The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

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THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

A Study in Human Nature

Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-19

02.

BY WILLIAM JAMES

[1902]
Proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com by John Bruno Hare, April 2008. This t
ext is in the public domain in the US because it was published prior to 1923.
To
E.P.G.
IN FILIAL GRATITUDE AND LOVE

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

LECTURE I
RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY
<page 3>

Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal

documents--Questions of fact and questions of value--In point of fact, the re
ligious are often neurotic--Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns r
eligion on that account--Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted--All
states of mind are neurally conditioned--Their significance must be tested not
by their origin but by the value of their fruits--Three criteria of value; o
rigin useless as a criterion--Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when
a superior intellect goes with it--especially for the religious life.

LECTURE II
CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC
<page 27>

Futility of simple definitions of religion--No one specific "religious s

entiment"--Institutional and personal religion--We confine ourselves to the pe
rsonal branch--Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures--Meani
ng of the term "divine"--The divine is what prompts solemn reactions--Impossible
to make our definitions sharp--We must study the more extreme cases--Two ways
of accepting the universe--Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy--Its
characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion--Its ability to overcome unh
appiness--Need of such a faculty from the biological point of view.

[p. vii]

LECTURE III
THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN
<page 53>

Percepts versus abstract concepts--Influence of the latter on belief--Ka

nt's theological Ideas--We have a sense of reality other than that given by th
e special senses--Examples of "sense of presence"--The feeling of unreality--S
ense of a divine presence: examples--Mystical experiences: examples--Other cas
es of sense of God's presence--Convincingness of unreasoned experience--Inferi
ority of rationalism in establishing belief--Either enthusiasm or solemnity ma
y preponderate in the religious attitude of individuals.

LECTURES IV AND V
THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY--MINDEDNESS
 <page 77>

Happiness is man's chief concern--"Once-born" and "twice-born" character

s--Walt Whitman--Mixed nature of Greek feeling--Systematic healthy-mindedness-
-Its reasonableness--Liberal Christianity shows it--Optimism as encouraged by
Popular Science--The "Mind-cure" movement--Its creed--Cases--Its doctrine of e
vil--Its analogy to Lutheran theology--Salvation by relaxation--Its methods:
suggestion--meditation--"recollection"--verification--Diversity of possible s
chemes of adaptation to the universe--APPENDIX: Two mind-cure cases.

LECTURES VI AND VII

THE SICK SOUL
<page 125>

Healthy-mindedness and repentance--Essential pluralism of the healthy-mi

nded philosophy--Morbid-mindedness: its two degrees--The pain-threshold varies
in individuals--Insecurity of natural goods--Failure, or vain [p. ix] success
of every life--Pessimism of all pure naturalism--Hopelessness of Greek and Ro
man view--Pathological unhappiness--"Anhedonia"--Querulous melancholy--Vital z
est is a pure gift--Loss of it makes physical world look different--Tolstoy-
-Bunyan--Alline--Morbid fear--Such cases need a supernatural religion for reli
ef--Antagonism of healthy-mindedness and morbidness--The problem of evil canno
t be escaped.

LECTURE VIII
THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION
<page 163>

Heterogeneous personality--Character gradually attains unity--Examples of

divided self--The unity attained need not be religious--"Counter conversion"
cases--Other cases--Gradual and sudden unification--Tolstoy's recovery--Bunya
n's.
 LECTURE IX
CONVERSION
<page 186>

Case of Stephen Bradley--The psychology of character-changes--Emotional

excitements make new centres of personal energy--Schematic ways of representin
g this--Starbuck likens conversion to normal moral ripening--Leuba's ideas--Se
emingly unconvertible persons--Two types of conversion--Subconscious incubatio
n of motives--Self-surrender--Its importance in religious history--Cases.

LECTURE X
CONVERSION--concluded
<page 213>

Cases of sudden conversion--Is suddenness essential?--No, it depends on

psychological idiosyncrasy--Proved [p. x] existence of transmarginal, or subli
minal, consciousness--"Automatisms"--Instantaneous conversions seem due to the
possession of an active subconscious self by the subject--The value of conver
sion depends not on the process, but on the fruits--These are not superior in
sudden conversion--Professor Coe's views--Sanctification as a result--Our psyc
hological account does not exclude direct presence of the Deity--Sense of high
er control--Relations of the emotional "faith-state" to intellectual beliefs--
Leuba quoted--Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth; the world ap
pears new--Sensory and motor automatisms--Permanency of conversions.

LECTURES XI, XII, AND XIII

SAINTLINESS
<page 254>

Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grace--Types of character as due to the bal

ance of impulses and inhibitions--Sovereign excitements--Irascibility--Effects
of higher excitement in general--The saintly life is ruled by spiritual excit
ement--This may annul sensual impulses permanently--Probable subconscious infl
uences involved--Mechanical scheme for representing permanent alteration in ch
aracter--Characteristics of saintliness--Sense of reality of a higher power--P
eace of mind, charity--Equanimity, fortitude, etc.--Connection of this with re
laxation--Purity of life--Asceticism--Obedience--Poverty--The sentiments of de
mocracy and of humanity--General effects of higher excitements.

LECTURES XIV AND XV

THE VALUE OF SAINTLINESS
<page 320>

It must be tested by the human value of its fruits--[p. xi] The reality of
the God must, however, also be judged--"Unfit" religions get eliminated by
"experience"--Empiricism is not skepticism--Individual and tribal religion--Lo
neliness of religious originators--Corruption follows success--Extravagances--
Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism--As theopathic absorption--Excessive purit
y--Excessive charity--The perfect man is adapted only to the perfect environme
nt--Saints are leavens--Excesses of asceticism----Asceticism symbolically stan
ds for the heroic life--Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalen
ts--Pros and cons of the saintly character--Saints versus "strong" men--Th
eir social function must be considered--Abstractly the saint is the highest ty
pe, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make ourselves saints at
our peril--The question of theological truth.

LECTURES XVI AND XVII

MYSTICISM
<page 370>

Mysticism defined--Four marks of mystic states--They form a distinct regio

n of consciousness--Examples of their lower grades--Mysticism and alcohol--"
The anaesthetic revelation"--Religious mysticism--Aspects of Nature--Conscious
ness of God--"Cosmic consciousness"--Yoga--Buddhistic mysticism--Sufism--Chris
tian mystics--Their sense of revelation--Tonic effects of mystic states--They
describe by negatives--Sense of union with the Absolute--Mysticism and music--
Three conclusions--(1) Mystical states carry authority for him who has them--(
2) But for no one else--(3) Nevertheless, they break down the exclusive author
ity of rationalistic states--They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypothese
s.

[p. xii]

LECTURE XVIII
PHILOSOPHY
<page 421>

Primacy of feeling in religion, philosophy being a secondary function--I

ntellectualism professes to escape objective standards in her theological cons
tructions--"Dogmatic theology"--Criticism of its account of God's attributes--
"Pragmatism" as a test of the value of conceptions--God's metaphysical attribu
tes have no practical significance--His moral attributes are proved by bad arg
uments; collapse of systematic theology--Does transcendental idealism fare bet
ter? Its principles--Quotations from John Caird--They are good as restatements
of religious experience, but uncoercive as reasoned proof--What philosophy ca
n do for religion by transforming herself into "science of religions."

LECTURE XIX
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
<page 448>

Aesthetic elements in religion--Contrast of Catholicism and Protestantis

m--Sacrifice and Confession--Prayer--Religion holds that spiritual work is rea
lly effected in prayer--Three degrees of opinion as to what is effected--First
degree-- Second degree-- Third degree-- Automatisms, their frequency among re
ligious leaders--Jewish cases--Mohammed--Joseph Smith--Religion and the subcon
scious region in general.

LECTURE XX
CONCLUSIONS
<page 475>

Summary of religious characteristics--Men's religions need not be identi

cal--"The science of religions" can only suggest, not proclaims a religious cr
eed--Is religion [p. xiii] a "survival" of primitive thought?--Modern science
rules out the concept of personality--Anthropomorphism and belief in the perso
nal characterized pre-scientific thought--Personal forces are real, in spite o
f this--Scientific objects are abstractions, only individualized experiences a
re concrete--Religion holds by the concrete--Primarily religion is a biologica
l reaction--Its simplest terms are an uneasiness and a deliverance; descriptio
n of the deliverance--Question of the reality of the higher power--The author'
s hypotheses: 1. The subconscious self as intermediating between nature and th
e higher region--2. The higher region, or "God"--3. He produces real effects
in nature.

POSTSCRIPT
<page 510>

Philosophic position of the present work defined as piecemeal supernatur

alism--Criticism of universalistic supernaturalism--Different principles must
occasion differences in fact--What differences in fact can God's existence occ
asion?--The question of immortality--Question of God's uniqueness and infinity
: religious experience does not settle this question in the affirmative--The p
luralistic hypothesis is more conformed to common sense.

INDEX
<page 519>

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

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[p. xv]
PREFACE
This book would never have been written had I not been honored with an appointme
nt as Gifford Lecturer on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh. In ca
sting about me for subjects of the two courses of ten lectures each for which I
thus became responsible, it seemed to me that the first course might well be a d
escriptive one on "Man's Religious Appetites," and the second a metaphysical one
on "Their Satisfaction through Philosophy." But the unexpected growth of the ps
ychological matter as I came to write it out has resulted in the second subject
being postponed entirely, and the description of man's religious constitution no
w fills the twenty lectures. In Lecture XX I have suggested rather than stated m
y own philosophic conclusions, and the reader who desires immediately to know th
em should turn to pages <page 501>-<page 509>, and to the "Postscript" of the bo
ok. I hope to be able at some later day to express them in more explicit form.
In my belief that a large acquaintance with particulars often makes us wiser tha
n the possession of abstract formulas, however deep, I have loaded the lectures
with concrete examples, and I have chosen these among the extremer expressions o
f the religious temperament. To some readers I may consequently seem, before the
y get beyond the middle of the book, to offer a caricature of the subject. Such
convulsions of piety, they will say, are not sane. If, however, they will have t
he patience to read to the end, I believe that this unfavorable impression will
disappear;
[p. xvi]
for I there combine the religious impulses with other principles of common sense
which serve as correctives of exaggeration, and allow the individual reader to
draw as moderate conclusions as he will.
My thanks for help in writing these lectures are due to Edwin D. Starbuck, of St
anford University, who made over to me his large collection of manuscript materi
al; to Henry W. Rankin, of East Northfield, a friend unseen but proved, to whom
I owe precious information; to Theodore Flournoy, of Geneva, to Canning Schiller
of Oxford, and to my colleague Benjamin Rand, for documents; to my colleague Di
ckinson S. Miller, and to my friends, Thomas Wren Ward, of New York, and Wincent
y Lutoslawski, late of Cracow, for important suggestions and advice. Finally, to
conversations with the lamented Thomas Davidson and to the use of his books, at
Glenmore, above Keene Valley, I owe more obligations than I can well express.
Harvard University,
March, 1902.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

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[p. 1]

THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

[p. 2] [p. 3]

Lecture I
RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY
It is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my place behind this desk,
and face this learned audience. To us Americans, the experience of receiving in
struction from the living voice, as well as from the books, of European scholars
, is very familiar. At my own University of Harvard, not a winter passes without
its harvest, large or small, of lectures from Scottish, English, French, or Ger
man representatives of the science or literature of their respective countries w
hom we have either induced to cross the ocean to address us, or captured on the
wing as they were visiting our land. It seems the natural thing for us to listen
whilst the Europeans talk. The contrary habit, of talking whilst the Europeans
listen, we have not yet acquired; and in him who first makes the adventure it be
gets a certain sense of apology being due for so presumptuous an act. Particular
ly must this be the case on a soil as sacred to the American imagination as that
of Edinburgh. The glories of the philosophic chair of this university were deep
ly impressed on my imagination in boyhood. Professor Fraser's Essays in Philosop
hy, then just published, was the first philosophic book I ever looked into, and
I well remember the awestruck feeling I received from the account of Sir William
Hamilton's classroom therein contained. Hamilton's own lectures were the first
philosophic writings I ever forced myself to study, and after that I was immerse
d in Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown. Such juvenile emotions of reverence never
get outgrown; and I confess that to find my humble self promoted
[p. 4]
from my native wilderness to be actually for the time an official here, and tran
smuted into a colleague of these illustrious names, carries with it a sense of d
reamland quite as much as of reality.
But since I have received the honor of this appointment I have felt that it woul
d never do to decline. The academic career also has its heroic obligations, so I
stand here without further deprecatory words. Let me say only this, that now th
at the current, here and at Aberdeen, has begun to run from west to east, I hope
it may continue to do so. As the years go by, I hope that many of my countrymen
may be asked to lecture in the Scottish universities, changing places with Scot
smen lecturing in the United States; I hope that our people may become in all th
ese higher matters even as one people; and that the peculiar philosophic tempera
ment, as well as the peculiar political temperament, that goes with our English
speech may more and more pervade and influence the world.

As regards the manner in which I shall have to administer this lectureship, I am

neither a theologian, nor a scholar learned in the history of religions, nor an
anthropologist. Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particu
larly versed. To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at l
east as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitut
ion. It would seem, therefore, that, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me
would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities.
If the inquiry be psychological, not religious institutions, but rather religiou
s feelings and religious impulses must be its subject, and I must confine myself
to those more developed subjective phenomena recorded in literature produced by
articulate and fully self-conscious men, in works of piety and autobiography. I
nteresting as the origins and
[p. 5]
early stages of a subject always are, yet when one seeks earnestly for its full
significance, one must always look to its more completely evolved and perfect fo
rms. It follows from this that the documents that will most concern us will be t
hose of the men who were most accomplished in the religious life and best able t
o give an intelligible account of their ideas and motives. These men, of course,
are either comparatively modern writers, or else such earlier ones as have beco
me religious classics. The documents humains which we shall find most instructiv
e need not then be sought for in the haunts of special erudition--they lie along
the beaten highway; and this circumstance, which flows so naturally from the ch
aracter of our problem, suits admirably also your lecturer's lack of special the
ological learning. I may take my citations, my sentences and paragraphs of perso
nal confession, from books that most of you at some time will have had already i
n your hands, and yet this will be no detriment to the value of my conclusions.
It is true that some more adventurous reader and investigator, lecturing here in
future, may unearth from the shelves of libraries documents that will make a mo
re delectable and curious entertainment to listen to than mine. Yet I doubt whet
her he will necessarily, by his control of so much more out-of-the-way material,
get much closer to the essence of the matter in hand.
The question, What are the religious propensities? and the question, What is the
ir philosophic significance? are two entirely different orders of question from
the logical point of view; and, as a failure to recognize this fact distinctly m
ay breed confusion, I wish to insist upon the point a little before we enter int
o the documents and materials to which I have referred.
In recent books on logic, distinction is made between two orders of inquiry conc
erning anything. First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is
its constitution,
[p. 6]
origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significanc
e, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an exist
ential judgment or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of valu
e, what the Germans call a Werthurtheil, or what we may, if we like, denominate
a spiritual judgment. Neither judgment can be deduced immediately from the other
. They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines t
hem only by making them first separately, and then adding them together.
In the matter of religions it is particularly easy to distinguish the two orders
of question. Every religious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from
natural antecedents. What is nowadays called the higher criticism of the Bible
is only a study of the Bible from this existential point of view, neglected too
much by the earlier church. Under just what biographic conditions did the sacred
writers bring forth their various contributions to the holy volume? And what ha
d they exactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utte
rances? These are manifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see
how the answer to them can decide offhand the still further question: of what us
e should such a volume, with its manner of coming into existence so defined, be
to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other question we must
have already in our mind some sort of a general theory as to what the peculiari
ties in a thing should be which give it value for purposes of revelation; and th
is theory itself would be what I just called a spiritual judgment. Combining it
with our existential judgment, we might indeed deduce another spiritual judgment
as to the Bible's worth. Thus if our theory of revelation-value were to affirm
that any book, to possess it, must have been composed automatically or not by th
e free caprice of the writer, or that it must exhibit no scientific and historic
errors and express no local or personal passions, the Bible would probably fare
ill at our hands. But if, on the other hand, our theory should allow that a boo
k may well be a revelation in spite of errors and
[p. 7]
passions and deliberate human composition, if only it be a true record of the in
ner experiences of great-souled persons wrestling with the crises of their fate,
then the verdict would be much more favorable. You see that the existential fac
ts by themselves are insufficient for determining the value; and the best adepts
of the higher criticism accordingly never confound the existential with the spi
ritual problem. With the same conclusions of fact before them, some take one vie
w, and some another, of the Bible's value as a revelation, according as their sp
iritual judgment as to the foundation of values differs.

I make these general remarks about the two sorts of judgment, because there are
many religious persons--some of you now present, possibly, are among them--who d
o not yet make a working use of the distinction, and who may therefore feel firs
t a little startled at the purely existential point of view from which in the fo
llowing lectures the phenomena of religious experience must be considered. When
I handle them biologically and psychologically as if they were mere curious fact
s of individual history, some of you may think it a degradation of so sublime a
subject, and may even suspect me, until my purpose gets more fully expressed, of
deliberately seeking to discredit the religious side of life.
Such a result is of course absolutely alien to my intention; and since such a pr
ejudice on your part would seriously obstruct the due effect of much of what I h
ave to relate, I will devote a few more words to the point.
There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pur
sued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of
your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances
[p. 8]
of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion h
as been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to
fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to st
udy this second-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original
experiences which were the pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feelin
g and imitated conduct. These experiences we can only find in individuals for wh
om religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever rather. But such i
ndividuals are "geniuses" in the religious line; and like many other geniuses wh
o have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of b
iography, such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instabili
ty. Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been su
bject to abnormal psychical visitations. Invariably they have been creatures of
exalted emotional sensibility. Often they have led a discordant inner life, and
had melancholy during a part of their career. They have known no measure, been l
iable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trance
s, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which ar
e ordinarily classed as pathological. Often, moreover, these pathological featur
es in their career have helped to give them their religious authority and influe
nce.
If you ask for a concrete example, there can be no better one than is furnished
by the person of George Fox. The Quaker religion which he founded is something w
hich it is impossible to overpraise. In a day of shams, it was a religion of ver
acity rooted in spiritual inwardness, and a return to something more like the or
iginal gospel truth than men had ever known in England. So far as our Christian
sects today are evolving into liberality, they are simply reverting in essence t
o the position which Fox and the early Quakers so long ago assumed. No one can p
retend for a moment that
[p. 9]
in point of spiritual sagacity and capacity, Fox's mind was unsound. Everyone wh
o confronted him personally, from Oliver Cromwell down to county magistrates and
jailers, seems to have acknowledged his superior power. Yet from the point of v
iew of his nervous constitution, Fox was a psychopath or detraque of the deepest
dye. His Journal abounds in entries of this sort:--
"As I was walking with several friends, I lifted up my head and saw three steepl
e-house spires, and they struck at my life. I asked them what place that was? Th
ey said, Lichfield. Immediately the word of the Lord came to me, that I must go
thither. Being come to the house we were going to, I wished the friends to walk
into the house, saying nothing to them of whither I was to go. As soon as they w
ere gone I stept away, and went by my eye over hedge and ditch till I came withi
n a mile of Lichfield where, in a great field, shepherds were keeping their shee
p. Then was I commanded by the Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood still, for it
was winter: but the word of the Lord was like a fire in me. So I put off my shoe
s and left them with the shepherds; and the poor shepherds trembled, and were as
tonished. Then I walked on about a mile, and as soon as I was got within the cit
y, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Cry, 'Wo to the bloody city of
Lichfield!' So I went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, Wo to
the bloody city of Lichfield! It being market day, I went into the market-place,
and to and fro in the several parts of it, and made stands, crying as before, W
o to the bloody city of Lichfield! And no one laid hands on me. As I went thus c
rying through the streets, there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running d
own the streets, and the market-place appeared like a pool of blood. When I had
declared what was upon me, and felt myself clear, I went out of the town in peac
e; and returning to the shepherds gave them some money, and took my shoes of the
m again. But the fire of the Lord was so on my feet, and all over me, that I did
not matter to put on my shoes again, and was at a stand whether I should or no,
till I felt freedom from the Lord so to do: then, after I had washed my feet, I
put on my shoes again.
[p. 10]
[paragraph continues] After this a deep consideration came upon me, for what rea
son I should be sent to cry against that city, and call it The bloody city! For
though the parliament had the minister one while, and the king another, and much
blood had been shed in the town during the wars between them, yet there was no
more than had befallen many other places. But afterwards I came to understand, t
hat in the Emperor Diocletian's time a thousand Christians were martyr'd in Lich
field. So I was to go, without my shoes, through the channel of their blood, and
into the pool of their blood in the market-place, that I might raise up the mem
orial of the blood of those martyrs, which had been shed above a thousand years
before, and lay cold in their streets. So the sense of this blood was upon me, a
nd I obeyed the word of the Lord."

Bent as we are on studying religion's existential conditions, we cannot possibly

ignore these pathological aspects of the subject. We must describe and name the
m just as if they occurred in non-religious men. It is true that we instinctivel
y recoil from seeing an object to which our emotions and affections are committe
d handled by the intellect as any other object is handled. The first thing the i
ntellect does with an object is to class it along with something else. But any o
bject that is infinitely important to us and awakens our devotion feels to us al
so as if it must be sui generis and unique. 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 crustacean, and thus dispose of it. "I am no such thing, it would say; I a
m MYSELF, MYSELF alone.

The next thing the intellect does is to lay bare the causes in which the thing o
riginates. Spinoza says: "I will analyze the actions and appetites of men as if
it were a question of lines, of planes, and of solids." 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 things,
[p. 11]
since the consequences of our affections flow from their nature with the same ne
cessity as it results from the nature of a triangle that its three angles should
be equal to two right angles. Similarly M. Taine, in the introduction to his hi
story of English literature, has written: "Whether facts be moral or physical, i
t makes no matter. They always have their causes. There are causes for ambition,
courage, veracity, just as there are for digestion, muscular movement, animal h
eat. Vice and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar." When we read such pro
clamations of the intellect bent on showing the existential conditions of absolu
tely everything, we feel--quite apart from our legitimate impatience at the some
what ridiculous swagger of the program, in view of what the authors are actually
able to perform--menaced and negated in the springs of our innermost life. Such
cold-blooded assimilations threaten, we think, to undo our soul's vital secrets
, as if the same breath which should succeed in explaining their origin would si
multaneously explain away their significance, and make them appear of no more pr
eciousness, either, than the useful groceries of which M. Taine speaks.
Perhaps the commonest expression of this assumption that spiritual value is undo
ne if lowly origin be asserted is seen in those comments which unsentimental peo
ple so often pass on their more sentimental acquaintances. Alfred believes in im
mortality so strongly because his temperament is so emotional. Fanny's extraordi
nary conscientiousness is merely a matter of overinstigated nerves. William's me
lancholy about the universe is due to bad digestion--probably his liver is torpi
d. Eliza's delight in her church is a symptom of her hysterical constitution. Pe
ter would be less troubled about his soul if he would take more exercise in the
open air, etc. A more fully developed example of the same kind of reasoning is t
he fashion, quite common nowadays among certain writers, of criticizing the reli
gious emotions by showing
[p. 12]
a connection between them and the sexual life. Conversion is a crisis of puberty
and adolescence. The macerations of saints, and the devotion of missionaries, a
re only instances of the parental instinct of self-sacrifice gone astray. For th
e hysterical nun, starving for natural life, Christ is but an imaginary substitu
te for a more earthly object of affection. And the like. [*1]
[p. 13]
We are surely all familiar in a general way with this method of discrediting sta
tes of mind for which we have an
[p. 14]
antipathy. We all use it to some degree in criticizing persons whose states of m
ind we regard as overstrained. But when other people criticize our own more exal
ted soul-flights by calling them 'nothing but' expressions of our organic dispos
ition, we feel outraged and hurt, for we know that, whatever be our organism's p
eculiarities, our mental states have their substantive value as revelations of t
he living truth; and we wish that all this medical materialism could be made to
hold its tongue.
Medical materialism seems indeed a good appellation for the too simple-minded sy
stem of thought which we are considering. Medical materialism finishes up Saint
Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the o
ccipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteri
c, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent
with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a
symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle's organ-tones of misery it accounts for
by a gastro-duodenal catarrh. All such mental overtensions, it says, are, when y
ou come to the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of diathesis (auto-intoxicatio
ns most probably), due to the perverted
[p. 15]
action of various glands which physiology will yet discover.
And medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of all such per
sonages is successfully undermined. [*1]
Let us ourselves look at the matter in the largest possible way. Modern psycholo
gy, finding definite psycho-physical connections to hold good, assumes as a conv
enient hypothesis that the dependence of mental states upon bodily conditions mu
st be thoroughgoing and complete. If we adopt the assumption, then of course wha
t medical materialism insists on must be true in a general way, if not in every
detail: Saint Paul certainly had once an epileptoid, if not an epileptic seizure
; George Fox was an hereditary degenerate; Carlyle was undoubtedly auto-intoxica
ted by some organ or other, no matter which--and the rest. But now, I ask you, h
ow can such an existential account of facts of mental history decide in one way
or another upon their spiritual significance? According to the general postulate
of psychology just referred to, there is not a single one of our states of mind
, high or low, healthy or morbid, that has not some organic process as its condi
tion. Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious
emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtle
ss see "the liver" determining the dicta of the sturdy atheist as decisively as
it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about his soul. When it
alters in one way the blood that percolates it, we get the methodist, when in an
other way, we get the atheist form of mind. So of all our raptures and our dryne
sses, our longings and pantings, our questions and beliefs. They are equally org
anically founded, be they religious or of non-religious content.
To plead the organic causation of a religious state of
[p. 16]
mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is q
uite illogical and arbitrary, unless one has already worked out in advance some
psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate s
orts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not e
ven our scientific doctrines, not even our dis-beliefs, could retain any value a
s revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from t
he state of its possessor's body at the time.
It is needless to say that medical materialism draws in point of fact no such sw
eeping skeptical conclusion. It is sure, just as every simple man is sure, that
some states of mind are inwardly superior to others, and reveal to us more truth
, and in this it simply makes use of an ordinary spiritual judgment. It has no p
hysiological theory of the production of these its favorite states, by which it
may accredit them; and its attempt to discredit the states which it dislikes, by
vaguely associating them with nerves and liver, and connecting them with names
connoting bodily affliction, is altogether illogical and inconsistent.
Let us play fair in this whole matter, and be quite candid with ourselves and wi
th the facts. When we think certain states of mind superior to others, is it eve
r because of what we know concerning their organic antecedents? No! it is always
for two entirely different reasons. It is either because we take an immediate d
elight in them; or else it is because we believe them to bring us good consequen
tial fruits for life. When we speak disparagingly of "feverish fancies," surely
the fever-process as such is not the ground of our disesteem--for aught we know
to the contrary, 103 degrees or 104 degrees Fahrenheit might be a much more favo
rable temperature for truths to germinate and sprout in, than the more ordinary
blood-heat of 97 or 98 degrees. It is either the disagreeableness itself of the
fancies, or their inability to bear the criticisms of the convalescent hour. Whe
n we praise the
[p. 17]
thoughts which health brings, health's peculiar chemical metabolisms have nothin
g to do with determining our judgment. We know in fact almost nothing about thes
e metabolisms. It is the character of inner happiness in the thoughts which stam
ps them as good, or else their consistency with our other opinions and their ser
viceability for our needs, which make them pass for true in our esteem.
Now the more intrinsic and the more remote of these criteria do not always hang
together. Inner happiness and serviceability do not always agree. What immediate
ly feels most "good" is not always most "true," when measured by the verdict of
the rest of experience. The difference between Philip drunk and Philip sober is
the classic instance in corroboration. If merely "feeling good" could decide, dr
unkenness would be the supremely valid human experience. But its revelations, ho
wever acutely satisfying at the moment, are inserted into an environment which r
efuses to bear them out for any length of time. The consequence of this discrepa
ncy of the two criteria is the uncertainty which still prevails over so many of
our spiritual judgments. There are moments of sentimental and mystical experienc
e--we shall hereafter hear much of them--that carry an enormous sense of inner a
uthority and illumination with them when they come. But they come seldom, and th
ey do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection with
them, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons foll
ow more the voice of the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the
average results. Hence the sad discordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments
of human beings; a discordancy which will be brought home to us acutely enough
before these lectures end.

It is, however, a discordancy that can never be resolved by any merely medical t
est. A good example of the impossibility
[p. 18]
of holding strictly to the medical tests is seen in the theory of the pathologic
al causation of genius promulgated by recent authors. "Genius," said Dr. Moreau,
"is but one of the many branches of the neuropathic tree." "Genius," says Dr. L
ombroso, "is a symptom of hereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety, and
is allied to moral insanity." "Whenever a man's life," writes Mr. Nisbet, "is a
t once sufficiently illustrious and recorded with sufficient fullness to be a su
bject of profitable study, he inevitably falls into the morbid category. . . . A
nd it is worthy of remark that, as a rule, the greater the genius, the greater t
he unsoundness." [*1]
Now do these authors, after having succeeded in establishing to their own satisf
action that the works of genius are fruits of disease, consistently proceed ther
eupon to impugn the value of the fruits? Do they deduce a new spiritual judgment
from their new doctrine of existential conditions? Do they frankly forbid us to
admire the productions of genius from now onwards? and say outright that no neu
ropath can ever be a revealer of new truth?
No! their immediate spiritual instincts are too strong for them here, and hold t
heir own against inferences which, in mere love of logical consistency, medical
materialism ought to be only too glad to draw. One disciple of the school, indee
d, has striven to impugn the value of works of genius in a wholesale way (such w
orks of contemporary art, namely, as he himself is unable to enjoy, and they are
many) by using medical arguments. [*2] But for the most part the masterpieces a
re left unchallenged; and the medical line of attack either confines itself to s
uch secular productions as everyone admits to be intrinsically eccentric, or els
e addresses itself exclusively to religious manifestations.
[p. 19]
[paragraph continues] And then it is because the religious manifestations have b
een already condemned because the critic dislikes them on internal or spiritual
grounds.
In the natural sciences and industrial arts it never occurs to anyone to try to
refute opinions by showing up their author's neurotic constitution. Opinions her
e are invariably tested by logic and by experiment, no matter what may be their
author's neurological type. It should be no otherwise with religious opinions. T
heir value can only be ascertained by spiritual judgments directly passed upon t
hem, judgments based on our own immediate feeling primarily; and secondarily on
what we can ascertain of their experiential relations to our moral needs and to
the rest of what we hold as true.
Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfu
lness are the only available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous s
ystem of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her theology, if the trial
of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible. And con
versely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make no difference
how hysterical or nervously off her balance Saint Teresa may have been when she
was with us here below.

You see that at bottom we are thrown back upon the general principles by which t
he empirical philosophy has always contended that we must be guided in our searc
h for truth. Dogmatic philosophies have sought for tests for truth which might d
ispense us from appealing to the future. Some direct mark, by noting which we ca
n be protected immediately and absolutely, now and forever, against all mistake-
-such has been the darling dream of philosophic dogmatists. It is clear that the
origin of the truth would be an admirable criterion of this sort, if only the v
arious origins could be discriminated from one another from this
[p. 20]
point of view, and the history of dogmatic opinion shows that origin has always
been a favorite test. Origin in immediate intuition; origin in pontifical author
ity; origin in supernatural revelation, as by vision, hearing, or unaccountable
impression; origin in direct possession by a higher spirit, expressing itself in
prophecy and warning; origin in automatic utterance generally--these origins ha
ve been stock warrants for the truth of one opinion after another which we find
represented in religious history. The medical materialists are therefore only so
many belated dogmatists, neatly turning the tables on their predecessors by usi
ng the criterion of origin in a destructive instead of an accreditive way.
They are effective with their talk of pathological origin only so long as supern
atural origin is pleaded by the other side, and nothing but the argument from or
igin is under discussion. But the argument from origin has seldom been used alon
e, for it is too obviously insufficient. Dr. Maudsley is perhaps the cleverest o
f the rebutters of supernatural religion on grounds of origin. Yet he finds hims
elf forced to write:--
"What right have we to believe Nature under any obligation to do her work by mea
ns of complete minds only? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instr
ument for a particular purpose. It is the work that is done, and the quality in
the worker by which it was done, that is alone of moment; and it may be no great
matter from a cosmical standpoint, if in other qualities of character he was si
ngularly defective--if indeed he were hypocrite, adulterer, eccentric, or lunati
c. . . . Home we come again, then, to the old and last resort of certitude--name
ly the common assent of mankind, or of the competent by instruction and training
among mankind." [*1]
[p. 21]
In other words, not its origin, but the way in which it works on the whole, is D
r. Maudsley's final test of a belief. This is our own empiricist criterion; and
this criterion the stoutest insisters on supernatural origin have also been forc
ed to use in the end. Among the visions and messages some have always been too p
atently silly, among the trances and convulsive seizures some have been too frui
tless for conduct and character, to pass themselves off as significant, still le
ss as divine. In the history of Christian mysticism the problem how to discrimin
ate between such messages and experiences as were really divine miracles, and su
ch others as the demon in his malice was able to counterfeit, thus making the re
ligious person twofold more the child of hell he was before, has always been a d
ifficult one to solve, needing all the sagacity and experience of the best direc
tors of conscience. In the end it had to come to our empiricist criterion: By th
eir fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots. Jonathan Edwards's Treatise o
n Religious Affections is an elaborate working out of this thesis. The roots of
a man's virtue are inaccessible to us. No appearances whatever are infallible pr
oofs of grace. Our practice is the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that w
e are genuinely Christians.
"In forming a judgment of ourselves now," Edwards writes, we should certainly ad
opt that evidence which our supreme Judge will chiefly make use of when we come
to stand before him at the last day. . . . There is not one grace of the Spirit
of God, of the existence of which, in any professor of religion, Christian pract
ice is not the most decisive evidence. . . . The degree in which our experience
is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual
and divine."
Catholic writers are equally emphatic. The good dispositions which a vision, or
voice, or other apparent heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by
which we
[p. 22]
may be sure they are not possible deceptions of the tempter. Says Saint Teresa:-
-
"Like imperfect sleep which, instead of giving more strength to the head, doth b
ut leave it the more exhausted, the result of mere operations of the imagination
 is but to weaken the soul. Instead of nourishment and energy she reaps only las
situde and disgust: whereas a genuine heavenly vision yields to her a harvest of
ineffable spiritual riches, and an admirable renewal of bodily strength. I alle
ged these reasons to those who so often accused my visions of being the work of
the enemy of mankind and the sport of my imagination. . . . I showed them the je
wels which the divine hand had left with me:--they were my actual dispositions.
All those who knew me saw that I was changed; my confessor bore witness to the f
act; this improvement, palpable in all respects, far from being hidden, was bril
liantly evident to all men. As for myself, it was impossible to believe that if
the demon were its author, he could have used, in order to lose me and lead me t
o hell, an expedient so contrary to his own interests as that of uprooting my vi
ces, and filling me with masculine courage and other virtues instead, for I saw
clearly that a single one of these visions was enough to enrich me with all that
wealth." [*1]
I fear I may have made a longer excursus than was necessary, and that fewer word
s would have dispelled the uneasiness which may have arisen among some of you as
I announced my pathological programme. At any rate you must all be ready now to
judge the religious life by its results exclusively, and I shall assume that th
e bugaboo of morbid origin will scandalize your piety no more.
Still, you may ask me, if its results are to be the ground of our final spiritua
l estimate of a religious phenomenon, why threaten us at all with so much existe
ntial study of its conditions? Why not simply leave pathological questions out?
[p. 23]
To this I reply in two ways. First, I say, irrepressible curiosity imperiously l
eads one on; and I say, secondly, that it always leads to a better understanding
of a thing's significance to consider its exaggerations and perversions its equ
ivalents and substitutes and nearest relatives elsewhere. Not that we may thereb
y swamp the thing in the wholesale condemnation which we pass on its inferior co
ngeners, but rather that we may by contrast ascertain the more precisely in what
its merits consist, by learning at the same time to what particular dangers of
corruption it may also be exposed.
Insane conditions have this advantage, that they isolate special factors of the
mental life, and enable us to inspect them unmasked by their more usual surround
ings. They play the part in mental anatomy which the scalpel and the microscope
play in the anatomy of the body. To understand a thing rightly we need to see it
both out of its environment and in it, and to have acquaintance with the whole
range of its variations. The study of hallucinations has in this way been for ps
ychologists the key to their comprehension of normal sensation, that of illusion
s has been the key to the right comprehension of perception. Morbid impulses and
imperative conceptions, "fixed ideas," so called, have thrown a flood of light
on the psychology of the normal will; and obsessions and delusions have performe
d the same service for that of the normal faculty of belief.
Similarly, the nature of genius has been illuminated by the attempts, of which I
already made mention, to class it with psychopathical phenomena. Borderland ins
anity, crankiness, insane temperament, loss of mental balance, psychopathic dege
neration (to use a few of the many synonyms by which it has been called), has ce
rtain peculiarities and liabilities which, when combined with a superior quality
of intellect in an individual, make it more probable that
[p. 24]
he will make his mark and affect his age, than if his temperament were less neur
otic. There is of course no special affinity between crankiness as such and supe
rior intellect, [*1] for most psychopaths have feeble intellects, and superior i
ntellects more commonly have normal nervous systems. But the psychopathic temper
ament, whatever be the intellect with which it finds itself paired, often brings
with it ardor and excitability of character. The cranky person has extraordinar
y emotional susceptibility. He is liable to fixed ideas and obsessions. His conc
eptions tend to pass immediately into belief and action; and when he gets a new
idea, he has no rest till he proclaims it, or in some way "works it off." "What
shall I think of it?" a common person says to himself about a vexed question; bu
t in a "cranky" mind "What must I do about it?" is the form the question tends t
o take. In the autobiography of that high-souled woman, Mrs. Annie Besant, I rea
d the following passage: "Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very
few care to exert themselves to help it, and still fewer will risk anything in
its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the ever reechoed ph
rase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cr
y of some earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilou
s duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." Tru
e enough! and between these two sentences lie also the different destinies of th
e ordinary sluggard and the psychopathic man. Thus, when a superior intellect an
d a psychopathic temperament coalesce--as in the endless permutations and combin
ations of human faculty, they are bound to coalesce often enough--in the same in
dividual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius t
hat gets into the
[p. 25]
biographical dictionaries. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders
with their intellect. Their ideas possess them, they inflict them, for better o
r worse, upon their companions or their age. It is they who get counted when Mes
srs. Lombroso, Nisbet, and others invoke statistics to defend their paradox.
To pass now to religious phenomena, take the melancholy which, as we shall see,
constitutes an essential moment in every complete religious evolution. Take the
happiness which achieved religious belief confers. Take the trancelike states of
insight into truth which all religious mystics report. [*1] These are each and
all of them special cases of kinds of human experience of much wider scope. Reli
gious melancholy, whatever peculiarities it may have qua religious, is at any ra
te melancholy. Religious happiness is happiness. Religious trance is trance. And
the moment we renounce the absurd notion that a thing is exploded away as soon
as it is classed with others, or its origin is shown; the moment we agree to sta
nd by experimental results and inner quality, in judging of values--who does not
see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive significance of religious m
elancholy and happiness, or of religious trances, far better by comparing them a
s conscientiously as we can with other varieties of melancholy, happiness, and t
rance, than by refusing to consider their place in any more general series, and
treating them as if they were outside of nature's order altogether?
I hope that the course of these lectures will confirm us in this supposition. As
regards the psychopathic origin of so many religious phenomena, that would not
be in the least surprising or disconcerting, even were such phenomena certified
from on high to be the most precious of human experiences. No one organism can p
ossibly yield
[p. 26]
to its owner the whole body of truth. Few of us are not in some way infirm, or e
ven diseased; and our very infirmities help us unexpectedly. In the psychopathic
temperament we have the emotionality which is the sine qua non of moral percept
ion; we have the intensity and tendency to emphasis which are the essence of pra
ctical moral vigor; and we have the love of metaphysics and mysticism which carr
y one's interests beyond the surface of the sensible world. What, then, is more
natural than that this temperament should introduce one to regions of religious
truth, to corners of the universe, which your robust Philistine type of nervous
system, forever offering its biceps to be felt, thumping its breast, and thankin
g Heaven that it hasn't a single morbid fiber in its composition, would be sure
to hide forever from its self-satisfied possessors?
If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be
that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite
receptivity. And having said thus much, I think that I may let the matter of re
ligion and neuroticism drop.

The mass of collateral phenomena, morbid or healthy, with which the various reli
gious phenomena must be compared in order to understand them better, forms what
in the slang of pedagogics is termed "the apperceiving mass" by which we compreh
end them. The only novelty that I can imagine this course of lectures to possess
lies in the breadth of the apperceiving mass. I may succeed in discussing relig
ious experiences in a wider context than has been usual in university courses.
Footnotes
^12:1 As with many ideas that float in the air of one's time, this notion shrink
s from dogmatic general statement and expresses itself only partially and by inn
uendo. It seems to me that few conceptions are less instructive than this re-int
erpretation of religion as perverted sexuality. It reminds one, so crudely is it
often employed, of the famous Catholic taunt, that the Reformation may be best
understood by remembering that its fons et origo was Luther's wish to marry a nu
n:--the effects are infinitely wider than the alleged causes, and for the most p
art opposite in nature. It is true that in the vast collection of religious phen
omena, some are undisguisedly amatory--e.g., sex-deities and obscene rites in po
lytheism, and ecstatic feelings of union with the Savior in a few Christian myst
ics. But then why not equally call religion an aberration of the digestive funct
ion, and prove one's point by the worship of Bacchus and Ceres, or by the ecstat
ic feelings of some other saints about the Eucharist? Religious language clothes
itself in such poor symbols as our life affords, and the whole organism gives o
vertones of comment whenever the mind is strongly stirred to expression. Languag
e drawn from eating and drinking is probably as common in religious literature a
s is language drawn from the sexual life. We "hunger and thirst" after righteous
ness; we "find the Lord a sweet savor;" we "taste and see that he is good." "Spi
ritual milk for American babes, drawn from the breasts of both testaments," is a
sub-title of the once famous New England Primer, and Christian devotional liter
ature indeed quite floats in milk, thought of from the point of view, not of the
mother, but of the greedy babe.
Saint Francois de Sales, for instance, thus describes the "orison of quietude":
"In this state the soul is like a little child still at the breast, whose mother
to caress him whilst he is still in her arms makes her milk distill into his mo
uth without his even moving his lips. So it is here. . . . Our Lord desires that
our will should be satisfied with sucking the milk which His Majesty pours into
our [p. 13] mouth, and that we should relish the sweetness without even knowing
that it cometh from the Lord." And again: "Consider the little infants, united
and joined to the breasts of their nursing mothers you will see that from time t
o time they press themselves closer by little starts to which the pleasure of su
cking prompts them. Even so, during its orison, the heart united to its God ofte
ntimes makes attempts at closer union by movements during which it presses close
r upon the divine sweetness." Chemin de la Perfection, ch. xxxi.; Amour de Dieu,
vii. ch. i.
In fact, one might almost as well interpret religion as a perversion of the resp
iratory function. The Bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression: "
Hide not thine ear at my breathing; my groaning is not hid from thee; my heart p
anteth, my strength faileth me; my bones are hot with my roaring all the night l
ong; as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so my soul panteth after thee,
O my God:" God's Breath in Man is the title of the chief work of our best known
American mystic (Thomas Lake Harris), and in certain non-Christian countries the
foundation of all religious discipline consists in regulation of the inspiratio
n and expiration.
These arguments are as good as much of the reasoning one hears in favor of the s
exual theory. But the champions of the latter will then say that their chief arg
ument has no analogue elsewhere. The two main phenomena of religion, namely, mel
ancholy and conversion, they will say, are essentially phenomena of adolescence,
and therefore synchronous with the development of sexual life. To which the ret
ort again is easy. Even were the asserted synchrony unrestrictedly true as a fac
t (which it is not), it is not only the sexual life, but the entire higher menta
l life which awakens during adolescence. One might then as well set up the thesi
s that the interest in mechanics, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy, and soc
iology, which springs up during adolescent years along with that in poetry and r
eligion, is also a perversion of the sexual instinct:--but that would be too abs
urd. Moreover, if the argument from synchrony is to decide, what is to be done w
ith the fact that the religious age par excellence would seem to be old age, whe
n the uproar of the sexual life is past?
The plain truth is that to interpret religion one must in the end look at the im
mediate content of the religious consciousness. The moment one does this, one se
es how wholly disconnected it is in [p. 14] the main from the content of the sex
ual consciousness. Everything about the two things differs, objects, moods, facu
lties concerned, and acts impelled to. Any general assimilation is simply imposs
ible: what we find most often is complete hostility and contrast. If now the def
enders of the sex-theory say that this makes no difference to their thesis; that
without the chemical contributions which the sex-organs make to the blood, the
brain would not be nourished so as to carry on religious activities, this final
proposition may be true or not true; but at any rate it has become profoundly un
instructive: we can deduce no consequences from it which help us to interpret re
ligion's meaning or value. In this sense the religious life depends just as much
upon the spleen, the pancreas, and the kidneys as on the sexual apparatus, and
the whole theory has lost its point in evaporating into a vague general assertio
n of the dependence, somehow, of the mind upon the body.
^15:1 For a first-rate example of medical-materialist reasoning, see an article
on "les Varietes du Type devot," by Dr. Binet-Sangle, in the Revue de l'Hypnotis
me, xiv. 161.
^18:1 J. F. NISBET: The Insanity of Genius, 3d ed., London, 1893, pp. xvi., xxiv
.
^18:2 MAX NORDAU, in his bulky book entitled Degeneration.
^20:1 H. MAUDSLEY: Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings, 1886, pp. 256, 257.
^22:1 Autobiography, ch. xxviii.
^24:1 Superior intellect, as Professor Bain has admirably shown, seems to consis
t in nothing so much as in a large development of the faculty of association by
similarity.
^25:1 I may refer to a criticism of the insanity theory of genius in the Psychol
ogical Review, ii. 287 (1895).
The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.
com
[p. 27]

Lecture II

CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC

Most books on the philosophy of religion try to begin with a precise definition
of what its essence consists of. Some of these would-be definitions may possibly
come before us in later portions of this course, and I shall not be pedantic en
ough to enumerate any of them to you now. Meanwhile the very fact that they are
so many and so different from one another is enough to prove that the word "reli
gion" cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collecti
ve name. The theorizing mind tends always to the oversimplification of its mater
ials. This is the root of all that absolutism and one-sided dogmatism by which b
oth philosophy and religion have been infested. Let us not fall immediately into
a one-sided view of our subject, but let us rather admit freely at the outset t
hat we may very likely find no one essence, but many characters which may altern
ately be equally important to religion. If we should inquire for the essence of
"government," for example, one man might tell us it was authority, another submi
ssion, an other police, another an army, another an assembly, an other a system
of laws; yet all the while it would be true that no concrete government can exis
t without all these things, one of which is more important at one moment and oth
ers at another. The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles
himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an in
timate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally r
egard an abstract conception in which these were
[p. 28]
unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening. And why may not religion b
e a conception equally complex? [*1]

Consider also the "religious sentiment" which we see referred to in so many book
s, as if it were a single sort of mental entity.
In the psychologies and in the philosophies of religion, we find the authors att
empting to specify just what entity it is. One man allies it to the feeling of d
ependence; one makes it a derivative from fear; others connect it with the sexua
l life; others still identify it with the feeling of the infinite; and so on. Su
ch different ways of conceiving it ought of themselves to arouse doubt as to whe
ther it possibly can be one specific thing; and the moment we are willing to tre
at the term "religious sentiment" as a collective name for the many sentiments w
hich religious objects may arouse in alternation, we see that it probably contai
ns nothing whatever of a psychologically specific nature. There is religious fea
r, religious love, religious awe, religious joy, and so forth. But religious lov
e is only man's natural emotion of love directed to a religious object; religiou
s fear is only the ordinary fear of commerce, so to speak, the common quaking of
the human breast, in so far as the notion of divine retribution may arouse it;
religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight,
or in a mountain gorge; only this time it comes over us at the thought of our su
pernatural relations; and similarly of all the various sentiments which may be c
alled into play in the lives of religious persons. As concrete states of mind, m
ade up of a feeling plus a specific sort of object, religious emotions of course
are psychic entities distinguishable
[p. 29]
from other concrete emotions; but there is no ground for assuming a simple abstr
act "religious emotion" to exist as a distinct elementary mental affection by it
self, present in every religious experience without exception.
As there thus seems to be no one elementary religious emotion, but only a common
storehouse of emotions upon which religious objects may draw, so there might co
nceivably also prove to he no one specific and essential kind of religious objec
t, and no one specific and essential kind of religious act.

The field of religion being as wide as this, it is manifestly impossible that I

should pretend to cover it. My lectures must be limited to a fraction of the sub
ject. And, although it would indeed be foolish to set up an abstract definition
of religion's essence, and then proceed to defend that definition against all co
mers, yet this need not prevent me from taking my own narrow view of what religi
on shall consist in for the purpose of these lectures, or, out of the many meani
ngs of the word, from choosing the one meaning in which I wish to interest you p
articularly, and proclaiming arbitrarily that when I say "religion" I mean that.
This, in fact, is what I must do, and I will now preliminarily seek to mark out
the field I choose.
One way to mark it out easily is to say what aspects of the subject we leave out
. At the outset we are struck by one great partition which divides the religious
field. On the one side of it lies institutional, on the other personal religion
. As M. P. Sabatier says, one branch of religion keeps the divinity, another kee
ps man most in view. Worship and sacrifice, procedures for working on the dispos
itions of the deity, theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization, are
the essentials of religion in the institutional branch. Were we to limit our vie
w to it, we should have to define religion as an external art, the art of winnin
g the favor of
[p. 30]
the gods. In the more personal branch of religion it is on the contrary the inne
r dispositions of man himself which form the center of interest, his conscience,
his deserts, his helplessness, his incompleteness. And although the favor of th
e God, as forfeited or gained, is still an essential feature of the story, and t
heology plays a vital part therein, yet the acts to which this sort of religion
prompts are personal not ritual acts, the individual transacts the business by h
imself alone, and the ecclesiastical organization, with its priests and sacramen
ts and other go-betweens, sinks to an altogether secondary place. The relation g
oes direct from heart to heart, from soul to soul, between man and his maker.
Now in these lectures I propose to ignore the institutional branch entirely, to
say nothing of the ecclesiastical organization, to consider as little as possibl
e the systematic theology and the ideas about the gods themselves, and to confin
e myself as far as I can to personal religion pure and simple. To some of you pe
rsonal religion, thus nakedly considered, will no doubt seem too incomplete a th
ing to wear the general name. "It is a part of religion," you will say, "but onl
y its unorganized rudiment; if we are to name it by itself, we had better call i
t man's conscience or morality than his religion. The name 'religion' should be
reserved for the fully organized system of feeling, thought, and institution, fo
r the Church, in short, of which this personal religion, so called, is but a fra
ctional element."
But if you say this, it will only show the more plainly how much the question of
definition tends to become a dispute about names. Rather than prolong such a di
spute, I am willing to accept almost any name for the personal religion of which
I propose to treat. Call it conscience or morality, if you yourselves prefer, a
nd not religion--under either name it will be equally worthy of our study. As fo
r myself, I think it will prove to contain some elements which morality pure and
simple does not contain, and these elements
[p. 31]
[paragraph continues] I shall soon seek to point out; so I will myself continue
to apply the word "religion" to it; and in the last lecture of all, I will bring
in the theologies and the ecclesiasticisms, and say something of its relation t
o them.
In one sense at least the personal religion will prove itself more fundamental t
han either theology or ecclesiasticism. Churches, when once established, live at
second-hand upon tradition; but the founders of every church owed their power o
riginally to the fact of their direct personal communion with the divine. Not on
ly the superhuman founders, the Christ, the Buddha, Mahomet, but all the origina
tors of Christian sects have been in this case;--so personal religion should sti
ll seem the primordial thing, even to those who continue to esteem it incomplete
.
There are, it is true, other things in religion chronologically more primordial
than personal devoutness in the moral sense. Fetishism and magic seem to have pr
eceded inward piety historically--at least our records of inward piety do not re
ach back so far. And if fetishism and magic be regarded as stages of religion, o
ne may say that personal religion in the inward sense and the genuinely spiritua
l ecclesiasticisms which it founds are phenomena of secondary or even tertiary o
rder. But, quite apart from the fact that many anthropologists--for instance, Je
vons and Frazer--expressly oppose "religion" and "magic" to each other, it is ce
rtain that the whole system of thought which leads to magic, fetishism, and the
lower superstitions may just as well be called primitive science as called primi
tive religion. The question thus becomes a verbal one again; and our knowledge o
f all these early stages of thought and feeling is in any case so conjectural an
d imperfect that farther discussion would not be worth while.
Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us
the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far
as they apprehend
[p. 32]
themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since
the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of
religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and eccles
iastical organizations may secondarily grow. In these lectures, however, as I ha
ve already said, the immediate personal experiences will amply fill our time, an
d we shall hardly consider theology or ecclesiasticism at all.
We escape much controversial matter by this arbitrary definition of our field. B
ut, still, a chance of controversy comes up over the word "divine," if we take t
he definition in too narrow a sense. There are systems of thought which the worl
d usually calls religious, and yet which do not positively assume a God. Buddhis
m is in this case. Popularly, of course, the Buddha himself stands in place of a
God; but in strictness the Buddhistic system is atheistic. Modern transcendenta
l idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into ab
stract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the imman
ent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is
the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address to the graduating clas
s at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of
this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance
.
"These laws," said the speaker, "execute themselves. They are out of time, out o
f space, and not subject to circumstance: Thus, in the soul of man there is a ju
stice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed is inst
antly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted. He w
ho puts off impurity thereby puts on purity. If a man is at heart just, then in
so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God,
do enter into that man with justice. If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives h
imself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being. Character
[p. 33]
is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak o
ut of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie--for example, the taint of vanit
y, any attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance--will instantly
vitiate the effect. But speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouc
hers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move
to bear your witness. For all things proceed out of the same spirit, which is d
ifferently named love, justice, temperance, in its different applications, just
as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes. In
so far as he roves from these ends, a man bereaves himself of power, of auxiliar
ies. His being shrinks . . . he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until ab
solute badness is absolute death. The perception of this law awakens in the mind
a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest
happiness. Wonderful is its power to charm and to command. It is a mountain air.
It is the embalmer of the world.
It makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent song of the stars is it.
It is the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable. When he says 'I ought'; wh
en love warns him; when he chooses, warned from on high, the good and great deed
; then, deep melodies wander through his soul from supreme wisdom. Then he can w
orship, and be enlarged by his worship; for he can never go behind this sentimen
t. All the expressions of this sentiment are sacred and permanent in proportion
to their purity. [They] affect us more than all other compositions. The sentence
s of the olden time, which ejaculate this piety, are still fresh and fragrant. A
nd the unique impression of Jesus upon mankind, whose name is not so much writte
n as ploughed into the history of this world, is proof of the subtle virtue of t
his infusion." [*1]
Such is the Emersonian religion. The universe has a divine soul of order, which
soul is moral, being also the soul within the soul of man. But whether this soul
of the universe be a mere quality like the eye's brilliancy or the skin's softn
ess, or whether it be a self-conscious life like the
[p. 34]
eye's seeing or the skin's feeling, is a decision that never unmistakably appear
s in Emerson's pages. It quivers on the boundary of these things, sometimes lean
ing one way sometimes the other, to suit the literary rather than the philosophi
c need. Whatever it is, though, it is active. As much as if it were a God, we ca
n trust it to protect all ideal interests and keep the world's balance straight.
The sentences in which Emerson, to the very end, gave utterance to this faith a
re as fine as anything in literature: "If you love and serve men, you cannot by
any hiding or stratagem escape the remuneration. Secret retributions are always
restoring the level, when disturbed, of the divine justice. It is impossible to
tilt the beam. All the tyrants and proprietors and monopolists of the world in v
ain set their shoulders to heave the bar. Settles forevermore the ponderous equa
tor to its line, and man and mote, and star and sun, must range to it, or be pul
verized by the recoil." [*2]
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 u
nworthy to be called religious experiences. The sort of appeal that Emersonian o
ptimism, on the one hand, and Buddhistic pessimism, on the other, make to the in
dividual and the son of response which he makes to them in his life are in fact
indistinguishable from, and in many respects identical with, the best Christian
appeal and response. We must therefore, from the experiential point of view, cal
l these godless or quasi-godless creeds "religions"; and accordingly when in our
definition of religion we speak of the individual's relation to "what he consid
ers the divine," we must interpret the term "divine" very broadly, as denoting a
ny object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not.
[p. 35]
But the term "godlike," if thus treated as a floating general quality, becomes e
xceedingly vague, for many gods have flourished in religious history, and their
attributes have been discrepant enough. What then is that essentially godlike qu
ality--be it embodied in a concrete deity or not--our relation to which determin
es our character as religious men? It will repay us to seek some answer to this
question before we proceed farther.
For one thing, gods are conceived to be first things in the way of being and pow
er. They overarch and envelop, and from them there is no escape. What relates to
them is the first and last word in the way of truth. Whatever then were most pr
imal and enveloping and deeply true might at this rate be treated as godlike, an
d a man's religion might thus be identified with his attitude, whatever it might
be, toward what he felt to be the primal truth.
Such a definition as this would in a way be defensible. Religion, whatever it is
, is a man's total reaction upon life, so why not say that any total reaction up
on life is a religion? Total reactions are different from casual reactions, and
total attitudes are different from usual or professional attitudes. To get at th
em you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious
sense of the whole residual cosmos as an everlasting presence, intimate or alie
n, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possess
es. This sense of the world's presence, appealing as it does to our peculiar ind
ividual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemou
s, gloomy or exultant, about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and in
articulate and often half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our ans
wers to the question, "What is the character of this universe in which we dwell?
" It expresses our individual sense of it in the most definite way. Why then not
call these reactions
[p. 36]
our religion, no matter what specific character they may have? Non-religious as
some of these reactions may be, in one sense of the word "religious," they yet b
elong to the general sphere of the religious life, and so should generically be
classed as religious reactions. "He believes in No-God, and he worships him," sa
id a colleague of mine of a student who was manifesting a fine atheistic ardor;
and the more fervent opponents of Christian doctrine have often enough shown a t
emper which, psychologically considered, is indistinguishable from religious zea
l.
But so very broad a use of the word "religion" would be inconvenient, however de
fensible it might remain on logical grounds. There are trifling, sneering attitu
des even toward the whole of life; and in some men these attitudes are final and
systematic. It would strain the ordinary use of language too much to call such
attitudes religious, even though, from the point of view of an unbiased critical
philosophy, they might conceivably be perfectly reasonable ways of looking upon
life. Voltaire, for example, writes thus to a friend, at the age of seventy-thr
ee: "As for myself," he says, "weak as I am, I carry on the war to the last mome
nt, I get a hundred pike-thrusts, I return two hundred, and I laugh. I see near
my door Geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing, and I laugh again; and, thank
God, I can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it
sometimes does. All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out stil
l more even when all the days are over."
Much as we may admire such a robust old gamecock spirit in a valetudinarian, to
call it a religious spirit would be odd. Yet it is for the moment Voltaire's rea
ction on the whole of life. Je fiche is the vulgar French equivalent for our En
glish ejaculation "Who cares?" And the happy term je me'n fichisme recently has
been invented to designate the systematic determination not to take anything in
[p. 37]
life too solemnly. "All is vanity" is the relieving word in all difficult crises
for this mode of thought, which that exquisite literary genius Renan took pleas
ure, in his later days of sweet decay, in putting into coquettishly sacrilegious
forms which remain to us as excellent expressions of the "all is vanity" state
of mind. Take the following passage, for example--we must hold to duty, even aga
inst the evidence, Renan says--but he then goes on:--
"There are many chances that the world may be nothing but a fairy pantomime of w
hich no God has care. We must therefore arrange ourselves so that on neither hyp
othesis we shall be completely wrong. We must listen to the superior voices, but
in such a way that if the second hypothesis were true we should not have been t
oo completely duped. If in effect the world be not a serious thing, it is the do
gmatic people who will be the shallow ones, and the worldly minded whom the theo
logians now call frivolous will be those who are really wise.
"In utrumque paratus, then. Be ready for anything--that perhaps is wisdom. Give
ourselves up, according to the hour, to confidence, to skepticism, to optimism,
to irony and we may be sure that at certain moments at least we shall be with th
e truth. . . . Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nat
ure that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one sh
ould always talk of philosophy with a smile. We owe it to the Eternal to be virt
uous but we have the right to add to this tribute our irony as a sort of persona
l reprisal. In this way we return to the right quarter jest for jest; we play th
e trick that has been played on us. Saint Augustine's phrase: Lord, if we arc de
ceived, it is by thee! remains a fine one, well suited to our modern feeling. On
ly we wish the Eternal to know that if we accept the fraud, we accept it knowing
ly and willingly. We are resigned in advance to losing the interest on our inves
tments of virtue, but we wish not to appear ridiculous by having counted on them
too securely." [*1]
[p. 38]
Surely all the usual associations of the word "religion" would have to be stripp
ed away if such a systematic parti pris of irony were also to be denoted by the
name. For common men "religion," whatever more special meanings it may have, sig
nifies always a serious state of mind. If any one phrase could gather its univer
sal message, that phrase would be, "All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever
the appearances may suggest." If it can stop anything, religion as commonly app
rehended can stop just such chaffing talk as Renan's. It favors gravity, not per
tness; it says "hush" to all vain chatter and smart wit.
But if hostile to light irony, religion is equally hostile to heavy grumbling an
d complaint. The world appears tragic enough in some religions, but the tragedy
is realized as purging, and a way of deliverance is held to exist. We shall see
enough of the religious melancholy in a future lecture; but melancholy, accordin
g to our ordinary use of language, forfeits all title to be called religious whe
n, in Marcus Aurelius's racy words, the sufferer simply lies kicking and screami
ng after the fashion of a sacrificed pig. The mood of a Schopenhauer or a Nietzs
che--and in a less degree one may sometimes say the same of our own sad Carlyle-
-though often an ennobling sadness, is almost as often only peevishness running
away with the bit between its teeth. The sallies of the two German authors remin
d one, half the time, of the sick shriekings of two dying rats. They lack the pu
rgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth.
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we
denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not
scream or curse. It is precisely as being solemn experiences that I wish to inte
rest you in religious experiences. So I propose--arbitrarily again, if you pleas
e--to narrow our definition once more by saying that the word "divine," as emplo
yed therein, shall mean for us not merely the primal and enveloping
[p. 39]
and real, for that meaning if taken without restriction might prove too broad. T
he divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual feels i
mpelled to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither by a curse nor a jest.
But solemnity, and gravity, and all such emotional attributes, admit of various
shades; and, do what we will with our defining, the truth must at last be confro
nted that we are dealing with a field of experience where there is not a single
conception that can be sharply drawn. The pretension, under such conditions, to
be rigorously "scientific" or "exact" in our terms would only stamp us as lackin
g in understanding of our task. Things are more or less divine, states of mind a
re more or less religious, reactions are more or less total, but the boundaries
are always misty, and it is everywhere a question of amount and degree. Neverthe
less, at their extreme of development, there can never be any question as to wha
t experiences are religious. The divinity of the object and the solemnity of the
reaction are too well marked for doubt. Hesitation as to whether a state of min
d is "religious," or "irreligious," or "moral," or "philosophical," is only like
ly to arise when the state of mind is weakly characterized, but in that case it
will be hardly worthy of our study at all. With states that can only by courtesy
be called religious we need have nothing to do, our only profitable business be
ing with what nobody can possibly feel tempted to call anything else. I said in
my former lecture that we learn most about a thing when we view it under a micro
scope, as it were, or in its most exaggerated form. This is as true of religious
phenomena as of any other kind of fact. The only cases likely to be profitable
enough to repay our attention will therefore be cases where the religious spirit
is unmistakable and extreme. Its fainter manifestations we may tranquilly pass
by. Here, for example, is the total reaction upon life of Frederick Locker Lamps
on, whose autobiography,
[p. 40]
entitled "Confidences," proves him to have been a most amiable man.
"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 existence, the sweet fab
le of life. I would not care to live my wasted life over again, and so to prolon
g my span. Strange to say, I have but little wish to be younger. I submit with a
chill at my heart. I humbly submit because it is the Divine Will, and my appoin
ted destiny. I dread the increase of infirmities that will make me a burden to t
hose around me, those dear to me. No! let me slip away as quietly and comfortabl
y as I can. Let the end come, if peace come with it.
"I do not know that there is a great deal to be said for this world, or our sojo
urn here upon it; but it has pleased God so to place us, and it must please me a
lso. I ask you, what is human life? Is not it a maimed happiness--care and weari
ness, weariness and care, with the baseless expectation, the strange cozenage of
a brighter to-morrow? At best it is but a froward child, that must be played wi
th and humored, to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over
." [*1]
This is a complex, a tender, a submissive, and a graceful state of mind. For mys
elf, I should have no objection to calling it on the whole a religious state of
mind, although I dare say that to many of you it may seem too listless and half-
hearted to merit so good a name. But what matters it in the end whether we call
such a state of mind religious or not? It is too insignificant for our instructi
on in any case; 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
others, with which he found himself unable to compete.
[p. 41]
It is with these more energetic states that our sole business lies, and we can p
erfectly well afford to let the minor notes and the uncertain border go. It was
the extremer cases that I had in mind a little while ago when I said that person
al religion, even without theology or ritual, would prove to embody some element
s that morality pure and simple does not contain. You may remember that I promis
ed shortly to point out what those elements were. In a general way I can now say
what I had in mind.

"I accept the universe" is reported to have been a favorite utterance of our New
England transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller; and when some one repeated this phr
ase to Thomas Carlyle, his sardonic comment is said to have been: "Gad! she'd be
tter!" At bottom the whole concern of both morality and religion is with the man
ner of our acceptance of the universe. Do we accept it only in part and grudging
ly, or heartily and altogether? Shall our protests against certain things in it
be radical and unforgiving, or shall we think that, even with evil, there are wa
ys of living that must lead to good? If we accept the whole, shall we do so as i
f stunned into submission--as Carlyle would have us--"Gad! we'd better!"--or sha
ll we do so with enthusiastic assent? Morality pure and simple accepts the law o
f the whole which it finds reigning, so far as to acknowledge and obey it, but i
t may obey it with the heaviest and coldest heart, and never cease to feel it as
a yoke. But for religion, in its strong and fully developed manifestations, the
service of the highest never is felt as a yoke. Dull submission is left far beh
ind, and a mood of welcome, which may fill any place on the scale between cheerf
ul serenity and enthusiastic gladness, has taken its place.
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one acce
pt the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or
with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. The difference is as great a
s that between passivity and activity, as that between
[p. 42]
the defensive and the aggressive mood. Gradual as are the steps by which an indi
vidual may grow from one state into the other, many as are the intermediate stag
es which different individuals represent, yet when you place the typical extreme
s beside each other for comparison, you feel that two discontinuous psychologica
l universes confront you, and that in passing from one to the other a "critical
point" has been overcome.
If we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much more than a differen
ce of doctrine; rather is it a difference of emotional mood that parts them. Whe
n Marcus Aurelius reflects on the eternal reason that has ordered things, there
is a frosty chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and never i
n a Christian piece of religious writing. The universe is "accepted" by all thes
e writers; but how devoid of passion or exultation the spirit of the Roman Emper
or is! Compare his fine sentence: "If gods care not for me or my children, here
is a reason for it," with Job's cry: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him
!" and you immediately see the difference I mean. The anima mundi, to whose disp
osal of his own personal destiny the Stoic consents, is there to be respected an
d submitted to, but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference o
f emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and the tropics, t
hough the outcome in the way of accepting actual conditions uncomplainingly may
seem in abstract terms to be much the same.
"It is a man's duty," says Marcus Aurelius, "to comfort himself and wait for the
natural dissolution, and not to be vexed, but to find refreshment solely in the
se thoughts--first that nothing will happen to me which is not conformable to th
e nature of the universe; and secondly that I need do nothing contrary to the Go
d and deity within me; for there is no man who can compel me to transgress. He i
s an abscess on the universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason
[p. 43]
of our common nature, through being displeased with the things which happen. For
the same nature produces these, and has produced thee too. And so accept everyt
hing which happens, even if it seem disagreeable, because it leads to this, the
health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus. For he would
not have brought on any man what he has brought if it were not useful for the wh
ole. The integrity of the whole is mutilated if thou cuttest off anything. And t
hou dost cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and
in a manner triest to put anything out of the way." [*1]
Compare now this mood with that of the old Christian author of the Theologia Ger
manica:--
"Where men are enlightened with the true light, they renounce all desire and cho
ice, and commit and commend themselves and all things to the eternal Goodness, s
o that every enlightened man could say: 'I would fain be to the Eternal Goodness
what his own hand is to a man.' Such men are in a state of freedom, because the
y have lost the fear of pain or hell, and the hope of reward or heaven, and are
living in pure submission to the eternal Goodness, in the perfect freedom of fer
vent love. When a man truly perceiveth and considereth himself, who and what he
is, and findeth himself utterly vile and wicked and unworthy, he falleth into su
ch a deep abasement that it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in heav
en and earth should rise up against him. And therefore he will not and dare not
desire any consolation and release; but he is willing to be unconsoled and unrel
eased; and he doth not grieve over his sufferings, for they are right in his eye
s, and he hath nothing to say against them. This is what is meant by true repent
ance for sin; and he who in this present time entereth into this hell, none may
console him. Now God hath not forsaken a man in this hell, but He is laying his
hand upon him, that the man may not desire nor regard anything but the eternal G
ood only. And then, when the man neither careth for nor desireth anything but th
e eternal Good alone, and seeketh
[p. 44]
not himself nor his own things, but the honour of God only, he is made a partake
r of all manner of joy, bliss, peace, rest, and consolation, and so the man is h
enceforth in the kingdom of heaven. This hell and this heaven are two good safe
ways for a man, and happy is he who truly findeth them." [*1]
How much more active and positive the impulse of the Christian writer to accept
his place in the universe is! Marcus Aurelius agrees to the scheme--the German t
heologian agrees with it. He literally abounds in agreement, he runs out to embr
ace the divine decrees.
Occasionally, it is true, the stoic rises to something like a Christian warmth o
f sentiment, as in the often quoted passage of Marcus Aurelius:--
"Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing
for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is f
ruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee
are all things, to thee all things return. The poet says, Dear City of Cecrops;
and wilt thou not say, Dear City of Zeus?" [*2]
But compare even as devout a passage as this with a genuine Christian outpouring
, and it seems a little cold. Turn, for instance, to the Imitation of Christ:--
"Lord, thou knowest what is best; let this or that be according as thou wilt. Gi
ve what thou wilt, so much as thou wilt, when thou wilt. Do with me as thou know
est best, and as shall be most to thine honour. Place me where thou wilt, and fr
eely work thy will with me in all things. . . . When could it be evil when thou
wert near? I had rather be poor for thy sake than rich without thee. I choose ra
ther to be a pilgrim upon the earth with thee, than without thee to possess heav
en.
[p. 45]
[paragraph continues] Where thou art, there is heaven; and where thou art not, b
ehold there death and hell." [*17]
It is a good rule in physiology, when we are studying the meaning of an organ, t
o ask after its most peculiar and characteristic sort of performance, and to see
k its office in that one of its functions which no other organ can possibly exer
t. Surely the same maxim holds good in our present quest. The essence of religio
us experiences, the thing by which we finally must judge them, must be that elem
ent or quality in them which we can meet nowhere else. And such a quality will b
e of course most prominent and easy to notice in those religious experiences whi
ch are most one-sided, exaggerated, and intense.
Now when we compare these intenser experiences with the experiences of tamer min
ds, so cool and reasonable that we are tempted to call them philosophical rather
than religious, we find a character that is perfectly distinct. That character,
it seems to me, should be regarded as the practically important differentia of
religion for our purpose; and just what it is can easily be brought out by compa
ring the mind of an abstractly conceived Christian with that of a moralist simil
arly conceived.
A life is manly, stoical, moral, or philosophical, we say, in proportion as it i
s less swayed by paltry personal considerations and more by objective ends that
call for energy, even though that energy bring personal loss and pain. This is t
he good side of war, in so far as it calls for "volunteers." And for morality li
fe is a war, and the service of the highest
[p. 46]
is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers. Even a sick man,
unable to be militant outwardly, can carry on the moral warfare. He can willful
ly turn his attention away from his own future, whether in this world or the nex
t. He can train himself to indifference to his present drawbacks and immerse him
self in whatever objective interests still remain accessible. He can follow publ
ic news, and sympathize with other people's affairs. He can cultivate cheerful m
anners, and be silent about his miseries. He can contemplate whatever ideal aspe
cts of existence his philosophy is able to present to him, and practice whatever
duties, such as patience, resignation, trust, his ethical system requires. Such
a man lives on his loftiest, largest plane. He is a high-hearted freeman and no
pining slave. And yet he lacks something which the Christian par excellence, th
e mystic and ascetic saint, for example, has in abundant measure, and which make
s of him a human being of an altogether different denomination.
The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the li
ves of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body w
hich probably no other human records show. But whereas the merely moralistic spu
rning takes an effort of volition, the Christian spurning is the result of the e
xcitement of a higher kind of emotion, in the presence of which no exertion of v
olition is required. The moralist must hold his breath and keep his muscles tens
e; and so long as this athletic attitude is possible all goes well--morality suf
fices. But the athletic attitude tends ever to break down, and it inevitably doe
s break down even in the most stalwart when the organism begins to decay, or whe
n morbid fears invade the mind. To suggest personal will and effort to one all s
icklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most imp
ossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, t
o feel that the spirit of the universe
[p. 47]
recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is. Well, we are all
such helpless failures in the last resort. The sanest and best of us are of one
clay with lunatics and prison inmates, and death finally runs the robustest of u
s down. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity and provisionality
of our voluntary career comes over us that all our morality appears but as a pl
aster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest s
ubstitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but, alas!
are not.
And here religion comes to our rescue and takes our fate into her hands. There i
s a state of mind, known to religious men, but to no others, in which the will t
o 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 God. In this stat
e of mind, what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety, and the
hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday. The time for te
nsion in our soul is over, and that of happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing,
of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be anxious about, has arriv
ed. Fear is not held in abeyance as it is by mere morality, it is positively exp
unged and washed away.
We shall see abundant examples of this happy state of mind in later lectures of
this course. We shall see how infinitely passionate a thing religion at its high
est flights can be. Like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like e
very other instinctive eagerness and impulse, it adds to life an enchantment whi
ch is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. This enchantment
, coming as a gift when it does come--a gift of our organism, the physiologists
will tell us, a gift of God's grace, the theologians say--is either there or not
 there for us, 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 command.
[p. 48]
[paragraph continues] Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subj
ect's range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When the outward battle
is lost, and the outer world disowns him, it redeems and vivifies an interior w
orld which otherwise would be an empty waste.
If religion is to mean anything definite for us, it seems to me that we ought to
take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion, this enthusiastic temper of
espousal, in regions where morality strictly so called can at best but bow its
head and acquiesce. It ought to mean nothing short of this new reach of freedom
for us, with the struggle over, the keynote of the universe sounding in our ears
, and everlasting possession spread before our eyes. [*1]
This sort of happiness in the absolute and everlasting is what we find nowhere b
ut in religion. It is parted off from all mere animal happiness, all mere enjoym
ent of the present, by that element of solemnity of which I have already made so
much account. Solemnity is a hard thing to define abstractly, but certain of it
s marks are patent enough. A solemn state of mind is never crude or simple--it s
eems to contain a certain measure of its own opposite in solution. A solemn joy
preserves a sort of bitter in its sweetness; a solemn sorrow is one to which we
intimately consent. But there are writers who, realizing that happiness of a sup
reme sort is the prerogative of religion, forget this complication, and call all
happiness, as such, religious. Mr. Havelock Ellis, for example, identifies reli
gion with the entire field of the soul's liberation from oppressive moods.
[p. 49]
"The simplest functions of physiological life," he writes may be its ministers.
Every one who is at all acquainted with the Persian mystics knows how wine may b
e regarded as an instrument of religion. Indeed, in all countries and in all age
s some form of physical enlargement--singing, dancing, drinking, sexual exciteme
nt--has been intimately associated with worship. Even the momentary expansion of
the soul in laughter is, to however slight an extent, a religious exercise. . .
. Whenever an impulse from the world strikes against the organism, and the resu
ltant is not discomfort or pain, not even the muscular contraction of strenuous
manhood, but a joyous expansion or aspiration of the whole soul--there is religi
on. It is the infinite for which we hunger, and we ride gladly on every little w
ave that promises to bear us towards it." [*1]
But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happin
ess leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more common
place happinesses which we get are "reliefs," occasioned by our momentary escape
s from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic em
bodiments, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It cares no longer
to escape. It consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice--inwardly it
knows it to be permanently overcome. If you ask how religion thus falls on the
thorns and faces death, and in the very act annuls annihilation, I cannot explai
n the matter, for it is religion's secret, and to understand it you must yoursel
f have been a religious man of the extremer type. In our future examples, even o
f the simplest and healthiest-minded type of religious consciousness, we shall f
ind this complex sacrificial constitution, in which a higher happiness holds a l
ower unhappiness in check. In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of S
t. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture
[p. 50]
is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its alle
gorical meaning also is due to his being there--that is, the world is all the ri
cher for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck. In the
religious consciousness, that is just the position in which the fiend, the nega
tive or tragic principle, is found; and for that very reason the religious consc
iousness is so rich from the emotional point of view. [*1] We shall see how in c
ertain men and women it takes on a monstrously ascetic form. There are saints wh
o have literally fed on the negative principle, on humiliation and privation, an
d the thought of suffering and death--their souls growing in happiness just in p
roportion as their outward state grew more intolerable. No other emotion than re
ligious emotion can bring a man to this peculiar pass. And it is for that reason
that when we ask our question about the value of religion for human life, I thi
nk we ought to look for the answer among these violenter examples rather than am
ong those of a more moderate hue.
Having the phenomenon of our study in its acutest possible form to start with, w
e can shade down as much as we please later. And if in these cases, repulsive as
they are to our ordinary worldly way of judging, we find ourselves compelled to
acknowledge religion's value and treat it with respect, it will have proved in
some way its value for life at large. By subtracting and toning down extravaganc
es we may thereupon proceed to trace the boundaries of its legitimate sway.
To be sure, it makes our task difficult to have to deal so muck with eccentricit
ies and extremes. "How can religion on the whole be the most important of all hu
man functions," you may ask, "if every several manifestation of it
[p. 51]
in turn have to be corrected and sobered down and pruned away?" Such a thesis se
ems a paradox impossible to sustain reasonably--yet I believe that something lik
e it will have to be our final contention. That personal attitude which the indi
vidual finds himself impelled to take up towards what he apprehends to be the di
vine--and you will remember that this was our definition--will prove to be both
a helpless and a sacrificial attitude. That is, we shall have to confess to at l
east some amount of dependence on sheer mercy, and to practice some amount of re
nunciation, great or small, to save our souls alive. The constitution of the wor
ld we live in requires it:--
"Entbehren sollst du!
sollst entbehren!
Das ist der ewige Gesang
Der jedem an die Ohren klingt,
Den, unser ganzes Leben lang
Uns heiser jede Stunde singt."
For when all is said and done, we are in the end absolutely dependent on the uni
verse; and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at a
nd accepted, we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of re
pose. Now in those states of mind which fall short of religion, the surrender is
submitted to as an imposition of necessity, and the sacrifice is undergone at t
he very best without complaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, surrende
r and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added i
n order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous
what in any case is necessary; and if it be the only agency that can accomplish
this result, its vital importance as a human faculty stands vindicated beyond d
ispute. It becomes an essential organ of our life, performing a function which n
o other portion of our nature can so successfully fulfill. From the merely biolo
gical point of view, so to call
[p. 52]
it, this is a conclusion to which, so far as I can now see, we shall inevitably
be led, and led moreover by following the purely empirical method of demonstrati
on which I sketched to you in the first lecture. Of the farther office of religi
on as a metaphysical revelation I will say nothing now.
But to foreshadow the terminus of one's investigations is one thing, and to arri
ve there safely is another. In the next lecture, abandoning the extreme generali
ties which have engrossed us hitherto, I propose that we begin our actual journe
y by addressing ourselves directly to the concrete facts.
Footnotes
^28:1 I can do no better here than refer my readers to the extended and admirabl
e remarks on the futility of all these definitions of religion, in an article by
Professor Leuba, published in the Monist for January, 1901, after my own text w
as written.
^33:1 Miscellanies, 1868, p. 120 (abridged).
^34:2 Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 1868, p. 186.
^37:1 Feuilles detachees, pp. 394-398 (abridged).
^40:1 Op. cit., pp. 314, 313.
^43:1 Book V., ch. ix. (abridged).
^44:1 Chaps. x., xi. (abridged): Winkworth's translation.
^44:2 Book IV., 523
^45:17 Benham's translation: Book III., chaps. xv., lix. Compare Mary Moody Emer
son: "Let me be a blot on this fair world, the obscurest the loneliest sufferer,
with one proviso--that I know it is His agency. I will love Him though He shed
frost and darkness on every way of mine." R. W. EMERSON: Lectures and Biographic
al Sketches, p. 188.
^48:1 Once more, there are plenty of men, constitutionally sombre men, in whose
religious life this rapturousness is lacking. They are religious in the wider se
nse, yet in this acutest of all senses they are not so, and it is religion in th
e acutest sense that I wish, without disputing about words, to study first, so a
s to get at its typical differentia.
^49:1 The New Spirit, p. 232.
^50:1 I owe this allegorical illustration to my lamented colleague and Friend, C
harles Carroll Everett.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

com
[p. 53]

Lecture III
THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN
Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most gen
eral terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is
an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting oursel
ves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious attitude in the s
oul. I wish during this hour to call your attention to some of the psychological
peculiarities of such an attitude as this, or belief in an object which we cann
ot see. All our attitudes, moral, practical, or emotional, as well as religious,
are due to the "objects" of our consciousness, the things which we believe to e
xist, whether really or ideally, along with ourselves. Such objects may be prese
nt to our senses, or they may be present only to our thought. In either case the
y elicit from us a reaction; and the reaction due to things of thought is notori
ously in many cases as strong as that due to sensible presences. It may be even
stronger. The memory of an insult may make us angrier than the insult did when w
e received it. We are frequently more ashamed of our blunders afterwards than we
were at the moment of making them; and in general our whole higher prudential a
nd moral life is based on the fact that material sensations actually present may
have a weaker influence on our action than ideas of remoter facts.
The more concrete objects of most men's religion, the deities whom they worship,
are known to them only in idea. It has been vouchsafed, for example, to very fe
w
[p. 54]
[paragraph continues] Christian believers to have had a sensible vision of their
Saviour; though enough appearances of this sort are on record, by way of miracu
lous exception, to merit our attention later. The whole force of the Christian r
eligion, therefore, so far as belief in the divine personages determines the pre
valent attitude of the believer, is in general exerted by the instrumentality of
pure ideas, of which nothing in the individual's past experience directly serve
s as a model.
But in addition to these ideas of the more concrete religious objects, religion
is full of abstract objects which prove to have an equal power. God's attributes
as such, his holiness, his justice, his mercy, his absoluteness, his infinity,
his omniscience, his tri-unity, the various mysteries of the redemptive process,
the operation of the sacraments, etc., have proved fertile wells of inspiring m
editation for Christian believers. [*1] We shall see later that the absence of d
efinite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in
all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison, or contemplation of t
he higher divine truths. Such contemplations are expected (and abundantly verify
the expectation, as we shall also see) to influence the believer's subsequent a
ttitude very powerfully for good.
Immanuel Kant held a curious doctrine about such objects of belief as God, the d
esign of creation, the soul, its freedom, and the life hereafter. These things,
he said, are properly not objects of knowledge at all. Our conceptions always re
quire a sense-content to work with, and as the
[p. 55]
words soul," "God," "immortality," cover no distinctive sense-content whatever,
it follows that theoretically speaking they are words devoid of any significance
. Yet strangely enough they have a definite meaning for our practice. We can act
as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were
full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find th
en that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life. Our faith th
at these unintelligible objects actually exist proves thus to be a full equivale
nt in praktischer Hinsicht, as Kant calls it, or from the point of view of our a
ction, for a knowledge of what they might be, in case we were permitted positive
ly to conceive them. So we have the strange phenomenon, as Kant assures us, 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 whatsoever.
My object in thus recalling Kant's doctrine to your mind is not to express any o
pinion as to the accuracy of this particularly uncouth part of his philosophy, b
ut only to illustrate the characteristic of human nature which we are considerin
g, by an example so classical in its exaggeration. The sentiment of reality can
indeed attach itself so strongly to our object of belief that our whole life is
polarized through and through, so to speak, by its sense of the existence of the
thing believed in, and yet that thing, for purpose of definite description, can
hardly be said to be present to our mind at all. It is as if a bar of iron, wit
hout touch or sight, with no representative faculty whatever, might nevertheless
be strongly endowed with an inner capacity for magnetic feeling; and as if, thr
ough the various arousals of its magnetism by magnets coming and going in its ne
ighborhood, it might be consciously determined to different attitudes and tenden
cies. Such a bar of iron could never give you an outward description of the agen
cies that had the power of stirring it so strongly; yet of their presence, and o
f their significance
[p. 56]
for its life, it would be intensely aware through every fibre of its being.
It is not only the Ideas of pure Reason as Kant styled them, that have this powe
r of making us vitally feel presences that we are impotent articulately to descr
ibe. All sorts of higher abstractions bring with them the same kind of impalpabl
e appeal. Remember those passages from Emerson which I read at my last lecture.
The whole universe of concrete objects, as we know them, swims, not only for suc
h a transcendentalist writer, but for all of us, in a wider and higher universe
of abstract ideas, that lend it its significance. As time, space, and the ether
soak through all things so (we feel) do abstract and essential goodness, beauty,
strength, significance, justice, soak through all things good, strong, signific
ant, and just.
Such ideas, and others equally abstract, form the background for all our facts,
the fountain-head of all the possibilities we conceive of. They give its "nature
," as we call it, to every special thing. Everything we know is "what" it is by
sharing in the nature of one of these abstractions. We can never look directly a
t them, for they are bodiless and featureless and footless, but we grasp all oth
er things by their means, and in handling the real world we should be stricken w
ith helplessness in just so far forth as we might lose these mental objects, the
se adjectives and adverbs and predicates and heads of classification and concept
ion.
This absolute determinability of our mind by abstractions is one of the cardinal
facts in our human constitution. Polarizing and magnetizing us as they do, we t
urn towards them and from them, we seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them,
just as if they were so many concrete beings. And beings they are, beings as rea
l in the realm which they inhabit as the changing things of sense are in the rea
lm of space.
Plato gave so brilliant and impressive a defense of this
[p. 57]
common human feeling, that the doctrine of the reality of abstract objects has b
een known as the platonic theory of ideas ever since. Abstract Beauty, for examp
le, is for Plato a perfectly definite individual being, of which the intellect i
s aware as of something additional to all the perishing beauties of the earth. "
The true order of going," he says, in the often quoted passage in his "Banquet,"
"is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which one mounts upwards for th
e sake of that other Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair for
ms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions,
until from fair notions, he arrives at the notion of absolute Beauty, and at las
t knows what the essence of Beauty is." [*1] In our last lecture we had a glimps
e of the way in which a platonizing writer like Emerson may treat the abstract d
ivineness of things, the moral structure of the universe, as a fact worthy of wo
rship. In those various churches without a God which to-day are spreading throug
h the world under the name of ethical societies, we have a similar worship of th
e abstract divine, the moral law believed in as an ultimate object. "Science" in
many minds is genuinely taking the place of a religion. Where this is so, the s
cientist treats the "Laws of Nature" as objective facts to be revered. A brillia
nt school of interpretation of Greek mythology would have it that in their origi
n the Greek gods were only half-metaphoric personifications of those great spher
es of abstract law and order into which the natural world falls apart--the sky-s
phere, the ocean-sphere, the earth-sphere, and the like; just as even now we may
speak of the smile of the morning, the kiss of the breeze, or the bite of the c
old, without really meaning that these phenomena of nature actually wear a human
face. [*2]
[p. 58]
As regards the origin of the Greek gods, we need not at present seek an opinion.
But the whole array of our instances leads to a conclusion something like this:
It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling
of objective presence, a perception of what we may call "something there," more
deep and more general than any of the special and particular "senses" by which
the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If
this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as
they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality; but anything el
se, any idea, for example, that might similarly excite it, would have that same
prerogative of appearing real which objects of sense normally possess. So far as
religious conceptions were able to touch this reality-feeling, they would be be
lieved in in spite of criticism, even though they might be so vague and remote a
s to be almost unimaginable, even though they might be such non-entities in poin
t of whatness, as Kant makes the objects of his moral theology to be.
The most curious proofs of the existence of such an undifferentiated sense of re
ality as this are found in experiences of hallucination. It often happens that a
n hallucination is imperfectly developed: the person affected will feel a "prese
nce" in the room, definitely localized, facing in one particular way, real in th
e most emphatic sense of the word, often coming suddenly, and as suddenly gone;
and yet neither seen, heard, touched, nor cognized in any of the usual "sensible
" ways. Let me give you an example of this, before I pass to the objects with wh
ose presence religion is more peculiarly concerned.
An intimate friend of mine, one of the keenest intellects I know, has had severa
l experiences of this sort. He writes as follows in response to my inquiries:--
[p. 59]
"I have several times within the past few years felt the so-called 'consciousnes
s of a presence.' The experiences which I have in mind are clearly distinguishab
le from another kind of experience which I have had very frequently, and which I
fancy many persons would also call the 'consciousness of a presence.' But the d
ifference for me between the two sets of experience is as great as the differenc
e between feeling a slight warmth originating I know not where, and standing in
the midst of a conflagration with all the ordinary senses alert.
"It was about September, 1884, when I had the first experience. On the previous
night I had had, after getting into bed at my rooms in College, a vivid tactile
hallucination of being grasped by the arm, which made me get up and search the r
oom for an intruder; but the sense of presence properly so called came on the ne
xt night. After I had got into bed and blown out the candle, I lay awake awhile
thinking on the previous night's experience, when suddenly I felt something come
into the room and stay close to my bed. It remained only a minute or two. I did
not recognize it by any ordinary sense and yet there was a horribly unpleasant
'sensation' connected with it. It stirred something more at the roots of my bein
g than any ordinary perception. The feeling had something of the quality of a ve
ry large tearing vital pain spreading chiefly over the chest, but within the org
anism--and yet the feeling was not pain so much as abhorrence. At all events, so
mething was present with me, and I knew its presence far more surely than I have
ever known the presence of any fleshly living creature. I was conscious of its
departure as of its coming: an almost instantaneously swift going through the do
or, and the 'horrible sensation' disappeared.
"On the third night when I retired my mind was absorbed in some lectures which I
was preparing, and I was still absorbed in these when I became aware of the act
ual presence (though not of the coming) of the thing that was there the night be
fore, and of the 'horrible sensation.' I then mentally concentrated all my effor
t to charge this 'thing,' if it was evil to depart, if it was not evil, to tell
me who or what it was, and if it could not explain itself, to go, and that I wou
ld compel it
[p. 60]
to go. It went as on the previous night, and my body quickly recovered its norma
l state.
"On two other occasions in my life I have had precisely the same 'horrible sensa
tion.' Once it lasted a full quarter of an hour. In all three instances the cert
ainty that there in outward space there stood something was indescribably strong
er than the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presenc
e of ordinary living people. The something seemed close to me, and intensely mor
e real than any ordinary perception. Although I felt it to be like unto myself s
o to speak, or finite, small, and distressful, as it were, I didn't recognize it
as any individual being or person."
Of course such an experience as this does not connect itself with the religious
sphere. Yet it may upon occasion do so; and the same correspondent informs me th
at at more than one other conjuncture he had the sense of presence developed wit
h equal intensity and abruptness, only then it was filled with a quality of joy.
"There was not a mere consciousness of something there, but fused in the central
happiness of it, a startling awareness of some ineffable good. Not vague either
, not like the emotional effect of some poem, or scene, or blossom, of music, bu
t the sure knowledge of the close presence of a sort of mighty person, and after
it went, the memory persisted as the one perception of reality. Everything else
might be a dream, but not that."
My friend, as it oddly happens, does not interpret these latter experiences thei
stically, as signifying the presence of God. But it would clearly not have been
unnatural to interpret them as a revelation of the deity's existence. When we re
ach the subject of mysticism, we shall have much more to say upon this head.
Lest the oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you, I will venture to read
 you a couple of similar narratives, much shorter, merely to show that we are de
aling with a well-marked natural kind of fact. In the first case, which I
[p. 61]
take from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, the sense of presen
ce developed in a few moments into a distinctly visualized hallucination--but I
leave that part of the story out.
"I had read," the narrator says, "some twenty minutes or so, was thoroughly abso
rbed in the book, my mind was perfectly quiet, and for the time being my friends
were quite forgotten, when suddenly without a moment's warning my whole being s
eemed roused to the highest state of tension or aliveness, and I was aware, with
an intenseness not easily imagined by those who had never experienced it, that
another being or presence was not only in the room, but quite close to me. I put
my book down, and although my excitement was great, I felt quite collected, and
not conscious of any sense of fear. Without changing my position, and looking s
traight at the fire, I knew somehow that my friend A. H. was standing at my left
elbow but so far behind me as to be hidden by the armchair in which I was leani
ng back. Moving my eyes round slightly without otherwise changing my position, t
he lower portion of one leg became visible, and I instantly recognized the gray-
blue material of trousers he often wore, but the stuff appeared semitransparent,
reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency," [*1]--and hereupon the visual ha
llucination came.
Another informant writes:--
"Quite early in the night I was awakened. . . . I felt as if I had been aroused
intentionally, and at first thought some one was breaking into the house. . . .
I then turned on my side to go to sleep again, and immediately felt a consciousn
ess of a presence in the room, and singular to state, it was not the consciousne
ss of a live person, but of a spiritual presence. This may provoke a smile, but
I can only tell you the facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to bette
r describe my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a consciousness of a
spiritual presence. . . . I felt also at the same time a strong
[p. 62]
feeling of superstitious dread, as if something strange and fearful were about t
o happen." [*1]
Professor Flournoy of Geneva gives me the following testimony of a friend of his
, a lady, who has the gift of automatic or involuntary writing:--
"Whenever I practice automatic writing, what makes me feel that it is not due to
a subconscious self is the feeling I always have of a foreign presence, externa
l to my body. It is sometimes so definitely characterized that I could point to
its exact position. This impression of presence is impossible to describe. It va
ries in intensity and clearness according to the personality from whom the writi
ng professes to come. If it is some one whom I love, I feel it immediately, befo
re any writing has come. My heart seems to recognize it."
In an earlier book of mine I have cited at full length a curious case of presenc
e felt by a blind man. The presence was that of the figure of a gray-bearded man
dressed in a pepper and salt suit, squeezing himself under the crack of the doo
r and moving across the floor of the room towards a sofa. The blind subject of t
his quasi-hallucination is an exceptionally intelligent reporter. He is entirely
without internal visual imagery and cannot represent light or colors to himself
, and is positive that his other senses, hearing, etc., were not involved in thi
s false perception. It seems to have been an abstract conception rather, with th
e feelings of reality and spatial outwardness directly attached to it--in other
words, a fully objectified and exteriorized idea.
Such cases, taken along with others which would be too tedious for quotation, se
em sufficiently to prove the existence in our mental machinery of a sense of pre
sent reality more diffused and general than that which our special senses yield.
For the psychologists the tracing of the organic seat of
[p. 63]
such a feeling would form a pretty problem--nothing could be more natural than t
o connect it with the muscular sense, with the feeling that our muscles were inn
ervating themselves for action. Whatsoever thus innervated our activity, or "mad
e our flesh creep"--our senses are what do so oftenest--might then appear real a
nd present, even though it were but an abstract idea. But with such vague conjec
tures we have no concern at present, for our interest lies with the faculty rath
er than with its organic seat.
Like all positive affections of consciousness, the sense of reality has its nega
tive counterpart in the shape of a feeling of unreality by which persons may be
haunted, and of which one sometimes hears complaint:--
"When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a gl
obe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens
," says Madame Ackermann; "when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral a
nd incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I
experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have lo
ved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be,
'I have been dreaming.'" [*1]
In another lecture we shall see how in morbid melancholy this sense of the unrea
lity of things may become a carking pain, and even lead to suicide.
We may now lay it down as certain that in the distinctively religious sphere of
experience, many persons (how many we cannot tell) possess the objects of their
belief, not in the form of mere conceptions which their intellect accepts as tru
e, but rather in the form of quasi-sensible realities directly apprehended. As h
is sense of the real presence of these objects fluctuates, so the believer alter
nates between warmth and coldness in his faith. Other examples will bring this
[p. 64]
home to one better than abstract description, so I proceed immediately to cite s
ome. The first example is a negative one, deploring the loss of the sense in que
stion. I have extracted it from an account given me by a scientific man of my ac
quaintance, of his religious life. It seems to me to show clearly that the feeli
ng of reality may be something more like a sensation than an intellectual operat
ion properly so-called.
"Between twenty and thirty I gradually became more and more agnostic and irrelig
ious, yet I cannot say that I ever lost that 'indefinite consciousness' which He
rbert Spencer describes so well, of an Absolute Reality behind phenomena. For me
this Reality was not the pure Unknowable of Spencer's philosophy, for although
I had ceased my childish prayers to God, and never prayed to It in a formal mann
er, yet my more recent experience shows me to have been in a relation to It whic
h practically was the same thing as prayer. Whenever I had any trouble, especial
ly when I had conflict with other people, either domestically or in the way of b
usiness, or when I was depressed in spirits or anxious about affairs, I now reco
gnize that I used to fall back for support upon this curious relation I felt mys
elf to be in to this fundamental cosmical It. It was on my side, or I was on Its
 side, however you please to term it, in the particular trouble, and it always s
trengthened me and seemed to give me endless vitality to feel its underlying and
supporting presence. In fact, it was an unfailing fountain of living justice, t
ruth, and strength, to which I instinctively turned at times of weakness, and it
always brought me out. I know now that it was a personal relation I was in to i
t, because of late years the power of communicating with it has left me, and I a
m conscious of a perfectly definite loss. I used never to fail to find it when I
turned to it. Then came a set of years when sometimes I found it, and then agai
n I would be wholly unable to make connection with it. I remember many occasions
on which at night in bed, I would be unable to get to sleep on account of worry
. I turned this way and that in the darkness, and groped mentally for the famili
ar sense of that higher mind of my mind
[p. 65]
which had always seemed to be close at hand as it were, closing the passage, and
yielding support, but there was no electric current. A blank was there instead
of It: I couldn't find anything. Now, at the age of nearly fifty, my power of ge
tting into connection with it has entirely left me; and I have to confess that a
great help has gone out of my life. Life has become curiously dead and indiffer
ent; and I can now see that my old experience was probably exactly the same thin
g as the prayers of the orthodox, only I did not call them by that name. What I
have spoken of as 'It' was practically not Spencer's Unknowable, but just my own
instinctive and individual God, whom I relied upon for higher sympathy, but who
m somehow I have lost."
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 alternating. Probably
every religious person has the recollection of particular crisis in which a dir
ecter vision of the truth, a direct perception, perhaps, of a living God's exist
ence, swept in and overwhelmed the languor of the more ordinary belief. In James
Russell Lowell's correspondence there is a brief memorandum of an experience of
this kind:--
"I had a revelation last Friday evening. I was at Mary's, and happening to say s
omething of the presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware),
Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speak
ing, the whole system rose up before me like a vague destiny looming from the Ab
yss. I never before so clearly felt the Spirit of God in me and around rue. The
whole room seemed to me full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the
presence of Something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness
of a prophet. I cannot tell you what this revelation was. I have not yet studied
it enough. But I shall perfect it one day, and then you shall hear it and ackno
wledge its grandeur." [*1]
[p. 66]
Here is a longer and more developed experience from a manuscript communication b
y a clergyman--I take it from Starbuck's manuscript collection:--
"I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hill-top, where my soul o
pened out, as it were, into the Infinite, and there was a rushing together of th
e two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep calling unto deep--the deep t
hat my own struggle had opened up within being answered by the unfathomable deep
without, reaching beyond the stars. I stood alone with Him who had made me, and
all the beauty of the world, and love, and sorrow, and even temptation. I did n
ot seek Him, but felt the perfect unison of my spirit with His. The ordinary sen
se of things around me faded. For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and ex
ultation remained. It is impossible fully to describe the experience. It was lik
e the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted int
o one swelling harmony that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that h
is soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The p
erfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darknes
s held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could no
t any more have doubted that He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself
to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
"My highest faith in God and truest idea of him were then born in me. I have sto
od upon the Mount of Vision since, and felt the Eternal round about me. But neve
r since has there come quite the same stirring of the heart. Then, if ever, I be
lieve, I stood face to face with God, and was born anew of his spirit. There was
, as I recall it, no sudden change of thought or of belief, except that my early
crude conception, had, as it were burst into flower. There was no destruction o
f the old, but a rapid, wonderful unfolding. Since that time no discussion that
I have heard of the proofs of God's existence has been able to shake my faith. H
aving once felt the presence of God's spirit, I have never lost it again for lon
g. My most assuring evidence of his existence is deeply rooted in that hour of v
ision in the memory of that supreme experience, and in the conviction,
[p. 67]
gained from reading and reflection, that something the same has come to all who
have found God. I am aware that it may justly be called mystical. I am not enoug
h acquainted with philosophy to defend it from that or any other charge. I feel
that in writing of it I have overlaid it with words rather than put it clearly t
o your thought. But, such as it is, I have described it as carefully as I now am
able to do."
Here is another document, even more definite in character, which, the writer bei
ng a Swiss, I translate from the French original. [*1]
"I was in perfect health: we were on our sixth day of tramping, and in good trai
ning. We had come the day before from Sixt to Trient by Buet. I felt neither fat
igue, hunger, nor thirst, and my state of mind was equally healthy. I had had at
Forlaz good news from home; I was subject to no anxiety, either near or remote,
for we had a good guide, and there was not a shadow of uncertainty about the ro
ad we should follow. I can best describe the condition in which I was by calling
it a state of equilibrium. When all at once I experienced a feeling of being ra
ised above myself, 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 altogethe
r. The throb of emotion was so violent that I could barely tell the boys to pass
on and not wait for me. I then sat down on a stone, unable to stand any longer,
and my eyes overflowed with tears. I thanked God that in the course of my life
he had taught me to know him, that he sustained my life and took pity both on th
e insignificant creature and on the sinner that I was. I begged him ardently tha
t my life might be consecrated to the doing of his will. I felt his reply, which
was that I should do his will from day to day in humility and poverty, leaving
him, the Almighty God, to be judge of whether I should some time be called to be
ar witness more conspicuously. Then, slowly, the ecstasy left my heart; that is,
I felt that God had withdrawn the communion which he had granted, and I was abl
e to walk on, but very slowly,
[p. 68]
so strongly was I still possessed by the interior emotion. Besides, I had wept u
ninterruptedly for several minutes, my eyes were swollen, and I did not wish my
companions to see me. The state of ecstasy may have lasted four or five minutes,
although it seemed at the time to last much longer. My comrades waited for me t
en minutes at the cross of Barine, but I took about twenty-five or thirty minute
s to join them, for as well as I can remember, they said that I had kept them ba
ck for about half an hour. The impression had been so profound that in climbing
slowly the slope I asked myself if it were possible that Moses on Sinai could ha
ve had a more intimate communication with God. I think it well to add that in th
is ecstasy of mine God had neither form, color, odor, nor taste; moreover, that
the feeling of his presence was accompanied with no determinate localization. It
was rather as if my personality had been transformed by the presence of a spiri
tual spirit. But the more I seek words to express this intimate intercourse, the
more I feel the impossibility of describing the thing by any of our usual image
s. At bottom the expression most apt to render what I felt is this: God was pres
ent, though invisible; he fell under no one of my senses, yet my consciousness p
erceived him."
The adjective "mystical" is technically applied, most often, to states that are
of brief duration. Of course such hours of rapture as the last two persons descr
ibe are mystical experiences, of which in a later lecture I shall have much to s
ay. Meanwhile here is the abridged record of another mystical or semi-mystical e
xperience, in a mind evidently framed by nature for ardent piety. I owe it to St
arbuck's collection. The lady who gives the account is the daughter of a man wel
l known in his time as a writer against Christianity. The suddenness of her conv
ersion shows well how native the sense of God's presence must be to certain mind
s. She relates that she was brought up in entire ignorance of Christian doctrine
, but, when in Germany, after being talked to by Christian friends, she read the
Bible and prayed, and finally the plan of salvation flashed upon her like a str
eam of light.
[p. 69]
"To this day," she writes, "I cannot understand dallying with religion and the c
ommands of God. The very instant I heard my Father's cry calling unto me, my hea
rt bounded in recognition. I ran, I stretched forth my arms, I cried aloud, 'Her
e, here I am, my Father.' Oh, happy child, what should I do? 'Love me,' answered
my God. 'I do, I do,' I cried passionately. 'Come unto me,' called my Father. '
I will,' my heart panted. Did I stop to ask a single question? Not one. It never
occurred to me to ask whether I was good enough, or to hesitate over my unfitne
ss, or to find out what I thought of his church, or . . . to wait until I should
be satisfied. Satisfied! I was satisfied. Had I not found my God and my Father?
Did he not love me? Had he not called me? Was there not a Church into which I m
ight enter? . . . Since then I have had direct answers to prayer--so significant
as to be almost like talking with God and hearing his answer. The idea of God's
reality has never left me for one moment."
Here is still another case, the writer being a man aged twenty-seven, in which t
he experience, probably almost as characteristic, is less vividly described:--
"I have on a number of occasions felt that I had enjoyed a period of intimate co
mmunion with the divine. These meetings came unasked and unexpected, and seemed
to consist merely in the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which u
sually surround and cover my life. . . . Once it was when from the summit of a h
igh mountain I looked over a gashed and corrugated landscape extending to a long
convex of ocean that ascended to the horizon, and again from the same point whe
n I could see nothing beneath me but a boundless expanse of white cloud, on the
blown surface of which a few high peaks, including the one I was on, seemed plun
ging about as if they were dragging their anchors. What I felt on these occasion
s was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which
revealed to me a deeper significance than I had been wont to attach to life. It
is in this that I find my justification for saying that I have enjoyed communica
tion with God. Of course the absence of such a being as this would be chaos. I c
annot conceive of life without its presence."
[p. 70]
Of the more habitual and so to speak chronic sense of God's presence the followi
ng sample from Professor Starbuck's manuscript collection may serve to give an i
dea. It is from a man aged forty-nine--probably thousands of unpretending Christ
ians would write an almost identical account.
"God is more real to me than any thought or thing or person. I feel his presence
positively, and the more as I live in closer harmony with his laws as written i
n my body and mind. I feel him in the sunshine or rain; and awe mingled with a d
elicious restfulness most nearly describes my feelings. I talk to him as to a co
mpanion in prayer and praise, and our communion is delightful. He answers me aga
in and again, often in words so clearly spoken that it seems my outer ear must h
ave carried the tone, but generally in strong mental impressions. Usually a text
of Scripture, unfolding some new view of him and his love for me, and care for
my safety. I could give hundreds of instances, in school matters, social problem
s, financial difficulties, etc. That he is mine and I am his never leaves me, it
is an abiding joy. Without it life would be a blank, a desert, a shoreless, tra
ckless waste."
I subjoin some more examples from writers of different ages and sexes. They are
also from Professor Starbuck's collection, and their number might be greatly mul
tiplied. The first is from a man twenty-seven years old:--
"God is quite real to me. I talk to him and often get answers. Thoughts sudden a
nd distinct from any I have been entertaining come to my mind after asking God f
or his direction. Something over a year ago I was for some weeks in the direst p
erplexity. When the trouble first appeared before me I was dazed, but before lon
g (two or three hours) I could hear distinctly a passage of Scripture: 'My grace
is sufficient for thee.' Every time my thoughts turned to the trouble I could h
ear this quotation. I don't think I ever doubted the existence of God, or had hi
m drop out of my consciousness. God has frequently stepped into my affairs very
perceptibly, and I feel that he directs many
[p. 71]
little details all the time. But on two or three occasions he has ordered ways f
or me very contrary to my ambitions and plans."
Another statement (none the less valuable psychologically for being so decidedly
childish) is that of a boy of seventeen:--
"Sometimes as I go to church, I sit down, join in the service, and before I go o
ut I feel as if God was with me, right side of me, singing and reading the Psalm
s with me. . . . And then again I feel as if I could sit beside him, and put my
arms around him, kiss him, etc. When I am taking Holy Communion at the altar, I
try to get with him and generally feel his presence."
I let a few other cases follow at random:--
"God surrounds me like the physical atmosphere. He is closer to me than my own b
reath. In him literally I live and move and have my being."--
"There are times when I seem to stand in his very presence, to talk with him. An
swers to prayer have come, sometimes direct and overwhelming in their revelation
of his presence and powers. There are times when God seems far off, but this is
always my own fault."--
"I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which ho
vers over me. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms."
Such is the human ontological imagination, and such is the convincingness of wha
t it brings to birth. Unpicturable beings are realized, and realized with an int
ensity almost like that of an hallucination. They determine our vital attitude a
s decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense
, by which each is haunted, of the other being in the world. A lover has notorio
usly this sense of the continuous being of his idol, even when his attention is
addressed to other matters and he no longer represents her features. He cannot f
orget her; she uninterruptedly affects him through and through.
[p. 72]
I spoke of the convincingness of these feelings of reality, and I must dwell a m
oment longer on that point. They are as convincing to those who have them as any
direct sensible experiences can be, and they are, as a rule, much more convinci
ng than results established by mere logic ever are. One may indeed be entirely w
ithout them; probably more than one of you here present is without them in any m
arked degree; but if you do have them, and have them at all strongly, the probab
ility is that you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as
revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument, however unanswerabl
e by you in words, can expel from your belief. The opinion opposed to mysticism
in philosophy is sometimes spoken of as rationalism. Rationalism insists that al
l our beliefs ought ultimately to find for themselves articulate grounds. Such g
rounds, for rationalism, must consist of four things: (1) definitely statable ab
stract principles; (2) definite facts of sensation; (3) definite hypotheses base
d on such facts; and (4) definite inferences logically drawn. Vague impressions
of something indefinable have no place in the rationalistic system, which on its
positive side is surely a splendid intellectual tendency, for not only are all
our philosophies fruits of it, but physical science (amongst other good things)
is its result.
Nevertheless, if we look on man's whole mental life as it exists, on the life of
men that lies in them apart from their learning and science, and that they inwa
rdly and privately follow, we have to confess that the part of it of which ratio
nalism can give an account is relatively superficial. It is the part that has th
e prestige undoubtedly, for it has the loquacity, it can challenge you for proof
s, and chop logic, and put you down with words. But it will fail to convince or
convert you all the same, if your dumb intuitions are opposed to its conclusions
. If you have intuitions at all, they come from a deeper level of your nature th
an the loquacious level which
[p. 73]
rationalism inhabits. Your whole subconscious life, your impulses, your faiths,
your needs, your divinations, have prepared the premises, of which your consciou
sness now feels the weight of the result; and something in you absolutely KNOWS
that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, howev
er clever, that may contradict it. This inferiority of the rationalistic level i
n founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for religion as wh
en it argues against it. That vast literature of proofs of God's existence drawn
from the order of nature, which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convinci
ng, to-day does little more than gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason
that our generation has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for. Wha
tever sort of a being God may be, we KNOW to-day that he is nevermore that mere
external inventor of "contrivances" intended to make manifest his "glory" in whi
ch our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though just how we know this w
e cannot possibly make clear by words either to others or to ourselves. I defy a
ny 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 Being.
The truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons a
re cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already bee
n impressed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and ou
r reason work together, and great world-ruling systems, like that of the Buddhis
t or of the Catholic philosophy, may grow up. Our impulsive belief is here alway
s what sets up the original body of truth, and our articulately verbalized philo
sophy is but its showy translation into formulas. The unreasoned and immediate a
ssurance is the deep thing in us, the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibit
ion. Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow. If a person feels the presenc
e of a living God after the fashion shown by my quotations,
[p. 74]
your critical arguments, be they never so superior, will vainly set themselves t
o change his faith.
Please observe, however, that I do not yet say that it is better that the subcon
scious and non-rational should thus hold primacy in the religious realm. I confi
ne myself to simply pointing out that they do so hold it as a matter of fact.
So much for our sense of the reality of the religious objects. Let me now say a
brief word more about the attitudes they characteristically awaken.
We have already agreed that they are solemn; and we have seen reason to think th
at the most distinctive of them is the sort of joy which may result in extreme c
ases from absolute self-surrender. The sense of the kind of object to which the
surrender is made has much to do with determining the precise complexion of the
joy; and the whole phenomenon is more complex than any simple formula allows. In
the literature of the subject, sadness and gladness have each been emphasized i
n turn. The ancient saying that the first maker of the Gods was fear receives vo
luminous corroboration from every age of religious history; but none the less do
es religious history show the part which joy has evermore tended to play. Someti
mes the joy has been primary; sometimes secondary, being the gladness of deliver
ance from the fear. This latter state of things, being the more complex, is also
the more complete; and as we proceed, I think we shall have abundant reason for
refusing to leave out either the sadness or the gladness, if we look at religio
n with the breadth of view which it demands. Stated in the completest possible t
erms, a man's religion involves both moods of contraction and moods of expansion
of his being. But the quantitative mixture and order of these moods vary so muc
h from one age of the world, from one system of thought, and from one individual
to another, that you may insist either on the dread and the submission, or on t
he peace and the freedom as the essence of the matter, and still remain material
ly
[p. 75]
within the limits of the truth. The constitutionally sombre and the constitution
ally sanguine onlooker are bound to emphasize opposite aspects of what lies befo
re their eyes.
The constitutionally sombre religious person makes even of his religious peace a
very sober thing. Danger still hovers in the air about it. Flexion and contract
ion are not wholly checked. It were sparrowlike and childish after our deliveran
ce to explode into twittering laughter and caper-cutting, and utterly to forget
the imminent hawk on bough. Lie low, rather, lie low; for you are in the hands o
f a living God. In the Book of Job, for example, the impotence of man and the om
nipotence of God is the exclusive burden of its author's mind. "It is as high as
heaven; what canst thou do?--deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" There is
an astringent relish about the truth of this conviction which some men can feel,
and which for them is as near an approach as can be made to the feeling of reli
gious joy.
"In Job," says that coldly truthful writer, the author of Mark Rutherford, "God
reminds us that man is not the measure of his creation. The world is immense, co
nstructed on no plan or theory which the intellect of man can grasp. It is trans
cendent everywhere. This is the burden of every verse, and is the secret if ther
e be one, of the poem. Sufficient or insufficient, there is nothing more. . . .
God is great, we know not his ways. He takes from us all we have, but yet if we
possess our souls in patience, we may pass the valley of the shadow, and come ou
t in sunlight again. We may or we may not! . . . What more have we to say now th
an God said from the whirlwind over two thousand five hundred years ago?" [*1]
If we turn to the sanguine onlooker, on the other hand, we find that deliverance
is felt as incomplete unless the burden be altogether overcome and the danger f
orgotten. Such onlookers give us definitions that seem to the sombre minds
[p. 76]
of whom we have just been speaking to leave out all the solemnity that makes rel
igious peace so different from merely animal joys. In the opinion of some writer
s an attitude might be called religious, though no touch were left in it of sacr
ifice or submission, no tendency to flexion, no bowing of the head. Any "habitua
l and regulated admiration," says Professor J. R. Seeley, [*1] "is worthy to be
called a religion"; and accordingly he thinks that our Music, our Science, and o
ur so-called "Civilization," as these things are now organized and admiringly be
lieved in, form the more genuine religions of our time. Certainly the unhesitati
ng and unreasoning way in which we feel that we must inflict our civilization up
on "lower" races, by means of Hotchkiss guns, etc., reminds one of nothing so mu
ch as of the early spirit of Islam spreading its religion by the sword.
In my last lecture I quoted to you the ultra-radical opinion of Mr. Havelock Ell
is, that laughter of any sort may be considered a religious exercise, for it bea
rs witness to the soul's emancipation. I quoted this opinion in order to deny it
s adequacy. But we must now settle our scores more carefully with this whole opt
imistic way of thinking. It is far too complex to be decided off-hand. I propose
accordingly that we make of religious optimism the theme of the next two lectur
es.
Footnotes
^54:1 Example: "I have had much comfort lately in meditating on the passages whi
ch show the personality of the Holy Ghost, and his distinctness from the Father
and the Son. It is a subject that requires searching into to find out, but, when
realized, gives one so much more true and lively a sense of the fullness of the
Godhead, and its work in us and to us, than when only thinking of the Spirit in
its effect on us." AUGUSTUS HARE: Memorials, i. 244, Maria Hare to Lucy H. Hare
.
^57:1 Symposium, Jowett, 1871, i. 527.
^57:2 Example: "Nature is always so interesting, under whatever aspect she shows
herself, that when it rains, I seem to see a beautiful [p. 58] woman weeping. S
he appears the more beautiful, the more afflicted she is." B. de St. Pierre.
^61:1 Journal of the S. P. R., February, 1895, p. 26.
^62:1 E. Gurney: Phantasms of the Living, i. 384.
^63:1 Pensees d'un Solitaire, p. 66.
^65:1 Letters of Lowell, i. 75.
^67:1 I borrow it, with Professor Flournoy's permission, from his rich collectio
n of psychological documents.
^75:1 Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, London, 1885, pp. 196, 198.
^76:1 In his book (too little read, I fear), Natural Religion, 3d edition, Bosto
n, 1886, pp. 91, 122.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

com
[p. 77]

Lectures IV and V

THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY MINDEDNESS

If we were to ask the question: "What is human life's chief concern?" one of the
answers we should receive would be: "It is happiness." How to gain, how to keep
, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret moti
ve of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. The hedonistic school
in ethics deduces the moral life wholly from the experiences of happiness and un
happiness which different kinds of conduct bring; and, even more in the religiou
s life than in the moral life, happiness and unhappiness seem to be the poles ro
und which the interest revolves. We need not go so far as to say with the author
whom I lately quoted that any persistent enthusiasm is, as such, religion, nor
need we call mere laughter a religious exercise; but we must admit that any pers
istent enjoyment may produce the sort of religion which consists in a grateful a
dmiration of the gift of so happy an existence; and we must also acknowledge tha
t the more complex ways of experiencing religion are new manners of producing ha
ppiness, wonderful inner paths to a supernatural kind of happiness, when the fir
st gift of natural existence is unhappy, as it so often proves itself to be.
With such relations between religion and happiness, it is perhaps not surprising
that men come to regard the happiness which a religious belief affords as a pro
of of its truth. If a creed makes a man feel happy, he almost inevitably adopts
it. Such a belief ought to be true; therefore it is true--such,
[p. 78]
rightly or wrongly, is one of the "immediate inferences" of the religious logic
used by ordinary men.
"The near presence of God's spirit," says a German writer, [*1] "may be experien
ced in its reality--indeed only experienced. 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 nearness, and which is therefore not only a possible and altogether pro
per feeling for us to have here below, but is the best and most indispensable pr
oof of God's reality. No other proof is equally convincing, and therefore happin
ess is the point from which every efficacious new theology should start."
In the hour immediately before us, I shall invite you to consider the simpler ki
nds of religious happiness, leaving the more complex sorts to be treated on a la
ter day.
In many persons, happiness is congenital and irreclaimable. "Cosmic emotion" ine
vitably takes in them the form of enthusiasm and freedom. I speak not only of th
ose who are animally happy. I mean those who, when unhappiness is offered or pro
posed to them, positively refuse to feel it, as if it were something mean and wr
ong. We find such persons in every age, passionately flinging themselves upon th
eir sense of the goodness of life, in spite of the hardships of their own condit
ion, and in spite of the sinister theologies into which they may he born. From t
he outset their religion is one of union with the divine. The heretics who went
before the reformation are lavishly accused by the church writers of antinomian
practices, just as the first Christians were accused of indulgence in orgies by
the Romans. It is probable that there never has been a century in which the deli
berate refusal to think ill of life has not been idealized by a sufficient numbe
r of persons to form sects, open or secret, who claimed
[p. 79]
all natural things to be permitted. Saint Augustine's maxim, Dilige et quod vis
fac--if you but love [God], you may do as you incline--is morally one of the pro
foundest of observations, yet it is pregnant, for such persons, with passports b
eyond the bounds of conventional morality. According to their characters they ha
ve been refined or gross; but their belief has been at all times systematic enou
gh to constitute a definite religious attitude. God was for them a giver of free
dom, and the sting of evil was overcome. Saint Francis and his immediate discipl
es were, on the whole, of this company of spirits, of which there are of course
infinite varieties. Rousseau in the earlier years of his writing, Diderot, B. de
Saint Pierre, and many of the leaders of the eighteenth century anti-Christian
movement were of this optimistic type. They owed their influence to a certain au
thoritativeness in their feeling that Nature, if you will only trust her suffici
ently, is absolutely good.
It is to be hoped that we all have some friend, perhaps more often feminine than
masculine, and young than old, whose soul is of this sky-blue tint, whose affin
ities are rather with flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with
dark human passions, who can think no ill of man or God, and in whom religious
gladness, being in possession from the outset, needs no deliverance from any ant
ecedent burden.
"God has two families of children on this earth," says Francis W. Newman, [*1] "
the once-born and the twice-born," and the once-born he describes as follows: "T
hey see God, not as a strict Judge, not as a Glorious Potentate; but as the anim
ating Spirit of a beautiful harmonious world, Beneficent and Kind, Merciful as w
ell as Pure. The same characters generally have no metaphysical tendencies: they
do not look back into themselves. Hence they are not distressed by their own im
perfections:
[p. 80]
yet it would be absurd to call them self-righteous; for they hardly think of the
mselves at all. This childlike quality of their nature makes the opening of reli
gion very happy to them: for they no more shrink from God, than a child from an
emperor, before whom the parent trembles: in fact, they have no vivid conception
of any of the qualities in which the severer Majesty of God consists. [*1] He i
s to them the impersonation of Kindness and Beauty. They read his character, not
in the disordered world of man, but in romantic and harmonious nature. Of human
sin they know perhaps little in their own hearts and not very much in the world
; and human suffering does but melt them to tenderness. Thus, when they approach
God, no inward disturbance ensues; and without being as yet spiritual, they hav
e a certain complacency and perhaps romantic sense of excitement in their simple
 worship."
In the Romish Church such characters find a more congenial soil to grow in than
in Protestantism, whose fashions of feeling have been set by minds of a decidedl
y pessimistic order. But even in Protestantism they have been abundant enough; a
nd in its recent "liberal" developments of Unitarianism and latitudinarianism ge
nerally, minds of this order have played and still are playing leading and const
ructive parts. Emerson himself is an admirable example. Theodore Parker is anoth
er--here are a couple of characteristic passages from Parker's correspondence. [
*2]
"Orthodox scholars say: 'In the heathen classics you find no consciousness of si
n.' It is very true--God be thanked for it. They were conscious of wrath, of cru
elty, avarice, drunkenness, lust, sloth, cowardice, and other actual vices, and
struggled and got rid of the deformities, but they were not conscious of 'enmity
against God,' and didn't sit down and whine and groan against non-existent evil
. I have done wrong things enough in my life, and do them now; I miss the mark,
draw bow, and
[p. 81]
try again. But I am not conscious of hating God, or man, or right, or love, and
I know there is much 'health in me', and in my body, even now, there dwelleth ma
ny a good thing, spite of consumption and Saint Paul." In another letter Parker
writes: "I have swum in clear sweet waters all my days; and if sometimes they we
re a little cold, and the stream ran adverse and something rough, it was never t
oo strong to be breasted and swum through. From the days of earliest boyhood, wh
en I went stumbling through the grass, . . . up to the gray-bearded manhood of t
his time, there is none but has left me honey in the hive of memory that I now f
eed on for present delight. When I recall the years . . . I am filled with a sen
se of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make a mortal so exceedin
gly rich. But I must confess that the chiefest of all my delights is still the r
eligious."
Another good expression of the "once-born" type of consciousness, developing str
aight and natural, with no element of morbid compunction or crisis, is contained
in the answer of Dr. Edward Everett Hale, the eminent Unitarian preacher and wr
iter, to one of Dr. Starbuck's circulars. I quote a part of it:--
"I observe, with profound regret, the religious struggles which come into many b
iographies, as if almost essential to the formation of the hero. I ought to spea
k of these, to say that any man has an advantage, not to be estimated, who is bo
rn, as I was, into a family where the religion is simple and rational; who is tr
ained in the theory of such a religion, so that he never knows, for an hour, wha
t these religious or irreligious struggles are. I always knew God loved me, and
I was always grateful to him for the world he placed me in. I always liked to te
ll him so, and was always glad to receive his suggestions to me. . . . I can rem
ember perfectly that when I was coming to manhood, the half-philosophical novels
of the time had a deal to say about the young men and maidens who were facing t
he 'problem of life.' I had no idea whatever what the problem of life was. To li
ve with all my might seemed to me easy; to learn where there was so much to lear
n seemed pleasant and almost of course; to
[p. 82]
lend a hand, if one had a chance, natural; and if one did this, why, he enjoyed
life because he could not help it, and without proving to himself that he ought
to enjoy it. . . . A child who is early taught that he is God's child, that he m
ay live and move and have his being in God, and that he has, therefore, infinite
strength at hand for the conquering of any difficulty, will take life more easi
ly, and probably will make more of it, than one who is told that he is born the
child of wrath and wholly incapable of good." [*1]
One can but recognize in such writers as these the presence of a temperament org
anically weighted on the side of cheer and fatally forbidden to linger, as those
of opposite temperament linger, over the darker aspects of the universe. In som
e individuals optimism may become quasi-pathological. The capacity for even a tr
ansient sadness or a momentary humility seems cut off from them as by a kind of
congenital anaesthesia. [*2]
[p. 83]
The supreme contemporary example of such an inability to feel evil is of course
Walt Whitman.
"His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke "seemed to be strollin
g or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the
flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to t
he birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds.
It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give t
o ordinary people. Until I knew the man," continues Dr. Bucke, "it had not occur
red to me that any one could derive so much absolute happiness from these things
as he did. He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated; liked all so
rts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps, in
deed, no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whi
tman. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All sights and sounds
seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the me
n, women, and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked any
one), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked oth
ers also. I never knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money.
He always justified, sometimes playfully, sometimes quite seriously, those who s
poke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he even took pleasu
re in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew [him], I used to think that h
e watched himself, and would not allow his tongue to give expression to fretfuln
ess, antipathy, complaint, and remonstrance. It did not occur to me as possible
that these mental states could be absent in him. After long observation, however
, I satisfied myself that such absence or unconsciousness was entirely real. He
never spoke deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men, or time in the wor
ld's history, or against any trades or occupations--not even against any animals
, insects, or inanimate things, nor any of the laws of nature, nor any of the re
sults of those laws, such as illness, deformity, and death. He never complained
or grumbled either at the weather, pain, illness, or anything else. He never swo
re. He could not very well, since he never spoke in anger and apparently never
[p. 84]
was angry. He never exhibited fear, and I do not believe he ever felt it." [*1]
Walt Whitman owes his importance in literature to the systematic expulsion from
his writings of all contractile elements. The only sentiments he allowed himself
to express were of the expansive order; and he expressed these in the first per
son, not as your mere monstrously conceited individual might so express them, bu
t vicariously for all men, so that a passionate and mystic ontological emotion s
uffuses his words, and ends by persuading the reader that men and women, life an
d death, and all things are divinely good.
Thus it has come about that many persons to-day regard Walt Whitman as the resto
rer of the eternal natural religion. He has infected them with his own love of c
omrades, with his own gladness that he and they exist. Societies are actually fo
rmed for his cult; a periodical organ exists for its propagation, in which the l
ines of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are already beginning to be drawn; [*2] hymns a
re written by others in his peculiar prosody; and he is even explicitly compared
with the founder of the Christian religion, not altogether to the advantage of
the latter.
Whitman is often spoken of as a "pagan." The word nowadays means sometimes the m
ere natural animal man without a sense of sin; sometimes it means a Greek or Rom
an with his own peculiar religious consciousness. In neither of these senses doe
s it fitly define this poet. He is more than your mere animal man who has not ta
sted of the tree of good and evil. He is aware enough of sin for a swagger to be
present in his indifference towards it, a conscious pride in his freedom from f
lexions and contractions, which your genuine pagan in the first sense of the wor
d would never show.
[p. 85]
"I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long;
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth." [*1]
No natural pagan could have written these well-known lines. But on the other han
d Whitman is less than a Greek or Roman; for their consciousness, even in Homeri
c times, was full to the brim of the sad mortality of this sunlit world, and suc
h a consciousness Walt Whitman resolutely refuses to adopt. When, for example, A
chilles, about to slay Lycaon, Priam's young son, hears him sue for mercy, he st
ops to say:--
"Ah, friend, thou too must die: why thus lamentest thou? Patroclos too is dead,
who was better far than thou. . . . Over me too hang death and forceful fate. Th
ere cometh morn or eve or some noonday when my life too some man shall take in b
attle, whether with spear he smite, or arrow from the string." [*2]
Then Achilles savagely severs the poor boy's neck with his sword, heaves him by
the foot into the Scamander, and calls to the fishes of the river to eat the whi
te fat of Lycaon. Just as here the cruelty and the sympathy each ring true, and
do not mix or interfere with one another, so did the Greeks and Romans keep all
their sadnesses and gladnesses unmingled and entire. Instinctive good they did n
ot reckon sin; nor had they any such desire to save the credit of the universe a
s to
[p. 86]
make them insist, as so many of us insist, that what immediately appears as evil
must be "good in the making," or something equally ingenious. Good was good, an
d bad just bad, for the earlier Greeks. They neither denied the ills of nature--
Walt Whitman's verse, "What is called good is perfect and what is called bad is
just as perfect," would have been mere silliness to them--nor did they, in order
to escape from those ills, invent "another and a better world" of the imaginati
on, in which, along with the ills, the innocent goods of sense would also find n
o place. This integrity of the instinctive reactions, this freedom from all mora
l sophistry and strain, gives a pathetic dignity to ancient pagan feeling. And t
his quality Whitman's outpourings have not got. His optimism is too voluntary an
d defiant; his gospel has a touch of bravado and an affected twist, [*1] and thi
s diminishes its effect on many readers who yet are well disposed towards optimi
sm, and on the whole quite willing to admit that in important respects Whitman i
s of the genuine lineage of the prophets.
If, then, we give the name of healthy-mindedness to the tendency which looks on
all things and sees that they are good, we find that we must distinguish between
a more involuntary and a more voluntary or systematic way of being healthy-mind
ed. In its involuntary variety, healthy-mindedness is a way of feeling happy abo
ut things immediately. In its systematical variety, it is an abstract way of con
ceiving things as good. Every abstract way of conceiving things selects some one
aspect of them as their essence for the time being, and disregards the other as
pects. Systematic healthy-mindedness, conceiving good as the essential and unive
rsal
[p. 87]
aspect of being, deliberately excludes evil from its field of vision; and althou
gh, when thus nakedly stated, this might seem a difficult feat to perform for on
e who is intellectually sincere with himself and honest about facts, a little re
flection shows that the situation is too complex to lie open to so simple a crit
icism.
In the first place, happiness, like every other emotional state, has blindness a
nd insensibility to opposing facts given it as its instinctive weapon for self-p
rotection against disturbance. When happiness is actually in possession, the tho
ught of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good
can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whateve
r cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in. He must ignore it; an
d to the bystander he may then seem perversely to shut his eyes to it and hush i
t up.
But more than this: the hushing of it up may, in a perfectly candid and honest m
ind, grow into a deliberate religious policy, or parti pris. Much of what we cal
l evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be co
nverted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner
attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its sting so often departs and turns
into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and
bear it cheerfully, that a man is simply bound in honor, with reference to many
of the facts that seem at first to disconcert his peace, to adopt this way of e
scape. Refuse to admit their badness; despise their power; ignore their presence
; turn your attention the other way; and so far as you yourself are concerned at
any rate, though the facts may still exist, their evil character exists no long
er. Since you make them evil or good by your own thoughts about them, it is the
ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.
The deliberate adoption of an optimistic turn of mind thus makes its entrance in
to philosophy. And once in, it is
[p. 88]
hard to trace its lawful bounds. Not only does the human instinct for happiness,
bent on self-protection by ignoring, keep working in its favor, but higher inne
r ideals have weighty words to say. The attitude of unhappiness is not only pain
ful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unworthy than the pining, pu
ling, mumping mood, no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered?
What is more injurious to others? What less helpful as a way out of the difficul
ty? It but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it, and increase
s the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to reduce the sw
ay of that mood; we ought to scout it in ourselves and others, and never show it
tolerance. But it is impossible to carry on this discipline in the subjective s
phere without zealously emphasizing the brighter and minimizing the darker aspec
ts of the objective sphere of things at the same time. And thus our resolution n
ot to indulge in misery, beginning at a comparatively small point within ourselv
es, may not stop until it has brought the entire frame of reality under a system
atic conception optimistic enough to be congenial with its needs.
In all this I say nothing of any mystical insight or persuasion that the total f
rame of things absolutely must be good. Such mystical persuasion plays an enormo
us part in the history of the religious consciousness, and we must look at it la
ter with some care. But we need not go so far at present. More ordinary non-myst
ical conditions of rapture suffice for my immediate contention. All invasive mor
al states and passionate enthusiasms make one feelingless to evil in some direct
ion. The common penalties cease to deter the patriot, the usual prudences are fl
ung by the lover to the winds. When the passion is extreme, suffering may actual
ly be gloried in, provided it be for the ideal cause, death may lose its sting,
the grave its victory. In these states, the ordinary contrast of good and ill se
ems to be swallowed up in a higher denomination, an omnipotent excitement which
engulfs the evil, and
[p. 89]
which the human being welcomes as the crowning experience of his life. This, he
says, is truly to live, and I exult in the heroic opportunity and adventure.
The systematic cultivation of healthy-mindedness as a religious attitude is ther
efore consonant with important currents in human nature, and is anything but abs
urd. In fact. we all do cultivate it more or less, even when our professed theol
ogy should in consistency forbid it. We divert our attention from disease and de
ath as much as we can; and the slaughter-houses and indecencies without end on w
hich our life is founded are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that t
he world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fictio
n far handsomer and cleaner and better than the world that really is. [*1]
The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty yea
rs, may fairly be called a victory of healthy-mindedness within the church over
the morbidness with which the old hell-fire theology was more harmoniously relat
ed. We have now whole congregations whose preachers, far from magnifying our con
sciousness of sin, seem devoted rather to making little of it. They ignore, or e
ven deny, eternal punishment, and insist on the dignity rather than on the depra
vity of man. They look at the continual preoccupation of the old-fashioned Chris
tian with the salvation of his soul as something sickly and reprehensible rather
than admirable; and a sanguine and "muscular" attitude. which to our forefather
s would have seemed purely heathen, has become in their eyes an ideal element of
Christian character. I am not asking whether or not they are right, I am only p
ointing out the change.
[p. 90]
The persons to whom I refer have still retained for the most part their nominal
connection with Christianity, in spite of their discarding of its more pessimist
ic theological elements. But in that "theory of evolution" which, gathering mome
ntum for a century, has within the past twenty-five years swept so rapidly over
Europe and America, we see the ground laid for a new sort of religion of Nature,
which has entirely displaced Christianity from the thought of a large part of o
ur generation. The idea of a universal evolution lends itself to a doctrine of g
eneral meliorism and progress which fits the religious needs of the healthy-mind
ed so well that it seems almost as if it might have been created for their use.
Accordingly we find "evolutionism" interpreted thus optimistically and embraced
as a substitute for the religion they were born in, by a multitude of our contem
poraries who have either been trained scientifically, or been fond of reading po
pular science, and who had already begun to be inwardly dissatisfied with what s
eemed to them the harshness and irrationality of the orthodox Christian scheme.
As examples are better than descriptions, I will quote a document received in an
swer to Professor Starbuck's circular of questions.
The writer's state of mind may by courtesy be called a religion, for it is his r
eaction on the whole nature of things, it is systematic and reflective and it lo
yally binds him to certain inner ideals. I think you will recognize in him, coar
se-meated and incapable of wounded spirit as he is, a sufficiently familiar cont
emporary type.
Q. What does Religion mean to you?
A. It means nothing; and it seems, so far as I can observe useless to others. I
am sixty-seven years of age and have resided in X fifty years, and have been in
business forty-five, consequently I have some little experience of life and men,
and some women too, and I find that the most religious and pious people are as
a rule those most lacking in uprightness and morality.
[p. 91]
[paragraph continues] The men who do not go to church or have any religious conv
ictions are the best. Praying, singing of hymns, and sermonizing are pernicious-
-they teach us to rely on some supernatural power, when we ought to rely on ours
elves. I teetotally disbelieve in a God. The God-idea was begotten in ignorance,
fear, and a general lack of any knowledge of Nature. If I were to die now, bein
g in a healthy condition for my age, both mentally and physically, I would just
as lief, yes, rather, die with a hearty enjoyment of music, sport, or any other
rational pastime. As a timepiece stops, we die--there being no immortality in ei
ther case.
Q. What comes before your mind corresponding to the words God, Heaven, Angels, e
tc?
A. Nothing whatever. I am a man without a religion. These words mean so much myt
hic bosh.
Q. Have you had any experiences which appeared providential?
A. None whatever. There is no agency of the superintending kind. A little judici
ous observation as well as knowledge of scientific law will convince any one of
this fact.
Q. What things work most strongly on your emotions?
A. Lively songs and music; Pinafore instead of an Oratorio. I like Scott, Burns,
Byron, Longfellow, especially Shakespeare, etc., etc. Of songs, the Star-Spangl
ed Banner, America, Marseillaise, and all moral and soul-stirring songs, but wis
hy-washy hymns are my detestation. I greatly enjoy nature, especially fine weath
er, and until within a few years used to walk Sundays into the country, twelve m
iles often, with no fatigue, and bicycle forty or fifty. I have dropped the bicy
cle. I never go to church, but attend lectures when there are any good ones. All
of my thoughts and cogitations have been of a healthy and cheerful kind, for in
stead of doubts and fears I see things as they are, for I endeavor to adjust mys
elf to my environment. This I regard as the deepest law. Mankind is a progressiv
e animal. I am satisfied he will have made a great advance over his present stat
us a thousand years hence.
Q. What is your notion of sin?
A. It seems to me that sin is a condition, a disease, incidental to man's develo
pment not being yet advanced enough. Morbidness
[p. 92]
over it increases the disease. We should think that a million of years hence equ
ity, justice, and mental and physical good order will be so fixed and organized
that no one will have any idea of evil or sin.
Q. What is your temperament?
A. Nervous, active, wide-awake, mentally and physically. Sorry that Nature compe
ls us to sleep at all.
If we are in search of a broken and a contrite heart, clearly we need not look t
o this brother. His contentment with the finite incases him like a lobster-shell
and shields him from all morbid repining at his distance from the infinite. We
have in him an excellent example of the optimism which may be encouraged by popu
lar science.
To my mind a current far more important and interesting religiously than that wh
ich sets in from natural science towards healthy-mindedness is that which has re
cently poured over America and seems to be gathering force every day--I am ignor
ant what foothold it may yet have acquired in Great Britain--and to which, for t
he sake of having a brief designation, I will give the title of the "Mind-cure m
ovement." There are various sects of this "New Thought," to use another of the n
ames by which it calls itself; but their agreements are so profound that their d
ifferences may be neglected for my present purpose, and I will treat the movemen
t, without apology, as if it were a simple thing.
It is a deliberately optimistic scheme of life, with both a speculative and a pr
actical side. In its gradual development during the last quarter of a century, i
t has taken up into itself a number of contributory elements, and it must now be
reckoned with as a genuine religious power. It has reached the stage, for examp
le, when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff, mech
anically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent supplied by publishe
rs--a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until a religion has got well past i
ts earliest insecure beginnings.
[p. 93]
One of the doctrinal sources of Mind-cure is the four Gospels; another is Emerso
nianism or New England transcendentalism; another is Berkeleyan idealism; anothe
r is spiritism, with its messages of "law" and "progress" and "development"; ano
ther the optimistic popular science evolutionism of which I have recently spoken
; and, finally, Hinduism has contributed a strain. But the most characteristic f
eature of the mind-cure movement is an inspiration much more direct. The leaders
in this faith have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-m
inded attitudes as such, in the conquering efficacy of courage, hope, and trust,
and a correlative contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously precaution
ary states of mind. [*1] Their belief has in a general way been corroborated by
the practical experience of their disciples; and this experience forms to-day a
mass imposing in amount.
The blind have been made to see, the halt to walk; life-long invalids have had t
heir health restored. The moral fruits have been no less remarkable. The deliber
ate adoption of a healthy-minded attitude has proved possible to many who never
supposed they had it in them; regeneration of character has gone on on an extens
ive scale; and cheerfulness has been restored to countless homes. The indirect i
nfluence of this has been great. The mind-cure principles are beginning so to pe
rvade the air that one catches their spirit at second-hand. One hears of the "Go
spel of Relaxation," of the "Don't Worry Movement," of people who repeat to them
selves, "Youth, health, vigor!" when dressing in the morning, as their motto for
the day. Complaints
[p. 94]
of the weather are getting to be forbidden in many households; and more and more
people are recognizing it to be bad form to speak of disagreeable sensations, o
r to make much of the ordinary inconveniences and ailments of life. These genera
l tonic effects on public opinion would be good even if the more striking result
s were non-existent. But the latter abound so that we can afford to overlook the
innumerable failures and self-deceptions that are mixed in with them (for in ev
erything human failure is a matter of course), and we can also overlook the verb
iage of a good deal of the mind-cure literature, some of which is so moonstruck
with optimism and so vaguely expressed that an academically trained intellect fi
nds it almost impossible to read it at all.
The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been due to practical
fruits, and the extremely practical turn of character of the American people ha
s never been better shown than by the fact that this, their only decidedly origi
nal contribution to the systematic philosophy of life, should be so intimately k
nit up with concrete therapeutics. To the importance of mind-cure the medical an
d clerical professions in the United States are beginning, though with much reca
lcitrancy and protesting, to open their eyes. It is evidently bound to develop s
till farther, both speculatively and practically, and its latest writers are far
and away the ablest of the group. [*1] It matters nothing that, just as there a
re hosts of persons who cannot pray, so there are greater hosts who cannot by an
y possibility be influenced by the mind-curers' ideas. For our immediate purpose
, the important point is that so large a number should exist who can
[p. 95]
be so influenced. They form a psychic type to be studied with respect. [*1]
[p. 96]
To come now to a little closer quarters with their creed. The fundamental pillar
on which it rests is nothing more than the general basis of all religious exper
ience, the fact that man has a dual nature, and is connected with two spheres of
thought, a shallower and a profounder sphere, in either of which he may learn t
o live more habitually. The shallower and lower sphere is that of the fleshly se
nsations, instincts, and desires, of egotism, doubt, and the lower personal inte
rests. But whereas Christian theology has always considered frowardness to be th
e essential vice of this part of human nature, the mind-curers say that the mark
of the beast in it is fear; and this is what gives such an entirely new religio
us turn to their persuasion.
"Fear," to quote a writer of the school, "has had its uses in the evolutionary p
rocess, and seems to constitute the whole of forethought in most animals; but th
at it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is
an absurdity. I find that the fear clement of forethought is not stimulating to
those more civilized persons to whom duty and attraction are the natural motives
, but is weakening and deterrent. As soon as it becomes unnecessary, fear become
s a positive deterrent, and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh is removed
from living tissue. To assist in the analysis of fear and in the denunciation o
f its expressions, I have coined the word fearthought to stand for the unprofita
ble element of forethought, and have defined the word 'worry' as fearthought in
contradistinction to forethought. I have also defined fearthought as the self-im
posed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority, in order to place it where it
really belongs, in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not resp
ectable things." [*1]
[p. 97]
The "misery-habit," the "martyr-habit," engendered by the prevalent "fearthought
," get pungent criticism from the mind-cure writers:--
"Consider for a moment the habits of life into which we are born. There are cert
ain social conventions or customs and alleged requirements, there is a theologic
al bias, a general view of the world. There are conservative ideas in regard to
our early training, our education, marriage, and occupation in life. Following c
lose upon this, there is a long series of anticipations, namely, that we shall s
uffer certain children's diseases, diseases of middle life, and of old age; the
thought that we shall grow old, lose our faculties, and again become childlike;
while crowning all is the fear of death. Then there is a long line of particular
tears and trouble-bearing expectations, such, for example, as ideas associated
with certain articles of food, the dread of the east wind, the terrors of hot we
ather, the aches and pains associated with cold weather, the fear of catching co
ld if one sits in a draught, the coming of hay-fever upon the 14th of August in
the middle of the day, and so on through a long list of fears, dreads, worriment
s, anxieties, anticipations, expectations, pessimisms, morbidities, and the whol
e ghostly train of fateful shapes which our fellow-men, and especially physician
s, are ready to help us conjure up, an array worthy to rank with Bradley's 'unea
rthly ballet of bloodless categories.'
"Yet this is not all. This vast array is swelled by innumerable volunteers from
daily life--the fear of accident, the possibility of calamity, the loss of prope
rty, the chance of robbery, of fire, or the outbreak of war. And it is not deeme
d sufficient to fear for ourselves. When a friend is taken ill, we must forth wi
th fear the worst and apprehend death. If one meets with sorrow . . . sympathy m
eans to enter into and increase the suffering." [*1]
"Man," to quote another writer, "often has fear stamped upon him before his entr
ance into the outer world; he is reared in fear; all his life is passed in bonda
ge to fear of disease and death, and thus his whole mentality becomes cramped, l
imited,
[p. 98]
and depressed, and his body follows its shrunken pattern and specification . . .
Think of the millions of sensitive and responsive souls among our ancestors who
have been under the dominion of such a perpetual nightmare! Is it not surprisin
g that health exists at all? Nothing but the boundless divine love? exuberance,
and vitality, constantly poured in, even though unconsciously to us, could in so
me degree neutralize such an ocean of morbidity." [*1]
Although the disciples of the mind-cure often use Christian terminology, one see
s from such quotations how widely their notion of the fall of man diverges from
that of ordinary Christians. [*2]
Their notion of man's higher nature is hardly less divergent, being decidedly pa
ntheistic. The spiritual in man appears
[p. 99]
in the mind-cure philosophy as partly conscious, but chiefly subconscious; and t
hrough the subconscious part of it we are already one with the Divine without an
y miracle of grace, or abrupt creation of a new inner man. As this view is vario
usly expressed by different writers, we find in it traces of Christian mysticism
, of transcendental idealism, of vedantism, and of the modern psychology of the
subliminal self. A quotation or two will put us at the central point of view:--
"The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infinite life and powe
r that is back of all, that manifests itself in and through all. This spirit of
infinite life and power that is back of all is what I call God. I care not what
term you may use, be it Kindly Light, Providence, the Over-Soul, Omnipotence, or
whatever term may be most convenient, so long as we are agreed in regard to the
great central fact itself. God then fills the universe alone, so that all is fr
om Him and in Him, and there is nothing that is outside. He is the life of our l
ife our very life itself. We are partakers of the life of God; and though we dif
fer from Him in that we are individualized spirits, while He is the Infinite Spi
rit, including us, as well as all else beside, yet in essence the life of God an
d the life of man are identically the same, and so are one. They differ not in e
ssence or quality; they differ in degree.
"The great central fact in human life is the coming into a conscious vital reali
zation of our oneness with this Infinite Life and the opening of ourselves fully
to this divine inflow. In just the degree that we come into a conscious realiza
tion of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and open ourselves to this divine in
flow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the Infinite Life
, do we make ourselves channels through which the Infinite Intelligence and Powe
r can work. In just the degree in which you realize your oneness with the Infini
te Spirit, you will exchange dis-ease for ease, inharmony for harmony, suffering
and pain for abounding health and strength. To recognize our own divinity, and
our intimate relation to the Universal, is to attach the belts of our machinery
to the powerhouse
[p. 100]
of the Universe. One need remain in hell no longer than one chooses to; we can r
ise to any heaven we ourselves choose; and when we choose so to rise, all the hi
gher powers of the Universe combine to help us heavenward." [*1]
Let me now pass from these abstracter statements to some more concrete accounts
of experience with the mind-cure religion. I have many answers from corresponden
ts--the only difficulty is to choose. The first two whom I shall quote are my pe
rsonal friends. One of them, a woman, writing as follows, expresses well the fee
ling of continuity with the Infinite Power, by which all mind-cure disciples are
inspired.
"The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness, or depression is the huma
n sense of separateness from that Divine Energy which we call God. The soul whic
h can feel and affirm in serene but jubilant confidence, as did the Nazarene: 'I
and my Father are one,' has no further need of healer, or of healing. This is t
he whole truth in a nutshell, and other foundation for wholeness can no man lay
than this fact of impregnable divine union. Disease can no longer attack one who
se feet are planted on this rock, who feels hourly, momently, the influx of the
Deific Breath. If one with Omnipotence, how can weariness enter the consciousnes
s, how illness assail that indomitable spark?
"This possibility of annulling forever the law of fatigue has been abundantly pr
oven in my own case; for my earlier life bears a record of many, many years of b
edridden invalidism, with spine and lower limbs paralyzed. My thoughts were no m
ore impure than they are to-day, although my belief in the necessity of illness
was dense and unenlightened; but since my resurrection in the flesh, I have work
ed as a healer unceasingly for fourteen years without a vacation, and can truthf
ully assert that I have never known a moment of fatigue or pain, although coming
in touch constantly with excessive weakness, illness, and disease of all kinds.
For how can a conscious part of Deity be
[p. 101]
sick?--since 'Greater is he that is with us than all that can strive against us.
'" My second correspondent, also a woman, sends me the following statement:--
"Life seemed difficult to me at one time. I was always breaking down, and had se
veral attacks of what is called nervous prostration, with terrible insomnia, bei
ng on the verge of insanity; besides having many other troubles, especially of t
he digestive organs. I had been sent away from home in charge of doctors, had ta
ken all the narcotics, stopped all work, been fed up, and in fact knew all the d
octors within reach. But I never recovered permanently till this New Thought too
k possession of me.
"I think that the one thing which impressed me most was learning the fact that w
e must be in absolutely constant relation or mental touch (this word is to me ve
ry expressive) with that essence of life which permeates all and which we call G
od. This is almost unrecognizable unless we live it into ourselves actually, tha
t is, by a constant turning to the very innermost, deepest consciousness of our
real selves or of God in us, for illumination from within, just as we turn to th
e sun for light, warmth, and invigoration without. When you do this consciously,
realizing that to turn inward to the light within you is to live in the presenc
e of God or your divine self, you soon discover the unreality of the objects to
which you have hitherto been turning and which have engrossed you without.
"I have come to disregard the meaning of this attitude for bodily health as such
, because that comes of itself, as an incidental result, and cannot be found by
any special mental act or desire to have it, beyond that general attitude of min
d I have referred to above. That which we usually make the object of life, those
outer things we are all so wildly seeking, which we so often live and die for,
but which then do not give us peace and happiness, they should all come of thems
elves as accessory, and as the mere outcome or natural result of a far higher li
fe sunk deep in the bosom of the spirit. This life is the real seeking of the ki
ngdom of God, the desire for his supremacy in our
[p. 102]
hearts, so that all else comes as that which shall be 'added unto you'--as quite
incidental and as a surprise to us, perhaps; and yet it is the proof of the rea
lity of the perfect poise in the very centre of our being.
"When I say that we commonly make the object of our life that which we should no
t work for primarily, I mean many things which the world considers praiseworthy
and excellent, such as success in business, fame as author or artist, physician
or lawyer, or renown in philanthropic undertakings. Such things should be result
s, not objects. I would also include pleasures of many kinds which seem harmless
and good at the time, and are pursued because many accept them--I mean conventi
onalities, sociabilities, and fashions in their various development, these being
mostly approved by the masses, although they may be unreal, and even unhealthy
superfluities."
Here is another case, more concrete, also that of a woman. I read you these case
s without comment--they express so many varieties of the state of mind we are st
udying.
"I had been a sufferer from my childhood till my fortieth year. [Details of ill-
health are given which I omit.] I had been in Vermont several months hoping for
good from the change of air, but steadily growing weaker, when one day during th
e latter part of October, while resting in the afternoon, I suddenly heard as it
were these words: 'You will be healed and do a work you never dreamed of.' Thes
e words were impressed upon my mind with such power I said at once that only God
 could have put them there. I believed them in spite of myself and of my sufferi
ng and weakness, which continued until Christmas, when I returned to Boston. Wit
hin two days a young friend offered to take me to a mental healer (this was Janu
ary 7, 1881). The healer said: 'There is nothing but Mind; we are expressions of
the One Mind; body is only a mortal belief; as a man thinketh so is he.' I coul
d not accept all she said, but I translated all that was there for me in this wa
y: 'There is nothing but God; I am created by Him, and am absolutely dependent u
pon Him; mind is given me to use; and by just so much of it as I will put upon t
he thought of right action in body I
[p. 103]
shall be lifted out of bondage to my ignorance and fear and past experience.' Th
at day I commenced accordingly to take a little of every food provided for the f
amily, constantly saying to myself: 'The Power that created the stomach must tak
e care of what I have eaten.' By holding these suggestions through the evening I
went to bed and fell asleep, saying: 'I am soul, spirit, just one with God's Th
ought of me,' and slept all night without waking, for the first time in several
years [the distress-turns had usually recurred about two o'clock in the night].
I felt the next day like an escaped prisoner, and believed I had found the secre
t that would in time give me perfect health. Within ten days I was able to eat a
nything provided for others, and after two weeks I began to have my own positive
mental suggestions of Truth, which were to me like stepping-stones. I will note
a few of them, they came about two weeks apart.
"1st. I am Soul, therefore it is well with me.
"2d. I am Soul, therefore I am well.
"3d. A sort of inner vision of myself as a four-footed beast with a protuberance
on every part of my body where I had suffering, with my own face, begging me to
acknowledge it as myself. I resolutely fixed my attention on being well, and re
fused to even look at my old self in this form.
"4th. Again the vision of the beast far in the background, with faint voice. Aga
in refusal to acknowledge.
"5th. Once more the vision, but only of my eyes with the longing look; and again
the refusal. Then came the conviction, the inner consciousness, that I was perf
ectly well and always had been, for I was Soul, an expression of God's Perfect T
hought. That was to me the perfect and completed separation between what I was a
nd what I appeared to be. I succeeded in never losing sight after this of my rea
l being, by constantly affirming this truth, and by degrees (though it took me t
wo years of hard work to get there) I expressed health continuously throughout m
y whole body.
"In my subsequent nineteen years' experience I have never known this Truth to fa
il when I applied it, though in my ignorance I have often failed to apply it, bu
t through my failures I have learned the simplicity and trustfulness of the litt
le child."
[p. 104]
But I fear that I risk tiring you by so many examples, and I must lead you back
to philosophic generalities again. You see already by such records of experience
how impossible it is not to class mind-cure as primarily a religious movement.
Its doctrine of the oneness of our life with God's life is in fact quite indisti
nguishable from an interpretation of Christ's message which in these very Giffor
d lectures has been defended by some of your very ablest Scottish religious phil
osophers. [*1]
But philosophers usually profess to give a quasi-logical explanation of the exis
tence of evil, whereas of the general fact of evil in the world, the existence o
f the selfish, suffering,
[p. 105]
timorous finite consciousness, the mind-curers, so far as I am acquainted with t
hem, profess to give no speculative explanation Evil is empirically there for th
em as it is for everybody, but the practical point of view predominates, and it
would ill agree with the spirit of their system to spend time in worrying over i
t as a "mystery" or "problem," or in "laying to heart" the lesson of its experie
nce, after the manner of the Evangelicals. Don't reason about it, as Dante says,
but give a glance and pass beyond! It is Avidhya, ignorance! something merely t
o be outgrown and left be hind, transcended and forgotten. Christian Science so-
called, the sect of Mrs. Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure in its de
alings with evil. For it evil is simply a lie, and any one who mentions it is a
liar. The optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay it the compliment even of e
xplicit attention. Of course, as our next lectures will show us, this is a bad s
peculative omission, but it is intimately linked with the practical merits of th
e system we are examining. Why regret a philosophy of evil, a mind-curer would a
sk us, if I can put you in possession of a life of good?
After all, it is the life that tells; and mind-cure has developed a living syste
m of mental hygiene which may well claim to have thrown all previous literature
of the Diatetik der Seele into the shade. This system is wholly and exclusively
compacted of optimism: "Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power." "
Thoughts are things," as one of the most vigorous mind-cure writers prints in bo
ld type at the bottom of each of his pages; and if your thoughts are of health,
youth, vigor, and success, before you know it these things will also be your out
ward portion. No one can fail of the regenerative influence of optimistic thinki
ng, pertinaciously pursued. Every man owns indefeasibly this inlet to the divine
. Fear, on the contrary, and all the contracted and egoistic modes of thought, a
re inlets to destruction. Most mind-curers here bring in a doctrine that thought
s are
[p. 106]
[paragraph continues] "forces," and that, by virtue of a law that like attracts
like, one man's thoughts draw to themselves as allies all the thoughts of the sa
me character that exist the world over. Thus one gets, by one's thinking, reinfo
rcements from elsewhere for the realization of one's desires; and the great poin
t in the conduct of life is to get the heavenly forces on one's side by opening
one's own mind to their influx.
On the whole, one is struck by a psychological similarity between the mind-cure
movement and the Lutheran and Wesleyan movements. To the believer in moralism an
d works, with his anxious query, "What shall I do to be saved?" Luther and Wesle
y replied: "You are saved now, if you would but believe it." And the mind-curers
come with precisely similar words of emancipation. They speak, it is true, to p
ersons for whom the conception of salvation has lost its ancient theological mea
ning, but who labor nevertheless with the same eternal human difficulty. Things
are wrong with them; and "What shall I do to be clear, right, sound, whole, well
?" is the form of their question. And the answer is: "You are well, sound, and c
lear already, if you did but know it." "The whole matter may be summed up in one
sentence," says one of the authors whom I have already quoted, "God is well, an
d so are you. You must awaken to the knowledge of your real being."
The adequacy of their message to the mental needs of a large fraction of mankind
is what gave force to those earlier gospels. Exactly the same adequacy holds in
 the case of the mind-cure message, foolish as it may sound upon its surface; an
d seeing its rapid growth in influence, and its therapeutic triumphs, one is tem
pted to ask whether it may not be destined (probably by very reason of the crudi
ty and extravagance of many of its manifestations [*1]) to play a part almost
[p. 107]
as great in the evolution of the popular religion of the future as did those ear
lier movements in their day.

But I here fear that I may begin to "jar upon the nerves" of some of the members
of this academic audience. Such contemporary vagaries, you may think, should ha
rdly take so large a place in dignified Gifford lectures. I can only beseech you
to have patience. The whole outcome of these lectures will, I imagine, be the e
mphasizing to your mind of the enormous diversities which the spiritual lives of
different men exhibit. Their wants, their susceptibilities, and their capacitie
s all vary and must be classed under different heads. The result is that we have
really different types of religious experience; and, seeking in these lectures
closer acquaintance with the healthy-minded type, we must take it where we find
it in most radical form. The psychology of individual types of character has har
dly begun even to be sketched as yet--our lectures may possibly serve as a crumb
-like contribution to the structure. The first thing to bear in mind (especially
if we ourselves belong to the clerico-academic-scientific type, the officially
and conventionally "correct" type, "the deadly respectable" type, for which to i
gnore others is a besetting temptation) is that nothing can be more stupid than
to bar out phenomena from our notice, merely because we are incapable of taking
part in anything like them ourselves.
Now the history of Lutheran salvation by faith, of methodistic conversions, and
of what I call the mind-cure movement seems to prove the existence of numerous p
ersons in whom--at any rate at a certain stage in their development--a change of
character for the better, so far from being facilitated by the rules laid down
by official moralists, will take place all the more successfully if those rules
be exactly
[p. 108]
reversed. Official moralists advise us never to relax our strenuousness. "Be vig
ilant, day and night," they adjure us; "hold your passive tendencies in check; s
hrink from no effort; keep your will like a bow always bent." But the persons I
speak of find that all this conscious effort leads to nothing but failure and ve
xation in their hands, and only makes them twofold more the children of hell the
y were before. The tense and voluntary attitude becomes in them an impossible fe
ver and torment. Their machinery refuses to run at all when the bearings are mad
e so hot and the belts so tight.
Under these circumstances the way to success, as vouched for by innumerable auth
entic personal narrations, is by an anti-moralistic method, by the "surrender" o
f which I spoke in my second lecture. Passivity, not activity; relaxation, not i
ntentness, should be now the rule. Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go
your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indif
ferent as to what becomes of it all, and you will find not only that you gain a
perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sin
cerely thought you were renouncing. This is the salvation through self-despair,
the dying to be truly born, of Lutheran theology, the passage into nothing of wh
ich Jacob Behmen writes. To get to it, a critical point must usually be passed,
a corner turned within one. Something must give way, a native hardness must brea
k down and liquefy; and this event (as we shall abundantly see hereafter) is fre
quently sudden and automatic, and leaves on the Subject an impression that he ha
s been wrought on by an external power.
Whatever its ultimate significance may prove to be, this is certainly one fundam
ental form of human experience. Some say that the capacity or incapacity for it
is what divides the religious from the merely moralistic character. With those w
ho undergo it in its fullness, no criticism avails
[p. 109]
to cast doubt on its reality. They know; for they have actually felt the higher
powers, in giving up the tension of their personal will.
A story which revivalist preachers often tell is that of a man who found himself
at night slipping down the side of a precipice. At last he caught a branch whic
h stopped his fall, and remained clinging to it in misery for hours. But finally
his fingers had to loose their hold, and with a despairing farewell to life, he
let himself drop. He fell just six inches. If he had given up the struggle earl
ier, his agony would have been spared. As the mother earth received him, so, the
preachers tell us, will the everlasting arms receive us if we confide absolutel
y in them, and give up the hereditary habit of relying on our personal strength,
with its precautions that cannot shelter and safeguards that never save.
The mind-curers have given the widest scope to this sort of experience. They hav
e demonstrated that a form of regeneration by relaxing, by letting go, psycholog
ically indistinguishable from the Lutheran justification by faith and the Wesley
an acceptance of free grace, is within the reach of persons who have no convicti
on of sin and care nothing for the Lutheran theology. It is but giving your litt
le private convulsive self a rest, and finding that a greater Self is there. The
results, slow or sudden, or great or small, of the combined optimism and expect
ancy, the regenerative phenomena which ensue on the abandonment of effort, remai
n firm facts of human nature, no matter whether we adopt a theistic, a pantheist
ic-idealistic, or a medical-materialistic view of their ultimate causal explanat
ion. [*1]
[p. 110]
When we take up the phenomena of revivalistic conversion, we shall learn somethi
ng more about all this. Meanwhile I will say a brief word about the mind-curer's
methods.
They are of course largely suggestive. The suggestive influence of environment p
lays an enormous part in all spiritual education.
But the word "suggestion," having acquired official status, is unfortunately alr
eady beginning to play in many quarters the part of a wet blanket upon investiga
tion, being used to fend off all inquiry into the varying susceptibilities of in
dividual cases. "Suggestion" is only another name for the power of ideas, so far
as they prove efficacious over belief and conduct. Ideas efficacious over some
people prove inefficacious over others. Ideas efficacious at some times and in s
ome human surroundings are not so at other times and elsewhere. The ideas of Chr
istian churches are not efficacious in the therapeutic direction to-day, whateve
r they may have been in earlier centuries; and when the whole question is as to
why the salt has lost its savor here or gained it there, the mere blank waving o
f the word "suggestion" as if it were a banner gives no light. Dr. Goddard, whos
e candid psychological essay on Faith Cures ascribes them to nothing but ordinar
y suggestion, concludes by saying that "Religion [and by this he seems to mean o
ur popular Christianity] has in it all there is in mental therapeutics, and has
it in its best form. Living up to [our religious] ideas will do anything for us
that can be done." And this in spite of the actual fact that the popular Christi
anity
[p. 111]
does absolutely nothing, or did nothing until mind-cure came to the rescue. [*1]
[p. 112]
An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of a revel
ation. The mind-cure with its gospel of healthy-mindedness has come as a revelat
ion to many whose hearts the church Christianity had left hardened. It has let l
oose their springs of higher life. In what can the originality of any religious
movement consist, save in finding a channel, until then sealed up, through which
those springs may be set free in some group of human beings?
The force of personal faith, enthusiasm, and example, and above all the force of
novelty, are always the prime suggestive agency in this kind of success. If min
d-cure should ever become official, respectable, and intrenched, these elements
of suggestive efficacy will be lost. In its acuter stages every religion must be
a homeless Arab of the desert. The church knows this well enough, with its ever
lasting inner struggle of the acute religion of the few against the chronic reli
gion of the many, indurated into an obstructiveness worse than that which irreli
gion opposes to the movings of the Spirit. "We may pray," says Jonathan Edwards,
"concerning all those saints that are not lively Christians, that they may eith
er be enlivened, or taken away; if that be true that is often said by some at th
is day, that these cold dead saints do more hurt than natural men, and lead more
souls to hell, and that it would be well for mankind if they were all dead." [*
1]
The next condition of success is the apparent existence, in large numbers, of mi
nds who unite healthy-mindedness with readiness for regeneration by letting go.
Protestantism has been too pessimistic as regards the natural man, Catholicism h
as been too legalistic and moralistic, for either the one or the other to appeal
in any generous way to the type
[p. 113]
of character formed of this peculiar mingling of elements. However few of us her
e present may belong to such a type, it is now evident that it forms a specific
moral combination, well represented in the world.
Finally, mind-cure has made what in our protestant countries is an unprecedented
ly great use of the subconscious life. To their reasoned advice and dogmatic ass
ertion, its founders have added systematic exercise in passive relaxation, conce
ntration, and meditation, and have even invoked something like hypnotic practice
. I quote some passages at random:--
"The value, the potency of ideals is the great practical truth on which the New
Thought most strongly insists--the development namely from within outward, from
small to great. [*1] Consequently one's thought should be centred on the ideal o
utcome, even though this trust be literally like a step in the dark. [*2] To att
ain the ability thus effectively to direct the mind, the New Thought advises the
practice of concentration, or in other words, the attainment of self-control. O
ne is to learn to marshal the tendencies of the mind, so that they may be held t
ogether as a unit by the chosen ideal. To this end, one should set apart times f
or silent meditation, by one's self, preferably in a room where the surroundings
are favorable to spiritual thought. In New Thought terms, this is called 'enter
ing the silence.'" [*3]
"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 an
d realizing that there and everywhere the Spirit of Infinite Life, Love, Wisdom,
Peace, Power, and Plenty is guiding, keeping, protecting, leading you. This is
the spirit of continual prayer. [*4] One of the most intuitive men we ever met h
ad a desk at a city office where several other gentlemen were doing business con
stantly, and often talking
[p. 114]
loudly. Entirely undisturbed by the many various sounds about him, this self-cen
tred faithful man would, in any moment of perplexity, draw the curtains of priva
cy so completely about him that he would be as fully inclosed in his own psychic
aura, and thereby as effectually removed from all distractions, as though he we
re alone in some primeval wood. Taking his difficulty with him into the mystic s
ilence in the form of a direct question, to which he expected a certain answer,
he would remain utterly passive until the reply came, and never once through man
y years' experience did he find himself disappointed or misled." [*1]
Wherein, I should like to know, does this intrinsically differ from the practice
of "recollection" which plays so great a part in Catholic discipline? Otherwise
called the practice of the presence of God (and so known among ourselves, as fo
r instance in Jeremy Taylor), it is thus defined by the eminent teacher Alvarez
de Paz in his work on Contemplation.
"It is the recollection of God, the thought of God, which in all places and circ
umstances makes us see him present, lets us commune respectfully and lovingly wi
th him, and fills us with desire and affection for him. . . . Would you escape f
rom every ill? Never lose this recollection of God, neither in prosperity nor in
adversity, nor on any occasion whichsoever it be. Invoke not, to excuse yoursel
f from this duty, either the difficulty or the importance of your business, for
you can always remember that God sees you, that you are under his eye. If a thou
sand times an hour you forget him, reanimate a thousand times the recollection.
If you cannot practice this exercise continuously, at least make yourself as fam
iliar with it as possible; and, like unto those who in a rigorous winter draw ne
ar the fire as often as they can, go as often as you can to that ardent fire whi
ch will warm your soul." [*2]
[p. 115]
All the external associations of the Catholic discipline are of course unlike an
ything in mind-cure thought, but the purely spiritual part of the exercise is id
entical in both communions, and in both communions those who urge it write with
authority, for they have evidently experienced in their own persons that whereof
they tell. Compare again some mind-cure utterances:--
"High, healthful, pure thinking can be encouraged, promoted, and strengthened. I
ts current can be turned upon grand ideals until it forms a habit and wears a ch
annel. By means of such discipline the mental horizon can be flooded with the su
nshine of beauty, wholeness, and harmony. To inaugurate pure and lofty thinking
may at first seem difficult, even almost mechanical, but perseverance will at le
ngth render it easy, then pleasant, and finally delightful.
"The soul's real world is that which it has built of its thoughts, mental states
, and imaginations. If we WILL, we can turn our backs upon the lower and sensuou
s plane, and lift ourselves into the realm of the spiritual and Real, and there
gain a residence. The assumption of states of expectancy and receptivity will at
tract spiritual sunshine, and it will flow in as naturally as air inclines to a
vacuum. . . . Whenever the though; is not occupied with one's daily duty or prof
ession, it should he sent aloft into the spiritual atmosphere. There are quiet l
eisure moments by day, and wakeful hours at night, when this wholesome and delig
htful exercise may be engaged in to great advantage. If one who has never made a
ny systematic effort to lift and control the thought-forces will, for a single m
onth, earnestly pursue the course here suggested, he will be surprised and delig
hted at the result, and nothing will induce him to go back to careless, aimless,
and superficial thinking. At such favorable seasons the outside world, with all
its current of daily events, is barred out, and one goes into the silent sanctu
ary of the inner temple of soul to commune and aspire. The spiritual hearing bec
omes delicately sensitive, so that the 'still, small voice' is audible, the tumu
ltuous waves of external sense are
[p. 116]
hushed, and there is a great calm. The ego gradually becomes conscious that it i
s face to face with the Divine Presence; that mighty, healing, loving, Fatherly
life which is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. There is soul contact with
the Parent-Soul, and an influx of life, love, virtue, health, and happiness from
the Inexhaustible Fountain." [*1]
When we reach the subject of mysticism, you will undergo so deep an immersion in
to these exalted states of consciousness as to be wet all over, if I may so expr
ess myself; and the cold shiver of doubt with which this little sprinkling may a
ffect you will have long since passed away--doubt, I mean, as to whether all suc
h writing be not mere abstract talk and rhetoric set down pour encourager les au
tres. You will then be convinced, I trust, that these states of consciousness of
"union" form a perfectly definite class of experiences, of which the soul may o
ccasionally partake, and which certain persons may live by in a deeper sense tha
n they live by anything else with which they have acquaintance. This brings me t
o a general philosophical reflection with which I should like to pass from the s
ubject of healthy-mindedness, and close a topic which I fear is already only too
long drawn out. It concerns the relation of all this systematized healthy-minde
dness and mind-cure religion to scientific method and the scientific life.

In a later lecture I shall have to treat explicitly of the relation of religion

to science on the one hand, and to primeval savage thought on the other. There a
re plenty of persons to-day--"scientists" or "positivists," they are fond of cal
ling themselves--who will tell you that religious thought is a mere survival, an
atavistic reversion to a type of consciousness which humanity in its more enlig
htened
[p. 117]
examples has long since left behind and out-grown. If you ask them to explain th
emselves more fully, they will probably say that for primitive thought everythin
g is conceived of under the form of personality. The savage thinks that things o
perate by personal forces, and for the sake of individual ends. For him, even ex
ternal nature obeys individual needs and claims, just as if these were so many e
lementary powers. Now science, on the other hand, these positivists say, has pro
ved that personality, so far from being an elementary force in nature, is but a
passive resultant of the really elementary forces, physical, chemical, physiolog
ical, and psycho-physical, which are all impersonal and general in character. No
thing individual accomplishes anything in the universe save in so far as it obey
s and exemplifies some universal law. Should you then inquire of them by what me
ans science has thus supplanted primitive thought, and discredited its personal
way of looking at things, they would undoubtedly say it has been by the strict u
se of the method of experimental verification. Follow out science's conceptions
practically, they will say, the conceptions that ignore personality altogether,
and you will always be corroborated. The world is so made that all your expectat
ions will be experientially verified so long, and only so long, as you keep the
terms from which you infer them impersonal and universal.
But here we have mind-cure, with her diametrically opposite philosophy, setting
up an exactly identical claim. Live as if I were true, she says, and every day w
ill practically prove you right. That the controlling energies of nature are per
sonal, that your own personal thoughts are forces, that the powers of the univer
se will directly respond to your individual appeals and needs, are propositions
which your whole bodily and mental experience will verify. And that experience d
oes largely verify these primeval religious ideas is proved by the fact that the
mind-cure movement spreads
[p. 118]
as it does, not by proclamation and assertion simply, but by palpable experienti
al results. Here, in the very heyday of science's authority, it carries on an ag
gressive warfare against the scientific philosophy, and succeeds by using scienc
e's own peculiar methods and weapons. Believing that a higher power will take ca
re of us in certain ways better than we can take care of ourselves, if we only g
enuinely throw ourselves upon it and consent to use it, it finds the belief, not
only not impugned, but corroborated by its observation.
How conversions are thus made, and converts confirmed, is evident enough from th
e narratives which I have quoted. I will quote yet another couple of shorter one
s to give the matter a perfectly concrete turn. Here is one:--
"One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two months after I firs
t saw the healer. I fell, spraining my right ankle, which I had done once four y
ears before, having then had to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months,
and carefully guarding it ever since. As soon as I was on my feet I made the po
sitive suggestion (and felt it through all my being): 'There is nothing but God,
and all life comes from him perfectly. I cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let
him take care of it.' Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two mil
es that day."
The next case not only illustrates experiment and verification, but also the ele
ment of passivity and surrender of which awhile ago I made such account.
"I went into town to do some shopping one morning, and I had not been gone long
before I began to feel ill. The ill feeling increased rapidly, until I had pains
in all my bones, nausea and faintness, headache, all the symptoms in short that
precede an attack of influenza. I thought that I was going to have the grippe,
epidemic then in Boston, or something worse. The mind-cure teachings that I had
been listening to all the winter
[p. 119]
thereupon came into my mind, and I thought that here was an opportunity to test
myself. On my way home I met a friend, I refrained with some effort from telling
her how I felt. That was the first step gained. I went to bed immediately, and
my husband wished to send for the doctor. But I told him that I would rather wai
t until morning and see how I felt. Then followed one of the most beautiful expe
riences of my life.
"I cannot express it in any other way than to say that I did 'lie down in the st
ream of life and let it flow over me.' I gave up all fear of any impending disea
se; I was perfectly willing and obedient. There was no intellectual effort, or t
rain of thought. My dominant idea was: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it u
nto me even as thou wilt,' and a perfect confidence that all would be well, that
all was well. The creative life was flowing into me every instant, and I felt m
yself allied with the Infinite, in harmony, and full of the peace that passeth u
nderstanding. There was no place in my mind for a jarring body. I had no conscio
usness of time or space or persons; but only of love and happiness and faith.
"I do not know how long this state lasted, nor when I fell asleep; but when I wo
ke up in the morning, I was well."
These are exceedingly trivial instances, [*1] but in them, if we have anything a
t all, we have the method of experiment and verification. For the point I am dri
ving at now, it makes no difference whether you consider the patients to be delu
ded victims of their imagination or not. That they seemed to themselves to have
been cured by the experiments tried was enough to make them converts to the syst
em. And although it is evident that one must be of a certain mental mould to get
such results (for 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
in), yet it would surely be pedantic and over-scrupulous for those who can get
their savage and primitive philosophy
[p. 120]
of mental healing verified in such experimental ways as this, to give them up at
word of command for more scientific therapeutics.
What are we to think of all this? Has science made too wide a claim?
I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say the least, prem
ature. The experiences which we have been studying during this hour (and a great
many other kinds of religious experiences are like them) plainly show the unive
rse to be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific sect, allo
ws for. What, in the end, are all our verifications but experiences that agree w
ith more or less isolated systems of ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds h
ave framed? But why in the name of common sense need we assume that only one suc
h system of ideas can be true? The obvious outcome of our total experience is th
at the world can be handled according to many systems of ideas, and is so handle
d by different men, and will each time give some characteristic kind of profit,
for which he cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of pr
ofit has to be omitted or postponed. Science gives to all of us telegraphy, elec
tric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in preventing and curing a certain am
ount of disease. Religion in the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity
, moral poise, and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as s
cience does, or even better in a certain class of persons. Evidently, then, 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 practically. Just as evidently
neither is exhaustive or exclusive of the other's simultaneous use. And why, af
ter all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of many interpenetrating
spheres of reality, which we can thus approach in alternation by using different
conceptions and assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the
same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical
[p. 121]
geometry, by algebra, by the calculus, or by quaternions, and each time come out
right? On this view religion and science, each verified in its own way from hou
r to hour and from life to life, would be co-eternal. Primitive thought, with it
s belief in individualized personal forces, seems at any rate as far as ever fro
m being driven by science from the field to-day. Numbers of educated people stil
l find it the directest experimental channel by which to carry on their intercou
rse with reality. [*1]
The case of mind-cure lay so ready to my hand that I could not resist the tempta
tion of using it to bring these last truths home to your attention, but I must c
ontent myself to-day with this very brief indication. In a later lecture the rel
ations of religion both to science and to primitive thought will have to receive
much more explicit attention.

APPENDIX
(See note [*1] to <page 119>.)
CASE I. "My own experience is this: I had long been ill, and one of the first re
sults of my illness, a dozen years before, had been a diplopia which deprived me
of the use of my eyes for reading and writing almost entirely, while a later on
e had been to shut me out from exercise of any kind under penalty of immediate a
nd great exhaustion. I had been under the care of doctors of the highest standin
g both in Europe and America, men in whose power to help me I had had great fait
h, with no
[p. 122]
or ill result. Then, at a time when I seemed to be rather rapidly losing ground,
I heard some things that gave me interest enough in mental healing to make me t
ry it; I had no great hope of getting any good from it--it was a chance I tried,
partly because my thought was interested by the new possibility it seemed to op
en, partly because it was the only chance I then could see. I went to X in Bosto
n, from whom some friends of mine had got, or thought they had got, great help;
the treatment was a silent one; little was said, and that little carried no conv
iction to my mind, whatever influence was exerted was that of another person's t
hought or feeling silently projected on to my unconscious mind, into my nervous
system as it were, as we sat still together. I believed from the start in the po
ssibility of such action, for I knew the power of the mind to shape, helping or
hindering, the body's nerve-activities, and I thought telepathy probable, althou
gh unproved, but I had no belief in it as more than a possibility, and no strong
conviction nor any mystic or religious faith connected with my thought of it th
at might have brought imagination strongly into play.
"I sat quietly with the healer for half an hour each day, at first with no resul
t; then, after ten days or so, I became quite suddenly and swiftly conscious of
a tide of new energy rising within me, a sense of power to pass beyond old halti
ng-places, of power to break the bounds that, though often tried before, had lon
g been veritable walls about my life, too high to climb. I began to read and wal
k as I had not done for years, and the change was sudden, marked, and unmistakab
le. This tide seemed to mount for some weeks, three or four perhaps, when, summe
r having come, I came away, taking the treatment up again a few months later. Th
e lift I got proved permanent, and left me slowly gaining ground instead of losi
ng, it but with this lift the influence seemed in a way to have spent itself, an
d, though my confidence in the reality of the power had gained immensely from th
is first experience, and should have helped me to make further gain in health an
d strength if my belief in it had been the potent factor there, I never after th
is got any result at all as striking or as clearly marked as this which came whe
n I made trial of it first, with little faith and doubtful expectation. It is di
fficult to put all the evidence in such a matter
[p. 123]
into words, to gather up into a distinct statement all that one bases one's conc
lusions on, but I have always felt that I had abundant evidence to justify (to m
yself, at least) the conclusion that I came to then, and since have held to, tha
t the physical change which came at that time was, first, the result of a change
wrought within me by a change of mental state; and secondly, that that change o
f mental state was not, save in a very secondary way, brought about through the
influence of an excited imagination, or a consciously received suggestion of an
hypnotic sort. Lastly, I believe that this change was the result of my receiving
telephathically, and upon a mental stratum quite below the level of immediate c
onsciousness, a healthier and more energetic attitude, receiving it from another
person whose thought was directed upon me with the intention of impressing the
idea of this attitude upon me. In my case the disease was distinctly what would
be classed as nervous, not organic; but from such opportunities as I have had of
observing, I have come to the conclusion that the dividing line that has been d
rawn is an arbitrary one, the nerves controlling the internal activities and the
nutrition of the body throughout; and I believe that the central nervous system
, by starting and inhibiting local centres, can exercise a vast influence upon d
isease of any kind, if it can be brought to bear. In my judgment the question is
simply how to bring it to bear, and I think that the uncertainty and remarkable
differences in the results obtained through mental healing do but show how igno
rant we are as yet of the forces at work and of the means we should take to make
them effective. That these results are not due to chance coincidences my observ
ation of myself and others makes me sure; that the conscious mind, the imaginati
on, enters into them as a factor in many cases is doubtless true, but in many ot
hers, and sometimes very extraordinary ones, it hardly seems to enter in at all.
On the whole I am inclined to think that as the healing action, like the morbid
one, springs from the plane of the normally unconscious mind, so the strongest
and most effective impressions are those which it receives, in some as yet unkno
wn subtle way, directly from a healthier mind whose state, through a hidden law
of sympathy, it reproduces."
[p. 124]
CASE II. "At the urgent request of friends, and with no faith and hardly any hop
e (possibly owing to a previous unsuccessful experience with a Christian Scienti
st), our little daughter was placed under the care of a healer, and cured of a t
rouble about which the physician had been very discouraging in his diagnosis. Th
is interested me, and I began studying earnestly the method and philosophy of th
is method of healing. Gradually an inner peace and tranquillity came to me in so
positive a way that my manner changed greatly. My children and friends noticed
the change and commented upon it. All feelings of irritability disappeared. Even
the expression of my face changed noticeably.
"I had been bigoted, aggressive, and intolerant in discussion, both in public an
d private. I grew broadly tolerant and receptive toward the views of others. I h
ad been nervous and irritable, coming home two or three times a week with a sick
headache induced, as I then supposed, by dyspepsia and catarrh. I grew serene a
nd gentle, and the physical troubles entirely disappeared. I had been in the hab
it of approaching every business interview with an almost morbid dread. I now me
et every one with confidence and inner calm.
"I may say that the growth has all been toward the elimination of selfishness. I
do not mean simply the grosser, more sensual forms, but those subtler and gener
ally unrecognized kinds, such as express themselves in sorrow, grief, regret, en
vy, etc. It has been in the direction of a practical, working realization of the
immanence of God and the Divinity of man's true, inner self.
Footnotes
^78:1 C. HILTY: Gluck, dritter Theil, 1900, p. 18.
^79:1 The Soul; its Sorrows and its Aspirations, 3d edition, 1852, pp. 89, 91.
^80:1 I once heard a lady describe the pleasure it gave her to think that she "c
ould always cuddle up to God."
^80:2 John Weiss: Life of Theodore Parker, i. 152, 32.
^82:1 STARBUCK: Psychology of Religion, pp. 305, 306.
^82:2 "I know not to what physical laws philosophers will some day refer the fee
lings of melancholy. For myself, I find that they are the most voluptuous of all
sensations," writes Saint Pierre, and accordingly he devotes a series of sectio
ns of his work on Nature to the Plaisirs de la Ruine, Plaisirs des Tombeaux, Rui
nes de la Nature, Plaisirs de la Solitude--each of them more optimistic than the
last.
This finding of a luxury in woe is very common during adolescence. The truth-tel
ling Marie Bashkirtseff expresses it well:--
"In this depression and dreadful uninterrupted suffering, I don't condemn life.
On the contrary, I like it and find it good. Can you believe it? I find everythi
ng good and pleasant, even my tears, my grief. I enjoy weeping, I enjoy my despa
ir. I enjoy being exasperated and sad. I feel as if these were so many diversion
s, and I love life in spite of them all. I want to live on. It would be cruel to
have me die when I am so accommodating. I cry, I grieve, and at the same time I
am pleased--no, not exactly that--I know not how to express it. But everything
in life pleases me. I find everything agreeable, and in the very midst of my pra
yers for happiness, I find myself happy at being miserable. It is not I who unde
rgo all this--my body weeps and cries; but something inside of me which is above
me is glad of it all." Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, i. 67.
^84:1 R. M. BUCKE: Cosmic Consciousness, pp. 182-186, abridged.
^84:2 I refer to The Conservator, edited by Horace Traubel, and published monthl
y at Philadelphia.
^85:1 Song of Myself, 32.
^85:2 Iliad, XXI., E. Myers's translation.
^86:1 "God is afraid of me!" remarked such a titanic-optimistic friend in my pre
sence one morning when he was feeling particularly hearty and cannibalistic. The
defiance of the phrase showed that a Christian education in humility still rank
led in his breast.
^89:1 "As I go on in this life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child;
I cannot get used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hear
ing, the commonest things are a burthen. The prim, obliterated, polite surface o
f life, and the broad, bawdy and orgiastic--or maenadic--foundations, form a spe
ctacle to which no habit reconciles me." R. L. STEVENSON: Letters, ii. 355.
^93:1 "Cautionary Verses for Children": this title of a much used work, publishe
d early in the nineteenth century, shows how far the muse of evangelical protest
antism in England, with her mind fixed on the idea of danger, had at last drifte
d away from the original gospel freedom. Mind-cure might be briefly called a rea
ction against all that religion of chronic anxiety which marked the earlier part
of our century in the evangelical circles of England and America.
^94:1 I refer to Mr. Horatio W. Dresser and Mr. Henry Wood, especially the forme
r. Mr. Dresser's works are published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London
; Mr. Wood's by Lee & Shepard, Boston.
^95:1 Lest my own testimony be suspected, I will quote another reporter, Dr. H.
H. Goddard, of Clark University, whose thesis on "the Effects of Mind on Body as
 evidenced by Faith Cures" is published in the American Journal of Psychology fo
r 1899 (vol. x.). This critic, after a wide study of the facts, concludes that t
he cures by mind-cure exist, but are in no respect different from those now offi
cially recognized in medicine as cures by suggestion; and the end of his essay c
ontains an interesting physiological speculation as to the way in which the sugg
estive ideas may work (p. 67 of the reprint). As regards the general phenomenon
of mental cure itself, Dr. Goddard writes: "In spite of the severe criticism we
have made of reports of cure, there still remains a vast amount of material, sho
wing a powerful influence of the mind in disease. Many cases are of diseases tha
t have been diagnosed and treated by the best physicians of the country, or whic
h prominent hospitals have tried their hand at curing, but without success. Peop
le of culture and education have been treated by this method with satisfactory r
esults. Diseases of long standing have been ameliorated, and even cured. . . . W
e have traced the mental element through primitive medicine and folk-medicine of
to-day, patent medicine, and witchcraft. We are convinced that it is impossible
to account for the existence of these practices, if they did not cure disease,
and that if they cured disease, it must have been the mental element that was ef
fective. The same argument applies to those modern schools of mental therapeutic
s--Divine Healing and Christian Science. 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 delusion. It is no
t a thing of a day; it is not confined to a few; it is not local. It is true tha
t many failures are recorded, but that only adds to the argument. There must be
many and striking successes to counterbalance the failures, otherwise the failur
es would have ended the delusion. . . . Christian Science, Divine Healing, or Me
ntal Science do not, and never can in the very nature of things, cure all diseas
es; nevertheless, the practical applications of the general principles of the br
oadest mental science will tend to prevent disease. . . . 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 touch; would even del
ay the approach of death to many a [p. 96] victim beyond the power of absolute c
ure, and the faithful adherence to a truer philosophy of life will keep many a m
an well, and give the doctor time to devote to alleviating ills that are unpreve
ntable" (pp. 33, 34 of reprint).
^96:1 HORACE FLETCHER: Happiness as found in Forethought minus Fearthought, Ment
iculture Series, ii. Chicago and New York, Stone. 1897, pp. 21-25, abridged.
^97:1 H. W. DRESSER: Voices of Freedom, New York, 1899, p. 38.
^98:1 HENRY WOOD: Ideal Suggestion through Mental Photography. Boston, 1899, p.
54.
^98:2 Whether it differs so much from Christ's own notion is for the exegetists
to decide. According to Harnack, Jesus felt about evil and disease much as our m
ind-curers do. "What is the answer which Jesus sends to John the Baptist?" asks
Harnack, and says it is this: "'The blind see, and the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead rise up, and the gospel is preached to th
e poor.' That is the 'coming of the kingdom,' or rather in these saving works th
e kingdom is already there. By the overcoming and removal of misery, of need, of
sickness, by these actual effects John is to see that the new time has arrived.
The casting out of devils is only a part of this work of redemption, but Jesus
points to that as the sense and seal of his mission. Thus to the wretched, sick,
and poor did he address himself, but not as a moralist, and without a trace of
sentimentalism. He never makes groups and departments of the ills, he never spen
ds time in asking whether the sick one 'deserves' to be cured; and it never occu
rs to him to sympathize with the pain or the death. He nowhere says that sicknes
s is a beneficent infliction, and that evil has a healthy use. No, he calls sick
ness sickness and health health. All evil, all wretchedness, is for him somethin
g dreadful; it is of the great kingdom of Satan; but he feels the power of the s
aviour within him. He knows that advance is possible only when weakness is overc
ome, when sickness is made well." Das Wesen des Christenthums, 1900, p. 39.
^100:1 R. W. TRINE: In Tune with the Infinite, 26th thousand, N.Y. 1899. I have
strung scattered passages together.
^104:1 The Cairds, for example. In EDWARD CAIRD'S Glasgow Lectures of 1890-92 pa
ssages like this abound:--
"The declaration made in the beginning of the ministry of Jesus that 'the time i
s fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' passes with scarce a break i
nto the announcement that 'the kingdom of God is among you'; and the importance
of this announcement is asserted to be such that it makes, so to speak, a differ
ence in kind between the greatest saints and prophets who lived under the previo
us reign of division, and 'the least in the kingdom of heaven.' The highest idea
l is brought close to men and declared to be within their reach, they are called
on to be 'perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect.' The sense of alienatio
n and distance from God which had grown upon the pious in Israel just in proport
ion as they had learned to look upon Him as no mere national divinity, but as a
God of justice who would punish Israel for its sin as certainly as Edom or Moab,
is declared to be no longer in place; and the typical form of Christian prayer
points to the abolition of the contrast between this world and the next which th
rough all the history of the Jews had continually been growing wider: 'As in hea
ven, so on earth.' The sense of the division of man from God, as a finite being
from the Infinite, as weak and sinful from the Omnipotent Goodness, is not indee
d lost; but it can no longer overpower the consciousness of oneness. The terms '
Son' and 'Father' at once state the opposition and mark its limit. They show tha
t it is not an absolute opposition, but one which presupposes an indestructible
principle of unity, that can and must become a principle of reconciliation." The
Evolution of Religion, ii. pp. 146, 147.
^106:1 It remains to be seen whether the school of Mr. Dresser, which assumes mo
re and more the form of mind-cure experience and [p. 107] academic philosophy mu
tually impregnating each other, will score the practical triumphs of the less cr
itical and rational sects.
^109:1 The theistic explanation is by divine grace, which creates a new nature w
ithin one the moment the old nature is sincerely given up. The pantheistic expla
nation (which is that of most mind-curers) is by the merging of the narrower pri
vate self into the wider or greater self, the spirit of the universe (which is y
our own "subconscious" self), the moment the isolating barriers of mistrust and
[p. 110] anxiety are removed. The medico-materialistic explanation is that simpl
er cerebral processes act more freely where they are left to act automatically b
y the shunting-out of physiologically (though in this instance not spiritually)
"higher" ones which, seeking to regulate, only succeed in inhibiting results.--W
hether this third explanation might, in a psycho-physical account of the univers
e, be combined with either of the others may be left an open question here.
^111:1 Within the churches a disposition has always prevailed to regard sickness
as a visitation; something sent by God for our good, either as chastisement, as
warning, or as opportunity for exercising virtue, and, in the Catholic Church,
of earning "merit." "Illness," says a good Catholic writer P. LEJEUNE: (Introd.
a la Vie Mystique, 1899, p. 218), "is the most excellent corporeal mortification
s, the mortification which one has not one's self chosen, which is imposed direc
tly by God, and is the direct expression of his will. 'If other mortifications a
re of silver,' Mgr. Gay says, 'this one is of gold; since although it comes of o
urselves, coming as it does of original sin, still on its greater side, as comin
g (like all that happens) from the providence of God, it is of divine manufactur
e. And how just are its blows! And how efficacious it is! . . . I do not hesitat
e to say that patience in a long illness is mortification's very masterpiece, an
d consequently the triumph of mortified souls.'" According to this view, disease
should in any case be submissively accepted, and it might under certain circums
tances even be blasphemous to wish it away.
Of course there have been exceptions to this, and cures by special miracle have
at all times been recognized within the church's pale, almost all the great sain
ts having more or less performed them. It was one of the heresies of Edward Irvi
ng, to maintain them still to be possible. An extremely pure faculty of healing
after confession and conversion on the patient's part, and prayer on the priest'
s, was quite spontaneously developed in the German pastor, Joh. Christoph Blumha
rdt, in the early forties and exerted during nearly thirty years. Blumhardt's Li
fe by Zundel (5th edition, Zurich, 1887) gives in chapters ix., x., xi., and xvi
i. a pretty full account of his healing activity, which he invariably ascribed t
o direct divine interposition. Blumhardt was a singularly pure, simple, and non-
fanatical character, and in this part of his work followed no previous model. In
Chicago to-day we have the case of Dr. J. A. Dowie, a Scottish Baptist preacher
, whose weekly "Leaves of Healing" were in the year of grace 1900 in their sixth
volume, and who, although he denounces the cures wrought in other sects as "dia
bolical counterfeits" of his own exclusively "Divine Healing," must on the whole
be counted into the mind-cure movement. In mind-cure circles the fundamental ar
ticle of faith is that disease should never be accepted. It is wholly of the pit
. God wants us to be absolutely healthy, and we should not tolerate ourselves on
any lower terms.
^112:1 Edwards, from whose book on the Revival in New England I quote these word
s, dissuades from such a use of prayer, but it is easy to see that he enjoys mak
ing his thrust at the cold dead church members.
^113:1 H. W. DRESSER: Voices of Freedom, 46.
^113:2 DRESSER: Living by the spirit, 58.
^113:3 DRESSER: Voices of Freedom, 33.
^113:4 TRINE: In Tune with the Infinite, p. 214.
^114:1 Trine: p. 117.
^114:2 Quoted by LEJEUNE: Introd. a la vie Mystique, 1899, p. 66.
^116:1 HENRY WOOD: Ideal suggestion through Mental Photography, pp. 51, 70 (abri
dged).
^119:1 See Appendix to this lecture for two other cases furnished me by friends.
^121:1 Whether the various spheres or systems are ever to fuse integrally into o
ne absolute conception, as most philosophers assume that they must, and how, if
so, that conception may best be reached, are questions that only the future can
answer. What is certain now is the fact of lines of disparate conception, each c
orresponding to some part of the world's truth, each verified in some degree, ea
ch leaving out some part of real experience.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

com
[p. 125]
Lectures VI and VII

THE SICK SOUL

At our last meeting, we considered the healthy-minded temperament, the temperame
nt which has a constitutional incapacity for prolonged suffering, and in which t
he tendency to see things optimistically is like a water of crystallization in w
hich the individual's character is set. We saw how this temperament may become t
he basis for a peculiar type of religion, a religion in which good, even the goo
d of this world's life, is regarded as the essential thing for a rational being
to attend to. 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 them, by ignoring them in his reflective calculations, or even, on occa
sion, by denying outright that they exist. Evil is a disease; and worry over dis
ease is itself an additional form of disease, which only adds to the original co
mplaint. Even repentance and remorse, affections which come in the character of
ministers of good, may be but sickly and relaxing impulses. The best repentance
is to up and act for righteousness, and forget that you ever had relations with
sin.
Spinoza's philosophy has this sort of healthy-mindedness woven into the heart of
it, and this has been one secret of its fascination. He whom Reason leads, acco
rding to Spinoza, is led altogether by the influence over his mind of good. Know
ledge of evil is an "inadequate" knowledge, fit only for slavish minds. So Spino
za categorically condemns repentance. When men make mistakes, he says--
[p. 126]
"One might perhaps expect gnawings of conscience and repentance to help to bring
them on the right path, and might thereupon conclude (as every one does conclud
e) that these affections are good things. Yet when we look at the matter closely
, we shall find that not only are they not good, but on the contrary deleterious
and evil passions. For it is manifest that we can always get along better by re
ason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse. Harmful are thes
e and evil, inasmuch as they form a particular kind of sadness; and the disadvan
tages of sadness," he continues, "I have already proved, and shown that we shoul
d strive to keep it from our life. Just so we should endeavor, since uneasiness
of conscience and remorse are of this kind of complexion, to flee and shun these
states of mind." [*1]
Within the Christian body, for which repentance of sins has from the beginning b
een the critical religious act, healthy-mindedness has always come forward with
its milder interpretation. Repentance according to such healthy-minded Christian
s means getting away from the sin, not groaning and writhing over its commission
. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution is in one of its aspects li
ttle more than a systematic method of keeping healthy-mindedness on top. By it a
man's accounts with evil are periodically squared and audited, so that he may s
tart the clean page with no old debts inscribed. Any Catholic will tell us how c
lean and fresh and free he feels after the purging operation. Martin Luther by n
o means belonged to the healthy-minded type in the radical sense in which we hav
e discussed it, and he repudiated priestly absolution for sin. Yet in this matte
r of repentance he had some very healthy-minded ideas, due in the main to the la
rgeness of his conception of God.
"When I was a monk," he says "I thought that I was utterly cast away, if at any
time I felt the lust of the flesh: that is to say,
[p. 127]
if I felt any evil motion, fleshly lust, wrath, hatred, or envy against any brot
her. I assayed many ways to help to quiet my conscience, but It would not be; fo
r the concupiscence and lust of my flesh did always return, so that I could not
rest, but was continually vexed with these thoughts: This or that sin thou hast
committed: thou art infected with envy, with impatiency, and such other sins: th
erefore thou art entered into this holy order in vain, and all thy good works ar
e unprofitable. But if then I had rightly understood these sentences of Paul: 'T
he flesh lusteth contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit contrary to the flesh; a
nd these two are one against another, so that ye cannot do the things that ye wo
uld do,' I should not have so miserably tormented myself, but should have though
t and said to myself, as now commonly I do, 'Martin, thou shalt not utterly be w
ithout sin, for thou hast flesh; thou shalt therefore feel the battle thereof.'
I remember that Staupitz was wont to say, 'I have vowed unto God above a thousan
d times that I would become a better man: but I never performed that which I vow
ed. Hereafter I will make no such vow: for I have now learned by experience that
I am not able to perform it. Unless, therefore, God be favorable and merciful u
nto me for Christ's sake, I shall not be able, with all my vows and all my good
deeds, to stand before him.' This (of Staupitz's) was not only a true, but also
a godly and a holy desperation; and this must they all confess, both with mouth
and heart, who will be saved. For the godly trust not to their own righteousness
. They look unto Christ their reconciler who gave his life for their sins. Moreo
ver, they know that the remnant of sin which is in their flesh is not laid to th
eir charge, but freely pardoned. Notwithstanding, in the mean while they fight i
n spirit against the flesh, lest they should fulfill the lusts thereof; and alth
ough they feel the flesh to rage and rebel, and themselves also do fall sometime
s into sin through infirmity, yet are they not discouraged, nor think therefore
that their state and kind of life, and the works which are done according to the
ir calling, displease God; but they raise up themselves by faith." [*1]
[p. 128]
One of the heresies for which the Jesuits got that spiritual genius, Molinos, th
e founder of Quietism, so abominably condemned was his healthy-minded opinion of
repentance:--
"When thou fallest into a fault, in what matter soever it be do not trouble nor
afflict thyself for it. For they are effects of our frail Nature, stained by Ori
ginal Sin. The common enemy will make thee believe, as soon as thou fallest into
any fault, that thou walkest in error, and therefore art out of God and his fav
or, and herewith would he make thee distrust of the divine Grace, telling thee o
f thy misery, and making a giant of it; and putting it into thy head that every
day thy soul grows worse instead of better, whilst it so often repeats these fai
lings. O blessed Soul, open thine eyes; and shut the gate against these diabolic
al suggestions, knowing thy misery, and trusting in the mercy divine. Would not
he be a mere fool who, running at tournament with others, and falling in the bes
t of the career, should lie weeping on the ground and afflicting himself with di
scourses upon his fall? Man (they would tell him), lose no time, get up and take
the course again, for he that rises again quickly and continues his race is as
if he had never fallen. If thou seest thyself fallen once and a thousand times,
thou oughtest to make use of the remedy which I have given thee, that is, a lovi
ng confidence in the divine mercy. These are the weapons with which thou must fi
ght and conquer cowardice and vain thoughts. This is the means thou oughtest to
use--not to lose time, not to disturb thyself, and reap no good." [*2]
Now in contrast with such healthy-minded views as these, if we treat them as a w
ay of deliberately minimizing evil, stands a radically opposite view, a way of m
aximizing evil, if you please so to call it, based on the persuasion that the ev
il aspects of our life are of its very essence, and that the world's meaning mos
t comes home to us when we lay them most to heart. We have now to address oursel
ves to this
[p. 129]
more morbid way of looking at the situation. But as I closed our last hour with
a general philosophical reflection on the healthy-minded way of taking life, I s
hould like at this point to make another philosophical reflection upon it before
turning to that heavier task. You will excuse the brief delay.
If we admit that evil is an essential part of our being and the key to the inter
pretation of our life, we load ourselves down with a difficulty that has always
proved burdensome in philosophies of religion. Theism, whenever it has erected i
tself into a systematic philosophy of the universe, has shown a reluctance to le
t God be anything less than All-in-All. In other words, philosophic theism has a
lways shown a tendency to become pantheistic and monistic, and to consider the w
orld as one unit of absolute fact; and this has been at variance with popular or
practical theism, which latter has ever been more or less frankly pluralistic,
not to say polytheistic, and shown itself perfectly well satisfied with a univer
se composed of many original principles, provided we be only allowed to believe
that the divine principle remains supreme, and that the others are subordinate.
In this latter case God is not necessarily responsible for the existence of evil
; he would only be responsible if it were not finally overcome. But on the monis
tic or pantheistic view, evil, like everything else, must have its foundation in
God; and the difficulty is to see how this can possibly be the case if God be a
bsolutely good. This difficulty faces us in every form of philosophy in which th
e world appears as one flawless unit of fact. Such a unit is an Individual, and
in it the worst parts must be as essential as the best, must be as necessary to
make the individual what he is; since if any part whatever in an individual were
to vanish or alter, it would no longer be that individual at all. The philosoph
y of absolute idealism, so vigorously represented both in Scotland and America t
o-day, has to struggle with this difficulty quite as
[p. 130]
much as scholastic theism struggled in its time; and although it would be premat
ure to say that there is no speculative issue whatever from the puzzle, it is pe
rfectly fair to say that there is no clear or easy issue, and that the only obvi
ous escape from paradox here is to cut loose from the monistic assumption altoge
ther, and to allow the world to have existed from its origin in pluralistic form
, as an aggregate or collection of higher and lower things and principles, rathe
r than an absolutely unitary fact. For then evil would not need to be essential;
it might be, and may always have been, an independent portion that had no ratio
nal or absolute right to live with the rest, and which we might conceivably hope
to see got rid of at last.
Now the gospel of healthy-mindedness, as we have described it, casts its vote di
stinctly for this pluralistic view. Whereas the monistic philosopher finds himse
lf more or less bound to say, as Hegel said, that everything actual is rational,
and that evil, as an element dialectically required, must be pinned in and kept
and consecrated and have a function awarded to it in the final system of truth,
healthy-mindedness refuses to say anything of the sort. [*1] Evil, it says, is
emphatically irrational, and not to be pinned in, or preserved, or consecrated i
n any final system of truth. It is a pure abomination to the Lord, an alien unre
ality, a waste element, to be sloughed off and negated, and the very memory of i
t, if possible, wiped out and forgotten. The ideal, so far from being co-extensi
ve with the whole actual, is a mere extract from the actual, marked by its deliv
erance
[p. 131]
from all contact with this diseased, inferior, and excrementitious stuff.
Here we have the interesting notion fairly and squarely presented to us, of ther
e being elements of the universe which may make no rational whole in conjunction
with the other elements, and which, from the point of view of any system which
those other elements make up, can only be considered so much irrelevance and acc
ident--so much "dirt," as it were, and matter out of place. I ask you now not to
forget this notion; for although most philosophers seem either to forget it or
to disdain it too much ever to mention it, I believe that we shall have to admit
it ourselves in the end as containing an element of truth. The mind-cure gospel
thus once more appears to us as having dignity and importance. We have seen it
to be a genuine religion, and no mere silly appeal to imagination to cure diseas
e; we have seen its method of experimental verification to be not unlike the met
hod of all science; and now here we find mind-cure as the champion of a perfectl
y definite conception of the metaphysical structure of the world. I hope that, i
n view of all this, you will not regret my having pressed it upon your attention
at such length.

Let us now say good-by for a while to all this way of thinking, and turn towards
those persons who cannot so swiftly throw off the burden of the consciousness o
f evil, but are congenitally fated to suffer from its presence. Just as we saw t
hat in healthy-mindedness there are shallower and profounder levels, happiness l
ike that of the mere animal, and more regenerate sorts of happiness, so also are
there different levels of the morbid mind, and the one is much more formidable
than the other. There are people for whom evil means only a mal-adjustment with
things, a wrong correspondence of one's life with the environment. Such evil as
this is curable, in principle at least, upon the
[p. 132]
natural plane, for merely by modifying either the self or the things, or both at
once, the two terms may be made to fit, and all go merry as a marriage bell aga
in. But there are others for whom evil is no mere relation of the subject to par
ticular outer things, but something more radical and general, a wrongness or vic
e in his essential nature, which no alteration of the environment, or any superf
icial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatur
al remedy. On the whole, the Latin races have leaned more towards the former way
of looking upon evil, as made up of ills and sins in the plural, removable in d
etail; while the Germanic races have tended rather to think of Sin in the singul
ar, and with a capital S, as of something ineradicably ingrained in our natural
subjectivity, and never to be removed by any superficial piecemeal operations. [
*1] These comparisons of races are always open to exception, but undoubtedly the
northern tone in religion has inclined to the more intimately pessimistic persu
asion, and this way of feeling, being the more extreme, we shall find by far the
more instructive for our study.
Recent psychology has found great use for the word "threshold" as a symbolic des
ignation for the point at which one state of mind passes into another. Thus we s
peak of the threshold of a man's consciousness in general, to indicate the amoun
t of noise, pressure, or other outer stimulus which it takes to arouse his atten
tion at all. One with a high threshold will doze through an amount of racket by
which one with a low threshold would be immediately waked. Similarly, when one i
s sensitive to small differences in any order of sensation, we say he has a low
"difference-threshold"--his mind easily steps over it into the consciousness of
the differences in question. And just so we might speak of a "pain-threshold," a
"fear-threshold," a "misery-threshold,"
[p. 133]
and find it quickly overpassed by the consciousness of some individuals, but lyi
ng too high in others to be often reached by their consciousness. The sanguine a
nd healthy-minded live habitually on the sunny side of their misery-line, the de
pressed and melancholy live beyond it, in darkness and apprehension. There are m
en who seem to have started in life with a bottle or two of champagne inscribed
to their credit; whilst others seem to have been born close to the pain-threshol
d, which the slightest irritants fatally send them over.
Does it not appear as if one who lived more habitually on one side of the pain-t
hreshold might need a different sort of religion from one who habitually lived o
n the other? This question, of the relativity of different types of religion to
different types of need, arises naturally at this point, and will became a serio
us problem ere we have done. But before we confront it in general terms, we must
address ourselves to the unpleasant task of hearing what the sick souls, as we
may call them in contrast to the healthy-minded, have to say of the secrets of t
heir prison-house, their own peculiar form of consciousness. Let us then resolut
ely turn our backs on the once-born and their sky-blue optimistic gospel; let us
not simply cry out, in spite of all appearances, "Hurrah for the Universe!--God
's in his Heaven, all's right with the world." Let us see rather whether pity, p
ain, and fear, 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 situat
ion.

To begin with, how can things so insecure as the successful experiences of this
world afford a stable anchorage? A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, a
nd life is after all a chain. In the healthiest and most prosperous existence, h
ow many links of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed? Unsuspecte
dly from the bottom of every fountain
[p. 134]
of pleasure, as the old poet said, something bitter rises up: a touch of nausea,
a falling dead of the delight, a whiff of melancholy, things that sound a knell
, for fugitive as they may be, they bring a feeling of coming from a deeper regi
on and often have an appalling convincingness. The buzz of life ceases at their
touch as a piano-string stops sounding when the damper falls upon it.
Of course the music can commence again;--and again and again--at intervals. But
with this the healthy-minded consciousness is left with an irremediable sense of
precariousness. It is a bell with a crack; it draws its breath on sufferance an
d by an accident.
Even if we suppose a man so packed with healthy-mindedness as never to have expe
rienced in his own person any of these sobering intervals, still, if he is a ref
lecting being, he must generalize and class his own lot with that of others; and
, doing so, he must see that his escape is just a lucky chance and no essential
difference. He might just as well have been born to an entirely different fortun
e. And then indeed the hollow security! What kind of a frame of things is it of
which the best you can say is, "Thank God, it has let me off clear this time!" I
s not its blessedness a fragile fiction? Is not your joy in it a very vulgar gle
e, not much unlike the snicker of any rogue at his success? If indeed it were al
l success, even on such terms as that! But take the happiest man, the one most e
nvied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one
of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far h
igher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which th
e world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be fo
und wanting.
When such a conquering optimist as Goethe can express himself in this wise, how
must it be with less successful men?
[p. 135]
"I will say nothing," writes Goethe in 1824, "against the course of my existence
. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that d
uring the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being.
It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever.
"
What single-handed man was ever on the whole as successful as Luther? Yet when h
e had grown old, he looked back on his life as if it were an absolute failure.
"I am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord will come forthwith and carry me he
nce. Let him come, above all, with his last Judgment: I will stretch out my neck
, the thunder will burst forth, and I shall be at rest."--And having a necklace
of white agates in his hand at the time he added: "O God, grant that it may come
without delay. I would readily eat up this necklace to-day, for the Judgment to
come to-morrow."--The Electress Dowager, one day when Luther was dining with he
r, said to him: "Doctor, I wish you may live forty years to come." "Madam," repl
ied he, "rather than live forty years more, I would give up my chance of Paradis
e."
Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn. We strew it with o
ur blunders, our misdeeds, our lost opportunities, with all the memorials of our
inadequacy to our vocation. And with what a damning emphasis does it then blot
us out! No easy fine, no mere apology or formal expiation, will satisfy the worl
d's demands, but every pound of flesh exacted is soaked with all its blood. The
subtlest forms of suffering known to man are connected with the poisonous humili
ations incidental to these results.
And they are pivotal human experiences. A process so ubiquitous and everlasting
is evidently an integral part of life. "There is indeed one element in human des
tiny," Robert Louis Stevenson writes, "that not blindness itself can controvert.
Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not
[p. 136]
intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted." [*1] And our nature being th
us rooted in failure, is it any wonder that theologians should have held it to b
e essential, and thought that only through the personal experience of humiliatio
n which it engenders the deeper sense of life's significance is reached? [*2]
But this is only the first stage of the world-sickness. Make the human being's s
ensitiveness a little greater, carry him a little farther over the misery-thresh
old, and the good quality of the successful moments themselves when they occur i
s spoiled and vitiated. All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a b
reath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish. Can things whose e
nd is always dust and disappointment be the real goods which our souls require?
Back of everything is the great spectre of universal death, the all-encompassing
blackness:--
"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the Sun? I looke
d on all the works that my hands had wrought, and behold, all was vanity and vex
ation of spirit. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as t
he one dieth, so dieth the other, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust agai
n. . . . The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for th
e memory of them is forgotten.
[p. 137]
[paragraph continues] Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now per
ished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done un
der the Sun. . . . Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the
eyes to behold the Sun: but if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, ye
t let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many."
In short, life and its negation are beaten up inextricably together. But if the
life be good, the negation of it must be bad. Yet the two are equally essential
facts of existence; and all natural happiness thus seems infected with a contrad
iction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
To a mind attentive to this state of things and rightly subject to the joy-destr
oying chill which such a contemplation engenders, the only relief that healthy-m
indedness can give is by saying: "Stuff and nonsense, get out into the open air!
" or "Cheer up, old fellow, you'll be all right erelong, if you will only drop y
our morbidness!" But in all seriousness, can such bald animal talk as that be tr
eated as a rational answer? To ascribe religious value to mere happy-go-lucky co
ntentment with one's brief chance at natural good is but the very consecration o
f forgetfulness and superficiality. Our troubles lie indeed too deep for that cu
re. The fact that we can die, that we can be ill at all, is what perplexes us; t
he fact that we now for a moment live and are well is irrelevant to that perplex
ity. We need a life not correlated with death, a health not liable to illness, a
kind of good that will not perish, a good in fact that flies beyond the Goods o
f nature.
It all depends on how sensitive the soul may become to discords. "The trouble wi
th me is that I believe too much in common happiness and goodness," said a frien
d of mine whose consciousness was of this sort, "and nothing can console me for
their transiency. I am appalled and disconcerted at its being possible." And so
with most of us: a little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a li
ttle loss of
[p. 138]
animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold,
will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full v
iew, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians. The pride of life and glory of
the world will shrivel. It is after all but the standing quarrel of hot youth an
d hoary eld. Old age has the last word: the purely naturalistic look at life, ho
wever enthusiastically it may begin, is sure to end in sadness.
This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or natura
listic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with it
s strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the e
vil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at t
he banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom
or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with wh
ich it stands related. Its significance and framing give it the chief part of it
s value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its
immediacy, its glow and gilding vanish. The old man, sick with an insidious int
ernal disease, may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever, but he kno
ws his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it; and the knowledge knocks the
satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death and the worm
is their brother, and they turn to a mere flatness.
The lustre of the present hour is always borrowed from the background of possibi
lities it goes with. Let our common experiences be enveloped in an eternal moral
 order; let our suffering have an immortal significance; let Heaven smile upon t
he earth, and deities pay their visits; let faith and hope be the atmosphere whi
ch man breathes in;--and his days pass by with zest; they stir with prospects, t
hey thrill with remoter values. Place round them on the contrary the curdling co
ld and gloom and absence of all
[p. 139]
permanent meaning which for pure naturalism and the popular science evolutionism
of our time are all that is visible ultimately, and the thrill stops short, or
turns rather to an anxious trembling.
For naturalism, fed on recent cosmological speculations, mankind is in a positio
n similar to that of a set of people living on a frozen lake, surrounded by clif
fs over which there is no escape, yet knowing that little by little the ice is m
elting, and the inevitable day drawing near when the last film of it will disapp
ear, and to be drowned ignominiously will be the human creature's portion. The m
errier the skating, the warmer and more sparkling the sun by day, and the ruddie
r the bonfires at night, the more poignant the sadness with which one must take
in the meaning of the total situation.
The early Greeks are continually held up to us in literary works as models of th
e healthy-minded joyousness which the religion of nature may engender. There was
indeed much joyousness among the Greeks--Homer's flow of enthusiasm for most th
ings that the sun shines upon is steady. But even in Homer the reflective passag
es are cheerless, [*1] and the moment the Greeks grew systematically pensive and
thought of ultimates, they became unmitigated pessimists. [*2] The jealousy of
the gods, the nemesis that follows
[p. 140]
too much happiness, the all-encompassing death, fate's dark opacity, the ultimat
e and unintelligible cruelty, were the fixed background of their imagination. Th
e beautiful joyousness of their polytheism is only a poetic modern fiction. They
knew no joys comparable in quality of preciousness to those which we shall erel
ong see that Brahmans, Buddhists, Christians, Mohammedans, twice-born people who
se religion is non-naturalistic, get from their several creeds of mysticism and
renunciation.
Stoic insensibility and Epicurean resignation were the farthest advance which th
e Greek mind made in that direction. The Epicurean said: "Seek not to be happy,
but rather to escape unhappiness; strong happiness is always linked with pain; t
herefore hug the safe shore, and do not tempt the deeper raptures. Avoid disappo
intment by expecting little, and by aiming low; and above all do not fret." The
Stoic said: "The only genuine good that life can yield a man is the free possess
ion of his own soul; all other goods are lies." Each of these philosophies is in
its degree a philosophy of despair in nature's boons. Trustful self-abandonment
to the joys that freely offer has entirely departed from both Epicurean and Sto
ic; and what each proposes is a way of rescue from the resultant dust-and-ashes
state of mind. The
[p. 141]
[paragraph continues] Epicurean still awaits results from economy of indulgence
and damping of desire. The Stoic hopes for no results, and gives up natural good
altogether. There is dignity in both these forms of resignation. They represent
distinct stages in the sobering process which man's primitive intoxication with
sense-happiness is sure to undergo. In the one the hot blood has grown cool, in
the other it has become quite cold; and although I have spoken of them in the p
ast tense, as if they were merely historic, yet Stoicism and Epicureanism will p
robably be to all time typical attitudes, marking a certain definite stage accom
plished in the evolution of the world-sick soul. [*1] They mark the conclusion o
f what we call the once-born period, and represent the highest flights of what t
wice-born religion would call the purely natural man--Epicureanism, which can on
ly by great courtesy be called a religion, showing his refinement, and Stoicism
exhibiting his moral will. They leave the world in the shape of an unreconciled
contradiction, and seek no higher unity. Compared with the complex ecstasies whi
ch the supernaturally regenerated Christian may enjoy, or the oriental pantheist
indulge in, their receipts for equanimity are expedients which seem almost crud
e in their simplicity.
Please observe, however, that I am not yet pretending finally to judge any of th
ese attitudes. I am only describing their variety.
[p. 142]
The securest way to the rapturous sorts of happiness of which the twice-born mak
e report has as an historic matter of fact been through a more radical pessimism
than anything that we have yet considered. We have seen how the lustre and ench
antment may be rubbed off from the goods of nature. But there is a pitch of unha
ppiness so great that the goods of nature may be entirely forgotten, and all sen
timent of their existence vanish from the mental field. For this extremity of pe
ssimism to be reached, something more is needed than observation of life and ref
lection upon death. The individual must in his own person become the prey of a p
athological melancholy. As the healthy-minded enthusiast succeeds in ignoring ev
il's very existence, so the subject of melancholy is forced in spite of himself
to ignore that of all good whatever: for him it may no longer have the least rea
lity. Such sensitiveness and susceptibility to mental pain is a rare occurrence
where the nervous constitution is entirely normal; one seldom finds it in a heal
thy subject even where he is the victim of the most atrocious cruelties of outwa
rd fortune. So we note here the neurotic constitution, of which I said so much i
n my first lecture, making its active entrance on our scene, and destined to pla
y a part in much that follows. Since these experiences of melancholy are in the
first instance absolutely private and individual, I can now help myself out with
personal documents. Painful indeed they will be to listen to, and there is almo
st an indecency in handling them in public. Yet they lie right in the middle of
our path; and if we are to touch the psychology of religion at all seriously, we
must be willing to forget conventionalities, and dive below the smooth and lyin
g official conversational surface.
One can distinguish many kinds of pathological depression. Sometimes it is mere
passive joylessness and dreariness. discouragement, dejection, lack of taste and
zest and spring.
[p. 143]
[paragraph continues] Professor Ribot has proposed the name anhedonia to designa
te this condition.
"The state of anhedonia, if I may coin a new word to pair off with analgesia," h
e writes, "has been very little studied, but it exists. A young girl was smitten
with a liver disease which for some time altered her constitution. She felt no
longer any affection for her father and mother. She would have played with her d
oll, but it was impossible to find the least pleasure in the act. The same thing
s which formerly convulsed her with laughter entirely failed to interest her now
. Esquirol observed the case of a very intelligent magistrate who was also a pre
y to hepatic disease. Every emotion appeared dead within him. He manifested neit
her perversion nor violence, but complete absence of emotional reaction. If he w
ent to the theatre, which he did out of habit, he could find no pleasure there.
The thought of his house of his home, of his wife, and of his absent children mo
ved him as little, he said, as a theorem of Euclid." [*1]
Prolonged seasickness will in most persons produce a temporary condition of anhe
donia. Every good, terrestrial or celestial, is imagined only to be turned from
with disgust. A temporary condition of this sort, connected with the religious e
volution of a singularly lofty character, both intellectual and moral, is well d
escribed by the Catholic philosopher, Father Gratry, in his autobiographical rec
ollections. In consequence of mental isolation and excessive study at the Polyte
chnic school, young Gratry fell into a state of nervous exhaustion with symptoms
which he thus describes:--
"I had such a universal terror that I woke at night with a start, thinking that
the Pantheon was tumbling on the Polytechnic school, or that the school was in f
lames, or that the Seine was pouring into the Catacombs, and that Paris was bein
g swallowed
[p. 144]
up. And when these impressions were past, all day long without respite I suffere
d an incurable and intolerable desolation, verging on despair. I thought myself,
in fact, rejected by God, lost, damned! I felt something like the suffering of
hell. Before that I had never even thought of hell. My mind had never turned in
that direction. Neither discourses nor reflections had impressed me in that way.
I took no account of hell. Now, and all at once, I suffered in a measure what i
s suffered there.
"But what was perhaps still more dreadful is that every idea of heaven was taken
away from me: I could no longer conceive of anything of the sort. Heaven did no
t seem to me worth going to. It was like a vacuum; a mythological elysium, an ab
ode of shadows less real than the earth. I could conceive no joy, no pleasure in
inhabiting it. Happiness, joy, light, affection, love--all these words were now
devoid of sense. Without doubt I could still have talked of all these things, b
ut I had become incapable of feeling anything in them, of understanding anything
about them, of hoping anything from them, or of believing them to exist. There
was my great and inconsolable grief! I neither perceived nor conceived any longe
r the existence of happiness or perfection. An abstract heaven over a naked rock
. Such was my present abode for eternity." [*1]
[p. 145]
So much for melancholy in the sense of incapacity for joyous feeling. A much wor
se form of it is positive and active anguish, a sort of psychical neuralgia whol
ly unknown to healthy life. Such anguish may partake of various characters, havi
ng sometimes more the quality of loathing; sometimes that of irritation and exas
peration; or again of self-mistrust and self-despair; or of suspicion, anxiety,
trepidation, fear. The patient may rebel or submit; may accuse himself, or accus
e outside powers; and he may or he may not be tormented by the theoretical myste
ry of why he should so have to suffer. Most cases are mixed cases, and we should
not treat our classifications with too much respect. Moreover, it is only a rel
atively small proportion of cases that connect themselves with the religious sph
ere of experience at all. Exasperated cases, for instance, as a rule do not. I q
uote now literally from the first case of melancholy on which I lay my hand. It
is a letter from a patient in a French asylum.
"I suffer too much in this hospital, both physically and morally. Besides the bu
rnings and the sleeplessness (for I no longer sleep since I am shut up here, and
the little rest I get is broken by bad dreams, and I am waked with a jump by ni
ght mares dreadful visions, lightning, thunder, and the rest), fear, atrocious f
ear, presses me down, holds me without respite, never lets me go. Where is the j
ustice in it all! What have I done to deserve this excess of severity? Under wha
t form will this fear crush me? What would I not owe to any one who would rid me
of my life! Eat, drink, lie awake all night, suffer without interruption--such
is the fine legacy I have received from my mother! What I fail to understand is
this abuse of power. There are limits to everything, there is a middle way. But
God knows neither middle way nor limits. I say God, but why? All I have
[p. 146]
known so far has been the devil. After all, I am afraid of God as much as of the
devil, so I drift along, thinking of nothing but suicide, but with neither cour
age nor means here to execute the act. As you read this, it will easily prove to
you my insanity. The style and the ideas are incoherent enough--I can see that
myself. But I cannot keep myself from being either crazy or an idiot; and, as th
ings are, from whom should I ask pity? I am defenseless against the invisible en
emy who is tightening his coils around me. I should be no better armed against h
im even if I saw him, or had seen him. Oh, if he would but kill me, devil take h
im! Death, death, once for all! But I stop. I have raved to you long enough. I s
ay raved, for I can write no otherwise, having neither brain nor thoughts left.
O God! what a misfortune to be born! Born like a mushroom, doubtless between an
evening and a morning; and how true and right I was when in our philosophy-year
in college I chewed the cud of bitterness with the pessimists. Yes, indeed, ther
e is more pain in life than gladness--it is one long agony until the grave. Thin
k how gay it makes me to remember that this horrible misery of mine, coupled wit
h this unspeakable fear, may last fifty, one hundred, who knows how many more ye
ars!" [*1]
This letter shows two things. First, you see how the entire consciousness of the
poor man is so choked with the feeling of evil that the sense of there being an
y good in the world is lost for him altogether. His attention excludes it, canno
t admit it: the sun has left his heaven. And secondly you see how the querulous
temper of his misery keeps his mind from taking a religious direction. Querulous
ness of mind tends in fact rather towards irreligion; and it has played, so far
as I know, no part whatever in the construction of religious systems.

Religious melancholy must be cast in a more melting mood. Tolstoy has left us, i
n his book called My Confession,
[p. 147]
a wonderful account of the attack of melancholy which led him to his own religio
us conclusions. The latter in some respects are peculiar; but the melancholy pre
sents two characters which make it a typical document for our present purpose. F
irst it is a well-marked case of anhedonia, of passive loss of appetite for all
life's values; and second, it shows how the altered and estranged aspect which t
he world assumed in consequence of this stimulated Tolstoy's intellect to a gnaw
ing, carking questioning and effort for philosophic relief. I mean to quote Tols
toy at some length; but before doing so, I will make a general remark on each of
these two points.
First on our spiritual judgments and the sense of value in general.
It is notorious that facts are compatible with opposite emotional comments, sinc
e the same fact will inspire entirely different feelings in different persons, a
nd at different times in the same person; and there is no rationally deducible c
onnection between any outer fact and the sentiments it may happen to provoke. Th
ese have their source in another sphere of existence altogether, in the animal a
nd spiritual region of the subject's being. Conceive yourself, if possible, sudd
enly stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you, and try
 to imagine it as it exists, purely by itself, without your favorable or unfavor
able, hopeful or apprehensive comment. It will be almost impossible for you to r
ealize such a condition of negativity and deadness. No one portion of the univer
se would then have importance beyond another; and the whole collection of its th
ings and series of its events would be without significance, character, expressi
on, or perspective. Whatever of value, interest, or meaning our respective world
s may appear endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator's mind. The passio
n of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this fact. If it comes, it
comes; if it does not
[p. 148]
come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the c
reature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like
gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets the whole world to a new tune for the l
over and gives a new issue to his life. So with fear, with indignation, jealousy
, ambition, worship. If they are there, life changes. And whether they shall be
there or not depends almost always upon non-logical, often on organic conditions
. And as the excited interest which these passions put into the world is our gif
t to the world, just so are the passions themselves gifts--gifts to us, from sou
rces sometimes low and sometimes high; but almost always non-logical and beyond
our control. How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, th
e mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for hi
m in the days when he was young and well? Gifts, either of the flesh or of the s
pirit; and the spirit bloweth where it listeth; and the world's materials lend t
heir surface passively to all the gifts alike, as the stage-setting receives ind
ifferently whatever alternating colored lights may be shed upon it from the opti
cal apparatus in the gallery.
Meanwhile the practically real world for each one of us, the effective world of
the individual, is the compound world, the physical facts and emotional values i
n indistinguishable combination. Withdraw or pervert either factor of this compl
ex resultant, and the kind of experience we call pathological ensues.
In Tolstoy's case the sense that life had any meaning whatever was for a time wh
olly withdrawn. The result was a transformation in the whole expression of reali
ty. When we come to study the phenomenon of conversion or religious regeneration
, we shall see that a not infrequent consequence of the change operated in the s
ubject is a transfiguration of the face of nature in his eyes. A new heaven seem
s to shine upon a new earth. In melancholiacs there is
[p. 149]
usually a similar change, only it is in the reverse direction. The world now loo
ks remote, strange, sinister, uncanny. Its color is gone, its breath is cold, th
ere is no speculation in the eyes it glares with. "It is as if I lived in anothe
r century," says one asylum patient.--"I see everything through a cloud," says a
nother, "things are not as they were, and I am changed."--"I see," says a third,
"I touch, but the things do not come near me, a thick veil alters the hue and l
ook of everything."--"Persons move like shadows, and sounds seem to come from a
distant world."--"There is no longer any past for me; people appear so strange;
it is as if I could not see any reality, as if I were in a theatre; as if people
were actors, and everything were scenery; I can no longer find myself; I walk,
but why? Everything floats before my eyes, but leaves no impression."--"I weep f
alse tears, I have unreal hands: the things I see are not real things."--Such ar
e expressions that naturally rise to the lips of melancholy subjects describing
their changed state. [*1]
Now there are some subjects whom all this leaves a prey to the profoundest aston
ishment. The strangeness is wrong. The unreality cannot be. A mystery is conceal
ed, and a metaphysical solution must exist. If the natural world is so double-fa
ced and unhomelike, what world, what thing is real? An urgent wondering and ques
tioning is set up, a poring theoretic activity, and in the desperate effort to g
et into right relations with the matter, the sufferer is often led to what becom
es for him a satisfying religious solution.
At about the age of fifty, Tolstoy relates that he began to have moments of perp
lexity, of what he calls arrest, as if he knew not "how to live," or what to do.
It is obvious that these were moments in which the excitement and interest whic
h our functions naturally bring had ceased. Life had been enchanting, it was now
flat sober, more than
[p. 150]
sober, dead. Things were meaningless whose meaning had always been self-evident.
The questions "Why?" and "What next?" began to beset him more and more frequent
ly. At first it seemed as if such questions must be answerable, and as if he cou
ld easily find the answers if he would take the time; but as they ever became mo
re urgent, he perceived that it was like those first discomforts of a sick man,
to which he pays but little attention till they run into one continuous sufferin
g, and then he realizes that what he took for a passing disorder means the most
momentous thing in the world for him, means his death.
These questions "Why?" "Wherefore?" "What for?" found no response.
"I felt," says Tolstoy, "that something had broken within me on which my life ha
d always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life
had stopped. An invincible force impelled me to get rid of my existence, in one
way or another. It cannot be said exactly that I wished to kill myself, for the
force which drew me away from life was fuller, more powerful, more general than
any mere desire. It was a force like my old aspiration to live, only it impelle
d me in the opposite direction. It was an aspiration of my whole being to get ou
t of life.
"Behold me then, a man happy and in good health, hiding the rope in order not to
hang myself to the rafters of the room where every night I went to sleep alone;
behold me no longer going shooting, lest I should yield to the too easy temptat
ion of putting an end to myself with my gun.
"I did not know what I wanted. I was afraid of life; I was driven to leave it; a
nd in spite of that I still hoped something from it.
"All this took place at a time when so far as all my outer circumstances went, I
ought to have been completely happy. I had a good wife who loved me and whom I
loved; good children and a large property which was increasing with no pains tak
en on my part. I was more respected by my kinsfolk and acquaintance than I had e
ver been; I was loaded with praise by strangers; and
[p. 151]
without exaggeration I could believe my name already famous. Moreover I was neit
her insane nor ill. On the contrary, I possessed a physical and mental strength
which I have rarely met in persons of my age. I could mow as well as the peasant
s, I could work with my brain eight hours uninterruptedly and feel no bad effect
s.
"And yet I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life. And I was
surprised that I had not understood this from the very beginning. My state of m
ind was as if some wicked and stupid jest was being played upon me by some one.
One can live only so long as one is intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one g
rows sober one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat. What is truest
about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it; it is cruel and stu
pid, purely and simply.
"The oriental fable of the traveler surprised in the desert by a wild beast is v
ery old.
"Seeking to save himself from the fierce animal, the traveler jumps into a well
with no water in it; but at the bottom of this well he sees a dragon waiting wit
h open mouth to devour him. And the unhappy man, not daring to go out lest he sh
ould be the prey of the beast, not daring to jump to the bottom lest he should b
e devoured by the dragon, clings to the branches of a wild bush which grows out
of one of the cracks of the well. His hands weaken, and he feels that he must so
on give way to certain fate; but still he clings, and see two mice, one white, t
he other black, evenly moving round the bush to which he hangs, and gnawing off
its roots.
"The traveler sees this and knows that he must inevitably perish; but while thus
hanging he looks about him and finds on the leaves of the bush some drops of ho
ney. These he reaches with his tongue and licks them off with rapture.
"Thus I hang upon the boughs of life, knowing that the inevitable dragon of deat
h is waiting ready to tear me, and I cannot comprehend why I am thus made a mart
yr. I try to suck the honey which formerly consoled me; but the honey pleases me
no longer, and day and night the white mouse and the black mouse gnaw the branc
h to which I cling. I can see but one thing: the inevitable dragon and the mice-
-I cannot turn my gaze away from them.
[p. 152]
"This is no fable, but the literal incontestable truth which every one may under
stand. What will be the outcome of what I do to-day? Of what I shall do to-morro
w? What will be the outcome of all my life? Why should I live? Why should I do a
nything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death which awaits me
does not undo and destroy?
"These questions are the simplest in the world. From the stupid child to the wis
est old man, they are in the soul of every human being. Without an answer to the
m, it is impossible, as I experienced, for life to go on.
"'But perhaps,' I often said to myself, 'there may be something I have failed to
notice or to comprehend. It is not possible that this condition of despair shou
ld be natural to mankind.' And I sought for an explanation in all the branches o
f knowledge acquired by men. I questioned painfully and protractedly and with no
idle curiosity. I sought, not with indolence, but laboriously and obstinately f
or days and nights together. I sought like a man who is lost and seeks to save h
imself--and I found nothing. I became convinced, moreover, that all those who be
fore me had sought for an answer in the sciences have also found nothing. And no
t only this, but that they have recognized that the very thing which was leading
me to despair--the meaningless absurdity of life--is the only incontestable kno
wledge accessible to man."
To prove this point, Tolstoy quotes the Buddha, Solomon, and Schopenhauer. And h
e finds only four ways in which men of his own class and society are accustomed
to meet the situation. Either mere animal blindness, sucking the honey without s
eeing the dragon or the mice--"and from such a way," he says, "I can learn nothi
ng, after what I now know;" or reflective epicureanism, snatching what it can wh
ile the day lasts--which is only a more deliberate sort of stupefaction than the
first; or manly suicide; or seeing the mice and dragon and yet weakly and plain
tively clinging to the bush of life.
[p. 153]
Suicide was naturally the consistent course dictated by the logical intellect.
"Yet," says Tolstoy, "whilst my intellect was working, something else in me was
working too, and kept me from the deed--a consciousness of life, as I may call i
t, which was like a force that obliged my mind to fix itself in another directio
n and draw me out of my situation of despair. . . . During the whole course of t
his year, when I almost unceasingly kept asking myself how to end the business,
whether by the rope or by the bullet, during all that time, alongside of all tho
se movements of my ideas and observations, my heart kept languishing with anothe
r pining emotion. I can call this by no other name than that of a thirst for God
. This craving for God had nothing to do with the movement of my ideas--in fact,
it was the direct contrary of that movement--but it came from my heart. It was
like a feeling of dread that made me seem like an orphan and isolated in the mid
st of all these things that were so foreign. And this feeling of dread was mitig
ated by the hope of finding the assistance of some one." [*1]
Of the process, intellectual as well as emotional, which, starting from this ide
a of God, led to Tolstoy's recovery, I will say nothing in this lecture, reservi
ng it for a later hour. The only thing that need interest us now is the phenomen
on of his absolute disenchantment with ordinary life, and the fact that the whol
e range of habitual values may, to a man as powerful and full of faculty as he w
as, come to appear so ghastly a mockery.
When disillusionment has gone as far as this, there is seldom a restitutio ad in
tegrum. One has tasted of the fruit of the tree, and the happiness of Eden never
comes again. The happiness that comes, when any does come--and often enough it
fails to return in an acute form, though its form
[p. 154]
is sometimes very acute--is not the simple, ignorance of ill, but something vast
ly more complex, including natural evil as one of its elements, but finding natu
ral evil no such stumbling-block and terror because it now sees it swallowed up
in supernatural good. The process is one of redemption, not of mere reversion to
natural health, and the sufferer, when saved, is saved by what seems to him a s
econd birth, a deeper kind of conscious being than he could enjoy before.
We find a somewhat different type of religious melancholy enshrined in literatur
e in John Bunyan's autobiography. Tolstoy's preoccupations were largely objectiv
e, for the purpose and meaning of life in general was what so troubled him; but
poor Bunyan's troubles were over the condition of his own personal self. He was
a typical case of the psychopathic temperament, sensitive of conscience to a dis
eased degree, beset by doubts, fears and insistent ideas, and a victim of verbal
automatisms, both motor and sensory. These were usually texts of Scripture whic
h, sometimes damnatory and sometimes favorable, would come in a half-hallucinato
ry form as if they were voices, and fasten on his mind and buffet it between the
m like a shuttlecock. Added to this were a fearful melancholy self-contempt and
despair.

"Nay, thought I, now I grow worse and worse, now I am farther from conversion th
an ever I was before. If now I should have burned at the stake, I could not beli
eve that Christ had love for me; alas, I could neither hear him, nor see him, no
r feel him, nor savor any of his things. Sometimes I would tell my condition to
the people of God, which, when they heard, they would pity me, and would tell of
the Promises. 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 Promise. [Yet] all this whi
le as to the act of sinning, I never was more tender than now; I durst not take
a pin or stick, though but so big as a straw, for
[p. 155]
my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch; I could not tell how
to speak my words, for fear I should misplace them. Oh, how gingerly did I then
go, in all I did or said! I found myself as on a miry bog that shook if I did b
ut stir; and was as there left both by God and Christ, and the spirit, and all g
ood things.
"But my original and inward pollution, that was my plague and my affliction. By
reason of that, I was more loathsome in my own eyes than was a toad; and I thoug
ht I was so in God's eyes too. Sin and corruption, I said, would as naturally bu
bble out of my heart as water would bubble out of a fountain. I could have chang
ed heart with anybody. I thought none but the Devil himself could equal me for i
nward wickedness and pollution of mind. Sure, thought I, I am forsaken of God; a
nd thus I continued a long while, even for some years together.
"And now I was sorry that God had made me a man. The beasts, birds, fishes, etc.
, I blessed their condition, for they had not a sinful nature; they were not obn
oxious to the wrath of God; they were not to go to hell-fire after death. I coul
d therefore have rejoiced, had my condition been as any of theirs. Now I blessed
the condition of the dog and toad, yea, gladly would I have been in the conditi
on of the dog or horse, for I knew they had no soul to perish under the everlast
ing weight of Hell or Sin, as mine was like to do. Nay, and though I saw this, f
elt this, and was broken to pieces with it, yet that which added to my sorrow wa
s, that I could not find with all my soul that I did desire deliverance. My hear
t was at times exceedingly hard. If I would have given a thousand pounds for a t
ear, I could not shed one; no, nor sometimes scarce desire to shed one.
"I was both a burthen and a terror to myself; nor did I ever so know, as now, wh
at it was to be weary of my life, and yet afraid to die. How gladly would I have
been anything but myself! Anything but a man! and in any condition but my own."
[*1]
Poor patient Bunyan, like Tolstoy, saw the light again, but we must also postpon
e that part of his story to another
[p. 156]
hour. In a later lecture I will also give the end of the experience of Henry All
ine, a devoted evangelist who worked in Nova Scotia a hundred years ago, and who
thus vividly describes the high-water mark of the religious melancholy which fo
rmed its beginning. The type was not unlike Bunyan's.
"Everything I saw seemed to be a burden to me; the earth seemed accursed for my
sake: all trees, plants, rocks, hills, and vales seemed to be dressed in mournin
g and groaning, under the weight of the curse, and everything around me seemed t
o be conspiring my ruin. My sins seemed to be laid open; so that I thought that
every one I saw knew them, and sometimes I was almost ready to acknowledge many
things, which I thought they knew: yea sometimes it seemed to me as if every one
was pointing me out as the most guilty wretch upon earth. I had now so great a
sense of the vanity and emptiness of all things here below, that I knew the whol
e world could not possibly make me happy, no, nor the whole system of creation.
When I waked in the morning, the first thought would be, Oh, my wretched soul, w
hat shall I do, where shall I go? And when I laid down, would say, I shall be pe
rhaps in hell before morning. I would many times look on the beasts with envy, w
ishing with all my heart I was in their place, that I might have no soul to lose
; and when I have seen birds flying over my head, have often thought within myse
lf, Oh, that I could fly away from my danger and distress! Oh, how happy should
I be, if I were in their place!" [*1]
Envy of the placid beasts seems to be a very widespread affection in this type o
f sadness.
The worst kind of melancholy is that which takes the form of panic fear. Here is
an excellent example, for permission to print which I have to thank the suffere
r. The
[p. 157]
original is in French, and though the subject was evidently in a bad nervous con
dition at the time of which he writes, his case has otherwise the merit of extre
me simplicity. I translate freely.
"Whilst in this state of philosophic pessimism and general depression of spirits
about my prospects, I went one evening into a dressing-room in the twilight to
procure some article that was there; when suddenly there fell upon me without an
y warning, just as if it came out of the darkness, a horrible fear of my own exi
stence. Simultaneously there arose in my mind the image of an epileptic patient
whom I had seen in the asylum, a black-haired youth with greenish skin, entirely
idiotic, who used to sit all day on one of the benches, or rather shelves again
st the wall, with his knees drawn up against his chin, and the coarse gray under
shirt, which was his only garment, drawn over them inclosing his entire figure.
He sat there like a sort of sculptured Egyptian cat or Peruvian mummy, moving no
thing but his black eyes and looking absolutely non-human. This image and my fea
r entered into a species of combination with each other That shape am I, I felt,
potentially. Nothing that I possess can defend me against that fate, if the hou
r for it should strike for me as it struck for him. There was such a horror of h
im, and such a perception of my own merely momentary discrepancy from him, that
it was as if something hitherto solid within my breast gave way entirely, and I
became a mass of quivering fear. After this the universe was changed for me alto
gether. I awoke morning after morning with a horrible dread at the pit of my sto
mach, and with a sense of the insecurity of life that I never knew before, and t
hat I have never felt since. [*1] It was like a
[p. 158]
revelation; and although the immediate feelings passed away, the experience has
made me sympathetic with the morbid feelings of others ever since. It gradually
faded, but for months I was unable to go out into the dark alone.
"In general I dreaded to be left alone. I remember wondering how other people co
uld live, how I myself had ever lived, so unconscious of that pit of insecurity
beneath the surface of life. My mother in particular, a very cheerful person, se
emed to me a perfect paradox in her unconsciousness of danger, which you may wel
l believe I was very careful not to disturb by revelations of my own state of mi
nd (I have always thought that this experience of melancholia of mine had a reli
gious bearing."
On asking this correspondent to explain more fully what he meant by these last w
ords, the answer he wrote was this:--
"I mean that the fear was so invasive and powerful that if I had not clung to sc
ripture-texts like 'The eternal God is my refuge,' etc., 'Come unto me, all ye t
hat labor and are heavy-laden,' etc., 'I am the resurrection and the life,' etc.
, I think I should have grown really insane." [*1]
There is no need of more examples. The cases we have looked at are enough. One o
f them gives us the vanity of mortal things; another the sense of sin; and the r
emaining one describes the fear of the universe;--and in one or other of these t
hree ways it always is that man's original optimism and self-satisfaction get le
veled with the dust.
In none of these cases was there any intellectual insanity or delusion about mat
ters of fact; but were we disposed to open the chapter of really insane melancho
lia, with its
[p. 159]
hallucinations and delusions, it would be a worse story still--desperation absol
ute and complete, the whole universe coagulating about the sufferer into a mater
ial of overwhelming horror, surrounding him without opening or end. Not the conc
eption or intellectual perception of evil, but the grisly blood-freezing heart-p
alsying sensation of it close upon one, and no other conception or sensation abl
e to live for a moment in its presence. How irrelevantly remote seem all our usu
al refined optimisms and intellectual and moral consolations in presence of a ne
ed of help like this! Here is the real core of the religious problem: Help! help
! 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 these. But the deliveranc
e must come in as strong a form as the complaint, if it is to take effect; and t
hat seems a reason why the coarser religions, revivalistic, orgiastic, with bloo
d and miracles and supernatural operations, may possibly never be displaced. Som
e constitutions need them too much.

Arrived at this point, we can see how great an antagonism may naturally arise be
tween the healthy-minded way of viewing life and the way that takes all this exp
erience of evil as something essential. To this latter way, the morbid-minded wa
y, as we might call it, healthy-mindedness pure and simple seems unspeakably bli
nd and shallow. To the healthy-minded way, on the other hand, the way of the sic
k soul seems unmanly and diseased. With their grubbing in rat-holes instead of l
iving in the light; with their manufacture of fears, and preoccupation with ever
y unwholesome kind of misery, there is something almost obscene about these chil
dren of wrath and cravers of a second birth. If religious intolerance and hangin
g and burning could again become the order of the day, there is little doubt tha
t, however it may have been in the past, the healthy-minded would
[p. 160]
at present show themselves the less indulgent party of the two.
In our own attitude, not yet abandoned, of impartial onlookers, what are we to s
ay of this quarrel? It seems to me that we are bound to say that morbid-mindedne
ss ranges over the wider scale of experience, and that its survey is the one tha
t overlaps. The method of averting one's attention from evil, and living simply
in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work. It will work with many
persons; it will work far more generally than most of us are ready to suppose;
and within the sphere of its successful operation there is nothing to be said ag
ainst it as a religious solution. But it breaks down impotently as soon as melan
choly comes; and even though one be quite free from melancholy one's self, there
is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine,
because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine
portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life's significanc
e, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.
The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane
melancholy is filled with, moments in which radical evil gets its innings and ta
kes its solid turn. The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the mater
ial of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every indivi
dual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my
friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! To believe in the carnivorous repti
les of geologic times is hard for our imagination--they seem too much like mere
museum specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that d
id not daily through long years of the foretime hold fast to the body struggling
in despair of some fated living victim. Forms of horror just as dreadful to the
victims, if on a smaller spatial scale, fill the world about us to-day. Here on
our very
[p. 161]
hearths and in our gardens the infernal cat plays with the panting mouse, or hol
ds the hot bird fluttering in her jaws. Crocodiles and rattlesnakes and pythons
are at this moment vessels of life as real as we are; their loathsome existence
fills every minute of every day that drags its length along; and whenever they o
r other wild beasts clutch their living prey, the deadly horror which an agitate
d melancholiac feels is the literally right reaction on the situation. [*1]
It may indeed be that no religious reconciliation with the absolute totality of
things is possible. Some evils, indeed, are ministerial to higher forms of good;
but it may be that there are forms of evil so extreme as to enter into no good
system whatsoever, and that, in respect of such evil, dumb submission or neglect
to notice is the only practical resource. This question must confront us on a l
ater day. But provisionally, and as a mere matter of program and method, since t
he evil facts are as genuine parts of nature as the good ones, the
[p. 162]
philosophic presumption should be that they have some rational significance, and
that systematic healthy-mindedness, failing as it does to accord to sorrow, pai
n, and death any positive and active attention whatever, is formally less comple
te than systems that try at least to include these elements in their scope.
The completest religions would therefore seem to be those in which the pessimist
ic elements are best developed. Buddhism, of course, and Christianity are the be
st known to us of these. They are essentially religions of deliverance: the man
must die to an unreal life before he can be born into the real life. In my next
lecture, I will try to discuss some of the psychological conditions of this seco
nd birth. Fortunately from now onward we shall have to deal with more cheerful s
ubjects than those which we have recently been dwelling on.
Footnotes
^126:1 Tract on God, Man, and Happiness, Book ii. ch. x.
^127:1 Commentary on Galatians, Philadelphia, 1891, pp. 510-514 (abridged).
^128:2 Molinos: Spiritual Guide, Book II., chaps. xvii., xviii. abridged.
^130:1 I say this in spite of the monistic utterances of many mind-cure writers;
for these utterances are really inconsistent with their attitude towards diseas
e, and can easily be shown not to be logically involved in the experiences of un
ion with a higher Presence with which they connect themselves. The higher Presen
ce, namely, need not be the absolute whole of things, it is quite sufficient for
the life of religious experience to regard it as a part, if only it be the most
ideal part.
^132:1 Cf. J. MILSAND: Luther et le Serf-Arbitre, 1884, passim.
^136:1 He adds with characteristic healthy-mindedness: "Our business is to conti
nue to fail in good spirits."
^136:2 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 world. To ou
r own consciousness there is usually a residuum of worth left over after our sin
s and errors have been told off--our capacity of acknowledging and regretting th
em is the germ of a better self in posse at least. But the world deals with us i
n actu and not in posse: and of this hidden germ, not to be guessed at from with
out, it never takes account. Then we turn to the All-knower, who knows our bad,
but knows this good in us also, and who is just. We cast ourselves with our repe
ntance on his mercy only by an All-knower can we finally be judged. So the need
of a God very definitely emerges from this sort of experience of life.
^139:1 E.g., Iliad XVII. 446: "Nothing then is more wretched anywhere than man o
f all that breathes and creeps upon this earth."
^139:2 E.g., Theognis, 425-428: "Best of all for all things upon earth is it not
to be born nor to behold the splendors of the sun; next best to traverse as soo
n as possible the gates of Hades." See also the almost identical passage in Oedi
pus in Colonus, 1225.--The Anthology is full of pessimistic utterances: "Naked c
ame I upon the earth, naked I go below the ground--why then do I vainly toil whe
n I see the end naked before me?"--"How did I come to be? Whence am l? Wherefore
did I come? To pass away. How can I learn aught when naught I know? Being naugh
t I came to life: once more shall I be what I was. Nothing and nothingness is th
e [p. 140] whole race of mortals."--"For death we are all cherished and fattened
like a herd of hogs that is wantonly butchered."
The difference between Greek pessimism and the oriental and modern variety is th
at the Greeks had not made the discovery that the pathetic mood may be idealized
, and figure as a higher form of sensibility. Their spirit was still too essenti
ally masculine for pessimism to be elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their cla
ssic literature. They would have despised a life set wholly in a minor key, and
summoned it to keep within the proper bounds of lachrymosity. The discovery that
the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its pain and f
ailure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to speak) more feminine tha
n the Hellenes had attained to being in the classic period. But all the same was
the outlook of those Hellenes blackly pessimistic.
^141:1 For instance, on the very day on which I write this page, the post brings
me some aphorisms from a worldly-wise old friend in Heidelberg which may serve
as a good contemporaneous expression of Epicureanism: "By the word 'happiness' e
very human being understands something different. It is a phantom pursued only b
y weaker minds. The wise man is satisfied with the more modest but much more def
inite term contentment. What education should chiefly aim at is to save us from
a discontented life. Health is one favoring condition, but by no means an indisp
ensable one, of contentment. Woman's heart and love are a shrewd device of Natur
e, a trap which she sets for the average man, to force him into working. But the
wise man will always prefer work chosen by himself."
^143:1 RIBOT: Psychologie des sentiments, p. 54.
^144:1 A. Gratry: Souvenirs de ma jeunesse, 1880, pp. 119-121, abridged. Some pe
rsons are affected with anhedonia permanently, or at any rate with a loss of the
usual appetite for life. The annals of suicide supply such examples as the foll
owing:--
An uneducated domestic servant, aged nineteen, poisons herself, and leaves two l
etters expressing her motive for the act. To her parents she writes:--
"Life is sweet perhaps to some, but I prefer what is sweeter than life, and that
is death. So good-by forever, my dear parents. It is nobody's fault, but a stro
ng desire of my own which I have longed to fulfill for three or four years. I ha
ve always had a hope that some day I might have an opportunity of fulfilling it,
and now it has come. . . . It is a wonder I have put this off so long, but I th
ought perhaps I should cheer up a bit and put all thought out of my head." To he
r brother she writes: "Good-by forever, my own dearest brother. By the time you
get this I shall be gone forever. I know, dear love, there is no forgiveness for
what I am going to do. [p. 145] . . . I am tired of living, so am willing to di
e. . . . Life may be sweet to some, but death to me is sweeter." S. A. K. STRAHA
N: Suicide and Insanity, 2d edition, London, 1894, p. 131.
^146:1 ROUBINOVITCH ET TOULOUSE: La Melancolie, 1897, p. 170, abridged.
^149:1 I cull these examples from the work of G. DUMAS: La Tristesse et la Joie,
1900.
^153:1 My extracts are from the French translation by "ZONIA." In abridging I ha
ve taken the liberty of transposing one passage.
^155:1 Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners: I have printed a number of detac
hed passages continuously.
^156:1 The Life and Journal of the Rev. Mr. Henry Alline, Boston 1806, pp. 25, 2
6. I owe my acquaintance with this book to my colleague, Dr. Benjamin Rand.
^157:1 Compare Bunyan. "There was I struck into a very great trembling, insomuch
that at some times I could, for days together, feel my very body, as well as my
mind, to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God, that
should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I
felt also such clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, th
at I was, especially at some times, as if my breast-bone would have split asunde
r. . . . Thus did I wind, and twine, and shrink, under the burden that was upon
me; which burden also did so oppress me that I could neither stand, nor go, nor
lie, either at rest or quiet."
^158:1 For another case of fear equally sudden, see Henry James: Society the Red
eemed Form of Man, Boston, 1879, pp. 43 ff.
^161:1 Example: "It was about eleven o'clock at night . . . but I strolled on st
ill with the people. . . . Suddenly upon the left side of our road, a crackling
was heard among the bushes; all of us were alarmed, and in an instant a tiger, r
ushing out of the jungle, pounced upon the one of the party that was foremost, a
nd carried him off in the twinkling of an eye. The rush of the animal, and the c
rush of the poor victim's bones in his mouth, and his last cry of distress, 'Ho
hai!' involuntarily reechoed by all of us, was over in three seconds; and then I
know not what happened till I returned to my senses, when I found myself and co
mpanions lying down on the ground as if prepared to be devoured by our enemy the
sovereign of the forest. I find my pen incapable of describing the terror of th
at dreadful moment. Our limbs stiffened, our power of speech ceased, and our hea
rts beat violently, and only a whisper of the same 'Ho hai!' was heard from us.
In this state we crept on all fours for some distance back, and then ran for lif
e with the speed of an Arab horse for about half an hour, and fortunately happen
ed to come to a small village. . . . After this every one of us was attacked wit
h fever, attended with shivering, in which deplorable state we remained till mor
ning."--Autobiography of Lutfullah, a Mohammedan Gentleman, Leipzig, 1857, p. 11
2.
The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.
com
[p. 163]

Lecture VIII

THE DIVIDED SELF, AND THE PROCESS OF ITS UNIFICATION

The last lecture was a painful one, dealing as it did with evil as a pervasive e
lement of the world we live in. At the close of it we were brought into full vie
w of the contrast between the two ways of looking at life which are characterist
ic respectively of what we called the healthy-minded, who need to be born only o
nce, and of the sick souls, who must be twice-born in order to be happy. The res
ult is two different conceptions of the universe of our experience. In the relig
ion of the once-born the world is a sort of rectilinear or one-storied affair, w
hose accounts are kept in one denomination, whose parts have just the values whi
ch naturally they appear to have, and of which a simple algebraic sum of pluses
and minuses will give the total worth. Happiness and religious peace consist in
living on the plus side of the account. In the religion of the twice-born, on th
e other hand, the world is a double-storied mystery. Peace cannot be reached by
the simple addition of pluses and elimination of minuses from life. Natural good
is not simply insufficient in amount and transient, there lurks a falsity in it
s very being. Cancelled as it all is by death if not by earlier enemies, it give
s no final balance, and can never be the thing intended for our lasting worship.
It keeps us from our real good, rather; and renunciation and despair of it are
our first step in the direction of the truth. There are two lives, the natural a
nd the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the othe
r.
[p. 164]
In their extreme forms, of pure naturalism and pure salvationism, the two types
are violently contrasted; though here as in most other current classifications,
the radical extremes are somewhat ideal abstractions, and the concrete human bei
ngs whom we oftenest meet are intermediate varieties and mixtures. Practically,
however, you all recognize the difference: you understand, for example, the disd
ain of the methodist convert for the mere sky-blue healthy-minded moralist; and
you likewise enter into the aversion of the latter to what seems to him the dise
ased subjectivism of the Methodist, dying to live, as he calls it, and making of
paradox and the inversion of natural appearances the essence of God's truth. [*
1]

The psychological basis of the twice-born character seems to be a certain discor

dancy or heterogeneity in the native temperament of the subject, an incompletely
unified moral and intellectual constitution.
"Homo duplex, homo duplex!" writes Alphonse Daudet. "The first time that I perce
ived that I was two was at the death of my brother Henri, when my father cried o
ut so dramatically, 'He is dead, he is dead!' While my first self wept, my secon
d self thought, 'How truly given was that cry, how fine it would be at the theat
re.' I was then fourteen years old.
"This horrible duality has often given me matter for reflection. Oh, this terrib
le second me, always seated whilst the other is on foot, acting, living, sufferi
ng, bestirring itself. This second me that I have never been able to intoxicate,
to make shed tears,
[p. 165]
or put to sleep. And how it sees into things, and how it mocks!" [*1]
Recent works on the psychology of character have had much to say upon this point
. [*2] Some persons are born with an inner constitution which is harmonious and
well balanced from the outset. Their impulses are consistent with one another, t
heir will follows without trouble the guidance of their intellect, their passion
s are not excessive, and their lives are little haunted by regrets. Others are o
ppositely constituted; and are so in degrees which may vary from something so sl
ight as to result in a merely odd or whimsical inconsistency, to a discordancy o
f which the consequences may be inconvenient in the extreme. Of the more innocen
t kinds of heterogeneity I find a good example in Mrs. Annie Besant's autobiogra
phy.
"I have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and strength, and have paid h
eavily for the weakness. As a child I used to suffer tortures of shyness, and if
my shoe-lace was untied would feel shamefacedly that every eye was fixed on the
unlucky string; as a girl I would shrink away from strangers and think myself u
nwanted and unliked, so that I was full of eager gratitude to any one who notice
d me kindly, as the young mistress of a house I was afraid of my servants, and w
ould let careless work pass rather than bear the pain of reproving the ill-doer;
when I have been lecturing and debating with no lack of spirit on the platform,
I have preferred to go without what I wanted at the hotel rather than to ring a
nd make the waiter fetch it. Combative on the platform in defense of any cause I
cared for, I shrink from quarrel or disapproval in the house,
[p. 166]
and am a coward at heart in private while a good fighter in public. How often ha
ve I passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing up my courage to find fault wit
h some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to reprove, and how often have I je
ered myself for a fraud as the doughty platform combatant, when shrinking from b
laming some lad or lass for doing their work badly. An unkind look or word has a
vailed to make me shrink into myself as a snail into its shell, while, on the pl
atform, opposition makes me speak my best." [*1]
This amount of inconsistency will only count as amiable weakness; but a stronger
degree of heterogeneity may make havoc of the subject's life. There are persons
whose existence is little more than a series of zig-zags, as now one tendency a
nd now another gets the upper hand. Their spirit wars with their flesh, they wis
h for incompatibles, wayward impulses interrupt their most deliberate plans, and
their lives are one long drama of repentance and of effort to repair misdemeano
rs and mistakes.
Heterogeneous personality has been explained as the result of inheritance--the t
raits of character of incompatible and antagonistic ancestors are supposed to be
preserved alongside of each other. [*2] This explanation may pass for what it i
s worth--it certainly needs corroboration. But whatever the cause of heterogeneo
us personality may be, we find the extreme examples of it in the psychopathic te
mperament, of which I spoke in my first lecture. All writers about that temperam
ent make the inner heterogeneity prominent in their descriptions. Frequently, in
deed, it is only this trait that leads us to ascribe that temperament to a man a
t all. A "degenere superieur" is simply a man of sensibility in many directions,
who finds more difficulty than is common in keeping
[p. 167]
his spiritual house in order and running his furrow straight, because his feelin
gs and impulses are too keen and too discrepant mutually. In the haunting and in
sistent ideas, in the irrational impulses, the morbid scruples, dreads, and inhi
bitions which beset the psychopathic temperament when it is thoroughly pronounce
d, we have exquisite examples of heterogeneous personality. Bunyan had an obsess
ion of the words, "Sell Christ for this, sell him for that, sell him, sell him!"
which would run through his mind a hundred times together, until one day out of
breath with retorting, "I will not, I will not," he impulsively said, "Let him
go if he will," and this loss of the battle kept him in despair for over a year.
The lives of the saints are full of such blasphemous obsessions, ascribed invar
iably to the direct agency of Satan. The phenomenon connects itself with the lif
e of the subconscious self, so-called, of which we must erelong speak more direc
tly.
Now in all of us, however constituted, but to a degree the greater in proportion
as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations, and to
the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic, does the normal e
volution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of t
he inner self. The higher and the lower feelings, the useful and the erring impu
lses, begin by being a comparative chaos within us--they must end by forming a s
table system of functions in right subordination. Unhappiness is apt to characte
rize the period of order-making and struggle. If the individual be of tender con
science and religiously quickened, the unhappiness will take the form of moral r
emorse and compunction, of feeling inwardly vile and wrong, and of standing in f
alse relations to the author of one's being and appointer of one's spiritual fat
e. This is the religious melancholy and "conviction of sin" that have played so
large a part in the history of Protestant Christianity.
[p. 168]
[paragraph continues] The man's interior is a battle-ground for what he feels to
be two deadly hostile selves, one actual, the other ideal. As Victor Hugo makes
his Mahomet say:--
"Je suis le champ vil des sublimes combats:
Tantot l'homme d'en haut, et tantot l'homme d'en bas;
Et le mal dans ma bouche avec le bien alterne,
Comme dans le desert le sable et la citerne."
[paragraph continues] Wrong living, impotent aspirations; "What I would, that do
I not; but what I hate, that do I," as Saint Paul says; self-loathing, self-des
pair; an unintelligible and intolerable burden to which one is mysteriously the
heir.
Let me quote from some typical cases of discordant personality, with melancholy
in the form of self-condemnation and sense of sin. Saint Augustine's case is a c
lassic example. You all remember his half-pagan, half-Christian bringing up at C
arthage, his emigration to Rome and Milan, his adoption of Manicheism and subseq
uent skepticism, and his restless search for truth and purity of life; and final
ly how, distracted by the struggle between the two souls in his breast and asham
ed of his own weakness of will, 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 life, he heard a voice in the garden say, "Sume, lege" (take and read
), and opening the Bible at random, saw the text, "not in chambering and wantonn
ess," etc., which seemed directly sent to his address, and laid the inner storm
to rest forever. [*1] Augustine's psychological genius
[p. 169]
has given an account of the trouble of having a divided self which has never bee
n surpassed.
"The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to overcome that o
ther will, strengthened by long indulgence. So these two wills, one old, one new
, one carnal, the other spiritual, contended with each other and disturbed my so
ul. I understood by my own experience what I had read, 'flesh lusteth against sp
irit, and spirit against flesh.' It was myself indeed in both the wills, yet mor
e myself in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disapproved in
myself. Yet it was through myself that habit had attained so fierce a mastery ov
er me, because I had willingly come whither I willed not. Still bound to earth,
I refused, O God, to fight on thy side, as much afraid to be freed from all bond
s, as I ought to have feared being trammeled by them.
"Thus the thoughts by which I meditated upon thee were like the efforts of one w
ho would awake, but being overpowered with sleepiness is soon asleep again. Ofte
n does a man when heavy sleepiness is on his limbs defer to shake it off, and th
ough not approving it, encourage it; even so I was sure it was better to surrend
er to thy love than to yield to my own lusts, yet though the former course convi
nced me, the latter pleased and held me bound. There was naught in me to answer
thy call 'Awake, thou sleeper,' but only drawling, drowsy words, 'Presently; yes
, presently; wait a little while.' But the 'presently' had no 'present,' and the
'little while' grew long. . . . For I was afraid thou wouldst hear me too soon,
and heal me at once of my disease of lust, which I wished to satiate rather tha
n to see extinguished. With what lashes of words did I not scourge my own soul.
Yet it shrank back; it refused, though it had no excuse to offer. . . . I said w
ithin myself: 'Come, let it be done now,' and as I said it, I was on the point o
f the resolve. I all but did it, yet I did not do it. And I made another effort,
and almost succeeded, yet I did not reach it, and did not grasp it, hesitating
to die to death, and live to life, and the evil to which I was so wonted held me
more than the better life I had not tried." [*1]
[p. 170]
There could be no more perfect description of the divided will, when the higher
wishes lack just that last acuteness, that touch of explosive intensity, of dyna
mogenic quality (to use the slang of the psychologists), that enables them to bu
rst their shell, and make irruption efficaciously into life and quell the lower
tendencies forever. In a later lecture we shall have much to say about this high
er excitability.
I find another good description of the divided will in the autobiography of Henr
y Alline, the Nova Scotian evangelist, of whose melancholy I read a brief accoun
t in my last lecture. The poor youth's sins were, as you will see, of the most h
armless order, yet they interfered with what proved to be his truest vocation, s
o they gave him great distress.
"I was now very moral in my life, but found no rest of conscience. I now began t
o be esteemed in young company, who knew nothing of my mind all this while, and
their esteem began to be a snare to my soul, for I soon began to be fond of carn
al mirth, though I still flattered myself that if I did not get drunk, nor curse
, nor swear, there would be no sin in frolicking and carnal mirth, and I thought
God would indulge young people with some (what I called simple or civil) recrea
tion. I still kept a round of duties, and would not suffer myself to run into an
y open vices, and so got along very well in time of health and prosperity, but w
hen I was distressed or threatened by sickness, death, or heavy storms of thunde
r, my religion would not do, and I found there was something wanting, and would
begin to repent my going so much to frolics, but when the distress was over, the
 devil and my own wicked heart, with the solicitations of my associates, and my
fondness for young company, were such strong allurements, I would again give way
, and thus I got to be very wild and rude, at the same time kept up my rounds of
secret prayer and reading; but God, not willing I should destroy myself, still
followed me with his calls, and moved with such power upon my conscience, that I
could not satisfy myself with my diversions, and in the midst of my mirth somet
imes would have such a sense of my lost and undone condition, that I would
[p. 171]
wish myself from the company, and after it was over, when I went home, would mak
e many promises that I would attend no more on these frolics, and would beg forg
iveness for hours and hours; but when I came to have the temptation again, I wou
ld give way: no sooner would I hear the music and drink a glass of wine, but I w
ould find my mind elevated and soon proceed to any sort of merriment or diversio
n, that I thought was not debauched or openly vicious; but when I returned from
my carnal mirth I felt as guilty as ever, and could sometimes not close my eyes
for some hours after I had gone to my bed. I was one of the most unhappy creatur
es on earth.
"Sometimes I would leave the company (often speaking to the fiddler to cease fro
m playing, as if I was tired), and go out and walk about crying and praying, as
if my very heart would break, and beseeching God that he would not cut me off, n
or give me up to hardness of heart. Oh, what unhappy hours and nights I thus wor
e away! When I met sometimes with merry companions, and my heart was ready to si
nk, I would labor to put on as cheerful a countenance as possible, that they mig
ht not distrust anything, and sometimes would begin some discourse with young me
n or young women on purpose, or propose a merry song, lest the distress of my so
ul would be discovered, or mistrusted, when at the same time I would then rather
have been in a wilderness in exile, than with them or any of their pleasures or
enjoyments. Thus for many months when I was in company? I would act the hypocri
te and feign a merry heart but at the same time would endeavor as much as I coul
d to shun their company, oh wretched and unhappy mortal that I was! Everything I
did, and wherever I went, I was still in a storm and yet I continued to be the
chief contriver and ringleader of the frolics for many months after; though it w
as a toil and torment to attend them; but the devil and my own wicked heart drov
e me about like a slave, telling me that I must do this and do that, and bear th
is and bear that, and turn here and turn there, to keep my credit up, and retain
the esteem of my associates: and all this while I continued as strict as possib
le in my duties, and left no stone unturned to pacify my conscience, watching ev
en against my thoughts, and praying continually
[p. 172]
wherever I went: for I did not think there was any sin in my conduct, when I was
among carnal company, because I did not take any satisfaction there, but only f
ollowed it, I thought, for sufficient reasons.
"But still, all that I did or could do, conscience would roar night and day."
Saint Augustine and Alline both emerged into the smooth waters of inner unity an
d peace, and I shall next ask you to consider more closely some of the peculiari
ties of the process of unification, when it occurs. It may come gradually, or it
may occur abruptly; it may come through altered feelings, or through altered po
wers of action; or it may come through new intellectual insights, or through exp
eriences which we shall later have to designate as 'mystical.' However it come,
it brings a characteristic sort of relief; and never such extreme relief as when
it is cast into the religious mould. Happiness! happiness! religion is only one
of the ways in which men gain that gift. Easily, permanently, and successfully,
it often transforms the most intolerable misery into the profoundest and most e
nduring happiness.
But to find religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity; and the pro
cess of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner discord is a general p
sychological process, which may take place with any sort of mental material, and
need not necessarily assume the religious form. In judging of the religious typ
es of regeneration which we are about to study, it is important to recognize tha
t they are only one species of a genus that contains other types as well. For ex
ample, the new birth may be away from religion into incredulity; or it may be fr
om moral scrupulosity into freedom and license; or it may be produced by the irr
uption into the individual's life of some new stimulus or passion, such as love,
ambition, cupidity, revenge, or patriotic devotion. In all these instances we h
ave precisely the same psychological form of event,--a firmness, stability, and
equilibrium
[p. 173]
succeeding a period of storm and stress and inconsistency. In these non-religiou
s cases the new man may also be born either gradually or suddenly.
The French philosopher Jouffroy has left an eloquent memorial of his own "counte
r-conversion," as the transition from orthodoxy to infidelity has been well styl
ed by Mr. Starbuck. Jouffroy's doubts had long harassed him; but he dates his fi
nal crisis from a certain night when his disbelief grew fixed and stable, and wh
ere the immediate result was sadness at the illusions he had lost.
"I shall never forget that night of December," writes Jouffroy, "in which the ve
il that concealed from me my own incredulity was torn. 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 down. I see again that moon, half-veiled by clouds, whic
h now and again illuminated the frigid window-panes. The hours of the night flow
ed on and I did not note their passage. Anxiously I followed my thoughts, as fro
m layer to layer they descended towards the foundation of my consciousness, and,
scattering one by one all the illusions which until then had screened its windi
ngs from my view, made them every moment more clearly visible.
"Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the frag
ments of his vessel; vainly, frightened at the unknown void in which I was about
to float, I turned with them towards my childhood, my family, my country, all t
hat was dear and sacred to me: the inflexible current of my thought was too stro
ng--parents, family, memory, beliefs, it forced me to let go of everything. The
investigation went on more obstinate and more severe as it drew near its term, a
nd did not stop until the end was reached. I knew then that in the depth of my m
ind nothing was left that stood erect.
"This moment was a frightful one; and when towards morning I threw myself exhaus
ted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life, so smiling and so full, go out
like a fire, and before me another life opened, sombre and unpeopled, where in f
uture I must live alone, alone with my fatal thought which had exiled
[p. 174]
me thither, and which I was tempted to curse. The days which followed this disco
very were the saddest of my life." [*93]
[p. 175]
In John Foster's Essay on Decision of Character, there is an account of a case o
f sudden conversion to avarice, which is illustrative enough to quote:--
A young man, it appears, "wasted, in two or three years, a large patrimony in pr
ofligate revels with a number of worthless associates who called themselves his
friends, and who, when his last means were exhausted, treated him of course with
neglect or contempt. Reduced to absolute want, he one day went out of the house
with an intention to put an end to his life, but wandering awhile almost uncons
ciously, he came to the brow of an eminence which overlooked what were lately hi
s estates. Here he sat down, and remained fixed in thought a number of hours, at
the end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement, exulting emotion. H
e had formed his resolution, which was, that all these estates should be his aga
in; he had formed his plan, too, which he instantly began to execute. He walked
hastily forward, determined to seize the first opportunity, of however humble a
kind, to gain any money, though it were ever so despicable a trifle, and resolve
d absolutely not to spend, if he could help it, a farthing of whatever he might
obtain. The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coals shot out of
carts on the pavement before a house. He offered himself to shovel or wheel them
into the place where they were to be laid, and was employed.
He received a few pence for the labor; and then, in pursuance of the saving part
of his plan requested some small gratuity of meat and drink, which was given
[p. 176]
him. He then looked out for the next thing that might chance; and went, with ind
efatigable industry, through a succession of servile employments in different pl
aces, of longer and shorter duration, still scrupulous in avoiding, as far as po
ssible, the expense of a penny. He promptly seized every opportunity which could
advance his design, without regarding the meanness of occupation or appearance.
By this method he had gained, after a considerable time, money enough to purcha
se in order to sell again a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to understan
d the value. He speedily but cautiously turned his first gains into second advan
tages; retained without a single deviation his extreme parsimony; and thus advan
ced by degrees into larger transactions and incipient wealth. I did not hear, or
have forgotten, the continued course of his life, but the final result was, tha
t he more than recovered his lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, wor
th L60,000." [*1]
[p. 177]
Let me turn now to the kind of case, the religious case, namely, that immediatel
y concerns us. Here is one of the
[p. 178]
simplest possible type, an account of the conversion to the systematic religion
of healthy-mindedness of a man who must already have been naturally of the healt
hy-minded type. It shows how, when the fruit is ripe, a touch will make it fall.
Mr. Horace Fletcher, in his little book called Menticulture, relates that a frie
nd with whom he was talking of the self-control attained by the Japanese through
their practice of the Buddhist discipline said:--
"'You must first get rid of anger and worry.' 'But,' said I, 'is that possible?'
'Yes,' replied he; 'it is possible to the Japanese, and ought to be possible to
us.'
"On my way back I could think of nothing else but the words get rid, get rid'; a
nd the idea must have continued to possess me during my sleeping hours, for the
first consciousness in the morning brought back the same thought, with the revel
ation of a discovery, which framed itself into the reasoning, 'If it is possible
to get rid of anger and worry, why is it necessary to have them at all?' I felt
 the strength of the argument, and at once accepted the reasoning. The baby had
discovered that it could walk. It would scorn to creep any longer.
"From the instant I realized that these cancer spots of worry and anger were rem
ovable, they left me. With the discovery of their weakness they were exorcised.
From that time life has had an entirely different aspect.
"Although from that moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from the
depressing passions has been a reality to me, it took me some months to feel abs
olute security in my new position; but, as the usual occasions for worry and ang
er have presented themselves over and over again, and I have been unable to feel
them in the slightest degree, I no longer dread or guard against them, and I am
amazed at my increased energy and vigor of mind, at my strength to meet situati
ons of all kinds and at my disposition to love and appreciate everything.
"I have had occasion to travel more than ten thousand miles by rail since that m
orning. The same Pullman porter, conductor, hotel-waiter, peddler, book-agent, c
abman, and others who were
[p. 179]
formerly a source of annoyance and irritation have been met, but I am not consci
ous of a single incivility. All at once the whole world has turned good to me. I
have become, as it were, sensitive only to the rays of good.
"I could recount many experiences which prove a brand-new condition of mind, but
one will be sufficient. Without the slightest feeling of annoyance or impatienc
e, 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 me, because my bag
gage did not arrive. The porter from the hotel came running and panting into the
station just as the train pulled out of sight. When he saw me, he looked as if
he feared a scolding. and began to tell of being blocked in a crowded street and
unable to get out. When he had finished, I said to him: 'It doesn't matter at a
ll, you couldn't help it, so we will try again to-morrow. Here is your fee, I am
sorry you had all this trouble in earning it.' The look of surprise that came o
ver his face was so filled with pleasure that I was repaid on the spot for the d
elay in my departure. Next day he would not accept a cent for the service, and h
e and I are friends for life.
"During the first weeks of my experience I was on guard only against worry and a
nger; but, in the mean time, having noticed the absence of the other depressing
and dwarfing passions, I began to trace a relationship, until I was convinced th
at they are all growths from the two roots I have specified. I have felt the fre
edom now for so long a time that I am sure of my relation toward it; 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 gutte
r. "There is no doubt in my mind that pure Christianity and pure Buddhism, and t
he Mental Sciences and all Religions fundamentally teach what has been a discove
ry to me; but none of them have presented it in the light of a simple and easy p
rocess of elimination. At one time I wondered if the elimination would not yield
to indifference and sloth. In my experience, the contrary is the result. I feel
such an increased desire to do something useful that it seems as if I were a bo
y again and the energy for play had returned. I could fight as readily as (and
[p. 180]
better than) ever, if there were occasion for it. It does not make one a coward.
It can't, since fear is one of the things eliminated. I notice the absence of t
imidity in the presence of any audience. When a boy, I was standing under a tree
which was struck by lightning, and received a shock from the effects of which I
 never knew exemption until I had dissolved partnership with worry. Since then,
lightning and thunder have been encountered under conditions which would formerl
y have caused great depression and discomfort, without [my] experiencing a trace
of either. Surprise is also greatly modified, and one is less liable to become
startled by unexpected sights or noises.
"As far as I am individually concerned, I am not bothering myself at present as
to what the results of this emancipated condition may be. I have no doubt that t
he perfect health aimed at by Christian Science may be one of the possibilities,
for I note a marked improvement in the way my stomach does its duty in assimila
ting the food I give it to handle, and I am sure it works better to the sound of
a song than under the friction of a frown. Neither am I wasting any of this pre
cious time formulating an idea of a future existence or a future Heaven. The Hea
ven that I have within myself is as attractive as any that has been promised or
that I can imagine; and I am willing to let the growth lead where it will, as lo
ng as the anger and their brood have no part in misguiding it." [*1]
The older medicine used to speak of two ways, lysis and crisis, one gradual, the
other abrupt, in which one might recover from a bodily disease. In the spiritua
l realm there are also two ways, one gradual, the other sudden, in which inner u
nification may occur. Tolstoy and Bunyan may again serve us as examples, example
s, as it happens, of the gradual way, though it must be confessed at the outset
that it is hard to follow these windings of the hearts of others, and one feels
that their words do not reveal their total secret.
Howe'er this be, Tolstoy, pursuing his unending questioning,
[p. 181]
seemed to come to one insight after another. First he perceived that his convict
ion that life was meaningless took only this finite life into account. He was lo
oking for the value of one finite term in that of another, and the whole result
could only be one of those indeterminate equations in mathematics which end with
0 = 0. Yet this is as far as the reasoning intellect by itself can go, unless i
rrational sentiment or faith brings in the infinite. Believe in the infinite as
common people do, and life grows possible again.
"Since mankind has existed, wherever life has been, there also has been the fait
h that gave the possibility of living. Faith is the sense of life, that sense by
virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is t
he force whereby we live. If Man did not believe that he must live for something
, he would not live at all. The idea of an infinite God, of the divinity of the
soul, of the union of men's actions with God--these are ideas elaborated in the
infinite secret depths of human thought. They are ideas without which there woul
d be no life, without which I myself," said Tolstoy, "would not exist. I began t
o see that I had no right to rely on my individual reasoning and neglect these a
nswers given by faith, for they are the only answers to the question."
Yet how believe as the common people believe, steeped as they are in grossest su
perstition? It is impossible--but yet their life! their life! It is normal. It i
s happy! It is an answer to the question!
Little by little, Tolstoy came to the settled conviction--he says it took him tw
o years to arrive there--that his trouble had not been with life in general, not
with the common life of common men, but with the life of the upper, intellectua
l, artistic classes, the life which he had personally always led, the cerebral l
ife, the life of conventionality, artificiality, and personal ambition. He had b
een living wrongly and must change. To work for animal needs, to abjure lies and
vanities,
[p. 182]
to relieve common wants, to be simple, to believe in God, therein lay happiness
again.
"I remember," he says, "one day in early spring, I was alone in the forest, lend
ing my ear to its mysterious noises. I listened, and my thought went back to wha
t for these three years it always was busy with--the quest of God. But the idea
of him, I said, how did I ever come by the idea?
"And again there arose in me, with this thought, glad aspirations towards life.
Everything in me awoke and received a meaning. . . .Why do I look farther? a voi
ce within me asked. He is there:
he, without whom one cannot live. To acknowledge God and to live are one and the
same thing. God is what life is. Well, then! live, seek God, and there will be
no life without him. . . .
"After this, things cleared up within me and about me better than ever, and the
light has never wholly died away. I was saved from suicide. Just how or when the
change took place I cannot tell. But as insensibly and gradually as the force o
f life had been annulled within me, and I had reached my moral death-bed, just a
s gradually and imperceptibly did the energy of life come back. And what was str
ange was that this energy that came back was nothing new. It was my ancient juve
nile force of faith, the belief that the sole purpose of my life was to be bette
r. I gave up the life of the conventional world, recognizing it to be no life, b
ut a parody on life, which its superfluities simply keep us from comprehending,"
--and Tolstoy thereupon embraced the life of the peasants, and has felt right an
d happy, or at least relatively so, ever since. [*1]
As I interpret his melancholy, then, it was not merely an accidental vitiation o
f his humors, though it was doubtless also that. It was logically called for by
the clash between his inner character and his outer activities and aims. Althoug
h a literary artist, Tolstoy was one of those primitive oaks of men to whom the
superfluities and insincerities, the cupidities,
[p. 183]
complications, and cruelties of our polite civilization are profoundly unsatisfy
ing, and for whom the eternal veracities lie with more natural and animal things
. His crisis was the getting of his soul in order, the discovery of its genuine
habitat and vocation, the escape from falsehoods into what for him were ways of
truth. It was a case of heterogeneous personality tardily and slowly finding its
unity and level. And though not many of us can imitate Tolstoy, not having enou
gh, perhaps, of the aboriginal human marrow in our bones, most of us may at leas
t feel as if it might be better for us if we could.
Bunyan's recovery seems to have been even slower. For years together he was alte
rnately haunted with texts of Scripture, now up and now down, but at last with a
n ever growing relief in his salvation through the blood of Christ.
"My peace would be in and out twenty times a day; comfort now and trouble presen
tly; peace now and before I could go a furlong as full of guilt and fear as ever
heart could hold." When a good text comes home to him, "This," he writes, "gave
me good encouragement for the space of two or three hours"; or "This was a good
day to me, I hope I shall not forget it", or "The glory of these words was then
so weighty on me that I was ready to swoon as I sat; yet, not with grief and tr
ouble, but with solid joy and peace"; or "This made a strange seizure on my spir
it; it brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my heart of all those t
umultuous thoughts that before did use, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and
 bellow and make a hideous noise within me. It showed me that Jesus Christ had n
ot quite forsaken and cast off my Soul."
Such periods accumulate until he can write: "And now remained only the hinder pa
rt of the tempest, for the thunder was gone beyond me, only some drops would sti
ll remain, that now and then would fall upon me";--and at last: "Now did my chai
ns fall off my legs indeed; I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my tempt
ations also fled away; so that from that time, those dreadful Scriptures of God
left off to trouble me;
[p. 184]
now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God. . . . Now could I
see myself in Heaven and Earth at once; in Heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by
my Righteousness and Life, though on Earth by my body or person. . . . Christ wa
s a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarce lie in my bed for joy
and peace and triumph through Christ."
Bunyan became a minister of the gospel, and in spite of his neurotic constitutio
n, and of the twelve years he lay in prison for his non-conformity, his life was
turned to active use. He was a peacemaker and doer of good, and the immortal Al
legory which he wrote has brought the very spirit of religious patience home to
English hearts.
But neither Bunyan nor Tolstoy could become what we have called healthy-minded.
They had drunk too deeply of the cup of bitterness ever to forget its taste, and
their redemption is into a universe two stories deep. Each of them realized a g
ood which broke the effective edge of his sadness; yet the sadness was preserved
as a minor ingredient in the heart of the faith by which it was overcome. The f
act of interest for us is that as a matter of fact they could and did find somet
hing welling up in the inner reaches of their consciousness, by which such extre
me sadness could be overcome. Tolstoy does well to talk of it as that by which m
en live; for that is exactly what it is, a stimulus, an excitement, a faith, a f
orce that re-infuses the positive willingness to live, even in full presence of
the evil perceptions that erewhile made life seem unbearable. For Tolstoy's perc
eptions of evil appear within their sphere to have remained unmodified. His late
r works show him implacable to the whole system of official values: the ignobili
ty of fashionable life; the infamies of empire; the spuriousness of the church,
the vain conceit of the professions; the meannesses and cruelties that go with g
reat success; and every other pompous crime and lying institution of this world.
To all patience with such things his experience has been for him a permanent mi
nistry of death.
[p. 185]
Bunyan also leaves this world to the enemy.
"I must first pass a sentence of death," he says, "upon everything that can prop
erly be called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children
, my health, my enjoyments, and all, as dead to me, and myself as dead to them;
to trust in God through Christ, as touching the world to come, and as touching t
his world, to count the grave my house, to make my bed in darkness, and to say t
o corruption, Thou art my father and to the worm, Thou art my mother and sister.
. . . The parting with my wife and my poor children hath often been to me as th
e pulling of my flesh from my bones, especially my poor blind child who lay near
er my heart than all I had besides. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou
like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffe
r hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure
that the wind should blow upon thee. But yet I must venture you all with God, t
hough it goeth to the quick to leave you." [*1]
The "hue of resolution" is there, but the full flood of ecstatic liberation seem
s never to have poured over poor John Bunyan's soul.
These examples may suffice to acquaint us in a general way with the phenomenon t
echnically called "Conversion." In the next lecture I shall invite you to study
its peculiarities and concomitants in some detail.
Footnotes
^164:1 E.g., "Our young people are diseased with the theological problems of ori
ginal sin, origin of evil, predestination, and the like. These never presented a
practical difficulty to any man--never darkened across any man's road, who did
not go out of his way to seek them. These are the soul's mumps, and measles, and
whooping-coughs, etc. EMERSON: Spiritual Laws.
^165:1 Notes sur la Vie, p. 1.
^165:2 See, for example, F. Paulhan, in his book Les Caracteres, 1894, who contr
asts les Equilibres, les Unifies, with les Inquiets, les Contrariants, les Incoh
erents, les Emiettes, as so many diverse psychic types.
^166:1 ANNIE BESANT: an Autobiography, p. 82.
^166:2 SMITH BAKER, in Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, September, 1893.
^168:1 LOUIS GOURDON (Essai sur la Conversion de Saint Augustine, Paris, Fischba
cher, 1900) has shown by an analysis of Augustine's writings immediately after t
he date of his conversion (A.D. 386) that the account he gives in the Confession
s is premature. The crisis in the garden marked a definitive conversion from his
former life, but it was to the neo-platonic spiritualism and only a halfway sta
ge toward Christianity. The latter he appears not fully and radically to have em
braced until four years more had passed.
^169:1 Confessions, Book VIII., Chaps. v., vii., xi., abridged.
^174:93 TH. JOUFFROY: Nouveaux Melanges philosophiques, 2me edition, p. 83. I ad
d two other cases of counter-conversion dating from a certain moment. The first
is from Professor Starbuck's manuscript collection, and the narrator is a woman.
"Away down in the bottom of my heart, I believe I was always more or less skepti
cal about 'God;' skepticism grew as an undercurrent, all through my early youth,
but it was controlled and covered by the emotional elements in my religious gro
wth. When I was sixteen I joined the church and was asked if I loved God. I repl
ied 'Yes,' as was customary and expected. But instantly with a flash something s
poke within me, 'No, you do not.' I was haunted for a long time with shame and r
emorse for my falsehood and for my wickedness in not loving God, mingled with fe
ar that there might be an avenging God who would punish me in some terrible way.
. . . At nineteen, I had an attack of tonsilitis. Before I had quite recovered,
I heard told a story of a brute who had kicked his wife down-stairs, and then c
ontinued the operation until she became insensible. I felt the horror of the thi
ng keenly. Instantly this thought flashed through my mind: 'I have no use for a
God who permits such things.' This experience was followed by months of stoical
indifference to the God of my previous life, mingled with feelings of positive d
islike and a somewhat proud defiance of him. I still thought there might be a Go
d. If so he would probably damn me, but I should have to stand it. I felt very l
ittle fear and no desire to propitiate him. I have never had any personal relati
ons with him since this painful experience."
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 incubat
ion has proceeded far enough. It is like the proverbial last straw added to the
camel's burden, or that touch of a needle which makes the salt in a supersaturat
ed fluid suddenly begin to crystallize out.
Tolstoy writes: "S., a frank and intelligent man, told me as follows how he ceas
ed to believe:--
"He was twenty-six years old when one day on a hunting expedition, the time for
sleep having come, he set himself to pray according to the custom he had held fr
om childhood.
"His brother, who was hunting with him, lay upon the hay and looked at him. When
S. had finished his prayer and was turning to sleep, the brother said, 'Do you
still keep up that thing?' Nothing [p. 175] more was said. But since that day, n
ow more than thirty years ago, S. has never prayed again; he never takes communi
on, and does not go to church. All this, not because he became acquainted with c
onvictions of his brother which he then and there adopted; not because he made a
ny new resolution in his soul, but merely because the words spoken by his brothe
r were like the light push of a finger against a leaning wall already about to t
umble by its own weight. These words but showed him that the place wherein he su
pposed religion dwelt in him had long been empty, and that the sentences he utte
red, the crosses and bows which he made during his prayer, were actions with no
inner sense. Having once seized their absurdity, he could no longer keep them up
." Ma Confession, p. 8. [p. 175]
I subjoin an additional document which has come into my possession, and which re
presents in a vivid way what is probably a very frequent sort of conversion, if
the opposite of 'falling in love,' falling out of love, may be so termed. Fallin
g in love also conforms frequently to this type, a latent process of unconscious
preparation often preceding a sudden awakening to the fact that the mischief is
irretrievably done. The free and easy tone in this narrative gives it a sinceri
ty that speaks for itself.
"For two years of this time I went through a very bad experience, which almost d
rove me mad. I had fallen violently in love with a girl who, young as she was, h
ad a spirit of coquetry like a cat. As I look back on her now, I hate her, and w
onder how I could ever have fallen so low as to be worked upon to such an extent
by her attractions. Nevertheless, I fell into a regular fever, could think of n
othing else; whenever I was alone, I pictured her attractions, and spent most of
the time when I should have been working, in recalling our previous interviews,
and imagining future conversations. She was very pretty, good humored, and joll
y to the last degree, and intensely pleased with my admiration. Would give me no
decided answer yes or no and the queer thing about it was that whilst pursuing
her for her hand, I secretly knew all along that she was unfit to be a wife for
me, and that she never would say yes. Although for a year we took our meals at t
he same boarding-house, so that I saw her continually and [p. 177] familiarly, o
ur closer relations had to be largely on the sly, and this fact, together with m
y jealousy of another one of her male admirers and my own conscience despising m
e for my uncontrollable weakness, made me so nervous and sleepless that I really
thought I should become insane. I understand well those young men murdering the
ir sweethearts, which appear so often in the papers. Nevertheless I did love her
passionately, and in some ways she did deserve it.
"The queer thing was the sudden and unexpected way in which it all stopped. I wa
s going to my work after breakfast one morning, thinking as usual of her and of
my misery, when, just as if some outside power laid hold of me, I found myself t
urning round and almost running to my room, where I immediately got out all the
relics of her which I possessed, including some hair, all her notes and letters
and ambrotypes on glass. The former I made a fire of, the latter I actually crus
hed beneath my heel, in a sort of fierce joy of revenge and punishment. I now lo
athed and despised her altogether, and as for myself I felt as if a load of dise
ase had suddenly been removed from me. That was the end. I never spoke to her or
wrote to her again in all the subsequent years, and I have never had a single m
oment of loving thought towards one for so many months entirely filled my heart.
In fact, I have always rather hated her memory, though now I can see that I had
gone unnecessarily far in that direction. At any rate, from that happy morning
onward I regained possession of my own proper soul, and have never since fallen
into any similar trap."
This seems to me an unusually clear example of two different levels of personali
ty, inconsistent in their dictates, yet so well balanced against each other as f
or a long time to fill the life with discord and dissatisfaction. At last, not g
radually, but in a sudden crisis, the unstable equilibrium is resolved, and this
happens so unexpectedly that it is as if, to use the writer's words, "some outs
ide power laid hold."
Professor Starbuck gives an analogous case, and a converse case of hatred sudden
ly turning into love, in his Psychology of Religion, p. 141. Compare the other h
ighly curious instances which he gives on pp. 137-144, of sudden non-religious a
lterations of habit or character. He seems right in conceiving all such sudden c
hanges as results of special cerebral functions unconsciously developing until t
hey are ready to play a controlling part when they make irruption into the consc
ious life. When we treat of sudden 'conversion,' I shall make as much use as I c
an of this hypothesis of subconscious incubation.
^176:1 Op. cit., Letter III., abridged.
^180:1 H. FLETCHER: Menticulture, or the A-B-C of True Living, New York and Chic
ago, 1899, pp. 26, 36, abridged.
^182:1 I have considerably abridged Tolstoy's words in my translation.
^185:1 In my quotations from Bunyan I have omitted certain intervening portions
of the text.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

com
[p. 186]

Lecture IX

CONVERSION
To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to
gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sud
den, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhapp
y, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of i
ts firmer hold upon religious realities. This at least is what conversion signif
ies in general terms, whether or not we believe that a direct divine operation i
s needed to bring such a moral change about.
Before entering upon a minuter study of the process, let me enliven our understa
nding of the definition by a concrete example. I choose the quaint case of an un
lettered man, Stephen H. Bradley, whose experience is related in a scarce Americ
an pamphlet. [*1]
I select this case because it shows how in these inner alterations one may find
one unsuspected depth below another, as if the possibilities of character lay di
sposed in a series of layers or shells, of whose existence we have no premonitor
y knowledge.
Bradley thought that he had been already fully converted at the age of fourteen.
"I thought I saw the Saviour, by faith, in human shape, for about one second in
the room, with arms extended, appearing to
[p. 187]
say to me, Come. The next day I rejoiced with trembling; soon after, my happines
s was so great that I said that I wanted to die; this world had no place in my a
ffections, as I knew of, and every day appeared as solemn to me as the Sabbath.
I had an ardent desire that all mankind might feel as I did; I wanted to have th
em all love God supremely. Previous to this time I was very selfish and self-rig
hteous; but now I desired the welfare of all mankind, and could with a feeling h
eart forgive my worst enemies, and I felt as if I should be willing to bear the
scoffs and sneers of any person, and suffer anything for His sake, if I could be
the means in the hands of God, of the conversion of one soul."
Nine years later, in 1829, Mr. Bradley heard of a revival of religion that had b
egun in his neighborhood. "Many of the young converts," he says, "would come to
me when in meeting and ask me if I had religion, and my reply generally was, I h
ope I have. This did not appear to satisfy them; they said they knew they had it
. I requested them to pray for me, thinking with myself, that if I had not got r
eligion now, after so long a time professing to be a Christian, that it was time
I had, and hoped their prayers would be answered in my behalf.
"One Sabbath, I went to hear the Methodist at the Academy. He spoke of the usher
ing in of the day of general judgment; and he set it forth in such a solemn and
terrible manner as I never heard before. The scene of that day appeared to be ta
king place, and so awakened were all the powers of my mind that, like Felix, I t
rembled involuntarily on the bench where I was sitting, though I felt nothing at
heart. The next day evening I went to hear him again. He took his text from Rev
elation: 'And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.' And he represe
nted the terrors of that day in such a manner that it appeared as if it would me
lt the heart of stone. When he finished his discourse, an old gentleman turned t
o me and said 'This is what I call preaching.' I thought the same, but my feelin
gs were still unmoved by what he said, and I did not enjoy religion, but I belie
ve he did.
"I will now relate my experience of the power of the Holy Spirit which took plac
e on the same night. Had any person told
[p. 188]
me previous to this that I could have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit i
n the manner which I did, I could not have believed it, and should have thought
the person deluded that told me so. I went directly home after the meeting, and
when I got home I wondered what made me feel so stupid. I retired to rest soon a
fter I got home, and felt indifferent to the things of religion until I began to
be exercised by the Holy Spirit, which began in about five minutes after, in th
e following manner:--
"At first, I began to feel my heart beat very quick all on a sudden, which made
me at first think that perhaps something is going to ail me, though I was not al
armed, for I felt no pain. My heart increased in its beating, which soon convinc
ed me that it was the Holy Spirit from the effect it had on me. I began to feel
exceedingly happy and humble, and such a sense of unworthiness as I never felt b
efore. I could not very well help speaking out, which I did, and said, Lord, I d
o not deserve this happiness, or words to that effect, while there was a stream
(resembling air in feeling) came into my mouth and heart in a more sensible mann
er than that of drinking anything, which continued, as near as I could judge, fi
ve minutes or more, which appeared to be the cause of such a palpitation of my h
eart. It took complete possession of my soul, and I am certain that I desired th
e Lord, while in the midst of it, not to give me any more happiness, for it seem
ed as if I could not contain what I had got. My heart seemed as if it would burs
t, but it did not stop until I felt as if I was unutterably full of the love and
grace of God. In the mean time while thus exercised, a thought arose in my mind
, what can it mean? and all at once, as if to answer it, my memory became exceed
ingly clear, and it appeared to me just as if the New Testament was placed open
before me, eighth chapter of Romans, and as light as if some candle lighted was
held for me to read the 26th and 27th verses of that chapter, and I read these w
ords: 'The Spirit helpeth our infirmities with groanings which cannot be uttered
.' And all the time that my heart was a-beating, it made me groan like a person
in distress, which was not very easy to stop, though I was in no pain at all, an
d my brother being in bed in another room came and opened the door, and asked me
if I had got the toothache. I told him no,
[p. 189]
and that he might get to sleep. I tried to stop. I felt unwilling to go to sleep
myself, I was so happy, fearing I should lose it--thinking within myself
'My willing soul would stay
In such a frame as this.'
And while I lay reflecting, after my heart stopped beating, feeling as if my sou
l was full of the Holy Spirit, I thought that perhaps there might be angels hove
ring round my bed. I felt just as if I wanted to converse with them, and finally
I spoke, saying 'O ye affectionate angels! how is it that ye can take so much i
nterest in our welfare, and we take so little interest in our own.' After this,
with difficulty I got to sleep; and when I awoke in the morning my first thought
s were: What has become of my happiness? and, feeling a degree of it in my heart
, I asked for more, which was given to me as quick as thought. I then got up to
dress myself, and found to my surprise that I could but just stand. It appeared
to me as if it was a little heaven upon earth. My soul felt as completely raised
above the fears of death as of going to sleep; and like a bird in a cage, I had
a desire, if it was the will of God, to get released from my body and to dwell
with Christ, though willing to live to do good to others, and to warn sinners to
repent. I went downstairs feeling as solemn as if I had lost all my friends, an
d thinking with myself, that I would not let my parents know it until I had firs
t looked into the Testament. I went directly to the shelf and looked into it, at
the eighth of Romans, and every verse seemed to almost speak and to confirm it
to be truly the Word of God, and as if my feelings corresponded with the meaning
of the word. I then told my parents of it, and told them that I thought that th
ey must see that when I spoke, that it was not my own voice, for it appeared so
to me. My speech seemed entirely under the control of the Spirit within me; I do
not mean that the words which I spoke were not my own, for they were. I thought
that I was influenced similar to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost (with the
exception of having power to give it to others, and doing what they did). After
breakfast I went round to converse with my neighbors on religion, which I could
not have been
[p. 190]
hired to have done before this, and at their request I prayed with them, though
I had never prayed in public before.
"I now feel as if I had discharged my duty by telling the truth, and hope by the
blessing of God, it may do some good to all who shall read it. He has fulfilled
his promise in sending the Holy Spirit down into our hearts, or mine at least,
and I now defy all the Deists and Atheists in the world to shake my faith in Chr
ist."
So much for Mr. Bradley and his conversion, of the effect of which upon his late
r life we gain no information. Now for a minuter survey of the constituent eleme
nts of the conversion process.

If you open the chapter on Association, of any treatise on Psychology, you will
read that a man's ideas, aims, and objects form diverse internal groups and syst
ems, relatively independent of one another. Each 'aim' which he follows awakens
a certain specific kind of interested excitement, and gathers a certain group of
ideas together in subordination to it as its associates; and if the aims and ex
citements are distinct in kind, their groups of ideas may have little in common.
When one group is present and engrosses the interest, all the ideas connected w
ith other groups may be excluded from the mental field. The President of the Uni
ted States when, with paddle, gun, and fishing-rod, he goes camping in the wilde
rness for a vacation, changes his system of ideas from top to bottom. The presid
ential anxieties have lapsed into the background entirely; the official habits a
re replaced by the habits of a son of nature, and those who knew the man only as
the strenuous magistrate would not "know him for the same person" if they saw h
im as the camper.
If now he should never go back, and never again suffer political interests to ga
in dominion over him, he would be for practical intents and purposes a permanent
ly transformed being. Our ordinary alterations of character, as we
[p. 191]
pass from one of our aims to another, are not commonly called transformations, b
ecause each of them is so rapidly succeeded by another in the reverse direction;
but whenever one aim grows so stable as to expel definitively its previous riva
ls from the individual's life, we tend to speak of the phenomenon, and perhaps t
o wonder at it, as a "transformation."
These alternations are the completest of the ways in which a self may be divided
. A less complete way is the simultaneous coexistence of two or more different g
roups of aims, of which one practically holds the right of way and instigates ac
tivity, whilst the others are only pious wishes, and never practically come to a
nything. Saint Augustine's aspirations to a purer life, in our last lecture, wer
e for a while an example. Another would be the President in his full pride of of
fice, wondering whether it were not all vanity, and whether the life of a wood-c
hopper were not the wholesomer destiny. Such fleeting aspirations are mere velle
itates, whimsies. They exist on the remoter outskirts of the mind, and the real
self of the man, the centre of his energies, is occupied with an entirely differ
ent system. As life goes on, there is a constant change of our interests, and a
consequent change of place in our systems of ideas, from more central to more pe
ripheral, and from more peripheral to more central parts of consciousness. I rem
ember, for instance, that one evening when I was a youth, my father read aloud f
rom a Boston newspaper that part of Lord Gifford's will which founded these four
lectureships. At that time I did not think of being a teacher of philosophy, an
d what I listened to was as remote from my own life as if it related to the plan
et Mars. Yet here I am, with the Gifford system part and parcel of my very self,
and all my energies, for the time being, devoted to successfully identifying my
self with it. My soul stands now planted in what once was for it a practically u
nreal object, and speaks from it as from its proper habitat and centre.
[p. 192]
When I say "Soul," you need not take me in the ontological sense unless you pref
er to; for although ontological language is instinctive in such matters, yet Bud
dhists or Humians can perfectly well describe the facts in the phenomenal terms
which are their favorites. For them the soul is only a succession of fields of c
onsciousness: yet there is found in each field a part, or sub-field, which figur
es as focal and contains the excitement, and from which, as from a centre, the a
im seems to be taken. Talking of this part, we involuntarily apply words of pers
pective to distinguish it from the rest, words like "here," "this," "now," "mine
," or "me"; and we ascribe to the other parts the positions "there," "then," "th
at," "his" or "thine," "it," "not me." But a "here" can change to a "there," and
a "there" become a "here," and what was "mine" and what was "not mine" change t
heir places.
What brings such changes about is the way in which emotional excitement alters.
Things hot and vital to us to-day are cold to-morrow. It is as if seen from the
hot parts of the field that the other parts appear to us, and from these hot par
ts personal desire and volition make their sallies. They are in short the centre
s of our dynamic energy, whereas the cold parts leave us indifferent and passive
in proportion to their coldness.
Whether such language be rigorously exact is for the present of no importance. I
t is exact enough, if you recognize from your own experience the facts which I s
eek to designate by it.
Now there may be great oscillation in the emotional interest, and the hot places
may shift before one almost as rapidly as the sparks that run through burnt-up
paper. Then we have the wavering and divided self we heard so much of in the pre
vious lecture. Or the focus of excitement and heat, the point of view from which
the aim is taken, may come to lie permanently within a certain system; and then
, if the
[p. 193]
change be a religious one, we call it a conversion, especially if it be by crisi
s, or sudden.
Let us hereafter, in speaking of the hot place in a man's consciousness, the gro
up of ideas to which he devotes himself, and from which he works, call it the ha
bitual centre of his personal energy. It makes a great difference to a man wheth
er one set of his ideas, or another, be the centre of his energy; and it makes a
great difference, as regards any set of ideas which he may possess, whether the
y become central or remain peripheral in him. To say that a man is "converted" m
eans, in these terms, that religious ideas, previously peripheral in his conscio
usness, now take a central place, and that religious aims form the habitual cent
re of his energy.
Now if you ask of psychology just how the excitement shifts in a man's mental sy
stem, and why aims that were peripheral become at a certain moment central, psyc
hology has to reply that although she can give a general description of what hap
pens, she is unable in a given case to account accurately for all the single for
ces at work. Neither an outside observer nor the Subject who undergoes the proce
ss can explain fully how particular experiences are able to change one's centre
of energy so decisively, or why they so often have to bide their hour to do so.
We have a thought, or we perform an act, repeatedly, but on a certain day the re
al meaning of the thought peals through us for the first time, or the act has su
ddenly turned into a moral impossibility. All we know is that there are dead fee
lings, dead ideas, and cold beliefs, and there are hot and live ones; and when o
ne grows hot and alive within us, everything has to re-crystallize about it. We
may say that the heat and liveliness mean only the "motor efficacy," long deferr
ed but now operative, of the idea; but such talk itself is only circumlocution,
for whence the sudden motor efficacy? And our explanations then get so vague and
general that one realizes all the more the intense individuality of the whole p
henomenon.
[p. 194]
In the end we fall back on the hackneyed symbolism of a mechanical equilibrium.
A mind is a system of ideas, each with the excitement it arouses, and with tende
ncies impulsive and inhibitive, which mutually check or reinforce one another. T
he collection of ideas alters by subtraction or by addition in the course of exp
erience, and the tendencies alter as the organism gets more aged. A mental syste
m may be undermined or weakened by this interstitial alteration just as a buildi
ng is, and yet for a time keep upright by dead habit. But a new perception, a su
dden emotional shock, or an occasion which lays bare the organic alteration, wil
l make the whole fabric fall together; and then the centre of gravity sinks into
an attitude more stable, for the new ideas that reach the centre in the rearran
gement seem now to be locked there, and the new structure remains permanent.
Formed associations of ideas and habits are usually factors of retardation in su
ch changes of equilibrium. New information, however acquired, plays an accelerat
ing part in the changes; and the slow mutation of our instincts and propensities
, under the "unimaginable touch of time" has an enormous influence. Moreover, al
l these influences may work subconsciously or half unconsciously. [*1] And when
you get a Subject in whom the subconscious life--of which I must speak more full
y soon--is largely developed, and in whom
[p. 195]
motives habitually ripen in silence, you get a case of which you can never give
a full account, and in which, both to the Subject and the onlookers, there may a
ppear an element of marvel. Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are ex
tremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive
ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one
are known to everybody. [*1] Hope, happiness, security, resolve, emotions charac
teristic of conversion, can be equally explosive. And emotions that come in this
explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
In his recent work on the Psychology of Religion, Professor Starbuck of Californ
ia has shown by a statistical inquiry how closely parallel in its manifestations
the ordinary "conversion" which occurs in young people brought up in evangelica
l circles is to that growth into a larger spiritual life which is a normal phase
of adolescence in every class of human beings. The age is the same, falling usu
ally between fourteen and seventeen. The symptoms are the same,--sense of incomp
leteness and imperfection; brooding, depression, morbid introspection, and sense
of sin; anxiety about the hereafter; distress over doubts, and the like. And th
e result is the same--a happy relief and objectivity, as the confidence in self
gets greater through the adjustment of the faculties
[p. 196]
to the wider outlook. In spontaneous religious awakening, apart from revivalisti
c examples, and in the ordinary storm and stress and moulting-time of adolescenc
e, we also may meet with mystical experiences, astonishing the subjects by their
 suddenness, just as in revivalistic conversion. The analogy, in fact, is comple
te; and Starbuck's conclusion as to these ordinary youthful conversions would se
em to be the only sound one: Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent ph
enomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider
intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.
"Theology," says Dr. Starbuck, "takes the adolescent tendencies and builds upon
them; it sees that the essential thing in adolescent growth is bringing the pers
on out of childhood into the new life of maturity and personal insight. It accor
dingly brings those means to bear which will intensify the normal tendencies. It
shortens up the period of duration of storm and stress." The conversion phenome
na of "conviction of sin" last, by this investigator's statistics, about one fif
th as long as the periods of adolescent storm and stress phenomena of which he a
lso got statistics, but they are very much more intense. Bodily accompaniments,
loss of sleep and appetite, for example, are much more frequent in them. "The es
sential distinction appears to be that conversion intensifies but shortens the p
eriod by bringing the person to a definite crisis." [*1]
The conversions which Dr. Starbuck here has in mind are of course mainly those o
f very commonplace persons, kept true to a pre-appointed type by instruction, ap
peal, and example. The particular form which they affect is the result of sugges
tion and imitation. [*2] If they went through their
[p. 197]
growth-crisis in other faiths and other countries, although the essence of the c
hange would be the same (since it is one in the main so inevitable), its acciden
ts would be different. In Catholic lands, for example, and in our own Episcopali
an sects, no such anxiety and conviction of sin is usual as in sects that encour
age revivals. The sacraments being more relied on in these more strictly ecclesi
astical bodies, the individual's personal acceptance of salvation needs less to
be accentuated and led up to.
But every imitative phenomenon must once have had its original, and I propose th
at for the future we keep as close as may be to the more first-hand and original
forms of experience. These are more likely to be found in sporadic adult cases.
Professor Leuba, in a valuable article on the psychology of conversion, [*1] sub
ordinates the theological aspect of the religious life almost entirely to its mo
ral aspect. The religious sense he defines as "the feeling of unwholeness, of mo
ral imperfection, of sin, to use the technical word, accompanied by
[p. 198]
the yearning after the peace of unity." "The word 'religion,'" he says, "is gett
ing more and more to signify the conglomerate of desires and emotions springing
from the sense of sin and its release"; and he gives a large number of examples,
in which the sin ranges from drunkenness to spiritual pride, to show that the s
ense of it may beset one and crave relief as urgently as does the anguish of the
sickened flesh or any form of physical misery.
Undoubtedly this conception covers an immense number of cases. A good one to use
as an example is that of Mr. S. H. Hadley, who after his conversion became an a
ctive and useful rescuer of drunkards in New York. His experience runs as follow
s:--
"One Tuesday evening I sat in a saloon in Harlem, a homeless, friendless, dying
drunkard. I had pawned or sold everything that would bring a drink. I could not
sleep unless I was dead drunk. I had not eaten for days, and for four nights pre
ceding I had suffered with delirium tremens, or the horrors, from midnight till
morning. I had often said, 'I will never be a tramp. I will never be cornered, f
or when that time comes, if ever it comes, I will find a home in the bottom of t
he river.' But the Lord so ordered it that when that time did come I was not abl
e to walk one quarter of the way to the river. As I sat there thinking, I seemed
to feel some great and mighty presence. I did not know then what it was. I did
learn afterwards that it was Jesus, the sinner's friend. I walked up to the bar
and pounded it with my fist till I made the glasses rattle. Those who stood by d
rinking looked on with scornful curiosity. I said I would never take another dri
nk, if I died on the street, and really I felt as though that would happen befor
e morning. Something said, 'If you want to keep this promise, go and have yourse
lf locked up.' I went to the nearest station-house and had myself locked up.
"I was placed in a narrow cell, and it seemed as though all the demons that coul
d find room came in that place with me. This was not all the company I had, eith
er. No, praise the Lord:
[p. 199]
that dear Spirit that came to me in the saloon was present, and said, Pray. I di
d pray, and though I did not feel any great help, I kept on praying. As soon as
I was able to leave my cell I was taken to the police court and remanded back to
the cell. I was finally released, and found my way to my brother's house, where
every care was given me. While lying in bed the admonishing Spirit never left m
e, and when I arose the following Sabbath morning I felt that day would decide m
y fate, and toward evening it came into my head to go to Jerry M'Auley's Mission
. I went. The house was packed, and with great difficulty I made my way to the s
pace near the platform. There I saw the apostle to the drunkard and the outcast-
-that man of God, Jerry M'Auley. He rose, and amid deep silence told his experie
nce. There was a sincerity about this man that carried conviction with it, and I
found myself saying, 'I wonder if God can save me?' I listened to the testimony
of twenty-five or thirty persons, every one of whom had been saved from rum, an
d I made up my mind that I would be saved or die right there. When the invitatio
n was given, I knelt down with a crowd of drunkards. Jerry made the first prayer
. Then Mrs. M'Auley prayed fervently for us. Oh, what a conflict was going on fo
r my poor soul! A blessed whisper said, 'Come'; the devil said, 'Be careful.' I
halted but a moment, and then, with a breaking heart, I said, 'Dear Jesus, can y
ou help me?' Never with mortal tongue can I describe that moment. Although up to
that moment my soul had been filled with indescribable gloom, I felt the glorio
us brightness of the noonday sun shine into my heart. I felt I was a free man. O
h, the precious feeling of safety, of freedom, of resting on Jesus! I felt that
Christ with all his brightness and power had come into my life; that, indeed, ol
d things had passed away and all things had become new.
"From that moment till now I have never wanted a drink of whiskey, and I have ne
ver seen money enough to make me take one. I promised God that night that if he
would take away the appetite for strong drink, I would work for him all my life.
He has done his part, and I have been trying to do mine." [*1]
[p. 200]
Dr. Leuba rightly remarks that there is little doctrinal theology in such an exp
erience, which starts with the absolute need of a higher helper, and ends with t
he sense that he has helped us. He gives other cases of drunkards' conversions w
hich are purely ethical, containing, as recorded, no theological beliefs whateve
r. John B. Gough's case, for instance, is practically, says Dr. Leuba, the conve
rsion of an atheist--neither God nor Jesus being mentioned. [*1] But in spite of
the importance of this type of regeneration, with little or no intellectual rea
djustment, this writer surely makes it too exclusive. It corresponds to the subj
ectively centered form of morbid melancholy, of which Bunyan and Alline were exa
mples. But we saw in our seventh lecture that there are objective forms of melan
choly also, in which the lack of rational meaning of the universe, and of life a
nyhow, is the burden that weighs upon one--you remember Tolstoy's case. [*2] So
there are distinct elements in conversion, and their relations to individual liv
es deserve to be discriminated. [*3]
Some persons, for instance, never are, and possibly never under any circumstance
s could be, converted. Religious ideas
[p. 201]
cannot become the centre of their spiritual energy. They may be excellent person
s, servants of God in practical ways, but they are not children of his kingdom.
They are either incapable of imagining the invisible; or else, in the language o
f devotion, they are life-long subjects of "barrenness" and "dryness." Such inap
titude for religious faith may in some cases be intellectual in its origin. Thei
r religious faculties may be checked in their natural tendency to expand, by bel
iefs about the world that are inhibitive, the pessimistic and materialistic beli
efs, for example, within which so many good souls, who in former times would hav
e freely indulged their religious propensities, find themselves nowadays, as it
were, frozen; or the agnostic vetoes upon faith as something weak and shameful,
under which so many of us today lie cowering, afraid to use our instincts. In ma
ny persons such inhibitions are never overcome. To the end of their days they re
fuse to believe, their personal energy never gets to its religious centre, and t
he latter remains inactive in perpetuity.
In other persons the trouble is profounder. There are men anaesthetic on the rel
igious side, deficient in that category of sensibility. Just as a bloodless orga
nism can never, in spite of all its goodwill, attain to the reckless "animal spi
rits" enjoyed by those of sanguine temperament; so the nature which is spiritual
ly barren may admire and envy faith in others, but can never compass the enthusi
asm and peace which those who are temperamentally qualified for faith enjoy. All
this may, however, turn out eventually to have been a matter of temporary inhib
ition. Even late in life some thaw, some release may take place, some bolt be sh
ot back in the barrenest breast, and the man's hard heart may soften and break i
nto religious feeling. Such cases more than any others suggest the idea that sud
den conversion is by miracle. So long as they exist, we must not imagine ourselv
es to deal with irretrievably fixed classes.
[p. 202]
Now there are two forms of mental occurrence in human beings, which lead to a st
riking difference in the conversion process, a difference to which Professor Sta
rbuck has called attention. You know how it is when you try to recollect a forgo
tten name. Usually you help the recall by working for it, by mentally running ov
er the places, persons, and things with which the word was connected. But someti
mes this effort fails: you feel then as if the harder you tried the less hope th
ere would be, as though the name were jammed, and pressure in its direction only
kept it all the more from rising. And then the opposite expedient often succeed
s. Give up the effort entirely; think of something altogether different, and in
half an hour the lost name comes sauntering into your mind, as Emerson says, as
carelessly as if it had never been invited. Some hidden process was started in y
ou by the effort, which went on after the effort ceased, and made the result com
e as if it came spontaneously. A certain music teacher, says Dr. Starbuck, says
to her pupils after the thing to be done has been clearly pointed out, and unsuc
cessfully attempted: "Stop trying and it will do itself!" [*1]
There is thus a conscious and voluntary way and an involuntary and unconscious w
ay in which mental results may get accomplished; and we find both ways exemplifi
ed in the history of conversion, giving us two types, which Starbuck calls the v
olitional type and the type by self-surrender respectively.
In the volitional type the regenerative change is usually gradual, and consists
in the building up, piece by piece, of a new set of moral and spiritual habits.
But there are always critical points here at which the movement forward seems mu
ch more rapid. This psychological fact is abundantly illustrated by Dr. Starbuck
. Our education in any practical accomplishment proceeds apparently by jerks and
starts just as the growth of our physical bodies does.
[p. 203]
"An athlete . . . sometimes awakens suddenly to an understanding of the fine poi
nts of the game and to a real enjoyment of it, just as the convert awakens to an
appreciation of religion. If he keeps on engaging in the sport, there may come
a day when all at once the game plays itself through him--when he loses himself
in some great contest. In the same way, a musician may suddenly reach a point at
which pleasure in the technique of the art entirely falls away, and in some mom
ent of inspiration he becomes the instrument through which music flows. The writ
er has chanced to hear two different married persons, both of whose wedded lives
had been beautiful from the beginning, relate that not until a year or more aft
er marriage did they awake to the full blessedness of married life. So it is wit
h the religious experience of these persons we are studying." [*1]
We shall erelong hear still more remarkable illustrations of subconsciously matu
ring processes eventuating in results of which we suddenly grow conscious. Sir W
illiam Hamilton and Professor Laycock of Edinburgh were among the first to call
attention to this class of effects; but Dr. Carpenter first, unless I am mistake
n, introduced the term "unconscious cerebration," which has since then been a po
pular phrase of explanation. The facts are now known to us far more extensively
than he could know them, and the adjective "unconscious," being for many of them
almost certainly a misnomer, is better replaced by the vaguer term "subconsciou
s" or "subliminal."
Of the volitional type of conversion it would be easy to give examples, [*2] but
they are as a rule less interesting than
[p. 204]
those of the self-surrender type, in which the subconscious effects are more abu
ndant and often startling. I will therefore hurry to the latter, the more so bec
ause the difference between the two types is after all not radical. Even in the
most voluntarily built-up sort of regeneration there are passages of partial sel
f-surrender interposed; and in the great majority of all cases, when the will ha
d done its uttermost towards bringing one close to the complete unification aspi
red after, it seems that the very last step must be left to other forces and per
formed without the help of its activity. In other words, self-surrender becomes
then indispensable. "The personal will," says Dr. Starbuck, "must be given up.
[p. 205]
[paragraph continues] In many cases relief persistently refuses to come until th
e person ceases to resist, or to make an effort in the direction he desires to g
o."
"I had said I would not give up; but when my will was broken, it was all over,"
writes one of Starbuck's correspondents.--Another says: "I simply said: 'Lord, I
have done all I can; I leave the whole matter with Thee,' and immediately there
came to me a great peace."--Another: "All at once it occurred to me that I migh
t be saved, too, if I would stop trying to do it all myself, and follow Jesus: s
omehow I lost my load."--Another: "I finally ceased to resist, and gave myself u
p, though it was a hard struggle. Gradually the feeling came over me that I had
done my part, and God was willing to do his." [*1]--"Lord Thy will be done; damn
or save!" cries John Nelson, [*2] exhausted with the anxious struggle to escape
damnation; and at that moment his soul was filled with peace.
Dr. Starbuck gives an interesting, and it seems to me a true, account--so far as
conceptions so schematic can claim truth at all--of the reasons why self-surren
der at the last moment should be so indispensable. To begin with, there are two
things in the mind of the candidate for conversion: first, the present incomplet
eness or wrongness, the "sin" which he is eager to escape from; and, second, the
positive ideal which he longs to compass. 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 at. In a majority of cases, indeed,
the "sin" almost exclusively engrosses the attention, so that conversion is "a
process of struggling away from sin rather than of striving towards righteousnes
s." [*3] A man's conscious wit and will, so far as they strain towards the ideal
, are
[p. 206]
aiming at something only dimly and inaccurately imagined. Yet all the while the
forces of mere organic ripening within him are going on towards their own prefig
ured result, and his conscious strainings are letting loose subconscious allies
behind the scenes, which in their way work towards rearrangement; and the rearra
ngement towards which all these deeper forces tend is pretty surely definite, an
d definitely different from what he consciously conceives and determines. It may
consequently be actually interfered with (jammed, as it were, like the lost wor
d when we seek too energetically to recall it), by his voluntary efforts slantin
g from the true direction.
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 se
lf is the thing most emphasized. Where, on the contrary, the subconscious forces
take the lead, it is more probably the better self in posse which directs the o
peration. Instead of being clumsily and vaguely aimed at from without, it is the
n itself the organizing centre. What then must the person do? "He must relax," s
ays Dr. Starbuck--"that is, he must fall back on the larger Power that makes for
righteousness, which has been welling up in his own being, and let it finish in
its own way the work it has begun. . . . The act of yielding, in this point of
view, is giving one's self over to the new life, making it the centre of a new p
ersonality, and living, from within, the truth of it which had before been viewe
d objectively." [*1]
"Man's extremity is God's opportunity" is the theological way of putting this fa
ct of the need of self-surrender; whilst the physiological way of stating it wou
ld be, "Let one do all in one's power, and one's nervous system will do the rest
." Both statements acknowledge the same fact. [*2]
[p. 207]
To state it in terms of our own symbolism: When the new centre of personal energ
y has been subconsciously incubated so long as to be just ready to open into flo
wer, "hands off" is the only word for us, it must burst forth unaided!
We have used the vague and abstract language of psychology. But since, in any te
rms, the crisis described is the throwing of our conscious selves upon the mercy
of powers which, whatever they may be, are more ideal than we are actually, and
make for our redemption, you see why self-surrender has been and always must be
regarded as the vital turning-point of the religious life, so far as the religi
ous life is spiritual and no affair of outer works and ritual and sacraments. On
e 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-surrender. From Catholicism to Lutheranism, and then to Calvinism; from th
at to Wesleyanism; and from this, outside of technical Christianity altogether,
to pure "liberalism" or transcendental idealism, whether or not of the mind-cure
type, taking in the mediaeval mystics, the quietists, the pietists, and quakers
by the way, we can trace the stages of progress towards the idea of an immediat
e spiritual help, experienced by the individual in his forlornness and standing
in no essential need of doctrinal apparatus or propitiatory machinery.
Psychology and religion are thus in perfect harmony up to this point, since both
admit that there are forces seemingly outside of the conscious individual that
bring redemption to his life. Nevertheless psychology, defining these forces as
"subconscious," and speaking of their effects, as due to "incubation," or "cereb
ration," implies that they do not transcend the individual's personality; and he
rein she diverges from Christian theology, which insists that they are direct su
pernatural operations of the Deity. I propose to you
[p. 208]
that we do not yet consider this divergence final, but leave the question for a
while in abeyance--continued inquiry may enable us to get rid of some of the app
arent discord.

Revert, then, for a moment more to the psychology of self-surrender.

When you find a man living on the ragged edge of his consciousness, pent in to h
is sin and want and incompleteness, and consequently inconsolable, and then simp
ly tell him that all is well with him, that he must stop his worry, break with h
is discontent, and give up his anxiety, you seem to him to come with pure absurd
ities. The only positive consciousness he has tells him that all is not well, an
d the better way you offer sounds simply as if you proposed to him to assert col
d-blooded falsehoods. "The will to believe" cannot be stretched as far as that.
We can make ourselves more faithful to a belief of which we have the rudiments,
but we cannot create a belief out of whole cloth when our perception actively as
sures us of its opposite. The better mind proposed to us comes in that case in t
he form of a pure negation of the only mind we have, and we cannot actively will
a pure negation.
There are only two ways in which it is possible to get rid of anger, worry, fear
, despair, or other undesirable affections. One is that an opposite affection sh
ould overpoweringly break over us, and the other is by getting so exhausted with
the struggle that we have to stop--so we drop down, give up, and don't care any
longer. Our emotional brain-centres strike work, and we lapse into a temporary
apathy. Now there is documentary proof that this state of temporary exhaustion n
ot infrequently forms part of the conversion crisis. So long as the egoistic wor
ry of the sick soul guards the door, the expansive confidence of the soul of fai
th gains no presence. But let the former faint away, even but for a moment, and
the latter can profit by the opportunity, and,
[p. 209]
having once acquired possession, may retain it.
Carlyle's Teufelsdrockh passes from the everlasting No to the everlasting Yes th
rough a "Centre of Indifference."
Let me give you a good illustration of this feature in the conversion process. T
hat genuine saint, David Brainerd, describes his own crisis in the following wor
ds:--
"One morning, while I was walking in a solitary place as usual, I at once saw th
at all my contrivances and projects to effect or procure deliverance and salvati
on for myself were utterly in vain; I was brought quite to a stand, as finding m
yself totally lost. I saw that it was forever impossible for me to do anything t
owards helping or delivering myself, that I had made all the pleas I ever could
have made to all eternity; and that all my pleas were vain, for I saw that self-
interest had led me to pray, and that I had never once prayed from any respect t
o the glory of God. I saw that there was no necessary connection between my pray
ers and the bestowment of divine mercy, that they laid not the least obligation
upon God to bestow his grace upon me; and that there was no more virtue or goodn
ess in them than there would be in my paddling with my hand in the water. I saw
that I had been heaping up my devotions before God, fasting, praying, etc., pret
ending, and indeed really thinking sometimes that I was aiming at the glory of G
od; whereas I never once truly intended it, but only my own happiness. I saw tha
t as I had never done anything for God, I had no claim on anything from him but
perdition, on account of my hypocrisy and mockery. When I saw evidently that I h
ad regard to nothing but self-interest, then my duties appeared a vile mockery a
nd a continual course of lies, for the whole was nothing but self-worship, and a
n horrid abuse of God.
"I continued, as I remember, in this state of mind, from Friday morning till the
Sabbath evening following (July 12, 1739), when I was walking again in the same
solitary place. Here, in a mournful melancholy state I was attempting to pray;
but found no heart to engage in that or any other duty; my former concern, exerc
ise, and religious affections were now gone. I thought that the Spirit of God ha
d quite left me; but still was
[p. 210]
not distressed; yet disconsolate, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth cou
ld make me happy. Having been thus endeavoring to pray--though, as I thought, ve
ry stupid and senseless--for near half an hour; then, as I was walking in a thic
k grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the apprehension of my soul. I do n
ot mean any external brightness, nor any imagination of a body of light, but it
was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had bef
ore, nor anything which had the least resemblance to it. I had no particular app
rehension of any one person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the H
oly Ghost; but it appeared to be Divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeak
able, to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly please
d and satisfied that he should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so
captivated and delighted with the excellency of God that I was even swallowed u
p in him, at least to that degree that I had no thought about my own salvation,
and scarce reflected that there was such a creature as myself. I continued in th
is state of inward joy, peace, and astonishing, till near dark without any sensi
ble abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen; and felt swe
etly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world
, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont
to do. At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdo
m, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any othe
r way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and c
omplied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have bee
n saved by my own duties or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whol
e soul would now have refused it. I wondered that all the world did not see and
comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ." [*1
]
I have italicized the passage which records the exhaustion of the anxious emotio
n hitherto habitual. In a large proportion,
[p. 211]
perhaps the majority, of reports, the writers speak as if the exhaustion of the
lower and the entrance of the higher emotion were simultaneous, [*1] yet often a
gain they speak as if the higher actively drove the lower out. This is undoubted
ly true in a great many instances, as we shall presently see. But often there se
ems little doubt that both conditions--subconscious ripening of the one affectio
n and exhaustion of the other--must simultaneously have conspired, in order to p
roduce the result.
T. W. B., a convert of Nettleton's, being brought to an acute paroxysm of convic
tion of sin, ate nothing all day, locked himself in his room in the evening in c
omplete despair, crying aloud, "How long, O Lord, how long?" "After repeating th
is and similar language," he says, "several times, I seemed to sink away into a
state of insensibility. When I came to myself again I was on my knees, praying n
ot for myself but for others. I felt submission to the will of God, willing that
he should do with me as should seem good in his sight. My concern seemed all lo
st in concern for others." [*2]
Our great American revivalist Finney writes: "I said to myself: 'What is this? I
must have grieved the Holy Ghost entirely away. I have lost all my conviction.
I have not a particle of concern about my soul; and it must be that the Spirit h
as left me.' 'Why!' thought I, 'I never was so far from being concerned about my
own salvation in my life.' . . . I tried to recall my convictions, to get back
again the load of sin under which I
[p. 212]
had been laboring. I tried in vain to make myself anxious. I was so quiet and pe
aceful that I tried to feel concerned about that, lest it should be the result o
f my having grieved the Spirit away." [*1]
But beyond all question there are persons in whom, quite independently of any ex
haustion in the Subject's capacity for feeling, or even in the absence of any ac
ute previous feeling, the higher condition, having reached the due degree of ene
rgy, bursts through all barriers and sweeps in like a sudden flood. These are th
e most striking and memorable cases, the cases of instantaneous conversion to wh
ich the conception of divine grace has been most peculiarly attached. I have giv
en one of them at length--the case of Mr. Bradley. But I had better reserve the
other cases and my comments on the rest of the subject for the following lecture
.
Footnotes
^186:1 A sketch of the life of Stephen H. Bradley, from the age of five to twent
y four years, including his remarkable experience of the power of the Holy Spiri
t on the second evening of November, 1829. Madison, Connecticut, 1830.
^194:1 Jouffroy is an example: "Down this slope it was that my intelligence had
glided, and little by little it had got far from its first faith. But this melan
choly revolution had not taken place in the broad daylight of my consciousness;
too many scruples, too many guides and sacred affections had made it dreadful to
me, so that I was far from avowing to myself the progress it had made. It had g
one on in silence, by an involuntary elaboration of which I was not the accompli
ce; and although I had in reality long ceased to be a Christian, yet, in the inn
ocence of my intention, I should have shuddered to suspect it, and thought it ca
lumny had I been accused of such a falling away." Then follows Jouffroy's accoun
t of his counter-conversion, quoted above on p. 173.
^195:1 One hardly needs examples; but for love, see <page 176>, note, for fear,
<page 161>; for remorse, see Othello after the murder; for anger see Lear after
Cordelia's first speech to him; for resolve, see <page 175> (J. Foster case). He
re is a pathological case in which guilt was the feeling that suddenly exploded:
"One night I was seized on entering bed with a rigor, such as Swedenborg descri
bes as coming over him with a sense of holiness, but over me with a sense of gui
lt. During that whole night I lay under the influence of the rigor, and from its
inception I felt that I was under the curse of God. I have never done one act o
f duty in my life--sins against God and man beginning as far as my memory goes b
ack--a wildcat in human shape."
^196:1 E. D. STARBUCK: The Psychology of Religion, pp. 224, 262.
^196:2 No one understands this better than Jonathan Edwards understood it alread
y. Conversion narratives of the more commonplace sort must always be taken with
the allowances which he suggests: [p. 197] "A rule received and established by c
ommon consent has a very great, though to many persons an insensible influence i
n forming their notions of the process of their own experience. I know very well
how they proceed as to this matter, for I have had frequent opportunities of ob
serving their conduct. Very often their experience at first appears like a confu
sed chaos, but then those parts are selected which bear the nearest resemblance
to such particular steps as are insisted on; and these are dwelt upon in their t
houghts, and spoken of from time to time, till they grow more and more conspicuo
us in their view, and other parts which are neglected grow more and more obscure
. Thus what they have experienced is insensibly strained, so as to bring it to a
n exact conformity to the scheme already established in their minds. And it beco
mes natural also for ministers, who have to deal with those who insist upon dist
inctness and clearness of method, to do so too." Treatise on Religious Affection
s.
^197:1 Studies in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena, American Journal of Psy
chology, vii. 309 (1896).
^199:1 I have abridged Mr. Hadley's account. For other conversions of drunkards,
see his pamphlet, Rescue Mission Work, published at the [p. 200] Old Jerry M'Au
ley Water Street Mission, New York City. A striking collection of cases also app
ears in the appendix to Professor Leuba's article.
^200:1 A restaurant waiter served provisionally as Gough's 'Saviour.' General Bo
oth, the founder of the Salvation Army, considers that the first vital step in s
aving outcasts consists in making them feel that some decent human being cares e
nough for them to take an interest in the question whether they are to rise or s
ink.
^200:2 The crisis of apathetic melancholy--no use in life--into which J. S. Mill
records that he fell, from which he emerged by the reading of Marmontel's Memoi
rs (Heaven save the mark!) and Wordsworth's poetry, is another intellectual and
general metaphysical case. See Mill's Autobiography, New York, 1873, pp. 141, 14
8.
^200:3 Starbuck, in addition to "escape from sin," discriminates "spiritual illu
mination" as a distinct type of conversion experience. Psychology of Religion, p
. 85.
^202:1 Psychology of Religion, p. 117.
^203:1 Psychology of Religion, p. 385. Compare, also, pp. 137-144 and 262.
^203:2 For instance, C. G. Finney italicizes the volitional element: "Just at th
is point the whole question of Gospel salvation opened to my mind in a manner mo
st marvelous to me at the time. I think I then saw, as clearly as I ever have in
my life, the reality and fullness of the atonement of Christ. Gospel salvation
seemed to me to be an offer of something to be accepted, and all that was necess
ary on my part to [p. 204] get my own consent to give up my sins and accept Chri
st. After this distinct revelation had stood for some little time before my mind
, the question seemed to be put, 'will you accept it now, to-day?' I replied, 'Y
es; I will accept it to-day, or I will die in the attempt!'" He then went into t
he woods, where he describes his struggles. He could not pray, his heart was har
dened in its pride. "I then reproached myself for having promised to give my hea
rt to God before I left the woods. When I came to try, I found I could not. . .
. My inward soul hung back, and there was no going out of my heart to God. The t
hought was pressing me, of the rashness of my promise that I would give my heart
to God that day, or die in the attempt. It seemed to me as if that was binding
on my soul; and yet I was going to break my vow. A great sinking and discouragem
ent came over me, and I felt almost too weak to stand upon my knees. Just at thi
s moment I again thought I heard some one approach me, and I opened my eyes to s
ee whether it were so. But right there the revelation of my pride of heart, as t
he great difficulty that stood in the way, was distinctly shown to me. An overwh
elming sense of my wickedness in being ashamed to have a human being see me on m
y knees before God took such powerful possession of me, that I cried at the top
of my voice, and exclaimed that I would not leave that place if all the men on e
arth and all the devils in hell surrounded me. 'What!' I said, 'such a degraded
sinner as I am, on my knees confessing my sins to the great and holy God; and as
hamed to have any human being, and a sinner like myself, find me on my knees end
eavoring to make my peace with my offended God!' The sin appeared awful, infinit
e. It broke me down before the Lord." Memoirs, pp. 14-16, abridged.
^205:1 STARBUCK: Op. cit., pp. 91, 114.
^205:2 Extracts from the Journal of Mr. John Nelson, London, no date, p. 24.
^205:3 STARBUCK, p. 64.
^206:1 STARBUCK, p. 115.
^206:2 STARBUCK, p. 113.
^210:1 Edward's and Dwight's Life of Brainerd, New Haven, 1822, pp. 45-47, abrid
ged.
^211:1 Describing the whole phenomenon as a change of equilibrium, we might say
that the movement of new psychic energies towards the personal centre and the re
cession of old ones towards the margin (or the rising of some objects above, and
the sinking of others below the conscious threshold) were only two ways of desc
ribing an indivisible event. Doubtless this is often absolutely true, and Starbu
ck is right when he says that "self-surrender" and "new determination," though s
eeming at first sight to be such different experiences, are "really the same thi
ng. Self-surrender sees the change in terms of the old self, determination sees
it in terms of the new." Op. cit., p. 160.
^211:2 A. A. Bonar: Nettleton and his Labors, Edinburgh, 1854, p. 261.
^212:1 CHARLES G. FINNEY: Memoirs written by Himself, 1876, pp. 17, 18.

The Varieties of Religous Experience, by William James, [1902], at sacred-texts.

com
[p. 213]
Lecture X

CONVERSION--Concluded
In this lecture we have to finish the subject of Conversion, considering at firs
t those striking instantaneous instances of which Saint Paul's is the most emine
nt, and in which, often amid tremendous emotional excitement or perturbation of
the senses, a complete division is established in the twinkling of an eye betwee
n the old life and the new. Conversion of this type is an important phase of rel
igious experience, owing to the part which it has played in Protestant theology,
and it behooves us to study it conscientiously on that account.
I think I had better cite two or three of these cases before proceeding to a mor
e generalized account. One must know concrete instances first; for, as Professor
Agassiz used to say, one can see no farther into a generalization than just so
far as one's previous acquaintance with particulars enables one to take it in.
I will go back, then, to the case of our friend Henry Alline, and quote his repo
rt of the 26th of March, 1775, on which his poor divided mind became unified for
good.
"As I was about sunset wandering in the fields lamenting my miserable lost and u
ndone condition, and almost ready to sink under my burden, I thought I was in su
ch a miserable case as never any man was before. I returned to the house, and wh
en I got to the door, just as I was stepping off the threshold, the following im
pressions came into my mind like a powerful but small still voice. You have been
seeking, praying, reforming,
[p. 214]
laboring, reading, hearing, and meditating, and what have you done by it towards
your salvation? Are you any nearer to conversion now than when you first began?
Are you any more prepared for heaven, or fitter to appear before the impartial
bar of God, than when you first began to seek?
"It brought such conviction on me that I was obliged to say that I did not think
I was one step nearer than at first, but as much condemned, as much exposed, an
d as miserable as before. I cried out within myself, O Lord God, I am lost, and
if thou, O Lord, dost not find out some new way, I know nothing of, I shall neve
r be saved, for the ways and methods I have prescribed to myself have all failed
me, and I am willing they should fail. O Lord, have mercy! O Lord, have mercy!
"These discoveries continued until I went into the house and sat down. After I s
at down, being all in confusion, like a drowning man that was just giving up to
sink, and almost in an agony, I turned very suddenly round in my chair, and seei
ng part of an old Bible lying in one of the chairs, I caught hold of it in great
haste; and opening it without any premeditation, cast my eyes on the 38th Psalm
, which was the first time I ever saw the word of God: it took hold of me with s
uch power that it seemed to go through my whole soul, so that it seemed as if Go
d was praying in, with, and for me. About this time my father called the family
to attend prayers; I attended, but paid no regard to what he said in his prayer,
but continued praying in those words of the Psalm. Oh, help me, help me! cried
I, thou Redeemer of souls, and save me, or I am gone forever; thou canst this ni
ght, if thou pleasest, with one drop of thy blood atone for my sins, and appease
the wrath of an angry God. At that instant of time when I gave all up to him to
do with me as he pleased, and was willing that God should rule over me at his p
leasure, redeeming love broke into my soul with repeated scriptures, with such p
ower that my whole soul seemed to be melted down with love, the burden of guilt
and condemnation was gone, darkness was expelled, my heart humbled and filled wi
th gratitude, and my whole soul, that was a few minutes ago groaning under mount
ains of death, and crying to an unknown God for help, was now filled with immort
al love, soaring on the wings of faith,
[p. 215]
freed from the chains of death and darkness, and crying out, My Lord and my God;
thou art my rock and my fortress, my shield and my high tower, my life, my joy,
my present and my everlasting portion. Looking up, I thought I saw that same li
ght [he had on more than one previous occasion seen subjectively a bright blaze
of light], though it appeared different; and as soon as I saw it, the design was
opened to me, according to his promise, and I was obliged to cry out: Enough, e
nough, O blessed God! The work of conversion, the change, and the manifestations
of it are no more disputable than that light which I see, or anything that ever
I saw.
"In the midst of all my joys, in less than half an hour after my soul was set at
liberty, the Lord discovered to me my labor in the ministry and call to preach
the gospel. I cried out, Amen, Lord, I'll go; send me, send me. I spent the grea
test part of the night in ecstasies of joy, praising and adoring the Ancient of
Days for his free and unbounded grace. After I had been so long in this transpor
t and heavenly frame that my nature seemed to require sleep, I thought to close
my eyes for a few moments; then the devil stepped in, and told me that if I went
to sleep, I should lose it all, and when I should awake in the morning I would
find it to be nothing but a fancy and delusion. I immediately cried out, O Lord
God, if I am deceived, undeceive me.
"I then closed my eyes for a few minutes, and seemed to be refreshed with sleep;
and when I awoke, the first inquiry was, Where is my God? And in an instant of
time, my soul seemed awake in and with God, and surrounded by the arms of everla
sting love. About sunrise I arose with joy to relate to my parents what God had
done for my soul, and declared to them the miracle of God's unbounded grace. I t
ook a Bible to show them the words that were impressed by God on my soul the eve
ning before; but when I came to open the Bible, it appeared all new to me.
"I so longed to be useful in the cause of Christ, in preaching the gospel, that
it seemed as if I could not rest any longer, but go I must and tell the wonders
of redeeming love. I lost all
[p. 216]
taste for carnal pleasures, and carnal company, and was enabled to forsake them.
" [*1]
Young Mr. Alline, after the briefest of delays, and with no book-learning but hi
s Bible, and no teaching save that of his own experience, became a Christian min
ister, and thenceforward his life was fit to rank, for its austerity and single-
mindedness, with that of the most devoted saints. But happy as he became in his
strenuous way, he never got his taste for even the most innocent carnal pleasure
s back. We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose sou
l the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint. His redemption was into anoth
er universe than this mere natural world, and life remained for him a sad and pa
tient trial. Years later we can find him making such an entry as this in his dia
ry: "On Wednesday the 12th I preached at a wedding, and had the happiness thereb
y to be the means of excluding carnal mirth."
The next case I will give is that of a correspondent of Professor Leuba, printed
 in the latter's article, already cited, in vol. vi. of the American Journal of
Psychology. This subject was an Oxford graduate, the son of a clergyman, and the
story resembles in many points the classic case of Colonel Gardiner, which ever
ybody may be supposed to know. Here it is, somewhat abridged:--
"Between the period of leaving Oxford and my conversion I never darkened the doo
r of my father's church, although I lived with him for eight years, making what
money I wanted by journalism, and spending it in high carousal with any one who
would sit with me and drink it away. So I lived, sometimes drunk for a week toge
ther, and then a terrible repentance, and would not touch a drop for a whole mon
th.
"In all this period, that is, up to thirty-three years of age, I never had a des
ire to reform on religious grounds. But all my
[p. 217]
pangs were due to some terrible remorse I used to feel after a heavy carousal, t
he remorse taking the shape of regret after my folly in wasting my life in such
a way--a man of superior talents and education. This terrible remorse turned me
gray in one night, and whenever it came upon me I was perceptibly grayer the nex
t morning. What I suffered in this way is beyond the expression of words. It was
hell-fire in all its most dreadful tortures. Often did I vow that if I got over
'this time' I would reform. Alas, in about three days I fully recovered, and wa
s as happy as ever. So it went on for years, but, with a physique like a rhinoce
ros, I always recovered, and as long as I let drink alone, no man was as capable
of enjoying life as I was.
"I was converted in my own bedroom in my father's rectory house at precisely thr
ee o'clock in the afternoon of a hot July day (July 13, 1886). I was in perfect
health, having been off from the drink for nearly a month. I was in no way troub
led about my soul. In fact, God was not in my thoughts that day. A young lady fr
iend sent me a copy of Professor Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World,
asking me my opinion of it as a literary work only. Being proud of my critical t
alents and wishing to enhance myself in my new friend's esteem, I took the book
to my bedroom for quiet, intending to give it a thorough study, and then write h
er what I thought of it. It was here that God met me face to face, and I shall n
ever forget the meeting. 'He that hath the Son hath life eternal, he that hath n
ot the Son hath not life.' I had read this scores of times before, but this made
all the difference. I was now in God's presence and my attention was absolutely
'soldered' on to this verse, and I was not allowed to proceed with the book til
l I had fairly considered what these words really involved. Only then was I allo
wed to proceed, feeling all the while that there was another being in my bedroom
, though not seen by me. The stillness was very marvelous, and I felt supremely
happy. It was most unquestionably shown me, in one second of time, that I had ne
ver touched the Eternal: and that if I died then, I must inevitably be lost. I w
as undone. I knew it as well as I now know I am saved. The Spirit of God showed
it me in ineffable love; there was no terror in it; I felt God's love so powerfu
lly upon me that only a mighty
[p. 218]
sorrow crept over me that I had lost all through my own folly; and what was I to
do? What could I do? I did not repent even; God never asked me to repent. All I
felt was 'I am undone,' and God cannot help it, although he loves me. No fault
on the part of the Almighty. All the time I was supremely happy: I felt like a l
ittle child before his father. I had done wrong, but my Father did not scold me,
but loved me most wondrously. Still my doom was sealed. I was lost to a certain
ty, and being naturally of a brave disposition I did not quail under it, but dee
p sorrow for the past, mixed with regret for what I had lost, took hold upon me,
 and my soul thrilled within me to think it was all over. Then there crept in up
on me so gently, so lovingly, so unmistakably, a way of escape, and what was it
after all? The old, old story over again, told in the simplest way: 'There is no
name under heaven whereby ye can be saved except that of the Lord Jesus Christ.
' No words were spoken to me; my soul seemed to see my Saviour in the spirit, an
d from that hour to this, nearly nine years now, there has never been in my life
one doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father both worked upon me tha
t afternoon in July, both differently, and both in the most perfect love conceiv
able, and I rejoiced there and then in a conversion so astounding that the whole
village heard of it in less than twenty-four hours.
"But a time of trouble was yet to come. The day after my conversion I went into
the hay-field to lend a hand with the harvest, and not having made any promise t
o God to abstain or drink in moderation only, I took too much and came home drun
k. My poor sister was heart-broken; and I felt ashamed of myself and got to my b
edroom at once, where she followed me weeping copiously. She said I had been con
verted and fallen away instantly. But although I was quite full of drink (not mu
ddled, however), I knew that God's work begun in me was not going to be wasted.
About midday I made on my knees the first prayer before God for twenty years. I
did not ask to be forgiven; I felt that was no good, for I would be sure to fall
again. Well, what did I do? I committed myself to him in the profoundest belief
that my individuality was going to be destroyed, that he would take all from me
, and I was willing. In such a
[p. 219]
surrender lies the secret of a holy life. From that hour drink has had no terror
s for me: I never touch it, never want it. The same thing occurred with my pipe:
after being a regular smoker from my twelfth year the desire for it went at onc
e, and has never returned. So with every known sin, the deliverance in each case
being permanent and complete. I have had no temptation since conversion, God se
emingly having shut out Satan from that course with me. He gets a free hand in o
ther ways, but never on sins of the flesh. Since I gave up to God all ownership
in my own life, he has guided me in a thousand ways, and has opened my path in a
way almost incredible to those who do not enjoy the blessing of a truly surrend
ered life."
So much for our graduate of Oxford, in whom you notice the complete abolition of
an ancient appetite as one of the conversion's fruits.
The most curious record of sudden conversion with which I am acquainted is that
of M. Alphonse Ratisbonne, a free-thinking French Jew, to Catholicism, at Rome i
n 1842. In a letter to a clerical friend, written a few months later, the conver
t gives a palpitating account of the circumstances. [*1] The predisposing condit
ions appear to have been slight. He had an elder brother who had been converted
and was a Catholic priest. He was himself irreligious, and nourished an antipath
y to the apostate brother and generally to his "cloth." Finding himself at Rome
in his twenty-ninth year, he fell in with a French gentleman who tried to make a
proselyte of him, but who succeeded no farther after two or three conversations
than to get him to hang (half jocosely) a religious medal round his neck, and t
o accept and read a copy of a short prayer to the Virgin. M. Ratisbonne represen
ts his own part in the conversations as having been of a
[p. 220]
light and chaffing order; but he notes the fact that for some days he was unable
to banish the words of the prayer from his mind, and that the night before the
crisis he had a sort of nightmare, in the imagery of which a black cross with no
Christ upon it figured. Nevertheless, until noon of the next day he was free in
mind and spent the time in trivial conversations. I now give his own words.
"If at this time any one had accosted me, saying: 'Alphonse, in a quarter of an
hour you shall be adoring Jesus Christ as your God and Saviour; you shall lie pr
ostrate with your face upon the ground in a humble church; you shall be smiting
your breast at the foot of a priest; you shall pass the carnival in a college of
Jesuits to prepare yourself to receive baptism, ready to give your life for the
Catholic faith; you shall renounce the world and its pomps and pleasures; renou
nce your fortune, your hopes, and if need be, your betrothed; the affections of
your family, the esteem of your friends, and your attachment to the Jewish peopl
e; you shall have no other aspiration than to follow Christ and bear his cross t
ill death;'--if, I say, a prophet had come to me with such a prediction, I shoul
d have judged that only one person could be more mad than he--whosoever, namely,
might believe in the possibility of such senseless folly becoming true. And yet
that folly is at present my only wisdom, my sole happiness.
"Coming out of the cafe I met the carriage of Monsieur B. [the proselyting frien
d]. He stopped and invited me in for a drive, but first asked me to wait for a f
ew minutes whilst he attended to some duty at the church of San Andrea delle Fra
tte. Instead of waiting in the carriage, I entered the church myself to look at
it. The church of San Andrea was poor, small, and empty; I believe that I found
myself there almost alone. No work of art attracted my attention; and I passed m
y eyes mechanically over its interior without being arrested by any particular t
hought. I can only remember an entirely black dog which went trotting and turnin
g before me as I mused. In an instant the dog had disappeared, the whole church
had vanished, I no longer saw anything, . . . or more truly I saw, O my God, one
thing alone.
[p. 221]
"Heavens, how can I speak of it? Oh no! human words cannot attain to expressing
the inexpressible. Any description, however sublime it might be, could be but a
profanation of the unspeakable truth.
"I was there prostrate on the ground, bathed in my tears, with my heart beside i
tself, when M. B. called me back to life. I could not reply to the questions whi
ch followed from him one upon the other. But finally I took the medal which I ha
d on my breast, and with all the effusion of my soul I kissed the image of the V
irgin, radiant with grace, which it bore. Oh, indeed, it was She! It was indeed
She! [What he had seen had been a vision of the Virgin.]
"I did not know where I was: I did not know whether I was Alphonse or another. I
only felt myself changed and believed myself another me; I looked for myself in
myself and did not find myself. In the bottom of my soul I felt an explosion of
the most ardent joy; I could not speak; I had no wish to reveal what had happen
ed. But I felt something solemn and sacred within me which made me ask for a pri
est. I was led to one; and there alone, after he had given me the positive order
, I spoke as best I could, kneeling, and with my heart still trembling. I could
give no account to myself of the truth of which I had acquired a knowledge and a
faith. All that I can say is that in an instant the bandage had fallen from my
eyes, and not one bandage only, but the whole manifold of bandages in which I ha
d been brought up. One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the mud a
nd ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun.
"I came out as from a sepulchre, from an abyss of darkness; and I was living, pe
rfectly living. But I wept, for at the bottom of that gulf I saw the extreme of
misery from which I had been saved by an infinite mercy; and I shuddered at the
sight of my iniquities, stupefied, melted, overwhelmed with wonder and with grat
itude. You may ask me how I came to this new insight, for truly I had never open
ed a book of religion nor even read a single page of the Bible, and the dogma of
original sin is either entirely denied or forgotten by the Hebrews of to-day, s
o that I had thought so little about it that I doubt whether I ever knew its nam
e. But how came I, then, to this perception of it? I can
[p. 222]
answer nothing save this, that on entering that church I was in darkness altoget
her, and on coming out of it I saw the fullness of the light. I can explain the
change no better than by the simile of a profound sleep or the analogy of one bo
rn blind who should suddenly open his eyes to the day. He sees, but cannot defin
e the light which bathes him and by means of which he sees the objects which exc
ite his wonder. If we cannot explain physical light, how can we explain the ligh
t which is the truth itself? And I think I remain within the limits of veracity
when I say that without having any knowledge of the letter of religious doctrine
, I now intuitively perceived its sense and spirit. Better than if I saw them, I
felt those hidden things; I felt them by the inexplicable effects they produced
in me. It all happened in my interior mind, and those impressions, more rapid t
han thought shook my soul, revolved and turned it, as it were, in another direct
ion, towards other aims, by other paths. I express myself badly. But do you wish
, Lord, that I should inclose in poor and barren words sentiments which the hear
t alone can understand?"
I might multiply cases almost indefinitely, but these will suffice to show you h
ow real, definite, and memorable an event a sudden conversion may be to him who
has the experience. Throughout the height of it he undoubtedly seems to himself
a passive spectator or undergoer of an astounding process performed upon him fro
m above. There is too much evidence of this for any doubt of it to be possible.
Theology, combining this fact with the doctrines of election and grace, has conc
luded that the spirit of God is with us at these dramatic moments in a peculiarl
y miraculous way, unlike what happens at any other juncture of our lives. At tha
t moment, it believes, an absolutely new nature is breathed into us, and we beco
me partakers of the very substance of the Deity.
That the conversion should be instantaneous seems called for on this view, and t
he Moravian Protestants appear to have been the first to see this logical conseq
uence. The Methodists soon followed suit, practically if not dogmatically,
[p. 223]
and a short time ere his death, John Wesley wrote:--
"In London alone I found 652 members of our Society who were exceeding clear in
their experience, and whose testimony I could see no reason to doubt. And every
one of these (without a single exception) has declared that his deliverance from
sin was instantaneous; that the change was wrought in a moment. Had half of the
se, or one third, or one in twenty, declared it was gradually wrought in them, I
should have believed this, with regard to them, and thought that some were grad
ually sanctified and some instantaneously. But as I have not found, in so long a
space of time, a single person speaking thus, I cannot but believe that sanctif
ication is commonly, if not always, an instantaneous work." Tyerman's Life of We
sley, i. 463.
All this while the more usual sects of Protestantism have set no such store by i
nstantaneous conversion. For them as for the Catholic Church, Christ's blood, th
e sacraments, and the individual's ordinary religious duties are practically sup
posed to suffice to his salvation, even though no acute crisis of self-despair a
nd surrender followed by relief should be experienced. For Methodism, on the con
trary, unless there have been a crisis of this sort, salvation is only offered,
not effectively received, and Christ's sacrifice in so far forth is incomplete.
Methodism surely here follows, if not the healthier-minded, yet on the whole the
profounder spiritual instinct. The individual models which it has set up as typ
ical and worthy of imitation are not only the more interesting dramatically, but
psychologically they have been the more complete.
In the fully evolved Revivalism of Great Britain and America we have, so to spea
k, the codified and stereotyped procedure to which this way of thinking has led.
In spite of the unquestionable fact that saints of the once-born type exist, th
at there may be a gradual growth in holiness without a cataclysm; in spite of th
e obvious leakage (as one may
[p. 224]
say) of much mere natural goodness into the scheme of salvation; revivalism has
always assumed that only its own type of religious experience can be perfect; yo
u must first be nailed on the cross of natural despair and agony, and then in th
e twinkling of an eye be miraculously released.
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 process. Voic
es are often heard, lights seen, or visions witnessed; automatic motor phenomena
occur; and it always seems, after the surrender of the personal will, as if an
extraneous higher power had flooded in and taken possession. Moreover the sense
of renovation, safety, cleanness, rightness, can be so marvelous and jubilant as
well to warrant one's belief in a radically new substantial nature.
"Conversion," writes the New England Puritan, Joseph Alleine, "is not the puttin
g in a patch of holiness; but with the true convert holiness is woven into all h
is powers, principles, and practice. The sincere Christian is quite a new fabric
, from the foundation to the top-stone. He is a new man, a new creature."
And Jonathan Edwards says in the same strain: "Those gracious influences which a
re the effects of the Spirit of God are altogether supernatural--are quite diffe
rent from anything that unregenerate men experience. They are what no improvemen
t, or composition of natural qualifications or principles will ever produce; bec
ause they not only differ from what is natural, and from everything that natural
men experience in degree and circumstances, but also in kind, and are of a natu
re far more excellent. From hence it follows that in gracious affections there a
re [also] new perceptions and sensations entirely different in their nature and
kind from anything experienced by the [same] saints before they were sanctified.
. . . The conceptions which the saints have of the loveliness of God, and that
kind of delight which they experience in it, are quite peculiar, and entirely di
fferent from anything which a natural man can possess, or of which he can form a
ny proper notion."
[p. 225]
And that such a glorious transformation as this ought of necessity to be precede
d by despair is shown by Edwards in another passage.
"Surely it cannot be unreasonable," he says, "that before God delivers us from a
state of sin and liability to everlasting woe, he should give us some considera
ble sense of the evil from which he delivers us, in order that we may know and f
eel the importance of salvation, and be enabled to appreciate the value of what
God is pleased to do for us. As those who are saved are successively in two extr
emely different states--first in a state of condemnation and then in a state of
justification and blessedness--and as God, in the salvation of men, deals with t
hem as rational and intelligent creatures, it appears agreeable to this wisdom,
that those who are saved should be made sensible of their Being, in those two di
fferent states. In the first place, that they should be made sensible of their s
tate of condemnation; and afterwards, of their state of deliverance and happines
s."
Such quotations express sufficiently well for our purpose the doctrinal interpre
tation of these changes. Whatever part suggestion and imitation may have played
in producing them in men and women in excited assemblies, they have at any rate
been in countless individual instances an original and unborrowed experience. We
re we writing the story of the mind from the purely natural-history point of vie
w, with no religious interest whatever, we should still have to write down man's
liability to sudden and complete conversion as one of his most curious peculiar
ities.

What, now, must we ourselves think of this question? Is an instantaneous convers

ion a miracle in which God is present as he is present in no change of heart les
s strikingly abrupt? Are there two classes of human beings, even among the appar
ently regenerate, of which the one class really partakes of Christ's nature whil
e the other merely seems to do so? Or, on the contrary, may the whole phenomenon
of regeneration,
[p. 226]
even in these startling instantaneous examples, possibly be a strictly natural p
rocess, divine in its fruits, of course, but in one case more and in another les
s so, and neither more nor less divine in its mere causation and mechanism than
any other process, high or low, of man's interior life?
Before proceeding to answer this question, I must ask you to listen to some more
psychological remarks. At our last lecture, I explained the shifting of men's c
entres of personal energy within them and the lighting up of new crises of emoti
on. I explained the phenomena as partly due to explicitly conscious processes of
thought and will, but as due largely also to the subconscious incubation and ma
turing of motives deposited by the experiences of life. When ripe, the results h
atch out, or burst into flower. I have now to speak of the subconscious region,
in which such processes of flowering may occur, in a somewhat less vague way. I
only regret that my limits of time here force me to be so short.
The expression "field of consciousness" has but recently come into vogue in the
psychology books. Until quite lately the unit of mental life which figured most
was the single "idea," supposed to be a definitely outlined thing. But at presen
t psychologists are tending, first, to admit that the actual unit is more probab
ly the total mental state, the entire wave of consciousness or field of objects
present to the thought at any time; and, second, to see that it is impossible to
outline this wave, this field, with any definiteness.
As our mental fields succeed one another, each has its centre of interest, aroun
d which the objects of which we are less and less attentively conscious fade to
a margin so faint that its limits are unassignable. Some fields are narrow field
s and some are wide fields. Usually when we have a wide field we rejoice, for we
then see masses of truth together, and often get glimpses of relations which we
divine rather than see, for they shoot beyond the field into still remoter regi
ons of
[p. 227]
objectivity, regions which we seem rather to be about to perceive than to percei
ve actually. At other times, of drowsiness, illness, or fatigue, our fields may
narrow almost to a point, and we find ourselves correspondingly oppressed and co
ntracted.
Different individuals present constitutional differences in this matter of width
 of field. Your great organizing geniuses are men with habitually vast fields of
mental vision, in which a whole programme of future operations will appear dott
ed out at once, the rays shooting far ahead into definite directions of advance.
In common people there is never this magnificent inclusive view of a topic. The
y stumble along, feeling their way, as it were, from point to point, and often s
top entirely. In certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark, with
out memory of the past or thought of the future, and with the present narrowed d
own to some one simple emotion or sensation of the body.
The important fact which this "field" formula commemorates is the indeterminatio
n of the margin. Inattentively realized as is the matter which the margin contai
ns, it is nevertheless there, and helps both to guide our behavior and to determ
ine the next movement of our attention. It lies around us like a "magnetic field
," inside of which our centre of energy turns like a compass-needle, as the pres
ent phase of consciousness alters into its successor. Our whole past store of me
mories floats beyond this margin, ready at a touch to come in; and the entire ma
ss of residual powers, impulses, and knowledges that constitute our empirical se
lf stretches continuously beyond it. So vaguely drawn are the outlines between w
hat is actual and what is only potential at any moment of our conscious life, th
at it is always hard to say of certain mental elements whether we are conscious
of them or not.
The ordinary psychology, admitting fully the difficulty of tracing the marginal
outline, has nevertheless taken for
[p. 228]
granted, first, that all the consciousness the person now has, be the same focal
or marginal, inattentive or attentive, is there in the "field" of the moment, a
ll dim and impossible to assign as the latter's outline may be; and, second, tha
t what is absolutely extra-marginal is absolutely non-existent. and cannot be a
fact of consciousness at all.
And having reached this point, I must now ask you to recall what I said in my la
st lecture about the subconscious life. I said, as you may recollect, that those
who first laid stress upon these phenomena could not know the facts as we now k
now them. My first duty now is to tell you what I meant by such a statement.
I cannot but think that the most important step forward that has occurred in psy
chology since I have been a student of that science is the discovery, first made
in 1886, that, in certain subjects at least, there is not only the consciousnes
s of the ordinary field, with its usual centre and margin, but an addition there
to in the shape of a set of memories, thoughts, and feelings which are extra-mar
ginal and outside of the primary consciousness altogether, but yet must be class
ed as conscious facts of some sort, able to reveal their presence by unmistakabl
e signs. I call this the most important step forward because, unlike the other a
dvances which psychology has made, this discovery has revealed to us an entirely
unsuspected peculiarity in the constitution of human nature. No other step forw
ard which psychology has made can proffer any such claim as this.
In particular this discovery of a consciousness existing beyond the field, or su
bliminally as Mr. Myers terms it, casts light on many phenomena of religious bio
graphy. That is why I have to advert to it now, although it is naturally impossi
ble for me in this place to give you any account of the evidence on which the ad
mission of such a consciousness is based. You will find it set forth in many rec
ent books,
[p. 229]
[paragraph continues] Binet's Alterations of Personality [*1] being perhaps as g
ood a one as any to recommend.
The human material on which the demonstration has been made has so far been rath
er limited and, in part at least, eccentric, consisting of unusually suggestible
hypnotic subjects, and of hysteric patients. Yet the elementary mechanisms of o
ur life are presumably so uniform that what is shown to be true in a marked degr
ee of some persons is probably true in some degree of all, and may in a few be t
rue in an extraordinarily high degree.
The most important consequence of having a strongly developed ultra-marginal lif
e of this sort is that one's ordinary fields of consciousness are liable to incu
rsions from it of which the subject does not guess the source, and which, theref
ore, take for him the form of unaccountable impulses to act, or inhibitions of a
ction, of obsessive ideas, or even of hallucinations of sight or hearing. The im
pulses may take the direction of automatic speech or writing, the meaning of whi
ch the subject himself may not understand even while he utters it; and generaliz
ing this phenomenon, Mr. Myers has given the name of automatism, sensory or moto
r, emotional or intellectual, to this whole sphere of effects, due to "up-rushes
" into the ordinary consciousness of energies originating in the subliminal part
s of the mind.
The simplest instance of an automatism is the phenomenon of post-hypnotic sugges
tion, so-called. You give to a hypnotized subject, adequately susceptible, an or
der to perform some designated act--usual or eccentric, it makes no difference--
after he wakes from his hypnotic sleep. Punctually, when the signal comes or the
time elapses upon which you have told him that the act must ensue, he performs
it;--but in so doing he has no recollection of your suggestion, and he always tr
umps up an improvised pretext for his behavior if
[p. 230]
the act be of an eccentric kind. It may even be suggested to a subject to have a
vision or to hear a voice at a certain interval after waking, and when the time
comes the vision is seen or the voice heard, with no inkling on the subject's p
art of its source. In the wonderful explorations by Binet, Janet, Breuer, Freud,
Mason, Prince, and others, of the subliminal consciousness of patients with hys
teria, we have revealed to us whole systems of underground life, in the shape of
memories of a painful sort which lead a parasitic existence, buried outside of
the primary fields of consciousness, and making irruptions thereinto with halluc
inations, pains, convulsions, paralyses of feeling and of motion, and the whole
procession of symptoms of hysteric disease of body and of mind. Alter or abolish
by suggestion these subconscious memories, and the patient immediately gets wel
l. His symptoms were automatisms, in Mr. Myers's sense of the word. These clinic
al records sound like fairy-tales when one first reads them, yet it is impossibl
e to doubt their accuracy; and, the path having been once opened by these first
observers, similar observations have been made elsewhere. They throw, as I said,
a wholly new light upon our natural constitution.
And it seems to me that they make a farther step inevitable. Interpreting the un
known after the analogy of the known, it seems to me that hereafter, wherever we
meet with a phenomenon of automatism, be it motor impulses, or obsessive idea,
or unaccountable caprice, or delusion, or hallucination, we are bound first of a
ll to make search whether it be not an explosion, into the fields of ordinary co
nsciousness, of ideas elaborated outside of those fields in subliminal regions o
f the mind. We should look, therefore, for its source in the Subject's subconsci
ous life. In the hypnotic cases, we ourselves create the source by our suggestio
n, so we know it directly. In the hysteric cases, the lost memories which are th
e source have to be extracted from the patient's Subliminal by a number of ingen
ious methods,
[p. 231]
for an account of which you must consult the books. In other pathological cases,
insane delusions, for example, or psychopathic obsessions, the source is yet to
seek, but by analogy it also should be in subliminal regions which improvements
in our methods may yet conceivably put on tap. There lies the mechanism logical
ly to be assumed--but the assumption involves a vast program of work to be done
in the way of verification, in which the religious experiences of man must play
their part. [*1]
[p. 232]
And thus I return to our own specific subject of instantaneous conversions. You
remember the cases of Alline, Bradley, Brainerd, and the graduate of Oxford conv
erted at three in the afternoon. Similar occurrences abound, some with and some
without luminous visions, all with a sense of astonished happiness, and of being
wrought on by a higher control. If, abstracting altogether from the question of
their value for the future spiritual life of the individual, we take them on th
eir psychological side exclusively, so many peculiarities in them remind us of w
hat we find outside of conversion that we are tempted to class them along with o
ther automatisms, 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 other, but rather a simp
le psychological peculiarity, the fact, namely, that in the recipient of the mor
e instantaneous grace we have one of those Subjects who are in possession of a l
arge region in which mental work can go on subliminally, and from which invasive
experiences, abruptly upsetting the equilibrium of the primary consciousness, m
ay come.
I do not see why Methodists need object to such a view. Pray go back and recolle
ct one of the conclusions to which I sought to lead you in my very first lecture
. You may remember how I there argued against the notion that the worth of a thi
ng can be decided by its origin. Our spiritual judgment, I said, our opinion of
the significance and value of a human event or condition, must be decided on emp
irical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion ar
e good, we ought to idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natur
al psychology; if not, we ought to make short work with it, no matter what super
natural being may have infused it.
Well, how is it with these fruits? If we except the class of preeminent saints o
f whom the names illumine history, and
[p. 233]
consider only the usual run of "saints," the shopkeeping church-members and ordi
nary youthful or middle-aged recipients of instantaneous conversion, whether at
revivals or in the spontaneous course of methodistic growth, you will probably a
gree that no splendor worthy of a wholly supernatural creature fulgurates from t
hem, or sets them apart from the mortals who have never experienced that favor.
Were it true that a suddenly converted man as such is, as Edwards says, [*1] of
an entirely different kind from a natural man, partaking as he does directly of
Christ's substance, there surely ought to be some exquisite class-mark, some dis
tinctive radiance attaching even to the lowliest specimen of this genus, to whic
h no one of us could remain insensible, and which, so far as it went, would prov
e him more excellent than ever the most highly gifted among mere natural men. Bu
t notoriously there is no such radiance. Converted men as a class are indistingu
ishable from natural men; some natural men even excel some converted men in thei
r fruits; and no one ignorant of doctrinal theology could guess by mere every-da
y inspection of the "accidents" of the two groups of persons before him, that th
eir substance differed as much as divine differs from human substance.
The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion have had practic
ally to admit that there is no unmistakable class-mark distinctive of all true c
onverts. The super-normal incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering
impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts, the melting e
motions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisis of change, may all c
ome by way of nature, or worse still, be counterfeited by Satan. The
[p. 234]
real witness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only in the dispos
ition of the genuine child of God, the permanently patient heart, the love of se
lf eradicated. And this, it has to be admitted, is also found in those who pass
no crisis, and may even be found outside of Christianity altogether.
Throughout Jonathan Edwards's admirably rich and delicate description of the sup
ernaturally infused condition, in his Treatise on Religious Affections, there is
not one decisive trait, not one mark, that unmistakably parts it off from what
may possibly be only an exceptionally high degree of natural goodness. In fact,
one could hardly read a clearer argument than this book unwittingly offers in fa
vor of the thesis that no chasm exists between the orders of human excellence, b
ut that here as elsewhere, nature shows continuous differences, and generation a
nd regeneration are matters of degree.
All which denial of two objective classes of human beings separated by a chasm m
ust not leave us blind to the extraordinary momentousness of the fact of his con
version to the individual himself who gets converted. There are higher and lower
limits of possibility set to each personal life. If a flood but goes above one'
s head, its absolute elevation becomes a matter of small importance; and when we
touch our own upper limit and live in our own highest centre of energy, we may
call ourselves saved, no matter how much higher some one else's centre may be. A
small man's salvation will always be a great salvation and the greatest of all
facts for him, and we should remember this when the fruits of our ordinary evang
elicism look discouraging. Who knows how much less ideal still the lives of thes
e spiritual grubs and earthworms, these Crumps and Stigginses, might have been,
if such poor grace as they have received had never touched them at all? [*1]
[p. 235]
If we roughly arrange human beings in classes, each class standing for a grade o
f spiritual excellence, I believe we shall find natural men and converts both su
dden and gradual in all the classes. The forms which regenerative change effects
have, then, no general spiritual significance, but only a psychological signifi
cance. We have seen how Starbuck's laborious statistical studies tend to assimil
ate conversion to ordinary spiritual growth. Another American psychologist, Prof
. George A. Coe, [*1] has analyzed the cases of seventy-seven converts or ex-can
didates for conversion, known to him, and the results strikingly confirm the vie
w that sudden conversion is connected with the possession of an active sublimina
l self. Examining his subjects with reference to their hypnotic sensibility and
to such automatisms as hypnagogic hallucinations, odd impulses, religious dreams
about the time of their conversion, etc., he found these relatively much more f
requent in the group of converts whose transformation had been "striking," "stri
king" transformation being defined as a change which, though not necessarily ins
tantaneous, seems to the subject of it to be distinctly different from a process
of growth, however rapid." [*2] Candidates for conversion at revivals are, as y
ou know, often disappointed: they experience nothing striking. Professor Coe had
a number of persons of this class among his seventy-seven subjects, and they al
most all, when tested by hypnotism,
[p. 236]
proved to belong to a subclass which he calls "spontaneous," that is, fertile in
self-suggestions, as distinguished from a "passive" subclass, to which most of
the subjects of striking transformation belonged. His inference is that self-sug
gestion of impossibility had prevented the influence upon these persons of an en
vironment which, on the more "passive" subjects, had easily brought forth the ef
fects they looked for. Sharp distinctions are difficult in these regions, and Pr
ofessor Coe's numbers are small. But his methods were careful, and the results t
ally with what one might expect; and they seem, on the whole, to justify his pra
ctical conclusion, which is that if you should expose to a converting influence
a subject in whom three factors unite: first, pronounced emotional sensibility;
second, tendency to automatisms; and third, suggestibility of the passive type;
you might then safely predict the result: there would be a sudden conversion, a
transformation of the striking kind.
Does this temperamental origin diminish the significance of the sudden conversio
n when it has occurred? Not in the least, as Professor Coe well says; for "the u
ltimate test of religious values is nothing psychological, nothing definable in
terms of how it happens, but something ethical, definable only in terms of what
is attained." [*1]
As we proceed farther in our inquiry we shall see that what is attained is often
an altogether new level of spiritual vitality, a relatively heroic level, in wh
ich impossible things have become possible, and new energies and endurances are
shown. The personality is changed, the man is born anew, whether or not his psyc
hological idiosyncrasies are what give the particular shape to his metamorphosis
. "Sanctification" is the technical name of this result; and erelong examples of
it shall be brought before you. In this lecture I have still only to add a few
remarks on the assurance and peace which fill the hour of change itself.
[p. 237]
One word more, though, before proceeding to that point, lest the final purpose o
f my explanation of suddenness by subliminal activity be misunderstood. I do ind
eed believe that if the Subject have no liability to such subconscious activity,
or if his conscious fields have a hard rind of a margin that resists incursions
from beyond it, his conversion must he gradual if it occur, and must resemble a
ny simple growth into new habits. His possession of a developed subliminal self,
and of a leaky or pervious margin, is thus a conditio sine qua non of the Subje
ct's becoming converted in the instantaneous way. But if you, being orthodox Chr
istians, ask me as a psychologist whether the reference of a phenomenon to a sub
liminal self does not exclude the notion of the direct presence of the Deity alt
ogether, I have to say frankly that as a psychologist I do not see why it necess
arily should. The lower manifestations of the Subliminal, indeed, fall within th
e resources of the personal subject: his ordinary sense-material, inattentively
taken in and subconsciously remembered and combined, will account for all his us
ual automatisms. But just as our primary wide-awake consciousness throws open ou
r senses to the touch of things material so it is logically conceivable that if
there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us, the psychological
condition of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region wh
ich alone should yield access to them. The hubbub of the waking life might close
a door which in the dreamy Subliminal might remain ajar or open.
Thus that perception of external control which is so essential a feature in conv
ersion might, in some cases at any rate, be interpreted as the orthodox interpre
t it: forces transcending the finite individual might impress him, on condition
of his being what we may call a subliminal human specimen. But in any case the v
alue of these forces would have to be determined by their effects, and the mere
fact of
[p. 238]
their transcendency would of itself establish no presumption that they were more
divine than diabolical.
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 lecture, when I hope once more to ga
ther these dropped threads together into more definitive conclusions. The notion
of a subconscious self certainly ought not at this point of our inquiry to be h
eld to exclude all notion of a higher penetration.
If there be higher powers able to impress us, they may get access to us only thr
ough the subliminal door. (See below, <page 506> ff.)

Let us turn now to the feelings which immediately fill the hour of the conversio
n experience. The first one to be noted is just this sense of higher control. It
is not always, but it is very often present. We saw examples of it in Alline, B
radley, Brainerd, and elsewhere. The need of such a higher controlling agency is
well expressed in the short reference which the eminent French Protestant Adolp
he Monod makes to the crisis of his own conversion. It was at Naples in his earl
y manhood, in the summer of 1827.
"My sadness," he says, "was without limit, and having got entire possession of m
e, it filled my life from the most indifferent external acts to the most secret
thoughts, and corrupted at their source my feelings, my judgment, and my happine
ss. It was then that I saw that to expect to put a stop to this disorder by my r
eason and my will, which were themselves diseased, would be to act like a blind
man who should pretend to correct one of his eyes by the aid of the other equall
y blind one. I had then no resource save in some influence from without. I remem
bered the promise of the Holy Ghost; and what the positive declarations of the G
ospel had never succeeded in bringing home to me, I learned at last from necessi
ty, and believed, for the first time in my life, in this promise, in the only se
nse in which it answered the needs of my soul, in that, namely, of a
[p. 239]
real external supernatural action, capable of giving me thoughts, and taking the
m away from me, and exerted on me by a God as truly master of my heart as he is
of the rest of nature. Renouncing then all merit, all strength, abandoning all m
y personal resources, and acknowledging no other title to his mercy than my own
utter misery, I went home and threw myself on my knees and prayed as I never yet
prayed in my life. From this day onwards a new interior life began for me: not
that my melancholy had disappeared, but it had lost its sting. Hope had entered
into my heart, and once entered on the path, the God of Jesus Christ, to whom I
then had learned to give myself up, little by little did the rest." [*1]
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 experiences. In the ext
reme of melancholy the self that consciously is can do absolutely nothing. It is
completely bankrupt and without resource, and no works it can accomplish will a
vail. Redemption from such subjective conditions must be a free gift or nothing,
and grace through Christ's accomplished sacrifice is such a gift.
"God," says Luther, "is the God of the humble, the miserable, the oppressed, and
the desperate, and of those that are brought even to nothing; and his nature is
to give sight to the blind, to comfort the broken-hearted, to justify sinners,
to save the very desperate and damned. Now that pernicious and pestilent opinion
of man's own righteousness, which will not be a sinner, unclean, miserable, and
 damnable, but righteous and holy, suffereth not God to come to his own natural
and proper work. Therefore God must take this maul in hand (the law, I mean) to
beat in pieces and bring to nothing this beast with her vain confidence, that sh
e may so learn at length by her own misery that she is utterly forlorn and damne
d. But here lieth the difficulty, that when a man is terrified and cast down, he
is so
[p. 240]
little able to raise himself up again and say, 'Now I am bruised and afflicted e
nough; now is the time of grace; now is the time to hear Christ.' The foolishnes
s of man's heart is so great that then he rather seeketh to himself more laws to
satisfy his conscience. 'If I live,' saith he, 'I will amend my life: I will do
this, I will do that.' But here, except thou do the quite contrary, except thou
send Moses away with his law, and in these terrors and this anguish lay hold up
on Christ who died for thy sins, look for no salvation. Thy cowl, thy shaven cro
wn, thy chastity, thy obedience, thy poverty, thy works, thy merits? what shall
all these do? what shall the law of Moses avail? If I, wretched and damnable sin
ner, through works or merits could have loved the Son of God, and so come to him
, what needed he to deliver himself for me? If I, being a wretch and damned sinn
er, could be redeemed by any other price, what needed the Son of God to be given
? But because there was no other price, therefore he delivered neither sheep, ox
, gold, nor silver, but even God himself, entirely and wholly 'for me,' even 'fo
r me,' I say, a miserable, wretched sinner. Now, therefore, I take comfort and a
pply this to myself. And this manner of applying is the very true force and powe
r of faith. For he died not to justify the righteous, but the un-righteous, and
to make them the children of God." [*1]
That is, the more literally lost you are, the more literally you are the very be
ing whom Christ's sacrifice has already saved. Nothing in Catholic theology, I i
magine, has ever spoken to sick souls as straight as this message from Luther's
personal experience. As Protestants are not all sick souls, of course reliance o
n what Luther exults in calling the dung of one's merits, the filthy puddle of o
ne's own righteousness, has come to the front again in their religion; but the a
dequacy of his view of Christianity to the deeper parts of our human mental stru
cture is shown by its wildfire contagiousness when it was a new and quickening t
hing.
Faith that Christ has genuinely done his work was part of
[p. 241]
what Luther meant by faith, which so far is faith in a fact intellectually conce
ived of. But this is only one part of Luther's faith, the other part being far m
ore vital. This other part is something not intellectual but immediate and intui
tive, the assurance, namely, that I, this individual I, just as I stand, without
one plea, etc., am saved now and forever. [*1] Professor Leuba is undoubtedly
right in contending that the conceptual belief about Christ's work, although so
often efficacious and antecedent, is really accessory and non-essential, and tha
t the "joyous conviction" can also come by far other channels than this concepti
on. It is to the joyous conviction itself, the assurance that all is well with o
ne, that he would give the name of faith par excellence.
"When the sense of estrangement," he writes, "fencing man about in a narrowly li
mited ego, breaks down, the individual finds himself 'at one with all creation.'
He lives in the universal life; he and man, he and nature, he and God, are one.
That state of confidence, trust, union with all things, following upon the achi
evement of moral unity, is the Faith-state. Various dogmatic
[p. 242]
beliefs suddenly, on the advent of the faith-state, acquire a character of certa
inty, assume a new reality, become an object of faith. As the ground of assuranc
e here is not rational, argumentation is irrelevant. But such conviction being a
mere casual offshoot