbug is humbug1 even though it bear the scientific name1 and the total expression of human experience1 as ,i view it objectively1 invincibly urges me beyond the narrow 8scientific0 bounds4 ,assuredly1 the real world is of a different temperament1--more intricately built than physical science allows4 ,so my objective and my subjective conscience both hold me to the overbelief which ,i express4 ,who knows whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their own poor overbeliefs may not actually help ,god in turn to be more effectively faithful to his own greater tasks8 ,,postscript4 ,in writing my concluding lecture ,i had to aim so much at simplification that ,i fear that my general philosophic position received so scant a statement as hardly to be intelligible to some of my readers4 ,i therefore add this epilogue1 which must also be so brief as possibly to remedy but little the defect4 ,in a later work ,i may be enabled to state my position more amply and consequently more clearly4 ,originality cannot be expected in a field like this1 where all the attitudes and tempers that are possible have been exhibited in literature long ago1 and where any new writer can immediately be classed under a familiar head4 ,if one should make a division of all thinkers into naturalists and supernaturalists1 ,i should undoubtedly have to go1 along with most philosophers1 into the supernaturalist branch4 ,but there is a crasser and a more refined supernaturalism1 and it is to the refined division that most philosophers at the present day belong4 ,if not regular transcendental idealists1 they at least obey the ,kantian direction enough to bar out ideal entities from interfering causally in the course of phenomenal events4 ,refined supernaturalism is universalistic supernaturalism2 for the 8crasser0 variety 8piecemeal0 supernaturalism would perhaps be the better name4 ,it went with that older theology which today is supposed to reign only among uneducated people1 or to be found among the few belated professors of the dualisms which ,kant is thought to have displaced4 ,it admits miracles and providential leadings1 and finds no intellectual difficulty in mixing the ideal and the real worlds together by interpolating influences from the ideal region among the forces that causally determine the real world's details4 ,in this the refined supernaturalists think that it muddles disparate dimensions of existence4 ,for them the world of the ideal has no efficient causality1 and never bursts into the world of phenomena at particular points4 ,the ideal world1 for them1 is not a world of facts1 but only of the meaning of facts2 it is a point of view for judging facts4 ,it appertains to a different 8ology10 and inhabits a different dimension of being altogether from that in which existential propositions obtain4 ,it cannot get down upon the flat level of experience and interpolate itself piecemeal between distinct portions of nature1 as those who believe1 for example1 in divine aid coming in response to prayer1 are bound to think it must4 ,notwithstanding my own inability to accept either popular ,christianity or scholastic theism1 ,i suppose that my belief that in communion with the ,ideal new force comes into the world1 and new departures are made here below1 subjects me to being classed among the supernaturalists of the piecemeal or crasser type4 ,universalistic supernaturalism surrenders1 it seems to me1 too easily to naturalism4 ,it takes the facts of physical science at their facevalue1 and leaves the laws of life just as naturalism finds them1 with no hope of remedy1 in case their fruits are bad4 ,it confines itself to sentiments about life as a whole1 sentiments which may be admiring and adoring1 but which need not be so1 as the existence of systematic pessimism proves4 ,in this universalistic way of taking the ideal world1 the essence of practical religion seems to me to evaporate4 ,both instinctively and for logical reasons1 ,i find it hard to believe that principles can exist which make no difference in facts47#cfj7 ,but all facts are particular facts1 and the whole interest of the question of ,god's existence seems to me to lie in the consequences for particulars which that existence may be expected to entail4 ,that no concrete particular of experience should alter its complexion in consequence of a ,god being there seems to me an incredible proposition1 and yet it is the thesis to which 7implicitly at any rate7 refined supernaturalism seems to cling4 ,it is only with experience en bloc1 it says1 that the ,absolute maintains relations4 ,it condescends to no transactions of detail4 ,i am ignorant of ,buddhism and speak under correction1 and merely in order the better to describe my general point of view2 but as ,i apprehend the ,buddhistic doctrine of ,karma1 ,i agree in principle with that4 ,all supernaturalists admit that facts are under the judgment of higher law2 but for ,buddhism as ,i interpret it1 and for religion generally so far as it remains unweakened by transcendentalistic metaphysics1 the word 8judgment0 here means no such bare academic verdict or platonic appreciation as it means in ,vedantic or modern absolutist systems2 it carries1 on the contrary1 execution with it1 is in rebus as well as post rem1 and operates 8causally0 as partial factor in the total fact4 ,the universe becomes a gnosticism7#cfa7 pure and simple on any other terms4 ,but this view that judgment and execution go together is that of the crasser supernaturalist way of thinking1 so the present volume must on the whole be classed with the other expressions of that creed4 ,i state the matter thus bluntly1 because the current of thought in academic circles runs against me1 and ,i feel like a man who must set his back against an open door quickly if he does not wish to see it closed and locked4 ,in spite of its being so shocking to the reigning intellectual tastes1 ,i believe that a candid consideration of piecemeal supernaturalism and a complete discussion of all its metaphysical bearings will show it to be the hypothesis by which the largest number of legitimate requirements are met4 ,that of course would be a program for other books than this2 what ,i now say sufficiently indicates to the philosophic reader the place where ,i belong4 ,if asked just where the differences in fact which are due to ,god's existence come in1 ,i should have to say that in general ,i have no hypothesis to offer beyond what the phenomenon of 8prayerful communion10 especially when certain kinds of incursion from the subconscious region take part in it1 immediately suggests4 ,the appearance is that in this phenomenon something ideal1 which in one sense is part of ourselves and in another sense is not ourselves1 actually exerts an influence1 raises our centre of personal energy1 and produces regenerative effects unattainable in other ways4 ,if1 then1 there be a wider world of being than that of our everyday consciousness1 if in it there be forces whose effects on us are intermittent1 if one facilitating condition of the effects be the openness of the 8subliminal0 door1 we have the elements of a theory to which the phenomena of religious life lend plausibility4 ,i am so impressed by the importance of these phenomena that ,i adopt the hypothesis which they so naturally suggest4 ,at these places at least1 ,i say1 it would seem as though transmundane energies1 ,god1 if you will1 produced immediate effects within the natural world to which the rest of our experience belongs4 ,the difference in natural 8fact0 which most of us would assign as the first difference which the existence of a ,god ought to make would1 ,i imagine1 be personal immortality4 ,religion1 in fact1 for the great majority of our own race means immortality1 and nothing else4 ,god is the producer of immortality2 and whoever has doubts of immortality is written down as an atheist without farther trial4 ,i have said nothing in my lectures about immortality or the belief therein1 for to me it seems a secondary point4 ,if our ideals are only cared for in 8eternity10 ,i do not see why we might not be willing to resign their care to other hands than ours4 ,yet ,i sympathize with the urgent impulse to be present ourselves1 and in the conflict of impulses1 both of them so vague yet both of them noble1 ,i know not how to decide4 ,it seems to me that it is eminently a case for facts to testify4 ,facts1 ,i think1 are yet lacking to prove 8spiritreturn10 though ,i have the highest respect for the patient labors of ,messrs4 ,myers1 ,hodgson1 and ,hyslop1 and am somewhat impressed by their favorable conclusions4 ,i consequently leave the matter open1 with this brief word to save the reader from a possible perplexity as to why immortality got no mention in the body of this book4 ,the ideal power with which we feel ourselves in connection1 the 8,god0 of ordinary men1 is1 both by ordinary men and by philosophers1 endowed with certain of those metaphysical attributes which in the lecture on philosophy ,i treated with such disrespect4 ,he is assumed as a matter of course to be 8one and only0 and to be 8infinite02 and the notion of many finite gods is one which hardly any one thinks it worth while to consider1 and still less to uphold4 ,nevertheless1 in the interests of intellectual clearness1 ,i feel bound to say that religious experience1 as we have studied it1 cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief4 ,the only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace4 ,philosophy1 with its passion for unity1 and mysticism with its monoideistic bent1 both 8pass to the limit0 and identify the something with a unique ,god who is the allinclusive soul of the world4 ,popular opinion1 respectful to their authority1 follows the example which they set4 ,meanwhile the practical needs and experiences of religion seem to me sufficiently met by the belief that beyond each man and in a fashion continuous with him there exists a larger power which is friendly to him and to his ideals4 ,all that the facts require is that the power should be both other and larger than our conscious selves4 ,anything larger will do1 if only it be large enough to trust for the next step4 ,it need not be infinite1 it need not be solitary4 ,it might conceivably even be only a larger and more godlike self1 of which the present self would then be but the mutilated expression1 and the universe might conceivably be a collection of such selves1 of different degrees of inclusiveness1 with no absolute unity realized in it at all47#cfb7 ,thus would a sort of polytheism return upon us--a polytheism which ,i do not on this occasion defend1 for my only aim at present is to keep the testimony of religious experience clearly within its proper bounds4 ,compare p4 #acb above4 ,upholders of the monistic view will say to such a polytheism 7which1 by the way1 has always been the real religion of common people1 and is so still today7 that unless there be one allinclusive ,god1 our guarantee of security is left imperfect4 ,in the ,absolute1 and in the ,absolute only1 all is saved4 ,if there be different gods1 each caring for his part1 some portion of some of us might not be covered with divine protection1 and our religious consolation would thus fail to be complete4 ,it goes back to what was said on pages #acaacc1 about the possibility of there being portions of the universe that may irretrievably be lost4 ,common sense is less sweeping in its demands than philosophy or mysticism have been wont to be1 and can suffer the notion of this world being partly saved and partly lost4 ,the ordinary moralistic state of mind makes the salvation of the world conditional upon the success with which each unit does its part4 ,partial and conditional salvation is in fact a most familiar notion when taken in the abstract1 the only difficulty being to determine the details4 ,some men are even disinterested enough to be willing to be in the unsaved remnant as far as their persons go1 if only they can be persuaded that their cause will prevail--all of us are willing1 whenever our activity excitement rises sufficiently high4 ,i think1 in fact1 that a final philosophy of religion will have to consider the pluralistic hypothesis more seriously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it4 ,for practical life at any rate1 the chance of salvation is enough4 ,no fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance4 ,the existence of the chance makes the difference1 as ,edmund ,gurney says1 between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope47#cfc7 ,but all these statements are unsatisfactory from their brevity1 and ,i can only say that ,i hope to return to the same questions in another book4 ,,index4 ,absolute1 oneness with the1 #dai4 ,abstractness of religious objects1 #ec4 ,,achilles1 #hf4 ,,ackermann1 ,,madame1 #fc4 ,adaptation to environment1 of things1 #dch2 of saints1 #cgdcgg4 sthetic elements in religions1 #dfj4 ,alacoque1 #caj1 #cdd1 #dac4 ,alcohol1 #chg4 ,,al,,ghazzali1 #djb4 ,,ali1 #cda4 ,,alleine1 #bbh4 ,,alline1 #aei1 #bag4 ,alternations of personality1 #aic4 ,,alvarez ,,de ,,paz1 #aaf4 ,,amiel1 #cid4 ,ansthesia1 #bhh4 ,ansthetic revelation1 #chgcic4 ,,angelus ,,silesius1 #dag4 ,anger1 #aha1 #bfd4 8,anhedonia10 #ade4 ,aristocratic type1 #cga4 ,,aristotle1 #die4 ,ars1 le ,cur d'1 #cjb4 ,asceticism1 #bgc1 #bifcaj1 #cfjcfe4 ,aseity1 ,god's1 #dci1 #dde4 ,atman1 #djj4 ,attributes of ,god1 #ddj2 their sthetic use1 #deh4 ,,augustine1 ,,saint1 #aga1 #cfa1 #dif4 ,,aurelius1 see ,,marcus4 ,automatic writing1 #fb1 #dgh4 ,automatisms1 #bcd1 #bej1 #dghdhc4 ,,baldwin1 #cdg1 #ejc4 ,,bashkirtseff1 #hc4 ,,beecher1 #bef4 ,,behmen1 see ,,boehme4 ,belief1 due to nonrationalistic impulses1 #gc4 ,,besant1 ,,mrs41 #bc1 #afh4 ,bhagavad,gita1 #cfa4 ,,blavatsky1 ,,madam1 #dba4 ,,blood1 #chi4 ,,blumhardt1 #aac4 ,,boehme1 #daj1 #dag1 #dah4 ,,booth1 #bjc4 ,,bougaud1 #cdd4 ,,bourget1 #bfc4 ,,bourignon1 #cba4 ,,bowne1 #ejb4 ,,brainerd1 #bab1 #bec4 ,,bray1 #bdi1 #bef1 #bij4 ,,brooks1 #eab4 ,,brownell1 #eae4 ,,bucke1 #cih4 ,buddhism1 #ca1 #cd1 #ebb4 ,buddhist mysticism1 #dja4 ,,bullen1 #bhg4 ,,bunyan1 #aeg1 #afj4 ,,butterworth1 #daa4 ,,caird1 ,,edward1 #ajf4 ,,caird1 ,j41 on feeling in religion1 #dcd2 on absolute self1 #dej2 he does not prove1 but reaffirms1 religion's dicta1 #dec4 ,,call1 #bhi4 ,,carlyle1 #da1 #cjj4 ,,carpenter1 #cai4 ,catharine1 ,saint1 of ,genoa1 #bhi4 ,catholicism and ,protestantism compared1 #aad1 #bbg1 #ccf1 #dfa4 ,causality of ,god1 #eag1 #ebb4 ,cause1 #ejb4 ,,cennick1 #cja4 ,centres of personal energy1 #aif1 #bfg1 #ebc4 ,cerebration1 unconscious1 #bjg4 ,chance1 #ebf4 ,,channing1 #cjj1 #dhh4 ,,chapman1 #cbd4 ,character1 cause of its alterations1 #aic2 scheme of its differences of type1 #aig1 #bad4 ,causes of its diversity1 #bfa2 balance of1 #cdj4 ,charity1 #bgd1 #bgh1 #caj1 #cee4 ,chastity1 #caj4 ,chiefs of tribes1 #cga4 ,christian ,science1 #ajf4 ,christ's atonement1 #abi1 #bde4 ,churches1 #cce1 #dfj4 ,,clark1 #chi4 ,,clissold1 #dha4 ,,coe1 #bdj4 ,conduct1 perfect1 #cee4 ,confession1 #dfb4 ,consciousness1 fields of1 #bca2 subliminal1 #bcc4 ,consistency1 #bif4 ,conversion1 to avarice1 #agh4 ,conversion1 ,fletcher's1 #aha2 ,tolstoy's1 #ahd2 ,bunyan's1 #ahf2 in general1 ,lectures ,,ix and ,x1 passim2 ,bradley's1 #ahi2 compared with natural moral growth1 #aii2 ,hadley's1 #bja2 two types of1 #bje ff42 ,brainerd's1 #bab2 ,alline's1 #bag2 ,oxford graduate's1 #bba2 ,ratisbonne's1 #bbc2 instantaneous1 #bbg2 is it a natural phenomenon8 #bcj2 subliminal action involved1 in sudden cases1 #bcf1 #bdj2 fruits of1 #bcg2 its momentousness1 #bci2 may be supernatural1 #bdb2 its concomitants3 sense of higher control1 #bdd1 happiness1 #bdh1 automatisms1 #bej1 luminous phenomena1 #bea2 its degree of permanence1 #bef4 ,cosmic consciousness1 #cih4 ,counterconversion1 #agf4 ,courage1 #bfe1 #bhg4 ,crankiness1 see ,psychopathy4 ,,crichton,,browne1 #chd1 #chf4 ,criminal character1 #bfc4 ,criteria of value of spiritual affections1 #ah4 ,,crump1 #bci4 ,cure of bad habits1 #bgj4 ,,daudet1 #afg4 ,death1 #aci1 #cfd4 ,,derham1 #dic4 ,design1 argument from1 #dch1 #dib ff4 ,devoutness1 #cdj4 ,,dionysius ,,areopagiticus1 #daf4 ,disease1 #ii1 #aac4 ,disorder in contents of world1 #dch4 ,divided ,self1 ,lecture ,,viii1 passim2 ,cases of3 ,saint ,augustine1 #agb1 ,h4 ,alline1 #agc4 ,divine1 the1 #ca4 ,dog1 #bha4 ,dogmatism1 #cbf1 #ccc4 ,,dowie1 #aac4 ,,dresser1 ,h4 ,w41 #if1 #ii1 #bhi1 #eaf4 ,drink1 #bfh4 ,drummer1 #dgf4 ,,drummond1 #bfb4 ,drunkenness1 #chg1 #djc1 #dhh4 8,dryness10 #bjd4 ,,dumas1 #bgi4 ,dyes1 on clothing1 #bid4 ,earnestness1 #bfd4 ,ecclesiastical spirit1 the1 #cce1 #cch4 ,,eckhart1 #dag4 ,,eddy1 #ajf4 ,,edwards1 ,,jonathan1 #bj1 #aad1 #bjj1 #bbi1 #bch1 #bci1 #bdh1 #ccj4 ,,edwards1 ,,mrs4 ,j41 #bgf1 #bhj4 ,effects of religious states1 #ba4 ,effeminacy1 #cfe4 ,ego of ,apperception1 #ddi4 ,,ellis1 ,,havelock1 #dah4 ,,elwood1 #bib4 ,,emerson1 #cb1 #ef1 #afg1 #bje1 #bci1 #ccj4 ,emotion1 as alterer of life's value1 #aej2 of the character1 #aie1 #bfa ff41 #bgi4 ,empirical method1 #ah1 #cbg ff41 #ddc4 ,enemies1 love your1 #bgh1 #bhc4 ,energy1 personal1 #aif2 mystical states increase it1 #dad4 ,environment1 #cef1 #cgd4 ,epictetus1 #dgd4 ,epicureans1 #adc4 ,equanimity1 #bhd4 ,ether1 mystical effects of1 #cib4 ,evil1 ignored by healthymindedness1 #hh1 #ajf1 #aca2 due to things or to the ,self1 #acd2 its reality1 #afc4 ,evolutionist optimism1 #ia4 ,excesses of piety1 #cdj4 ,excitement1 its effects1 #aie1 #bff1 #bgi1 #cbe4 ,experience1 religious1 the essence of1 #ejh4 ,extravagances of piety1 #cci1 #dhf4 ,extreme cases1 why we take them1 #dhf4 ,failure1 #aci4 ,faith1 #bdf1 #ejf4 ,faithstate1 #eje4 ,fanaticism1 #cch ff4 ,fear1 #ih1 #aei1 #afa1 #bfc1 #bge4 ,feeling deeper than intellect in religion1 #dca4 ,,fielding1 #dcf4 ,,finney1 #bjg1 #bae4 ,,fletcher1 #ih1 #aha4 ,,flournoy1 #fg1 #ead4 ,flower1 #dgf4 ,,foster1 #agh1 #chc4 ,,fox1 ,,george1 #g1 #bia1 #cce1 #daa4 ,,francis1 ,,saint1 ,d',,assisi1 #cai4 ,,francis1 ,,saint1 ,,de ,,sales1 #aa4 ,,fraser1 #ded4 ,fruits1 of conversion1 #bcg2 of religion1 #cbg2 of ,saintliness1 #ceg4 ,,fuller1 #da4 ,,gamond1 #bhh4 ,,gardiner1 #bfi4 ,genius and insanity1 #af4 ,geniuses1 see ,religious leaders4 ,gentleman1 character of the1 #cag1 #cga4 ,,gertrude1 ,,saint1 #cde4 8,gifts10 #aea4 ,glory of ,god1 #cdb4 ,,god1 #ca2 sense of his presence1 #ffgb1 #bgb1 #bge ff42 historic changes in idea of him1 #gd1 #cbh ff41 #dic2 mindcurer's idea of him1 #aja2 his honor1 #cdb2 described by negatives1 #dag2 his attributes1 scholastic proof of1 #dci2 the metaphysical ones are for us meaningless1 #dde2 the moral ones are illdeduced1 #ddg2 he is not a mere inference1 #ejb2 is used1 not known1 #ejf2 his existence must make a difference among phenomena1 #eag1 #ebb2 his relation to the subconscious region1 #bdb1 #eae2 his tasks1 #eai2 may be finite and plural1 #ebe4 ,,goddard1 #if4 ,,goerres1 #djg4 ,,goethe1 #acg4 ,,gough1 #bjc4 ,,gourdon1 #aga4 8,grace10 the operation of1 #bbf2 the state of1 #bfj4 ,,gratry1 #adf1 #dgf1 #ejf4 ,greeks1 their pessimism1 #hf1 #adb4 ,guidance1 #dgb4 ,,gurney1 #ebg4 ,,guyon1 #bgf1 #bhf4 ,,hadley1 #bja1 #bfh4 ,,hale1 #hb4 ,,hamon1 #cfg4 ,happiness1 #dgdi1 #gi1 #bdh1 #bgi4 ,,harnack1 #ajj4 ,healthymindedness1 ,lectures ,,iv and ,v1 passim2 its philosophy of evil1 #aca2 compared with morbidmindedness1 #afb1 #dhh4 ,heart1 softening of1 #bfg4 ,,hegel1 #chi1 #ddi1 #ded4 ,,helmont1 ,,van1 #dig4 ,heroism1 #cfd1 #dhh1 note4 ,heterogeneous personality1 #afi1 #aic4 ,higher criticism1 #d4 ,,hilty1 #gi1 #bge1 #dgb4 ,,hodgson1 ,r41 #ebd4 ,,homer1 #hf4 ,,hugo1 #aga4 ,hypocrisy1 #cch4 ,hypothesis1 what make a useful one1 #eag4 ,,hyslop1 #ebd4 ,,ignatius ,,loyola1 #cac1 #djf1 #daj4 ,illness1 #aac4 8,imitation of ,christ10 the1 #dd4 ,immortality1 #ebd4 ,impulses1 #bfa4 ,individuality1 #eja4 ,inhibitions1 #bfa ff4 ,insane melancholy and religion1 #add4 ,insanity and genius1 #af2 and happiness1 #bgi4 ,institutional religion1 #cce4 ,intellect a secondary force in religion1 #dca1 #ead4 ,intellectual weakness of some saints1 #cgj4 ,intolerance1 #cdb4 ,irascibility1 #bfd4 ,,jesus1 ,,harnack on1 #ajj4 ,,job1 #gf1 #ddh4 ,,john1 ,,saint1 ,,of ,,the ,,cross1 #cjd1 #djg1 #dac4 ,,johnston1 #beh4 ,,jonquil1 #dgf4 ,,jordan1 #cdg4 ,,jouffroy1 #agf1 #aih4 ,judgments1 existential and spiritual1 #d4 ,,kant1 #ed1 #ddh4 ,karma1 #ebb4 ,,kellner1 #dja4 ,kindliness1 see ,charity4 ,,kingsley1 #che4 ,,lagneau1 #bhe4 ,leaders1 see ,religious leaders4 ,leaders1 of tribes1 #cga4 ,,lejeune1 #aac1 #cab4 ,,lessing1 #cah4 ,,leuba1 #bja1 #bjc1 #bbj1 #bdf1 #ejf4 ,life1 its significance1 #aea4 ,life1 the subconscious1 #bjg1 #bji4 ,,locker,,lampson1 #ci4 ,logic1 ,hegelian1 #ddi4 ,louis1 ,saint1 of ,gonzaga1 #cej4 ,love1 see ,charity4 ,love1 cases of falling out of1 #agi4 ,love of ,god1 #bgf4 ,love your enemies1 #bgh1 #bhc4 ,,lowell1 #fe4 ,loyalty1 to ,god1 #cdb4 ,,lutfullah1 #afd4 ,,luther1 #abh1 #acg1 #bdd1 #ccj1 #cdh1 #chb4 ,lutheran selfdespair1 #ajh1 #baa4 ,luxury1 #cfe4 ,,lycaon1 #hf4 ,lyre1 #bfg4 ,mahomet1 #aga4 ,see ,,mohammed4 ,,marcus ,,aurelius1 #db1 #dd1 #dgd4 ,,margaret ,,mary1 see ,,alacoque4 ,margin of consciousness1 #bcb4 ,,marshall1 #ejc4 ,,martineau1 #dge4 ,,mather1 #cjc4 ,,maudsley1 #ai4 ,meaning of life1 #aea4 ,medical criticism of religion1 #dac4 ,medical materialism1 #aj ff4 ,melancholy1 #ade1 #bgi2 ,lectures ,v and ,,vi1 passim2 cases of1 #adh1 #adi1 #aeg1 #aei1 #aih4 ,melting moods1 #bfg4 ,method of judging value of religion1 #ah1 #cbg4 ,methodism1 #bbg1 #bcg4 ,,meysenbug1 #cie4 ,militarism1 #cfecfg4 ,military type of character1 #cga4 ,,mill1 #bjd4 ,mindcure1 its sources and history1 #idig2 its opinion of fear1 #ih2 cases of1 #ajbaje1 #abj1 #abc2 its message1 #ajh2 its methods1 #aababc2 it uses verification1 #abjabd2 its philosophy of evil1 #aca4 ,miraculous character of conversion1 #bbg4 ,,mohammed1 #cda1 #dha4 ,,molinos1 #acj4 ,,moltke1 ,,von1 #bfd1 #cfg4 ,monasteries1 #bif4 ,monism1 #daf4 ,morbidness compared with healthymindedness1 #dhh4 ,see1 also1 ,melancholy4 ,mormon revelations1 #dhb4 ,mortification1 see ,asceticism4 ,,muir1 #dhb4 ,,mulford1 #dig4 ,m,,ller1 #dfh4 ,,murisier1 #cdi4 ,,myers1 #bcc1 #bcd1 #dff1 #eaa1 #ebd4 ,mystic states1 their effects1 #ba1 #dad4 ,mystical experiences1 #ff4 ,mysticism1 ,lectures ,,xvi and ,,xvii1 passim2 its marks1 #chj2 its theoretic results1 #daf1 #dbb1 #dbh2 it cannot warrant truth1 #dbb2 its results1 #dbe2 its relation to the sense of union1 #eji4 ,mystical region of experience1 #eae4 ,natural theology1 #dib4 ,naturalism1 #ada1 #afg4 ,nature1 scientific view of1 #dia4 ,negative accounts of deity1 #dag4 ,,nelson1 #bjh1 #dbc4 ,,nettleton1 #bae4 ,,newman1 ,f4 ,w41 #hj4 ,,newman1 ,j4 ,h41 on dogmatic theology1 #dcd1 #ddb2 his type of imagination1 #dei4 ,,nietzsche1 #cga1 #cgb4 ,nitrous oxide1 its mystical effects1 #chg4 ,nofunction1 #bfabfc1 #bii1 #chg1 #daf4 ,nonresistance1 #bha1 #ceh1 #cgf4 ,obedience1 #caj4 ,,obermann1 #dgf4 ,o',,connell1 #beg4 ,omit1 #bif4 8,onceborn0 type1 #hj1 #aff1 #cfc1 #dhh4 ,oneness with ,god1 see ,union4 ,optimism1 systematic1 #hh2 and evolutionism1 #ia2 it may be shallow1 #cfd4 ,orderliness of world1 #dch4 ,organism determines all mental states whatsoever1 #ad4 ,origin of mental states no criterion of their value1 #ad ff4 ,orison1 #djf4 ,overbeliefs1 #eac2 the author's1 #eae4 ,oversoul1 #eaf4 ,oxford1 graduate of1 #bbj1 #bfh4 ,pagan feeling1 #hf4 ,pantheism1 #aca1 #daf4 ,,parker1 #hc4 ,,pascal1 #bhf4 ,,paton1 #cei4 ,,paul1 ,,saint1 #aga1 #ceg4 ,,peek1 #bec4 ,,peirce1 #ddd4 ,penny1 #cbc4 ,,perreyve1 #eje4 ,persecutions1 #cch1 #cdb4 ,personality1 explained away by science1 #aai1 #dia2 heterogeneous1 #afi2 alterations of1 #aic1 #baj ff42 is reality1 #dii4 ,see ,character4 ,,peter1 ,,saint1 ,,of ,,alcantara1 #cfj4 ,,philo1 #dha4 ,philosophy1 ,lecture ,,xviii1 passim2 must coerce assent1 #dcc2 scholastic1 #dci2 idealistic1 #ddh2 unable to give a theoretic warrant to faith1 #dee2 its true office in religion1 #dee4 ,photisms1 #bea4 ,piety1 #cci ff4 ,pluralism1 #aca4 ,polytheism1 #aca1 #ebf4 ,poverty1 #cae1 #cfg4 8,pragmatism10 #ddd1 #eai1 #ebbebd4 ,prayer1 #dfc2 its definition1 #dfd2 its essence1 #dfe2 petitional1 #dfg2 its effects1 #dgddgg1 #ebc4 8,presence10 sense of1 #ehfc4 ,presence of ,god1 #ffgb1 #bgb1 #bge ff41 #cif1 #dah4 ,presence of ,god1 the practice of1 #aaf4 ,primitive human thought1 #die4 ,,pringle,,pattison1 #ded4 ,prophets1 the ,hebrew1 #dgi4 ,protestant theology1 #bdd4 ,protestantism and ,catholicism1 #aad1 #bbg1 #ccj1 #dfa4 ,providential leading1 #dgb4 ,psychopathy and religion1 #bb ff4 ,,puffer1 #cid4 ,purity1 #bgd1 #bij1 #cdh4 ,quakers1 #g1 #bia4 ,,ramakrishna1 #cfa1 #cfe4 ,rationalism1 #gc1 #gd2 its authority overthrown by mysticism1 #dbh4 ,,ratisbonne1 #bbc1 #beg4 ,reality of unseen objects1 ,lecture ,,iii1 passim4 ,r,c,,jac1 #djg1 #eji4 8,recollection10 #aaf1 #bhi4 ,redemption1 #aeg4 ,reformation of character1 #cbj4 ,regeneration1 see ,conversion2 by relaxation1 #aaa4 ,,reid1 #ddf4 ,relaxation1 salvation by1 #aaj4 ,see ,surrender4 ,religion1 to be tested by fruits1 not by origin1 #aj ff41 #cca2 its definition1 #bf1 #ca2 is solemn1 #cg2 compared with ,stoicism1 #da2 its unique function1 #ea2 abstractness of its objects1 #ed2 differs according to temperament1 #ge1 #ace1 #ccc1 and ought to differ1 #dhg2 considered to be a 8survival10 #aah1 #dij1 #dih2 its relations to melancholy1 #ade2 worldly passions may combine with it1 #ccg2 its essential characters1 #cfi1 #dhe2 its relation to prayer1 #dfcdff2 asserts a fact1 not a theory1 #dhi2 its truth1 #cgg2 more than science1 it holds by concrete reality1 #ejj2 attempts to evaporate it into philosophy1 #ejb2 it is concerned with personal destinies1 #dia1 #ejc2 with feeling and conduct1 #ejd2 is a sthenic affection1 #eje2 is for life1 not for knowledge1 #ejf2 its essential contents1 #ejh2 it postulates issues of fact1 #eah4 ,religious emotion1 #bgi4 ,religious leaders1 often nervously unstable1 #f ff41 #cj2 their loneliness1 #cce4 8,religious sentiment10 #bg4 ,,renan1 #cg4 ,renunciations1 #cdi4 ,repentance1 #abg4 ,resignation1 #bhf4 ,revelation1 the ansthetic1 #chgcic4 ,revelations1 see ,automatisms4 ,revelations1 in ,mormon ,church1 #dhb4 ,revivalism1 #bbh4 ,,ribet1 #djg4 ,,ribot1 #ade1 #ejb4 ,,rodriguez1 #cac1 #cad1 #cag4 ,,royce1 #ded4 ,,rutherford1 ,,mark1 #gf4 ,,sabatier1 ,a41 #dfd4 ,sacrifice1 #cjc1 #dfb4 ,,saint,,pierre1 #hc4 ,,sainte,,beuve1 #bfj1 #cae4 ,saintliness1 ,sainte,beuve on1 #bfj2 its characteristics1 #bgb1 #cgj2 criticism of1 #cbf ff4 ,saintly conduct1 #cefcgg4 ,saints1 dislike of natural man for1 #cga4 ,salvation1 #ebf4 ,,sandays1 #dhj4 ,,satan1 in picture1 #ej4 ,,scheffler1 #dag4 ,scholastic arguments for ,god1 #dcg4 ,science1 ignores personality and teleology1 #dia2 her 8facts10 #ejj1 #eja4 8,science of ,religions10 #dcc1 #dee1 #def1 #dhhdij4 ,scientific conceptions1 their late adoption1 #dif4 ,secondbirth1 #aeg1 #afe1 #aff4 ,,seeley1 #gg4 ,self of the world1 #ddi4 ,selfdespair1 #aaj1 #abi1 #bjh4 ,selfsurrender1 #aaj1 #bjh4 ,s,,nancour1 #dgf4 ,,seth1 #ded4 ,sexual temptation1 #bfi4 ,sexuality as cause of religion1 #aj1 #aa4 8,shrew10 #cdg4 ,sickness1 #aac4 ,sick souls1 ,lectures ,v and ,,vi1 passim4 ,,sighele1 #bfc4 ,sin1 #bji4 ,sinners1 ,christ died for1 #abi4 ,skepticism1 #ccb ff4 ,,skobeleff1 #bfe4 ,,smith1 ,,joseph1 #dhb4 ,softening of the heart1 #bfg4 ,solemnity1 #cg1 #dh4 ,soul1 #aie4 ,soul1 strength of1 #bgc4 ,,spencer1 #cee1 #cgd4 ,,spinoza1 #i1 #abg4 ,spiritism1 #ead4 ,spiritreturn1 #ebd4 ,spiritual judgments1 #d4 ,spiritual states1 tests of their value1 #ah4 ,,starbuck1 #aih1 #aii1 #bjd1 #bjf1 #bjhbaj1 #bdi1 #bec1 #beh1 #bfh1 #bgf1 #cbc1 #cec1 #cid4 ,,stevenson1 #ach1 #bif4 ,stoicism1 #dbde1 #adc4 ,strange appearance of world1 #aea4 ,strength of soul1 #bgc4 ,subconscious action in conversion1 #bcf1 #bdb4 ,subconscious life1 #aae1 #bjg1 #bji1 #bcc1 #bcf1 #bgj1 #dhc4 ,subconscious ,self1 as intermediary between the ,self and ,god1 #eaa4 ,subliminal1 see ,subconscious4 ,sufis1 #djb1 #dbj4 ,suggestion1 #aab1 #bcd4 ,suicide1 #adg4 ,supernaturalism its two kinds1 #ebj2 criticism of universalistic1 #eba4 ,supernatural world1 #eah4 ,surrender1 salvation by1 #aaj1 #bjh1 #baa4 ,survivaltheory of religion1 #dij1 #dih1 #ejj4 ,,suso1 #cjf1 #cdi4 ,,swinburne1 #dba4 ,,symonds1 #che1 #cij4 ,sympathetic magic1 #dif4 ,sympathy1 see ,charity4 ,systems1 philosophic1 #dcc4 ,taine1 #i4 ,,taylor1 #bdf4 ,tenderness1 see ,charity4 ,,tennyson1 #chc1 #chd4 ,,teresa1 ,,saint1 #bj1 #cdf1 #cfj1 #djh1 #daa1 #dab1 #dad4 ,theologia ,germanica1 #dc4 ,theologians1 systematic1 #ddf4 8,theopathy10 #cdc4 ,,thoreau1 #bge4 ,threshold1 #ace4 ,tiger1 #afd1 #bfb4 ,tobacco1 #bgj1 #bij4 ,,tolstoy1 #adi1 #agh1 #ahd4 ,,towianski1 #bha4 ,tragedy of life1 #cfc4 ,tranquillity1 #bhe4 ,transcendentalism criticised1 #ebb4 ,transcendentalists1 #eaf4 ,,trevor1 #cif4 ,,trine1 #aja1 #cid4 ,truth of religion1 how to be tested1 #cgg2 what it is1 #eji2 mystical perception of1 #chj1 #daj4 8,twiceborn10 type1 #aff1 #cfc1 #dhh4 ,,tyndall1 #bii4 8,unconscious cerebration10 #bjg4 ,unification of ,self1 #ahc1 #cdi4 8,,union ,,morale10 #bgb4 ,union with ,god1 #djh1 #dah1 #dbe1 #dea1 #eji ff4 ,see lectures on ,conversion1 passim4 ,unity of universe1 #aca4 ,unreality1 sense of1 #fc4 ,unseen realities1 ,lecture ,,iii1 passim4 ,upanishads1 #dai4 ,,upham1 #bhi4 ,utopias1 #cfj4 ,,vacherot1 #ejb4 ,value of spiritual affections1 how tested1 #ah4 ,,vamb,,ry1 #cda4 ,vedantism1 #djj1 #dai1 #eac1 #ebb4 ,veracity1 #g1 #bia ff4 ,,vivekananda1 #eac4 ,,voltaire1 #ch4 ,,voysey1 #bge4 ,war1 #cfecfg4 ,wealthworship1 #cfe4 ,,weaver1 #bha4 ,,wesley1 #bbg4 ,wesleyan selfdespair1 #ajh1 #baa4 ,,whitefield1 #cah4 ,,whitman1 #hd1 #cie1 #cif1 #ejf4 ,,wolff1 #dib1 #dic4 ,,wood1 ,,henry1 #if1 #ii1 #aag4 ,world1 soul of the1 #ddi4 ,worry1 #ih1 #aha4 ,yesfunction1 #bfabfc1 #bii1 #chg4 ,yoga1 #djj4 ,,young1 #bef4 ,,footnotes #a ,as with many ideas that float in the air of one's time1 this notion shrinks from dogmatic general statement and expresses itself only partially and by innuendo4 ,it seems to me that few conceptions are less instructive than this reinterpretation of religion as perverted sexuality4 ,it reminds one1 so crudely is it often employed1 of the famous ,catholic taunt1 that the ,reformation may be best understood by remembering that its fons et origo was ,luther's wish to marry a nun3--the effects are infinitely wider than the alleged causes1 and for the most part opposite in nature4 ,it is true that in the vast collection of religious phenomena1 some are undisguisedly amatory--e4g41 sexdeities and obscene rites in polytheism1 and ecstatic feelings of union with the ,saviour in a few ,christian mystics4 ,but then why not equally call religion an aberration of the digestive function1 and prove one's point by the worship of ,bacchus and ,ceres1 or by the ecstatic feelings of some other saints about the ,eucharist8 ,religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our life affords1 and the whole organism gives overtones of comment whenever the mind is strongly stirred to expression4 ,language drawn from eating and drinking is probably as common in religious literature as is language drawn from the sexual life4 ,we 8hunger and thirst0 after righteousness2 we 8find the ,lord a sweet savor20 we 8taste and see that he is good40 8,spiritual milk for ,american babes1 drawn from the breasts of both testaments10 is a subtitle of the once famous ,new ,england ,primer1 and ,christian devotional literature indeed quite floats in milk1 thought of from the point of view1 not of the mother1 but of the greedy babe4 ,saint ,franois de ,sales1 for instance1 thus describes the 8orison of quietude03 8,in this state the soul is like a little child still at the breast1 whose mother1 to caress him whilst he is still in her arms1 makes her milk distill into his mouth without his even moving his lips4 ,so it is here4444 ,our ,lord desires that our will should be satisfied with sucking the milk which ,his ,majesty pours into our mouth1 and that we should relish the sweetness without even knowing that it cometh from the ,lord40 ,and again3 8,consider the little infants1 united and joined to the breasts of their nursing mothers1 you will see that from time to time they press themselves closer by little starts to which the pleasure of sucking prompts them4 ,even so1 during its orison1 the heart united to its ,god oftentimes makes attempts at closer union by movements during which it presses closer upon the divine sweetness40 ,chemin de la ,perfection1 ch4 xxxi42 ,amour de ,dieu1 vii4 ch4 i4 ,in fact1 one might almost as well interpret religion as a perversion of the respiratory function4 ,the ,bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression3 8,hide not thine ear at my breathing2 my groaning is not hid from thee2 my heart panteth1 my strength faileth me2 my bones are hot with my roaring all the night long2 as the hart panteth after the waterbrooks1 so my soul panteth after thee1 ,o my ,god40 ,god's ,breath in ,man is the title of the chief work of our best known ,american mystic 7,thomas ,lake ,harris72 and in certain non ,christian countries the foundation of all religious discipline consists in regulation of the inspiration and expiration4 ,these arguments are as good as much of the reasoning one hears in favor of the sexual theory4 ,but the champions of the latter will then say that their chief argument has no analogue elsewhere4 ,the two main phenomena of religion1 namely1 melancholy and conversion1 they will say1 are essentially phenomena of adolescence1 and therefore synchronous with the development of sexual life4 ,to which the retort again is easy4 ,even were the asserted synchrony unrestrictedly true as a fact 7which it is not71 it is not only the sexual life1 but the entire higher mental life which awakens during adolescence4 ,one might then as well set up the thesis that the interest in mechanics1 physics1 chemistry1 logic1 philosophy1 and sociology1 which springs up during adolescent years along with that in poetry and religion1 is also a perversion of the sexual instinct3--but that would be too absurd4 ,moreover1 if the argument from synchrony is to decide1 what is to be done with the fact that the religious age par excellence would seem to be old age1 when the uproar of the sexual life is past8 ,the plain truth is that to interpret religion one must in the end look at the immediate content of the religious consciousness4 ,the moment one does this1 one sees how wholly disconnected it is in the main from the content of the sexual consciousness4 ,everything about the two things differs1 objects1 moods1 faculties concerned1 and acts impelled to4 ,any general assimilation is simply impossible3 what we find most often is complete hostility and contrast4 ,if now the defenders of the sextheory say that this makes no difference to their thesis2 that without the chemical contributions which the sex organs make to the blood1 the brain would not be nourished so as to carry on religious activities1 this final proposition may be true or not true2 but at any rate it has become profoundly uninstructive3 we can deduce no consequences from it which help us to interpret religion's meaning or value4 ,in this sense the religious life depends just as much upon the spleen1 the pancreas1 and the kidneys as on the sexual apparatus1 and the whole theory has lost its point in evaporating into a vague general assertion of the dependence1 somehow1 of the mind upon the body4 #b ,for a firstrate example of medicalmaterialist reasoning1 see an article on 8les ,varits du ,type dvot10 by ,dr4 ,binet,sangl1 in the ,revue de l',hypnotisme1 xiv4 #afa4 #c ,j4 ,f4 ,,nisbet3 ,the ,insanity of ,genius1 #c;d ed41 ,london1 #ahic1 pp4 xvi1 xxiv4 #d ,,max ,,nordau1 in his bulky book entitled ,degeneration4 #e ,h4 ,,maudsley3 ,natural ,causes and ,supernatural ,seemings1 #ahhf1 pp4 #beg1 #bef4 #f ,autobiography1 ch4 xxviii4 #g ,superior intellect1 as ,professor ,bain has admirably shown1 seems to consist in nothing so much as in a large development of the faculty of association by similarity4 #h ,i may refer to a criticism of the insanity theory of genius in the ,psychological ,review1 ii4 #bhg 7#ahie74 #i ,i can do no better here than refer my readers to the extended and admirable remarks on the futility of all these definitions of religion1 in an article by ,professor ,leuba1 published in the ,monist for ,january1 #aija1 after my own text was written4 #aj ,miscellanies1 #ahfh1 p4 #abj 7abridged74 #aa ,lectures and ,biographical ,sketches1 #ahfh1 p4 #ahf4 #ab ,feuilles dtaches1 pp4 #cidcih 7abridged74 #ac ,op4 cit41 pp4 #cad1 #cac4 #ad ,book ,v41 ch4 x4 7abridged74 #ae ,book ,v41 ch4 ix4 7abridged74 #af ,chaps4 x41 xi4 7abridged73 ,winkworth's translation4 #ag ,book ,,iv41 #bc4 #ah ,benham's translation3 ,book ,,iii41 chaps4 xv41 lix4 ,compare ,mary ,moody ,emerson3 8,let me be a blot on this fair world1 the obscurest1 the loneliest sufferer1 with one proviso1--that ,i know it is ,his agency4 ,i will love ,him though ,he shed frost and darkness on every way of mine40 ,r4 ,w4 ,,emerson3 ,lectures and ,biographical ,sketches1 p4 #ahh4 #ai ,once more1 there are plenty of men1 constitutionally sombre men1 in whose religious life this rapturousness is lacking4 ,they are religious in the wider sense2 yet in this acutest of all senses they are not so1 and it is religion in the acutest sense that ,i wish1 without disputing about words1 to study first1 so as to get at its typical differentia4 #bj ,the ,new ,spirit1 p4 #bcb4 #ba ,i owe this allegorical illustration to my lamented colleague and friend1 ,charles ,carroll ,everett4 #bb ,example3 8,i have had much comfort lately in meditating on the passages which show the personality of the ,holy ,ghost1 and his distinctness from the ,father and the ,son4 ,it is a subject that requires searching into to find out1 but1 when realized1 gives one so much more true and lively a sense of the fullness of the ,godhead1 and its work in us and to us1 than when only thinking of the ,spirit in its effect on us40 ,,augustus ,,hare3 ,memorials1 i4 #bdd1 ,maria ,hare to ,lucy ,h4 ,hare4 #bc ,symposium1 ,jowett1 #ahga1 i4 #ebg4 #bd ,example3 8,nature is always so interesting1 under whatever aspect she shows herself1 that when it rains1 ,i seem to see a beautiful woman weeping4 ,she appears the more beautiful1 the more afflicted she is40 ,b4 de ,st4 ,pierre4 #be ,journal of the ,s4 ,p4 ,r41 ,february1 #ahie1 p4 #bf4 #bf ,e4 ,,gurney3 ,phantasms of the ,living1 i4 #chd4 #bg ,penses d'un ,solitaire1 p4 #ff4 #bh ,letters of ,lowell1 i4 #ge4 #bi ,i borrow it1 with ,professor ,flournoy's permission1 from his rich collection of psychological documents4 #cj ,mark ,rutherford's ,deliverance1 ,london1 #ahhe1 pp4 #aif1 #aih4 #ca ,in his book 7too little read1 ,i fear71 ,natural ,religion1 #c;d edition1 ,boston1 #ahhf1 pp4 #ia1 #abb4 #cb ,c4 ,,hilty3 ,glck1 dritter ,theil1 #aijj1 p4 #ah4 #cc ,the ,soul2 its ,sorrows and its ,aspirations1 #c;d edition1 #aheb1 pp4 #hi1 #ia4 #cd ,i once heard a lady describe the pleasure it gave her to think that she 8could always cuddle up to ,god40 #ce ,,john ,,weiss3 ,life of ,theodore ,parker1 i4 #aeb1 #cb4 #cf ,,starbuck3 ,psychology of ,religion1 pp4 #cje1 #cjf4 #cg 8,i know not to what physical laws philosophers will some day refer the feelings of melancholy4 ,for myself1 ,i find that they are the most voluptuous of all sensations10 writes ,saint ,pierre1 and accordingly he devotes a series of sections of his work on ,nature to the ,plaisirs de la ,ruine1 ,plaisirs des ,tombeaux1 ,ruines de la ,nature1 ,plaisirs de la ,solitude--each of them more optimistic than the last4 ,this finding of a luxury in woe is very common during adolescence4 ,the truthtelling ,marie ,bashkirtseff expresses it well3-- 8,in this depression and dreadful uninterrupted suffering1 ,i don't condemn life4 ,on the contrary1 ,i like it and find it good4 ,can you believe it8 ,i find everything good and pleasant1 even my tears1 my grief4 ,i enjoy weeping1 ,i enjoy my despair4 ,i enjoy being exasperated and sad4 ,i feel as if these were so many diversions1 and ,i love life in spite of them all4 ,i want to live on4 ,it would be cruel to have me die when ,i am so accommodating4 ,i cry1 ,i grieve1 and at the same time ,i am pleased--no1 not exactly that--,i know not how to express it4 ,but everything in life pleases me4 ,i find everything agreeable1 and in the very midst of my prayers for happiness1 ,i find myself happy at being miserable4 ,it is not ,i who undergo all this--my body weeps and cries2 but something inside of me which is above me is glad of it all40 ,journal de ,marie ,bashkirtseff1 i4 #fg4 #ch ,r4 ,m4 ,,bucke3 ,cosmic ,consciousness1 pp4 #ahbahf1 abridged4 #ci ,i refer to ,the ,conservator1 edited by ,horace ,traubel1 and published monthly at ,philadelphia4 #dj ,song of ,myself1 #cb4 #da ,iliad1 ,,xxi41 ,e4 ,myers's translation4 #db 8,god is afraid of me60 remarked such a titanicoptimistic friend in my presence one morning when he was feeling particularly hearty and cannibalistic4 ,the defiance of the phrase showed that a ,christian education in humility still rankled in his breast4 #dc 8,as ,i go on in this life1 day by day1 ,i become more of a bewildered child2 ,i cannot get used to this world1 to procreation1 to heredity1 to sight1 to hearing2 the commonest things are a burthen4 ,the prim1 obliterated1 polite surface of life1 and the broad1 bawdy1 and orgiastic--or mnadic--foundations1 form a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me40 ,r4 ,l4 ,,stevenson3 ,letters1 ii4 #cee4 #dd 8,cautionary ,verses for ,children03 this title of a much used work1 published early in the nineteenth century1 shows how far the muse of evangelical protestantism in ,england1 with her mind fixed on the idea of danger1 had at last drifted away from the original gospel freedom4 ,mindcure might be briefly called a reaction against all that religion of chronic anxiety which marked the earlier part of our century in the evangelical circles of ,england and ,america4 #de ,i refer to ,mr4 ,horatio ,w4 ,dresser and ,mr4 ,henry ,wood1 especially the former4 ,mr4 ,dresser's works are published by ,g4 ,p4 ,putnam's ,sons1 ,new ,york and ,london2 ,mr4 ,wood's by ,lee ,shepard1 ,boston4 #df ,lest my own testimony be suspected1 ,i will quote another reporter1 ,dr4 ,h4 ,h4 ,goddard1 of ,clark ,university1 whose thesis on 8the ,effects of ,mind on ,body as evidenced by ,faith ,cures0 is published in the ,american ,journal of ,psychology for #ahii 7vol4 x474 ,this critic1 after a wide study of the facts1 concludes that the cures by mind cure exist1 but are in no respect different from those now officially recognized in medicine as cures by suggestion2 and the end of his essay contains an interesting physiological speculation as to the way in which the suggestive ideas may work 7p4 #fg of the reprint74 ,as regards the general phenomenon of mental cure itself1 ,dr4 ,goddard writes3 8,in spite of the severe criticism we have made of reports of cure1 there still remains a vast amount of material1 showing a powerful influence of the mind in disease4 ,many cases are of diseases that have been diagnosed and treated by the best physicians of the country1 or which prominent hospitals have tried their hand at curing1 but without success4 ,people of culture and education have been treated by this method with satisfactory results4 ,diseases of long standing have been ameliorated1 and even cured4444 ,we have traced the mental element through primitive medicine and folkmedicine of today1 patent medicine1 and witchcraft4 ,we are convinced that it is impossible to account for the existence of these practices1 if they did not cure disease1 and that if they cured disease1 it must have been the mental element that was effective4 ,the same argument applies to those modern schools of mental therapeutics--,divine ,healing and ,christian ,science4 ,it is hardly conceivable that the large body of intelligent people who comprise the body known distinctively as ,mental ,scientists should continue to exist if the whole thing were a delusion4 ,it is not a thing of a day2 it is not confined to a few2 it is not local4 ,it is true that many failures are recorded1 but that only adds to the argument4 ,there must be many and striking successes to counterbalance the failures1 otherwise the failures would have ended the delusion4444 ,christian ,science1 ,divine ,healing1 or ,mental ,science do not1 and never can in the very nature of things1 cure all diseases2 nevertheless1 the practical applications of the general principles of the broadest mental science will tend to prevent disease4444 ,we do find sufficient evidence to convince us that the proper reform in mental attitude would relieve many a sufferer of ills that the ordinary physician cannot touch2 would even delay the approach of death to many a victim beyond the power of absolute cure1 and the faithful adherence to a truer philosophy of life will keep many a man well1 and give the doctor time to devote to alleviating ills that are unpreventable0 7pp4 #cc1 #cd of reprint74 #dg ,,horace ,,fletcher3 ,happiness as found in ,forethought minus ,fearthought1 ,menticulture ,series1 ii4 ,chicago and ,new ,york1 ,stone1 #ahig1 pp4 #babe1 abridged4 #dh ,h4 ,w4 ,,dresser3 ,voices of ,freedom1 ,new ,york1 #ahii1 p4 #ch4 #di ,,henry ,,wood3 ,ideal ,suggestion through ,mental ,photography1 ,boston1 #ahii1 p4 #ed4 #ej ,whether it differs so much from ,christ's own notion is for the exegetists to decide4 ,according to ,harnack1 ,jesus felt about evil and disease much as our mindcurers do4 8,what is the answer which ,jesus sends to ,john the ,baptist80 asks ,harnack1 and says it is this3 8 #8,the blind see1 and the lame walk1 the lepers are cleansed1 and the deaf hear1 the dead rise up1 and the gospel is preached to the poor4' ,that is the #8coming of the kingdom1' or rather in these saving works the kingdom is already there4 ,by the overcoming and removal of misery1 of need1 of sickness1 by these actual effects ,john is to see that the new time has arrived4 ,the casting out of devils is only a part of this work of redemption1 but ,jesus points to that as the sense and seal of his mission4 ,thus to the wretched1 sick1 and poor did he address himself1 but not as a moralist1 and without a trace of sentimentalism4 ,he never makes groups and departments of the ills2 he never spends time in asking whether the sick one #8deserves' to be cured2 and it never occurs to him to sympathize with the pain or the death4 ,he nowhere says that sickness is a beneficent infliction1 and that evil has a healthy use4 ,no1 he calls sickness sickness and health health4 ,all evil1 all wretchedness1 is for him something dreadful2 it is of the great kingdom of ,satan2 but he feels the power of the ,saviour within him4 ,he knows that advance is possible only when weakness is overcome1 when sickness is made well40 ,das ,wesen des ,christenthums1 #aijj1 p4 #ci4 #ea ,r4 ,w4 ,,trine3 ,in ,tune with the ,infinite1 #bfth thousand1 ,n4 ,y41 #ahii4 ,i have strung scattered passages together4 #eb ,the ,cairds1 for example4 ,in ,,edward ,,caird',s ,glasgow ,lectures of #ahijib passages like this abound3-- 8,the declaration made in the beginning of the ministry of ,jesus that #8the time is fulfilled1 and the kingdom of heaven is at hand1' passes with scarce a break into the announcement that #8the kingdom of ,god is among you'2 and the importance of this announcement is asserted to be such that it makes1 so to speak1 a difference in kind between the greatest saints and prophets who lived under the previous reign of division1 and #8the least in the kingdom of heaven4' ,the highest ideal is brought close to men and declared to be within their reach1 they are called on to be #8perfect as their ,father in heaven is perfect4' ,the sense of alienation and distance from ,god which had grown upon the pious in ,israel just in proportion as they had learned to look upon ,him as no mere national divinity1 but as a ,god of justice who would punish ,israel for its sin as certainly as ,edom or ,moab1 is declared to be no longer in place2 and the typical form of ,christian prayer points to the abolition of the contrast between this world and the next which through all the history of the ,jews had continually been growing wider3 #8,as in heaven1 so on earth4' ,the sense of the division of man from ,god1 as a finite being from the ,infinite1 as weak and sinful from the ,omnipotent ,goodness1 is not indeed lost2 but it can no longer overpower the consciousness of oneness4 ,the terms #8,son' and #8,father' at once state the opposition and mark its limit4 ,they show that it is not an absolute opposition1 but one which presupposes an indestructible principle of unity1 that can and must become a principle of reconciliation40 ,the ,evolution of ,religion1 ii4 pp4 #adf1 #adg4 #ec ,it remains to be seen whether the school of ,mr4 ,dresser1 which assumes more and more the form of mindcure experience and academic philosophy mutually impregnating each other1 will score the practical triumphs of the less critical and rational sects4 #ed ,the theistic explanation is by divine grace1 which creates a new nature within one the moment the old nature is sincerely given up4 ,the pantheistic explanation 7which is that of most mindcurers7 is by the merging of the narrower private self into the wider or greater self1 the spirit of the universe 7which is your own 8subconscious0 self71 the moment the isolating barriers of mistrust and anxiety are removed4 ,the medicomaterialistic explanation is that simpler cerebral processes act more freely where they are left to act automatically by the shuntingout of physiologically 7though in this instance not spiritually7 8higher0 ones which1 seeking to regulate1 only succeed in inhibiting results4--,whether this third explanation might1 in a psychophysical account of the universe1 be combined with either of the others may be left an open question here4 #ee ,within the churches a disposition has always prevailed to regard sickness as a visitation2 something sent by ,god for our good1 either as chastisement1 as warning1 or as opportunity for exercising virtue1 and1 in the ,catholic ,church1 of earning 8merit40 8,illness10 says a good ,catholic writer 7,p4 ,,lejeune3 ,introd4 la ,vie ,mystique1 #ahii1 p4 #bah71 8is the most excellent of corporeal mortifications1 the mortification which one has not one's self chosen1 which is imposed directly by ,god1 and is the direct expression of his will4 #8,if other mortifications are of silver1' ,mgr4 ,gay says1 #8this one is of gold2 since although it comes of ourselves1 coming as it does of original sin1 still on its greater side1 as coming 7like all that happens7 from the providence of ,god1 it is of divine manufacture4 ,and how just are its blows6 ,and how efficacious it is6444 ,i do not hesitate to say that patience in a long illness is mortification's very masterpiece1 and consequently the triumph of mortified souls4' 0 ,according to this view1 disease should in any case be submissively accepted1 and it might under certain circumstances even be blasphemous to wish it away4 ,of course there have been exceptions to this1 and cures by special miracle have at all times been recognized within the church's pale1 almost all the great saints having more or less performed them4 ,it was one of the heresies of ,edward ,irving1 to maintain them still to be possible4 ,an extremely pure faculty of healing after confession and conversion on the patient's part1 and prayer on the priest's1 was quite spontaneously developed in the ,german pastor1 ,joh4 ,christoph ,blumhardt1 in the early forties and exerted during nearly thirty years4 ,blumhardt's ,life by ,zndel 7#eth edition1 ,zurich1 #ahhg7 gives in chapters ix41 x41 xi41 and xvii4 a pretty full account of his healing activity1 which he invariably ascribed to direct divine interposition4 ,blumhardt was a singularly pure1 simple1 and non fanatical character1 and in this part of his work followed no previous model4 ,in ,chicago today we have the case of ,dr4 ,j4 ,a4 ,dowie1 a ,scottish ,baptist preacher1 whose weekly 8,leaves of ,healing0 were in the year of grace #aijj in their sixth volume1 and who1 although he denounces the cures wrought in other sects as 8diabolical counterfeits0 of his own exclusively 8,divine ,healing10 must on the whole be counted into the mindcure movement4 ,in mind cure circles the fundamental article of faith is that disease should never be accepted4 ,it is wholly of the pit4 ,god wants us to be absolutely healthy1 and we should not tolerate ourselves on any lower terms4 #ef ,edwards1 from whose book on the ,revival in ,new ,england ,i quote these words1 dissuades from such a use of prayer1 but it is easy to see that he enjoys making his thrust at the cold dead church members4 #eg ,h4 ,w4 ,,dresser3 ,voices of ,freedom1 #df4 #eh ,,dresser3 ,living by the ,spirit1 #eh4 #ei ,,dresser3 ,voices of ,freedom1 #cc4 #fj ,,trine3 ,in ,tune with the ,infinite1 p4 #bad4 #fa ,,trine3 p4 #aag4 #fb ,quoted by ,,lejeune3 ,introd4 la ,vie ,mystique1 #ahii1 p4 #ff4 #fc ,,henry ,,wood3 ,ideal ,suggestion through ,mental ,photography1 pp4 #ea1 #gj 7abridged74 #fd ,see ,appendix to this lecture for two other cases furnished me by friends4 #fe ,whether the various spheres or systems are ever to fuse integrally into one absolute conception1 as most philosophers assume that they must1 and how1 if so1 that conception may best be reached1 are questions that only the future can answer4 ,what is certain now is the fact of lines of disparate conception1 each corresponding to some part of the world's truth1 each verified in some degree1 each leaving out some part of real experience4 #ff ,tract on ,god1 ,man1 and ,happiness1 ,book ii4 ch4 x4 #fg ,commentary on ,galatians1 ,philadelphia1 #ahia1 pp4 #eajead 7abridged74 #fh ,,molinos3 ,spiritual ,guide1 ,book ,,ii41 chaps4 xvii41 xviii4 7abridged74 #fi ,i say this in spite of the monistic utterances of many mindcure writers2 for these utterances are really inconsistent with their attitude towards disease1 and can easily be shown not to be logically involved in the experiences of union with a higher ,presence with which they connect themselves4 ,the higher ,presence1 namely1 need not be the absolute whole of things1 it is quite sufficient for the life of religious experience to regard it as a part1 if only it be the most ideal part4 #gj ,cf4 ,j4 ,,milsand3 ,luther et le ,serf,arbitre1 #ahhd1 passim4 #ga ,he adds with characteristic healthymindedness3 8,our business is to continue to fail in good spirits40 #gb ,the ,god of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of this world4 ,to our own consciousness there is usually a residuum of worth left over after our sins and errors have been told off--our capacity of acknowledging and regretting them is the germ of a better self in posse at least4 ,but the world deals with us in actu and not in posse3 and of this hidden germ1 not to be guessed at from without1 it never takes account4 ,then we turn to the ,all knower1 who knows our bad1 but knows this good in us also1 and who is just4 ,we cast ourselves with our repentance on his mercy3 only by an ,allknower can we finally be judged4 ,so the need of a ,god very definitely emerges from this sort of experience of life4 #gc ,e4g41 ,iliad1 ,,xvii4 #ddf3 8,nothing then is more wretched anywhere than man of all that breathes and creeps upon this earth40 #gd ,e4g41 ,theognis1 #dbedbh3 8,best of all for all things upon earth is it not to be born nor to behold the splendors of the ,sun2 next best to traverse as soon as possible the gates of ,hades40 ,see also the almost identical passage in dipus in ,colonus1 #abbe4--,the ,anthology is full of pessimistic utterances3 8,naked came ,i upon the earth1 naked ,i go below the ground--why then do ,i vainly toil when ,i see the end naked before me80--8,how did ,i come to be8 ,whence am ,i8 ,wherefore did ,i come8 ,to pass away4 ,how can ,i learn aught when naught ,i know8 ,being naught ,i came to life3 once more shall ,i be what ,i was4 ,nothing and nothingness is the whole race of mortals40--8,for death we are all cherished and fattened like a herd of hogs that is wantonly butchered40 ,the difference between ,greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is that the ,greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized1 and figure as a higher form of sensibility4 ,their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature4 ,they would have despised a life set wholly in a minor key1 and summoned it to keep within the proper bounds of lachrymosity4 ,the discovery that the enduring emphasis1 so far as this world goes1 may be laid on its pain and failure1 was reserved for races more complex1 and 7so to speak7 more feminine than the ,hellenes had attained to being in the classic period4 ,but all the same was the outlook of those ,hellenes blackly pessimistic4 #ge ,for instance1 on the very day on which ,i write this page1 the post brings me some aphorisms from a worldlywise old friend in ,heidelberg which may serve as a good contemporaneous expression of ,epicureanism3 8,by the word #8happiness' every human being understands something different4 ,it is a phantom pursued only by weaker minds4 ,the wise man is satisfied with the more modest but much more definite term contentment4 ,what education should chiefly aim at is to save us from a discontented life4 ,health is one favoring condition1 but by no means an indispensable one1 of contentment4 ,woman's heart and love are a shrewd device of ,nature1 a trap which she sets for the average man1 to force him into working4 ,but the wise man will always prefer work chosen by himself40 #gf ,,ribot3 ,psychologie des sentiments1 p4 #ed4 #gg ,a4 ,,gratry3 ,souvenirs de ma jeunesse1 #ahhj1 pp4 #aaiaba1 abridged4 ,some persons are affected with anhedonia permanently1 or at any rate with a loss of the usual appetite for life4 ,the annals of suicide supply such examples as the following3-- ,an uneducated domestic servant1 aged nineteen1 poisons herself1 and leaves two letters expressing her motive for the act4 ,to her parents she writes3-- 8,life is sweet perhaps to some1 but ,i prefer what is sweeter than life1 and that is death4 ,so goodby forever1 my dear parents4 ,it is nobody's fault1 but a strong desire of my own which ,i have longed to fulfill for three or four years4 ,i have always had a hope that some day ,i might have an opportunity of fulfilling it1 and now it has come4444 ,it is a wonder ,i have put this off so long1 but ,i thought perhaps ,i should cheer up a bit and put all thought out of my head40 ,to her brother she writes3 8,goodby forever1 my own dearest brother4 ,by the time you get this ,i shall be gone forever4 ,i know1 dear love1 there is no forgiveness for what ,i am going to do4444 ,i am tired of living1 so am willing to die4444 ,life may be sweet to some1 but death to me is sweeter40 ,s4 ,a4 ,k4 ,,strahan3 ,suicide and ,insanity1 #b;d edition1 ,london1 #ahid1 p4 #aca4 #gh ,,roubinovitch ,,et ,,toulouse3 ,la ,mlancolie1 #ahig1 p4 #agj1 abridged4 #gi ,i cull these examples from the work of ,g4 ,,dumas3 ,la ,tristesse et la ,joie1 #aijj4 #hj ,my extracts are from the ,french translation by 8,,zonia40 ,in abridging ,i have taken the liberty of transposing one passage4 #ha ,grace abounding to the ,chief of ,sinners3 ,i have printed a number of detached passages continuously4 #hb ,the ,life and ,journal of the ,rev4 ,mr4 ,henry ,alline1 ,boston1 #ahjf1 pp4 #be1 #bf4 ,i owe my acquaintance with this book to my colleague1 ,dr4 ,benjamin ,rand4 #hc ,compare ,bunyan3 8,there was ,i struck into a very great trembling1 insomuch that at some times ,i could1 for days together1 feel my very body1 as well as my mind1 to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of ,god1 that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin4 ,i felt also such clogging and heat at my stomach1 by reason of this my terror1 that ,i was1 especially at some times1 as if my breastbone would have split asunder4444 ,thus did ,i wind1 and twine1 and shrink1 under the burden that was upon me2 which burden also did so oppress me that ,i could neither stand1 nor go1 nor lie1 either at rest or quiet40 #hd ,for another case of fear equally sudden1 see ,,henry ,,james3 ,society the ,redeemed ,form of ,man1 ,boston1 #ahgi1 pp4 #dc ff4 #he ,example3 8,it was about eleven o'clock at night 444 but ,i strolled on still with the people4444 ,suddenly upon the left side of our road1 a crackling was heard among the bushes2 all of us were alarmed1 and in an instant a tiger1 rushing out of the jungle1 pounced upon the one of the party that was foremost1 and carried him off in the twinkling of an eye4 ,the rush of the animal1 and the crush of the poor victim's bones in his mouth1 and his last cry of distress1 #8,ho hai6' involuntarily rechoed by all of us1 was over in three seconds2 and then ,i know not what happened till ,i returned to my senses1 when ,i found myself and companions lying down on the ground as if prepared to be devoured by our enemy1 the sovereign of the forest4 ,i find my pen incapable of describing the terror of that dreadful moment4 ,our limbs stiffened1 our power of speech ceased1 and our hearts beat violently1 and only a whisper of the same #8,ho hai6' was heard from us4 ,in this state we crept on all fours for some distance back1 and then ran for life with the speed of an ,arab horse for about half an hour1 and fortunately happened to come to a small village4444 ,after this every one of us was attacked with fever1 attended with shivering1 in which deplorable state we remained till morning40--,autobiography of ,lutfullah1 a ,mohammedan ,gentleman1 ,leipzig1 #aheg1 p4 #aab4 #hf ,e4g41 8,our young people are diseased with the theological problems of original sin1 origin of evil1 predestination1 and the like4 ,these never presented a practical difficulty to any man--never darkened across any man's road1 who did not go out of his way to seek them4 ,these are the soul's mumps1 and measles1 and whoopingcoughs10 etc4 ,,emerson3 8,spiritual ,laws40 #hg ,notes sur la ,vie1 p4 #a4 #hh ,see1 for example1 ,f4 ,paulhan1 in his book ,les ,caractres1 #ahid1 who contrasts les ,equilibrs1 les ,unifis1 with les ,inquiets1 les ,contrariants1 les ,incohrents1 les ,emietts1 as so many diverse psychic types4 #hi ,,annie ,,besant3 an ,autobiography1 p4 #hb4 #ij ,,smith ,,baker1 in ,journal of ,nervous and ,mental ,diseases1 ,september1 #ahic4 #ia ,,louis ,,gourdon 7,essai sur la ,conversion de ,saint ,augustine1 ,paris1 ,fischbacher1 #aijj7 has shown by an analysis of ,augustine's writings immediately after the date of his conversion 7,a4 ,d4 #chf7 that the account he gives in the ,confessions is premature4 ,the crisis in the garden marked a definitive conversion from his former life1 but it was to the neoplatonic spiritualism and only a halfway stage toward ,christianity4 ,the latter he appears not fully and radically to have embraced until four years more had passed4 #ib ,confessions1 ,book ,,viii41 chaps4 v41 vii41 xi41 abridged4 #ic ,,th4 ,,jouffroy3 ,nouveaux ,mlanges philosophiques1 #bme dition1 p4 #hc4 ,i add two other cases of counterconversion dating from a certain moment4 ,the first is from ,professor ,starbuck's manuscript collection1 and the narrator is a woman4 8,away down in the bottom of my heart1 ,i believe ,i was always more or less skeptical about #8,god2' skepticism grew as an undercurrent1 all through my early youth1 but it was controlled and covered by the emotional elements in my religious growth4 ,when ,i was sixteen ,i joined the church and was asked if ,i loved ,god4 ,i replied #8,yes1' as was customary and expected4 ,but instantly with a flash something spoke within me1 #8,no1 you do not4' ,i was haunted for a long time with shame and remorse for my falsehood and for my wickedness in not loving ,god1 mingled with fear that there might be an avenging ,god who would punish me in some terrible way4444 ,at nineteen1 ,i had an attack of tonsilitis4 ,before ,i had quite recovered1 ,i heard told a story of a brute who had kicked his wife downstairs1 and then continued the operation until she became insensible4 ,i felt the horror of the thing keenly4 ,instantly this thought flashed through my mind3 #8,i have no use for a ,god who permits such things4' ,this experience was followed by months of stoical indifference to the ,god of my previous life1 mingled with feelings of positive dislike and a somewhat proud defiance of him4 ,i still thought there might be a ,god4 ,if so he would probably damn me1 but ,i should have to stand it4 ,i felt very little fear and no desire to propitiate him4 ,i have never had any personal relations with him since this painful experience40 ,the second case exemplifies how small an additional stimulus will overthrow the mind into a new state of equilibrium when the process of preparation and incubation has proceeded far enough4 ,it is like the proverbial last straw added to the camel's burden1 or that touch of a needle which makes the salt in a supersaturated fluid suddenly begin to crystallize out4 ,tolstoy writes3 8,s41 a frank and intelligent man1 told me as follows how he ceased to believe3-- 8,he was twentysix years old when one day on a hunting expedition1 the time for sleep having come1 he set himself to pray according to the custom he had held from childhood4 8,his brother1 who was hunting with him1 lay upon the hay and looked at him4 ,when ,s4 had finished his prayer and was turning to sleep1 the brother said1 #8,do you still keep up that thing8' ,nothing more was said4 ,but since that day1 now more than thirty years ago1 ,s4 has never prayed again2 he never takes communion1 and does not go to church4 ,all this1 not because he became acquainted with convictions of his brother which he then and there adopted2 not because he made any new resolution in his soul1 but merely because the words spoken by his brother were like the light push of a finger against a leaning wall already about to tumble by its own weight4 ,these words but showed him that the place wherein he supposed religion dwelt in him had long been empty1 and that the sentences he uttered1 the crosses and bows which he made during his prayer1 were actions with no inner sense4 ,having once seized their absurdity1 he could no longer keep them up40 ,my ,confession1 p4 #h4 #id ,op4 cit41 ,letter ,,iii41 abridged4 ,i subjoin an additional document which has come into my possession1 and which represents in a vivid way what is probably a very frequent sort of conversion1 if the opposite of 8falling in love10 falling out of love1 may be so termed4 ,falling in love also conforms frequently to this type1 a latent process of unconscious preparation often preceding a sudden awakening to the fact that the mischief is irretrievably done4 ,the free and easy tone in this narrative gives it a sincerity that speaks for itself4 8,for two years of this time ,i went through a very bad experience1 which almost drove me mad4 ,i had fallen violently in love with a girl who1 young as she was1 had a spirit of coquetry like a cat4 ,as ,i look back on her now1 ,i hate her1 and wonder how ,i could ever have fallen so low as to be worked upon to such an extent by her attractions4 ,nevertheless1 ,i fell into a regular fever1 could think of nothing else2 whenever ,i was alone1 ,i pictured her attractions1 and spent most of the time when ,i should have been working1 in recalling our previous interviews1 and imagining future conversations4 ,she was very pretty1 good humored1 and jolly to the last degree1 and intensely pleased with my admiration4 ,would give me no decided answer yes or no1 and the queer thing about it was that whilst pursuing her for her hand1 ,i secretly knew all along that she was unfit to be a wife for me1 and that she never would say yes4 ,although for a year we took our meals at the same boardinghouse1 so that ,i saw her continually and familiarly1 our closer relations had to be largely on the sly1 and this fact1 together with my jealousy of another one of her male admirers1 and my own conscience despising me for my uncontrollable weakness1 made me so nervous and sleepless that ,i really thought ,i should become insane4 ,i understand well those young men murdering their sweethearts1 which appear so often in the papers4 ,nevertheless ,i did love her passionately1 and in some ways she did deserve it4 8,the queer thing was the sudden and unexpected way in which it all stopped4 ,i was going to my work after breakfast one morning1 thinking as usual of her and of my misery1 when1 just as if some outside power laid hold of me1 ,i found myself turning round and almost running to my room1 where ,i immediately got out all the relics of her which ,i possessed1 including some hair1 all her notes and letters1 and ambrotypes on glass4 ,the former ,i made a fire of1 the latter ,i actually crushed beneath my heel1 in a sort of fierce joy of revenge and punishment4 ,i now loathed and despised her altogether1 and as for myself ,i felt as if a load of disease had suddenly been removed from me4 ,that was the end4 ,i never spoke to her or wrote to her again in all the subsequent years1 and ,i have never had a single moment of loving thought towards one who for so many months entirely filled my heart4 ,in fact1 ,i have always rather hated her memory1 though now ,i can see that ,i had gone unnecessarily far in that direction4 ,at any rate1 from that happy morning onward ,i regained possession of my own proper soul1 and have never since fallen into any similar trap40 ,this seems to me an unusually clear example of two different levels of personality1 inconsistent in their dictates1 yet so well balanced against each other as for a long time to fill the life with discord and dissatisfaction4 ,at last1 not gradually1 but in a sudden crisis1 the unstable equilibrium is resolved1 and this happens so unexpectedly that it is as if1 to use the writer's words1 8some outside power laid hold40 ,professor ,starbuck gives an analogous case1 and a converse case of hatred suddenly turning into love1 in his ,psychology of ,religion1 p4 #ada4 ,compare the other highly curious instances which he gives on pp4 #acgadd1 of sudden nonreligious alterations of habit or character4 ,he seems right in conceiving all such sudden changes as results of special cerebral functions unconsciously developing until they are ready to play a controlling part1 when they make irruption into the conscious life4 ,when we treat of sudden 8conversion10 ,i shall make as much use as ,i can of this hypothesis of subconscious incubation4 #ie ,h4 ,,fletcher3 ,menticulture1 or the ,a,b,c of ,true ,living1 ,new ,york and ,chicago1 #ahii1 pp4 #bfcf1 abridged4 #if ,i have considerably abridged ,tolstoy's words in my translation4 #ig ,in my quotations from ,bunyan ,i have omitted certain intervening portions of the text4 #ih ,a sketch of the life of ,stephen ,h4 ,bradley1 from the age of five to twentyfour years1 including his remarkable experience of the power of the ,holy ,spirit on the second evening of ,november1 #ahbi4 ,madison1 ,connecticut1 #ahcj4 #ii ,jouffroy is an example3 8,down this slope it was that my intelligence had glided1 and little by little it had got far from its first faith4 ,but this melancholy revolution had not taken place in the broad daylight of my consciousness2 too many scruples1 too many guides and sacred affections had made it dreadful to me1 so that ,i was far from avowing to myself the progress it had made4 ,it had gone on in silence1 by an involuntary elaboration of which ,i was not the accomplice2 and although ,i had in reality long ceased to be a ,christian1 yet1 in the innocence of my intention1 ,i should have shuddered to suspect it1 and thought it calumny had ,i been accused of such a falling away40 ,then follows ,jouffroy's account of his counterconversion1 quoted above on p4 #agf4 #ajj ,one hardly needs examples2 but for love1 see p4 #agi1 note2 for fear1 p4 #afb2 for remorse1 see ,othello after the murder2 for anger1 see ,lear after ,cordelia's first speech to him2 for resolve1 see p4 #agh 7,j4 ,foster case74 ,here is a pathological case in which guilt was the feeling that suddenly exploded3 8,one night ,i was seized on entering bed with a rigor1 such as ,swedenborg describes as coming over him with a sense of holiness1 but over me with a sense of guilt4 ,during that whole night ,i lay under the influence of the rigor1 and from its inception ,i felt that ,i was under the curse of ,god4 ,i have never done one act of duty in my life--sins against ,god and man1 beginning as far as my memory goes back--a wildcat in human shape40 #aja ,e4 ,d4 ,,starbuck3 ,the ,psychology of ,religion1 pp4 #bbd1 #bfb4 #ajb ,no one understands this better than ,jonathan ,edwards understood it already4 ,conversion narratives of the more commonplace sort must always be taken with the allowances which he suggests3 8,a rule received and established by common consent has a very great1 though to many persons an insensible influence in forming their notions of the process of their own experience4 ,i know very well how they proceed as to this matter1 for ,i have had frequent opportunities of observing their conduct4 ,very often their experience at first appears like a confused chaos1 but then those parts are selected which bear the nearest resemblance to such particular steps as are insisted on2 and these are dwelt upon in their thoughts1 and spoken of from time to time1 till they grow more and more conspicuous in their view1 and other parts which are neglected grow more and more obscure4 ,thus what they have experienced is insensibly strained1 so as to bring it to an exact conformity to the scheme already established in their minds4 ,and it becomes natural also for ministers1 who have to deal with those who insist upon distinctness and clearness of method1 to do so too40 ,treatise on ,religious ,affections4 #ajc ,studies in the ,psychology of ,religious ,phenomena1 ,american ,journal of ,psychology1 vii4 #cji 7#ahif74 #ajd ,i have abridged ,mr4 ,hadley's account4 ,for other conversions of drunkards1 see his pamphlet1 ,rescue ,mission ,work1 published at the ,old ,jerry ,m',auley ,water ,street ,mission1 ,new ,york city4 ,a striking collection of cases also appears in the appendix to ,professor ,leuba's article4 #aje ,a restaurant waiter served provisionally as ,gough's 8,saviour40 ,general ,booth1 the founder of the ,salvation ,army1 considers that the first vital step in saving outcasts consists in making them feel that some decent human being cares enough for them to take an interest in the question whether they are to rise or sink4 #ajf ,the crisis of apathetic melancholy--no use in life--into which ,j4 ,s4 ,mill records that he fell1 and from which he emerged by the reading of ,marmontel's ,memoirs 7,heaven save the mark67 and ,wordsworth's poetry1 is another intellectual and general metaphysical case4 ,see ,mill's ,autobiography1 ,new ,york1 #ahgc1 pp4 #ada1 #adh4 #ajg ,starbuck1 in addition to 8escape from sin10 discriminates 8spiritual illumination0 as a distinct type of conversion experience4 ,psychology of ,religion1 p4 #he4 #ajh ,psychology of ,religion1 p4 #aag4 #aji ,psychology of ,religion1 p4 #che4 ,compare1 also1 pp4 #acgadd and #bfb4 #aaj ,for instance1 ,c4 ,g4 ,finney italicizes the volitional element3 8,just at this point the whole question of ,gospel salvation opened to my mind in a manner most marvelous to me at the time4 ,i think ,i then saw1 as clearly as ,i ever have in my life1 the reality and fullness of the atonement of ,christ4 ,gospel salvation seemed to me to be an offer of something to be accepted1 and all that was necessary on my part was to get my own consent to give up my sins and accept ,christ4 ,after this distinct revelation had stood for some little time before my mind1 the question seemed to be put1 #8,will you accept it now1 to day8' ,i replied1 #8,yes2 ,i will accept it today1 or ,i will die in the attempt6' 0 ,he then went into the woods1 where he describes his struggles4 ,he could not pray1 his heart was hardened in its pride4 8,i then reproached myself for having promised to give my heart to ,god before ,i left the woods4 ,when ,i came to try1 ,i found ,i could not4444 ,my inward soul hung back1 and there was no going out of my heart to ,god4 ,the thought was pressing me1 of the rashness of my promise that ,i would give my heart to ,god that day1 or die in the attempt4 ,it seemed to me as if that was binding on my soul2 and yet ,i was going to break my vow4 ,a great sinking and discouragement came over me1 and ,i felt almost too weak to stand upon my knees4 ,just at this moment ,i again thought ,i heard some one approach me1 and ,i opened my eyes to see whether it were so4 ,but right there the revelation of my pride of heart1 as the great difficulty that stood in the way1 was distinctly shown to me4 ,an overwhelming sense of my wickedness in being ashamed to have a human being see me on my knees before ,god took such powerful possession of me1 that ,i cried at the top of my voice1 and exclaimed that ,i would not leave that place if all the men on earth and all the devils in hell surrounded me4 #8,what6' ,i said1 #8such a degraded sinner as ,i am1 on my knees confessing my sins to the great and holy ,god2 and ashamed to have any human being1 and a sinner like myself1 find me on my knees endeavoring to make my peace with my offended ,god6' ,the sin appeared awful1 infinite4 ,it broke me down before the ,lord40 ,memoirs1 pp4 #adaf1 abridged4 #aaa ,,starbuck3 ,op4 cit41 pp4 #ia1 #aad4 #aab ,extracts from the ,journal of ,mr4 ,john ,nelson1 ,london1 no date1 p4 #bd4 #aac ,,starbuck1 p4 #fd4 #aad ,,starbuck1 p4 #aae4 #aae ,,starbuck1 p4 #aac4 #aaf ,,edward',s and ,,dwight',s ,life of ,brainerd1 ,new ,haven1 #ahbb1 pp4 #dedg1 abridged4 #aag ,describing the whole phenomenon as a change of equilibrium1 we might say that the movement of new psychic energies towards the personal centre and the recession of old ones towards the margin 7or the rising of some objects above1 and the sinking of others below the conscious threshold7 were only two ways of describing an indivisible event4 ,doubtless this is often absolutely true1 and ,starbuck is right when he says that 8selfsurrender0 and 8new determination10 though seeming at first sight to be such different experiences1 are 8really the same thing4 ,selfsurrender sees the change in terms of the old self2 determination sees it in terms of the new40 ,op4 cit41 p4 #afj4 #aah ,a4 ,a4 ,,bonar3 ,nettleton and his ,labors1 ,edinburgh1 #ahed1 p4 #bfa4 #aai ,,charles ,g4 ,,finney3 ,memoirs written by ,himself1 #ahgf1 pp4 #ag1 #ah4 #abj ,life and ,journals1 ,boston1 #ahjf1 pp4 #cadj1 abridged4 #aba ,my quotations are made from an ,italian translation of this letter in the ,biografia del ,sig4 ,m4 ,a4 ,ratisbonne1 ,ferrara1 #ahdc1 which ,i have to thank ,monsignore ,d4 ,o',connell of ,rome for bringing to my notice4 ,i abridge the original4 #abb ,published in the ,international ,scientific ,series4 #abc ,the reader will here please notice that in my exclusive reliance in the last lecture on the subconscious 8incubation0 of motives deposited by a growing experience1 ,i followed the method of employing accepted principles of explanation as far as one can4 ,the subliminal region1 whatever else it may be1 is at any rate a place now admitted by psychologists to exist for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible experience 7whether inattentively or attentively registered71 and for their elaboration according to ordinary psychological or logical laws into results that end by attaining such a 8tension0 that they may at times enter consciousness with something like a burst4 ,it thus is 8scientific0 to interpret all otherwise unaccountable invasive alterations of consciousness as results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching the burstingpoint4 ,but candor obliges me to confess that there are occasional bursts into consciousness of results of which it is not easy to demonstrate any prolonged subconscious incubation4 ,some of the cases ,i used to illustrate the sense of presence of the unseen in ,lecture ,,iii were of this order 7compare pages #ei1 #fa1 #fb1 #fg72 and we shall see other experiences of the kind when we come to the subject of mysticism4 ,the case of ,mr4 ,bradley1 that of ,m4 ,ratisbonne1 possibly that of ,colonel ,gardiner1 possibly that of ,saint ,paul1 might not be so easily explained in this simple way4 ,the result1 then1 would have to be ascribed either to a merely physiological nerve storm1 a 8discharging lesion0 like that of epilepsy2 or1 in case it were useful and rational1 as in the two latter cases named1 to some more mystical or theological hypothesis4 ,i make this remark in order that the reader may realize that the subject is really complex4 ,but ,i shall keep myself as far as possible at present to the more 8scientific0 view2 and only as the plot thickens in subsequent lectures shall ,i consider the question of its absolute sufficiency as an explanation of all the facts4 ,that subconscious incubation explains a great number of them1 there can be no doubt4 #abd ,edwards says elsewhere3 8,i am bold to say that the work of ,god in the conversion of one soul1 considered together with the source1 foundation1 and purchase of it1 and also the benefit1 end1 and eternal issue of it1 is a more glorious work of ,god than the creation of the whole material universe40 #abe ,emerson writes3 8,when we see a soul whose acts are regal1 graceful1 and pleasant as roses1 we must thank ,god that such things can be and are1 and not turn sourly on the angel and say3 ,crump is a better man1 with his grunting resistance to all his native devils40 ,true enough4 ,yet ,crump may really be the better ,crump1 for his inner discords and second birth2 and your onceborn 8regal0 character1 though indeed always better than poor ,crump1 may fall far short of what he individually might be had he only some ,crumplike capacity for compunction over his own peculiar diabolisms1 graceful and pleasant and invariably gentlemanly as these may be4 #abf ,in his book1 ,the ,spiritual ,life1 ,new ,york1 #aijj4 #abg ,op4 cit41 p4 #aab4 #abh ,op4 cit41 p4 #add4 #abi ,i piece together a quotation made by ,w4 ,monod1 in his book ,la ,vie1 and a letter printed in the work3 ,adolphe ,monod3 ,i41 ,souvenirs de sa ,vie1 #ahhe1 p4 #dcc4 #acj ,commentary on ,galatians1 ch4 iii4 verse #ai1 and ch4 ii4 verse #bj1 abridged4 #aca ,in some conversions1 both steps are distinct2 in this one1 for example3-- 8,whilst ,i was reading the evangelical treatise1 ,i was soon struck by an expression3 #8the finished work of ,christ4' #8,why1' ,i asked of myself1 #8does the author use these terms8 ,why does he not say 8the atoning work08' ,then these words1 #8,it is finished1' presented themselves to my mind4 #8,what is it that is finished8' ,i asked1 and in an instant my mind replied3 #8,a perfect expiation for sin2 entire satisfaction has been given2 the debt has been paid by the ,substitute4 ,christ has died for our sins2 not for ours only1 but for those of all men4 ,if1 then1 the entire work is finished1 all the debt paid1 what remains for me to do8' ,in another instant the light was shed through my mind by the ,holy ,ghost1 and the joyous conviction was given me that nothing more was to be done1 save to fall on my knees1 to accept this ,saviour and his love1 to praise ,god forever40 ,autobiography of ,hudson ,taylor4 ,i translate back into ,english from the ,french translation of ,challand 7,geneva1 no date71 the original not being accessible4 #acb ,tolstoy's case was a good comment on those words4 ,there was almost no theology in his conversion4 ,his faithstate was the sense come back that life was infinite in its moral significance4 #acc ,american ,journal of ,psychology1 vii4 #cdecdg1 abridged4 #acd ,above1 p4 #aeb4 #ace ,,dwight3 ,life of ,edwards1 ,new ,york1 #ahcj1 p4 #fa1 abridged4 #acf ,w4 ,f4 ,,bourne3 ,the ,king's ,son1 a ,memoir of ,billy ,bray1 ,london1 ,hamilton1 ,adams ,co41 #ahhg1 p4 #i4 #acg ,consult ,,william ,b4 ,,sprague3 ,lectures on ,revivals of ,religion1 ,new ,york1 #ahcb1 in the long ,appendix to which the opinions of a large number of ministers are given4 #ach ,memoirs1 p4 #cd4 #aci ,these reports of sensorial photism shade off into what are evidently only metaphorical accounts of the sense of new spiritual illumination1 as1 for instance1 in ,brainerd's statement3 8,as ,i was walking in a thick grove1 unspeakable glory seemed to open to the apprehension of my soul4 ,i do not mean any external brightness1 for ,i saw no such thing1 nor any imagination of a body of light in the third heavens1 or anything of that nature1 but it was a new inward apprehension or view that ,i had of ,god40 ,in a case like this next one from ,starbuck's manuscript collection1 the lighting up of the darkness is probably also metaphorical3-- 8,one ,sunday night1 ,i resolved that when ,i got home to the ranch where ,i was working1 ,i would offer myself with my faculties and all to ,god to be used only by and for him4444 ,it was raining and the roads were muddy2 but this desire grew so strong that ,i kneeled down by the side of the road and told ,god all about it1 intending then to get up and go on4 ,such a thing as any special answer to my prayer never entered my mind1 having been converted by faith1 but still being most undoubtedly saved4 ,well1 while ,i was praying1 ,i remember holding out my hands to ,god and telling him they should work for him1 my feet walk for him1 my tongue speak for him1 etc41 etc41 if he would only use me as his instrument and give me a satisfying experience--when suddenly the darkness of the night seemed lit up--,i felt1 realized1 knew1 that ,god heard and answered my prayer4 ,deep happiness came over me2 ,i felt ,i was accepted into the inner circle of ,god's loved ones40 ,in the following case also the flash of light is metaphorical3-- 8,a prayer meeting had been called for at close of evening service4 ,the minister supposed me impressed by his discourse 7a mistake--he was dull74 ,he came and1 placing his hand upon my shoulder1 said3 #8,do you not want to give your heart to ,god8' ,i replied in the affirmative4 ,then said he1 #8,come to the front seat4' ,they sang and prayed and talked with me4 ,i experienced nothing but unaccountable wretchedness4 ,they declared that the reason why ,i did not #8obtain peace' was because ,i was not willing to give up all to ,god4 ,after about two hours the minister said we would go home4 ,as usual1 on retiring1 ,i prayed4 ,in great distress1 ,i at this time simply said1 #8,lord1 ,i have done all ,i can1 ,i leave the whole matter with thee4' ,immediately1 like a flash of light1 there came to me a great peace1 and ,i arose and went into my parents' bedroom and said1 #8,i do feel so wonderfully happy4' ,this ,i regard as the hour of conversion4 ,it was the hour in which ,i became assured of divine acceptance and favor4 ,so far as my life was concerned1 it made little immediate change40 #adj ,i add in a note a few more records3-- 8,one morning1 being in deep distress1 fearing every moment ,i should drop into hell1 ,i was constrained to cry in earnest for mercy1 and the ,lord came to my relief1 and delivered my soul from the burden and guilt of sin4 ,my whole frame was in a tremor from head to foot1 and my soul enjoyed sweet peace4 ,the pleasure ,i then felt was indescribable4 ,the happiness lasted about three days1 during which time ,i never spoke to any person about my feelings40 ,autobiography of ,,dan ,,young1 edited by ,w4 ,p4 ,,strickland1 ,new ,york1 #ahfj4 8,in an instant there rose up in me such a sense of ,god's taking care of those who put their trust in him that for an hour all the world was crystalline1 the heavens were lucid1 and ,i sprang to my feet and began to cry and laugh40 ,h4 ,w4 ,,beecher1 quoted by ,,leuba4 8,my tears of sorrow changed to joy1 and ,i lay there praising ,god in such ecstasy of joy as only the soul who experiences it can realize40--8,i cannot express how ,i felt4 ,it was as if ,i had been in a dark dungeon and lifted into the light of the sun4 ,i shouted and ,i sang praise unto him who loved me and washed me from my sins4 ,i was forced to retire into a secret place1 for the tears did flow1 and ,i did not wish my shopmates to see me1 and yet ,i could not keep it a secret40--8,i experienced joy almost to weeping40--8,i felt my face must have shone like that of ,moses4 ,i had a general feeling of buoyancy4 ,it was the greatest joy it was ever my lot to experience40--8,i wept and laughed alternately4 ,i was as light as if walking on air4 ,i felt as if ,i had gained greater peace and happiness than ,i had ever expected to experience40 ,,starbuck',s correspondents4 #ada ,psychology of ,religion1 pp4 #cfj1 #ceg4 #adb ,,sainte,,beuve3 ,port,royal1 vol4 i4 pp4 #ie and #ajf1 abridged4 #adc 8 #8,love would not be love1' says ,bourget1 #8unless it could carry one to crime4' ,and so one may say that no passion would be a veritable passion unless it could carry one to crime40 7,,sighele3 ,psychologie des ,sectes1 p4 #acf47 ,in other words1 great passions annul the ordinary inhibitions set by 8conscience40 ,and conversely1 of all the criminal human beings1 the false1 cowardly1 sensual1 or cruel persons who actually live1 there is perhaps not one whose criminal impulse may not be at some moment overpowered by the presence of some other emotion to which his character is also potentially liable1 provided that other emotion be only made intense enough4 ,fear is usually the most available emotion for this result in this particular class of persons4 ,it stands for conscience1 and may here be classed appropriately as a 8higher affection40 ,if we are soon to die1 or if we believe a day of judgment to be near at hand1 how quickly do we put our moral house in order--we do not see how sin can evermore exert temptation over us6 ,oldfashioned hellfire ,christianity well knew how to extract from fear its full equivalent in the way of fruits for repentance1 and its full conversion value4 #add ,example3 ,benjamin ,constant was often marveled at as an extraordinary instance of superior intelligence with inferior character4 ,he writes 7,journal1 ,paris1 #ahie1 p4 #ef71 8,i am tossed and dragged about by my miserable weakness4 ,never was anything so ridiculous as my indecision4 ,now marriage1 now solitude2 now ,germany1 now ,france1 hesitation upon hesitation1 and all because at bottom ,i am unable to give up anything40 ,he can't 8get mad0 at any of his alternatives2 and the career of a man beset by such an allround amiability is hopeless4 #ade ,the great thing which the higher excitabilities give is courage2 and the addition or subtraction of a certain amount of this quality makes a different man1 a different life4 ,various excitements let the courage loose4 ,trustful hope will do it2 inspiring example will do it2 love will do it2 wrath will do it4 ,in some people it is natively so high that the mere touch of danger does it1 though danger is for most men the great inhibitor of action4 8,love of adventure0 becomes in such persons a ruling passion4 8,i believe10 says ,general ,skobeleff1 8that my bravery is simply the passion and at the same time the contempt of danger4 ,the risk of life fills me with an exaggerated rapture4 ,the fewer there are to share it1 the more ,i like it4 ,the participation of my body in the event is required to furnish me an adequate excitement4 ,everything intellectual appears to me to be reflex2 but a meeting of man to man1 a duel1 a danger into which ,i can throw myself headforemost1 attracts me1 moves me1 intoxicates me4 ,i am crazy for it1 ,i love it1 ,i adore it4 ,i run after danger as one runs after women2 ,i wish it never to stop4 ,were it always the same1 it would always bring me a new pleasure4 ,when ,i throw myself into an adventure in which ,i hope to find it1 my heart palpitates with the uncertainty2 ,i could wish at once to have it appear and yet to delay4 ,a sort of painful and delicious shiver shakes me2 my entire nature runs to meet the peril with an impetus that my will would in vain try to resist40 7,,juliette ,,adam3 ,le ,gnral ,skobeleff1 ,nouvelle ,revue1 #ahhf1 abridged47 ,skobeleff seems to have been a cruel egoist2 but the disinterested ,garibaldi1 if one may judge by his 8,memorie10 lived in an unflagging emotion of similar dangerseeking excitement4 #adf ,see the case on p4 #gj1 above1 where the writer describes his experiences of communion with the ,divine as consisting 8merely in the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which usually cover my life40 #adg ,above1 p4 #bja4 8,the only radical remedy ,i know for dipsomania is religiomania10 is a saying ,i have heard quoted from some medical man4 #adh ,doddridge's ,life of ,colonel ,james ,gardiner1 ,london ,religious ,tract ,society1 pp4 #bccb4 #adi ,here1 for example1 is a case1 from ,starbuck's book1 in which a 8sensory automatism0 brought about quickly what prayers and resolves had been unable to effect4 ,the subject is a woman4 ,she writes3-- 8,when ,i was about forty ,i tried to quit smoking1 but the desire was on me1 and had me in its power4 ,i cried and prayed and promised ,god to quit1 but could not4 ,i had smoked for fifteen years4 ,when ,i was fiftythree1 as ,i sat by the fire one day smoking1 a voice came to me4 ,i did not hear it with my ears1 but more as a dream or sort of double think4 ,it said1 #8,louisa1 lay down smoking4' ,at once ,i replied1 #8,will you take the desire away8' ,but it only kept saying3 #8,louisa1 lay down smoking4' ,then ,i got up1 laid my pipe on the mantelshelf1 and never smoked again or had any desire to4 ,the desire was gone as though ,i had never known it or touched tobacco4 ,the sight of others smoking and the smell of smoke never gave me the least wish to touch it again40 ,the ,psychology of ,religion1 p4 #adb4 #aej ,professor ,starbuck expresses the radical destruction of old influences physiologically1 as a cutting off of the connection between higher and lower cerebral centres4 8,this condition10 he says1 8in which the associationcentres connected with the spiritual life are cut off from the lower1 is often reflected in the way correspondents describe their experiences4444 ,for example3 #8,temptations from without still assail me1 but there is nothing within to respond to them4' ,the ego here is wholly identified with the higher centres1 whose quality of feeling is that of withinness4 ,another of the respondents says3 #8,since then1 although ,satan tempts me1 there is as it were a wall of brass around me1 so that his darts cannot touch me4' 0--,unquestionably1 functional exclusions of this sort must occur in the cerebral organ4 ,but on the side accessible to introspection1 their causal condition is nothing but the degree of spiritual excitement1 getting at last so high and strong as to be sovereign2 and it must be frankly confessed that we do not know just why or how such sovereignty comes about in one person and not in another4 ,we can only give our imagination a certain delusive help by mechanical analogies4 ,if we should conceive1 for example1 that the human mind1 with its different possibilities of equilibrium1 might be like a manysided solid with different surfaces on which it could lie flat1 we might liken mental revolutions to the spatial revolutions of such a body4 ,as it is pried up1 say by a lever1 from a position in which it lies on surface ,a1 for instance1 it will linger for a time unstably halfway up1 and if the lever cease to urge it1 it will tumble back or 8relapse0 under the continued pull of gravity4 ,but if at last it rotate far enough for its centre of gravity to pass beyond surface ,a altogether1 the body will fall over1 on surface ,b1 say1 and abide there permanently4 ,the pulls of gravity towards ,a have vanished1 and may now be disregarded4 ,the polyhedron has become immune against farther attraction from their direction4 ,in this figure of speech the lever may correspond to the emotional influences making for a new life1 and the initial pull of gravity to the ancient drawbacks and inhibitions4 ,so long as the emotional influence fails to reach a certain pitch of efficacy1 the changes it produces are unstable1 and the man relapses into his original attitude4 ,but when a certain intensity is attained by the new emotion1 a critical point is passed1 and there then ensues an irreversible revolution1 equivalent to the production of a new nature4 #aea ,i use this word in spite of a certain flavor of 8sanctimoniousness0 which sometimes clings to it1 because no other word suggests as well the exact combination of affections which the text goes on to describe4 #aeb 8,it will be found10 says ,dr4 ,w4 ,r4 ,,inge 7in his lectures on ,christian ,mysticism1 ,london1 #ahii1 p4 #cbf71 8that men of preminent saintliness agree very closely in what they tell us4 ,they tell us that they have arrived at an unshakable conviction1 not based on inference but on immediate experience1 that ,god is a spirit with whom the human spirit can hold intercourse2 that in him meet all that they can imagine of goodness1 truth1 and beauty2 that they can see his footprints everywhere in nature1 and feel his presence within them as the very life of their life1 so that in proportion as they come to themselves they come to him4 ,they tell us what separates us from him and from happiness is1 first1 selfseeking in all its forms2 and1 secondly1 sensuality in all its forms2 that these are the ways of darkness and death1 which hide from us the face of ,god2 while the path of the just is like a shining light1 which shineth more and more unto the perfect day40 #aec ,the 8enthusiasm of humanity0 may lead to a life which coalesces in many respects with that of ,christian saintliness4 ,take the following rules proposed to members of the ,union pour l',action morale1 in the ,bulletin de l',union1 ,april #aae1 #ahid4 ,see1 also1 ,revue ,bleue1 ,august #ac1 #ahib4 8,we would make known in our own persons the usefulness of rule1 of discipline1 of resignation and renunciation2 we would teach the necessary perpetuity of suffering1 and explain the creative part which it plays4 ,we would wage war upon false optimism2 on the base hope of happiness coming to us ready made2 on the notion of a salvation by knowledge alone1 or by material civilization alone1 vain symbol as this is of civilization1 precarious external arrangement1 illfitted to replace the intimate union and consent of souls4 ,we would wage war also on bad morals1 whether in public or in private life2 on luxury1 fastidiousness1 and overrefinement2 on all that tends to increase the painful1 immoral1 and antisocial multiplication of our wants2 on all that excites envy and dislike in the soul of the common people1 and confirms the notion that the chief end of life is freedom to enjoy4 ,we would preach by our example the respect of superiors and equals1 the respect of all men2 affectionate simplicity in our relations with inferiors and insignificant persons2 indulgence where our own claims only are concerned1 but firmness in our demands where they relate to duties towards others or towards the public4 8,for the common people are what we help them to become2 their vices are our vices1 gazed upon1 envied1 and imitated2 and if they come back with all their weight upon us1 it is but just40 #aed ,above1 pp4 #bdh ff4 #aee ,h4 ,,thoreau3 ,walden1 ,riverside edition1 p4 #bjf1 abridged4 #aef ,c4 ,h4 ,,hilty3 ,glck1 vol4 i4 p4 #he4 #aeg ,the ,mystery of ,pain and ,death1 ,london1 #ahib1 p4 #beh4 #aeh ,compare ,madame ,guyon3 8,it was my practice to arise at midnight for purposes of devotion4444 ,it seemed to me that ,god came at the precise time and woke me from sleep in order that ,i might enjoy him4 ,when ,i was out of health or greatly fatigued1 he did not awake me1 but at such times ,i felt1 even in my sleep1 a singular possession of ,god4 ,he loved me so much that he seemed to pervade my being1 at a time when ,i could be only imperfectly conscious of his presence4 ,my sleep is sometimes broken1--a sort of half sleep2 but my soul seems to be awake enough to know ,god1 when it is hardly capable of knowing anything else40 ,t4 ,c4 ,,upham3 ,the ,life and ,religious ,experiences of ,madame de la ,mothe ,guyon1 ,new ,york1 #ahgg1 vol4 i4 p4 #bfj4 #aei ,i have considerably abridged the words of the original1 which is given in ,,edwards',s ,narrative of the ,revival in ,new ,england4 #afj ,,bougaud3 ,hist4 de la ,bienheureuse ,marguerite ,marie1 #ahid1 p4 #abe4 #afa ,paris1 #aijj4 #afb ,page #acj4 #afc ,page #afg4 #afd ,op4 cit41 p4 #abg4 #afe ,the barrier between men and animals also4 ,we read of ,towianski1 an eminent ,polish patriot and mystic1 that 8one day one of his friends met him in the rain1 caressing a big dog which was jumping upon him and covering him horribly with mud4 ,on being asked why he permitted the animal thus to dirty his clothes1 ,towianski replied3 #8,this dog1 whom ,i am now meeting for the first time1 has shown a great fellow feeling for me1 and a great joy in my recognition and acceptance of his greetings4 ,were ,i to drive him off1 ,i should wound his feelings and do him a moral injury4 ,it would be an offense not only to him1 but to all the spirits of the other world who are on the same level with him4 ,the damage which he does to my coat is as nothing in comparison with the wrong which ,i should inflict upon him1 in case ,i were to remain indifferent to the manifestations of his friendship4 ,we ought1' he added1 #8both to lighten the condition of animals1 whenever we can1 and at the same time to facilitate in ourselves that union of the world of all spirits1 which the sacrifice of ,christ has made possible4' 0 ,andr ,towianski1 ,traduction de l',italien1 ,turin1 #ahig 7privately printed74 ,i owe my knowledge of this book and of ,towianski to my friend ,professor ,w4 ,lutoslawski1 author of 8,plato's ,logic40 #aff ,j4 ,,patterson',s ,life of ,richard ,weaver1 pp4 #fffh1 abridged4 #afg ,as where the future ,buddha1 incarnated as a hare1 jumps into the fire to cook himself for a meal for a beggar--having previously shaken himself three times1 so that none of the insects in his fur should perish with him4 #afh ,bulletin de l',union pour l',action ,morale1 ,september1 #ahid4 #afi ,b4 ,,pascal3 ,prires pour les ,maladies1 xiii41 xiv41 abridged4 #agj ,from ,,thomas ,c4 ,,upham',s ,life and ,religious ,opinions and ,experiences of ,madame de la ,mothe ,guyon1 ,new ,york1 #ahgg1 ii4 #dh1 i4 #ada1 #dac1 abridged4 #aga ,op4 cit41 ,london1 #aija1 p4 #acj4 #agb ,,clapar,,de et ,,goty3 ,deux ,hroines de la ,foi1 ,paris1 #ahhj1 p4 #aab4 #agc ,compare these three different statements of it3 ,a4 ,p4 ,,call3 ,as a ,matter of ,course1 ,boston1 #ahid2 ,h4 ,w4 ,,dresser3 ,living by the ,spirit1 ,new ,york and ,london1 #aijj2 ,h4 ,w4 ,,smith3 ,the ,christian's ,secret of a ,happy ,life1 published by the ,willard ,tract ,repository1 and now in thousands of hands4 #agd ,t4 ,c4 ,,upham3 ,life of ,madame ,catharine ,adorna1 #c;d ed41 ,new ,york1 #ahfd1 pp4 #aeh1 #agbagd4 #age ,the ,history of ,,thomas ,,elwood1 written by ,himself1 ,london1 #ahhe1 pp4 #cbcd4 #agf ,memoirs of ,w4,e4 ,channing1 ,boston1 #ahdj1 i4 #aif4 #agg ,l4 ,,tyerman3 ,the ,life and ,times of the ,rev4 ,john ,wesley1 i4 #bgd4 #agh ,a4 ,,mounin3 ,le ,cur d',ars1 ,vie de ,m4 ,j4 ,b4 ,m4 ,vianney1 #ahfd1 p4 #ede1 abridged4 #agi ,b4 ,,wendell3 ,cotton ,mather1 ,new ,york1 no date1 p4 #aih4 #ahj ,that of the earlier ,jesuit1 ,,rodriguez1 which has been translated into all languages1 is one of the best known4 ,a convenient modern manual1 very well put together1 is ,l',asctique ,chrtienne1 by ,m4 ,j4 ,,ribet1 ,paris1 ,poussielgue1 nouvelle dition1 #ahih4 #aha ,,saint ,,jean ,,de ,,la ,,croix1 ,vie et uvres1 ,paris1 #ahic1 ii4 #id1 #ii1 abridged4 #ahb 8,insects10 i4e4 lice1 were an unfailing token of medival sainthood4 ,we read of ,francis of ,assisi's sheepskin that 8often a companion of the saint would take it to the fire to clean and dispediculate it1 doing so1 as he said1 because the seraphic father himself was no enemy of pedocchi1 but on the contrary kept them on him 7le portava adosso71 and held it for an honor and a glory to wear these celestial pearls in his habit40 ,quoted by ,p4 ,,sabatier3 ,speculum ,perfectionis1 etc41 ,paris1 #ahih1 p4 #bca1 note4 #ahc ,the ,life of the ,blessed ,,henry ,,suso1 by ,himself1 translated by ,t4 ,f4 ,,knox1 ,london1 #ahfe1 pp4 #efhj1 abridged4 #ahd ,,bougaud3 ,hist4 de la bienheureuse ,marguerite ,marie1 ,paris1 #ahid1 pp4 #bfe1 #aga4 ,compare1 also1 pp4 #chf1 #chg4 #ahe ,,lejeune3 ,introduction la ,vie ,mystique1 #ahii1 p4 #bgg4 ,the holocaust simile goes back at least as far as ,ignatius ,loyola4 #ahf ,,alfonso ,,rodriguez1 ,s4 ,j43 ,pratique de la ,perfection ,chrtienne1 ,part iii41 ,treatise v41 ch4 x4 #ahg ,letters li4 and cxx4 of the collection translated into ,french by ,,bouix1 ,paris1 #ahgj4 #ahh ,,bartoli,,michel1 ii4 #ac4 #ahi ,,rodriguez3 ,op4 cit41 ,part iii41 ,treatise v41 ch4 vi4 #aij ,,sainte,,beuve3 ,histoire de ,port ,royal1 i4 #cdf4 #aia ,,rodriguez3 ,op4 cit41 ,part iii41 ,treatise iii41 chaps4 vi41 vii4 #aib ,r4 ,,philip3 ,the ,life and ,times of ,george ,whitefield1 ,london1 #ahdb1 p4 #cff4 #aic ,,edward ,,carpenter3 ,towards ,democracy1 p4 #cfb1 abridged4 #aid ,speculum ,perfectionis1 ed4 ,p4 ,,sabatier1 ,paris1 #ahih1 pp4 #aj1 #ac4 #aie ,an ,apology for ,m4 ,antonia ,bourignon1 ,london1 #afii1 pp4 #bfi1 #bgj1 abridged4 ,another example from ,starbuck's ,,ms4 collection3-- 8,at a meeting held at six the next morning1 ,i heard a man relate his experience4 ,he said3 ,the ,lord asked him if he would confess ,christ among the quarrymen with whom he worked1 and he said he would4 ,then he asked him if he would give up to be used of the ,lord the four hundred dollars he had laid up1 and he said he would1 and thus the ,lord saved him4 ,the thought came to me at once that ,i had never made a real consecration either of myself or of my property to the ,lord1 but had always tried to serve the ,lord in my way4 ,now the ,lord asked me if ,i would serve him in his way1 and go out alone and penniless if he so ordered4 ,the question was pressed home1 and ,i must decide3 ,to forsake all and have him1 or have all and lose him6 ,i soon decided to take him2 and the blessed assurance came1 that he had taken me for his own1 and my joy was full4 ,i returned home from the meeting with feelings as simple as a child4 ,i thought all would be glad to hear of the joy of the ,lord that possessed me1 and so ,i began to tell the simple story4 ,but to my great surprise1 the pastors 7for ,i attended meetings in three churches7 opposed the experience and said it was fanaticism1 and one told the members of his church to shun those that professed it1 and ,i soon found that my foes were those of my own household40 #aif ,j4 ,j4 ,,chapman1 in the ,political ,nursery1 vol4 iv4 p4 #d1 ,april1 #aijj1 abridged4 #aig ,,george ,,fox3 ,journal1 ,philadelphia1 #ahjj1 pp4 #eifa1 abridged4 #aih ,christian saints have had their specialties of devotion1 ,saint ,francis to ,christ's wounds2 ,saint ,anthony of ,padua to ,christ's childhood2 ,saint ,bernard to his humanity2 ,saint ,teresa to ,saint ,joseph1 etc4 ,the ,shiite ,mohammedans venerate ,ali1 the ,prophet's soninlaw1 instead of ,abubekr1 his brotherinlaw4 ,vambry describes a dervish whom he met in ,persia1 8who had solemnly vowed1 thirty years before1 that he would never employ his organs of speech otherwise but in uttering1 everlastingly1 the name of his favorite1 ,ali1 ,ali4 ,he thus wished to signify to the world that he was the most devoted partisan of that ,ali who had been dead a thousand years4 ,in his own home1 speaking with his wife1 children1 and friends1 no other word but #8,ali6' ever passed his lips4 ,if he wanted food or drink or anything else1 he expressed his wants still by repeating #8,ali6' ,begging or buying at the bazaar1 it was always #8,ali6' ,treated ill or generously1 he would still harp on his monotonous #8,ali6' ,latterly his zeal assumed such tremendous proportions that1 like a madman1 he would race1 the whole day1 up and down the streets of the town1 throwing his stick high up into the air1 and shriek out1 all the while1 at the top of his voice1 #8,ali6' ,this dervish was venerated by everybody as a saint1 and received everywhere with the greatest distinction40 ,,arminius ,,vamb,,ry1 his ,life and ,adventures1 written by ,himself1 ,london1 #ahhi1 p4 #fi4 ,on the anniversary of the death of ,hussein1 ,ali's son1 the ,shiite ,moslems still make the air resound with cries of his name and ,ali's4 #aii ,compare ,h4 ,c4 ,,warren3 ,buddhism in ,translation1 ,cambridge1 ,u4 ,s41 #ahih1 passim4 #bjj ,compare ,j4 ,l4 ,,merrick3 ,the ,life and ,religion of ,mohammed1 as contained in the ,sheeah traditions of the ,hyatul,kuloob1 ,boston1 #ahej1 passim4 #bja ,,bougaud3 ,hist4 de la bienheureuse ,marguerite ,marie1 ,paris1 #ahid1 p4 #ade4 #bjb ,,bougaud3 ,hist4 de la bienheureuse ,marguerite ,marie1 ,paris1 #ahid1 pp4 #cfe1 #bda4 #bjc ,,bougaud3 ,op4 cit41 p4 #bfg4 #bjd ,examples3 8,suffering from a headache1 she sought1 for the glory of ,god1 to relieve herself by holding certain odoriferous substances in her mouth1 when the ,lord appeared to her to lean over towards her lovingly1 and to find comfort ,himself in these odors4 ,after having gently breathed them in1 ,he arose1 and said with a gratified air to the ,saints1 as if contented with what ,he had done3 #8,see the new present which my betrothed has given ,me6' 8,one day1 at chapel1 she heard supernaturally sung the words1 #8,sanctus1 ,sanctus1 ,sanctus4' ,the ,son of ,god leaning towards her like a sweet lover1 and giving to her soul the softest kiss1 said to her at the second ,sanctus3 #8,in this ,sanctus addressed to my person1 receive with this kiss all the sanctity of my divinity and of my humanity1 and let it be to thee a sufficient preparation for approaching the communion table4' ,and the next following ,sunday1 while she was thanking ,god for this favor1 behold the ,son of ,god1 more beauteous than thousands of angels1 takes her in ,his arms as if ,he were proud of her1 and presents her to ,god the ,father1 in that perfection of sanctity with which ,he had dowered her4 ,and the ,father took such delight in this soul thus presented by ,his only ,son1 that1 as if unable longer to restrain ,himself1 ,he gave her1 and the ,holy ,ghost gave her also1 the ,sanctity attributed to each by ,his own ,sanctus--and thus she remained endowed with the plenary fullness of the blessing of ,sanctity1 bestowed on her by ,omnipotence1 by ,wisdom1 and by ,love40 ,rvlations de ,sainte ,gertrude1 ,paris1 #ahih1 i4 #dd1 #ahf4 #bje ,,furneaux ,,jordan3 ,character in ,birth and ,parentage1 first edition4 ,later editions change the nomenclature4 #bjf ,as to this distinction1 see the admirably practical account in ,j4 ,m4 ,,baldwin',s little book1 ,the ,story of the ,mind1 #ahih4 #bjg ,on this subject ,i refer to the work of ,m4 ,,murisier 7,les ,maladies du ,sentiment ,religieux1 ,paris1 #aija71 who makes inner unification the mainspring of the whole religious life4 ,but all strongly ideal interests1 religious or irreligious1 unify the mind and tend to subordinate everything to themselves4 ,one would infer from ,m4 ,murisier's pages that this formal condition was peculiarly characteristic of religion1 and that one might in comparison almost neglect material content1 in studying the latter4 ,i trust that the present work will convince the reader that religion has plenty of material content which is characteristic1 and which is more important by far than any general psychological form4 ,in spite of this criticism1 ,i find ,m4 ,murisier's book highly instructive4 #bjh ,example3 8,at the first beginning of the ,servitor's ,suso's interior life1 after he had purified his soul properly by confession1 he marked out for himself1 in thought1 three circles1 within which he shut himself up1 as in a spiritual intrenchment4 ,the first circle was his cell1 his chapel1 and the choir4 ,when he was within this circle1 he seemed to himself in complete security4 ,the second circle was the whole monastery as far as the outer gate4 ,the third and outermost circle was the gate itself1 and here it was necessary for him to stand well upon his guard4 ,when he went outside these circles1 it seemed to him that he was in the plight of some wild animal which is outside its hole1 and surrounded by the hunt1 and therefore in need of all its cunning and watchfulness40 ,the ,life of the ,blessed ,henry ,suso1 by ,himself1 translated by ,,knox1 ,london1 #ahfe1 p4 #afh4 #bji ,vie des premires ,religieuses ,dominicaines de la ,congrgation de ,st4 ,dominique1 ,nancy2 ,nancy1 #ahif1 p4 #abi4 #baj ,,meschler',s ,life of ,saint ,louis of ,gonzaga1 ,french translation by ,,lebr,,quier1 #ahia2 p4 #dj4 #baa ,in his boyish notebook he praises the monastic life for its freedom from sin1 and for the imperishable treasures1 which it enables us to store up1 8of merit in ,god's eyes which makes of ,him our debtor for all ,eternity40 ,loc4 cit41 p4 #fb4 #bab ,mademoiselle ,mori1 a novel quoted in ,,hare',s ,walks in ,rome1 #aijj1 i4 #ee4 ,i cannot resist the temptation to quote from ,starbuck's book1 p4 #chh1 another case of purification by elimination4 ,it runs as follows3-- 8,the signs of abnormality which sanctified persons show are of frequent occurrence4 ,they get out of tune with other people2 often they will have nothing to do with churches1 which they regard as worldly2 they become hypercritical towards others2 they grow careless of their social1 political1 and financial obligations4 ,as an instance of this type may be mentioned a woman of sixtyeight of whom the writer made a special study4 ,she had been a member of one of the most active and progressive churches in a busy part of a large city4 ,her pastor described her as having reached the censorious stage4 ,she had grown more and more out of sympathy with the church2 her connection with it finally consisted simply in attendance at prayermeeting1 at which her only message was that of reproof and condemnation of the others for living on a low plane4 ,at last she withdrew from fellowship with any church4 ,the writer found her living alone in a little room on the top story of a cheap boardinghouse1 quite out of touch with all human relations1 but apparently happy in the enjoyment of her own spiritual blessings4 ,her time was occupied in writing booklets on sanctification--page after page of dreamy rhapsody4 ,she proved to be one of a small group of persons who claim that entire salvation involves three steps instead of two2 not only must there be conversion and sanctification1 but a third1 which they call #8crucifixion' or #8perfect redemption1' and which seems to bear the same relation to sanctification that this bears to conversion4 ,she related how the ,spirit had said to her1 #8,stop going to church4 ,stop going to holiness meetings4 ,go to your own room and ,i will teach you4' ,she professes to care nothing for colleges1 or preachers1 or churches1 but only cares to listen to what ,god says to her4 ,her description of her experience seemed entirely consistent2 she is happy and contented1 and her life is entirely satisfactory to herself4 ,while listening to her own story1 one was tempted to forget that it was from the life of a person who could not live by it in conjunction with her fellows40 #bac ,the best missionary lives abound in the victorious combination of nonresistance with personal authority4 ,john ,g4 ,paton1 for example1 in the ,new ,hebrides1 among brutish ,melanesian cannibals1 preserves a charmed life by dint of it4 ,when it comes to the point1 no one ever dares actually to strike him4 ,native converts1 inspired by him1 showed analogous virtue4 8,one of our chiefs1 full of the ,christ kindled desire to seek and to save1 sent a message to an inland chief1 that he and four attendants would come on ,sabbath and tell them the gospel of ,jehovah ,god4 ,the reply came back sternly forbidding their visit1 and threatening with death any ,christian that approached their village4 ,our chief sent in response a loving message1 telling them that ,jehovah had taught the ,christians to return good for evil1 and that they would come unarmed to tell them the story of how the ,son of ,god came into the world and died in order to bless and save his enemies4 ,the heathen chief sent back a stern and prompt reply once more3 #8,if you come1 you will be killed4' ,on ,sabbath morn the ,christian chief and his four companions were met outside the village by the heathen chief1 who implored and threatened them once more4 ,but the former said3-- 8 #8,we come to you without weapons of war6 ,we come only to tell you about ,jesus4 ,we believe that ,he will protect us today4' 8,as they pressed steadily forward towards the village1 spears began to be thrown at them4 ,some they evaded1 being all except one dexterous warriors2 and others they literally received with their bare hands1 and turned them aside in an incredible manner4 ,the heathen1 apparently thunderstruck at these men thus approaching them without weapons of war1 and not even flinging back their own spears which they had caught1 after having thrown what the old chief called #8a shower of spears1' desisted from mere surprise4 ,our ,christian chief called out1 as he and his companions drew up in the midst of them on the village public ground3-- 8 #8,jehovah thus protects us4 ,he has given us all your spears6 ,once we would have thrown them back at you and killed you4 ,but now we come1 not to fight but to tell you about ,jesus4 ,he has changed our dark hearts4 ,he asks you now to lay down all these your other weapons of war1 and to hear what we can tell you about the love of ,god1 our great ,father1 the only living ,god4' 8,the heathen were perfectly overawed4 ,they manifestly looked on these ,christians as protected by some ,invisible ,one4 ,they listened for the first time to the story of the ,gospel and of the ,cross4 ,we lived to see that chief and all his tribe sitting in the school of ,christ4 ,and there is perhaps not an island in these southern seas1 amongst all those won for ,christ1 where similar acts of heroism on the part of converts cannot be recited40 ,,john ,g4 ,,paton1 ,missionary to the ,new ,hebrides1 ,an ,autobiography1 second part1 ,london1 #ahij1 p4 #bdc4 #bad ,saint ,peter1 ,saint ,teresa tells us in her autobiography 7,french translation1 p4 #ccc71 8had passed forty years without ever sleeping more than an hour and a half a day4 ,of all his mortifications1 this was the one that had cost him the most4 ,to compass it1 he kept always on his knees or on his feet4 ,the little sleep he allowed nature to take was snatched in a sitting posture1 his head leaning against a piece of wood fixed in the wall4 ,even had he wished to lie down1 it would have been impossible1 because his cell was only four feet and a half long4 ,in the course of all these years he never raised his hood1 no matter what the ardor of the sun or the rain's strength4 ,he never put on a shoe4 ,he wore a garment of coarse sackcloth1 with nothing else upon his skin4 ,this garment was as scant as possible1 and over it a little cloak of the same stuff4 ,when the cold was great he took off the cloak and opened for a while the door and little window of his cell4 ,then he closed them and resumed the mantle1--his way1 as he told us1 of warming himself1 and making his body feel a better temperature4 ,it was a frequent thing with him to eat once only in three days2 and when ,i expressed my surprise1 he said that it was very easy if one once had acquired the habit4 ,one of his companions has assured me that he has gone sometimes eight days without food4444 ,his poverty was extreme2 and his mortification1 even in his youth1 was such that he told me he had passed three years in a house of his order without knowing any of the monks otherwise than by the sound of their voice1 for he never raised his eyes1 and only found his way about by following the others4 ,he showed this same modesty on public highways4 ,he spent many years without ever laying eyes upon a woman2 but he confessed to me that at the age he had reached it was indifferent to him whether he laid eyes on them or not4 ,he was very old when ,i first came to know him1 and his body so attenuated that it seemed formed of nothing so much as of so many roots of trees4 ,with all this sanctity he was very affable4 ,he never spoke unless he was questioned1 but his intellectual rightmindedness and grace gave to all his words an irresistible charm40 #bae ,f4 ,,max ,m,,ller3 ,ramakrishna1 his ,life and ,sayings1 #ahii1 p4 #ahj4 #baf ,,oldenberg3 ,buddha2 translated by ,w4 ,,hoey1 ,london1 #ahhb1 p4 #abg4 #bag 8,the vanities of all others may die out1 but the vanity of a saint as regards his sainthood is hard indeed to wear away40 ,ramakrishna1 his ,life and ,sayings1 #ahii1 p4 #agb4 #bah 8,when a church has to be run by oysters1 icecream1 and fun10 ,i read in an ,american religious paper1 8you may be sure that it is running away from ,christ40 ,such1 if one may judge by appearances1 is the present plight of many of our churches4 #bai ,c4 ,v4 ,b4 ,k43 ,friedens und ,kriegsmoral der ,heere4 ,quoted by ,,hamon3 ,psychologie du ,militaire professional1 #ahie1 p4 xli4 #bbj ,zur ,genealogie der ,moral1 ,dritte ,abhandlung1 #ad4 ,i have abridged1 and in one place transposed1 a sentence4 #bba ,we all know daft saints1 and they inspire a queer kind of aversion4 ,but in comparing saints with strong men we must choose individuals on the same intellectual level4 ,the underwitted strong man1 homologous in his sphere with the underwitted saint1 is the bully of the slums1 the hooligan or rowdy4 ,surely on this level also the saint preserves a certain superiority4 #bbb ,see above1 p4 #cbg4 #bbc ,above1 pp4 #cbgccd4 #bbd ,newman's ,securus judicat orbis terrarum is another instance4 #bbe 8,mesopotamia0 is the stock comic instance4--,an excellent old ,german lady1 who had done some traveling in her day1 used to describe to me her ,sehnsucht that she might yet visit 8,philadelphi10 whose wondrous name had always haunted her imagination4 ,of ,john ,foster it is said that 8single words 7as chalcedony71 or the names of ancient heroes1 had a mighty fascination over him4 #8,at any time the word hermit was enough to transport him4' ,the words woods and forests would produce the most powerful emotion40 ,foster's ,life1 by ,,ryland1 ,new ,york1 #ahdf1 p4 #c4 #bbf ,the ,two ,voices4 ,in a letter to ,mr4 ,b4 ,p4 ,blood1 ,tennyson reports of himself as follows3-- 8,i have never had any revelations through ansthetics1 but a kind of waking trance--this for lack of a better word--,i have frequently had1 quite up from boyhood1 when ,i have been all alone4 ,this has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently1 till all at once1 as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality1 individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being1 and this not a confused state but the clearest1 the surest of the surest1 utterly beyond words--where death was an almost laughable impossibility--the loss of personality 7if so it were7 seeming no extinction1 but the only true life4 ,i am ashamed of my feeble description4 ,have ,i not said the state is utterly beyond words80 ,professor ,tyndall1 in a letter1 recalls ,tennyson saying of this condition3 8,by ,god ,almighty6 there is no delusion in the matter6 ,it is no nebulous ecstasy1 but a state of transcendent wonder1 associated with absolute clearness of mind40 ,memoirs of ,alfred ,tennyson1 ii4 #dgc4 #bbg ,the ,lancet1 ,july #f and #ac1 #ahie1 reprinted as the ,cavendish ,lecture1 on ,dreamy ,mental ,states1 ,london1 ,baillire1 #ahie4 ,they have been a good deal discussed of late by psychologists4 ,see1 for example1 ,,bernard,,leroy3 ,l',illusion de ,fausse ,reconnaissance1 ,paris1 #ahih4 #bbh ,charles ,kingsley's ,life1 i4 #ee1 quoted by ,,inge3 ,christian ,mysticism1 ,london1 #ahii1 p4 #cda4 #bbi ,h4 ,f4 ,,brown3 ,j4 ,a4 ,symonds1 a ,biography1 ,london1 #ahie1 pp4 #bica1 abridged4 #bcj ,crichton,browne expressly says that ,symonds's 8highest nerve centres were in some degree enfeebled or damaged by these dreamy mental states which afflicted him so grievously40 ,symonds was1 however1 a perfect monster of manysided cerebral efficiency1 and his critic gives no objective grounds whatever for his strange opinion1 save that ,symonds complained occasionally1 as all susceptible and ambitious men complain1 of lassitude and uncertainty as to his life's mission4 #bca ,what reader of ,hegel can doubt that that sense of a perfected ,being with all its otherness soaked up into itself1 which dominates his whole philosophy1 must have come from the prominence in his consciousness of mystical moods like this1 in most persons kept subliminal8 ,the notion is thoroughly characteristic of the mystical level1 and the ,aufgabe of making it articulate was surely set to ,hegel's intellect by mystical feeling4 #bcb ,,benjamin ,,paul ,,blood3 ,the ,ansthetic ,revelation and the ,gist of ,philosophy1 ,amsterdam1 ,n4 ,y41 #ahgd1 pp4 #ce1 #cf4 ,mr4 ,blood has made several attempts to adumbrate the ansthetic revelation1 in pamphlets of rare literary distinction1 privately printed and distributed by himself at ,amsterdam4 ,xenos ,clark1 a philosopher1 who died young at ,amherst in the '#hj's1 much lamented by those who knew him1 was also impressed by the revelation4 8,in the first place10 he once wrote to me1 8,mr4 ,blood and ,i agree that the revelation is1 if anything1 nonemotional4 ,it is utterly flat4 ,it is1 as ,mr4 ,blood says1 #8the one sole and sufficient insight why1 or not why1 but how1 the present is pushed on by the past1 and sucked forward by the vacuity of the future4 ,its inevitableness defeats all attempts at stopping or accounting for it4 ,it is all precedence and presupposition1 and questioning is in regard to it forever too late4 ,it is an initiation of the past4' ,the real secret would be the formula by which the #8now' keeps exfoliating out of itself1 yet never escapes4 ,what is it1 indeed1 that keeps existence exfoliating8 ,the formal being of anything1 the logical definition of it1 is static4 ,for mere logic every question contains its own answer--we simply fill the hole with the dirt we dug out4 ,why are twice two four8 ,because1 in fact1 four is twice two4 ,thus logic finds in life no propulsion1 only a momentum4 ,it goes because it is agoing4 ,but the revelation adds3 it goes because it is and was agoing4 ,you walk1 as it were1 round yourself in the revelation4 ,ordinary philosophy is like a hound hunting his own trail4 ,the more he hunts the farther he has to go1 and his nose never catches up with his heels1 because it is forever ahead of them4 ,so the present is already a foregone conclusion1 and ,i am ever too late to understand it4 ,but at the moment of recovery from ansthesis1 just then1 before starting on life1 ,i catch1 so to speak1 a glimpse of my heels1 a glimpse of the eternal process just in the act of starting4 ,the truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished before we set out2 and the real end of philosophy is accomplished1 not when we arrive at1 but when we remain in1 our destination 7being already there71--which may occur vicariously in this life when we cease our intellectual questioning4 ,that is why there is a smile upon the face of the revelation1 as we view it4 ,it tells us that we are forever half a second too late--that's all4 #8,you could kiss your own lips1 and have all the fun to yourself1' it says1 if you only knew the trick4 ,it would be perfectly easy if they would just stay there till you got round to them4 ,why don't you manage it somehow80 ,dialectically minded readers of this farrago will at least recognize the region of thought of which ,mr4 ,clark writes1 as familiar4 ,in his latest pamphlet1 8,tennyson's ,trances and the ,ansthetic ,revelation10 ,mr4 ,blood describes its value for life as follows3-- 8,the ,ansthetic ,revelation is the ,initiation of ,man into the ,immemorial ,mystery of the ,open ,secret of ,being1 revealed as the ,inevitable ,vortex of ,continuity4 ,inevitable is the word4 ,its motive is inherent--it is what has to be4 ,it is not for any love or hate1 nor for joy nor sorrow1 nor good nor ill4 ,end1 beginning1 or purpose1 it knows not of4 8,it affords no particular of the multiplicity and variety of things2 but it fills appreciation of the historical and the sacred with a secular and intimately personal illumination of the nature and motive of existence1 which then seems reminiscent--as if it should have appeared1 or shall yet appear1 to every participant thereof4 8,although it is at first startling in its solemnity1 it becomes directly such a matter of course--so oldfashioned1 and so akin to proverbs1 that it inspires exultation rather than fear1 and a sense of safety1 as identified with the aboriginal and the universal4 ,but no words may express the imposing certainty of the patient that he is realizing the primordial1 ,adamic surprise of ,life4 8,repetition of the experience finds it ever the same1 and as if it could not possibly be otherwise4 ,the subject resumes his normal consciousness only to partially and fitfully remember its occurrence1 and to try to formulate its baffling import1--with only this consolatory afterthought3 that he has known the oldest truth1 and that he has done with human theories as to the origin1 meaning1 or destiny of the race4 ,he is beyond instruction in #8spiritual things4' 8,the lesson is one of central safety3 the ,kingdom is within4 ,all days are judgment days3 but there can be no climacteric purpose of eternity1 nor any scheme of the whole4 ,the astronomer abridges the row of bewildering figures by increasing his unit of measurement3 so may we reduce the distracting multiplicity of things to the unity for which each of us stands4 8,this has been my moral sustenance since ,i have known of it4 ,in my first printed mention of it ,i declared3 #8,the world is no more the alien terror that was taught me4 ,spurning the cloudgrimed and still sultry battlements whence so lately ,jehovan thunders boomed1 my gray gull lifts her wing against the nightfall1 and takes the dim leagues with a fearless eye4' ,and now1 after twentyseven years of this experience1 the wing is grayer1 but the eye is fearless still1 while ,i renew and doubly emphasize that declaration4 ,i know--as having known--the meaning of ,existence3 the sane centre of the universe--at once the wonder and the assurance of the soul--for which the speech of reason has as yet no name but the ,ansthetic ,revelation40--,i have considerably abridged the quotation4 #bcc ,op4 cit41 pp4 #ghhj1 abridged4 ,i subjoin1 also abridging it1 another interesting ansthetic revelation communicated to me in manuscript by a friend in ,england4 ,the subject1 a gifted woman1 was taking ether for a surgical operation4 8,i wondered if ,i was in a prison being tortured1 and why ,i remembered having heard it said that people #8learn through suffering1' and in view of what ,i was seeing1 the inadequacy of this saying struck me so much that ,i said1 aloud1 #8to suffer is to learn4' 8,with that ,i became unconscious again1 and my last dream immediately preceded my real coming to4 ,it only lasted a few seconds1 and was most vivid and real to me1 though it may not be clear in words4 8,a great ,being or ,power was traveling through the sky1 his foot was on a kind of lightning as a wheel is on a rail1 it was his pathway4 ,the lightning was made entirely of the spirits of innumerable people close to one another1 and ,i was one of them4 ,he moved in a straight line1 and each part of the streak or flash came into its short conscious existence only that he might travel4 ,i seemed to be directly under the foot of ,god1 and ,i thought he was grinding his own life up out of my pain4 ,then ,i saw that what he had been trying with all his might to do was to change his course1 to bend the line of lightning to which he was tied1 in the direction in which he wanted to go4 ,i felt my flexibility and helplessness1 and knew that he would succeed4 ,he bended me1 turning his corner by means of my hurt1 hurting me more than ,i had ever been hurt in my life1 and at the acutest point of this1 as he passed1 ,i saw4 ,i understood for a moment things that ,i have now forgotten1 things that no one could remember while retaining sanity4 ,the angle was an obtuse angle1 and ,i remember thinking as ,i woke that had he made it a right or acute angle1 ,i should have both suffered and #8seen' still more1 and should probably have died4 8,he went on and ,i came to4 ,in that moment the whole of my life passed before me1 including each little meaningless piece of distress1 and ,i understood them4 ,this was what it had all meant1 this was the piece of work it had all been contributing to do4 ,i did not see ,god's purpose1 ,i only saw his intentness and his entire relentlessness towards his means4 ,he thought no more of me than a man thinks of hurting a cork when he is opening wine1 or hurting a cartridge when he is firing4 ,and yet1 on waking1 my first feeling was1 and it came with tears1 #8,domine non sum digna1' for ,i had been lifted into a position for which ,i was too small4 ,i realized that in that half hour under ether ,i had served ,god more distinctly and purely than ,i had ever done in my life before1 or that ,i am capable of desiring to do4 ,i was the means of his achieving and revealing something1 ,i know not what or to whom1 and that1 to the exact extent of my capacity for suffering4 8,while regaining consciousness1 ,i wondered why1 since ,i had gone so deep1 ,i had seen nothing of what the saints call the love of ,god1 nothing but his relentlessness4 ,and then ,i heard an answer1 which ,i could only just catch1 saying1 #8,knowledge and ,love are ,one1 and the measure is suffering'--,i give the words as they came to me4 ,with that ,i came finally to 7into what seemed a dream world compared with the reality of what ,i was leaving71 and ,i saw that what would be called the #8cause' of my experience was a slight operation under insufficient ether1 in a bed pushed up against a window1 a common city window in a common city street4 ,if ,i had to formulate a few of the things ,i then caught a glimpse of1 they would run somewhat as follows3-- 8,the eternal necessity of suffering and its eternal vicariousness4 ,the veiled and incommunicable nature of the worst sufferings2--the passivity of genius1 how it is essentially instrumental and defenseless1 moved1 not moving1 it must do what it does2--the impossibility of discovery without its price2--finally1 the excess of what the suffering #8seer' or genius pays over what his generation gains4 7,he seems like one who sweats his life out to earn enough to save a district from famine1 and just as he staggers back1 dying and satisfied1 bringing a lac of rupees to buy grain with1 ,god lifts the lac away1 dropping one rupee1 and says1 #8,that you may give them4 ,that you have earned for them4 ,the rest is for ,,me4'7 ,i perceived also in a way never to be forgotten1 the excess of what we see over what we can demonstrate4 8,and so on6--these things may seem to you delusions1 or truisms2 but for me they are dark truths1 and the power to put them into even such words as these has been given me by an ether dream40 #bcd ,in ,tune with the ,infinite1 p4 #acg4 #bce ,the larger ,god may then swallow up the smaller one4 ,i take this from ,starbuck's manuscript collection3-- 8,i never lost the consciousness of the presence of ,god until ,i stood at the foot of the ,horseshoe ,falls1 ,niagara4 ,then ,i lost him in the immensity of what ,i saw4 ,i also lost myself1 feeling that ,i was an atom too small for the notice of ,almighty ,god40 ,i subjoin another similar case from ,starbuck's collection3-- 8,in that time the consciousness of ,god's nearness came to me sometimes4 ,i say ,god1 to describe what is indescribable4 ,a presence1 ,i might say1 yet that is too suggestive of personality1 and the moments of which ,i speak did not hold the consciousness of a personality1 but something in myself made me feel myself a part of something bigger than ,i1 that was controlling4 ,i felt myself one with the grass1 the trees1 birds1 insects1 everything in ,nature4 ,i exulted in the mere fact of existence1 of being a part of it all--the drizzling rain1 the shadows of the clouds1 the treetrunks1 and so on4 ,in the years following1 such moments continued to come1 but ,i wanted them constantly4 ,i knew so well the satisfaction of losing self in a perception of supreme power and love1 that ,i was unhappy because that perception was not constant40 ,the cases quoted in my third lecture1 pp4 #ff1 #fg1 #gj1 are still better ones of this type4 ,in her essay1 ,the ,loss of ,personality1 in ,the ,atlantic ,monthly 7vol4 lxxxv4 p4 #aie71 ,miss ,ethel ,d4 ,puffer explains that the vanishing of the sense of self1 and the feeling of immediate unity with the object1 is due to the disappearance1 in these rapturous experiences1 of the motor adjustments which habitually intermediate between the constant background of consciousness 7which is the ,self7 and the object in the foreground1 whatever it may be4 ,i must refer the reader to the highly instructive article1 which seems to me to throw light upon the psychological conditions1 though it fails to account for the rapture or the revelationvalue of the experience in the ,subject's eyes4 #bcf ,op4 cit41 i4 #dcdd4 #bcg ,memoiren einer ,idealistin1 #ete ,auflage1 #aijj1 iii4 #aff4 ,for years she had been unable to pray1 owing to materialistic belief4 #bch ,whitman in another place expresses in a quieter way what was probably with him a chronic mystical perception3 8,there is10 he writes1 8apart from mere intellect1 in the makeup of every superior human identity1 a wondrous something that realizes without argument1 frequently without what is called education 7though ,i think it the goal and apex of all education deserving the name71 an intuition of the absolute balance1 in time and space1 of the whole of this multifariousness1 this revel of fools1 and incredible makebelieve and general unsettledness1 we call the world2 a soulsight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the whole congeries of things1 all history and time1 and all events1 however trivial1 however momentous1 like a leashed dog in the hand of the hunter4 ,of such soulsight and rootcentre for the mind mere optimism explains only the surface40 ,whitman charges it against ,carlyle that he lacked this perception4 ,specimen ,days and ,collect1 ,philadelphia1 #ahhb1 p4 #agd4 #bci ,my ,quest for ,god1 ,london1 #ahig1 pp4 #bfh1 #bfi1 abridged4 #bdj ,op4 cit41 pp4 #bef1 #beg1 abridged4 #bda ,cosmic ,consciousness3 a study in the evolution of the human ,mind1 ,philadelphia1 #aija1 p4 #b4 #bdb ,loc4 cit41 pp4 #g1 #h4 ,my quotation follows the privately printed pamphlet which preceded ,dr4 ,bucke's larger work1 and differs verbally a little from the text of the latter4 #bdc ,my quotations are from ,,vivekananda1 ,raja ,yoga1 ,london1 #ahif4 ,the completest source of information on ,yoga is the work translated by ,,vihari ,,lala ,,mitra3 ,yoga ,vasishta ,maha ,ramayana1 #d vols41 ,calcutta1 #ahiaii4 #bdd ,a ,european witness1 after carefully comparing the results of ,yoga with those of the hypnotic or dreamy states artificially producible by us1 says3 8,it makes of its true disciples good1 healthy1 and happy men4444 ,through the mastery which the yogi attains over his thoughts and his body1 he grows into a #8character4' ,by the subjection of his impulses and propensities to his will1 and the fixing of the latter upon the ideal of goodness1 he becomes a #8personality' hard to influence by others1 and thus almost the opposite of what we usually imagine a #8medium' socalled1 or #8psychic subject' to be40 ,,karl ,,kellner3 ,yoga3 ,eine ,skizze1 ,mnchen1 #ahif1 p4 #ba4 #bde ,i follow the account in ,c4 ,f4 ,,koeppen3 ,die ,religion des ,buddha1 ,berlin1 #aheg1 i4 #ehe ff4 #bdf ,for a full account of him1 see ,d4 ,b4 ,,macdonald3 ,the ,life of ,al ,ghazzali1 in the ,journal of the ,american ,oriental ,society1 #ahii1 vol4 xx4 p4 #ga4 #bdg ,a4 ,,schm,,lders3 ,essai sur les coles philosophiques chez les ,arabes1 ,paris1 #ahdb1 pp4 #edfh1 abridged4 #bdh ,g,,rres',s ,christliche ,mystik gives a full account of the facts4 ,so does ,,ribet',s ,mystique ,divine1 #b vols41 ,paris1 #ahij4 ,a still more methodical modern work is the ,mystica ,theologia of ,,vallgornera1 #b vols41 ,turin1 #ahij4 #bdi ,m4 ,r,c,,jac1 in a recent volume1 makes them essential4 ,mysticism he defines as 8the tendency to draw near to the ,absolute morally1 and by the aid of ,symbols40 ,see his ,fondements de la ,connaissance mystique1 ,paris1 #ahig1 p4 #ff4 ,but there are unquestionably mystical conditions in which sensible symbols play no part4 #bej ,saint ,john of the ,cross3 ,the ,dark ,night of the ,soul1 book ii4 ch4 xvii41 in ,vie et uvres1 #cme dition1 ,paris1 #ahic1 iii4 #dbhdcb4 ,chapter xi4 of book ii4 of ,saint ,john's ,ascent of ,carmel is devoted to showing the harmfulness for the mystical life of the use of sensible imagery4 #bea ,in particular ,i omit mention of visual and auditory hallucinations1 verbal and graphic automatisms1 and such marvels as 8levitation10 stigmatization1 and the healing of disease4 ,these phenomena1 which mystics have often presented 7or are believed to have presented71 have no essential mystical significance1 for they occur with no consciousness of illumination whatever1 when they occur1 as they often do1 in persons of nonmystical mind4 ,consciousness of illumination is for us the essential mark of 8mystical0 states4 #beb ,the ,interior ,castle1 ,fifth ,abode1 ch4 i41 in uvres1 translated by ,bouix1 iii4 #dbadbd4 #bec ,,bartoli,,michel3 ,vie de ,saint ,ignace de ,loyola1 i4 #cdcf4 ,others have had illuminations about the created world1 ,jacob ,boehme1 for instance4 ,at the age of twentyfive he was 8surrounded by the divine light1 and replenished with the heavenly knowledge2 insomuch as going abroad into the fields to a green1 at ,grlitz1 he there sat down1 and viewing the herbs and grass of the field1 in his inward light he saw into their essences1 use1 and properties1 which was discovered to him by their lineaments1 figures1 and signatures40 ,of a later period of experience he writes3 8,in one quarter of an hour ,i saw and knew more than if ,i had been many years together at an university4 ,for ,i saw and knew the being of all things1 the ,byss and the ,abyss1 and the eternal generation of the holy ,trinity1 the descent and original of the world and of all creatures through the divine wisdom4 ,i knew and saw in myself all the three worlds1 the external and visible world being of a procreation or extern birth from both the internal and spiritual worlds2 and ,i saw and knew the whole working essence1 in the evil and in the good1 and the mutual original and existence2 and likewise how the fruitful bearing womb of eternity brought forth4 ,so that ,i did not only greatly wonder at it1 but did also exceedingly rejoice1 albeit ,i could very hardly apprehend the same in my external man and set it down with the pen4 ,for ,i had a thorough view of the universe as in a chaos1 wherein all things are couched and wrapt up1 but it was impossible for me to explicate the same40 ,jacob ,behmen's ,theosophic ,philosophy1 etc41 by ,,edward ,,taylor1 ,london1 #afia1 pp4 #dbe1 #dbg1 abridged4 ,so ,george ,fox3 8,i was come up to the state of ,adam in which he was before he fell4 ,the creation was opened to me2 and it was showed me1 how all things had their names given to them1 according to their nature and virtue4 ,i was at a stand in my mind1 whether ,i should practice physic for the good of mankind1 seeing the nature and virtues of the creatures were so opened to me by the ,lord40 ,journal1 ,philadelphia1 no date1 p4 #fi4 ,contemporary 8,clairvoyance0 abounds in similar revelations4 ,andrew ,jackson ,davis's cosmogonies1 for example1 or certain experiences related in the delectable 8,reminiscences and ,memories of ,henry ,thomas ,butterworth10 ,lebanon1 ,ohio1 #ahhf4 #bed ,vie1 pp4 #eha1 #ehb4 #bee ,loc4 cit41 p4 #egd4 #bef ,saint ,teresa discriminates between pain in which the body has a part and pure spiritual pain 7,interior ,castle1 #fth ,abode1 ch4 xi474 ,as for the bodily part in these celestial joys1 she speaks of it as 8penetrating to the marrow of the bones1 whilst earthly pleasures affect only the surface of the senses4 ,i think10 she adds1 8that this is a just description1 and ,i cannot make it better40 ,ibid41 #eth ,abode1 ch4 i4 #beg ,vie1 p4 #aih4 #beh uvres1 ii4 #cbj4 #bei ,above1 p4 #ba4 #bfj ,vie1 pp4 #bbi1 #bjj1 #bcabcc1 #bdc4 #bfa ,m,,ller',s translation1 part ii4 p4 #ahj4 #bfb ,t4 ,,davidson',s translation1 in ,journal of ,speculative ,philosophy1 #ahic1 vol4 xxii4 p4 #cii4 #bfc 8,deus propter excellentiam non immerito ,nihil vocatur40 ,scotus ,erigena1 quoted by ,,andrew ,,seth3 ,two ,lectures on ,theism1 ,new ,york1 #ahig1 p4 #ee4 #bfd ,j4 ,,royce3 ,studies in ,good and ,evil1 p4 #bhb4 #bfe ,jacob ,behmen's ,dialogues on the ,supersensual ,life1 translated by ,,bernard ,,holland1 ,london1 #aija1 p4 #dh4 #bff ,cherubinischer ,wandersmann1 ,strophe #be4 #bfg ,op4 cit41 pp4 #db1 #gd1 abridged4 #bfh ,from a ,french book ,i take this mystical expression of happiness in ,god's indwelling presence3-- 8,jesus has come to take up his abode in my heart4 ,it is not so much a habitation1 an association1 as a sort of fusion4 ,oh1 new and blessed life6 life which becomes each day more luminous4444 ,the wall before me1 dark a few moments since1 is splendid at this hour because the sun shines on it4 ,wherever its rays fall they light up a conflagration of glory2 the smallest speck of glass sparkles1 each grain of sand emits fire2 even so there is a royal song of triumph in my heart because the ,lord is there4 ,my days succeed each other2 yesterday a blue sky2 today a clouded sun2 a night filled with strange dreams2 but as soon as the eyes open1 and ,i regain consciousness and seem to begin life again1 it is always the same figure before me1 always the same presence filling my heart4444 ,formerly the day was dulled by the absence of the ,lord4 ,i used to wake invaded by all sorts of sad impressions1 and ,i did not find him on my path4 ,today he is with me2 and the light cloudiness which covers things is not an obstacle to my communion with him4 ,i feel the pressure of his hand1 ,i feel something else which fills me with a serene joy2 shall ,i dare to speak it out8 ,yes1 for it is the true expression of what ,i experience4 ,the ,holy ,spirit is not merely making me a visit2 it is no mere dazzling apparition which may from one moment to another spread its wings and leave me in my night1 it is a permanent habitation4 ,he can depart only if he takes me with him4 ,more than that2 he is not other than myself3 he is one with me4 ,it is not a juxtaposition1 it is a penetration1 a profound modification of my nature1 a new manner of my being40 ,quoted from the ,,ms4 8of an old man0 by ,,wilfred ,,monod3 ,il ,vit3 six mditations sur le mystre chrtien1 pp4 #bhjbhc4 #bfi ,compare ,m4 ,,maeterlinck3 ,l',ornement des ,noces spirituelles de ,ruysbroeck1 ,bruxelles1 #ahia1 ,introduction1 p4 xix4 #bgj ,upanishads1 ,m4 ,m,,ller',s translation1 ii4 #ag1 #ccd4 #bga ,,schm,,lders3 ,op4 cit41 p4 #baj4 #bgb ,enneads1 ,,bouillier',s translation1 ,paris1 #ahfa1 iii4 #efa4 ,compare pp4 #dgcdgg1 and vol4 i4 p4 #bg4 #bgc ,autobiography1 pp4 #cji1 #caj4 #bgd ,op4 cit41 ,strophe #aj4 #bge ,h4 ,p4 ,,blavatsky3 ,the ,voice of the ,silence4 #bgf ,,swinburne3 ,on the ,verge1 in 8,a ,midsummer ,vacation40 #bgg ,compare the extracts from ,dr4 ,bucke1 quoted on pp4 #cih1 #cii4 #bgh ,as serious an attempt as ,i know to mediate between the mystical region and the discursive life is contained in an article on ,aristotle's ,unmoved ,mover1 by ,f4 ,c4 ,s4 ,,schiller1 in ,mind1 vol4 ix41 #aijj4 #bgi ,i abstract from weaker states1 and from those cases of which the books are full1 where the director 7but usually not the subject7 remains in doubt whether the experience may not have proceeded from the demon4 #bhj ,example3 ,mr4 ,john ,nelson writes of his imprisonment for preaching ,methodism3 8,my soul was as a watered garden1 and ,i could sing praises to ,god all day long2 for he turned my captivity into joy1 and gave me to rest as well on the boards1 as if ,i had been on a bed of down4 ,now could ,i say1 #8,god's service is perfect freedom1' and ,i was carried out much in prayer that my enemies might drink of the same river of peace which my ,god gave so largely to me40 ,journal1 ,london1 no date1 p4 #agb4 #bha ,,ruysbroeck1 in the work which ,maeterlinck has translated1 has a chapter against the antinomianism of disciples4 ,h4 ,,delacroix',s book 7,essai sur le mysticisme spculatif en ,allemagne au ,x,i,vme ,sicle1 ,paris1 #aijj7 is full of antinomian material4 ,compare also ,a4 ,,jundt3 ,les ,amis de ,dieu au ,x,i,vme ,sicle1 ,thse de ,strasbourg1 #ahgi4 #bhb ,compare ,,paul ,,rousselot3 ,les ,mystiques ,espagnols1 ,paris1 #ahfi1 ch4 xii4 #bhc ,see ,,carpenter',s ,towards ,democracy1 especially the latter parts1 and ,,jefferies',s wonderful and splendid mystic rhapsody1 ,the ,story of my ,heart4 #bhd ,in chapter i4 of book ii4 of his work ,degeneration1 8,,max ,,nordau0 seeks to undermine all mysticism by exposing the weakness of the lower kinds4 ,mysticism for him means any sudden perception of hidden significance in things4 ,he explains such perception by the abundant uncompleted associations which experiences may arouse in a degenerate brain4 ,these give to him who has the experience a vague and vast sense of its leading further1 yet they awaken no definite or useful consequent in his thought4 ,the explanation is a plausible one for certain sorts of feeling of significance2 and other alienists 7,,wernicke1 for example1 in his ,grundriss der ,psychiatrie1 ,theil ii41 ,leipzig1 #ahif7 have explained 8paranoiac0 conditions by a laming of the associationorgan4 ,but the higher mystical flights1 with their positiveness and abruptness1 are surely products of no such merely negative condition4 ,it seems far more reasonable to ascribe them to inroads from the subconscious life1 of the cerebral activity correlative to which we as yet know nothing4 #bhe ,they sometimes add subjective audita et visa to the facts1 but as these are usually interpreted as transmundane1 they oblige no alteration in the facts of sense4 #bhf ,compare ,professor ,w4 ,,wallace',s ,gifford ,lectures1 in ,lectures and ,essays1 ,oxford1 #ahih1 pp4 #ag ff4 #bhg ,op4 cit41 p4 #agd1 abridged4 #bhh ,ibid41 p4 #ahf1 abridged and italicized4 #bhi ,discourse ,,ii4 #g4 #bij ,as regards the secondary character of intellectual constructions1 and the primacy of feeling and instinct in founding religious beliefs1 see the striking work of ,h4 ,,fielding1 ,the ,hearts of ,men1 ,london1 #aijb1 which came into my hands after my text was written4 8,creeds10 says the author1 8are the grammar of religion1 they are to religion what grammar is to speech4 ,words are the expression of our wants2 grammar is the theory formed afterwards4 ,speech never proceeded from grammar1 but the reverse4 ,as speech progresses and changes from unknown causes1 grammar must follow0 7p4 #cac74 ,the whole book1 which keeps unusually close to concrete facts1 is little more than an amplification of this text4 #bia ,for convenience' sake1 ,i follow the order of ,a4 ,,st,,ckl',s ,lehrbuch der ,philosophie1 #ete ,auflage1 ,mainz1 #ahha1 ,band ii4 ,b4 ,,boedder',s ,natural ,theology1 ,london1 #ahia1 is a handy ,english ,catholic ,manual2 but an almost identical doctrine is given by such ,protestant theologians as ,c4 ,,hodge3 ,systematic ,theology1 ,new ,york1 #ahgc1 or ,a4 ,h4 ,,strong3 ,systematic ,theology1 #eth edition1 ,new ,york1 #ahif4 #bib ,it must not be forgotten that any form of disorder in the world might1 by the design argument1 suggest a ,god for just that kind of disorder4 ,the truth is that any state of things whatever that can be named is logically susceptible of teleological interpretation4 ,the ruins of the earthquake at ,lisbon1 for example3 the whole of past history had to be planned exactly as it was to bring about in the fullness of time just that particular arrangement of dbris of masonry1 furniture1 and once living bodies4 ,no other train of causes would have been sufficient4 ,and so of any other arrangement1 bad or good1 which might as a matter of fact be found resulting anywhere from previous conditions4 ,to avoid such pessimistic consequences and save its beneficent designer1 the design argument accordingly invokes two other principles1 restrictive in their operation4 ,the first is physical3 ,nature's forces tend of their own accord only to disorder and destruction1 to heaps of ruins1 not to architecture4 ,this principle1 though plausible at first sight1 seems1 in the light of recent biology1 to be more and more improbable4 ,the second principle is one of anthropomorphic interpretation4 ,no arrangement that for us is 8disorderly0 can possibly have been an object of design at all4 ,this principle is of course a mere assumption in the interests of anthropomorphic ,theism4 ,when one views the world with no definite theological bias one way or the other1 one sees that order and disorder1 as we now recognize them1 are purely human inventions4 ,we are interested in certain types of arrangement1 useful1 sthetic1 or moral1--so interested that whenever we find them realized1 the fact emphatically rivets our attention4 ,the result is that we work over the contents of the world selectively4 ,it is overflowing with disorderly arrangements from our point of view1 but order is the only thing we care for and look at1 and by choosing1 one can always find some sort of orderly arrangement in the midst of any chaos4 ,if ,i should throw down a thousand beans at random upon a table1 ,i could doubtless1 by eliminating a sufficient number of them1 leave the rest in almost any geometrical pattern you might propose to me1 and you might then say that that pattern was the thing prefigured beforehand1 and that the other beans were mere irrelevance and packing material4 ,our dealings with ,nature are just like this4 ,she is a vast plenum in which our attention draws capricious lines in innumerable directions4 ,we count and name whatever lies upon the special lines we trace1 whilst the other things and the untraced lines are neither named nor counted4 ,there are in reality infinitely more things 'unadapted' to each other in this world than there are things 'adapted'2 infinitely more things with irregular relations than with regular relations between them4 ,but we look for the regular kind of thing exclusively1 and ingeniously discover and preserve it in our memory4 ,it accumulates with other regular kinds1 until the collection of them fills our encyclopdias4 ,yet all the while between and around them lies an infinite anonymous chaos of objects that no one ever thought of together1 of relations that never yet attracted our attention4 ,the facts of order from which the physicotheological argument starts are thus easily susceptible of interpretation as arbitrary human products4 ,so long as this is the case1 although of course no argument against ,god follows1 it follows that the argument for him will fail to constitute a knockdown proof of his existence4 ,it will be convincing only to those who on other grounds believe in him already4 #bic ,for the scholastics the facultas appetendi embraces feeling1 desire1 and will4 #bid ,op4 cit41 ,discourse ,,iii4 #g4 #bie ,in an article1 ,how to make our ,ideas ,clear1 in the ,popular ,science ,monthly for ,january1 #ahgh1 vol4 xii4 p4 #bhf4 #bif ,pragmatically1 the most important attribute of ,god is his punitive justice4 ,but who1 in the present state of theological opinion on that point1 will dare maintain that hell fire or its equivalent in some shape is rendered certain by pure logic8 ,theology herself has largely based this doctrine upon revelation2 and1 in discussing it1 has tended more and more to substitute conventional ideas of criminal law for a priori principles of reason4 ,but the very notion that this glorious universe1 with planets and winds1 and laughing sky and ocean1 should have been conceived and had its beams and rafters laid in technicalities of criminality1 is incredible to our modern imagination4 ,it weakens a religion to hear it argued upon such a basis4 #big ,john ,caird3 ,an ,introduction to the ,philosophy of ,religion1 ,london and ,new ,york1 #ahhj1 pp4 #bdcbej1 and #biabii1 much abridged4 #bih ,a4 ,c4 ,,fraser3 ,philosophy of ,theism1 second edition1 ,edinburgh and ,london1 #ahii1 especially part ii4 chaps4 vii4 and viii42 ,a4 ,,seth ,,pringle,,pattison3 ,hegelianism and ,personality1 ,ibid41 #ahij1 passim4 ,the most persuasive arguments in favor of a concrete individual ,soul of the world1 with which ,i am acquainted1 are those of my colleague1 ,josiah ,royce1 in his ,religious ,aspect of ,philosophy1 ,boston1 #ahhe2 in his ,conception of ,god1 ,new ,york and ,london1 #ahig2 and lately in his ,aberdeen ,gifford ,lectures1 ,the ,world and the ,individual1 #b vols41 ,new ,york and ,london1 #aijajb4 ,i doubtless seem to some of my readers to evade the philosophic duty which my thesis in this lecture imposes on me1 by not even attempting to meet ,professor ,royce's arguments articulately4 ,i admit the momentary evasion4 ,in the present lectures1 which are cast throughout in a popular mould1 there seemed no room for subtle metaphysical discussion1 and for tactical purposes it was sufficient1 the contention of philosophy being what it is 7namely1 that religion can be transformed into a universally convincing science71 to point to the fact that no religious philosophy has actually convinced the mass of thinkers4 ,meanwhile let me say that ,i hope that the present volume may be followed by another1 if ,i am spared to write it1 in which not only ,professor ,royce's arguments1 but others for monistic absolutism shall be considered with all the technical fullness which their great importance calls for4 ,at present ,i resign myself to lying passive under the reproach of superficiality4 #bii ,idea of a ,university1 ,discourse ,,iii4 #g4 #cjj ,newman's imagination so innately craved an ecclesiastical system that he can write3 8,from the age of fifteen1 dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion3 ,i know no other religion2 ,i cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion40 ,and again1 speaking of himself about the age of thirty1 he writes3 8,i loved to act as feeling myself in my ,bishop's sight1 as if it were the sight of ,god40 ,apologia1 #ahig1 pp4 #dh1 #ej4 #cja ,the intellectual difference is quite on a par in practical importance with the analogous difference in character4 ,we saw1 under the head of ,saintliness1 how some characters resent confusion and must live in purity1 consistency1 simplicity 7above1 p4 #bhj ff474 ,for others1 on the contrary1 superabundance1 overpressure1 stimulation1 lots of superficial relations1 are indispensable4 ,there are men who would suffer a very syncope if you should pay all their debts1 bring it about that their engagements had been kept1 their letters answered1 their perplexities relieved1 and their duties fulfilled1 down to one which lay on a clean table under their eyes with nothing to interfere with its immediate performance4 ,a day stripped so staringly bare would be for them appalling4 ,so with ease1 elegance1 tributes of affection1 social recognitions--some of us require amounts of these things which to others would appear a mass of lying and sophistication4 #cjb ,in ,newman's ,lectures on ,justification1 ,lecture ,,viii4 #f1 there is a splendid passage expressive of this sthetic way of feeling the ,christian scheme4 ,it is unfortunately too long to quote4 #cjc ,compare the informality of ,protestantism1 where the 8meek lover of the good10 alone with his ,god1 visits the sick1 etc41 for their own sakes1 with the elaborate 8business0 that goes on in ,catholic devotion1 and carries with it the social excitement of all more complex businesses4 ,an essentially worldlyminded ,catholic woman can become a visitor of the sick on purely coquettish principles1 with her confessor and director1 her 8merit0 storing up1 her patron saints1 her privileged relation to the ,almighty1 drawing his attention as a professional dvote1 her definite 8exercises10 and her definitely recognized social pose in the organization4 #cjd ,above1 p4 #cfb ff4 #cje ,a fuller discussion of confession is contained in the excellent work by ,,frank ,,granger3 ,the ,soul of a ,christian1 ,london1 #aijj1 ch4 xii4 #cjf ,example3 8,the minister at ,sudbury1 being at the ,thursday lecture in ,boston1 heard the officiating clergyman praying for rain4 ,as soon as the service was over1 he went to the petitioner and said1 #8,you ,boston ministers1 as soon as a tulip wilts under your windows1 go to church and pray for rain1 until all ,concord and ,sudbury are under water4' 0 ,r4 ,w4 ,,emerson3 ,lectures and ,biographical ,sketches1 p4 #cfc4 #cjg ,,auguste ,,sabatier3 ,esquisse d'une ,philosophie de la ,religion1 #bme d41 #ahig1 pp4 #bdbf1 abridged4 #cjh ,my authority for these statistics is the little work on ,mller1 by ,,frederic ,g4 ,,warne1 ,new ,york1 #ahih4 #cji ,the ,life of ,trust2 ,being a ,narrative of the ,lord's ,dealings with ,george ,mller1 ,new ,american edition1 ,n4 ,y41 ,crowell1 pp4 #bbh1 #aid1 #bai4 #caj ,ibid41 p4 #abf4 #caa ,op4 cit41 p4 #chc1 abridged4 #cab ,ibid41 p4 #cbc4 #cac ,i cannot resist the temptation of quoting an expression of an even more primitive style of religious thought1 which ,i find in ,arber's ,english ,garland1 vol4 vii4 p4 #ddj4 ,robert ,lyde1 an ,english sailor1 along with an ,english boy1 being prisoners on a ,french ship in #afhi1 set upon the crew1 of seven ,frenchmen1 killed two1 made the other five prisoners1 and brought home the ship4 ,lyde thus describes how in this feat he found his ,god a very present help in time of trouble3-- 8,with the assistance of ,god ,i kept my feet when they three and one more did strive to throw me down4 ,feeling the ,frenchman which hung about my middle hang very heavy1 ,i said to the boy1 #8,go round the binnacle1 and knock down that man that hangeth on my back4' ,so the boy did strike him one blow on the head which made him fall4444 ,then ,i looked about for a marlin spike or anything else to strike them withal4 ,but seeing nothing1 ,i said1 #8,,lord6 what shall ,i do8' ,then casting up my eye upon my left side1 and seeing a marlin spike hanging1 ,i jerked my right arm and took hold1 and struck the point four times about a quarter of an inch deep into the skull of that man that had hold of my left arm4 ,one of the ,frenchmen then hauled the marlin spike away from him4 ,but through ,,god',s wonderful providence6 it either fell out of his hand1 or else he threw it down1 and at this time the ,almighty ,,god gave me strength enough to take one man in one hand1 and throw at the other's head3 and looking about again to see anything to strike them withal1 but seeing nothing1 ,i said1 #8,,lord6 what shall ,i do now8' ,and then it pleased ,,god to put me in mind of my knife in my pocket4 ,and although two of the men had hold of my right arm1 yet ,,god ,almighty strengthened me so that ,i put my right hand into my right pocket1 drew out the knife and sheath1 444 put it between my legs and drew it out1 and then cut the man's throat with it that had his back to my breast3 and he immediately dropt down1 and scarce ever stirred after40--,i have slightly abridged ,lyde's narrative4 #cad ,as1 for instance1 ,in ,answer to ,prayer1 by the ,,bishop ,,of ,,ripon and others1 ,london1 #ahih2 ,touching ,incidents and ,remarkable ,answers to ,prayer1 ,harrisburg1 ,pa41 #ahih 7872 ,h4 ,l4 ,,hastings3 ,the ,guiding ,hand1 or ,providential ,direction1 illustrated by ,authentic ,instances1 ,boston1 #ahih 7874 #cae ,c4 ,,hilty3 ,glck1 ,dritter ,theil1 #aijj1 pp4 #ib ff4 #caf 8,good ,heaven60 says ,epictetus1 8any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a ,providence1 to a humble and grateful mind4 ,the mere possibility of producing milk from grass1 cheese from milk1 and wool from skins2 who formed and planned it8 ,ought we not1 whether we dig or plough or eat1 to sing this hymn to ,god8 ,great is ,god1 who has supplied us with these instruments to till the ground2 great is ,god1 who has given us hands and instruments of digestion2 who has given us to grow insensibly and to breathe in sleep4 ,these things we ought forever to celebrate4444 ,but because the most of you are blind and insensible1 there must be some one to fill this station1 and lead1 in behalf of all men1 the hymn to ,god2 for what else can ,i do1 a lame old man1 but sing hymns to ,god8 ,were ,i a nightingale1 ,i would act the part of a nightingale2 were ,i a swan1 the part of a swan4 ,but since ,i am a reasonable creature1 it is my duty to praise ,god 444 and ,i call on you to join the same song40 ,works1 book i4 ch4 xvi41 ,,carter,,higginson translation1 abridged4 #cag ,,james ,,martineau3 end of the sermon 8,help ,thou ,mine ,unbelief10 in ,endeavours after a ,christian ,life1 #b;d series4 ,compare with this page the extract from ,voysey on p4 #bge1 above1 and those from ,pascal and ,madame ,guyon on p4 #bhf4 #cah ,souvenirs de ma ,jeunesse1 #ahig1 p4 #abb4 #cai ,op4 cit41 ,letter ,,xxx4 #cbj ,above1 p4 #bdh ff4 ,compare the withdrawal of expression from the world1 in ,melancholiacs1 p4 #aea4 #cba ,above1 pp4 #bd1 #be4 #cbb ,a friend of mine1 a firstrate psychologist1 who is a subject of graphic automatism1 tells me that the appearance of independent actuation in the movements of his arm1 when he writes automatically1 is so distinct that it obliges him to abandon a psychophysical theory which he had previously believed in1 the theory1 namely1 that we have no feeling of the discharge downwards of our voluntary motorcentres4 ,we must normally have such a feeling1 he thinks1 or the sense of an absence would not be so striking as it is in these experiences4 ,graphic automatism of a fully developed kind is rare in religious history1 so far as my knowledge goes4 ,such statements as ,antonia ,bourignon's1 that 8,i do nothing but lend my hand and spirit to another power than mine10 is shown by the context to indicate inspiration rather than directly automatic writing4 ,in some eccentric sects this latter occurs4 ,the most striking instance of it is probably the bulky volume called1 ',oahspe1 a new ,bible in the ,words of ,jehovah and his angel ambassadors1' ,boston and ,london1 #ahia1 written and illustrated automatically by ,,dr4 ,,newbrough of ,new ,york1 whom ,i understand to be now1 or to have been lately1 at the head of the spiritistic community of ,shalam in ,new ,mexico4 ,the latest automatically written book which has come under my notice is 8,zertoulem's ,wisdom of the ,ages10 by ,,george ,a4 ,,fuller1 ,boston1 #aija4 #cbc ,w4 ,,sanday3 ,the ,oracles of ,god1 ,london1 #ahib1 pp4 #dief1 abridged4 #cbd ,op4 cit41 p4 #ia4 ,this author also cites ,moses's and ,isaiah's commissions1 as given in ,exodus1 chaps4 iii4 and iv41 and ,isaiah1 chap4 vi4 #cbe ,quoted by ,,augustus ,,clissold3 ,the ,prophetic ,spirit in ,genius and ,madness1 #ahgj1 p4 #fg4 ,mr4 ,clissold is a ,swedenborgian4 ,swedenborg's case is of course the palmary one of audita et visa1 serving as a basis of religious revelation4 #cbf ,n,,ldeke1 ,geschichte des ,qorns1 #ahfj1 p4 #af4 ,compare the fuller account in ,sir ,,william ,,muir',s ,life of ,mahomet1 #c;d ed41 #ahid1 ch4 iii4 #cbg ,the ,mormon theocracy has always been governed by direct revelations accorded to the ,president of the ,church and its ,apostles4 ,from an obliging letter written to me in #ahii by an eminent ,mormon1 ,i quote the following extract3-- 8,it may be very interesting for you to know that the ,president ,mr4 ,snow of the ,mormon ,church claims to have had a number of revelations very recently from heaven4 ,to explain fully what these revelations are1 it is necessary to know that we1 as a people1 believe that the ,church of ,jesus ,christ has again been established through messengers sent from heaven4 ,this ,church has at its head a prophet1 seer1 and revelator1 who gives to man ,god's holy will4 ,revelation is the means through which the will of ,god is declared directly and in fullness to man4 ,these revelations are got through dreams of sleep or in waking visions of the mind1 by voices without visional appearance1 or by actual manifestations of the ,holy ,presence before the eye4 ,we believe that ,god has come in person and spoken to our prophet and revelator40 #cbh ,for example1 on pages #ace1 #afc1 #ccc1 above4 #cbi ,from this point of view1 the contrasts between the healthy and the morbid mind1 and between the onceborn and the twiceborn types1 of which ,i spoke in earlier lectures 7see pp4 #afbafg71 cease to be the radical antagonisms which many think them4 ,the twiceborn look down upon the rectilinear consciousness of life of the onceborn as being 8mere morality10 and not properly religion4 8,dr4 ,channing10 an orthodox minister is reported to have said1 8is excluded from the highest form of religious life by the extraordinary rectitude of his character40 ,it is indeed true that the outlook upon life of the twiceborn--holding as it does more of the element of evil in solution--is the wider and completer4 ,the 8heroic0 or 8solemn0 way in which life comes to them is a 8higher synthesis0 into which healthy mindedness and morbidness both enter and combine4 ,evil is not evaded1 but sublated in the higher religious cheer of these persons 7see pp4 #dgeb1 #cfbcfe74 ,but the final consciousness which each type reaches of union with the divine has the same practical significance for the individual2 and individuals may well be allowed to get to it by the channels which lie most open to their several temperaments4 ,in the cases which were quoted in ,lecture ,,iv1 of the mindcure form of healthymindedness1 we found abundant examples of regenerative process4 ,the severity of the crisis in this process is a matter of degree4 ,how long one shall continue to drink the consciousness of evil1 and when one shall begin to shortcircuit and get rid of it1 are also matters of amount and degree1 so that in many instances it is quite arbitrary whether we class the individual as a onceborn or a twiceborn subject4 #ccj ,compare1 e4g41 the quotation from ,renan on p4 #cg1 above4 #cca 8,prayerful0 taken in the broader sense explained above on pp4 #dfc ff4 #ccb ,how was it ever conceivable1 we ask1 that a man like ,christian ,wolff1 in whose dryasdust head all the learning of the early eighteenth century was concentrated1 should have preserved such a babylike faith in the personal and human character of ,nature as to expound her operations as he did in his work on the uses of natural things8 ,this1 for example1 is the account he gives of the sun and its utility3-- 8,we see that ,god has created the sun to keep the changeable conditions on the earth in such an order that living creatures1 men and beasts1 may inhabit its surface4 ,since men are the most reasonable of creatures1 and able to infer ,god's invisible being from the contemplation of the world1 the sun in so far forth contributes to the primary purpose of creation3 without it the race of man could not be preserved or continued4444 ,the sun makes daylight1 not only on our earth1 but also on the other planets2 and daylight is of the utmost utility to us2 for by its means we can commodiously carry on those occupations which in the nighttime would either be quite impossible1 or at any rate impossible without our going to the expense of artificial light4 ,the beasts of the field can find food by day which they would not be able to find at night4 ,moreover we owe it to the sunlight that we are able to see everything that is on the earth's surface1 not only near by1 but also at a distance1 and to recognize both near and far things according to their species1 which again is of manifold use to us not only in the business necessary to human life1 and when we are traveling1 but also for the scientific knowledge of ,nature1 which knowledge for the most part depends on observations made with the help of sight1 and1 without the sunshine1 would have been impossible4 ,if any one would rightly impress on his mind the great advantages which he derives from the sun1 let him imagine himself living through only one month1 and see how it would be with all his undertakings1 if it were not day but night4 ,he would then be sufficiently convinced out of his own experience1 especially if he had much work to carry on in the street or in the fields4444 ,from the sun we learn to recognize when it is midday1 and by knowing this point of time exactly1 we can set our clocks right1 on which account astronomy owes much to the sun4444 ,by help of the sun one can find the meridian4444 ,but the meridian is the basis of our sundials1 and generally speaking1 we should have no sundials if we had no sun40 ,vernnftige ,gedanken von den ,absichten der natrlichen ,dinge1 #aghb1 pp4 #gdhd4 ,or read the account of ,god's beneficence in the institution of 8the great variety throughout the world of men's faces1 voices1 and handwriting10 given in ,derham's ,physicotheology1 a book that had much vogue in the eighteenth century4 8,had ,man's body10 says ,dr4 ,derham1 8been made according to any of the ,atheistical ,schemes1 or any other ,method than that of the infinite ,lord of the ,world1 this wise ,variety would never have been3 but ,men's ,faces would have been cast in the same1 or not a very different ,mould1 their ,organs of ,speech would have sounded the same or not so great a ,variety of ,notes2 and the same ,structure of ,muscles and ,nerves would have given the ,hand the same ,direction in ,writing4 ,and in this ,case1 what ,confusion1 what ,disturbance1 what ,mischiefs would the world eternally have lain under6 ,no ,security could have been to our persons2 no ,certainty1 no ,enjoyment of our ,possessions2 no ,justice between ,man and ,man2 no ,distinction between ,good and ,bad1 between ,friends and ,foes1 between ,father and ,child1 ,husband and ,wife1 ,male or ,female2 but all would have been turned topsyturvy1 by being exposed to the ,malice of the ,envious and ill,natured1 to the ,fraud and ,violence of ,knaves and ,robbers1 to the ,forgeries of the crafty ,cheat1 to the ,lusts of the ,effeminate and ,debauched1 and what not6 ,our ,courts of ,justice can abundantly testify the dire ,effects of ,mistaking ,men's ,faces1 of counterfeiting their ,hands1 and forging ,writings4 ,but now as the infinitely wise ,creator and ,ruler hath ordered the ,matter1 every man's ,face can distinguish him in the ,light1 and his ,voice in the ,dark2 his ,handwriting can speak for him though absent1 and be his ,witness1 and secure his ,contracts in future ,generations4 ,a manifest as well as admirable ,indication of the divine ,superintendence and ,management40 ,a ,god so careful as to make provision even for the unmistakable signing of bank checks and deeds was a deity truly after the heart of eighteenth century ,anglicanism4 ,i subjoin1 omitting the capitals1 ,derham's 8,vindication of ,god by the ,institution of ,hills and ,valleys10 and ,wolff's altogether culinary account of the institution of ,water3-- 8,the uses10 says ,wolff1 8which water serves in human life are plain to see and need not be described at length4 ,water is a universal drink of man and beasts4 ,even though men have made themselves drinks that are artificial1 they could not do this without water4 ,beer is brewed of water and malt1 and it is the water in it which quenches thirst4 ,wine is prepared from grapes1 which could never have grown without the help of water2 and the same is true of those drinks which in ,england and other places they produce from fruit4444 ,therefore since ,god so planned the world that men and beasts should live upon it and find there everything required for their necessity and convenience1 he also made water as one means whereby to make the earth into so excellent a dwelling4 ,and this is all the more manifest when we consider the advantages which we obtain from this same water for the cleaning of our household utensils1 of our clothing1 and of other matters4444 ,when one goes into a grinding mill one sees that the grindstone must always be kept wet and then one will get a still greater idea of the use of water40 ,of the hills and valleys1 ,derham1 after praising their beauty1 discourses as follows3 8,some constitutions are indeed of so happy a strength1 and so confirmed an health1 as to be indifferent to almost any place or temperature of the air4 ,but then others are so weakly and feeble1 as not to be able to bear one1 but can live comfortably in another place4 ,with some the more subtle and finer air of the hills doth best agree1 who are languishing and dying in the feculent and grosser air of great towns1 or even the warmer and vaporous air of the valleys and waters4 ,but contrariwise1 others languish on the hills1 and grow lusty and strong in the warmer air of the valleys4 8,so that this opportunity of shifting our abode from the hills to the vales1 is an admirable easement1 refreshment1 and great benefit to the valetudinarian1 feeble part of mankind2 affording those an easy and comfortable life1 who would otherwise live miserably1 languish1 and pine away4 8,to this salutary conformation of the earth we may add another great convenience of the hills1 and that is affording commodious places for habitation1 serving 7as an eminent author wordeth it7 as screens to keep off the cold and nipping blasts of the northern and easterly winds1 and reflecting the benign and cherishing sunbeams1 and so rendering our habitations both more comfortable and more cheerly in winter4 8,lastly1 it is to the hills that the fountains owe their rise and the rivers their conveyance1 and consequently those vast masses and lofty piles are not1 as they are charged1 such rude and useless excrescences of our illformed globe2 but the admirable tools of nature1 contrived and ordered by the infinite ,creator1 to do one of its most useful works4 ,for1 was the surface of the earth even and level1 and the middle parts of its islands and continents not mountainous and high as now it is1 it is most certain there could be no descent for the rivers1 no conveyance for the waters2 but1 instead of gliding along those gentle declivities which the higher lands now afford them quite down to the sea1 they would stagnate and perhaps stink1 and also drown large tracts of land4 8,thus the hills and vales1 though to a peevish and weary traveler they may seem incommodious and troublesome1 yet are a noble work of the great ,creator1 and wisely appointed by him for the good of our sublunary world40 #ccc ,until the seventeenth century this mode of thought prevailed4 ,one need only recall the dramatic treatment even of mechanical questions by ,aristotle1 as1 for example1 his explanation of the power of the lever to make a small weight raise a larger one4 ,this is due1 according to ,aristotle1 to the generally miraculous character of the circle and of all circular movement4 ,the circle is both convex and concave2 it is made by a fixed point and a moving line1 which contradict each other2 and whatever moves in a circle moves in opposite directions4 ,nevertheless1 movement in a circle is the most 8natural0 movement2 and the long arm of the lever1 moving1 as it does1 in the larger circle1 has the greater amount of this natural motion1 and consequently requires the lesser force4 ,or recall the explanation by ,herodotus of the position of the sun in winter3 ,it moves to the south because of the cold which drives it into the warm parts of the heavens over ,libya4 ,or listen to ,saint ,augustine's speculations3 8,who gave to chaff such power to freeze that it preserves snow buried under it1 and such power to warm that it ripens green fruit8 ,who can explain the strange properties of fire itself1 which blackens all that it burns1 though itself bright1 and which1 though of the most beautiful colors1 discolors almost all that it touches and feeds upon1 and turns blazing fuel into grimy cinders8444 ,then what wonderful properties do we find in charcoal1 which is so brittle that a light tap breaks it1 and a slight pressure pulverizes it1 and yet is so strong that no moisture rots it1 nor any time causes it to decay40 ,city of ,god1 book xxi4 ch4 iv4 ,such aspects of things as these1 their naturalness and unnaturalness1 the sympathies and antipathies of their superficial qualities1 their eccentricities1 their brightness and strength and destructiveness1 were inevitably the ways in which they originally fastened our attention4 ,if you open early medical books1 you will find sympathetic magic invoked on every page4 ,take1 for example1 the famous vulnerary ointment attributed to ,paracelsus4 ,for this there were a variety of receipts1 including usually human fat1 the fat of either a bull1 a wild boar1 or a bear2 powdered earthworms1 the usnia1 or mossy growth on the weathered skull of a hanged criminal1 and other materials equally unpleasant--the whole prepared under the planet ,venus if possible1 but never under ,mars or ,saturn4 ,then1 if a splinter of wood1 dipped in the patient's blood1 or the bloodstained weapon that wounded him1 be immersed in this ointment1 the wound itself being tightly bound up1 the latter infallibly gets well1--,i quote now ,van ,helmont's account1--for the blood on the weapon or splinter1 containing in it the spirit of the wounded man1 is roused to active excitement by the contact of the ointment1 whence there results to it a full commission or power to cure its cousingerman1 the blood in the patient's body4 ,this it does by sucking out the dolorous and exotic impression from the wounded part4 ,but to do this it has to implore the aid of the bull's fat1 and other portions of the unguent4 ,the reason why bull's fat is so powerful is that the bull at the time of slaughter is full of secret reluctancy and vindictive murmurs1 and therefore dies with a higher flame of revenge about him than any other animal4 ,and thus we have made it out1 says this author1 that the admirable efficacy of the ointment ought to be imputed1 not to any auxiliary concurrence of ,satan1 but simply to the energy of the posthumous character of ,revenge remaining firmly impressed upon the blood and concreted fat in the unguent4 ,j4 ,b4 ,,van ,,helmont3 ,a ,ternary of ,paradoxes1 translated by ,,walter ,,charleton1 ,london1 #afej4--;,i much abridge the original in my citations4 ,the author goes on to prove by the analogy of many other natural facts that this sympathetic action between things at a distance is the true rationale of the case4 8,if10 he says1 8the heart of a horse1 slain by a witch1 taken out of the yet reeking carcase1 be impaled upon an arrow and roasted1 immediately the whole witch becomes tormented with the insufferable pains and cruelty of the fire1 which could by no means happen unless there preceded a conjunction of the spirit of the witch with the spirit of the horse4 ,in the reeking and yet panting heart1 the spirit of the witch is kept captive1 and the retreat of it prevented by the arrow transfixed4 ,similarly hath not many a murdered carcase at the coroner's inquest suffered a fresh hmorrhage or cruentation at the presence of the assassin8--the blood being1 as in a furious fit of anger1 enraged and agitated by the impress of revenge conceived against the murderer1 at the instant of the soul's compulsive exile from the body4 ,so1 if you have dropsy1 gout1 or jaundice1 by including some of your warm blood in the shell and white of an egg1 which1 exposed to a gentle heat1 and mixed with a bait of flesh1 you shall give to a hungry dog or hog1 the disease shall instantly pass from you into the animal1 and leave you entirely4 ,and similarly again1 if you burn some of the milk either of a cow or of a woman1 the gland from which it issued will dry up4 ,a gentleman at ,brussels had his nose mowed off in a combat1 but the celebrated surgeon ,tagliacozzus digged a new nose for him out of the skin of the arm of a porter at ,bologna4 ,about thirteen months after his return to his own country1 the engrafted nose grew cold1 putrefied1 and in a few days dropped off1 and it was then discovered that the porter had expired1 near about the same punctilio of time4 ,there are still at ,brussels eyewitnesses of this occurrence10 says ,van ,helmont2 and adds1 8,i pray what is there in this of superstition or of exalted imagination80 ,modern mindcure literature--the works of ,prentice ,mulford1 for example--is full of sympathetic magic4 #ccd ,compare ,lotze's doctrine that the only meaning we can attach to the notion of a thing as it is 8in itself0 is by conceiving it as it is for itself2 i4e41 as a piece of full experience with a private sense of 8pinch0 or inner activity of some sort going with it4 #cce ,even the errors of fact may possibly turn out not to be as wholesale as the scientist assumes4 ,we saw in ,lecture ,,iv how the religious conception of the universe seems to many mindcurers 'verified' from day to day by their experience of fact4 8,experience of fact0 is a field with so many things in it that the sectarian scientist1 methodically declining1 as he does1 to recognize such 8facts0 as mindcurers and others like them experience1 otherwise than by such rude heads of classification as 8bosh10 8rot10 8folly10 certainly leaves out a mass of raw fact which1 save for the industrious interest of the religious in the more personal aspects of reality1 would never have succeeded in getting itself recorded at all4 ,we know this to be true already in certain cases2 it may1 therefore1 be true in others as well4 ,miraculous healings have always been part of the supernaturalist stock in trade1 and have always been dismissed by the scientist as figments of the imagination4 ,but the scientist's tardy education in the facts of hypnotism has recently given him an apperceiving mass for phenomena of this order1 and he consequently now allows that the healings may exist1 provided you expressly call them effects of 8suggestion40 ,even the stigmata of the cross on ,saint ,francis's hands and feet may on these terms not be a fable4 ,similarly1 the timehonored phenomenon of diabolical possession is on the point of being admitted by the scientist as a fact1 now that he has the name of 8hysterodemonopathy0 by which to apperceive it4 ,no one can foresee just how far this legitimation of occultist phenomena under newly found scientist titles may proceed--even 8prophecy10 even 8levitation10 might creep into the pale4 ,thus the divorce between scientist facts and religious facts may not necessarily be as eternal as it at first sight seems1 nor the personalism and romanticism of the world1 as they appeared to primitive thinking1 be matters so irrevocably outgrown4 ,the final human opinion may1 in short1 in some manner now impossible to foresee1 revert to the more personal style1 just as any path of progress may follow a spiral rather than a straight line4 ,if this were so1 the rigorously impersonal view of science might one day appear as having been a temporarily useful eccentricity rather than the definitively triumphant position which the sectarian scientist at present so confidently announces it to be4 #ccf ,hume's criticism has banished causation from the world of physical objects1 and 8,science0 is absolutely satisfied to define cause in terms of concomitant change--read ,mach1 ,pearson1 ,ostwald4 ,the 8original0 of the notion of causation is in our inner personal experience1 and only there can causes in the oldfashioned sense be directly observed and described4 #ccg ,when ,i read in a religious paper words like these3 8,perhaps the best thing we can say of ,god is that he is the ,inevitable ,inference10 ,i recognize the tendency to let religion evaporate in intellectual terms4 ,would martyrs have sung in the flames for a mere inference1 however inevitable it might be8 ,original religious men1 like ,saint ,francis1 ,luther1 ,behmen1 have usually been enemies of the intellect's pretension to meddle with religious things4 ,yet the intellect1 everywhere invasive1 shows everywhere its shallowing effect4 ,see how the ancient spirit of ,methodism evaporates under those wonderfully able rationalistic booklets 7which every one should read7 of a philosopher like ,professor ,bowne 7,the ,christian ,revelation1 ,the ,christian ,life1 ,the ,atonement3 ,cincinnati and ,new ,york1 #ahih1 #ahii1 #aijj74 ,see the positively expulsive purpose of philosophy properly so called3-- 8,religion10 writes ,m4 ,vacherot 7,la ,religion1 ,paris1 #ahfi1 pp4 #cac1 #dcf1 et passim71 8answers to a transient state or condition1 not to a permanent determination of human nature1 being merely an expression of that stage of the human mind which is dominated by the imagination4444 ,christianity has but a single possible final heir to its estate1 and that is scientific philosophy40 ,in a still more radical vein1 ,professor ,ribot 7,psychologie des ,sentiments1 p4 #caj7 describes the evaporation of religion4 ,he sums it up in a single formula--the evergrowing predominance of the rational intellectual element1 with the gradual fading out of the emotional element1 this latter tending to enter into the group of purely intellectual sentiments4 8,of religious sentiment properly so called1 nothing survives at last save a vague respect for the unknowable x which is a last relic of the fear1 and a certain attraction towards the ideal1 which is a relic of the love1 that characterized the earlier periods of religious growth4 ,to state this more simply1 religion tends to turn into religious philosophy4--,these are psychologically entirely different things1 the one being a theoretic construction of ratiocination1 whereas the other is the living work of a group of persons1 or of a great inspired leader1 calling into play the entire thinking and feeling organism of man40 ,i find the same failure to recognize that the stronghold of religion lies in individuality in attempts like those of ,professor ,baldwin 7,mental ,development1 ,social and ,ethical ,interpretations1 ch4 x47 and ,mr4 ,h4 ,r4 ,marshall 7,instinct and ,reason1 chaps1 viii4 to xii47 to make it a purely 8conservative social force40 #cch ,compare1 for instance1 pages #bjc1 #bai1 #bbc1 #bbf1 #bdi to #bef1 #bge to #bgh4 #cci ,american ,journal of ,psychology1 vii4 #cde4 #cdj ,above1 p4 #ahd4 #cda ,above1 p4 #ade4 #cdb ,above1 p4 #djj4 #cdc ,example3 ,henri ,perreyve writes to ,gratry3 8,i do not know how to deal with the happiness which you aroused in me this morning4 ,it overwhelms me2 ,i want to do something1 yet ,i can do nothing and am fit for nothing4444 ,i would fain do great things40 ,again1 after an inspiring interview1 he writes3 8,i went homewards1 intoxicated with joy1 hope1 and strength4 ,i wanted to feed upon my happiness in solitude1 far from all men4 ,it was late2 but1 unheeding that1 ,i took a mountain path and went on like a madman1 looking at the heavens1 regardless of earth4 ,suddenly an instinct made me draw hastily back--,i was on the very edge of a precipice1 one step more and ,i must have fallen4 ,i took fright and gave up my nocturnal promenade40 ,a4 ,,gratry3 ,henri ,perreyve1 ,london1 #ahgb1 pp4 #ib1 #hi4 ,this primacy1 in the faithstate1 of vague expansive impulse over direction is well expressed in ,walt ,whitman's lines 7,leaves of ,grass1 #ahgb1 p4 #aij73-- 8,o to confront night1 storms1 hunger1 ridicule1 accidents1 rebuffs1 as the trees and animals do4444 ,dear ,camerado6 ,i confess ,i have urged you onward with me1 and still urge you1 without the least idea what is our destination1 ,or whether we shall be victorious1 or utterly quell'd and defeated40 ,this readiness for great things1 and this sense that the world by its importance1 wonderfulness1 etc41 is apt for their production1 would seem to be the undifferentiated germ of all the higher faiths4 ,trust in our own dreams of ambition1 or in our country's expansive destinies1 and faith in the providence of ,god1 all have their source in that onrush of our sanguine impulses1 and in that sense of the exceedingness of the possible over the real4 #cdd ,compare ,,leuba3 ,loc4 cit41 pp4 #cdfcdi4 #cde ,the ,contents of ,religious ,consciousness1 in ,the ,monist1 xi4 #ecf1 ,july1 #aija4 #cdf ,loc4 cit41 pp4 #ega1 #egb1 abridged4 ,see1 also1 this writer's extraordinarily true criticism of the notion that religion primarily seeks to solve the intellectual mystery of the world4 ,compare what ,w4 ,,bender says 7in his ,wesen der ,religion1 ,bonn1 #ahhh1 pp4 #he1 #ch73 8,not the question about ,god1 and not the inquiry into the origin and purpose of the world is religion1 but the question about ,man4 ,all religious views of life are anthropocentric40 8,religion is that activity of the human impulse towards selfpreservation by means of which ,man seeks to carry his essential vital purposes through against the adverse pressure of the world by raising himself freely towards the world's ordering and governing powers when the limits of his own strength are reached40 ,the whole book is little more than a development of these words4 #cdg ,remember that for some men it arrives suddenly1 for others gradually1 whilst others again practically enjoy it all their life4 #cdh ,the practical difficulties are3 #a1 to 8realize the reality0 of one's higher part2 #b1 to identify one's self with it exclusively2 and #c1 to identify it with all the rest of ideal being4 #cdi 8,when mystical activity is at its height1 we find consciousness possessed by the sense of a being at once excessive and identical with the self3 great enough to be ,god2 interior enough to be me4 ,the #8objectivity' of it ought in that case to be called excessivity1 rather1 or exceedingness40 ,r,c,,jac3 ,essai sur les fondements de la conscience mystique1 #ahig1 p4 #df4 #cej ,the word 8truth0 is here taken to mean something additional to bare value for life1 although the natural propensity of man is to believe that whatever has great value for life is thereby certified as true4 #cea ,above1 p4 #dee4 #ceb ,proceedings of the ,society for ,psychical ,research1 vol4 vii4 p4 #cje4 ,for a full statement of ,mr4 ,myers's views1 ,i may refer to his posthumous work1 8,human ,personality in the ,light of ,recent ,research10 which is already announced by ,messrs4 ,longmans1 ,green ,co4 as being in press4 ,mr4 ,myers for the first time proposed as a general psychological problem the exploration of the subliminal region of consciousness throughout its whole extent1 and made the first methodical steps in its topography by treating as a natural series a mass of subliminal facts hitherto considered only as curious isolated facts1 and subjecting them to a systematized nomenclature4 ,how important this exploration will prove1 future work upon the path which ,myers has opened can alone show4 ,compare my paper3 8,frederic ,myers's ,services to ,psychology10 in the said ,proceedings1 part xlii41 ,may1 #aija4 #cec ,compare the inventory given above on pp4 #dhcd1 and also what is said of the subconscious self on pp4 #bccbcf1 #bdjbdb4 #ced ,compare above1 pp4 #dai ff4 #cee ,one more expression of this belief1 to increase the reader's familiarity with the notion of it3-- 8,if this room is full of darkness for thousands of years1 and you come in and begin to weep and wail1 #8,oh1 the darkness1' will the darkness vanish8 ,bring the light in1 strike a match1 and light comes in a moment4 ,so what good will it do you to think all your lives1 #8,oh1 ,i have done evil1 ,i have made many mistakes'8 ,it requires no ghost to tell us that4 ,bring in the light1 and the evil goes in a moment4 ,strengthen the real nature1 build up yourselves1 the effulgent1 the resplendent1 the ever pure1 call that up in every one whom you see4 ,i wish that every one of us had come to such a state that even when we see the vilest of human beings we can see the ,god within1 and instead of condemning1 say1 #8,rise1 thou effulgent ,one1 rise thou who art always pure1 rise thou birthless and deathless1 rise almighty1 and manifest your nature4' 444 ,this is the highest prayer that the ,advaita teaches4 ,this is the one prayer3 remembering our nature40 444 8,why does man go out to look for a ,god8444 ,it is your own heart beating1 and you did not know1 you were mistaking it for something external4 ,he1 nearest of the near1 my own self1 the reality of my own life1 my body and my soul4--,i am ,thee and ,thou art ,me4 ,that is your own nature4 ,assert it1 manifest it4 ,not to become pure1 you are pure already4 ,you are not to be perfect1 you are that already4 ,every good thought which you think or act upon is simply tearing the veil1 as it were1 and the purity1 the ,infinity1 the ,god behind1 manifests itself--the eternal ,subject of everything1 the eternal ,witness in this universe1 your own ,self4 ,knowledge is1 as it were1 a lower step1 a degradation4 ,we are ,it already2 how to know ,it80 ,,swami ,,vivekananda3 ,addresses1 ,no4 ,,xii41 ,practical ,vedanta1 part iv4 pp4 #agb1 #agd1 ,london1 #ahig2 and ,lectures1 ,the ,real and the ,apparent ,man1 p4 #bd1 abridged4 #cef ,for instance1 here is a case where a person exposed from her birth to ,christian ideas had to wait till they came to her clad in spiritistic formulas before the saving experience set in3-- 8,for myself ,i can say that spiritualism has saved me4 ,it was revealed to me at a critical moment of my life1 and without it ,i don't know what ,i should have done4 ,it has taught me to detach myself from worldly things and to place my hope in things to come4 ,through it ,i have learned to see in all men1 even in those most criminal1 even in those from whom ,i have most suffered1 undeveloped brothers to whom ,i owed assistance1 love1 and forgiveness4 ,i have learned that ,i must lose my temper over nothing1 despise no one1 and pray for all4 ,most of all ,i have learned to pray6 ,and although ,i have still much to learn in this domain1 prayer ever brings me more strength1 consolation1 and comfort4 ,i feel more than ever that ,i have only made a few steps on the long road of progress2 but ,i look at its length without dismay1 for ,i have confidence that the day will come when all my efforts shall be rewarded4 ,so ,spiritualism has a great place in my life1 indeed it holds the first place there40 ,flournoy ,collection4 #ceg 8,the influence of the ,holy ,spirit1 exquisitely called the ,comforter1 is a matter of actual experience1 as solid a reality as that of electromagnetism40 ,w4 ,c4 ,,brownell1 ,scribner's ,magazine1 vol4 xxx4 p4 #aab4 #ceh ,that the transaction of opening ourselves1 otherwise called prayer1 is a perfectly definite one for certain persons1 appears abundantly in the preceding lectures4 ,i append another concrete example to reinforce the impression on the reader's mind3-- 8,man can learn to transcend these limitations of finite thought and draw power and wisdom at will4444 ,the divine presence is known through experience4 ,the turning to a higher plane is a distinct act of consciousness4 ,it is not a vague1 twilight or semiconscious experience4 ,it is not an ecstasy2 it is not a trance4 ,it is not superconsciousness in the ,vedantic sense4 ,it is not due to self hypnotization4 ,it is a perfectly calm1 sane1 sound1 rational1 commonsense shifting of consciousness from the phenomena of sense perception to the phenomena of seership1 from the thought of self to a distinctively higher realm4444 ,for example1 if the lower self be nervous1 anxious1 tense1 one can in a few moments compel it to be calm4 ,this is not done by a word simply4 ,again ,i say1 it is not hypnotism4 ,it is by the exercise of power4 ,one feels the spirit of peace as definitely as heat is perceived on a hot summer day4 ,the power can be as surely used as the sun's rays can be focused and made to do work1 to set fire to wood40 ,the ,higher ,law1 vol4 iv4 pp4 #d1 #f1 ,boston1 ,august1 #aija4 #cei ,transcendentalists are fond of the term 8,oversoul10 but as a rule they use it in an intellectualist sense1 as meaning only a medium of communion4 8,god0 is a causal agent as well as a medium of communion1 and that is the aspect which ,i wish to emphasize4 #cfj ,transcendental idealism1 of course1 insists that its ideal world makes this difference1 that facts exist4 ,we owe it to the ,absolute that we have a world of fact at all4 8,a world0 of fact6--that exactly is the trouble4 ,an entire world is the smallest unit with which the ,absolute can work1 whereas to our finite minds work for the better ought to be done within this world1 setting in at single points4 ,our difficulties and our ideals are all piecemeal affairs1 but the ,absolute can do no piecework for us2 so that all the interests which our poor souls compass raise their heads too late4 ,we should have spoken earlier1 prayed for another world absolutely1 before this world was born4 ,it is strange1 ,i have heard a friend say1 to see this blind corner into which ,christian thought has worked itself at last1 with its ,god who can raise no particular weight whatever1 who can help us with no private burden1 and who is on the side of our enemies as much as he is on our own4 ,odd evolution from the ,god of ,david's psalms6 #cfa ,see my ,will to ,believe and other ,essays in ,popular ,philosophy1 #ahig1 p4 #afe4 #cfb ,such a notion is suggested in my ,ingersoll ,lecture ,on ,human ,immortality1 ,boston and ,london1 #ahii4 #cfc ,tertium ,quid1 #ahhg1 p4 #ii4 ,see also pp4 #adh1 #adi4