THE 
 
 SEEMING UNREALITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Kate Gordon Moore
 
 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
 
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 TORONTO
 
 The Seeming Unreality 
 of the Spiritual Life 
 
 THE 
 
 NATHANIEL WILLIAM TAYLOR LECTURES 
 
 FOR 1907 
 
 GIVEN BEFORE THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 OF YALE UNIVERSITY 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING 
 
 PRESIDENT OF OBBRLIN COLLEGB 
 
 jRcto fork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1908 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Copyright, 1908 
 By the macmillan company 
 
 Set up and elcctrotyped. Printed September, igo8 
 
 THE MASON-HENRY PRESS 
 SYRACUSE, N. Y.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book aims to face, as straightforwardly 
 as may be, the problem implied in its title. It 
 seeks to speak directly, as frankly and simply 
 as possible, and yet with some adequacy, to 
 the fundamental religious need of men, — to the 
 need of all who cherish ideals of any kind. The 
 book has been written, just because this prob- 
 lem of the seeming unreality of the spiritual 
 life was felt to be fundamental both for thought 
 and life; and with the hope that considera- 
 tions, that had meant much to the writer, in 
 the solution of this problem, might not be with- 
 out helpful suggestion for others. Its lines 
 of thought might have been greatly extended, 
 but the intention has been to treat the subject 
 suggestively rather than exhaustively, and elabo- 
 ration of thought is left to the reader. 
 
 A portion — and only a portion — of the ma- 
 terial of the book has been given in different 
 forms in lectures at the Harvard Summer School 
 of Theology, at the Federate Summer School 
 of Theology at Berkeley, California, and as 
 the Taylor Lectures at Yale Divinity School. 
 In the publication of these discussions it has 
 
 V
 
 VI PREFACE 
 
 seemed best, however, quite to abandon the lec- 
 ture form. The nature of the subject has made 
 necessary some recurrence of considerations 
 brought out in previous books, but the argu- 
 ment, as presented, is intended to form an inde- 
 pendent whole. 
 
 My indebtedness to others I have tried to 
 make clear in the course of the discussion. 
 
 HENRY CHURCHILL KING. 
 
 Oberlin College, February, 1908.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 chapter Page 
 
 I. The Fundamental Nature of the Inquiry 3 
 
 II. The Meaning of the Theme 7 
 
 III. The Order of the Discussion 13 
 
 PART I 
 THE CAUSES OF THE SEEMING UNREALITY 
 
 Misconceptions 
 
 IV. Ignoring Bodily Conditions 23 
 
 V. Forgetting the Complexity and Unity of Life 27 
 
 VI. Knowledge Never Merely Passive 32 
 
 VII. No Merely Theoretical Solutions 37 
 
 VIII. The Practical Nature of all Belief 52 
 
 IX. Some Common Logical Fallacies 56 
 
 X. Some Traditional Objections 63 
 
 XL Difficulty in the Conception of God 72 
 
 XII. The Difference Between the Scientific and Religious 
 
 Problems 79 
 
 XIII. The Difference Between the Philosophical and Re- 
 ligious Problems 85 
 
 XIV. The Spiritual Life not a Life of Strain 90 
 
 XV. The Spiritual Life not a Life of Imitation 98 
 
 XVI. The Spiritual Life not a Life of Magical Inheritance 102 
 
 XVII. The Spiritual Life not a Life of External Rules 105 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 Failure to Fulfil Conditions 
 
 chapter page 
 
 XVIII. The Way into the Great Values m 
 
 XIX. The Conditions of a Deepening Personal Relation... 117 
 
 The Inevitable Limitations and Fluctuations of our Natures 
 XX. Limitations and Fluctuations Common to All our Life 123 
 XXL The Special Bearing of Limitations and Fluctuations 
 
 on the Spiritual Life 13 1 
 
 XXII. The Witness of our Consciously Best Hours 136 
 
 A Purposed Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual 
 
 XXIII. The Seeming Unreality a Large Factor in our Moral 
 
 and Spiritual Training 141 
 
 XXIV. The Special Religious Need of the Unobtrusiveness 
 
 of the Spiritual 147 
 
 XXV. Our Very Questionings a Proof of Reality 156 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE WAY INTO REALITY 
 
 The Presumptive Evidence 
 
 XXVI. The Test of Present Trends of Thought— Historical, 
 
 Philosophical, Scientific, Ethical, and Social 165 
 
 XXVII. The Test of Present Trends of Thought— Psycho- 
 logical 17 2 
 
 XXVIII. Man's Essential Need of Religion 181 
 
 As to the Theistic Argument 
 
 XXIX. Facing the Facts often Ignored 191 
 
 XXX. The Necessary Limitations in the Argument 199 
 
 XXXI. The Main Lines of Argument 202 
 
 As to the Personal Relation to God 
 
 XXXII. The Need of the Modern Man met only in Christ. . 215 
 
 XXXIII. The Needed Emphases in Modern Religious Life.. 220 
 
 XXXIV. The Method of the Spiritual Life 224 
 
 As to Particular Christian Doctrines 
 XXXV. Doctrine as Expression of Experience with Christ.. 231 
 XXXVI. Illustrated in the Doctrine of Personal Immortality 237
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF THE 
 
 INQUIRY 
 
 Our deepest need, always, for any ideal 
 view or for any ideal life, is faith in the reality 
 of the spiritual, faith in a God who can save us 
 from being at constant war with ourselves. We 
 all need a God, who can make rational and 
 consistent our deepest longings, aspirations, 
 and purposes; who can save us at least from 
 counting as illusions all that in us which — our- 
 selves being judges — is worthiest and most 
 deserving to abide; — who can save us from 
 "glorying in having renounced that which no 
 one has ever any right to renounce." 
 
 In all this, religion does not stand alone; it 
 makes common cause with every ideal interest 
 and aim, of whatever kind. The aesthetic, the 
 ethical, the philosophical, the scientific, the 
 broadly rational of every sort, are equally con- 
 cerned. Our problem is nowhere that narrow 
 and mistaken one of the so-called "harmony of 
 science and religion," but rather that more seri- 
 ous question — Have we any justifiable ideals? is 
 there any standard for men and for life, except 
 
 3
 
 4 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 a pettily utilitarian one? When we think our 
 life through to the bottom, when we carry our 
 thought of the world to the farthest limit 
 possible to our thinking, shall we then find our 
 best self an illegitimate offspring of pride and 
 error, standing naked and laid open unto that 
 eye of reason which pierces all shams? or 
 shall we find that rational judgment itself forced 
 to own itself to be, in common with all other 
 ideals, the child of faith in God, and of faith 
 in a spiritual world whose reality we cannot 
 doubt and continue to think at all? This is 
 the central question of this little book. 
 
 A true theology must face this deepest ques- 
 tion, must do something to answer this deepest 
 need of men. A theology, therefore, that under- 
 stands itself cannot be an isolated, esoteric in- 
 terest of a few. Is it not rather the great attrac- 
 tion of theology that to it, as the science and 
 philosophy of religion, are most directly com- 
 mitted the supreme interests of the race? Is 
 it not even true that one cannot continue in 
 philosophy to the end, without becoming a 
 theologian? In a very real sense, thus, it is 
 still possible to think of theology as "queen of 
 the sciences," never because it seeks authori- 
 tatively to lord it anywhere, but queen because 
 it is able to take account of the entire range of
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF THE INQUIRY 5 
 
 man's ideals, as no other science — and not even 
 philosophy — has commonly felt free to do. In 
 this sense, as the old schoolmen declared, the- 
 ology finds what philosophy only seeks. 
 
 In other words, one must hold it to be 
 the chief business of the theology of any given 
 age or year or hour, to help to save men from 
 "evasion of life's proof," to deliver them from 
 shame of their best selves, to point out the con- 
 ditions upon which the spiritual life may be 
 made indubitably real. And the theme of this 
 book thus seems to be thrust upon the theo- 
 logian as demanding proof even of his right 
 to be a worker in theology at all. 
 
 A self-respecting theologian, certainly, must 
 always be profoundly and steadfastly unwill- 
 ing to be considered the hired advocate of a 
 little religious coterie, that can forget that the 
 interests it defends are universal interests and 
 meet universal needs. Is it not involved in the 
 very conception of a religion, that it demands 
 universal recognition? and is not this sense, 
 as Lotze has called it, the one respectable root 
 of fanaticism? How can the theologian, then, 
 forget that he stands — not for the schoolmen 
 nor for any shibboleths of the schools; not 
 for the Fathers, nor for any ostracizing dog- 
 mas of the Fathers; but for all men and for
 
 6 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 their right and call to live the highest life, 
 for room in which a man may stretch himself 
 in the farthest ranges of his being, for air to 
 breathe and light to rejoice in? 
 
 How can it be, then, that it should be par- 
 ticularly charged against theology, that it is 
 unreal and binding, rather than real and set- 
 ting prisoners free? That such theology, so- 
 called, there has been, I reluctantly admit. But, 
 nevertheless, theology belies itself, and denies 
 its very reason for being, if it fails to be 
 real and freeing — and freeing because it makes 
 the spiritual life indubitably real. Our theme, 
 thus, lies at the very heart of the theologian's 
 problem, and, at the same time, at the heart of 
 life. And the theologian may call artist and 
 poet and moralist and philosopher and scien- 
 tist, and every common seeker of truth and 
 goodness and beauty, and all true lovers, to 
 witness that in this, his quest, he fights their 
 battles all, no less than his own. 
 
 "Does God love, and will ye hold that faith 
 against the world?"
 
 II 
 
 THE MEANING OF THE THEME 
 
 And what is meant by the reality of the 
 spiritual life? How much, in the first place, 
 should reality involve? 
 
 The value of religious opinions and experi- 
 ences, it may be said with James, "can only be 
 ascertained by spiritual judgments directly 
 passed upon them, judgments based on our own 
 immediate feeling primarily; and secondarily 
 on what we can ascertain of their experimental 
 relations to our moral needs and to the rest of 
 what we hold as true. Immediate luminous- 
 ness, in short, philosophical reasonableness, 
 and moral helpfulness are the only available 
 criteria." In other words, if the spiritual life 
 is to be to us a real and recognized power, it 
 must seem, first, an undoubted reality; second, 
 to be knit up with our best thinking in other 
 spheres; third, to have clear significance for 
 life, as appeal and impulse to character, and 
 as bringing enjoyment and enrichment into 
 life. That is to say, the spiritual life must 
 justify itself to our best judgment as real, 
 rational, and vital. All three elements are in- 
 
 7
 
 8 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 tended to be included in the assertion of the 
 reality of the spiritual life implied in the theme 
 of this book. 
 
 In the spiritual life, as used in the title, it 
 is intended to include the conviction of the 
 fact of the Christian God and of our personal 
 relation to him, with all that is most directly 
 involved in these convictions. 
 
 In speaking, now, of the seeming unreality 
 of the spiritual life, it is not, of course, intended 
 to imply that a spiritual — that is, religious, 
 theistic, and Christian — view of the world is 
 ultimately less defensible than some other view. 
 Quite the contrary. The ultimate ground and 
 meaning of the world form a problem for any 
 possible view that really aims to be all-embrac- 
 ing, for the solution of which it can only offer 
 some hypothesis. It is not doubted that the 
 Christian theistic hypothesis is least open to 
 objection, when the matter is thought com- 
 pletely through. 
 
 But the intended suggestion of our theme 
 is this: Probably, the great difficulty for most, 
 in adopting the Christian point of view and 
 coming into the Christian life, does not arise 
 from doubt whether the Christian position 
 is capable of a better final philosophical de- 
 fense than any other position. Many would
 
 THE MEANING OF THE THEME 9 
 
 probably say that when it comes to measuring 
 swords in logical defense of ultimate positions, 
 the theistic and Christian view must be, no 
 doubt, counted the victor. But that admission, 
 though freely made, does not satisfy them. 
 Whether with full consciousness or not, another 
 and deeper difficulty for such minds lies be- 
 hind the question of the possible philosophical 
 defense of the Christian view. Granting that 
 the theistic and Christian hypothesis is the 
 best of all proposed, still they would say, why 
 is it itself so hard to hold? Why is it not more 
 clear and obvious? Why is so much difficulty 
 felt by many in coming to the Christian view 
 at all, or, at least, in justifying it rationally, 
 after coming to it? Why is the fact of such 
 a God as Christ reveals, and of our relations 
 to him, not as indubitable, for example, as the 
 existence of other persons and our relations to 
 them? Why do not the facts of the spiritual 
 world seem as real to us as the facts of the 
 material world? In a word, why does the 
 spiritual life seem often so unreal? Why is 
 the conviction of it a wavering one with its 
 constant ups and downs? 
 
 These are questions that press upon us from 
 the start in every thorough-going discussion 
 of the reality of a spiritual view and of a
 
 10 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 spiritual life. They are there, before we begin 
 any of our arguments for the existence of God, 
 hindering the argument at every step; they are 
 there, after all our arguments are completed, 
 sapping the strength of the conviction the 
 arguments are supposed to bring. Men every- 
 where go more or less consciously under the 
 constant burden of the feeling that even this 
 best hypothesis has more difficulties than it 
 ought to have to be true; that especially such 
 a God as the Christian view affirms, and as the 
 heart everywhere cries out for, must have made 
 himself more unmistakably manifest, and not 
 have permitted faith to be so difficult a deed 
 in any case. 
 
 Some time ago, one of our religious papers 1 
 furnished an illustration of this perennial ques- 
 tion of the race about the hidden God. 
 
 "Two girls, as they walked home one night 
 from work, were engaged in earnest talk. A 
 stranger who stood on the sidewalk near them 
 saw the play of anxious feeling on their faces 
 as they stopped a moment beneath a street- 
 lamp's dim light. Suddenly one was heard to 
 say to the other, 'Yes, but why has no one ever 
 seen God?' — that was all, just a fragment-word 
 
 1 Sunday School Times, April 5, 1902
 
 THE MEANING OF THE THEME II 
 
 throbbing with pain and regret, and they van- 
 ished again in the night. 
 
 "How like humanity that was ! Like children, 
 they pause now and then in the darkness of 
 life, lift their weary faces to the pale lights 
 glaring along the way, and, peering into baf- 
 fled eyes, cry, 'Why can we not see our God?' 
 It was Philip's old question, you remember, 
 'Show us the Father,' and all of us are now 
 and then in Philip's class, for it is large." 
 
 The incident is a single modern echo of the 
 ancient plaint of Job: "Behold, I go forward, 
 but he is not there; and backward, but I can- 
 not perceive him: on the left hand, when he 
 doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth 
 himself on the right hand, that I cannot see 
 him." And we are likely to return from all 
 our scientific excursions into the world of nature 
 and of history, to say again with Job: "Lo, 
 these are but the outskirts of his ways: and 
 how small a whisper do we hear of him I" 
 
 The precise difficulty felt in all such cases 
 may be, perhaps, thus formulated: Though, by 
 hypothesis, God is the one realest of all facts 
 and the most loving of all beings, he does not 
 seem to be thrust upon us as such at all. 
 
 After all is said, is this not the real and great 
 difficulty for the Christian view? And for the
 
 12 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 establishment of real conviction, and of joyful 
 spiritual living, does not more depend upon 
 meeting effectively this everywhere underlying 
 doubt of the soul, than upon either repeating 
 in new forms the old arguments, or in elaborat- 
 ing new arguments for the existence of God 
 and the possibility of an ideal view of the 
 world? Do we not need to give this particular 
 aspect of our problem such a careful, detailed, 
 and comprehensive consideration as it seldom 
 receives? Just this is our task. 
 
 Can something be done, now, to meet this 
 constant, underlying difficulty of the seeming 
 unreality of the spiritual life, felt at the start, 
 and felt after the Christian view is admitted to 
 be the most reasonable? Can the ground be 
 cleared of misconceptions, mistaken prepos- 
 sessions, certain fallacies of common speech 
 and thought, unreasonable demands, failures 
 to remember essential conditions in our life 
 problems? Can something be done toward 
 giving a really different point of view, that 
 may make the seeming unreality of the spiritual 
 world less a burden to us? In a word, can we 
 see the reasons for the seeming unreality of 
 the spiritual life?
 
 Ill 
 
 THE ORDER OF THE DISCUSSION 
 
 Exactly this is the problem of the first of 
 the two large divisions of our inquiry. From 
 the discussion of the reasons for the seeming 
 unreality, we are then to turn, in the second 
 division, in the light of the principles brought 
 out in the first division, to a briefer considera- 
 tion of the positive way to a convincing sense 
 of reality in religious thought and life. The 
 question is throughout both a theoretical one — 
 of the possible full defense of the theistic view 
 of the world, and a practical one — of the re- 
 ligious life. 
 
 From the beginning it seems clear that the 
 reasons for the seeming unreality of the spiritual 
 life would naturally include two classes of 
 causes: those causes which are removable by 
 us; and those causes which lie in the nature 
 of the facts involved, and which while not 
 removable by us, can be recognized and taken 
 into account. That is, there are removable 
 causes, and causes not removable but recog- 
 nizable. 
 
 On the one hand, then, there is the unreality 
 
 13
 
 14 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 which is not due to the necessity of the facts, 
 but to something removable in ourselves — the 
 unreality that exists either because certain mis- 
 conceptions are held which prevent our seeing 
 the problem aright, or because certain condi- 
 tions are not fulfilled, upon which alone the 
 clearer vision could come. The removable 
 causes, then, are misconceptions of the facts, 
 and failure to fulfil the natural conditions of 
 the spiritual life. 
 
 On the other hand, there are the causes 
 which we cannot remove, but which we can 
 recognize: the seeming unreality which is due 
 to the inevitable limitations and fluctuations of 
 our finite natures; and the seeming unreality 
 which is needed for our moral training. While 
 these causes cannot be removed, the clear recog- 
 nition of them would do, perhaps, most of all 
 to lift the burden of the sense of the unreality 
 of the spiritual world. 
 
 We are to turn first, then, to the removable 
 causes 
 
 At bottom, both of the removable causes of 
 the seeming unreality of the spiritual life — 
 misconceptions, and failure to fulfil needed 
 conditions — grow out of the deeper failure 
 rightly to relate the spiritual life to the rest of 
 life, to see both its likeness and its difference.
 
 THE ORDER OF THE DISCUSSION 1 5 
 
 For, it is to be carefully noted, a thing may 
 be unreal to us either because it seems to have 
 no living connection with the rest of our life, 
 or because it seems to have no special con- 
 tribution to make to life. Some will feel one 
 difficulty most, others the other; but all of us 
 probably feel both difficulties in some degree. 
 So, if the spiritual life is to have reality for 
 us, on the one hand, it must be seen to be of 
 a piece with all life, bound up with the in- 
 dubitably real world; and yet, on the other 
 hand, it must have individuality — its own 
 reason for being — in its unique and valuable 
 point of view and contribution. That is, the 
 spiritual life must have the reality of connec- 
 tion with all other reals, and the reality of 
 individuality in its own specific contribution 
 to the meaning of life. It must not be so 
 different that it cannot be believed to belong 
 to the same world, and to the same human 
 nature, and to the same God, as the rest of 
 life; and yet it must be seen to be different 
 enough to have a genuine and indispensable 
 contribution of its own to make. 
 
 The radical liberal — if I may so call him — - 
 feels most the first difficulty, and everywhere 
 has done most to solve it. What Pfleiderer 
 calls the "abstract supernatural" is to this
 
 l6 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 radical liberal a perpetual stumbling-block, 
 and he is ever pointing out the connection, the 
 likeness, and the unity of things. The im- 
 manence of God is his one great insistence. 
 The radical orthodox — as perhaps the other 
 temperament may be called — feels most the 
 other difficulty, and has done most for its solu- 
 tion. His great insistence is the transcendence 
 of God. The liberal has done most to establish 
 the likeness; the orthodox, the individuality 
 of religion. And yet, for a man who is willing 
 to see the whole problem, both difficulties are 
 equally real; both solutions are needed; they 
 cannot be thought of as antagonistic. Both 
 the misconceptions of the spiritual life, there- 
 fore, and the failure to fulfil its natural con- 
 ditions, may come from ignoring either the 
 likeness or the difference of the spiritual life. 
 
 The two classes of misconceptions of the 
 spiritual life which so arise are particularly 
 plain. Men stumble at the spiritual life, that 
 is, either because it seems so unlike the rest of 
 their life, its conditions all so different; or 
 because they do not see that it has anything 
 of indispensable value to give. 
 
 Sometimes the solution of the difficulty of 
 unlikeness seems to have proved too much. 
 It has made religion so like all the rest of life,
 
 THE ORDER OF THE DISCUSSION 17 
 
 that religion itself seems to have disappeared 
 in the process. Thus arises the frequent barren- 
 ness of the liberal defense of religion. On the 
 other hand, one may seem to make religion 
 so unique as to make it unbelievable, an abso- 
 lute miracle, with no possible tie of connection 
 with the world we know — an error into which 
 the Ritschlian seems sometimes likely to fall. 
 We shall be guarded against these opposite 
 errors, only by recognizing frankly and fully 
 both needs from the start. 
 
 We begin, then, with the misconceptions 
 which come from ignoring the likeness of the 
 spiritual life to the rest of life — its close-knit 
 connections with the whole of existence. 
 
 If the spiritual life is a reality at all, we 
 must expect to find it so closely connected with 
 the rest of our life that conditions which hold 
 in all the other realms of our experience will 
 not be without their effect in the spiritual 
 realm. We may not safely forget or ignore, 
 therefore, in the religious life, those great 
 common conditions of all our living which 
 are always at work. Much of our disappoint- 
 ment in spiritual things comes either from 
 quietly ignoring circumstances which we con- 
 stantly take into account as matters of course 
 in other spheres of life; or from carrying over
 
 1 8 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 into the religious life without question certain 
 common fallacies or unwarranted assumptions 
 of ordinary crude thinking, which are felt to 
 be necessarily unspiritual in their implications. 
 Against both mistakes, we have to emphasize 
 the likeness of all the spheres of life: to see, on 
 the one hand, that the spiritual life cannot be 
 set free from the conditions involved in its 
 connection with the rest of life; and, on the 
 other hand, that the fundamental implications 
 of the other spheres of life are not anti-spirit- 
 ual, as common and cruder views often tacitly 
 assume. 
 
 And, first, we need to take into account the 
 effects of the great common conditions of all 
 our living — bodily and psyschical.
 
 PART I 
 
 THE CAUSES OF THE SEEMING 
 UNREALITY
 
 MISCONCEPTIONS
 
 IV 
 
 IGNORING BODILY CONDITIONS 
 
 We find ourselves living an apparently dual 
 life, with its bodily and psychical sides. As 
 to both, we have a certain constitution, the 
 nature and laws of which we may not wisely 
 ignore anywhere. We can regard the consti- 
 tution of our being and its laws, if we will, as 
 hindrances to be fought against; and the re- 
 ligious life seems often so to have viewed the 
 matter. But it ought not to require much 
 thinking to see that such a course is not only 
 suicidal, but particularly for a thorough-going 
 theistic view, is utterly self-contradictory; for 
 the theistic view must recognize in the nature 
 of men an expression of the will of God him- 
 self. The religious life, peculiarly, therefore, 
 is driven to see in the laws of man's being — 
 what scientific discovery and invention see in 
 the laws of nature — not limitations, but the 
 possibility of constantly extending power. V Let 
 us make it unmistakably clear to ourselves, 
 then, that it is not beneath the dignity of the 
 
 spiritual life thoroughly to learn the lesson of 
 
 23
 
 24 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 modern science: that no conditions are trivial, 
 and that none may be safely ignored. 
 
 This certainly means, in the first place, that 
 for the present world, at least, the spiritual 
 life has its bodily conditions. It cannot blindly 
 ignore them, without itself inviting into its heart 
 the sense of unreality. This is to be said 
 neither boastingly nor cynically. It is to be 
 faced as a simple fact. We have bodies, an 
 we cannot set ourselves free from them.^'As 
 I have elsewhere said, 1 
 
 The long sad history of asceticism in all 
 lands shows how real the religious life has 
 felt this connection with the body to be, and 
 at the same time how fiercely it has resented 
 it. Men have remained, in this question of 
 asceticism, quite too largely on the mytho- 
 logical plane, without any clear sense of a 
 real nature and unity of things. The scientific 
 spirit, which demands a careful study of de- 
 tailed connections and conditions, has had little 
 enough to do with this blind, fierce struggle; 
 and, in consequence, the ascetic has every- 
 where, on the one hand, failed to take any 
 sensible account of the effects of ordinary 
 bodily conditions; and, on the other hand, 
 paradoxically enough, has exalted the effects 
 of certain abnormal bodily conditions into 
 higher spiritual attainments. These historical 
 
 1 Rational Living, pp. 47-49.
 
 /* 
 
 t- 
 
 IGNORING BODILY CONDITIONS 25 
 
 results of religious asceticism certainly cannot 
 be held to commend the method of ignoring 
 is— bodily conditions. VThe plain lesson of modern 
 science here would seem to be, that, if the 
 spirit is ever to master the body, it must know 
 its laws and take account of its conditions; 
 these are the very instruments of its mastery. 
 So, and only so, has science made nature serve 
 it. 
 
 One can quite understand the reluctance of 
 the spiritual life to admit the closeness of its 
 connection with the physical. It seems itself 
 to be lowered thereby. But it gets no freedom 
 and power by vehemently denying the fact, 
 and ignoring the resulting conditions. Rather, 
 its superiority must be shown, its freedom 
 and power declared, as has been implied, by 
 patient study of the laws of this body and of 
 its connection with the spirit, and by steady 
 fulfilment of the conditions by which alone 
 mastery can come. It is a false and abstract 
 spiritualism, therefore, that hesitates clearly 
 to recognize or to affirm the bodily conditions 
 of the spiritual life. Let us frankly admit 
 that much of the dissatisfaction of the moral 
 and spiritual life results from a wholly un- 
 necessary and senseless disregard of bodily 
 conditions. The emphasis of modern psy- 
 chology upon the close connection of body and 
 mind, thus, compels the thoughtful man to 
 a study of the bodily conditions of true living. 
 
 The man, thus, who means to be saved from
 
 26 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 misconception of the spiritual life through ig- 
 noring its bodily conditions must bear in mind, 
 for example, the need of well oxygenated blood, 
 and the special need of surplus nervous energy 
 as a chief physical condition of self-control. He 
 will not forget here, then, the inevitable effect 
 of fatigue on attention, and consequently upon 
 self-control. Nor will he forget the close 
 connection of muscular activity and will, nor 
 the physical basis of habit. And, on the other 
 hand, he will recognize the influence of the 
 mind over the body, and especially the power 
 of the will in determining conditions of health, 
 in achieving rest, in avoiding hurry, and in 
 meeting the special conditions of surplus nerv- 
 ous energy. He will remember, as well, the 
 physiological effects of faith, and the possible 
 great liberating force of religion in setting 
 
 free the powers of man. , 
 
 4
 
 FORGETTING THE COMPLEXITY AND UNITY 
 
 OF LIFE 
 
 When we turn to the misconceptions which 
 come from ignoring the psychical conditions, 
 which are common to the whole of life, we 
 can perhaps deal with them most promptly 
 and comprehensively by noting the bearing of 
 what I have called the four great inferences 
 from modern psychology: the complexity of 
 life, the unity of the mind, the central im- 
 portance of will and action, and the concrete- 
 ness of the real. 1 
 
 And, first, the spiritual life must suffer from 
 any ignoring of the complexity of life. It is 
 perhaps not too much to say that the growing 
 conviction of this complexity of life has changed 
 our feeling throughout concerning both reli- 
 gion and theology. Their problems do not 
 seem to us so simple as before, and we are 
 inclined, therefore, to be less dogmatic, and 
 at the same time more true to facts. In the- 
 ology, as well as in psychology, there is taking 
 place what Professor James has called "the 
 
 1 Treated at length in my Rational Living. 
 
 27
 
 28 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 reinstatement of the vague and inarticulate to 
 its proper place in our mental life." This 
 makes for truth at the same time that it dis- 
 turbs dogmatists; and it contains, as well, the 
 key to many of our difficulties which really 
 come from forgetting this intricate complexity 
 of life. 
 
 The conviction of the complexity of life 
 brings home, too, to the religious conscious- 
 ness a fresh sense of the impossibility of the 
 spirit of exclusiveness in the spiritual life. It 
 sees with increasing clearness that there can be 
 no separation of the sacred and secular; that all 
 of life is bound up together. Too often, in their 
 inquiry after the spiritual life, men seem to have 
 been hunting for it as an isolated something, just 
 as the psychologists, as HofTding says, have 
 looked for the Ego "as something absolutely 
 simple, which consequently might be given in a 
 certain definite state, in a certain definite sensa- 
 tion or idea." "Hume," he says, "cannot see the 
 trees for the wood." The spiritual life could be 
 presented to us as nothing real in that sense. 
 For that which is an abstract, single, and iso- 
 lated thing, that which is fundamentally out 
 of relation to all else, becomes thereby a cipher, 
 non-existent and without meaning. What re- 
 ality could it have?
 
 FORGETTING COMPLEXITY AND UNITY OF LIFE 2Q 
 
 We shall therefore look for religion not 
 as something apart from life, but in the very 
 midst of it, knit up with the cell and with 
 sex, with all human relations and employments 
 and tendencies and strivings, — inextricably in- 
 volved in all. And we shall look for its glory 
 not in a majestic isolation, but rather in its 
 ability to permeate and dominate all life. 
 Does not a religion that claims to possess a 
 water-tight compartment of its own thereby 
 proclaim its own impotence and falsity? Is 
 the claim itself not of the very essence of 
 hypocrisy? 
 
 From this point of view, there might be 
 real truth in what has seemed to us often the 
 purely pagan exaltation of life-processes, and 
 in the modern psychological explanations (like 
 those of Professor Leuba for example) of many 
 mystical experiences, that do not at the same 
 time deny all value to these experiences. As 
 Professor Davenport puts it, "the human love- 
 passion and the spiritual love-passion appear 
 to modern psychology to be delicately inter- 
 woven, particularly in the case of young peo- 
 ple between fourteen and twenty-five." Per- 
 haps we have no stronger illustration than just 
 this of the modern recognition of the com- 
 plexity of life in its bearing on religion.
 
 30 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 If this psychological point of view is correct, 
 it will at once be seen that it is an essential 
 misconception of the facts to doubt the reality 
 of the spiritual life because we do not find it 
 as an isolated bit. We could not wish so to 
 find it, if we desired it to be an important 
 factor in life at all. A current illustration 
 may be found in this comment of the Inde- 
 pendent upon a striking utterance of the dis- 
 tinguished missionary, Dr. Timothy Richard: 
 
 "The point of Dr. Richard's argument is 
 this: That if endeavors after conversion are 
 meant merely to cover the strivings to renew 
 men's hearts devotionally without striving to 
 improve men materially, intellectually and 
 nationally, it would seem that only a small 
 part of the kingdom of God makes headway. 
 It is a fact that 'conversion in regard to ma- 
 terial, intellectual, social, national and inter- 
 national, as well as devotional aspects, is a 
 conversion towards the establishment of the 
 kingdom of God on earth.' " 
 
 In the same way, the spiritual life is certain 
 to suffer from ignoring the unity of the mind. 
 For this unity will mean, even more clearly 
 than did the complexity of life, that it will be 
 impossible for us to separate religious experi- 
 ence from the rest of our living. It will mean,
 
 FORGETTING COMPLEXITY AND UNITY OF LIFE 3 1 
 
 further, that there will be plain intellectual, 
 emotional, and volitional conditions 1 of the 
 spiritual life that must be recognized and ful- 
 filled. And just so far as these conditions are 
 not fulfilled, the spiritual life is bound to suf- 
 fer. And where this is the case, one need not 
 look further for the solution of his religious 
 difficulties. 
 
 1 Cf. Rational Living, pp. in ff.
 
 VI 
 KNOWLEDGE NEVER MERELY PASSIVE 
 
 In the same way, no rational conception of 
 the spiritual life can afford to forget the 
 modern psychological emphasis upon the cen- 
 tral importance of will and action. This con- 
 viction will plainly affect the entire point of 
 view, and may easily change, as we shall see, 
 what have come to seem commonplaces in 
 religious thinking and living. A misconcep- 
 tion, that is, of the psychological facts here 
 must inevitably affect our spiritual insight and 
 the success of our spiritual living. 
 
 In particular, the psychological emphasis 
 on the central importance of will and action 
 means that religious thinking must not forget 
 the practical nature of all knowledge and be- 
 lief. 
 
 Certainly this principle means that knowl- 
 edge is never a merely passive process, as 
 probably it is commonly conceived. It in- 
 volves at every stage the creative activity of 
 the mind. In the most passive experience con- 
 ceivable, the mind itself has something to 
 contribute. A purely passive impression is 
 
 32
 
 KNOWLEDGE NEVER MERELY PASSIVE 33 
 
 a psychological abstraction, never an actual 
 fact. In no case, whether in our relation to 
 the world of the senses, or in our relation to 
 other minds, or in our relation to God, can 
 there be any literal transfer of thought or feel- 
 ing. We get partial data only, which we 
 complete and then interpret. In even the 
 closest personal intercourse, it is worth notic- 
 ing, the words spoken are, after all, only signs 
 of ideas that must be created on both sides. 
 Even the receiving mind must actively create 
 the ideas, suggested by the words spoken by 
 the other, in view of its own entire experience. 
 There is no possible way, in even the directest 
 knowledge, of getting rid of this interpreta- 
 tion of given data, out of experience. The 
 conditions of religious knowledge, therefore, 
 are in no way unique in this respect. The 
 principle has its immediate bearing upon the 
 reality of prayer, and of inspiration, and of 
 revelation from God. For it requires that 
 there should always be a human interpretive 
 element in all these experiences. 
 
 A chief difficulty, for example, in prayer is 
 no doubt found for many in the lack of a felt 
 presence, and the lack of a definite response, 
 such as the person feels that he gets in his 
 relation to the outer world, or to another 
 3
 
 34 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 person. As to this difficulty it might be said 
 at once, as Hinton suggests, that all the final 
 forces, even in external nature, are unseen and 
 not as they seem to us. The constant pressure 
 of the air, the motion of the earth, we do not 
 feel at all. We have no sensible knowledge, 
 of any kind, of the existence or nature of atoms. 
 The ether vibrations are quite beyond the reach 
 of any sense. 
 
 But the principle which we are here con- 
 sidering — that knowledge is never merely pas- 
 sive — contains a more adequate answer to the 
 difficulty. There is really a very close analogy 
 between the knowledge of the outer world, 
 which we gain through sensations, and the 
 knowledge of the spiritual world which comes 
 from the data of our inner life. In neither 
 case can it be said that there are immediate 
 knowledge and revelation. In both, what we 
 call our immediate knowledge has been a long 
 time building, and has involved not only the 
 first impressions, but comparison, memory, and 
 reasoning. In neither case is a literal transfer 
 of full-fledged thought or knowledge possible. 
 God's revelation of himself cannot be a literal 
 transfer of a message as by a written note; and 
 even if there were literal words spoken or 
 written, they would still require interpreta-
 
 KNOWLEDGE NEVER MERELY PASSIVE 35 
 
 tion, and be capable of very different meanings, 
 as interpreted out of different experiences. 
 
 Lotze, in a thoughtful passage in his Micro- 
 cosmus, brings out carefully this comparison 
 between our relation to the world of sense and 
 to the world of spirit: 1 
 
 "Every sensuous impression regarded in 
 itself is but a way in which we are affected, 
 some phase of our own condition; in itself 
 it gives no knowledge of any matter of fact, 
 taken alone it constitutes no experience. Here 
 again it is only our thought which, mastering 
 the manifold revelations of sense, compares 
 and combines them, or interprets given com- 
 binations, thus arriving through them at the 
 knowledge of some fact. We can hardly pic- 
 ture to ourselves the workings of God upon 
 the heart otherwise than after this pattern; we 
 cannot imagine the recognition of any fact as 
 something that can be simply communicated, 
 something that reaches the mind ready-made 
 and without any activity on its part; we can 
 only imagine that occasion can be given to 
 the mind to, as it were, produce such recogni- 
 tion by exercising this activity, and in this it 
 is that every appropriation of a truth must 
 consist. As sense in itself furnishes merely an 
 
 'Vol. II, p. 662.
 
 36 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 impression, so also this divine influence would 
 produce merely a feeling, a mood, a mode of af- 
 fection ; what is thus experienced becomes a 
 revelation only through some work of reflection 
 which analyzes its content and reduces it to co- 
 herence by clear notions that are capable of being 
 combined with our ideas of the real world." 
 That we have these inner data, as a sufficient 
 and legitimate basis for our gradually develop- 
 ing knowledge of the spiritual world, it is 
 hardly open to any thoughtful observer of 
 the ways of his own spirit to question. Doubt- 
 less God's response in our spiritual life is not 
 made without our own active cooperation; but 
 he does answer, and we have had that answer 
 in a thousand different quickenings, glimpses, 
 times of conviction, and "sober and strenuous 
 moods". The really needed guidance and co- 
 operation of God must be constant, rather 
 than here and there by some marked interfer- 
 ence; and his answer to us, therefore, in the 
 life of prayer is not merely at the time of our 
 prayer, or through consciously definite lead- 
 ings. Rather is he always at work with us; 
 and the justification of our faith is, that in the 
 long retrospect there is plain growth in this 
 inner life, increasing assurance of the spiritual, 
 and that our relation to God is coming to mean 
 more and more as we go on.
 
 VII 
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 
 
 All our knowing, then, once more is neces- 
 sarily bound up with the whole man and with 
 the whole of life. And this must mean that 
 in religion, certainly, no merely theoretical 
 solution of our problem is possible. Every- 
 thing that has been said in recent psychological 
 literature as to the importance of action and 
 of the practical interests, particularly in their 
 relation to the solution of all our ultimate prob- 
 lems, shows this. 1 If, in body and in mind 
 alike, we are made for action, if we ourselves 
 are prevailingly practical, it need not seem so 
 strange that our solutions of ultimate questions 
 must depend perhaps mainly on practical con- 
 siderations. And if we are made for action, 
 it is most fitting, moreover, that those convic- 
 tions, which are to give support to action, 
 should themselves be wrought out in action. 
 The principle of the laboratory method would 
 be justified here most of all. "In truth, when 
 one thinks deeply enough about it, he must 
 see, further, that for the most fundamental 
 
 1 Cf. King: Rational Living, pp. 154 ff. 
 
 37
 
 38 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 problems no other than a practical solution 
 is possible in the nature of the case. There 
 can be no mere theoretical proof or disproof 
 of the trustworthiness of our faculties, for ex- 
 ample. One could only use the very faculties 
 in question in such a proof. The only proof 
 possible is the practical power to use them." 1 
 
 To these more fundamental considerations 
 it may be worth while to add a number of 
 brief suggestions that naturally connect them- 
 selves with this discussion of the practical 
 nature of our knowledge, and that meet certain 
 common difficulties of faith. 
 
 Mathematics has been so often extolled as 
 the ideal of reasoning, and is so commonly 
 held to be a peculiarly good training for the 
 reasoning powers, that it is well worth insist- 
 ing that there is no such thing as mathematical 
 demonstration possible in the world of con- 
 crete realities. Indeed, the mathematician, on 
 the contrary, is likely to be a particularly poor 
 reasoner in practical matters, if he allows his 
 mathematical point of view to dominate, just 
 because his prevailing habit of thought is ab- 
 stract. Demonstration is possible, even in 
 mathematics, only because the mind itself 
 makes the concepts with which it deals; they 
 
 1 King: Ratiotial Living, pp. 165-166.
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 39 
 
 are abstracts, capable of definition in a finite 
 number of terms. In every sphere of actual 
 life, on the other hand, we are shut up to con- 
 cretes that cannot be so defined, and therefore 
 are limited to probable reasoning. To ask for 
 overwhelming evidence in the sense of demon- 
 stration in the spiritual life, then, is to ask 
 for that which never can be given us in any 
 realm of the concrete. 
 
 Sometimes the demand for "overwhelming 
 evidence" in the spiritual life means that one 
 wishes the conviction that comes from personal 
 experience, before fulfilling the conditions upon 
 which alone that experience can come. It 
 seems to be true that we come into all the 
 higher experiences of life in one of two ways: 1 
 either the necessary course of our lives thrusts 
 the experience upon us, and though we did 
 not choose it and would not have chosen it, we 
 find the actual experience meaning to us what 
 we could not have guessed beforehand, and 
 then choose it for its own sake; or, we have to 
 make the venture with a kind of desperate 
 faith that the experience will be to us what 
 others have found it, for the highest things 
 everywhere require the complete commitment, — 
 they give themselves only where all is risked. 
 
 1 Cf. King: Personal and Ideal Elements in Education, pp. 151 ff.
 
 40 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 No temporizing, half-hearted experiment here 
 will give results. The meaning of a genuinely 
 unselfish love, for example, does not yield 
 itself to any calculating experiment. Either 
 one is surprised into it, or he must voluntarily 
 venture all in complete self-abandonment, burn- 
 ing all his bridges behind him. It should be 
 no surprise to us, therefore, that in the highest 
 sphere of value, that of religion, with its pre- 
 eminently ethical and personal emphasis, there 
 should be no way of getting the conviction of 
 individual experience before experience. There 
 are, then, two temperaments, and two ways of 
 coming into the great values of life; but there 
 is no way of avoiding the need of experience. 
 
 A closely related suggestion needs also to be 
 heeded if we are really to recognize how im- 
 possible a merely theoretical solution is in 
 religion; though here, too, religion makes no 
 peculiar demand. Throughout life we are 
 continually encountering experiences of which 
 we instinctively realize that it is useless to 
 speak, except to those who have had a like 
 experience. It is useless to talk of color to a 
 man born blind, or of beauty to a man who 
 never had the living emotion of the beautiful. 
 Our words in all such cases are only the names 
 for experiences; they cannot disclose the ex-
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 41 
 
 periences themselves. The very meaning of 
 the words here is not chiefly a thought product 
 at all. We have lived the meaning, and know 
 it only so far as we have lived it. After all, 
 the one great teacher is life, and our best words 
 to another of even the deepest in us must fall 
 resultless, until life has brought to the other 
 the experience out of which the words can be 
 interpreted. We can only bear witness. How 
 impossible, then, is it by any logical means to 
 bring home the full reality of the spiritual 
 world, where the conditions of the possible 
 experience are not fulfilled! In Whitman's 
 putting: 
 
 "No one can acquire for another — not one, 
 No one can grow for another — not one. 
 The song is to the singer, and comes back 
 
 most to him. 
 The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back 
 
 most to him. 
 
 • ••*•• 
 
 And no man understands any greatness or 
 goodness but his own, or the indica- 
 tion of his own." 
 
 We cannot inherit the sense of reality in the 
 spiritual world. There is no reality in religion 
 without a living experience of our own.
 
 42 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 So, too, one cannot thoughtfully face the 
 broad facts of human experience without feel- 
 ing how unreasonable is the seeming expecta- 
 tion, frequently cherished, of ability to meet 
 all the difficulties of the reality of the spiritual 
 world at once and out of hand. The considera- 
 tions just passed over show how often one must 
 wait for the interpreting power of experience. 
 Moreover, even when our conclusions are really 
 sound, we may be quite unable fully to state 
 the reasons. The grounds of our faith, we have 
 seen, the whole trend of modern psychology 
 shows to be not merely intellectual, but inter- 
 woven with a great complex of human interests, 
 only slowly appreciated. The truth is, prob- 
 ably, always greater than our reasons for hold- 
 ing it. 
 
 But even if the problem be regarded in a 
 given case as purely intellectual, it must still 
 be remembered that real speculative power is 
 neither very common, nor is it developed early 
 in life. It is peculiarly appropriate, there- 
 fore, to suggest to the young that unrest must 
 naturally be the result of a large reading of 
 speculative authors before there have been ac- 
 quired such mental development and dialectic 
 skill as will enable one to overcome the pres- 
 sure of the author in hand. Why should one
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 43 
 
 expect, without very wide and special training 
 in these themes, at once and out of hand to 
 meet and settle all the points a subtle mind 
 can raise in a labored work? Is it sensible to 
 suppose that there is no answer to our difficulty, 
 because an answer is not immediately sug- 
 gested? The universal human interest in these 
 deeper questions involved in the religious life 
 must of course lead to much general thinking; 
 but there seems still dire need of reminding 
 many that men are not born philosophers and 
 born theologians any more than born botanists. 
 However reluctantly, one is simply compelled 
 to recognize sometimes colossal ignorance in 
 this sphere on the part of men otherwise well 
 educated. Let the young, at least, be content 
 to let the philosophers devour one another for 
 the time being, while they go on with their 
 living. One may well remind himself, here, 
 of Augustine Birrell's dictum that "the verdict 
 to be striven for is not 'well-guessed', but 'well- 
 done. 7 " 
 
 Again, many seem to think it incumbent upon 
 them, when overtaken by doubts in the re- 
 ligious life, to begin their inquiry as if the 
 questions were wholly new, to be solved by 
 them from the beginning; although they would 
 hardly dream of taking such a course in other
 
 44 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 matters. Is it true, indeed, that nothing has 
 been proved so far? Are the history and ex- 
 perience of the centuries to count for nothing? 
 The man, for example, who takes up Chris- 
 tianity to-day, as a new problem, to be solved 
 by him as if Christ had just come, it is mani- 
 fest, deliberately throws away a very large 
 factor in the solution of the problem. 
 
 It is a perfectly legitimate use of the appeal 
 to consequences which Newman Smyth makes, 
 when he urges, "Not growing discord, which 
 betrays a method which is wrong, but grow- 
 ing peace, which shows that the method of 
 life is right, is the world's experience of Chris- 
 tianity." This broader appeal to what the 
 consequences are in the long run — like the 
 scientific verifying of an hypothesis by appeal 
 to experience — is rightly insisted upon in pres- 
 ent-day philosophy, and can be logically set 
 aside only by one, who is willing to deny the 
 fundamental assumption of our thinking, — 
 that we are dealing with an honest world. 
 "For," as Professor Seth Pattison contends, 1 
 "the ultima ratio of every creed, the ultima 
 ratio of truth itself, is that it works; and no 
 greater condemnation can be passed upon a 
 doctrine or system than that, if it were true, 
 
 1 Man's Place in the Cosmos, p. 307.
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 45 
 
 human life, as it has been lived by the best of 
 the race, would cease to be reasonable, or rather, 
 would become a phenomenon whose emergence 
 it was impossible to explain." 
 
 Mr. Shorthouse, in his Spiritual Romance of 
 John Inglesant, has made his seeker after truth 
 reach this final conclusion: "We find ourselves 
 immersed in physical and psychological laws, in 
 accordance with which we act, or from which we 
 diverge. Whether we are free to act or not, we 
 can at least fancy we resolve. Let us cheat our- 
 selves, if it be a cheat, with this fancy, for we 
 shall find that by so doing we actually attain the 
 end we seek We shall find man has at- 
 tained any position of vantage he may occupy 
 by following the laws, which our instinct and 
 conscience tell us are Divine." The argu- 
 ment is a good one against the confirmed and 
 persistent doubter. But on what possible scheme 
 of thought, pray, can that freedom, and those 
 laws, by means of which it is granted we obtain 
 whatever of value life possesses, be regarded 
 as "cheats"? It is pure illusion to talk of 
 proofs at all, if freedom were not so proved. 
 The healthful mind cannot be brought to be- 
 lieve in any such hideous discord in the nature 
 of things. Augustine Birrell speaks of senti- 
 mental sceptics "who, after laboring to demolish
 
 46 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 what they call the chimera of superstition, fall 
 to weeping as they remember they have now 
 no lies to teach their children." 
 
 In any case, it is particularly true in the 
 matter of the religious life, that the questions 
 are not new. Entirely decisive and universally 
 convincing answers, doubtless, we are still un- 
 able to give; but, even if no reasons can be 
 suggested why our answers are not more de- 
 cisive, we may at least recognize that the 
 difficulties, also, are not essentially new. We 
 need to learn the calm and patience of history. 
 No generation has had to face a greater intel- 
 lectual revolution than our own; and yet it 
 cannot be honestly said that the religious ques- 
 tions and difficulties of our time are greatly 
 different in their essence from those of other 
 days. The contrary assumption is often made, 
 and proves a real hindrance; but we have a 
 right to urge, particularly with the young, that 
 the way to a reasonable religious faith is not 
 more difficult now than at any previous time, 
 but rather is in all probability easier than ever, 
 as it ought to be, if men are profiting at all 
 by the experience of the past. 
 
 Psychology's rightful recognition of the prac- 
 tical and of the whole man, may remind us 
 again that, in finding our way into satisfactory
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 47 
 
 religious living and thinking, there is real 
 danger of over-rating intellectual difficulties 
 and particularly merely negative criticism. A 
 single difficulty is sometimes made the end of 
 all faith. But we may be sure that no single 
 difficulty, like that of the relativity of human 
 knowledge, for example, easily phrased and 
 still more easily misapplied, sums up all of 
 philosophy or of life, or furnishes reason for 
 forthwith setting aside all hitherto held as true. 
 The great broad teaching of human life and 
 experience may not be so easily nullified. We 
 need not be in haste. There is particular danger 
 here for those of the preeminently practical 
 temperament, and especially where strong de- 
 sire or passion is involved. As soon as the full 
 reason for a hitherto trusted moral or re- 
 ligious principle is not immediately forthcom- 
 ing, the desire, held in leash by the principle, 
 is given full rein. I think it was Clerk Max- 
 well, who wrote in a private letter, after 
 various intellectual excursions of this kind: 
 "Old Chap! I have read up many queer re- 
 ligions; there is nothing like the old thing after 
 all. I have looked into most philosophical 
 systems, and I have seen that none will work 
 without a God." It is easy to overestimate the 
 difficulties.
 
 48 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 An incidental suggestion of Lotze's may well 
 be added here. "We are accustomed," he says, 
 "to estimate one and the same idea very dif- 
 ferently when it comes before us as a conjec- 
 ture, and when it is offered as the expression 
 of a fact." 1 We may scout a view as utterly 
 preposterous and unthinkable beforehand, that, 
 as a proved fact, we later find wholly reason- 
 able, and assimilate with entire equanimity. 
 Let one think, for example, of the fact of 
 alternate generation among some of the lower 
 animals, and of the now undoubted partheno- 
 genesis of the drone bees. So, in much of our 
 thinking, especially along the lines of ultimate 
 philosophical and religious inquiry, quite too 
 great weight may be easily given to a priori 
 objections. 
 
 And it needs also clearly to be recognized 
 that we can nowhere rest in merely negative 
 criticism. A quite unreasonable importance, 
 it is certain, has been accorded in theistic argu- 
 ment to this kind of criticism. What Professor 
 Bowne says so vigorously of philosophical scep- 
 ticism holds of all merely negative criticism: 
 "The sceptic acquires importance, not through 
 the doubts he utters, but through those which 
 he rationally justifies. The judicial critic, 
 
 1 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 140.
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 49 
 
 therefore, must compel the sceptic to take his 
 place along with other theorists, and give rea- 
 sons for the unfaith that is in him. Until he 
 does this, his position is arbitrary, capricious, 
 and irrational. Strangely enough, this manifest 
 dictate of logic has often been overlooked in 
 the history of speculation; and dogmatic denial, 
 especially if it be of some important practical 
 interest, has been judged to have high specula- 
 tive significance. The ease with which good 
 people have been stampeded by unsupported 
 denial is one of the humorous features of the 
 history of philosophy." 1 The serious thinker, 
 says Seth Pattison, "will always repeat the 
 words of Kant, that in itself doubt is not a 
 permanent resting place for human reason. Its 
 justification is relative, and its function transi- 
 tional." 2 
 
 Once more, in considering the psychological 
 conditions of the sense of reality in the spiritual 
 life, we may not forget the natural results that 
 come from a long ignoring of facts. Here, too, 
 the religious life is not at all peculiar. The law 
 is one common to all the spheres of our living. 
 Our entire consciousness is characterized, the 
 psychologists tell us, by a constant selective 
 
 1 Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 269. 
 "Encyclopaedia Britannica. Article, Scepticism. 
 
 4
 
 50 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 activity. To certain elements in our environ- 
 ment we attend; certain others we persistently 
 ignore. These ignored elements practically 
 drop out of our life; they have for us no real 
 existence. For all practical purposes, they have 
 ceased to be. So too, no doubt, the seeming 
 unreality of the spiritual world in the case of 
 many is due, in no small degree, to the long 
 ignoring of the facts of the spiritual world 
 in their previous lives and habits of thought. 
 "We hear much," writes Professor Peabody, 
 "of the reasons which lead men to abandon 
 prayer, but in most such instances the loss of 
 the prayer habit does not happen because of 
 profound philosophizing or serious conviction, 
 but through sheer inertia. There are so many 
 other things to do, that, as a young man once 
 said, 'One does not get around to his prayers!' m 
 The fact of the existence of God, as he is 
 revealed to us in Christ, is no barren truth. 
 The rational inferences to be drawn from it 
 will bear on every detail of life. But here is 
 a man, perhaps, (I am very far from believing 
 that this is a universal explanation) into whose 
 life for years no conscious recognition of God 
 and the spiritual life has come; who has acted 
 precisely as if they were not; who has thus 
 
 1 Mornings in the College Chapel. Second Series, p. 9.
 
 NO MERELY THEORETICAL SOLUTIONS 5 1 
 
 virtually denied their existence in every act; 
 whose thoughts, plans, purposes, have been all 
 apart from God; who has settled habits of 
 thought and life, that are logically consistent 
 only with denial of the existence of God and 
 a spiritual life. Will those habits have no 
 influence on his spiritual insight? Is he to 
 come now, at one bound, into the clear and 
 simple vision of God and divine truth, which 
 may have belonged to his childhood? And 
 shall he refuse to have patience to take the 
 toilsome way back to those early convictions 
 from which his lack of earnestness, his care- 
 lessness, his indifference, his neglect, his world- 
 liness, and his sin have separated him? Verily, 
 I sometimes think, it were a strange thing, if 
 the spiritual life were not obscure to many of 
 us. If the voice within us were not indeed 
 divine, long since would it have been smothered 
 under the heaped up rubbish of the years.
 
 VIII 
 THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF ALL BELIEF 
 
 But the psychological emphasis upon the 
 influence of the practical interests in all con- 
 sciousness, and upon the whole concrete life of 
 the whole man, not only means — as we have 
 been seeing — that in the knowledge of the 
 spiritual we may not ignore these conditions of 
 all knowledge, but also particularly means that 
 we are not to forget the practical nature of all 
 belief. 
 
 That I may not simply repeat a line of 
 thought which I have elsewhere given 1 let me 
 substitute bodily Professor Bowne's very clear 
 and suggestive statement upon this point: "The 
 sum is this: The mind is not a disinterested 
 logic machine, but a living organism, with 
 manifold interests and tendencies. These out- 
 line its development, and furnish the driving 
 power. The implicit aim in mental develop- 
 ment is to recognize these interests, and make 
 room for them, so that each shall have its 
 proper field and object. In this way a series 
 
 1 Cf. Theology and the Social Consciousness, pp. 78-81. Rational 
 Living, pp. 161 ff. 
 
 52
 
 THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF ALL BELIEF 53 
 
 of ideals arise in our mental life. As cognitive, 
 we assume that the universe is rational. Many 
 of its elements are opaque, and utterly unman- 
 ageable by us at present, but we assume spon- 
 taneously and unconsciously that at the center 
 all is order, and that there all is crystalline 
 and transparent to intelligence. Thus there 
 arises in our thought the conception of a 
 system in which all is light, a system whose 
 foundations are laid in harmony, and whose 
 structure is rational law, a system every part 
 of which is produced and maintained and 
 illumined by the majestic and eternal Reason. 
 But this is only a cognitive ideal, to which ex- 
 perience yields but little support. But we 
 hold fast the ideal and set aside the facts which 
 make against it as something not yet com- 
 prehended." 
 
 "But we are moral beings also, and our 
 moral interests must be recognized. Hence 
 arises a moral ideal, which we join to the 
 cognitive. The universe must be not only 
 rational, but righteous at its root. Here too 
 we set aside the facts which make against our 
 faith as something not yet understood. This 
 is especially the case in dealing with the prob- 
 lem of evil. Here we are never content with 
 finding a cause for the good and evil in ex-
 
 54 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 perience; we insist upon an explanation which 
 shall save the assumed goodness at the heart 
 of things." 
 
 . "Finally, we are religious, and our entire 
 nature works together to construct the religious 
 ideal. The intellect brings its ideal; and the 
 conscience brings its ideal; and the affections 
 bring their ideal; and these, together with 
 whatever other thought of perfection we may 
 have, are united into the thought of the one Per- 
 fect Being, the ideal of ideals, the supreme and 
 complete, to whom heart, will, conscience, and 
 intellect alike may come and say, ( Thy Kingdom 
 come; thy will be done.' Here, as in the pre- 
 vious cases, we do not ignore the facts which 
 make against the view, but we set them aside 
 as things to be explained, but which must not 
 in any way be allowed to weaken our faith." 
 "All of these ideals are, primarily, alike 
 subjective. They are produced, indeed, under 
 the stress of experience, but they are not tran- 
 scripts of any possible experience. That trans- 
 parent universe of the reason is as purely a 
 mental product as that righteous universe of 
 the conscience, or as the supreme perfection 
 of religion. In each of these cases the mind 
 appears with its subjective ideals, and demands 
 that reality shall recognize them; and in all
 
 THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF ALL BELIEF 55 
 
 alike reality recognizes them only imperfectly. 
 To some extent the universe is intelligible. To 
 some extent the power not ourselves makes for 
 righteousness. To some extent God is revealed. 
 But in all these cases a purely logical and ob- 
 jective contemplation of the known facts would 
 leave us in great uncertainty. The assured con- 
 viction we have rests upon no logical deduction 
 from experience, but upon the optimistic as- 
 sumption that the mind has a right to itself, 
 and is at home in the universe. The mind will 
 not consent to abandon its nature and resign 
 itself to utter mental and moral confusion. This 
 is, to be sure, an act of pure faith, but it is an 
 act upon which our entire mental life depends. 
 A purely speculative knowledge of reality, 
 which shall be strictly deductive and free from 
 assumption, is impossible." 1 
 
 The spiritual life — the religious view — then, 
 let it be clearly seen, makes here no peculiar 
 demand. It stands side by side with other 
 ideals, having a like original justification. That 
 it must take account of practical and ideal 
 interests is in no way peculiar to it; but of 
 these practical and ideal interests it must take 
 account. Not to do so, is to end in hopeless 
 confusion, not in greater clearness. 
 
 1 Philosophy of Theism, pp. 19-22.
 
 IX 
 
 SOME COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES 
 
 This practical nature of all belief itself in- 
 dicates that, for the sake of the spiritual life 
 itself, a protest is constantly needed in the 
 interests of the whole concrete reality and of 
 the whole man. In the last analysis, perhaps 
 the greatest danger that can beset a man's 
 spiritual life and thought is to misconceive 
 both as having to do only with some fraction 
 of a man's being or living. As to our religious 
 thinking, this means that we are to avoid the 
 mistakes which come from forgetting the in- 
 fluence of certain common logical fallacies, and 
 the mistake of failing to set aside certain 
 traditional objections, which are supposed to 
 put religious faith and life at peculiar disad- 
 vantage. 
 
 And, first, let us be sure that the spiritual 
 life is guarded from the influence of certain 
 logical fallacies which, while very common, 
 are none the less unwarranted and dangerous. 
 Nowhere more than in our ultimate thinking 
 upon spiritual themes do we need to be sure of 
 the soundness of our reasoning. Two of these 
 
 56
 
 SOME COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES 57 
 
 common fallacies have been already implied 
 in the emphasis upon the practical nature of 
 all knowledge and belief, and may be merely 
 mentioned in this summary view of such logical 
 mistakes, namely: the two great and far reach- 
 ing mistakes of ignoring all that cannot be 
 precisely formulated, and so yielding to the 
 constant temptation to cut short the facts to 
 suit our theories; and, particularly, of making 
 the intellectual the sole standard of reality, and 
 so practically identifying the logical and the 
 metaphysical. The history of philosophy and 
 the history of theology teem with examples of 
 both mistakes, some of which have been already 
 noted. 
 
 Besides these, three other common fallacies 
 deserve attention: those of being dominated 
 by a word, by an analogy, and by what is 
 imageable. In all these cases the fundamental 
 difficulty is that the word or the analogy or 
 the image is not really thought through. 
 
 One would hardly believe, were the evidence 
 not forced upon him, the extent to which the 
 thought of even professional thinkers has been 
 dominated by words. The only deliverance 
 from such domination is the persistent deter- 
 mination to use no words without having some 
 clear corresponding thought. Domination by
 
 58 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 a word whose implications are never made 
 really clear, it has been often noted, is seen in 
 the constant use, by Locke and his followers, 
 of the word "impression." No doubt an in- 
 adequate analogy is also strongly at work here. 
 Taken together, the domination has been so 
 real, that "the tang of Locke's cask," as some 
 one has expressed it, is to be recognized in very 
 much of English thought down to the present. 
 Domination by a word is particularly easy, 
 when the word has a double meaning, or seems 
 capable, at least, of looking in two directions 
 at once. Thus, many have hidden from them- 
 selves the real difficulties of their conception 
 by the choice of the word "impulse"; which 
 has both a recognized physical and psychical 
 meaning, and so seems admirably adapted to 
 serve as an explanatory principle, that shall be 
 neither a mechanical force nor a conscious 
 mind. These people seem never to have com- 
 pelled themselves to face the question, whether 
 they could really think any tertium quid, cor- 
 responding to the ambiguity of the word. There 
 has been a similar playing with the word "ap- 
 pearance," the word "thought," and the word 
 "force." And — not to extend enumeration of 
 examples — it particularly concerns the thinker 
 on religious themes to notice, that one may be
 
 SOME COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES 59 
 
 successfully challenged to give any clear mean- 
 ing to the term "impersonal spirit," and to 
 similar designations, that have nowhere figured 
 more largely than in anti-theistic discussions. 
 We are not to be bullied by a word, however 
 sonorous or often repeated. We may and we 
 must demand, if we have any desire really to 
 reach the truth, that every term have a clear 
 corresponding thought. It is not vain to insist 
 upon the point. Over and over again in the 
 history of thought, great interests have been 
 sacrificed to a word. 
 
 The extent to which men are satisfied, in their 
 search for an explanation, by mere names, is 
 another almost humorous illustration of this 
 domination by words. Few seem to have made 
 it clear to themselves, for example, that naming 
 a comparatively unknown force is no explana- 
 tion of it, or that a "law" of nature is no ex- 
 planation of the why and wherefore of the 
 phenomena whose behavior the law only formu- 
 lates. 
 
 Domination by a striking analogy is still more 
 common and more dangerous. It is more dan- 
 gerous because the analogy may be supposed 
 to be partly applicable. The mind then accepts 
 it as wholly adequate, instead of insisting on 
 a clear recognition of the precise limitations
 
 60 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 of the analogy. It then substitutes for real 
 thinking upon the subject in hand, the much 
 easier process of drawing out the analogy. It 
 may even congratulate itself upon some peculi- 
 arly deep thinking, when it has abused its 
 analogy, in making it "go on all fours." One 
 can hardly doubt, for example, that theology 
 has often so abused the analogy of human law 
 and government. And it is worth serious 
 thought by us all, just now, whether under the 
 stimulus of the idea of evolution, with its mani- 
 fold applications, we are not all in danger 
 of unthinking domination by the biological 
 analogy. Let us say frankly, that much of this 
 biological thinking on spiritual themes is simply 
 not thinking at all, but just deluding ourselves 
 with a half-thought analogy. And let us recall 
 Lotze's protest — when the world was once be- 
 fore going wild over a precisely similar idea — 
 against the term organic, "for which," he says, 
 "a long defense will have to be made if at the 
 last day account has to be given for every idle 
 word." 1 
 
 Once more, we are peculiarly liable to de- 
 lusion, when a matter can be in some way pre- 
 sented to us in an image, although we may not 
 be able truly to think it at all. The clearness 
 
 1 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 183.
 
 SOME COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES 6 1 
 
 and apparent obviousness of the image of an 
 actual contact or impact of two bodies, for ex- 
 ample, is felt, probably, by most to solve forth- 
 with the whole problem of the possibility of 
 reciprocal action; although, in truth, it throws 
 not a particle of light upon the difficult ques- 
 tion of how we are really to think the reciprocal 
 action as taking place. And so in countless 
 problems, the mere imaging power is made 
 to take the place of thinking; and it does it so 
 effectively, that often the really serious difficul- 
 ties are not even raised. Almost all the force 
 of much anti-theistic argument lies in this 
 shallow appeal to the power of sense-imagery. 
 The argument seems to get on swimmingly 
 because it moves on a crude sense plane, and 
 never faces the real difficulties, which require 
 a final theistic view for their solution. The dif- 
 ficult problem of interaction, already referred 
 to, is a good example of such ignored difficulties. 
 So, too, by imaging laws to themselves as some 
 kind of real existences, men seem to be able to 
 accomplish much without needing to assume 
 God, and escape many difficult questions; but 
 the process can hardly be called thinking. Such 
 theorists tell us that, grant them matter, force, 
 and laws, they will easily show how the cosmos 
 has arisen from chaos. The appeal here is
 
 62 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 almost wholly to the imaging power, and — to 
 mention but a single difficulty — the view quite 
 fails to make clear how that in which laws 
 already rule can be in any sense a "chaos." It 
 is to be regretted that the philosophizing of 
 men whose training has been wholly in natural 
 science, has been so largely on this plane of 
 simple appeal to the sense imagination. Per- 
 haps no one of late has shown more convincingly 
 the weakness of this kind of reasoning than 
 Ward, in his Naturalism and Agnosticism.
 
 X 
 
 SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS 
 
 Besides the influence of these common fal- 
 lacies, religious thinking and living are likely 
 to be hindered by failing to set aside certain 
 traditional objections, that are supposed to put 
 religious life and thought at peculiar disad- 
 vantage. 
 
 Some of these have been already implied, 
 and need only be mentioned here : like the objec- 
 tions that come from an abstract intellectual- 
 ism, from a crude sensationalism, and from an 
 impossible hypostasizingof laws, and, in general, 
 from a quite unwarrantable exaltation of the 
 mathematico-mechanical view of the world. 
 These are, in fact, simply inherited bugbears. 
 The truth is, as it may be hoped we are more and 
 more coming to see, that all these views, from 
 which objection arises, are themselves so in- 
 volved in difficulties and self-contradictions that, 
 when an attempt is made clearly to think them 
 through, they are driven to abandon their posi- 
 tion of self-sufficiency and to admit that they 
 themselves require an ideal view to complete 
 them. The universal abandonment of material- 
 
 63
 
 64 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 ism is one interesting illustration of this trend. 
 
 Besides these objections, already briefly con- 
 sidered, which arise more from the point of 
 view of natural science, there are other objec- 
 tions inherited from the philosophical point of 
 view, which are often supposed to put the re- 
 ligious life at peculiar disadvantage. With- 
 out going into elaborate argument upon any 
 one of these points, we can perhaps see that 
 none of them have any such decisive weight 
 against the religious life as has been supposed. 
 
 And, first, we ought carefully to observe that 
 there is absolutely no ground for the very com- 
 mon tacit assumption, that the theistic view is 
 in any peculiar way bound up with all the dif- 
 ficulties of the problems of the theory of knowl- 
 edge and of metaphysics. It is rather creditable 
 than otherwise to theistic thinking, that this 
 impression has come to prevail; for it shows, 
 at least, that theistic thinkers generally have 
 tried to be really thorough-going in their in- 
 quiries, and to shirk no problems, however 
 difficult, in the attempt to reach a genuinely 
 unified view of the world. And yet, the solving 
 of all the difficult problems of epistemology and 
 metaphysics is, in truth, no responsibility be- 
 longing peculiarly to religion. It might be 
 justly urged that the very objects of science
 
 SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS 65 
 
 indicate that it, rather than religion, should be 
 here specially concerned. The problems are 
 difficult, but the difficulties are philosophical, 
 and they exist for all thinkers alike, and are 
 not only no more difficult for a theistic view 
 than for any other, but seem rather to require 
 some kind of theistic view for their solution. 
 In any case, epistemological and metaphysical 
 difficulties are not at all peculiarly religious 
 difficulties. 
 
 So, too, the doctrine of the relativity of 
 human knowledge has been long supposed to 
 make peculiar difficulties for religion. The 
 theory affirms that all human knowledge is rela- 
 tive; we cannot reach absolute truth, but only 
 what is true for us, and this may greatly differ 
 from the absolute truth. All our conceptions 
 of God must be after the constitution of our 
 own minds — "anthropomorphic" — it is said, 
 and therefore untrustworthy. The Infinite God 
 must then be for us essentially unknowable. 
 The sweep of the objection is to be noted. It 
 makes all inquiry useless. The inference from 
 the theory is supposed to be that every evidence 
 of divine truths may be set aside, because how- 
 ever it may seem to us, since our knowledge 
 is merely relative, we cannot have attained any- 
 thing of value in our inquiry — no real truth. 
 5
 
 66 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 As to the inference from the theory, a few 
 things may be said. 
 
 The theory states no new truth. When we 
 say that human knowledge is relative, we only 
 affirm what most of us learned long since, 
 that human knowledge is human knowledge, 
 not angelic or divine, and has consequently 
 human limitations — a doctrine quite as old as 
 Job. We need not then be greatly disconcerted, 
 or driven off the field by large words, "anthro- 
 pomorphic" or otherwise. 
 
 The inference drawn from the theory really 
 denies the trustworthiness of our reason. We 
 suppose that reason has given us some real 
 truths in the religious sphere, and we are told, 
 "Not so; they cannot be relied on, for your 
 thought is relative." This makes all science 
 equally impossible. The first induction of 
 science goes upon the assumption of the truth 
 of our instincts, upon the principle as expressed 
 by a clear thinker, 1 that "the world within us, 
 and the world without us are parts of the same 
 whole, and thus must be related to one another. 
 They must be at heart the same. Thus by the 
 same principle which gives us authority to 
 make the slightest generalization which goes 
 beyond the enumerated facts, we are authorized 
 
 1 C. C. Everett: The Science of Thought, p. 375.
 
 SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS 67 
 
 to assume that the necessary forms of our thought 
 have some relation definite and real to the forms 
 of existence outside of us." 
 
 Upon this point Professor Simon has these 
 forcible words: 1 "Convince man that his think- 
 ing must be untrue because it is his, and thinking 
 will be paralyzed; but surely that which para- 
 lyzes thought cannot be true for thought. Be- 
 sides I would reply in the language of Scripture, 
 'God created man in his own image; in the 
 image of God created he him' — words which the 
 German philosopher Jacobi aptly applied to this 
 subject when he said, 'Man anthropomorphizes 
 in thinking God, because God theomorphized 
 in creating man.' " 
 
 It is one thing to say that our knowledge is 
 finite, partial, and quite another to affirm that 
 it is therefore no true knowledge. This illus- 
 tration has been used: "Could the inanimate 
 worlds conceive of God, from their lower de- 
 gree of relations, they would conceive of him 
 as the infinite force. This conception would 
 be partial, yet true as far as it went. No higher 
 conception could leave out that of the infinite 
 force. So the plant would, and rightly, conceive 
 of God as the infinite life. That conception 
 would be true, though partial. The spirit con- 
 
 1 Bibliotlieca Sacra, January '87, p. 4.
 
 68 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 ceives of him as the infinite spirit. This is 
 still true, but still partial." 
 
 While distinctly less terrifying than it was, 
 this doctrine of the relativity of knowledge still 
 seems to many the sum of wisdom; and the 
 current naturalism makes much of it, in one 
 form or another. It is the very heart of Ward's 
 able discussion of Naturalism and Agnosticism, 
 to show that this strange alliance of naturalism 
 and agnosticism is really fatal to naturalism; 
 that really to think through the implication of 
 such common scientific terms as "phenomena" 
 and "law" and "method" is to see that science 
 itself cannot admit, without self-destruction, 
 such a complete and final relativity in human 
 knowledge as agnosticism asserts. In other 
 words, the doctrine of the relativity of human 
 knowledge is terrifying, not because it is a 
 peculiarly deep probing of the problem of the 
 theory of knowledge, but just because it does 
 not go to the bottom. It loses all its terrors 
 as a peculiar difficulty for ideal views as soon 
 as the problem of knowing is vigorously grap- 
 pled. 
 
 Professor Ward's own way of getting at the 
 matter may be seen in a condensed statement 
 from his first chapter. He has summed up the 
 common naturalistic position in two statements.
 
 SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS 69 
 
 "These two statements," he goes on to say, 
 "amount to saying, first, that there is no knowl- 
 edge save scientific knowledge, or knowledge 
 of phenomena and of their relations, and 
 secondly, that this knowledge is non-theistic. 
 It is worth our while to note that in a sense 
 both these propositions are true, and that is the 
 sense in which science in its every-day work 
 is concerned with them. But again there is a 
 sense in which, taken together, these proposi- 
 tions are not true, but this is a sense that will 
 only present itself to the critic of knowledge 
 reflecting upon knowledge as a whole. Thus 
 it is true that science has no need, and indeed, 
 can make no use, in any particular instance, 
 of the theistic hypothesis. That hypothesis is 
 specially applicable to nothing just because it 
 claims to be equally applicable to everything. 
 Recourse to it would involve just that discon- 
 tinuity which it is the cardinal rule of scientific 
 method to avoid. But, because reference to 
 the Deity will not serve for a physical explana- 
 tion in physics or a chemical explanation in 
 chemistry, it does not therefore follow that the 
 sum total of scientific knowledge is equally 
 intelligible whether we accept the theistic hypo- 
 thesis or not. Again, it is true that every item 
 of scientific knowledge is concerned with some
 
 70 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 definite relation of definite phenomena and 
 with nothing else. But, for all that, the syste- 
 matic organization of such items may quite 
 well yield further knowledge which transcends 
 the special relations of definite phenomena. In 
 fact, so surely as science collectively is more 
 than a mere aggregate of items or 'knowledges,' 
 as Bacon would have said, so surely will the 
 whole be more, and yield more, than the mere 
 sum of its facts." 
 
 "In other words," he says later, "ideally 
 complete science will become philosophy. This 
 conceit or doctrine of an absolute boundary be- 
 tween science and nescience and the endeavor to 
 identify with it a like sharp separation between 
 empirical knowledge and philosophic specula- 
 tion may then, we conclude, be both dismissed 
 as 'sophistical and illusory.' Nevertheless, as I 
 have said, these notions are widely current in one 
 shape or other, save among the few in these days, 
 who have even a passman's acquaintance with the 
 rudiments of epistemology. One of the most 
 plausible and not least prevalent forms of this 
 doctrine is embodied in the shallow Comtian 
 'Law of Development,' according to which there 
 are three stages in human thought, the theo- 
 logical, the metaphysical, and the positive; the 
 metaphysical superseding the theological and
 
 SOME TRADITIONAL OBJECTIONS Jl 
 
 being in turn superseded by the positive or 
 scientific. A glance at the past history of knowl- 
 edge would show at once the facts that make 
 these views so specious and yet prove them to be 
 false." 1 
 
 So far, then, as it is regarded as peculiarly a 
 difficulty for a theistic view, or as precluding 
 a real relation to God, we may regard this ghost 
 of relativity as quite exorcised for us. 
 
 1 Naturalism and Agnosticism, pp. 23-4; 29-30.
 
 XI 
 DIFFICULTY IN THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 There are, still, certain special applications 
 of the doctrine of relativity that, because of their 
 direct bearing on the religious life, it may be 
 worth while briefly to consider. It is often 
 urged, that the very terms we apply to God show 
 that we must be out of any real living relation 
 to him. The term 'Absolute,' for example, has 
 been made, of itself, to settle the whole matter. 
 The Absolute, it is said, is that which by hypo- 
 thesis is out of all relations, and with which, 
 therefore, it is of course not possible to come 
 into relations. One would be almost ashamed 
 to call attention to such pure verbal jugglery, if 
 it had not been so often solemnly paraded as an 
 argument of vital consequence. God is not the 
 Absolute, let us unhesitatingly say, as being un- 
 related. A being out of all relation to all else — 
 incapable, that is, of any possible reciprocal 
 action with other beings — would be as nearly 
 a nonentity as we could well conceive, if indeed 
 it were possible to conceive such a supposed 
 being at all. On the contrary, God is the Ab- 
 solute rather, in that he is the being in whom 
 
 73
 
 DIFFICULTY IN THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 73 
 
 all relations find their reason and possibility of 
 existence. 
 
 Nor is God the Absolute in the sense that 
 he is without qualities. This would be to 
 assert that he is without content, whereas we 
 must rather conceive of God as having the rich- 
 est, largest, fullest content, in the direction of 
 Spinoza's idea of an infinite number of attributes. 
 Positively, the Absolute as applied to God 
 ought to mean, raised above all the limitations 
 which pertain to the finite as a mere part of a 
 whole — the final and fundamental source of 
 all, unexhausted in any or all of his manifes- 
 tations. 
 
 Similar statements need to be made about the 
 use of the word unchangeable, as applied to God. 
 God is unchangeable in the consistency of the 
 meaning of his nature and of his loving purpose. 
 But instead of this making it true that there can 
 then be no change in him answering to our need, 
 it rather insures such adjusting activity as his 
 love requires. This whole false notion of un- 
 changeableness in God goes back to a metaphysi- 
 cally false and abandoned notion of an ever iden- 
 tical stuff or substance, and should no longer be 
 allowed to obscure our religious thinking or liv- 
 ing. We are to believe in a really living God, 
 who is in the realest reciprocal action with all
 
 74 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 the finite, and with whom, therefore, our inner 
 attitude does make a difference. 
 
 And when we have once gotten rid of these 
 spectres of an unthinkable Absolute and of an 
 ever-identical substance, we discover that that 
 other ghost is also laid, that supposes that 
 there is some profound philosophical difficulty 
 in prayer or in any revelation. There is, in truth, 
 no sound reason, philosophical or scientific, for 
 denying that God has actual access to our minds. 
 Lotze certainly did not speak without full 
 knowledge of all the difficulties involved when 
 he said: "There is nothing whatever that stands 
 in opposition to the further conviction that God, 
 at particular moments and in particular per- 
 sons, may have stood nearer to humanity, or 
 may have revealed himself at such moments 
 and in such persons in a more eminent way than 
 at other moments and in other persons. ... It 
 is even without doubt legitimate to regard the 
 relation in which he [Christ] stood to God as 
 absolutely unique, not only as to degree but also 
 as to its essential quality." 1 
 
 Once more, I think religion ought to count 
 exorcised that other philosophical spectre, which 
 affirms a necessary contradiction between the 
 terms Infinite and personality. Of course, if 
 
 1 Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 149, 150.
 
 DIFFICULTY IN THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 75 
 
 one starts, as Paulsen does, with a definition of 
 personality as "the form peculiar to human 
 life," that by hypothesis restricts it to the finite, 
 it is easy to prove that such personality cannot 
 belong to the Infinite. But the continuation 
 of Paulsen's own argument, though he calls his 
 view "pantheistic," really shows that he him- 
 self cannot rest there: "Pantheism, as we under- 
 stand it, has no intention of depriving God of 
 anything or of denying him anything but human 
 limitations. It will not permit us to define God 
 by the concept of personality, simply because 
 the notion is too narrow for the infinite fulness 
 and depth of his being. Still, in order to re- 
 move the apprehension, we might call God a 
 supra-personal being, not intending thereby to 
 define his essence, but to indicate that God's 
 nature is above the human mind, not below it. 
 And Pantheism might add that it finds no fault 
 with anyone for calling God a personal being 
 in this sense. Insomuch as the human mind is 
 the highest and most important thing that we 
 know, we can form an idea of God only by in- 
 tensifying human attributes That is the 
 
 possible and inevitable anthropomorphism of 
 all religions.' 1 '' 1 
 
 It seems wholly legitimate not only but, 
 
 1 Paulsen: Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 254, 255.
 
 76 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 for our ultimate thinking, far more satis- 
 factory to say, as Lotze essentially does, that 
 the fact is, that so far from being true that 
 personality is inconsistent with the Infinite, it 
 is rather true that personality can be regarded 
 as complete and perfect only in the Infinite. He 
 alone, whose being is not bestowed by another 
 and therefore in much necessarily hidden; he 
 alone, who is not a mere part in a whole; he 
 alone, whose memory may infallibly gather all 
 the past; he alone, whose life is absolutely self- 
 conditioned — he alone can have complete self- 
 consciousness and perfect freedom, can thus be 
 a perfect personality. 1 The terms Infinite and 
 personal, thus, do not seem to me contradictory. 
 Moreover, it is to be remembered that the 
 alternative conceptions, suggested by such terms 
 as "Impersonal Spirit," "Moral World Order," 
 "Infinite Substance," "Self-developing Idea," 
 we are really not able to think at all without 
 at least tacit reference to the notion of personal 
 spirit. It may well be, that God transcends all 
 our highest thought, and in this sense may be 
 called "supra-personal," though this is for us 
 wholly empty of content; but our highest pos- 
 sible conception of him, nevertheless, is as per- 
 sonal. 
 
 1 Cf. King: Reconstruction in Theology, pp. 209-210.
 
 DIFFICULTY IN THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 77 
 
 Perhaps no one in modern literature has in- 
 dicated more effectively the legitimacy of this 
 argument, from the best in the human to the 
 divine, than Browning, in the latter part of his 
 "Saul." This is hardly less than a consummate 
 study of the way by which inspiration may come, 
 and its resulting mood. The whole theme of 
 the latter part of the poem is that God cannot 
 be less than man at his best, even in man's wil- 
 lingness to suffer for love's sake. And the whole 
 world seems to David, in Browning's closing 
 paragraph, to feel the awe of this revelation, 
 and to throb with this vision of an infinitely 
 loving, suffering God: 
 
 "I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive: 
 In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe." 
 
 "See the King — I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall 
 through. 
 Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, 
 To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing which, 
 I know that my service is perfect. 
 Oh, speak through me now ! 
 Would I suffer for him that I love? 
 So wouldst thou — so wilt thou ! 
 
 So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown — 
 And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
 One spot for the creature to stand in!" 
 
 Browning often argues that will is more than 
 power, and love than will; and that God can-
 
 78 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 not be less in any of these ways than man at 
 \] his best. We have no higher capacities for the 
 true vision of God than exactly the divinest 
 qualities in ourselves, — the qualities of a seek- 
 ing, suffering, self-giving love. This is a 
 fully justified part of that "inevitable anthro- 
 pomorphism of all religions" of which Paulsen 
 speaks. No philosophical inheritances need be 
 regarded as invalidating the essence of this 
 contention. 
 
 vj
 
 XII 
 
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SCIENTIFIC 
 AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 
 
 We have now passed in review the miscon- 
 ceptions, injurious to the spiritual life, which 
 arise from ignoring the likeness and connec- 
 tions of the spiritual life with the rest of life. 
 And we turn now to note the misconceptions 
 which come from ignoring the real difference 
 of the spiritual life, its unique sphere and con- 
 tribution. 
 
 In the first place, we may get into great 
 darkness from forgetting that the problems of 
 religious faith have certain distinctive differ- 
 ences from those in natural science; for to 
 forget these differences is to expect an impos- 
 sible solution in religion. 
 
 This means, if we are to keep clear of delu- 
 sion here, we must, first, carefully observe 
 science's threefold restriction of itself to ex- 
 perience, to the tracing of purely causal con- 
 nections, and to phenomena. 
 
 The restriction to experience implies a clear 
 recognition of the fact that science cannot in 
 any case anticipate results independent of pre- 
 
 79
 
 80 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 vious experience in the same or similar lines. 
 And this really means that the full cause of the 
 next stage in the observed process is not present 
 for it in the stage now under observation, in 
 even the most favorable cases. Hume is right, 
 here, in asserting that, in truth, we never really 
 see the causal connection. At most only a part 
 of the conditions disclose themselves to even the 
 finest scientific analysis in the finite things and 
 properties. It seems plain that in this aspect, 
 then, natural science itself looks to and re- 
 quires an ultimate ideal view to complete it. 
 
 The restriction to the tracing of purely causal 
 connections — though even this, as we have just 
 seen, is not ultimate — means that the one great 
 question for natural science is the question of 
 process — how the thing came to be — of me- 
 chanical explanation, not the question of mean- 
 ing. Thus, to use Paulsen's illustration, there 
 are two quite different questions as to a page 
 of print: How did it come to be, what were 
 the processes involved? and what does the page 
 mean? Now the question as to process is the 
 question of science. But the religious question 
 is primarily and necessarily one of meaning, 
 of ideal interpretation. This distinction holds, 
 although it is to be not only granted but as- 
 serted, that in an ultimate philosophical view
 
 SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 8 1 
 
 the two questions cannot be kept absolutely 
 apart; there we must ask as to their mutual 
 relations. Now it is to be observed that re- 
 ligion's question of the meaning of things can- 
 not be solved in the same way as science's ques- 
 tion of process; though religion, desiring to 
 know exactly how God has acted, must take full 
 account of all the facts brought out by scien- 
 tific investigation, and must grant absolute 
 freedom of investigation. But when all science's 
 facts of process are fully set forth, the question 
 of their meaning still remains unanswered; 
 and the precise point now to be noted, I repeat, 
 is that this question of meaning that presses 
 upon the religious inquiry, it is impossible to 
 answer in the same way as the scientific ques- 
 tion of process. The attempt, therefore, to 
 solve the problem of religious thinking and 
 living just as the scientific problem is solved, is 
 foredoomed to failure. We can know before- 
 hand that such a solution is impossible. The 
 two problems differ widely. 
 
 Once more, science's restriction of itself to 
 phenomena means that all ultimate questions 
 are left out of account as not so reachable. It 
 is this very fact, probably, that makes it so 
 easily possible for scientific investigators, when 
 they turn from strict scientific inquiry to philo- 
 
 6
 
 82 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 sophical questions, to lose sight of the far reach- 
 ing character of the assumptions involved in 
 terms which they use as matters of course. A 
 method of investigation that deliberately — and 
 for its own limited questions, wisely — ignores 
 all ultimate problems evidently will not solve 
 these ultimate problems. Upon these we can 
 get light only by extended inference from as- 
 certained facts, guided by the laws and de- 
 mands of our own being. Even a single science, 
 like chemistry, when it tries to become in its 
 own sphere a rational system of thought, is 
 obliged to go quite beyond the phenomenal 
 and bring in much of hypothesis and distant 
 inference. 
 
 From the point of view, then, of any one of 
 science's own three restrictions of itself, it is 
 plain that the religious problem is not the 
 same as the scientific problem, and hence can- 
 not be solved in the same way. Science, there- 
 fore, as such, does not bar the way to faith. 
 
 Moreover, in tracing out the difference be- 
 tween the scientific and religious problem, it 
 is worth noting that science itself is an ideal 
 construction of the world — an attempt to think 
 the world into unity in mathematico-mechanical 
 terms. That is, science is itself an ideal which 
 the mind freely creates, cherishes, and seeks
 
 SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 83 
 
 to realize; and, as itself such an ideal, cannot, 
 to follow Miinsterberg's thought, legitimately 
 rule out other ideals — aesthetic, ethical, or re- 
 ligious. Rather, as James suggests, the com- 
 parative success of science is an encouragement 
 in the pursuit of the other more difficult ideals 
 of thinking the world into unity in aesthetic, 
 ethical, or religious terms. 
 
 Once more, the scientific problem may be 
 called a purely intellectual one; although even 
 here, in the highest scientific questions, imag- 
 ination must be used; and Lange, though the 
 sympathetic historian of materialism, believed 
 that the greatest scientific discoveries have 
 always been made by those who worked from 
 the point of view of the ideal. Still, in general, 
 it may be truly affirmed that the scientific 
 problem is a purely intellectual one. In such 
 investigations one may wisely set aside all 
 reference to feeling and volition. The ques- 
 tion is simply one of exact intellectual formu- 
 lation, where any obtrusive feeling, or thought 
 of extraneous purpose would only hinder the 
 result. 
 
 That is never true of really ultimate ques- 
 tions, and never true in real living. We have 
 already seen that even the problem of pure 
 knowing cannot be solved in merely intellectual
 
 84 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 terms. While, then, in its proximate inquiries, 
 natural science may very properly cultivate 
 the coldly intellectual mood and ignore all 
 other appeals; for religion to do so would be 
 to take the thoroughly unscientific position of 
 ignoring most important data, and so making 
 a true solution impossible. This is no attempt 
 to evade truth, but the "appeal from a partial 
 and fragmentary truth to a fuller truth." The 
 contrast between scientific and religious faith 
 may, perhaps, be put in this form: scientific 
 faith takes account, and needs to take account, 
 only of intellectual data; while religious faith 
 takes account of the data involved in the feel- 
 ing of dependence, in aesthetic feelings and in 
 ethical feelings. Where these are overlooked, 
 naturally, as Lotze says, "a very barren rational- 
 ism takes the place of that which the whole 
 reason, acting in all directions would be able to 
 produce." 1 "The whole man is the organ of 
 the spiritual." 
 
 1 Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, p. 7.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PHILO- 
 SOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 
 
 But difficulty for the spiritual life and thought 
 may come, also, from ignoring the difference 
 of the religious problem from the philosophical 
 problem, as ordinarily conceived. I am con- 
 fident, that many serious difficulties arise from 
 the silent assumption, even on the part of theis- 
 tic and Christian thinkers, that philosophy as 
 commonly conceived is an inference from all 
 accessible data; but this assumption is plainly 
 erroneous. We forget that philosophy, as com- 
 monly taught, even in our avowedly Christian 
 colleges, intentionally ignores and abstracts 
 from all those facts that are involved in what 
 we call historical revelation. 
 
 Now, it cannot be doubted that it is a per- 
 fectly legitimate and valuable question to ask, 
 What may I learn about the ultimate source 
 of things, about the meaning of the world and 
 men, wholly apart from the facts of the so-called 
 historical revelation? But we may never for- 
 get that the question so put is a partial one, 
 
 85
 
 86 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 and deliberately sets aside the most important 
 and vital facts of the world — the preeminent 
 spiritual facts of the race, the world's greatest 
 teachers, as a matter of fact, in religion. It 
 simply puts outside of its data such very signifi- 
 cant and indubitable facts — on any possible 
 theory — as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jesus. 
 Now a philosophy, I submit, that ignores these 
 facts, is plainly not all-embracing in its survey 
 of data, and, therefore, in the nature of the case, 
 cannot expect a complete solution, and cannot 
 be an adequate final philosophy for life or 
 thought. 
 
 If, however, we choose to restrict the term 
 philosophy, as is commonly done, to the partial 
 inquiry which ignores the most stupendous 
 facts of the race — and I do not quarrel with the 
 usage, provided we clearly understand it — then 
 philosophy must look to theology for its own 
 completion, as the only systematic inquiry that 
 means in very truth to build upon all the data. 
 I know nothing that, on either scientific or 
 philosophical grounds, can justify us in expect- 
 ing a satisfactory conclusion from an inquiry 
 into the meaning of the world, that totally 
 ignores the supremely significant fact of the 
 world — the man Jesus, to say nothing of the 
 line of prophets that preceded him. What-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 87 
 
 ever one's point of view, as data for a discern- 
 ment of the meaning of things, these great 
 personalities, it would seem, ought to count 
 quite as much as things and events. And 
 Paulsen is not without some perception of this 
 fact; for, after speaking of various dogmas and 
 opinions often asserted to be of the essence of 
 Christianity, he can say, "But if I am allowed 
 to say what I mean and to believe what I can un- 
 derstand and conceive, then, unmindful of the 
 ridicule of the scoffer and the hatred of the 
 guardian of literalism, I may, even in our days, 
 confess to a belief in God who has revealed 
 himself in Jesus. The life and death of Jesus 
 make plain to me the meaning of life, the mean- 
 ing of all things in general; but that which 
 enables me to live and shows me the import of 
 life I call God and the manifestation of God. 
 The most upright, truthful, and liberal-minded 
 man may subscribe to all that, to-day, as openly 
 as ever before." 1 
 
 Let the thinker and seeker in religion, then, 
 simply take account of the common restriction 
 of philosophy, as it has already taken account 
 of science's self-restriction. These restrictions 
 do not hold for the spiritual life, and do not 
 and cannot bind it in its conclusions. The 
 
 Paulsen: Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 250-251.
 
 88 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 spiritual can and must regard all data, and 
 ask the final questions. 
 
 It may not be in vain, in concluding the dis- 
 cussion upon the difference of the religious 
 problem and knowledge from the scientific and 
 philosophical, to summarize briefly the relations 
 of science and philosophy to theology, as I con- 
 ceive them. 
 
 Both philosophy and theology raise ultimate 
 questions, — that is, are not confined to phenom- 
 ena. Both deal with ideal interpretation, rather 
 than mechanical explanation. Philosophy is 
 the science of sciences, as using all sciences 
 (properly including that of religion) as its 
 data; but it raises questions outside the range 
 of science proper. 
 
 So theology uses especially data from the 
 science of religion, and in this sense is a science; 
 but it raises questions beyond that or any other 
 science. 
 
 A really adequate philosophy would have to 
 take account of all facts, including those of the 
 history of all religions, preeminently the great- 
 est, and must culminate in the question of God. 
 So conceived, philosophy would include the- 
 ology. 
 
 But, as commonly conceived, philosophy ex- 
 cludes all the facts of revelation, and there-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS 89 
 
 fore, to complete itself, must look to theology. 
 Theology, then, becomes the crown and cul- 
 mination of both science and philosophy — itself 
 both a science and philosophy of religion and 
 of God, who is the ultimate explanation of all. 
 
 The difference of the religious problem from 
 the aesthetic and ethical can be best seen in 
 the later study of the natural conditions of the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 In the consideration of the removable causes of 
 the seeming unreality of the spiritual life, we 
 turn now to the discussion of the unreality 
 which is due to mistaking the nature of the 
 spiritual life itself.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN 
 
 From these inherited difficulties, which af- 
 fect both religious thinking and living, we 
 turn to another class of misconceptions particu- 
 larly affecting concrete religious living, and 
 which arise from mistaking the nature of the 
 spiritual life itself, as a life of strain, or a life 
 of imitation or repetition of others' experiences, 
 or a life of magical inheritance, or, finally, a 
 life of rules laid on from without. These mis- 
 conceptions follow plainly from ignoring the 
 great fundamental psychical conditions already 
 reviewed; but they influence so powerfully the 
 spiritual life, and end so inevitably in a sense 
 of its unreality, that they deserve to be thus 
 brought together, and definitely set aside. 
 
 And, first, the spiritual life is not a life of 
 
 strain, either in the sense of putting pressure 
 
 upon the mind to hold certain beliefs, or in the 
 
 sense of keeping up a certain continuous stress 
 
 of attention. It is a real struggle, a continuing 
 
 conflict, a life of steady facing of duty; but 
 
 still it should not be, in any hysterical sense, a 
 
 life of strain. 
 
 90
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN 9 1 
 
 This means, in the first place, that the man 
 who wishes to have the spiritual life a reality 
 to him, will not bring any pressure upon his 
 mind to hold certain beliefs. He will rather 
 see clearly that his sole responsibility is simply 
 to put himself face to face with the great reali- 
 ties, and to make an honest response to them. 
 He is honestly to give them their opportunity 
 with him, through earnest attention to the truth; 
 but that is all ; he can make no great convictions 
 to order. It should need no argument to cause 
 us to admit, with Dr. Bushnell, that to put 
 pressure on the mind, for whatever end, is, to 
 begin with, dishonest; and we cannot ration- 
 ally hope that dishonesty will help to the sense 
 of the reality of a spiritual life, that must be 
 from the bottom ethical. Dishonesty, in any 
 form, is itself hollow and false; it is impossible 
 that it should give finally any genuine reality. 
 
 Moreover, for this very reason, even when 
 through mere effort of the will a temporary 
 sense of reality is given, a reaction is certain 
 to follow, that leaves the spiritual life less as- 
 sured than at first. In a word, in every such 
 putting of pressure upon the mind to believe 
 certain things, there is always some latent sense 
 of pretense and unreality, that can never give 
 a solid foundation for spiritual living. The
 
 92 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 spiritual life calls for no such straining to be- 
 lieve, and only suffers by it. 
 
 The general Protestant procedure of requir- 
 ing, as the initial step in the religious life, ac- 
 ceptance of a whole system of doctrines, has been 
 misleading, and has tended distinctly to the 
 deadening of the spiritual life. Some creed, 
 doubtless, is implied in all true living; but the 
 beliefs that can free us and give us strength 
 and courage are not the product of simple reso- 
 lution, but those that grow out of our own 
 deepest experience, those that life constantly 
 verifies and justifies. For the very health of the 
 spiritual life itself, therefore, there is to be no 
 straining to believe in certain doctrines, or to 
 accept certain miracles, no trying to believe 
 anything. There is to be rather only that alert 
 and open-minded spirit, that believes what one 
 must in view of honest attention to the facts. 
 It is not yours to make free the truth; rather 
 "the truth shall make you free." 
 
 Nor, in the second place, does the spiritual 
 life call for the keeping up of a certain stress 
 of feeling, or of attention. There is need of 
 clear discrimination at this point. The spiritual 
 life does look, of course, to a persistent, dom- 
 inant purpose of righteousness, a real surrender 
 to the will of God; but this does not and can-
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN 93 
 
 not mean the unchanged continuance of some 
 particular psychological state, the constant keep- 
 ing of some particular thought or object fixed 
 in the attention, or the steady maintenance of 
 some special state of feeling. The attempt to 
 do everything always with God in mind may 
 be taken as an illustration. 
 
 This kind of strained and false substitute for 
 a broad, natural, rational, open-minded spiritual 
 life seems to be widely prevalent just now, not 
 only among very earnest and conscientious people 
 within ordinary Christian lines, but particularly 
 among all sorts of dealers in so-called "mental 
 science." Now, it cannot be denied that a 
 hearty conviction of the possibility of self-con- 
 trol was greatly needed by very many people, 
 who had been practically letting themselves 
 go, and consequently had been making no honest, 
 earnest fight for character, and for some real 
 steadiness of life. Perhaps most men need to 
 know and to fulfil the conditions of self-control 
 to a much greater degree than they do — to 
 come to see that character and peace of mind 
 and even health of body are much more sub- 
 ject to their control than they had thought. 
 And, in this multitudinous discussion of our 
 time, some real psychological conditions have, 
 no doubt, been pointed out, and some legiti-
 
 94 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 mate help given to many, in which all may 
 rejoice. 
 
 But it is to be feared that along with this 
 legitimate help that is scientifically grounded, 
 there has been a much larger amount of mere 
 faddism, that has prescribed some fixed mental 
 state — sometimes stated in very religious terms, 
 and sometimes not — as the one effectual panacea 
 for all ills. So far as this is true — and it is 
 quite too true — this means that multitudes are 
 put into an abnormal attitude of mental strain, 
 that is reflected even in the cast of their coun- 
 tenances, and particularly in their eyes, which 
 have something in them quite akin to the 
 hunted look of the insane. Whatever achieve- 
 ments may for the time lie back of this attitude 
 of strain, you are not able to escape the convic- 
 tion that there is here something, in truth, not 
 wholly normal, not quite wholesome, something 
 allied to the hysterical, that inevitably suggests 
 that the true solution has not yet been found. 
 
 That this should be the impression is quite 
 natural, for this whole conception of the spiritual 
 life as a life of strain, in the first place, requires 
 a psychological impossibility. Neither in body 
 nor in mind are we fitted to maintain a fixed 
 state of feeling or a fixed attitude of attention. 
 The persistent attempt, therefore, is likely to
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN 95 
 
 result in a speedy and pretty complete nervous 
 breakdown — cases by no means uncommon — or 
 to bring about something very like the "insistent 
 ideas" of the insane. And in either case, where 
 a radical conscientiousness has pervaded the at- 
 tempt, when the mood has once passed, it is 
 likely to end in a still more baffled sense of un- 
 reality. It is the least conscientious here, who 
 suffer least. 
 
 But, probably, most of those whose theory 
 of the religious life involves a life of strain, the 
 psychological impossibility of their theory will 
 not deter. They cannot allow themselves to be 
 so daunted. But it may weigh with them to 
 consider that such a conception of religion re- 
 duces it to a thoroughly man-made affair. No 
 doubt, in most cases, this would seem to them 
 the very antithesis of their intention. But it 
 remains true that, however religious the phrase- 
 ology in which the view is set forth, any theory 
 of the religious life that calls for this sort of 
 psychological tension really leaves God quite out 
 of account. For if God is real at all, and our 
 relation to him is a reality, the conviction of 
 that reality is not to be simply our product, a 
 thing up to which we must strain. There are, 
 no doubt, conditions upon our part to be ful- 
 filled normally and rationally. But the sense
 
 96 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 of reality of the spiritual world which we are 
 seeking cannot come simply as forced by us, 
 but only as the result of interaction with the 
 great realities themselves. It is wholly true, 
 as has been already insisted upon, that there can 
 be no mere passivity on our part; we do actively 
 cooperate. But it is also true that the activity 
 is never merely, nor even chiefly, ours, if we 
 are dealing with reality here at all. Let us 
 never forget that, in Herrmann's words, "the 
 certainty of God is not the product of human 
 strivings." That must be primarily God's work, 
 done upon certain plain conditions plainly al- 
 lowed by our normal life. One cannot wisely 
 attempt, either for himself or for others, to do 
 God's work. 
 
 One may appeal here confidently to the life 
 of Jesus. Is there the slightest suggestion in 
 his spirit, that his clear sense of the reality of 
 the spiritual world is in any way hysterical? 
 On the contrary, is not the whole temper of 
 his life that of a confident trust, as of one walk- 
 ing in the very presence of God, to whom it 
 were absurd to suggest that the sense of the 
 reality of God depended upon some strained 
 attitude of attention or painfully maintained 
 mood of feeling, and so might vanish at any 
 moment when the tension became too great?
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF STRAIN 97 
 
 The whole meaning of his life seems rather to 
 say, "God can be counted upon. The life in re- 
 lation to him is no mere imaginary one, which 
 you are forced to make; it is a real life in 
 which he is constantly at work. I am come to 
 give you the most positive assurance upon that 
 point."
 
 XV 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF 
 IMITATION 
 
 It is equally important for us to remember, 
 if the spiritual life is to be real to us, that it 
 is not a life of the imitation or repetition of 
 the experience of others. That we need others 
 here, as elsewhere, is clear. That we come into 
 most that is of value to us, through introduc- 
 tion by some other, is also plain. Nevertheless, 
 if the spiritual world is to have the fullest 
 reality for us — the reality it ought to have for 
 a mind awakened to mature self-consciousness — 
 we must have some experience in the spiritual 
 that is genuinely our own, not a hollow echo 
 of something we have heard from others. 
 
 In a Christian community, where the lan- 
 guage of religious experience is familiar, per- 
 haps there is no greater danger besetting the 
 spiritual life than this danger of merely imitating 
 the experience of others. To face the reality 
 of a genuine religious experience, heartily to 
 fulfil the conditions upon which alone it may 
 become genuinely ours, means much that is 
 
 uncomfortable — real willingness to see the facts 
 
 98
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF IMITATION 99 
 
 of our own life and need as they are, the break- 
 ing down of our pride, the giving up of our 
 selfishness and self-indulgence, the putting of 
 ourselves really and persistently in the presence 
 of God's supreme revelation in Christ. This is 
 not easy. Men naturally shrink from it. It is 
 far easier to satisfy oneself with a very shallow 
 dealing with the problem of our life, and then 
 to catch up the traditional language of religious 
 experience from others. 
 
 This temptation, in the individual himself, 
 is increased by the virtual demand that has been 
 very generally made by the Church, that there 
 must be a full expression of the meaning of the 
 Christian life at the very beginning, or even 
 as a condition of entering upon it at all. But 
 how is it possible that this should honestly be? 
 It seems very like requiring a student to pass 
 upon a course as a condition of entering it. A 
 confession of Christ that means anything must 
 be one's own, the honest expression of what 
 one has already found Christ to be. A confes- 
 sion of faith requires that the faith — the living 
 experience — should be there, before we confess 
 it. But how can a man confess the divinity of 
 Christ, for example, as a condition of becoming 
 a disciple of Christ? The only confession of 
 Christ's divinity, that can be even approxi-
 
 IOO THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 mately adequate, can come only in his disciple- 
 ship, in one's deepening experience of what 
 Christ has come to be to him. Plainly, Christ's 
 own little circle of the twelve came only gradu- 
 ally, under association with him, to any ade- 
 quate confession of him. We have no right to 
 require more. The point of insistence is, not 
 that we should accept the creed of the apostles 
 in order to come into their experience, but 
 rather that we should seek an experience like 
 the apostles, that may fruit in a like confession, 
 which can then be genuinely our own. 
 
 The very familiarity with the language of 
 religious experience, then, the instinctive temp- 
 tation to catch up the expression of life 
 rather than to insist upon the life itself, and 
 the demand of the Church for an expression 
 of Christian life quite beyond the possibility 
 of experience, — all combine to produce the far 
 too general habit of expressing more than has 
 been personally known and experienced, and 
 hence to give the sense of unreality. This is, 
 to my mind, the most serious danger, for ex- 
 ample, of the Christian Endeavor pledge, par- 
 ticularly with those quite young, where the 
 matter is not carefully guarded. They are 
 pledged to speak, whether they have really some- 
 thing of their own to say or not. They naturally
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF IMITATION IOI 
 
 catch up the language of Christian experience, 
 which they have heard from others. Gradually, 
 if they are thoughtful and conscientious and 
 have not been making unusual growth, they 
 come to feel that their language is no true 
 reflection of their own experience. They feel 
 its hollowness; a reaction sets in; and a most 
 depressing sense of the unreality of the spiritual 
 life naturally succeeds. We must not shut our 
 eyes to such dangers. In any case, wherever the 
 religious life becomes, to any large degree, a 
 life of mere imitation or repetition of others' 
 experiences, and the person is at all thoughtful, 
 there the spiritual life is certain to come to 
 seem thoroughly unreal.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF 
 MAGICAL INHERITANCE 
 
 A third misconception of the nature of the 
 spiritual life, which is certain finally to give 
 the sense of its unreality, is that it is a life of 
 magical inheritance of results. 
 
 Our own time is particularly liable to have 
 this feeling. So far as the scientific spirit really 
 affects men, they are certain to give increasing 
 emphasis to the necessity, in all spheres, of the 
 recognition of laws, of conditions, and of time. 
 If results in the spiritual life, therefore, are 
 conceived as coming without clear conditions, 
 in a kind of merely magical way, that life 
 unavoidably takes on for such minds a decided 
 aspect of unreality. It has no intelligible con- 
 nection with the rest of their life, and there 
 seems to be nothing they can do with it. This 
 makes it imperative that those, who would make 
 the spiritual world a reality for the most wide- 
 awake minds of our time, must themselves see 
 the spiritual life as a genuine sphere of laws, 
 
 with its own clear conditions that can be known 
 
 1 02
 
 NOT A LIFE OF MAGICAL INHERITANCE IO3 
 
 and stated and fulfilled, with a certainty of re- 
 sults following. It is not the frills of scientific 
 illustration that the interpreter of the spiritual 
 life needs to-day, but the genuine scientific 
 spirit in the study of his own greatest sphere. 
 Drummond's greatest contribution to the 
 thought of his time lay just here. And there 
 is still great opportunity for a thoughtful carry- 
 ing on of his central contention of law in the 
 spiritual world. 
 
 And even for those who are not consciously, 
 and perhaps not at all, affected by the scientific 
 temper of our times, there is a similar baffling 
 sense of the unreality of spiritual things, if the 
 magical conception largely prevails. Even such 
 must have the sense that, in their religious life, 
 they are simply feeling around in the dark. 
 What may result, they can have no idea; much 
 disappointment is certain; they can only hope 
 that here and there something of what they 
 seek may be stumbled upon. And when even 
 such minds turn to the ordinary avocations of 
 their lives, and note how confidently they may 
 count upon results following upon conditions, 
 they can hardly fail to contrast the sharp out- 
 lines of this real life of work with the dimness 
 of the spiritual. 
 
 And none of us may forget without distinct
 
 104 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 and large loss that the spiritual life, like all 
 life, is a growth, always involving laws, con- 
 ditions, and time. To forget or ignore this, is 
 to make it certain that the spiritual life will 
 become unreal to us. That is simply to say that 
 we are bound to take account of the common 
 psychological conditions of our life, already 
 considered, and particularly to note the special 
 laws of the spiritual life itself, to be considered 
 later. These laws, in a word, are the laws of a 
 deepening personal relation, which every day's 
 true living makes better known.
 
 XVII 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF 
 EXTERNAL RULES 
 
 But if we are not to make the mistake of 
 thinking of the spiritual life as a life of magical 
 inheritance, but rather as clearly involving laws 
 and conditions, neither are we to make the 
 opposite mistake of conceiving the spiritual life 
 as a life of rules laid on from without. Counsels 
 to be heeded there certainly are in the religious 
 life, and valuable habits to be formed. Never- 
 theless, the heart of the life with God can never 
 be contained in any prescribed routine of rules 
 and regulations. We are called to a real life, 
 with its own spontaneous growth and varied 
 expressions, and we are called to liberty. Christ 
 seems to have been concerned, not to give rules 
 for holy living or for holy dying, but to trust 
 all to the dynamic of the single motive of love 
 to his person. His disciples are simply asked 
 to be in truth disciples — doing only what loving 
 loyalty to him would suggest. In the liberty 
 of a loyal love, freely won and freely given, 
 they are to live out their lives. No rules have 
 
 any binding authority which this love does not 
 
 105
 
 106 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 inspire ; and they have even secondary authority, 
 only so long as they are valuable means for that 
 love. 
 
 The very essence of the spiritual life is a 
 personal relation with God. No more than 
 any other personal relation can this be wisely 
 made a mere matter of rules. And just as any 
 other personal relation, this relation to God in 
 the religious life will lose its spontaneity, its 
 joy, its growth, and its reality, when external 
 rules are made to determine all. Even in the 
 development of a personal relation, there are 
 clear laws, as we must later notice; but they 
 are the laws of a spontaneously developing life, 
 not external rules laid on from without. 
 
 The spiritual life always suffers, and loses in 
 reality, from an extreme emphasis upon the 
 mechanical rules of living, however good the 
 rules in themselves may be. In what is per- 
 haps his most important single address — "The 
 Changed Life" — Drummond states incisively 
 the failure of the method of external rules: 
 "All these methods that have been named — 
 the self-sufficient method, the self-crucifixion 
 method, the mimetic method, and the diary 
 method — are perfectly human, perfectly natural, 
 perfectly ignorant, and, as they stand, perfectly 
 inadequate.' Their harm is that they distract
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE NOT A LIFE OF EXTERNAL RULES IO7 
 
 attention from the true working method, and 
 secure a fair result at the expense of the perfect 
 one." "The solution of the problem of sanctifi- 
 cation is compressed into a sentence — Reflect 
 the character of Christ and you will become like 
 Christ." 
 
 Much religious literature, on account of its 
 emphasis on rules of living, has had, thus, par- 
 ticularly in the case of the especially conscien- 
 tious, a positively deadening effect. So much 
 is made of the machinery, that the man ends 
 with the feeling that it is all machinery, and he 
 is simply going through the motions of life, in- 
 stead of having the real life itself. This is 
 particularly true, where the rules enjoin much 
 introspection, under which necessarily the very 
 form of the inner life changes. Thoughtful 
 and conscientious religious workers, who have 
 made a great deal of the organization and ma- 
 chinery of their work, are not unlikely to get 
 a similar paralyzing sense that the results are 
 all machine-made. For the sake of the reality 
 of the spiritual life, then, let us not come into 
 bondage to external rules. They are, at the very 
 best, means only, absolutely subordinate in sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 If now, we definitely set aside in thought and 
 act these four mistaken conceptions of the
 
 108 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 nature of the spiritual life, as a life of strain, 
 of imitation, of magical inheritance, and of 
 rules from without, we shall have done some- 
 thing to insure its greater reality: and as over 
 against these false conceptions, we shall set the 
 thought of a life, normal, real, effective, free. 
 These mistaken conceptions of the nature of 
 the spiritual life themselves suggest that per- 
 haps the greatest source of the seeming unreality 
 of the spiritual life is the simple failure to fulfil 
 its natural conditions.
 
 FAILURE TO FULFIL CONDITIONS
 
 XVIII 
 THE WAY INTO THE GREAT VALUES 
 
 Plainly, if the spiritual life is a true sphere 
 of normal living at all, it must have its natural 
 conditions, and failure to fulfil these conditions 
 must result in the spiritual life becoming unreal. 
 The very fact that the religious life is so inti- 
 mately concerned with aesthetic and ethical data 
 makes it certain that the natural conditions of 
 the spiritual life will have a marked similiarity 
 to the conditions of recognizing and entering 
 into any sphere of value. And the fact that the 
 religious life is essentially a personal relation 
 with God, and that Christ's great commandment 
 is love for God and for men, makes it equally 
 certain that the conditions of the spiritual life 
 are essentially the same as the conditions of a 
 deepening personal relation. 
 
 Here, too, we may well note how far the 
 conditions of the spiritual life are similar to 
 the conditions of aesthetic appreciation, and to 
 the conditions of a deepening personal relation, 
 and how far the conditions of the spiritual life 
 are different. 
 
 If one asks first, then, how it is that we 
 
 in
 
 1 12 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 generally come into the great spheres of value, — 
 of music, and literature, and art, and friend- 
 ship, he must recognize that, in all alike, we are 
 commonly introduced through the witness of 
 some other, who has already found his way into 
 an appreciation of the value. One who should 
 insist on discovering all values at first hand 
 would inevitably doom himself to a very nar- 
 row life. We naturally count, therefore, in all 
 these spheres of value, on our inheritance from 
 the past, and upon the certainty that others may 
 have already found what we would gladly find. 
 If, then, in our spiritual life we are ignoring 
 entirely the witness of others, if we are not at 
 all putting ourselves where we would naturally 
 get that witness, we need not wonder that we 
 are not making the progress that would other- 
 wise be possible. 
 
 In like manner, to come into any one of these 
 great values requires on our own part absolute 
 honesty, coupled with a genuine modesty. On 
 the one hand, there is to be no pretense of 
 having reached a degree of appreciation that is 
 not yet ours. This can only hinder our growth 
 into any value. We shall not, therefore, simply 
 catch up the opinions of others as our own, but 
 speak honestly only of that which we have our- 
 selves attained. But on the other hand, with
 
 THE WAY INTO THE GREAT VALUES II3 
 
 an equally real modesty, we shall not claim 
 that we ourselves have seen all that there is in 
 any of these spheres of value. Doubtless there 
 is much more than we have yet appreciated, 
 and we shall not, therefore, make what we have 
 already seen the measure of all reality. We 
 may modestly hope that much that others have 
 found, that we cannot honestly claim yet to 
 have discovered for ourselves, may still come 
 to us if we continue to give the great values 
 honest opportunity with us. Here, too, that is, 
 our spiritual life may have suffered through our 
 lack of this absolute honesty, on the one hand, 
 or of this genuine modesty on the other. 
 
 These very qualities themselves suggest that 
 one great method of coming into a sense of 
 reality and achievement in any of the great 
 spheres of value is, that we should simply stay 
 persistently in the presence of the best in the 
 sphere in which we seek attainment, in honest 
 response to that best. There need be no pretense. 
 We are called simply to give attention, time, 
 and thought; the great realities and values will, 
 thus, finally verify themselves. But where one 
 has given a great value no opportunity to make 
 its own legitimate impression, he cannot wonder 
 that the sense of its reality and significance is 
 lacking. We have no right to expect conviction
 
 I 14 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 and sense of value where we have not given the 
 best an honest chance at us. Probably the 
 greatest reason for failure in the sense of reality 
 and achievement in the spiritual life, as in the 
 case of all other values, lies just here. And it is 
 thus, above all, that "the inner light fails." 
 
 In trying, now, to transfer to the religious 
 life the conditions of entering upon any sphere 
 of value, how far must differences be recog- 
 nized? 
 
 We have seen that even in the case of aesthetic 
 appreciation, conditions essentially ethical, like 
 honesty and modesty, could not be ignored. 
 And yet, doubtless, in aesthetic appreciation, the 
 ethical is not so intrinsically involved as in the 
 religious life; and this is the particular point 
 at which the analogy needs careful guarding. 
 
 The religious life can never be one of mere 
 passive appreciation, or aesthetic admiration; 
 it requires through and through the active 
 ethical will. The revelation of God in Christ 
 is preeminently the revelation of an ethical will 
 — of character; and such a revelation makes 
 demands upon one; it is a constant appeal to 
 conscience, a persistent motive to willing. It 
 inevitably asks, What are you going to do with 
 that will and life? "Will we willingly sur- 
 render to the spiritual power whose influence
 
 THE WAY INTO THE GREAT VALUES 115 
 
 we thus perceive to be all around us? Or will 
 we treat this incomparable thing as an every- 
 day matter and in laziness forget it and turn 
 our backs on it? This, at last, is the real test- 
 question of faith. And it passes over immedi- 
 ately into the other question, whether or not 
 we are willing to be sincere." 1 The very ex- 
 istence of harmonious personal relation to God 
 requires such an ethical will in the worshipper. 
 The character of God, then, can never be a 
 mere subject of passive aesthetic admiration; it 
 demands a moral surrender to the will of God, 
 and strenuous endeavor to embody that will in 
 life. 
 
 That persistent staying in the presence of 
 the worthful, therefore, which aesthetic appre- 
 ciation requires as its chief condition, in the 
 case of the religious life must mean more than 
 a passive waiting. The religious life must 
 recognize, indeed, as we have seen, that the re- 
 sulting conviction is not simply its own product; 
 but still there must be active, hearty, loyal co- 
 operation with the divine will, a prompt follow- 
 ing of all light revealed. Nothing less than 
 this is really giving God and the spiritual world 
 a chance at us. The religious life is so inevi- 
 
 'Herrmann: Communion with God, p. 83.
 
 1 1 6 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 tably and indubitably knit up with the ethical, 1 
 that there can be no doubt as to this difference 
 of the conditions of the spiritual life from those 
 of aesthetic appreciation. 
 
 But, with this point guarded, the analogy 
 of the growing appreciation of any sphere of 
 value has continual suggestion for the spiritual 
 life, that may save it from much perplexity and 
 from serious blunders, and may bring it rather 
 to some clear insight into its own laws. 
 
 1 See King: Theology and the Social Consciousness, Chap. VII.
 
 XIX 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF A DEEPENING 
 PERSONAL RELATION 
 
 It is perhaps still more obvious that, if the 
 relation to God is a personal relation at all, 
 the laws of the spiritual life must be primarily 
 the laws of a deepening personal relation; and 
 that, wherever any soul is ignoring such a deep- 
 ening relation with God and with men, he 
 is making it inevitable that the spiritual life 
 should seem to him unreal, and that he should 
 have no sense of growth and achievement in it. 
 
 To state, then, simply, the conditions upon 
 which a personal relation with God and with 
 men would deepen, would be to state the funda- 
 mental laws of the spiritual life. If one is 
 ignoring these laws, he need not wonder that 
 the spiritual world is for him obscure. 
 
 It is not difficult to summarize, at least sug- 
 gestively, what these conditions of any deepen- 
 ing personal relation must be; for it is plain 
 that every friendship worthy the name must 
 build upon mutual self-revelation and answer- 
 ing trust, mutual self-giving, and some deep 
 
 community of interests. If we are not laying 
 
 117
 
 1 1 8 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 this foundation in our relations to God and to 
 men, we are naturally making it impossible that 
 there should be reality and depth in the rela- 
 tions involved in our religious life. One needs, 
 this means, to put himself honestly face to face 
 with God's great self-revelation in Christ, to give 
 himself in real ethical activity in this relation, 
 and to seek the great interests of the kingdom 
 of God that lie at God's own heart. Only so 
 is a real basis laid for steady growth into the 
 divine friendship. 
 
 And when one asks how in any personal re- 
 lation he may go forward to build upon this 
 foundation, exactly the same suggestions, that 
 may be made concerning any human relation, 
 will be found to bear directly upon growth into 
 the life with God. We must, for example, count 
 upon unconscious growth here rather than con- 
 scious arrangement. We may not expect con- 
 tinuous emotion, but must rely mainly upon 
 steady association with the life of Christ. We 
 shall see that this personal relation, like any 
 other, will grow naturally by the expression of 
 it in the various ways possible to us, and we 
 shall be sure to be genuine throughout. 
 
 That is, in a word, this whole analogy of the 
 religious life to a personal relation suggests 
 definite and deep, but yet simple, conditions
 
 CONDITIONS OF DEEPENING PERSONAL RELATION Iig 
 
 that we may know and fulfil, and, in the ful- 
 filment of them, be able to count upon results. 
 But this must mean, also, that, where these plain 
 conditions of a deepening personal relation are 
 ignored, the spiritual life cannot be real or 
 significant. 
 
 When we pass to the consideration of the 
 differences between the conditions of the relig- 
 ious life and those of any other deepening per- 
 sonal relation, we are led here, too, to see that, 
 just because this conception of the religious life 
 as a personal relation has such deep significance, 
 it is the more necessary that we should not 
 unwarrantably transfer to the relation to God 
 those limitations which, because of our very 
 finiteness, hold in the relation of finite to finite. 
 We are, then, carefully to guard the conception, 
 making it clear to ourselves that we are seeking 
 a relation to a God who has concretely and objec- 
 tively revealed himself in Christ; and that we 
 are not, therefore, to enter upon the experiment 
 of simply building up a subjective experience 
 of our own. 
 
 Not less are we to remember that we cannot, 
 of course, expect a sensuous relation to God 
 like that which accompanies, rather than con- 
 stitutes, our true spiritual relation to other per- 
 sons. Nor should this analogy mean that there
 
 120 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 is to be any failure in the deepest reverence; in 
 claiming this personal relation to God we do 
 not, and we may not, put ourselves upon familiar 
 equality with God. And we shall especially 
 remember that the relation to God, just because 
 of what God is, must have a universality all its 
 own. Since God is the God of perfect right- 
 eousness and life, and is himself the source of 
 the moral constitution of men, the relation 
 to him cannot be conceived sentimentally, but 
 naturally carries with it our relations to all other 
 personalities. The relation to God is that one 
 relation which, itself set right, sets all other 
 relations right. And there can be, therefore, 
 no such thing as a growing religious life that 
 does not mean at the same time a life of increas- 
 ing faithfulness in all our human relations.
 
 THE INEVITABLE LIMITATIONS AND FLUC- 
 TUATIONS OF OUR NATURES
 
 XX 
 
 LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 
 COMMON TO ALL OUR LIFE 
 
 From the removable causes of the seeming 
 unreality of the spiritual life we turn, now, to 
 the study of the second class of causes of this 
 sense of unreality, which, while not removable, 
 are still recognizable. These unremovable causes 
 may, perhaps, be reduced to two: the inevitable 
 limitations and fluctuations of our natures, and 
 our need of training in the moral and religious 
 life. In the consideration of both, we may again 
 profitably observe how far the spiritual life is 
 here similar to other spheres of life, and how 
 far, different. 
 
 It need hardly be said how large is the 
 warrant for finding in our inevitable limitations 
 some of the most effective causes of the seeming 
 unreality of the spiritual world. How strong, 
 for example, in all generations has been the ap- 
 peal to the thoughtful of Plato's detailed figure 
 of the cave! And it is interesting to remember 
 that the most influential of all English philo- 
 sophical writings, Locke's great Essay Concern- 
 ing Human Understanding, had its rise from 
 
 123
 
 124 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 a like conviction of the necessary influence of 
 our natural limitations. Locke's own account 
 of the matter in his "epistle to the reader" is 
 worth recalling: "Were it fit to trouble thee 
 with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee 
 that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, 
 and discoursing on a subject very remote from 
 this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by 
 the difficulties that arose on every side. After 
 we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without com- 
 ing any nearer a resolution of those doubts 
 which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts 
 that we took a wrong course; and that before 
 we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, 
 it was necessary to examine our own abilities, 
 and see what objects our understandings were 
 or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed 
 to the company, who all readily assented; and 
 thereupon it was agreed that this should be our 
 first inquiry. Some hasty, undigested thoughts, 
 on a subject I had never before considered, 
 which I set down against our next meeting, 
 gave the first entrance into this discourse." 
 It is particularly instructive to find, according 
 to the later testimony of one of this memorable 
 company of "five or six friends," that the ques- 
 tions under discussion, which drove Locke to 
 this thought of the inevitable limitations of our
 
 LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 125 
 
 understanding, were the "principles of morality 
 and revealed religion." 1 
 
 Any thoughtful consideration of spiritual 
 themes, indeed, must soon bring one to share 
 with Plato and Locke the further conviction 
 that, in striving to reach any rational faith in 
 a world above the senses, we must take full 
 account of those difficulties that are to be ex- 
 pected from the very finiteness of our faculties. 
 These limitations we cannot escape, but clearly 
 to recognize them is itself at least a partial 
 deliverance from their domination. 
 
 Let us ask, first, how far these inevitable 
 limitations and fluctuations of our natures pro- 
 duce effects in the spiritual life similar to those 
 in other spheres of living. 
 
 Our finiteness in itself must in much limit 
 our insight into the spiritual world. 
 
 In the first place, in our very nature, we are 
 discursive beings — in thinking and in living, 
 and in all spheres. Nowhere do we have im- 
 mediate intuitive insight into wholes. The 
 full meaning of every experience is brought 
 to us only bit by bit. And even where in rare 
 moments we seem to get all in an instant, we 
 commonly are later able to see that this moment 
 of vision either had been long preparing, or 
 
 1 Fraser's Locke, pp. xvi-xvii.
 
 126 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 failed to give us its complete significance until 
 in discursive thinking we had wrought it into 
 the rest of our life. 
 
 This finiteness means, too, that our view of 
 the world is necessarily but partial. We do 
 not stand with God at the center of things, to 
 be able to discern the full complex purpose 
 with which each thing is called into being. At 
 best, it must be a very small part of the whole 
 detailed plan, which even with the most careful 
 study we can come to see. Doubtless, in much, 
 as Plato suggested, we are dealing with shadows 
 as though they were the realities. Everywhere 
 this limitation of view confronts us. Not in 
 the most favorable cases are we able to carry 
 our view completely through with certainty. 
 Our ultimate conclusions can have, at best, 
 only practical certainty, a reasonable prob- 
 ability. 
 
 It is a distinct help to bear these necessary 
 limitations in mind; for it makes clear the kind 
 and degree of evidence, which alone we have 
 a right to expect anywhere. 
 
 In close connection with these inevitable re- 
 sults of our finiteness as such, there is also to 
 be considered the unavoidable influence of 
 bodily and psychical conditions. We are con- 
 cerned with these here, only so far as they are
 
 LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 1 27 
 
 beyond our control. So far as they are alter- 
 able, they have been already dealt with. The 
 conditions being present, we cannot directly 
 change their natural effects. This is a part of 
 our limitation. But, if we can clearly recog- 
 nize the source of the effects, our final infer- 
 ences from these effects may be essentially 
 altered. 
 
 In no part of our life can we safely ignore 
 the unavoidable effects of bodily conditions. 
 With all possible care of bodily conditions we 
 cannot preserve an* unvarying state of body; 
 and changing bodily conditions tinge inevitably 
 our mental states. The careful study of the 
 effects of fatigue, even in sense-perception, gives 
 many an illustration. So, too, the psychical con- 
 ditions are constantly changing. And with 
 this constant change, however produced, we 
 have always to reckon. That nothing in life 
 should seem always the same to us, is the inevit- 
 able result. We are to expect, therefore, from 
 both physical and psychical conditions, chang- 
 ing vital feelings, alternation of moods, altering 
 power of attention, and some consequent ebb 
 and flow in conviction and in the sense of 
 reality. We need not regard this as wholly a 
 weakness; it is in part, at least, an evidence of 
 the breadth of our natures. We are made on
 
 128 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 so broad and unified a plan, that we cannot come 
 to our best in anything, without taking all sides 
 of our nature into account. But, in any case, 
 we have this fluctuation in the sense of reality 
 to face. 
 
 Inevitably, thus, our vital feelings will change, 
 and with them our general sense of the reality of 
 things; for feeling is perhaps the strongest 
 element in the living sense of reality. 
 
 Even independently of the more strictly 
 physical vital feelings, in our very nature as 
 psychical beings, we are creatures of moods with 
 their inevitable flux, and this cannot be without 
 its influence upon our sense of reality. So long 
 as feeling enters necessarily so much into our 
 sense of the reality of all things, the things of 
 the spirit especially, which do not force them- 
 selves upon us, will vary for us in their clear- 
 ness and reality. This cannot be wholly avoided. 
 The spiritual life simply shares here with all 
 life the influence of the changing moods. 
 
 Moreover, so far as change in nervous energy 
 affects power of attention, it will affect our pro- 
 portionate emphasis upon things, and so again 
 our sense of their reality. 
 
 But, in all this, let it be repeated, we have 
 nothing that is peculiar to the religious life. 
 It holds for all spheres of value, and, indeed, in
 
 LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 129 
 
 every sphere of life where feeling enters at all. 
 This really implies that, wherever we are not 
 living a merely fragmentary life, this ebb and 
 flow of feeling and hence of the sense of reality 
 must be reckoned with; it is involved in our 
 very natures as finite and feeling beings. Let 
 us not suppose, then, that we confront here a 
 difficulty in any way peculiar to the religious 
 life. Are there no hours when the life of mere 
 worldly culture, too, seems flat, stale, and un- 
 profitable, when a sense of unreality comes as 
 to the best in literature, in music, and in art, 
 and one does not feel adequate to them? Is 
 it not rather true that there is needed a constant 
 struggle to maintain the highest standards in 
 these spheres as truly as in the religious, whether 
 in an individual, in a community, or in an in- 
 stitution of learning? 
 
 Moreover, the life of the rejection of all 
 ideals, and the life of unbelief, have their fluc- 
 tuations, too. It is not merely the conviction 
 of the highest which varies. The lower life, 
 also, has its inevitable misgivings. We are 
 creatures of two worlds, an animal and a 
 spiritual; and both make themselves felt in 
 some degree. Unbelief has its questionings as 
 well as belief. The situation is not, as seems 
 so often tacitly assumed, that, if we once gave 
 
 9
 
 130 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 up our ideals, we should then rest satisfied, 
 quite without qualm, or misgiving, or question- 
 ing. The truth is rather that, being citizens 
 of two worlds, we cannot wholly escape the in- 
 fluence of either. We may not choose whether 
 our life shall vary or not. We can only choose 
 the dominant moods. If we turn from the life 
 of faith, we have at most, as Browning makes 
 Bishop Blougram point out, substituted 
 
 "A life of doubt diversified by faith 
 For one of faith diversified by doubt. 
 We called the chess-board white; we call it black."
 
 XXI 
 
 THE SPECIAL BEARING OF LIMITATIONS AND 
 FLUCTUATIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 Thus far, in our consideration of the inevit- 
 able limitations of our natures, we have been 
 considering effects which are not peculiar to the 
 spiritual life, but which are essentially the same 
 for all spheres of life. We turn now to ask in 
 what way the religious life is peculiarly affected 
 by these limitations, how far the effects in the 
 spiritual life differ from those in other spheres. 
 
 The difference, let it be said at once, certainly 
 does not consist, as has been strangely enough 
 sometimes suggested, in the fact that the re- 
 ligious life does not have its sense-manifesta- 
 tions in the world. Plutarch's famous passage 
 concerning the omnipresence of temples and 
 altars would seem to indicate that these mani- 
 festations have been plain enough. The reality 
 of the religious life certainly cannot be called 
 in question, on the ground that it has not in the 
 most varied and multiplied ways bodied itself 
 forth to the senses. 
 
 Nevertheless, our inevitable limitations and 
 
 fluctuations undoubtedly do make themselves 
 
 131
 
 132 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 felt with peculiar power in our religious think- 
 ing and living. That this is natural appears at 
 once, when one considers the greatness of the 
 achievement sought to be made in the religious 
 life; for the greater the task, the less easy must 
 be its accomplishment. 
 
 For, in the first place, we have here most 
 clearly the finite dealing with the infinite prob- 
 lem. If even in all our finite inquiries we are 
 burdened with the sense of our limitations, 
 much more here, where we are avowedly face 
 to face with the question of the Infinite Life, 
 must we feel the feebleness of our powers. And 
 if, even in the inquiry concerning the finite, our 
 conclusions must fall short of demonstrative 
 completeness, plainly must we be content in the 
 inquiry after the Infinite with a reasonable faith. 
 
 And yet, even in our inquiries into the finite, 
 it should be noted, all our questions ultimately 
 seem to require a final Unity, that is more than 
 finite; and the deepest convictions of philos- 
 ophy and religion seem thus necessary to make 
 finally consistent our proximate conclusions. In 
 this respect our lesser problems appear really 
 to depend for their complete solution upon the 
 greater. 
 
 Again, our limitations may naturally affect 
 us more strongly in the religious life, because
 
 BEARING OF LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 1 33 
 
 the grounds of our great spiritual convictions 
 must lie deeper than those of less significant 
 opinions. The very fact that the reasons for 
 spiritual life and conviction do not lie on the 
 surface, but are deeply intertwined with the very 
 roots of our being and with the different sides 
 of our nature, particularly the ethical — and if 
 they have any real justification, this must be 
 true — makes these reasons for spiritual life and 
 faith all the less capable of quick and easy state- 
 ment and appreciation; and so our limitations 
 will be especially felt just here. 
 
 Moreover, just because the religious life is 
 so closely knit up with the ethical, the sense of 
 its reality is peculiarly subject to fluctuation. In 
 truth, the sense of the reality of the spiritual life 
 depends, to a degree true of no other sphere of 
 life, upon the ethical attitude. Religious con- 
 victions, therefore, are unusually sensitive to 
 one's moral changes. This is, of course, true in 
 part in other spheres of life, on account of the 
 very unity of our being, but by no means to the 
 same extent. Here, then, is a special reason 
 why fluctuation occurs in religious convictions. 
 We cannot cut this bond of connection between 
 religious conviction and moral attitude, but we 
 can change our moral attitude; and just so far 
 this cause of fluctuation belongs with the remov-
 
 134 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 able causes. The more stably right our ethical 
 spirit is, the more permanent is our religious 
 faith. I assume here, of course, the justification 
 of the ethical. 
 
 For all these reasons, the spiritual life must 
 be preeminently a life of gradual growth and 
 patient, steady endeavor. The greatest things 
 need time, patience, study, a wise use of moods, 
 and persistent earnestness. The maintenance of 
 any of our ideals demands some fighting; but 
 the true man cannot be willing, either for him- 
 self or for others, to draw away from these 
 fighting forces — fighting to maintain the highest 
 ideals and faith in them. George MacDonald's 
 rector in the "Quiet Neighborhood" says to his 
 doubting, listless friend, "You know the 'Faery 
 Queen.' Think how long the Red-Cross Knight 
 traveled with the Lady Truth — Una, you know 
 — without learning to believe in her; and how 
 much longer still without ever seeing her face. 
 For my part may God give me strength to 
 follow till I die. Only I will venture to say 
 this, that it is not by any agony of the intellect, 
 that I expect to discover her." 
 
 Browning's "Childe Roland" has a different 
 meaning, I suppose, for every mind that reads 
 it; but for me it seems always to contain a 
 marvellous allegory of the dauntless spirit that
 
 BEARING OF LIMITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS 135 
 
 may well characterize the soul in its quest for 
 spiritual truth and life. An end set and pur- 
 sued; an end pursued after enthusiasm, confi- 
 dence, hope had died; pursued after companions 
 had been defeated and had perished; pursued 
 still alone when 
 
 "just to fail as they, seemed best, 
 And all the doubt was now — should I be fit?" 
 
 yet pursued in darkness, foreboding, doubt; pur- 
 sued across that dismal ill-omened waste whose 
 first glimpse brings the shudder of utter loneli- 
 ness, and where the unending ugliness of nature 
 conspires with the temptations within to drive 
 him back; pursued in spite of the deadly horrors 
 of the way, in spite of those last terrors that 
 would cheat of the prize within his grasp, in 
 spite even of the devil-suggested doubt — Why 
 should he hope to conquer, where so many 
 worthy had failed; in spite of all, to the very 
 last, pursued! 
 
 ''Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set 
 
 And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'"
 
 XXII 
 
 THE WITNESS OF OUR CONSCIOUSLY BEST 
 
 HOURS 
 
 This close connection of the religious and the 
 ethical leads us to emphasize the important 
 principle that, when we find fluctuations in our 
 convictions concerning the reality of anything, 
 we must ask for the witness of our consciously 
 best hours, physically, intellectually, and mor- 
 ally. If religious conviction does tend to go up 
 and down with our moral attitude, and the 
 ethical has any real justification, then our re- 
 ligious convictions are just so far confirmed. 
 And, with reference to the entire man, it be- 
 hooves us to ask, When does the spiritual world 
 seem most real to us? in our best or our worst 
 moments? when we are consciously most in 
 possession of ourselves in every way, or when 
 we are consciously below our best? So Tyn- 
 dall, for example, tested the doctrine of ma- 
 terial atheism: "I have noticed," he said, 
 "during years of self-observation, that it is 
 not in hours of clearness and vigor that this 
 doctrine commends itself to my mind." 1 
 
 1 Quoted by Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, p. 74. 
 
 136
 
 WITNESS OF OUR CONSCIOUSLY BEST HOURS 137 
 
 So far, now, as we can control the conditions — 
 bodily, intellectual, and moral — of our best 
 hours, the ideal world may be truly said to exist 
 for us in the proportion in which we make it 
 to exist. And to just that extent, the fluctua- 
 tion in our sense of the reality of the spiritual 
 life may be ascribed to removable causes, already 
 considered. But so far as our sense of the 
 reality of the spiritual life is affected by limi- 
 tations inevitably involved in our finiteness, or 
 by fluctuations in our mental states due to con- 
 stitutional conditions and connections but very 
 partially subject to our control, the causes are 
 not removable, but they are recognizable. And 
 to see that the wavering sense of spiritual 
 reality is due, not to any lack of realness in the 
 spiritual world, but only to changing conditions 
 in ourselves, is to be delivered from many 
 doubts and fears, and to take a long step toward 
 a confident religious faith. When Kant found 
 that a constant feeling of depression whicb 
 attended him had its cause in the abnormal 
 narrowness of his chest, he could not throw off 
 the physical feeling, but he could keep it from 
 shadowing his life. So, we need constantly to 
 take account of our necessary finite limitations 
 and the inevitable fluctuations of our life, if we 
 are to keep our religious faith clear and strong.
 
 I38 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 The very fact, that these unremovable causes 
 of the sense of the unreality of the spiritual 
 life are to be found in our natural constitu- 
 tion, suggests that it may not be intended that 
 the spiritual life should always seem to us 
 equally real and commanding. And if we press 
 the inquiry, Why should this be intended? it 
 seems possible to suggest but one answer con- 
 sonant with a genuine religious faith: it must 
 be needed as a part of our moral and spiritual 
 training. We are brought, thus, to consider 
 the last of the causes of the seeming unreality 
 of the spiritual life.
 
 A PURPOSED SEEMING UNREALITY OF 
 THE SPIRITUAL
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE SEEMING UNREALITY A LARGE FACTOR 
 IN OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING 
 
 This would mean the recognition that, be- 
 sides all the causes with which we have been 
 dealing — manifold misconceptions, failure to 
 fulfil the natural conditions, and inevitable 
 limitations and fluctuations — there is another, — 
 a certain purpose, involved in the very consti- 
 tution of ourselves and of the world, that the 
 reality of the spiritual life shall not be a mere 
 brute fact to be passively grasped once for all, 
 but a living deed, requiring ever to be pur- 
 posely renewed. For the sake, then, of our 
 moral and spiritual training, for the sake of 
 deepening the spiritual life itself into which 
 the moral is so inextricably woven, there is a 
 purposed seeming unreality in spiritual things. 
 
 Even here, where we could least expect it, it 
 
 is to be noted that there is still a real similarity 
 
 between the spiritual life and the other spheres 
 
 of life. For it is the distinctive mark of man, 
 
 as Browning is so fond of insisting, that he is 
 
 a growing creature. And this appears on every 
 
 side of his life. 
 
 141
 
 142 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 Nowhere is anything done fully to man's 
 hand. He is no "finished and finite clod." He 
 has no "finished instincts." Everywhere he 
 must work out his task. His. science, even, is 
 the work of ages, toilsomely wrought out by 
 countless contributors, and is a task always only 
 in the making. As an* intellectual product it 
 cannot be inherited, and it is consciously shared 
 in, as Lotze notes, by very few; for no man 
 can passively receive it. It is a kingdom to be 
 conquered. So throughout our lives, the best 
 must ever be wrought out. 
 
 All the conditions of our life, too, seem ad- 
 justed to this thought of an imperfect, growing 
 creature. The almost unbelievable extent to 
 which life everywhere calls for the repetition 
 of acts is evidence. The proverbs of all nations 
 bear witness. The enormous place and power 
 of habit point to the same conclusion. The 
 way in which the most fundamental qualities 
 of character require for their development 
 steady submission to the daily drudgery, is par- 
 ticularly significant. There is evidently no 
 intention, in the constitution of the world or of 
 men, to bring men to any high attainment, except 
 by strenuous endeavor on their own part. We 
 need not think it strange, then, that in the 
 highest life of all, even its reality should be
 
 OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING 1 43 
 
 made to depend in no small degree on our 
 constant struggle. 
 
 But the fact that points most unmistakably 
 to the seeming unreality of the spiritual world 
 as an intended part of our moral and spiritual 
 training, is that very closely connected deficiency 
 in moral insight which is not without its moral 
 advantage. In Lotze's words: "It would not 
 be advantageous for moral development if the 
 binding truth of all particular moral com- 
 mands, and the indissoluble connection between 
 them, were presented to individual minds with 
 the theoretical certainty of an arithmetical proof, 
 and if it were not left for every soul to fight 
 its way through the battle of life, by living, 
 believing action and effort, to this clearness of 
 comprehensive moral intuition." 1 
 
 The constant p'ower and attraction of a re- 
 peated temptation, the hollowness of which we 
 think we have already fully discovered, seem, 
 thus, to indicate a certain intended deficiency in 
 moral insight. We are not to be spared the 
 needed struggle. We are to keep striving. We 
 come into character only so. Our ethical pur- 
 pose must be constantly reaffirmed in active resis- 
 tance to temptations ever renewed. A moral 
 insight, that should rob the temptations of all 
 
 1 Microcosmus, Vol. II, p. 54.
 
 144 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 power, would take from us the very struggle 
 needed for our moral growth. In this prelimin- 
 ary stage of our training in the earthly life, at 
 least, our best growth comes only so. And life 
 becomes thus everywhere "a godlike challenge in 
 the night to our too reluctant wills." 
 
 If this is true in the purely ethical life, we 
 need not wonder that in the religious life also, 
 with which the ethical is so completely bound 
 up, there are intended conditions which con- 
 tinually compel a reaffirming of the spiritual, 
 if it is to be held at all. Even the removable 
 causes of spiritual unreality — manifold miscon- 
 ceptions and failure to fulfil natural conditions 
 — and the necessary recognition of the unremov- 
 able limitations and fluctuations, — even these, 
 as we have seen, demand a persistent, thoughtful 
 pursuit of the spiritual. But if to these is to 
 be added a purposed seeming unreality, there 
 is here brought to us a definite challenge to 
 conquer a spiritual kingdom for ourselves. 
 
 This point is of such central importance that 
 there may well be added upon it these words 
 of Professor Seth Pattison: 1 "If we are really 
 in earnest, at once with the unity of the world 
 and with the necessity of an intrinsically worthy 
 end by reference to which existence may be 
 
 1 Man's Place in the Cosmos, pp. 32-33.
 
 OUR MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING 1 45 
 
 explained, we must take our courage in both 
 hands and carry our convictions to their legiti- 
 mate conclusion. We must conclude that the 
 end which we recognize as alone worthy of 
 attainment is also the end of existence as such — 
 the open secret of the universe. No man writes 
 more pessimistically than Kant of man's relation 
 to the course of nature, so long as man is re- 
 garded merely as a sentient creature, susceptible 
 to pleasure and pain. But man, as the subject of 
 duty, and the heir of immortal hopes, is restored 
 by Kant to that central position in the universe 
 from which, as a merely physical being, Coper- 
 nicus had degraded him. 
 
 "To a certain extent this conclusion must re- 
 main a conviction rather than a demonstration, 
 for we cannot emerge altogether from the ob- 
 scurities of our middle state, and there is much 
 that may rightly disquiet and perplex our minds. 
 But if it is in the needs of the moral life that 
 we find our deepest principle of explanation, 
 then it may be argued with some reason that 
 this belongs to the nature of the case; for a 
 scientific demonstration would not serve the 
 purposes of that life. The truly good man must 
 choose goodness on its own account; he must 
 be ready to serve God for naught, without 
 
 being invaded by M. Renan's doubts. As it has 
 10
 
 I46 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 been finely put, he must possess 'that rude old 
 Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue and 
 vice alike go unrewarded, and was yet not 
 shaken in its faith.' .... But because such is 
 the temper of true virtue, it by no means follows 
 that such virtue will not be rewarded with 
 k the wages of going on, and not to die.' " 
 
 In all this, the conditions of the religious life 
 show a real similarity to those of the rest of 
 life. But there is a certain difference in this 
 purposed unreality, now to be observed.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE SPECIAL RELIGIOUS NEED OF THE UN- 
 OBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 The chief difference, no doubt, consists in the 
 fact that, in the religious life, we are dealing 
 with the most fundamental of all relations — 
 the relation to God, which, we have already- 
 seen, has a universality all its own. Even the 
 ethical life, therefore, so far as it is conceived 
 as independent of the religious, has no such 
 sweep as the religious life. And if the ethical 
 demanded the training of a constantly com- 
 pelled struggle, this, much more. To come into 
 any worthy personal relation to a God, right 
 relation to whom involves right relation to all 
 others and to all else, is no holiday task. It 
 calls for a girding up of the loins of our minds. 
 "Self-renunciation," a Kempis reminds us, "is 
 not the work of one day, nor children's sport." 
 
 Moreover, the simple fact that in the religious 
 life we have to deal with an unseen God, so 
 unobtrusive as to seem almost deliberately to 
 hide his working, gives to the conditions of the 
 religious life some real difference. Here we 
 
 have not only to maintain ourselves in a spirit- 
 
 147
 
 1 48 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF TH E SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 ual world, plainly given as a fact, but we have 
 almost to maintain the reality of that world 
 itself. We must create, in some real sense, not 
 only our moral spirit, but also the very realm 
 in which that spirit is to be shown. The very 
 existence for us of the spiritual world, that is, 
 seems in no small measure committed to our 
 trust. Day by day we are to assure ourselves 
 anew: There is a God; he does love; man is 
 free; man is immortal; this life is not all; 
 there is a growing, all-embracing Kingdom of 
 God. That religion has in all this a task some- 
 what, though not wholly, peculiar, will hardly 
 be denied. 
 
 But the difference just noted, like the first 
 difference, evidently makes a supreme demand 
 upon the ethical purpose. And the contrast 
 between the conditions of the religious life and 
 those of all the rest of life, except the ethical, 
 as to the intended obscurity with which we have 
 to deal, lies exactly in this inseparableness of 
 the religious and the ethical. The ethical spirit 
 is absolutely essential to the true religious life. 
 There must, therefore, be emphasized in every 
 possible way in the religious life that which will 
 morally train; and the merely formal, per- 
 functory, or imitated must be sternly eliminated. 
 If there is a God at all, who really intends to
 
 NEED OF UNOBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL 149 
 
 bring us to the highest life, we may confidently 
 expect that the conditions of our life will be so 
 shaped as to call out in us the persistent ethical 
 will. In Herrmann's words, 1 "We are to seek 
 communion with God, not as something along- 
 side of devotion to what is good, but only in 
 this devotion." 
 
 Above all else, this means that the conditions 
 must be such that the religious life may be the 
 man's own, voluntarily chosen and voluntarily 
 kept. If this is to be true, a sacred reverence 
 for the human personality must be a controlling 
 principle in all God's dealing with us. Man's 
 freedom will be respected, and his individuality 
 respected. There will be no over-riding of 
 either in any way. This implies that, in the 
 nature of the case, it is impossible that there 
 should be any forcing of God and the spiritual 
 life upon a man. They must become his own, 
 by voluntary recognition, by persistent choosing. 
 Only so can he keep his spiritual life and grow 
 in it. 
 
 And if there is to be no forcing of God and 
 the spiritual world upon a man, this would 
 seem to mean further, that we can expect no 
 absolutely incontrovertible evidences, no over- 
 powering signs — certainly not before the ethical 
 
 1 Communion ivit/i God, p. 206.
 
 150 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 choice. A choice will be left, some room for 
 our own attitude of will to have its effect. It is 
 this principle that Pascal seems to have in mind 
 when he says: 1 "God wished to render him- 
 self perfectly recognizable to those who seek 
 him with their whole heart; and hidden from 
 those who shun him with all their heart." "Re- 
 ligion is a thing so great, that it is just that those 
 who would not take the pains to seek it, if it is 
 obscure, should be deprived of it. What do 
 they complain of then, if it is such that they 
 could find it by seeking it?" And he intimates 
 how this obscurity becomes a moral test: "If 
 you care but little to know the truth, here [in 
 a suggested difficulty] is enough to leave you in 
 repose. But if you desire with all your heart 
 to know the truth, it is not enough, examine 
 minutely." 
 
 Wherever, then, we ask in the spiritual life 
 for incontrovertible evidence, we ask not only 
 for that which transcends our limitations, but 
 for that which on moral grounds also is not to 
 be granted; we ask that the conditions of our 
 life should be less perfectly adapted than they 
 now are to our highest moral and spiritual needs. 
 The seeming unreality of the spiritual world 
 becomes itself, thus, a ground of trust. 
 
 1 Thoughts and Letters, pp, 327, 355.
 
 NEED OF UNOBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL 151 
 
 But even more than this is to be said. Our 
 moral need seems plainly to require, also, that 
 there shall be no domination of the human per- 
 sonality by God's personality. Not only will 
 God not thrust the fact of his existence upon 
 us in resistless fashion, whatever our moral atti- 
 tude, but in his personal relation to us, even 
 after we have voluntarily and gladly recognized 
 it, he will still sacredly respect our own moral 
 initiative and our own individuality. Because 
 he would bring us to real character and to a 
 spiritual experience of our own, he will jealously 
 guard his action, hiding his hand in his dealing 
 with us, not putting upon us the practically 
 irresistible pressure of over-powering person- 
 ality. If even the parent and elder friend need 
 to take pains not to dominate with their per- 
 sonalities the growing personality of the child, 
 much more must the Infinite Personality guard 
 the manifestations of himself. The very possi- 
 bility of unmistakably genuine character in finite 
 beings seems to depend upon the fact that God 
 should, thus, at least in the preliminary stages 
 of their training, scrupulously remain the in- 
 demonstrable, the invisible, the hidden, the 
 unobtrusive God, showing such a reverence for 
 the personality of his children as men never 
 show for one another.
 
 152 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 Kant clearly recognizes this imperative need 
 of the hidden God, and his own careful state- 
 ment deserves quotation: 1 Else u God and eter- 
 nity with their awful majesty would stand un- 
 ceasingly before our eyes, (for what we can 
 prove perfectly is to us as certain as that of 
 which we are assured by the sight of our eyes). 
 Transgression of the law would no doubt be 
 avoided, what is commanded would be done; 
 but the mental disposition, from which actions 
 ought to proceed, cannot be infused by any 
 command, and in this case the spur of action is 
 ever active and external, so that reason has no 
 need to exert itself in order to gather strength to 
 resist the inclinations by a lively representation 
 of the dignity of the law: hence most of the 
 actions that conformed to the law would be done 
 from fear, a few only from hope, and none at 
 all from duty, and the moral worth of actions, 
 on which alone in the eyes of supreme wisdom 
 the worth of the person and even that of the 
 world depends, would cease to exist. As long 
 as the nature of man remains what it is, his con- 
 duct would thus be changed into mere mech- 
 anism, in which, as in a puppet show, every- 
 thing would gesticulate well, but there would be 
 
 1 Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason. Abbott: Kant's Theory of 
 Ethics, pp. 357-358-
 
 NEED OF UNOBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL 1 53 
 
 no life in the figures. Now, when it is quite 
 otherwise with us, when with all the effort of 
 our reason we have only a very obscure and 
 doubtful view into the future, when the Gover- 
 nor of the world allows us only to conjecture 
 his existence and his majesty, not to behold them 
 or prove them clearly; and on the other hand, 
 the moral law within us, without promising or 
 threatening anything with certainty, demands 
 of us disinterested respect; and only when this 
 respect has become active and dominant, does 
 it allow us by means of it a prospect into the 
 world of the super-sensible, and then only with 
 weak glances: all this being so, there is room 
 for true moral disposition, immediately devoted 
 to the law, and a rational creature can become 
 worthy of sharing in the siimmum bonum that 
 corresponds to the worth of his person and not 
 merely to his actions. Thus what the study of 
 nature and of man teaches us sufficiently else- 
 where may well be true here also; that the 
 unsearchable wisdom by which we exist is not 
 less worthy of admiration in what it has denied 
 than in what it has granted." 
 
 It is not strange, then, after all, that the 
 spiritual life meets us constantly with the para- 
 doxical demand that we should in some real 
 sense create the objects of our faith, as well as
 
 154 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 act in view of them. So Kant felt as to God 
 and freedom and immortality. So Fichte af- 
 firmed as to the entire world of the spirit. So 
 James has asserted most strongly as to freedom. 
 So Browning and many another has believed 
 as to the love of God and all that that involves. 
 Religion is a deed. And, in a very real sense, 
 we are left to determine whether for us there 
 shall be a God, and a loving God, a freedom, 
 an immortality, a future world, a Kingdom of 
 God. God has intended that the conditions of 
 our life should be such as to challenge us at 
 every point to a stalwart faith and a stalwart 
 life. As Browning says, thinking of the central 
 truth of all — the love of God, and his supreme 
 historical revelation in Christ: 
 
 "So duly, daily, needs provision be 
 For keeping the soul's prowess possible, 
 Building new barriers as the old decay, 
 Saving us from evasion of life's proof, 
 Putting the question ever, 'Does God love, 
 And will ye hold that truth against the world?'" 
 
 And it is impossible to let this truth, of which 
 we are now speaking, get full possession of us, 
 and not find a great new light thrown on 
 the whole dark problem of evil — our greatest 
 natural obstacle to a satisfying religious faith. 
 Seeing how much is at stake in this reverent 
 guarding, at any cost, of our moral initiative
 
 NEED OF UNOBTRUSIVENESS OF THE SPIRITUAL 1 55 
 
 and of our individuality, we learn not to expect 
 God to interfere, even when great evils threaten. 
 The greatest evil, after all, would be that the con- 
 ditions of genuine character should fail. We 
 come even to rejoice that we live, in this time 
 of our preliminary training, in a world in 
 which the rewards of virtue do not seem to 
 follow either immediately or certainly. The 
 natural and inevitable doubt which underlies 
 for every man "the problem of evil" becomes, 
 in the light of this far reaching principle of 
 reverence for personality, itself a cause of thanks- 
 giving; for it insures that our righteous choices 
 shall not be selfishly motived. We are glad that 
 the genuinely unselfish choice seems so often 
 to cut right athwart our own interests; for it 
 means that our wills are not over-ridden. 
 The very existence of the problem of evil makes 
 possible our belief in the genuineness of the 
 character of ourselves and of others. It is a 
 heavy price that is thus paid, no doubt; but it 
 is not too heavy for the priceless interests so 
 guarded. 
 
 We have to recognize, on the part of God, 
 then, something like a really purposed obscur- 
 ing of the spiritual world. The seeming un- 
 reality of the spiritual life is a chief part of 
 our moral and spiritual training.
 
 XXV 
 
 OUR VERY QUESTIONINGS A PROOF OF 
 
 REALITY 
 
 But, with reference to all these unremovable 
 causes of the seeming unreality of the spiritual 
 life, we should not fail to notice that our very 
 questionings here are an evidence of reality. 
 It is hard to see how else the questions could 
 arise at all. 
 
 In the question of freedom, for example, if 
 the mind were wholly determined, it is difficult 
 to see how the very notion of freedom should 
 arise at all; or if the ideas, which compose it, 
 be conceived somehow to have arisen, it is still 
 more difficult to see how it could mean any- 
 thing to a mind that did not already know free- 
 dom in its own experience. I confess myself 
 quite dissatisfied with the ordinary facile psycho- 
 logical geneses of the conviction of freedom. 
 They seem to me only another great example 
 of the ever-besetting "psychologist's fallacy." 
 The simple fact, that with any intelligence I 
 can raise the question of freedom, that I can 
 give any meaning to it satisfying even to my 
 own mind, — this alone seems to me good evi- 
 dence of the fact of freedom. The question is 
 
 156
 
 OUR VERY QUESTIONINGS A PROOF OF REALITY I 57 
 
 itself explicable, only upon the presupposition 
 of the fact. 
 
 So, too, in the question of immortality, is not 
 Emerson right in maintaining that the perennial 
 interest with which men perpetually return to 
 this problem, is itself better evidence of the 
 reality of the future life than any proofs which 
 they might discover? If we were mere crea- 
 tures of the day, complete kindred of animals, 
 it is hard to see how this question of the im- 
 mortal life should come so to press upon us. 
 Is it not the stirring within us of our own 
 birthright, that prompts the questioning? Is it 
 a false response that men have made, these 
 years since Wordsworth wrote, to his "intima- 
 tions of immortality"? Are questionings, in 
 truth, no evidence here? Does not, rather, the 
 note of satiety, unrest, disillusion, and final 
 despair, which inevitably shows itself in all 
 poetry that reflects any thorough-going attempt 
 on the part of man to find his entire satisfac- 
 tion in the flesh, bear unmistakable testimony 
 to the fact that man is more than animal? 1 
 
 So, once more, the very existence of the 
 problem of evil in practically all minds points 
 to its own solution. For the question could not 
 
 1 Cf. Paul E. More: "The Poetry of Arthur Symonds," The In- 
 dependent, April 17, 1902.
 
 158 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 arise in all minds, except upon the assumption 
 in all that, in a world that ought to be, happi- 
 ness and virtue would fall together. But in this 
 common assumption made by all minds, as 
 demanded by their very constitutions, must we 
 not see an unmistakable self-expression of that 
 power that lies back of the universe, and, 
 therefore, an implicit answer to our own doubt, — 
 a virtual pledge that finally, at least, that shall 
 be which is here demanded? 
 
 A similar thing is to be said even with 
 reference to the question of the existence and 
 love of God. Unless man is by his very nature 
 religious, it is difficult to see how the primal 
 religious question could even arise. The simple 
 fact that the question is one of never-dying 
 interest to man, that he persistently recurs to it 
 in his highest moments, and unconsciously as- 
 sumes it in his deepest experiences and even in 
 his commonest activities — the mere fact that 
 he so questions as concerning an absolutely vital 
 interest, is itself strong evidence of the reality 
 of that questioned. Thus "Physicus," in the very 
 act of renouncing all religious faith, says, as if 
 it were a matter of course, "I am confident 
 that truth must in the end be most profitable 
 for the race;" thus unconsciously still betraying 
 a fundamentally religious belief.
 
 OUR VERY QUESTIONINGS A PROOF OF REALITY 1 59 
 
 Here, too, the persistent, unconscious show- 
 ings of the nature of men must be taken as self- 
 expressions of that Absolute which is back of 
 all, and so evidence of such a God as the soul 
 seeks. A thoughtful modern novelist thus con- 
 cludes one of her stories: "Full assurance has 
 not been granted me, and it is my lot in doing 
 battle to strike often in the dark. Yet I have 
 moments when I know that the strife is not in 
 vain. In these I wonder why we are so troubled 
 about our duty to our fellow-man, and about 
 our knowledge of God. The one command in 
 regard to our neighbor is not obscure. And 
 our foreboding lest our faith in God shall 
 escape us seems futile, inasmuch as we cannot 
 escape from our faith." One can hardly deny 
 the force of this consideration, without calling 
 in question that fundamental assumption of all 
 our thinking and living — the honesty of the 
 world. When this is denied, all thinking, 
 scientific, philosophical, or religious, is at an 
 end. 
 
 "Rather I prize the doubt 
 Low kinds exist without. 
 Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 
 
 Poor vaunt of life indeed, 
 Were man but formed to feed 
 On joy, to solely seek and find and feast; 
 Such feasting ended, then
 
 l6o THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 As sure an end to men; 
 Irks care the crop-full bird ? Frets doubt the maw- 
 crammed beast? 
 
 Rejoice we are allied 
 
 To That which doth provide 
 And not partake, effect and not receive! 
 
 A spark disturbs our clod ; 
 
 Nearer we hold of God 
 Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must believe. 
 
 Then, welcome each rebuff 
 
 That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
 Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! 
 
 Be our joys three parts pain! 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
 Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe! 
 
 For thence — a paradox 
 
 Which comforts while it mocks — 
 Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : 
 
 What I aspired to be, 
 
 And was not, comforts me: 
 A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the 
 
 scale."
 
 PART II 
 THE WAY INTO REALITY 
 
 ii
 
 THE PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE TEST OF PRESENT TRENDS OF 
 THOUGHT— HISTORICAL, PHILO- 
 SOPHICAL, SCIENTIFIC, ETH- 
 ICAL, AND SOCIAL 
 
 We shall do well to preface our positive 
 discussion of the way into reality in religious 
 thought and life by a brief but comprehensive 
 survey of the presumptive evidence of the 
 reality and significance of the spiritual life, in 
 view of its connections with the great present 
 trends of thought, and in view of the inevitably 
 fundamental nature of religion. 
 
 If the spiritual life is to become for us an 
 assured and significant reality, it must seem to 
 us, as we have seen, both to be inextricably knit 
 up with all else that we count most real, and 
 also to have its own distinct and valuable con- 
 tribution to make to life. Both things must be 
 true, if the spiritual life is to become for us 
 of fundamental importance. This chapter and 
 the next are devoted to showing briefly how 
 Christianity meets the first demand, — to point- 
 ing out the indissoluble connection of the Chris- 
 tian thought and life with the realest trends of 
 our own times. 
 
 165
 
 1 66 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 If one thinks, then, of those trends of thought 
 which are realest for our own time, and seeks 
 to test the spiritual life by them, he would prob- 
 ably have to say: that first, religion must meet 
 the test of psychology; secondly, the test of a 
 social, and therefore an ethical consciousness; 
 and that would mean, in the third place, that 
 the spiritual life must be fully awake to the 
 reality and meaning of the personal; fourth, 
 it must possess a scientific sense of law and 
 unity; and, finally, it must be able, as well, to 
 meet the historical and philosophical test. 
 
 The limits of this book do not permit a full 
 treatment of any of these different tests; but 
 we may consider briefly, in reverse order, their 
 application to Christianity. 
 
 Christianity, then, may not shrink from either 
 a historical or philosophical investigation. Least 
 of all, in a scientific age, can it claim the right 
 to withdraw itself from the testing of long ex- 
 perience. And the Christian religion can retain 
 for the modern man its full significance only 
 if it can meet just this test. And, in the same 
 way, if a careful historical study of Christianity, 
 as it manifests itself in the life of the race, side 
 by side with other religions, does not prove the 
 superiority of Christianity, its supreme claims 
 cannot seem to us ultimately justified. Inevit-
 
 THE TEST OF PRESENT TRENDS OF THOUGHT 1 67 
 
 ably, whether it will or not, every religion is 
 steadily undergoing such a test, and is being 
 tried out by a relentless application of the prin- 
 ciple of the survival of the fittest. It is hardly 
 open to doubt, that, so tested, the teaching, ideals, 
 and religion of Jesus verify themselves to an 
 extent scarcely approached by any other point 
 of view. 
 
 In a similar sense, Christianity cannot with- 
 draw itself from philosophical investigation. 
 However great may be one's sympathy with 
 many of Ritschl's positives, the thoughtful man 
 can hardly deny the justice of Dr. Bruce's 
 criticism of Ritschl because of his refusal to 
 recognize that philosophy has any legitimate 
 task in the realm of religion. As Dr. Bruce 
 says: "The horror of metaphysics is a reaction 
 to be transcended." "The Christian religion 
 implies a theory of the universe." "If Christ's 
 doctrine is true, there ought to be something in 
 the world to verify it." Quite in harmony with 
 this criticism, was Professor Everett's belief that 
 the mistake of the Ritschlians lay in separating 
 wholly from philosophy, from the great move- 
 ments of history, and from natural religion. 
 
 There are plain dangers, then, in a view that 
 tries to withdraw Christianity from the philo- 
 sophical test. First, there is the danger of fail-
 
 1 68 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 ing to see that one may so over-emphasize the 
 uniqueness of the revelation of God in Christ, 
 as to take it out of its connection with all other 
 reality, and so tend to make it unreal. A 
 second danger is that of underestimating the 
 revelation of God in our own natures. These, 
 too, we may not forget, are, upon any sane view, 
 from God, — the same God who has revealed him- 
 self in Christ. There will probably be some 
 indication of this identity of origin. Chris- 
 tianity must fit human nature and the whole 
 man. And the way in which Christianity fits 
 man must finally be regarded as its greatest 
 proof, and must even underlie our belief in 
 Christ himself. 
 
 Still another danger of such a view is that 
 it should fail to see the necessity of a unified 
 Christian view of the world. If the Christian 
 is to be at the same time a thinker, he cannot 
 avoid the attempt to bring the different sides 
 of his experience into relation to each other, 
 and into a final unity. It is quite true that this 
 philosophical attempt is not the introduction to 
 religion, and is not its foundation; but it is a 
 needed supplement for, at least, the intellectual 
 peace of even the individual Christian soul. 
 And so long as this need of an ultimate unity 
 is not met, the Christian religion must still
 
 THE TEST OF PRESENT TRENDS OF THOUGHT 1 69 
 
 seem in some degree irrational and unreal ; for 
 it will not seem to one to fit the world as he 
 finds it. 
 
 The believer in the Christian thought and 
 life, therefore, if he sees things aright, must 
 himself desire that philosophy should freely 
 apply its own tests to Christianity, though he 
 may have a clear sense that the philosophical 
 consideration must at best be no adequate meas- 
 ure of the whole significance of religion. The 
 most direct proof that Christianity does not fail 
 to meet the test of the best philosophical thought 
 of our time is found, perhaps, in the general 
 acceptance of the Christian ethical ideal, and 
 in the predominant ethical note of our ablest 
 philosophical thinkers, and the way in which 
 they make even metaphysics root in ethics. The 
 significance, even for philosophy, of the great 
 personalities of history is also a growing con- 
 viction. 
 
 So, too, it is quite impossible for one to belong 
 to the present generation and not demand that 
 religion shall show, from the scientific point of 
 view, some sense of law and unity in the spirit- 
 ual life. This will mean, no doubt, on the one 
 hand, the growing recognition of the imma- 
 nence of God, and, on the other hand, the per- 
 ception that the laws of the spiritual world are
 
 I70 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 chiefly the laws of personal relations. On the 
 one hand, then, as Professor Coe has said, 1 "the 
 sense of a divine presence can and does pene- 
 trate all human faculties. It is not limited to 
 special occasions, or to moments of exaltation. 
 .... In a word, the religious experience is 
 what we should expect it to be if the doctrine 
 of the immanence of God is true." And, on the 
 other hand, if the spiritual life is the highest 
 life of spirits, of persons, then its fundamental 
 laws, it would seem, must be the laws of deep- 
 ening personal relations with men and with God. 
 Subsidiary laws, doubtless, there will be, but 
 all closely related to these fundamental laws. 
 Christianity is quite able to meet this scientific 
 demand. Indeed, science's assertion of the uni- 
 versality of law is only a "disguised expression" 
 for the final Unity of things, so strongly asserted 
 by a theistic view. And the more surely the 
 Christian believes in a "faithful Creator," the 
 more surely will he rest in the great recognized 
 laws of the spiritual, as well as the material 
 world. 
 
 And, again, for a generation to which the per- 
 sonal means more than to any that has preceded, 
 religion must be peculiarly marked with a 
 sense of the value and sacredness of the person. 
 
 1 The Religion of a Mature Mind, pp. 342-343.
 
 THE TEST OF PRESENT TRENDS OF THOUGHT 171 
 
 And this sense can hardly fail to dominate any 
 theology that is to meet the deeper demand of 
 our times. 
 
 In a precisely similar way, our conception of 
 religion must meet the very marked social and 
 ethical consciousness of our time. When one 
 tries to see exactly what the social consciousness 
 involves, it will be found to include the sense 
 of the fundamental likeness of men, of their 
 inevitable mutual influence, of the value and 
 sacredness of the individual person, as well as 
 the sense of obligation to others, and love. The 
 very statement of these elements of the social 
 consciousness suggests how surely akin they are 
 to the demands of the Christian spirit, how 
 certainly, indeed, they have grown naturally 
 out of Christ's conception of every man as a 
 child of God. And that "rational ethical de- 
 mocracy," to which the social evolution looks, is 
 hardly other than the "civilization of brotherly 
 men" of the Kingdom of God. 1 
 
 1 For the detailed argument cf. King: Tlieology and the Social 
 Consciousness, Chapters V-XII.
 
 XXVII 
 
 THE TEST OF PRESENT TRENDS OF 
 THOUGHT— PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 
 It may be worth while to pause a little longer 
 upon the psychological test of the Christian 
 religion. For in this psychological test are in- 
 volved, in a kind of concrete way, all the other 
 tests. And it can hardly fail to be suggestive 
 to try to apply to the Christian view and life 
 the test of the four great inferences of modern 
 psychology, once before used to suggest the 
 great common conditions of all the activities of 
 our life: the complexity of life, the unity of 
 the mind, the central importance of will and 
 action, and the concreteness of the real. 
 
 Does Christianity, conceived as life, meet these 
 tests? The recognition of the complexity of life 
 on the part of Christianity seems to me to be 
 clearly shown in the fact that Christianity is, 
 in the first place, not ascetic. My own clear 
 judgment is in entire agreement with that of 
 Professor James Seth that Christ's conception 
 cannot be regarded as truly ascetic, in the ordi- 
 nary acceptance of that term. 1 Christ certainly 
 
 1 Rational Living, pp. 93-102; cf. James Seth: "On certain 
 Alleged Defects in Christian Morality," Hibbert Journal, October, 
 1907. 
 
 172
 
 THE TEST OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TREND 1 73 
 
 neither lives nor thinks as an ascetic. His whole 
 point of view is rather that of recognizing all 
 life as coming from the Father, and all its goods 
 to be rejoiced in as goods; though with distinct 
 recognition that some are inferior to others, and 
 that, if need be, the lower must be unhesitat- 
 ingly sacrificed to the higher. 
 
 The similar refusal of the whole New Testa- 
 ment to draw any line of separation between the 
 sacred and the secular, is another proof of Chris- 
 tianity's recognition of the complexity of life. 
 Christianity's knitting up of the human and the 
 divine, too, is itself an assertion of the same fact. 
 The Christian view is no gnosticism. God is 
 for it the source of all. And it is the same God, 
 that made the world and man, who reveals him- 
 self in Christ. The very assertion of the incar- 
 nation, and the conception of duty as the will of 
 God, of love as the first and great command- 
 ment, and of God himself as love and personal, 
 are all so many separate assertions of the com- 
 plexity and interrelatedness of all life. And in 
 this growing psychological conviction of the 
 complexity of life, of the interrelatedness of all, 
 we are, thus, only returning to the standpoint 
 of Christ and of the New Testament. 
 
 And so harmonious is the teaching of Jesus 
 with the present psychological emphasis upon
 
 1 74 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 the unity of mind, that this may even be called 
 one of the four fundamental principles and 
 motives chiefly used by Christ in the Sermon 
 on the Mount. He appeals repeatedly to the 
 principle of the unity of the spiritual life, in- 
 sisting that it is impossible to fall below one's 
 best at one point and be all that one ought to be 
 at other points. And it is hardly too much to 
 say that, in its recognition of the unity of the 
 mind, the Christian conception fulfils most com- 
 pletely both the intellectual and the emotional 
 conditions of rational living. 
 
 On the intellectual side, it gives the most 
 needed helps, and is able to face the most dan- 
 gerous hindrances. 
 
 While it makes no attempt to answer all 
 curious intellectual inquiries, it does give, in the 
 great revelation in Christ, sufficient ground for 
 faith. The history of the Christian world is 
 itself the best proof that beyond any other in- 
 fluence, it has also brought men to full self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 At the same time, as Romanes so suggestively 
 says, it has left men free for all scientific inquiry. 
 "One of the strongest pieces of objective evi- 
 dence," he says, "in favor of Christianity .... 
 is the absence from the biography of Christ of 
 any doctrine which the subsequent growth of
 
 THE TEST OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TREND 1 75 
 
 human knowledge — whether in natural science, 
 ethics, political economy, or elsewhere — has had 
 to discount. This negative argument is really 
 almost as strong as is the positive one from what 
 Christ did teach. For, when we consider what 
 a large number of sayings are recorded of — or at 
 least attributed to — him, it becomes most re- 
 markable that in literal truth there is no reason 
 why any of his words should ever pass away in 
 the sense of becoming obsolete. 'Not even now 
 could it be easy,' says John Stuart Mill, 'even 
 for an unbeliever, to find a better translation 
 of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the 
 concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ 
 would approve our life.' Contrast Jesus Christ 
 in this respect with other thinkers of like an- 
 tiquity. Even Plato, who though some four 
 hundred years before Christ in point of time, 
 was greatly in advance of him in respect of 
 philosophic thought — not only because Athens 
 then presented the extraordinary phenomenon 
 which it did of genius in all directions never 
 since equalled, but also because he, following 
 Socrates, was, so to speak, the greatest repre- 
 sentative of human reason in the direction of 
 spirituality — even Plato, I say, is nowhere in this 
 respect as compared with Christ. Read the dia- 
 logues, and see how enormous is the contrast
 
 I76 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 with the Gospels in respect of errors of all kinds 
 — reaching even to absurdity in respect to reason, 
 and to sayings shocking to the moral sense. Yet 
 this is confessedly the highest level of human 
 reason on the lines of spirituality, when unaided 
 by alleged revelation." 
 
 And the contribution which Christianity 
 makes even on the intellectual side, in that it 
 gives a clear, definite, ethical ideal in Christ, is 
 quite inestimable. The intellectual stimulus of 
 such an ideal, to say nothing of its moral value, 
 is beyond computation. 
 
 And when one thinks of the chief intellectual 
 hindrances in true living — over-sophistication, 
 making insights take the place of doing, and in- 
 tellectual vagueness — it can hardly be doubted 
 that Christianity is peculiarly adapted to meet 
 them. In its firm hold, through Christ, on great 
 convictions and ideals, it has no room for sophis- 
 tication; and its predominant moral interest 
 and insistent ethical demand definitely shut out 
 those who hear and do not. At the same time, 
 both the definiteness of Christ's ethical ideals 
 and his conception of all moral demands as the 
 will of a loving Father, stand opposed to the 
 greatest dangers of intellectual vagueness. 
 
 In the same way, too, the example and the 
 teaching of Christ point to the best and most
 
 THE TEST OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TREND 1 77 
 
 normal emotional conditions. If we really be- 
 lieve the teaching of Jesus, there is already open 
 to us the most ideal emotional conditions for 
 the highest living. It cannot fail to give what 
 psychology recognizes as the stimulating effect 
 of joyful emotions. It is truly a religion of good 
 tidings. With its trust in a loving Father and 
 its conception of all duty as his will, its view of 
 life as training, and its assurance of the immortal 
 hope, it brings to men all of good that a religion 
 can well be conceived to bring. 
 
 Putting men, as it does, face to face with an 
 incomparable literary and personal expression 
 of the greatest truths and motives, it calls out 
 in men, too, in the profoundest way, the needed 
 sober and strenuous moods for the highest will- 
 ing. Christianity is equally decisive in setting 
 aside all strained and sham and passive emotions. 
 Neither in Christ's example nor in his teaching 
 is stress anywhere laid on feeling. It is rather 
 taken as an incidental result of true living. And 
 in its powerful and combined appeal to reason 
 and conscience and will, it gives power to sus- 
 pend action in the face of strong emotion. Chris- 
 tianity never allows the right of simple feeling 
 to rule. 
 
 Just because it is profoundly ethical, Chris- 
 tianity cannot fail to recognize, with modern 
 
 12
 
 178 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 psychology, the enormous place of will in life. 
 It is only in that ethical living that takes place 
 in personal relations, that the whole will is 
 called out. And in this stimulating and strength- 
 ening of the will, Christianity has at the same 
 time, in accordance with this psychological em- 
 phasis, strengthened and deepened all the life of 
 men. It has made men capable of being more, 
 of counting more, of enjoying more. So, too, 
 psychology's recognition of the fundamental 
 nature of self-control may be regarded as dis- 
 tinctively Christian. Indeed, Christ's great, 
 fundamental, all-inclusive law of losing the life 
 to save the life is only the highest expression 
 of self-control. And Christianity's ethical de- 
 mand, once more, calls for self-control so con- 
 stantly that its attitude has even been mistaken 
 for that of asceticism. Moreover, the self- 
 control which Christianity enjoins and makes 
 possible is not merely negative, but thoroughly 
 positive, as psychology demands that it should 
 be. 
 
 And Christianity meets in an even deeper 
 way the insistence of psychology on the central 
 importance of will and action, by the thorough- 
 going fashion in which it makes the objective 
 mood — the mood of activity and of work — 
 the normal mood of man. In a degree true
 
 THE TEST OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TREND 1 79 
 
 of no other influence, it has proved able to 
 take men out of themselves, in its absorption 
 of them in the great work of a great cause, and 
 in the great love of a great Saviour. In this 
 very way it not only fulfils for men a chief 
 condition of character and happiness and in- 
 fluence, but it brings to them a chief means of 
 all three, in work which can be the fullest ex- 
 pression of man's best self; work that men can 
 think of as God-given, and, because service both 
 to God and to men, as of abiding worth. Chris- 
 tianity calls men even to the sharing of Christ's 
 own vicarious and redemptive work. 
 
 And finally, Christianity exemplifies not less 
 fully psychology's fourth fundamental insis- 
 tence on the concreteness of the real, in its pre- 
 eminent respect for the person — the greatest 
 condition of character and happiness and in- 
 fluence, and in its preeminent use of personal 
 association — the greatest means to character and 
 happiness and influence. For the assertion of 
 the concreteness of the real is finally the insis- 
 tence upon the personal in the whole of its 
 range. Now, on the one hand, respect for the 
 person lies so deeply imbedded in the very 
 spirit of Christianity, that one cannot fail to 
 see it in the entire conduct and teaching of 
 Jesus. One cannot fail to regard it, according
 
 l8o THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 to the Christian conception, as even the funda- 
 mental principle of God in his treatment of 
 men; and he cannot doubt, as Lotze and Wundt 
 have both borne testimony, that to Christianity 
 it is due that this respect for man as man has 
 come into the world. On the other hand, the 
 very fact that Christianity points not to a 
 redeeming doctrine, but to a redeeming person, 
 and professes to open to men a constant, inti- 
 mate, and unobtrusive relation of the personal 
 Spirit of God with their spirits, shows how 
 firmly imbedded in the Christian teaching is 
 the thought of the supreme importance of per- 
 sonal association. 
 
 With even so rapid and imperfect an attempt 
 to apply to Christianity the tests of modern 
 psychology, one can hardly fail to see that here 
 at least the Christian view is indubitably con- 
 nected with one of the realest trends of our 
 own time, and meets with convincing satisfac- 
 tion all the tests involved in the dominant 
 elements of this trend.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 MAN'S ESSENTIAL NEED OF RELIGION 
 
 But in order that the spiritual life might 
 become to us most real and significant, we 
 found not only that it must be connected indubit- 
 ably with all that is realest to us, but must also 
 be seen to make its own unmistakable and in- 
 dispensable contribution to life. That is, we 
 must be not only radically liberal in our view 
 in the recognition of the inter-relatedness of 
 religion with all life, but also radically Chris- 
 tian in the recognition of the essential and 
 unique contribution of religion itself. 
 
 That religion has most assuredly this con- 
 tribution to make, no man can doubt, who has 
 once caught a glimpse of the fundamental 
 nature of religion. For myself, this comes out 
 most clearly in seeing how inevitably, as I have 
 elsewhere pointed out, a faith essentially re- 
 ligious logically underlies all our reasoning, all 
 work worth doing, all strenuous moral endeavor, 
 all earnest social service. The argument so 
 closely concerns the present inquiry that its 
 reproduction here may be pardoned. 
 
 ISI
 
 1 82 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 For, in the first place, a faith essentially 
 religious logically underlies all our reasoning. 
 For every argument that we can possibly make, 
 especially concerning any of the greater inter- 
 ests of life, must go forward upon the double 
 assumption of the consistency and the worth of 
 the world. We can reason at all, only so far 
 as we have already virtually asserted that the 
 world is a world in which we can rationally 
 think; and our most significant arguments re- 
 quire, as well, that we should add the faith 
 that the world is a world in which we can 
 rationally live. That, in other words, there is 
 the unity and consistency of one truth and of 
 a unified reason in the world, and an essential 
 love at its heart that makes life abundantly 
 worth living. And these two fundamental as- 
 sumptions of all our reasoning are essentially 
 religious convictions. 
 
 That men often do not recognize these logical 
 implications of their reasoning, and may use 
 with great complacency impersonal and irre- 
 ligious language concerning their experience 
 that will not bear thinking through — this is all 
 too true; but this does not alter the fact of the 
 ultimate logical implications of their deepest 
 thinking and living. The mere report, there- 
 fore, of the psychological facts of a man's relig- 
 ious experience, as he conceives it, is by no means 
 the final step in any fundamental religious 
 inquiry. 
 
 In the same way, a faith essentially religious
 
 man's essential need of religion 183 
 
 underlies all work worth doing. For, as Paulsen 
 says, speaking simply as a philosopher, 'Who- 
 ever devotes his life to a cause believes in that 
 cause; and this belief, be his creed what it 
 may, has always something of the form of re- 
 ligion.' 'Hence,' he adds, 'faith infers that an 
 inner connection exists between the real and 
 the valuable within the domain of history, and 
 believes that in history something like an im- 
 manent principle of reason or justice favors 
 the right and the good and leads it to victory 
 over all resisting forces.' It is impossible, that 
 is, for a man with full consciousness to throw 
 himself enthusiastically into a work which he 
 regards from the start as absolutely hopeless. 
 When, then, he takes up the work of his life call- 
 ing, or the cause to which he devotes himself, as 
 work really worth while, in which he can lose 
 himself with joy, whether consciously or not, 
 he is virtually asserting his faith in a plan larger 
 than his own plan, the all-embracing plan of 
 the on-going providence of God, which shall 
 catch up the little fragments of his work into 
 a larger whole and make them contribute, thus, 
 to a goal greater than any that the man himself 
 may set. To believe in the final worth of one's 
 own work, then, logically implies a real belief 
 in God. For 'principles' and 'plans' and 'laws,' 
 so far as I am able to see, have no real existence, 
 that will bear thorough thinking, and can do 
 nothing, apart from a Being that must be con- 
 ceived ultimately in essentially personal terms.
 
 184 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 A fully religious conviction logically underlies 
 all enthusiastic work. 
 
 In all strenuous moral endeavor, in the fight 
 for character for one's self, a faith essentially 
 religious is in like manner involved. So Mar- 
 tineau asserts: 'Nothing less than the majesty 
 of God, and the power of the world to come, 
 can maintain the peace and sanctity of our homes, 
 the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit 
 of patience and tender mercy in our hearts.' 
 For here, once more, we shall not earnestly 
 attempt a hopeless task. And if, in the surrender 
 to the highest in us, we cannot believe that we 
 thereby at the same time link ourselves to the 
 highest in the universe, we shall not be able to 
 reach that courage which gives promise of any 
 high attainment. Only the highest motives are 
 finally sufficient here. If our faith in the ulti- 
 mate ethical trend of the great power back of 
 the universe really breaks down, we shall hardly 
 be able to keep our faith even in our own ideals. 
 
 That this faith in the ethical trend of the 
 universe is always consciously present, or even 
 the need of it definitely felt in any recognized 
 
 religious way, I am far from affirming 
 
 There are great temperamental differences here, 
 doubtless, and the very force of life in us may 
 carry us over many thin places in our reason- 
 ing, without misgiving; but the fact remains 
 that hopeful, courageous, moral endeavor logic- 
 ally requires the faith that we are not here at 
 war with the ultimate purpose of things.
 
 man's essential need of religion 185 
 
 And, once more, a faith essentially religious 
 logically underlies, in like manner, all earnest 
 social service. I do not forget that in the incon- 
 sistency of our natures men may often go on in 
 forgetfulness of the real significance of their 
 actions, and in the strength of motives which they 
 have at least formally denied. Nor do I forget 
 that it is possible for social service itself to be- 
 come, for the time being, even a kind of fad, and 
 for the phrases of the new social consciousness of 
 our time to become onlv a new cant. Nor do 
 I forget that men in such unselfish service may 
 honestly think of themselves, for a time, as not 
 needing in any degree either the convictions or 
 the consolations of religion. 
 
 Nevertheless, when I try really to think the 
 situation through, I am not able to doubt that 
 Nash is right when he says: 'Nothing save a 
 settled and fervid conviction that the universe 
 is on the side of the will .... can give the 
 will the force and edge suitable.' For here, 
 also, we shall not throw ourselves with all 
 abandon into a task that we think either hope- 
 less or worthless. And that means that we must 
 have back of our social service the great re- 
 ligious convictions of the love of God and the 
 worth of men. We shall not attempt to dip 
 out the ocean with a cup, and we shall not enter 
 on a boundless social task in which there is no 
 hope of accomplishing any permanent and large 
 result. We must believe here that we work 
 with God, in line with his own purpose, and
 
 1 86 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 that the mighty will of the living God is pledged 
 to our attempt. 1 
 
 Moreover, let it here be added, so far as the 
 Christian religion is able to fulfil its promise 
 of putting men into real communion with God 
 known as Father; so far as it is able to give 
 undoubted worth to life in the conception of 
 man as child of God; so long as it can find in 
 all duty simply the will of a loving Father; 
 and so long as it can give to men assured faith 
 in an immortal life of most significant work 
 and of the highest personal association — so long 
 must Christianity have an indispensable con- 
 tribution to make to human life. A truly Chris- 
 tian faith can alone give the ideal conditions 
 of the richest life. 
 
 If we turn, now, from this general considera- 
 tion of the presumptive evidence of the reality 
 and significance of the spiritual life, to seek to 
 indicate more definitely just how we are to find 
 our way into reality here, we may well raise 
 three questions: How may we proceed most 
 positively and satisfactorily in our rational argu- 
 ment for the existence of a God who truly ful- 
 fils the Christian conception? How are we 
 to find our way into an undoubted personal 
 relation to God? How is reality to be brought 
 
 ' Personal and Ideal Elements in Education, pp. 90-97.
 
 man's essential need of religion 187 
 
 into single Christian doctrines? That is, what 
 is the way into the reality of the spiritual life, 
 as to the theistic argument, as to personal rela- 
 tion to God, and as to particular Christian 
 doctrines?
 
 AS TO THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT
 
 XXIX 
 
 FACING THE FACTS OFTEN IGNORED 
 
 The inquiry into the causes of the seeming 
 unreality of the spiritual world is fundamental. 
 Unless it is thoroughly made, no attempted 
 positive argument can satisfy. But, on the other 
 hand, this inquiry cannot be thoroughly made, 
 as we have seen, without really involving at 
 numerous points some indication of the positive 
 way out. For the very reason, therefore, that 
 we have dwelt so long on the reasons for the 
 seeming obscurity of spiritual truth and life, and 
 upon the presumptive evidence of the reality 
 of the spiritual, we may hope to state with 
 brevity and yet with explicitness our positive 
 conclusions, making use at every point of results 
 already reached. 
 
 It is worth remembering, as well, that, in any 
 case, our positions on really ultimate questions 
 are best determined by broad considerations 
 rather than by minute argumentation. We legit- 
 imately set aside great masses of such minute 
 argumentation when it is seen to proceed from 
 a point of view, on good grounds rejected by 
 
 us. One sometimes feels that one of the main 
 
 191
 
 192 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 rewards of the experience of living is to be 
 found in just this acquired ease in calmly setting 
 aside great piles of logic, that have gone forward 
 upon some large gratuitous assumption, or that 
 have quite left out of account the main con- 
 sideration. One is sometimes asked what he 
 does with such and such a line of argument. 
 Well, when a man has definitely abandoned on 
 good grounds a given standpoint, he doesn't do 
 anything with the massive arguments which 
 proceed from that standpoint. 
 
 And in reaching decisive points of view, it is 
 particularly enlightening to see how very simple 
 and brief the dominating considerations in one's 
 mind have been. You can read no strong, think- 
 ing man at length, still less get into intimate 
 conversation with him, without finding, if you 
 refuse to be confused by the mere multiplicity 
 of words, that there are in him a few absolutely 
 dominant convictions capable of very brief and 
 simple statement, and in fact only capable, in 
 themselves, of such statement. Three or four 
 sentences may contain the heart of the man's 
 whole argument for some fundamental position. 
 
 These facts are particularly worth recalling 
 in connection with this question of religious con- 
 viction and life; for let us frankly say that the 
 decisive, positive considerations here — the con-
 
 FACING THE FACTS OFTEN IGNORED 193 
 
 siderations that really determine — probably can 
 be put with surprising brevity. It is not neces- 
 sarily a matter of tomes. Indeed, one may well 
 wonder whether the real grounds of our con- 
 victions have not been greatly obscured by many 
 of these elaborate argumentations for God. 
 
 I turn, then, with some hope, to attempt, in 
 the light of the principles already reached, a 
 comparatively brief statement, both of the theis- 
 tic argument and of our personal relation to 
 God. 
 
 And, as to the theistic argument, we seem to 
 need, first, definitely to face the facts ignored 
 by the various misconceptions and mistaken or 
 inadequate points of view, which have given 
 the sense of unreality to the spiritual life; and, 
 so, to see the thoroughly fundamental nature 
 of the theistic position; and thus to reach the 
 main possible lines of the theistic argument. 
 
 To begin with, we cannot expect sound results 
 without definitely facing and taking into full 
 account the facts ignored in the various mistaken 
 views of the spiritual life that have been con- 
 sidered. This, we have seen, involves, first, 
 some adequate recognition of the great common 
 conditions of life, bodily and psychical — condi- 
 tions that continually affect our thinking as well 
 as our living. In particular, for our religious 
 13
 
 194 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 thinking, we found that that meant that we must 
 bear in mind the practical nature of all knowl- 
 edge and belief: that knowledge is never a 
 merely passive process, and that no merely theo- 
 retical solution of our problem is possible. This 
 compelled us to set aside as impossible, or un- 
 reasonable, in religious thinking, mathematical 
 demonstration, overwhelming evidence, any sub- 
 stitute for living experience, the expectation of 
 meeting difficulties out of hand, taking up the 
 religious inquiry as something wholly new, over- 
 rating single intellectual difficulties and nega- 
 tive criticism, forgetting the results of long 
 ignoring of facts, and especially, forgetting the 
 ideal assumptions which underlie all our prac- 
 tical beliefs. 
 
 To face the facts ignored in the mistaken views 
 of the spiritual life meant also, we found, definite 
 guarding against the common fallacies of ignor- 
 ing all that cannot be precisely formulated, of 
 making the intellectual the sole standard of 
 reality, and of being dominated by a word, by 
 an analogy, or by the merely imageable. 
 
 Sound theistic thinking, we saw, further, re- 
 quired that we should set aside as quite unwar- 
 ranted certain traditional objections: both those 
 which come from an undue exaltation of the 
 mathematico-mechanical view of the world —
 
 FACING THE FACTS OFTEN IGNORED 1 95 
 
 like the difficulties of an abstract intellectualism, 
 of a crude sensationalism, or of an impossible 
 hypostasizing of laws; and those philosophical 
 difficulties which are supposed to put religion at 
 peculiar disadvantage. Here we found that 
 religion had no peculiar responsibility for the 
 solution of epistemological and metaphysical 
 problems; that the doctrine of the relativity of 
 knowledge did not concern it in any special way; 
 that, in particular, the terms "Absolute" and 
 "Unchangeable," as applied to God, were not 
 to be gratuitously taken as putting God out of 
 all real touch with men; that "Infinite" and 
 "Personality" could by no means be taken as 
 terms mutually contradictory; and that, rather, 
 the attempted impersonal conceptions of God 
 were the conceptions that refused to resolve 
 into any clear meaning. 
 
 We have seen, also, as bearing on the prob- 
 lem of thorough-going religious thinking, that 
 the religious problem must be in certain points 
 clearly distinguished from both the scientific 
 and philosophical problems. From the scien- 
 tific problem: as a problem of ideal interpre- 
 tation rather than of causal connection; a 
 problem of ultimate inference, rather than of 
 merely phenomenal inquiry; as attempting a 
 different ideal construction of the world from
 
 196 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 that attempted by science; and as requiring the 
 whole man in a way not true of the scientific 
 problem, which is, far more truly, purely 
 intellectual. 
 
 From the philosophical problem as ordinarily 
 conceived, the problem of ultimate religious 
 thinking was differentiated as definitely bring- 
 ing into its inferences as data the facts of the 
 historical revelation of God, — the preeminent 
 spiritual facts of the race. And it was insisted 
 that we had no right to expect a complete 
 solution from an investigation that ignored these 
 most important data of all. 
 
 The sense of unreality of the spiritual life 
 which comes from failure to fulfil the natural 
 conditions, concerns theistic thinking only in- 
 directly, yet very really. For these conditions 
 point out the one way to that experience of 
 the spiritual life, which alone can give the key 
 to any adequate interpretation of that life, and 
 to any really decisive thinking concerning it. 
 This is simply the common-sense requirement 
 that a man should know something of what he 
 is talking about. 
 
 So far, in our summary of the facts to be 
 faced by theistic thinking, we have dealt with 
 what we have called the removable causes of 
 the seeming unreality of the spiritual life.
 
 FACING THE FACTS OFTEN IGNORED 1 97 
 
 When we ask as to the bearing upon our 
 religious thinking of the unremovable causes, 
 we find ourselves obliged to take clear account 
 of the limitations and fluctuations of our finite 
 natures. We have, then, to recognize that our 
 view of the world is necessarily partial; that 
 by our very natures we are discursive in our 
 living and thinking; that we are obliged to 
 reckon upon a certain ebb and flow in our sense 
 of reality everywhere; that we must expect 
 these limitations and fluctuations to be specially 
 felt in the religious inquiry, where we are deal- 
 ing with the problems of the Infinite, where 
 the grounds of our convictions lie quite below 
 the surface, and where so much depends upon 
 the ethical attitude. In view of this inevitable 
 fluctuation in the sense of reality, we saw that 
 we must give special importance to the witness 
 of our consciously best hours. 
 
 The further thought — that this seeming un- 
 reality is in part definitely intended for our 
 better moral and spiritual training — suggests, 
 in spite of great similarities, that there is a 
 reason that must be decisive in any question of 
 the spiritual life, why we should not expect 
 here even such proof as might be readily acces- 
 sible in other spheres of life. God is moved, in 
 this hiding of himself, by an abiding reverence
 
 I98 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 for our human individuality and moral initia- 
 tive. And yet, even in this intended obscurity, 
 we found an implied evidence. Our very ques- 
 tionings, to be themselves explicable, seemed 
 necessarily a proof of that about which they 
 questioned. 
 
 This bare summary, perhaps, justifies the con- 
 clusion that there are here considerations which 
 have an important bearing on all theistic think- 
 ing, and that our theistic argument must go 
 forward in clear recognition of these considera- 
 tions. In particular, we have felt that these 
 considerations gave reasonable ground for set- 
 ting aside initial objections to the theistic argu- 
 ment, and for meeting some of the most impor- 
 tant difficulties both as to the conception of God, 
 and as to the relation of God to the finite. 
 At the same time they have brought clearly 
 into view the necessary limitations in such 
 theistic proofs as may be attempted. We seem 
 prepared, thus, to pass to a brief and compre- 
 hensive statement of the main lines of the theistic 
 argument; although it may be doubted whether, 
 when one has given full weight to the considera- 
 tions just reviewed, the mere formulation of the 
 theistic argument has much contribution to 
 make.
 
 XXX 
 
 THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 And, first, let us definitely state, in the light 
 of the principles already traversed, the neces- 
 sary limitations in the theistic argument. From 
 our present position, we can see beforehand, 
 that no strict and demonstrative proof of the 
 existence of God is possible. We shall not be 
 surprised, therefore, at the manifest limitations 
 of the ordinary forms of the theistic argument. 
 Many things forbid anything like strict proof 
 here. 
 
 In the first place, there is no absolute demon- 
 stration outside of mathematics, but only prob- 
 able reasoning. A strict mathematical demon- 
 stration, then, is here impossible. 
 
 Moreover, even in the only sense in which 
 we may speak of strict proof outside of mathe- 
 matics — the case of complete deduction — it can- 
 not be applied to God. For, as Purinton has 
 pointed out, such deduction involves a classing 
 of the individual concerning whom the argu- 
 ment is made, and God admits of no such 
 
 classing. He is not one of a class of gods. A 
 
 199
 
 200 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 strict deductive argument, also, is, then, im- 
 possible. 
 
 Moreover, if one attempts to reach his con- 
 clusion by induction, it is plain that we can 
 know, and have to do, only with finite data. 
 Now, it cannot be that finite data should give 
 us sufficient ground for a strict inference to the 
 Infinite. A strict inductive proof is thus im- 
 possible. 
 
 Once more, if one is to use terms with full 
 accuracy, the actual concrete in any case cannot 
 be reached in a demonstrative way. We can 
 only know the concrete — a Person, in this case — 
 in experience; and, in the present argument, 
 there is the further difficulty, that God is not 
 for us a direct sensuous fact; and, moreover, 
 in the nature of the case, any manifestation of 
 him, that we could take in, must be necessarily 
 finite. His fulness could only be partly mani- 
 fested. Along the line, then, of even some kind 
 of perception, an Infinite could not be strictly 
 given. 
 
 Again, the moral reasons for the comparative 
 hiddenness of God have to be considered — both 
 that sense of the unreality of God which comes 
 from long practical ignoring of him, and that 
 intended unobtrusiveness of God which arises 
 from his reverent regard for the human person-
 
 NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE ARGUMENT 201 
 
 ality. In such a situation, also, strict proof is 
 plainly set aside. The moral argument cannot 
 be made coercive. 
 
 Finally, strict proof here is impossible, be- 
 cause that which is to be the goal of the argu- 
 ment for God, must be really the fundamental 
 assumption of all argument, including that 
 made for God. This will be more clear later. 
 We may content ourselves now with Lotze's state- 
 ment that all these proofs for the existence 
 of God themselves "presuppose the absolute 
 validity of a truth which knits all the world 
 together," and so seem in part, at least, to as- 
 sume at the start their conclusion. The difficulty 
 is not unlike that in which any argument for 
 the trustworthiness of our faculties is involved, 
 where, as we have seen, it is evident that, if any 
 weight is to be given to the argument, one must 
 assume the trustworthiness of the faculties which 
 make the argument, but which by hypothesis 
 are under question. So, as to the argument for 
 God, just so far as the goal is assumed in the 
 argument, it is plainly not strictly proved. 
 
 There seem, then, to be decisive reasons why 
 a strict proof, in any sense, of the existence of 
 God is not to be expected. What lines of argu- 
 ment are open?
 
 XXXI 
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 
 
 It should be remembered that we are here 
 speaking of argument, not of life-experience. 
 
 We may argue, first, directly from the fact 
 of Christ himself, — his life, his teaching, and 
 especially his consciousness — as the greatest and 
 most significant fact in the world, and so our 
 best proof of the existence of God in the full 
 Christian sense. This seems to me, even from 
 the side of pure argument, the most decisive 
 proof. The argument goes upon the simple 
 assumption that, if we are ever to discern the 
 real nature of the ultimate world-ground, our 
 best light must come from the greatest and most 
 significant facts. For myself, I have no doubt 
 that Christ is the most significant of all facts 
 known to us, and, therefore, the best basis for 
 direct and decisive inference to the nature of 
 the world-ground. The argument does not at 
 all go, it should be noticed, upon any assumption 
 of the arbitrary authority of Jesus, but simply 
 upon the significance of what he is. Any au- 
 thority subsequently given him must be based 
 
 wholly upon what he is in fact found to be. I 
 
 202
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 203 
 
 count the fact of Christ, the greatest of all proofs 
 of a completely satisfying God, — the proof most 
 powerful to produce conviction in the mind of 
 a man who has himself come to full moral self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 One may argue, similarly, (but less decisively, 
 so long as Christ is omitted) from the whole 
 historical revelation of God — from the line of 
 the prophets, and from the great spiritual seers 
 of all time, as constituting the greatest and most 
 significant historical movement of the world. 
 Persons are incontrovertibly the greatest facts, 
 and the most significant data. Let us not, then, 
 ignore the most decisive evidences in our search 
 for God, nor underestimate the greatness of the 
 personalities with whom we have here to do. 
 One may well recall the words of a thorough- 
 going modern critic like Cornill, concerning 
 Amos and Hosea, for example. "Amos," he 
 says, "is one of the most marvellous and in- 
 comprehensible figures in the history of the 
 human mind, the pioneer of a process of evo- 
 lution, from which a new epoch of humanity 
 dates." And Hosea, too, he counts "among the 
 greatest religious geniuses which the world has 
 ever produced." 1 We are not to suppose that 
 the argument from such personalities is less 
 
 4 The Prophets, pp. 46, 50.
 
 204 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 significant than the argument from things. God 
 is best known in his completest manifestations. 
 
 Turning to lines of argument more tradi- 
 tional, it may be justly urged that the plain 
 logical defects to be pointed out in all the 
 common forms of the cosmological, teleological, 
 and ontological proofs, seem themselves to show 
 a practical initial certainty of God, on other 
 grounds. These arguments have been taken as 
 sufficiently satisfying, and not narrowly scruti- 
 nized, because their goal was really assumed to 
 be already certain. It is very difficult to explain, 
 otherwise, the weight that has actually been 
 attached to arguments, which in strict logical 
 form are quite inconclusive. We have seen why 
 they could not be conclusive; we are here 
 simply trying to face the question: Why are 
 they felt to be still so satisfying, though so 
 strictly inconclusive? The natural answer is, 
 the goal of the argument is practically taken by 
 us all as an immediate certainty. A quite in- 
 sufficient proof satisfies our intellectual con- 
 science, simply because we are already sure of 
 the conclusion. 
 
 This brings us to a fourth suggested line of 
 argument. Our only possible standard of truth 
 is in our own constitution. In consequence, all 
 proof of every kind moves on a double assump-
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 205 
 
 tion: first, that the world is a sphere of rational 
 thinking — must satisfy the intellect; second, 
 that the world is a sphere of rational living — 
 must satisfy the whole man. One might say 
 that this double assumption is the heart of the 
 intention of the ontological argument, and sug- 
 gests the two forms in which that argument may 
 be stated, or the double interpretation of our 
 necessary constant assumption that the world is 
 a "rational," or an "honest" world. 
 
 The Hegelian form of the argument — "the 
 real is rational" — starts from the intellectual 
 demand of our natures; has for its test of truth, 
 logical consistency; and affirms the rationality 
 of the world in the simply intellectual sense, 
 and so finds the world a sphere for rational 
 thinking. This form of the argument asserts 
 that the world must be thinkable, intelligible. 
 It is by no means able to prove this universal 
 assertion; but it simply points out that every 
 bit of thinking, every single argument, must 
 really assume for its own justification the ration- 
 ality — the honesty — of the world in this sense. 
 
 What, perhaps, may be called the Lotzian 
 form of the argument — "that which is most 
 worthy must exist" — starts from the side of our 
 interests, from a judgment of worth — an essen- 
 tially ethical judgment; it has for its test of truth,
 
 206 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 worth; and affirms the rationality of the world 
 not in the narrower, merely intellectual sense, 
 but in the broad sense, as satisfying the whole 
 man; and it, thus, finds the world a sphere for 
 rational living. It holds, that is, as an immedi- 
 ate conviction, that the world must be not 
 merely construable, thinkable to the understand- 
 ing as a chain of causes and effects, but a world 
 in which we can live, and in which we can 
 cherish our ideals — a world that can satisfy the 
 whole man. Paulsen thus states the position: 
 "I could not live, I could not breathe and move 
 freely in a world that is nothing but an enor- 
 mous, senseless, and soulless machine; hence I 
 cannot believe that it is such a machine; hence I 
 believe that it is the revelation of an all-wise 
 and all-good God, even though my eyes fail to 
 see him and my understanding comprehend 
 him not." 1 A completely rational world, it is 
 here asserted, must have value, must go back to 
 a purpose of good. It must be worth while. It 
 must not play fast and loose with me. Other- 
 wise, I am left at cross-purposes with myself; 
 my ethical and aesthetic demands are all unmet; 
 the world is for me an intolerable world. 
 
 We are scarcely aware to what an extent this 
 assumption permeates all our reasoning on ques- 
 
 1 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 420.
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 207 
 
 tions in any degree moral and spiritual. All 
 the arguments that really weigh with us to-day, 
 for freedom, and for immortality, for example, 
 go forward on the plainly implied major pre- 
 mise that the world is not absurd and intolerable. 
 So James says as to freedom: "The whole feel- 
 ing of reality, the whole sting and excitement 
 of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that 
 in it things are really being decided from one 
 moment to another, and that it is not the dull 
 rattling off of a chain that was forged innumer- 
 able ages ago." 2 And he cannot persuade him- 
 self that this feeling, which alone gives reality 
 and meaning to life, can be a mere illusion. 
 Tennyson's argument as to immortality goes for- 
 ward upon a precisely similar assumption: 
 
 "My own dim life should teach me this, 
 That life shall live forevermore, 
 Else earth is darkness at the core, 
 And dust and ashes all that is." 
 
 He cannot believe that this awful alternative 
 is possible. 
 
 Underlying, then, all our rational living, all 
 setting of goals we count worthy, all thinking, 
 even, concerning the life of the whole man, is 
 the initial assumption that the world is rational 
 
 2 Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 237.
 
 208 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 in the broadest sense, that that which ought to 
 be is, that Living Love is the source of all. 
 
 Now it should be noted, neither of these two 
 assumptions, involved in the assertion of the 
 rationality or honesty of the world, can be fully 
 met and made thinkable, except by the existence 
 of a living, personal, loving God, whose reason 
 and whose love are in truth the sure basis of all 
 our thinking and living. The so-called eternal 
 truths, logical or ethical, can have no existence 
 and power of their own; they are finally intel- 
 ligible only when conceived as the actual modes 
 of activity of God himself. No argument of 
 any kind for anything can be framed that does 
 not in some way virtually make these assump- 
 tions of the reason and love of God. The real 
 truth, therefore, concerning all our theistic 
 arguments seems to be this: they do not reach 
 their goal at all, except upon an assumption that 
 implies that the goal has been already reached 
 in immediate conviction. It is for just this 
 reason that we are comparatively unaffected by 
 their logical defects. 
 
 To see, now, the fundamental nature of these 
 two great assumptions that underlie all our 
 thinking and living, is really to see that the 
 existence of a God of reason and love is so 
 certain and fundamental a fact, that it really
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 209 
 
 has to be assumed in all thinking and living — 
 a fact that cannot be proved just because it is 
 the basis of all proof; — the postulate, without 
 which we should ultimately be driven to give 
 up altogether the possibility of rational thinking. 
 And we need to remind ourselves how often, in 
 both scientific and philosophical questions, when 
 we try to think our terms and conceptions com- 
 pletely through, we are driven necessarily be- 
 yond the finite, if we are to avoid plain self- 
 contradiction. We cannot think the finite as 
 simply finite. The real reality, as Bradley 
 points out, which persistently forces itself upon 
 us in intellectual thinking, is a reality absolutely 
 consistent and all-embracing. Even science can- 
 not finally do without such a basis, as Spencer's 
 so-called Unknowable testifies. 
 
 An additional reason is thus given us, why to 
 our ordinary thinking God should seem pecul- 
 iarly hidden, and his existence not easily shown. 
 He cannot be proved, because his existence is 
 necessarily assumed in all proof. Along with 
 the clear perception of the inevitable limitations 
 of the theistic arguments, therefore, the thor- 
 oughly fundamental nature of the theistic 
 position is at the same time shown. It is so 
 fundamental, that to relinquish it is to relinquish 
 all hope of rationality in any part of our final
 
 2IO THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 thinking, and, indeed, to surrender the logical 
 bases of all thinking and living. The religious 
 postulate, thus, is necessary to all the rest of life. 
 Religion may well be satisfied with this con- 
 clusion. 
 
 It is not impossible, however, that one may 
 go a step farther. Even our mathematical dem- 
 onstrations depend at every step upon the cer- 
 tainty of intuitive insight, and it is quite possible 
 that Schopenhauer was right in asserting that 
 so-called mathematical proofs are simply our 
 labored attempted justifications of insights in- 
 tuitively certain; that we see first, and prove 
 afterward; we do not prove and then see. In 
 a quite similar sense, it may be, that with as 
 real a certainty as our natures can give us any- 
 thing, God is given, in the two fundamental 
 assumptions which have been seen to be implicit 
 in all our thought and life, for they are neces- 
 sities of thought and life; we seem really to use 
 them in all subordinate thinking, as clearly 
 given certainties, much as we use our mathe- 
 matical insights. The precise way in which 
 we come to these certainties may be hidden from 
 us in both cases, but they are not counted less 
 certain on that account. Such added logical 
 obscurity as seems to attach to this immediate 
 practical certainty of God has been perhaps
 
 THE MAIN LINES OF ARGUMENT 211 
 
 sufficiently accounted for. There are weighty 
 reasons why the real immediate certainty of 
 God, upon which we seem to be perpetually 
 counting in all life and thought, should not 
 reveal itself at once to our seeming. The cer- 
 tainty given us is like that of the moral life. So 
 far, as to the theistic argument.
 
 AS TO THE PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD
 
 XXXII 
 
 THE NEED OF THE MODERN MAN MET 
 ONLY IN CHRIST 
 
 Surely Herrmann is right in saying that 
 theologians of all schools may at least agree as 
 to the general meaning of personal Christianity. 
 "It is a communion of the soul with the living 
 God, through the mediation of Christ. Herein 
 is really included all that belongs to the charac- 
 teristic life of Christendom — revelation and , 
 faith, conversion and the comfort of forgiveness, 
 the joy of faith and the service of love, lonely 
 communion with God, and life in Christian 
 fellowship." 1 
 
 Our very first and greatest problem, there- 
 fore, on the positive side, in dealing with the 
 reality of the spiritual life, is to make it clear 
 just how the individual soul may come into un- 
 doubted communion with a living God. It 
 needs especially to be noted that our age has 
 come, in such preeminent degree, to scientific 
 and moral self-consciousness, that for the men 
 of to-day the previous easier roads into the 
 religious life are in large degree closed. The 
 
 1 Herrmann, Communion with God, Second English edition, p. 9- 
 
 215
 
 2l6 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 psychological treatment, for example, of mys- 
 tical experiences has made it impossible for us 
 to take at their own estimation all kinds of 
 ecstatic states, and we can feel no surety in these 
 short-cuts to communion with God in a religious 
 experience that cannot bear a rational and 
 ethical test. With Herrmann, we have to ask 
 those who so base their religious conviction, 
 "how they are sure they are really aware of God 
 Himself when they have those emotions in 
 which their whole nature seems exalted. Our 
 confidence in God needs other support than 
 the recollection of such purely emotional ex- 
 periences can give." 1 
 
 Whatever has been true for previous genera- 
 tions, and whatever is still true for those who 
 have not entered fully into the consciousness 
 of the present time — for many of us, our road 
 to God must now be indubitably rational and 
 ethical. It is impossible that we should rest 
 in any religious experience that cannot so 
 justify itself. The men of the fully modern 
 spirit are, therefore, simply driven to find their 
 way into a personal communion with God 
 through facts so great that they can bear the 
 severest rational and ethical test. And the 
 religion that can fully satisfy the modern man 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 36.
 
 NEED OF MODERN MAN MET ONLY IN CHRIST 217 
 
 must, thus, build unmistakably on the great 
 fact-foundation of man's own rational and 
 ethical nature, and upon a personality great 
 enough to reveal God, and to bring indubitable 
 conviction of God's existence and of his per- 
 sonal communion with the individual soul. 
 
 It is just at this point that Christianity has 
 its supreme gift to make to the man of to-day. 
 For the service of Christianity here is the more 
 priceless and indispensable to the modern man, 
 the more deeply he has entered into the modern 
 spirit. For the deeper our moral consciousness, 
 the greater our sense of moral need. In Herr- 
 mann's words, 1 "We feel ourselves to be sepa- 
 rated from God, and consequently crippled in 
 our faith by things which troubled the ancients 
 very little. We cannot go back to our first 
 simple indifference to moral demands after our 
 conscience has once been sensible of them. 
 Above all, the knowledge that we are bound to 
 unconditional obedience can never die away 
 into sloth and inactivity after it has once dawned 
 upon us. So that when we are faced by some- 
 thing that wants to force itself on us as a Power 
 over our entire life, the doubt arises in our 
 minds whether in it we really find something 
 we can be conscientiously willing to obey un- 
 
 x Op. cit. p. 63.
 
 2l8 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 conditionally. He who is morally free will 
 mock at a religion that is above morality just 
 as he pities one that is beneath it. Therefore, 
 the only God that can reveal Himself to us 
 is one who shows Himself to us in our moral 
 struggle as the Power to which our souls are 
 really subject. This is what is vouchsafed to us 
 in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ." This 
 simply means that, for the modern man who has 
 awakened to full moral self-consciousness, many 
 an ancient way of approach to God is decisively 
 closed; and if he is to come into communion 
 with God at all, it must be by a manifestation 
 of God great enough to make certain both the 
 holiness of God and his forgiveness of us. 
 
 Now, it is through the witness of the New 
 Testament writers that we find in Christ for our- 
 selves a fact so great, so transcendent, that we 
 come back to it again and again with calm 
 assurance, to find in its simple presence the 
 indubitable conviction of the spiritual world, 
 of our own intended destiny, of God, and of 
 his holiness and his love. Christ does not merely 
 tell us these things — he does much more — he 
 makes us able to believe them. He, and no other 
 as he, searches us, humbles us, assures us, and 
 exalts us at the same time. Only through him 
 do we come with assurance into the great con-
 
 NEED OF MODERN MAN MET ONLY IN CHRIST 219 
 
 victions, the great hopes, and the great aspira- 
 tions; and these measure us as does nothing 
 else. Only through him are we brought into 
 living communion with the living God. If I 
 may quote Herrmann again: "The most im- 
 portant thing for the man who is to submit him- 
 self to God is surely that he should be absolutely 
 certain of the reality of God, and Jesus does 
 establish in us, through the fact of his personal 
 life, a certainty of God which covers every 
 doubt. When once he has attracted us by the 
 beauty of His Person, and made us bow before 
 Him by its exalted character, then even amid 
 our deepest doubts, that Person of Jesus will 
 remain present with us as a thing incomparable, 
 the most precious fact in history, the most 
 precious fact our life contains." Thus, "the 
 religious life of the Christian is inseparable 
 from vision of the personal life of Jesus. That 
 vision must be the Christian's constant com- 
 panion, and so it is, as he finds more and more 
 that in such vision he grasps that reality without 
 which all else in the world is empty and deso- 
 late."
 
 XXXIII 
 
 THE NEEDED EMPHASES IN MODERN 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 If one asks, now, what is involved in these 
 statements, and attempts to characterize the 
 Christian way to communion with God, he will 
 be obliged to say that, for the fully modern 
 man, the way must be ethical, Christian, social, 
 biblical, practical, and, in all these points alike, 
 rational. 
 
 It must be ethical, for no religious experience 
 can justify itself to a man who has come to 
 moral self-consciousness, which does not offer, 
 in the sphere of the moral, a deepening of the 
 moral life. Mere emotions, therefore, however 
 entrancing, will not answer. Here lies the far 
 reaching significance of the Reformers' insist- 
 ence that God's presence is to be found in the 
 daily calling, and the sense of his nearness to be 
 won just there, in the doing of the daily duty. 
 
 It must be Christian, in building, as we have 
 seen, directly on the fact of Christ as the one 
 fact sufficiently great and significant to open 
 a certain way to God for the modern man. 
 
 It must be social, because in the sphere of 
 
 220
 
 NEEDED EMPHASES IN MODERN RELIGIOUS LIFE 221 
 
 religion, as in all other spheres of value, we are 
 almost inevitably introduced through the wit- 
 ness of those who already share in the value. 
 And, doubtless, for some the religious ex- 
 perience remains to the end in much larger 
 degree indirect, than for others. And for all 
 of us some of our best visions of the spiritual 
 come through others. The social trend of the 
 Christian's communion with God is seen, too, 
 in the indispensable fellowship with the Church 
 and with the great prophetic seers of history, 
 as well as in the inevitable way in which the 
 kingdom of God must go forward by the witness, 
 given from heart to heart, of what men have 
 found Chirst to be to them. 
 
 It must be biblical, not as building on a book, 
 but in just so far as the Bible is regarded not 
 as a record of doctrines or history to be authori- 
 tatively accepted, but as a book of honest testi- 
 mony to experience. Its supreme value lies just 
 here. For the testimony of another is our chief 
 road to enlargement of life. Most of all, it is 
 through such simple, honest witness that the 
 New Testament puts us face to face with the 
 redeeming personality of Christ. Whatever our 
 theories about the Bible, it is not as compelling 
 authority, but as simple, honest witness that the 
 New Testament brings us emancipating power.
 
 222 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 In another's words, "The inner life of Jesus is 
 stamped on the testimony of men who have 
 been set free by him. In this way has it become 
 a force in history, and in no other way was that 
 possible. Hence we can lay hold on it and make 
 it ours only when we let the witness of his dis- 
 ciples lay hold on us." And that witness the 
 Christian "finds in Scripture as nowhere else." 
 
 Treated as a book throbbing thus with per- 
 sonal life — as a book of honest testimony to 
 experience broad and deep, in the moral and 
 spiritual life — and approached through a true 
 historical method, I have no doubt that the 
 Bible will increasingly prove what the free 
 critic, Edmond Scherer, claimed: "The Bible 
 will ever be the book of power, the marvellous 
 book, the book above all others. It will ever 
 be the light of the mind and the bread of the 
 soul. Neither the superstitions of some, nor the 
 irreligious negations of others have been able to 
 do it harm. If there is anything certain in the 
 world, it is that the destinies of the Bible are 
 linked with the destinies of holiness on earth." 
 
 The modern emphasis, again, must be prac- 
 tical, as wrought out in experience, and submit- 
 ting not only gladly, but of deliberate purpose, 
 to the test of experiment in life. The experi- 
 ment here is the endeavor to find whether the
 
 NEEDED EMPHASES IN MODERN RELIGIOUS LIFE 223 
 
 deepest laws and trends of our being do unmis- 
 takably point to God. And it is in this practical 
 way that we must apply, each for himself, the 
 psychological and sociological tests which have 
 already been considered. Do the Christian con- 
 ception of the spiritual life and the honest 
 response to the inner life of Christ give oppor- 
 tunity for the highest and fullest personal self- 
 expression and personal association, justifying 
 themselves, thus, rationally and ethically? If 
 the individual finds himself compelled, as I 
 certainly do, to return an unhesitating affirma- 
 tive to this question, then he will simply be 
 saying that the deepest laws and trends of 
 human nature reach their fullest justification 
 and growth only upon the Christian assumption.
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 The consideration of these needed emphases 
 in modern religious life, itself, suggests the two 
 great positive ways, already considered, of com- 
 ing into assured personal relation to God. They 
 are not really two ways, but rather two aspects 
 of our one great method of finding the reality 
 of the spiritual. 
 
 Starting from the analogy of the way in which 
 we come into all the great values of life, we 
 may say that to have a real and significant 
 spiritual life simply requires that we should put 
 ourselves in the presence of the greatest facts 
 of the spiritual world, in voluntary surrender 
 to them, just so far as they command our inner 
 allegiance. This will mean, above all, that we 
 put ourselves steadily, persistently into the closest 
 possible relation with the inner life of Christ, 
 giving that life full opportunity to make upon 
 us its own legitimate impression, to communi- 
 cate to us Christ's own sense of the reality of 
 God and of the spiritual life. Only so shall we 
 be following the prime law for coming into all 
 
 the greatest values of life — staying persistently 
 
 224
 
 THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 225 
 
 in the presence of the best we know in the realm 
 of the spiritual, with honest response to its 
 natural, inevitable appeal. This will bring us 
 surely, increasingly, into Christ's life of love 
 to God and love to men. We need here par- 
 ticularly to remember how inextricably the sense 
 of the reality of the spiritual is bound up with 
 persistent loyalty to the ethical demands, just 
 so far as known. 
 
 Starting from the analogy of personal rela- 
 tions, we may say that to have a real and 
 significant spiritual life requires that we should 
 honestly recognize that the spiritual life is 
 essentially a life of personal relations with men 
 and with God, and should act accordingly. 
 That is, we must simply follow the laws of the 
 spiritual life. This means that we must steadily 
 fulfil the conditions of a deepening personal 
 relation with God and with men; only being 
 sure that we do not transfer to God the limita- 
 tions of the finite. The conditions of the spirit- 
 ual life can thus be pointed out, and fulfilled, 
 and we may count upon the result. Every bit 
 of experience in the human relations throws light 
 upon the divine; all growth in the divine life 
 is immediate gain for the human relations. The 
 ethical and religious are bound up together, and 
 all life becomes one — a life of learning to love. 
 15
 
 226 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 This is simply putting to practical test Christ's 
 hypothesis of love as the essence of life. The 
 method confronts us, that is, with the plain 
 challenge: Go forward, in your religious life, 
 in steady fulfilment of the conditions of a 
 deepening personal relation man-ward and God- 
 ward, and you will find the relation to God 
 becoming increasingly real and satisfying. But 
 as soon as one seeks honestly to carry out this 
 counsel in relation to God, he sees at once that 
 every deepening personal relation requires mu- 
 tual self-revelation on the part of the persons 
 concerned. He will seek, therefore, to build 
 the relation to God upon the fullest revelation 
 of God. This he must naturally find in the 
 world's most significant personality, Christ; 
 and in the presence of that completest self- 
 revelation of God, he goes forward in his ful- 
 filment of the conditions of a deepening friend- 
 ship with God. 
 
 The two methods, thus, both necessarily build 
 upon close and persistent association with the 
 life of Christ, as the greatest spiritual fact of 
 the world, and the most significant self-revela- 
 tion of God. Both emphasize the need of 
 honest response to the best we know. Both 
 count upon the appeal and the inevitable con- 
 tagion of Christ's own life. But the laws of the
 
 THE METHOD OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 227 
 
 growing life are most clearly and definitely in- 
 dicated as those of a deepening personal rela- 
 tion. 1 
 
 1 Attention may well be called just here to the peculiar value of 
 Drummond's address on "The Changed Life" as at least a partial 
 illustration of the use of both methods.
 
 AS TO PARTICULAR CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES
 
 XXXV 
 
 DOCTRINE AS EXPRESSION OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 WITH CHRIST 
 
 If one turns, now, in the third place, in ful- 
 filment of the positive problem of seeking 
 reality for the spiritual life, from the rational 
 argument for the existence of God, and the prob- 
 lem of personal relation to God, to ask for the 
 way in which single Christian doctrines may 
 become to him most real, he must see that this 
 can be possible for the modern man only as 
 these individual doctrines are associated in the 
 closest way with assured fact and undoubted 
 personal experience. 
 
 Has not the time fully come when we are to 
 say unhesitatingly that any manual of vital and 
 even true theology must be, at the same time, 
 a manual of practical religion? For in any 
 inquiry concerning single Christian doctrines, 
 we are only asking: What does such an assured 
 relation to God in Christ, in the realm of the 
 morally infinite, mean as to God, as to Christ, 
 as to men and their redemption? The indi- 
 vidual doctrines, that is, must grow directly 
 
 231
 
 232 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 out of the individual's experience of communion 
 with God; grow without pretense, and in all 
 honesty, yet with modest open-mindedness as to 
 the experience of others, just as one tries to keep 
 both this honest and modest attitude in the realm 
 of art and literary criticism. 
 
 The individual doctrine, too, must not only 
 grow naturally out of the individual's own ex- 
 perience, but, based on that experience, it must 
 come to the man with assured conviction. In 
 the revelation of God in Christ, the Christian 
 must see that he has relation to undoubted fact. 
 And that means, first, that he must find in 
 Christ not merely — what he may be thoroughly 
 convinced that he finds in the case of a given 
 portrait or story — a sure reflex of life, but, 
 rather, the sense of God as now reaching him 
 in Christ, because the inner spirit of the life 
 of Christ is found to be in the highest degree 
 rational and ethical, both in itself and in its 
 implications. 
 
 And the Christian conviction means, in the 
 second place, that the Christian finds in Christ, 
 again, not merely that which he feels that he 
 could not produce out of his own resources, as 
 one has said, but rather that he finds in Christ 
 the present, undoubted assurance and call of 
 God and the spiritual world, just as, upon the
 
 EXPRESSION OF EXPERIENCE WITH CHRIST 233 
 
 Christian view, we feel the will of God in every 
 demand of duty. 
 
 It follows that those doctrines will seem to 
 us inevitable and Christian, which grow, in just 
 this indubitable and individual way, out of a 
 communion with God which we cannot question. 
 But this will also mean, in turn, that, while 
 doubtless certain Christian doctrines follow more 
 directly than others from the Christian experi- 
 ence, we shall not be able consistently to draw 
 hard and fast lines between the doctrines, as the 
 full followers of Ritschl seem inclined to do. 
 If doctrine is simply the outcome and expres- 
 sion of experience, then what we shall be able 
 to reach in doctrine will depend upon the 
 breadth and depth of our experience. It would 
 be hazardous, for example, for us to set the exact 
 limit of assured doctrine that might grow out 
 of the depth and clearness of the consciousness 
 of Christ. And with every true Christian we 
 are dealing with growing life. Therefore, upon 
 the very conception of doctrine which we are 
 urging, the growing life ought to mean growing 
 doctrine. 
 
 Is Herrmann, for example, perfectly clear 
 as to the lines of separation between those 
 doctrines which are a direct expression of a 
 personal experience of God's self-revelation to
 
 234 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 us in Christ, and those which are "a thought 
 or doctrine arising from and expressing faith 
 in our redemption," and those which he regards 
 as speculative additions (as the preexistence of 
 Christ, theories of the atonement, etc.)? And 
 where do we find the doctrines, which express 
 the consciousness that "the Christian life con- 
 tains depths which cannot be fathomed," and 
 those which are "corollaries" from Christian 
 experience? Are his distinctions* clear? On 
 his own theory, can he be so sure in the draw- 
 ing of these sharp lines? Is it not quite certain 
 that some doctrines would seem speculative for 
 some, and for others will seem to be directly 
 connected with their experience? And there 
 will be, likewise, differences for the same indi- 
 vidual at different periods in his growth. May 
 not growing experience of the meaning of 
 Christ make some further propositions seem like 
 immediate expressions of one's faith? Let one 
 think, for example, of the way in which John 
 and Paul both seem to have come to their 
 thought of Christ's preexistence; or, still better, 
 if the doctrine is to be ascribed to Christ him- 
 self, of the way in which we may suppose it 
 arose in Christ's own consciousness. 
 
 In this attempt to express in rational and 
 definite statements the content of the Christian
 
 EXPRESSION OF EXPERIENCE WITH CHRIST 235 
 
 experience, it seems evident that we must make 
 our ideal at least a final unity; though this 
 final unity, doubtless, is to be sought with the 
 most careful avoidance of common and serious 
 errors at this point. That is, in the endeavor 
 after unity in his own thought-expression of his 
 Christian faith, one must steadily avoid the 
 mistakes of dogmatism concerning any single 
 doctrine, of putting all doctrines on a level, of 
 making all those doctrines of various degrees, 
 which we seem to ourselves to have reached, into 
 a test for others, and especially of using any 
 doctrinal statements as a way to life, instead of 
 simply the expression of the life already there. 
 
 As to this last point, however, the Christian 
 needs continually to remember that life, too, 
 grows through clear and definite expression, 
 even in thought; although, no doubt, in life and 
 its complex experience there is much that must 
 always transcend such expression. But it is a 
 lazy, and in my judgment a finally immoral, 
 way for the Christian simply to rest back upon 
 a more or less emotional experience, which he 
 refuses to try, either for himself or for others, 
 to express in clear and definite thought as well 
 as in action. 
 
 Once more, with reference to all the indi- 
 vidual doctrines we should be able in much to
 
 236 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 cut under questions of merely historical criti- 
 cism, or of philosophical speculation, in recog- 
 nition both of the fundamental likeness and of 
 the unique contribution of the Christian experi- 
 ence, through undoubted relation to fact in that 
 experience. 
 
 Let us ask, then, just how certainty might 
 come to one, as to any doctrine, through the 
 facts of his religious experience.
 
 XXXVI 
 
 ILLUSTRATED IN THE DOCTRINE OF 
 PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 
 
 To take a single example, how has Christ 
 really proved himself to be the one great source 
 of faith in immortality, just as he is the great 
 source of our idea of God and of our faith in 
 God? What, indeed, in this modern day is the 
 ground of the hope of immortality for most of 
 those who hold it vitally and strongly? In 
 simple truth it would seem that the answer to 
 this last question must be that the primary 
 ground of our hope is in Christ, not in philos- 
 ophy, not in science, not in any other religion. 
 These may or may not seem corroborative. But, 
 in any case, we do not build primarily upon 
 them. They are simply not able to give that 
 certain conviction for which we seek. 
 
 Harnack's statement upon this point can 
 hardly be doubted: "Whatever may have 
 happened at the grave [of Christ] and in the 
 matter of the appearances, one thing is certain: 
 This grave was the birthplace of the indestruc- 
 tible belief that death is vanquished, that there is 
 a life eternal. It is useless to cite Plato; it is 
 
 237
 
 238 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 useless to point to the Persian religion, and the 
 ideas and literature of later Judaism. All that 
 would have perished and has perished; but the 
 certainty of the resurrection and of a life eternal 
 which is bound up with the grave in Joseph's 
 garden has not perished, and on the conviction 
 that Jesus lives we still base those hopes of 
 citizenship in an Eternal City which make our 
 earthly life worth living and tolerable. 'He 
 delivered them who through fear of death were 
 all their lifetime subject to bondage,' as the 
 writer of the epistle to the Hebrews confesses. 
 That is the point. And although there be ex- 
 ceptions to its sway, wherever, despite all the 
 weight of nature, there is a strong faith in the 
 infinite value of the soul; wherever death has 
 lost its terrors; wherever the sufferings of the 
 present are measured against a future of glory, 
 this feeling of life is bound up with the convic- 
 tion that Jesus Christ has passed through death, 
 that God has awakened him and raised him to 
 life and glory." 1 
 
 If in fact, then, the great ground of our faith 
 in immortality is the personality of Christ, let 
 us ask further, Why is it Christ? Just how is 
 it that our faith in immortality builds so directly 
 upon him? Not because Christ has much to 
 
 1 What is Christianity? p. 162.
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 239 
 
 say about heavenly rewards; not because of 
 much direct teaching; though giving, I think, 
 straightforward assurance, he has, in fact, done 
 little to satisfy our insatiate curiosity here. Not 
 primarily, either, because of the resurrection 
 evidence, however we may estimate that. For 
 myself, for reasons into which I need not here 
 go, I think there are more difficulties in setting 
 aside the plain New Testament belief in the 
 objective resurrection of Christ than most of our 
 critics seem to realize. I have small faith in 
 a gospel emptied of facts. And I share here 
 Professor Mathews' expressed conviction of the 
 genuine religious value of the historical fact 
 of the resurrection. 1 But, at the same time, I 
 cannot doubt that we cannot and do not build 
 our faith in immortality primarily upon the 
 historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of 
 Jesus, even where we are able fully to accept it. 
 We do not believe in Christ's Lordship over 
 life and death because we believe in the his- 
 torical evidence for his resurrection. Rather 
 this evidence has with us the weight it does, 
 because we are already convinced of his Lord- 
 ship in the moral and spiritual world. 
 
 Our faith in immortality, that is, is built 
 
 1 See his very suggestive Chapter III, in The Church and the 
 Changing Order, pp. 47 ff.
 
 24O THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 directly upon Christ, just because of the spirit 
 of his life. He seems himself to live in the 
 very atmosphere of the assurance of immor- 
 tality, in the atmosphere of eternity. He expects 
 it. He cannot be disappointed, we feel. But, 
 more than that, eternity fits into that most per- 
 fect life of trust and love. It is harmonious with 
 it. His life seems to us to have an eternal 
 quality. We cannot think of it as of merely 
 temporary significance. It must abide. 
 
 And so Harnack seems justified in continu- 
 ing: "What else can we believe but that the 
 earliest disciples also found the ultimate founda- 
 tion of their faith in the living Lord to be the 
 strength which had gone out from him? It was 
 a life never to be destroyed which they felt to 
 be going out from him; only for a brief span 
 of time could his death stagger them; the 
 strength of the Lord prevailed over everything; 
 God did not give him over to death; he lives 
 as the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 
 It is not by any speculative ideas of philosophy 
 but by the vision of Jesus' life and death and 
 by the feeling of his imperishable union with 
 God that mankind, so far as it believes in these 
 things, has attained to that certainty of eternal 
 life for which it was meant, and which it dimly 
 discerns — eternal life in time and beyond time.
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 24I 
 
 This feeling first established faith in the value 
 of personal life. But of every attempt to dem- 
 onstrate the certainty of 'immortality' by logical 
 process, we may say in the words of the poet: 
 
 'Believe and venture: as for pledges, 
 The gods give none.' 
 
 Belief in the living Lord and in a life eternal 
 is the act of the freedom which is born of God." 1 
 
 To like import, Matheson speaks of "the im- 
 possible consequences of a denied future." "If 
 there be no immortality, Christ is dead — the 
 purest, the fairest, the loveliest life that ever 
 breathed has become less than the napkin, less 
 than the grave-clothes, less than the sepulchre.' 
 It is to Paul an impossible consequence. He 
 cannot think of Christ as dead. He says, 'If 
 Christ be dead, death must be a delusion.' Did 
 you never feel this experience? You parted 
 with a friend an hour ago, and the next hour 
 you heard that he was dead; you said 'Impos- 
 sible!' And when it was confirmed, you said 
 again 'Impossible! if he be dead, then death is 
 not to die. I must have misnamed it, misread 
 it, mistaken the inscription on its doorway. 
 Death henceforth is a gate of life to me.' 
 
 "Son of Man, whenever I doubt of life, I 
 think of Thee. Nothing is so impossible as that 
 
 1 Op. cit. p. 163. 
 
 16
 
 242 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 Thou shouldst be dead. I can imagine the hills 
 to dissolve in vapor, and the stars to melt in 
 smoke, and the rivers to empty themselves in 
 sheer exhaustion; but I feel no limit in Thee. 
 Thou never grovvest old to me. Last century 
 is old, last year is old, last season is an obsolete 
 fashion; but Thou art not obsolete. Thou art 
 abreast of all the centuries, nay, Thou goest 
 before them like the star. I have never come 
 up with Thee, modern as I am. Thy picture is 
 at home in everv land. A thousand have fallen 
 at its side, but it has kept its bloom; old Jeru- 
 salem, old Rome, new Rome — it has been young 
 amid them all. Therefore, when oppressed by 
 the sight of death, I shall turn to Thee. I shall 
 see my immortality in Thee. I shall read the 
 possibilities of my soul in Thee. I shall measure 
 the promise of my manhood by Thee. I shall 
 comfort myself by the impossible conclusion 'If 
 there be no immortality, Christ is dead.' " 
 
 We build, then, first of all and chiefly, upon 
 the essential spirit of Christ's own life. And 
 we find this sense of the immediate perception 
 of the eternal quality of the life of Christ con- 
 firming our faith in our own immortality, be- 
 cause this undeniable quality in his life means 
 that he is the supreme artist in living, and 
 that we have reason, therefore, to trust his moral
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 243 
 
 and spiritual sanity and insight, both for him- 
 self and for others. 
 
 We remind ourselves, besides, of his express 
 assurance. The eschatological note in the teach- 
 ing of Jesus, whether urged as a reproach or as 
 praise, seems, in any case, unmistakable. It is 
 hard to see how one can question that the teach- 
 ing of Jesus looks to a future life for his dis- 
 ciples as well as for himself. And this express 
 assurance, coming from such a personality as 
 Christ's, deservedly carries the greatest weight. 
 
 And, when one turns to the different elements 
 in the teaching of Jesus, he not only finds noth- 
 ing inharmonious with this conviction of the 
 immortal life, but every bit of the rest of the 
 teaching seems rather to demand it. His one 
 great central message of God as Father re- 
 quires it. For that would seem first of all 
 to mean that our life, as children of God, is in 
 him and must deepen as our personal relation 
 to him deepens. Quite surely, as Miinsterberg 
 contends, one does not care for mere extension 
 in space as dead space, nor for senseless exten- 
 sion in time, like changeless stones. But that 
 seems to me a rather barren concession, and not 
 at all to settle the question of the value of a 
 continued, steadily deepening, ever more and 
 more significant personal relation to God and to
 
 244 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 other persons. Has the life so far been of value? 
 Then I am quite unable to understand how it 
 can be thought that its continuance can mean 
 nothing. 
 
 What is, indeed, the meaning of the eternal 
 God as Father, if there are no abiding children? 
 Is it not right into this depth that Christ looks, 
 when he says, "God is not the God of the dead, 
 but of the living"? The Father cannot mock 
 his children, and cannot disappoint them. His 
 own life is the eternal life, and it is the very 
 center of Christ's teaching that God opens the 
 sharing of exactly that life to all his children. 
 
 And, again, is it not of the essence of Christ's 
 message as a gospel that it is tidings of the 
 eternal, that it is assurance of the abiding, as 
 over against the temporal and passing? "He 
 that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 
 Is Christ's message not good news, just for the 
 reason that it opens a personal relation to the 
 eternal God, and that man's life, therefore, is 
 knit up with the very life of the Eternal? 
 
 Christ's ethical insistence, moreover, his ap- 
 peal to the individual sense of responsibility and 
 accountability, his summing up of the law and 
 of all religion and of all life in love — what is 
 all this but just so much repeated emphasis 
 on the essential significance of the individual
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 245 
 
 personality, without which none of these things 
 are possible? What does character itself mean, 
 else? And how can one assert the eternal nature 
 of the ethical, without at the same time asserting 
 the enduring existence of individual persons? 
 
 How closely our faith in immortality is linked 
 with the ethical, may be seen in the fact that 
 the immortal hope is likely to go up or down 
 in us with our own moral state. When our life 
 is most surely of the quality that ought to endure, 
 we find it easier to believe in immortality. And 
 it is exactly through Christ, it should be noted, 
 that we are chiefly and most surely brought on 
 into character and into belief in it. Thus, just 
 because Christ has not only within himself a 
 character which has the quality of the eternal, 
 and a teaching which implies at every point the 
 immortal life, but because he is himself the one 
 supreme inspirer to character, is our faith in 
 immortality connected directly with Christ. 
 
 Christ's doctrine of unlimited self-sacrifice 
 is another element of his teaching which implies 
 most assuredly the abiding value of men. For 
 there is simply no way of rationally justifying 
 either the prodigal pouring out of his own life, 
 or that which he demands from others, except 
 upon the assumption of the abiding and inesti- 
 mable value of men as children of God, as beings
 
 246 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 who can. look forward to a life to whose growth 
 in breadth and significance no limits can be put. 
 
 Everywhere, that is, in Christ's teaching one 
 strikes the eternal note, that means nothing 
 except as an appeal to an abiding personality. 
 What meaning can it have for men, and what 
 meaning in harmony with the teaching of Christ, 
 that some impersonal outcome is left or lost in 
 the Infinite? Who cares, whether God or man? 
 The only essential significance of life we know 
 lies in personal relations. What could be the 
 will result, the character result, apart from con- 
 tinuing individual personality in the sense of a 
 genuine self-consciousness and of individual 
 initiative? 
 
 The real ground, thus, of faith in immortality 
 is Christ himself, his character, his teaching, his 
 death. Our faith does not primarily depend 
 on what we can persuade ourselves to believe 
 about the resurrection and its evidence, signifi- 
 cant as I believe that to be. Quite independently 
 of that, we feel forced to believe that Christ 
 has the power of the endless life in him, in any 
 case; and this way of getting at it is open to all, 
 and means life and the assurance of a direct 
 relation with the living God. There is, thus, a 
 very real sense in which we are able, through 
 the majesty of the inner spirit of Christ himself,
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 247 
 
 as revealed in the entire sweep of his life and 
 verified in present experience, to cut under all 
 questions of merely historical criticism, that can 
 reasonably be regarded as at all open, or of 
 philosophical speculation, and to reach an as- 
 surance grounded as deeply as assurance can be 
 grounded, in the strength of our own rational 
 and ethical convictions as we face the fact of 
 Christ. Is faith in immortality an outworn 
 belief? If so, how does it come to be bound 
 up so indissolubly with the transcendent living, 
 and the transcendent moral and spiritual insight 
 of Christ? 
 
 So Harnack can say: 1 "I admit that if his- 
 torical research had proved that he was an 
 apocalyptic enthusiast or visionary, whose image 
 and utterances were advanced to the level of 
 pure aim and lofty thought only by the refining 
 influence of later times, it would be another 
 matter. But who has proved that, and who 
 could prove it? For besides the four written 
 Gospels, we possess a fifth, unwritten; and in 
 many respects its voice is clearer and more 
 effective than those of the other four — I mean 
 the united testimony of the first Christian com- 
 munity. It enables us to gather what was the 
 prevailing impression made by this personality, 
 
 1 Christianity and History, pp. 56-59.
 
 248 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 and in what sense his disciples understood his 
 words and the testimony which he gave of him- 
 self. It is true that his clothes — the outward 
 form of his doctrine — were part of the heritage; 
 but the great and simple truths which he came 
 to preach, the personal sacrifice which he made, 
 and his victory in death, were what formed the 
 new life of his community; and when the 
 apostle Paul with divine power described this 
 life as a life in the Spirit, and again as a life 
 in love, he was only giving back the light which 
 had dawned upon him in and through Jesus 
 Christ his Lord. This is a simple matter of 
 fact, which no historical criticism can in any 
 way alter. All that it can do is to place it in 
 a clearer light, and so increase our reverence 
 for the divinity which was revealed in radiance 
 in a Son of Abraham, amid the wreck and refuse 
 of a narrow world. Let the plain Bible-reader 
 continue to read his Gospels as he has hitherto 
 read them; for in the end the critic cannot read 
 them otherwise. What the one regards as their 
 true gist and meaning, the other must acknowl- 
 edge to be such. But the facts, the facts! I do 
 not know how there can be a greater fact than 
 the one which I have just been describing. By 
 the side of it, what can any historical detail 
 signify?"
 
 DOCTRINE OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 249 
 
 Harnack thus suggests that, standing upon 
 a broad basis of secure historical fact, one may 
 find the personality of Christ continually verify- 
 ing itself to him anew, through its thorough- 
 going consistency with our deepest rational and 
 ethical convictions. That personality "finds" 
 us more surely than any other fact of the world; 
 fits, as does no other, the highest and worthiest 
 in us. Greater proof than this it is hard to ask, 
 or to give. 
 
 In Harnack's words, once more: 1 "Eighteen 
 hundred years separate us from this history; 
 but if we seriously ask ourselves what it is that 
 has given us the courage to believe that in the 
 history of the world God prevails, not only by 
 moral and intellectual forces, but by His pres- 
 ence in the midst of it; if we ask what it is 
 that leads us to believe in an eternal life — our 
 answer is, that we make bold to believe it in 
 reliance upon Christ. Jesus lives, and with him 
 I live also. He is the firstborn among many 
 brothers; he is our surety for the reality of a 
 future world. So it is, then, that God speaks 
 to us through him. It was testified of Christ 
 that he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life; 
 as such he is still revealed to our inmost feeling, 
 and therein consists his presence to us. As 
 
 1 Op. fit. pp. 48-49.
 
 250 THE SEEMING UNREALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 surely as everything depends on the soul finding 
 God and becoming one with Him, so surely is 
 he the true Saviour, Guide, and Lord who leads 
 the soul to God." 
 
 It is by some such road as this, without ignor- 
 ing in any way the value of corroborative lines 
 of reasoning, that the man of the simple Chris- 
 tian life, who is neither historical and literary 
 critic, or scientist, or philosopher, may find his 
 way, by a road genuinely rational and genuinely 
 ethical, into the very presence of God, and into 
 the assurance of the greatest facts and doctrines 
 of the spiritual life. This road is not a way to 
 be travelled only by the ingenious reasoner; 
 many a simple and unlearned soul has trod it 
 confidently, even though unconsciously. It has 
 been for him, as it must ultimately be for us 
 all, not so much a matter of subtle inference, 
 as of immediate and direct spiritual perception. 
 He has found in Christ his Lord so great a fact, 
 that all else that is much worth while is given 
 him in Christ. And his argument, if he has 
 one, is the very simple one of Paul, "How shall 
 He not also with him freely give us all things?"
 
 INDEX 
 
 Absolute, as applied to God, 72. 
 
 a Kempis, quoted, 147. 
 
 Amos, referred to, 86, 203. 
 
 Analogy, domination by, 59, 194; 
 of religious life to personal rela- 
 tion, 118. 
 
 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, 
 MacDonald, 134. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, in religion, 78. 
 
 Arguments for existence of God, 
 202. 
 
 Asceticism, referred to, in Rational 
 Living, 24. 
 
 Belief, practical nature of ail, 52. 
 
 Bible, Edmond Sherer on the, 222. 
 
 Bibliotheca Sacra, quoted, 67. 
 
 Birrell, Augustine, quoted, 43; on 
 sentimental sceptics, 45. 
 
 Bodily conditions, ignoring of, 23; 
 of spiritual life, 24; dissatis- 
 faction from disregard of, 25; 
 limitations of, 126. 
 
 Bowne, B. P., on philosophical scep- 
 ticism, 48; on practical nature of 
 belief, 52. 
 
 Bradley, referred to, 209. 
 
 Browning, quoted, 77, 130, 135, 
 154, iS9; referred to, 141, 154. 
 
 Bruce, quoted, 167. 
 
 Bushnell, referred to, 91. 
 
 Causal connections, 80. 
 
 Changed Life, The, Drummond, 
 
 quoted, 106; referred to, 227. 
 Childe Roland, Browning, quoted, 
 
 135. 
 Christ, supreme revelation in, 99; 
 confession of, 99; character of 
 God revealed in, 114, 118; not an 
 ascetic, 172; contrasted with 
 
 Plato, 175; ethical ideals of, 176; 
 main argument for God in, 202; 
 need of modern man met only in, 
 215; communion with God through, 
 218; staying in the presence of, 
 224; appeal of life of, 226; doc- 
 trine as an expression of experi- 
 ence with, 231; preexistence, 
 atonement, etc., 234; immorality 
 of, 237; quality of life of, 242; 
 central message of, 243; ethical 
 insistence of, 244. 
 
 Christian doctrines, as to particular, 
 229. 
 
 Christian point of view, 8; philo- 
 sophical defense of, 8; why hard 
 to hold, 9; real and great diffi- 
 culty for the, 11. 
 
 Christian Viezv of God and the 
 World, The, Orr, quoted, 136. 
 
 Christianity and History, Harnack, 
 quoted, 247, 249. 
 
 Christianity, must endure test of 
 the historical spirit, 166; of 
 philosophical investigation, 167; 
 profoundly ethical, 177. 
 
 Church and the Changing Order, 
 The, Shailer Mathews, referred 
 to, 239. 
 
 Coe, G. A., quoted, 170. 
 
 Communion with God, 215; rational 
 and ethical, 216; through Christ, 
 in New Testament, 218. 
 
 Communion with God, Herrmann, 
 quoted, 115, 149, 215, 216, 217. 
 
 Complexity of life, ignoring of, 27; 
 effect on religion and theology, 
 27; effect on the religious con- 
 sciousness, 28. 
 
 Concrete, cannot be reached by 
 demonstration, 200. 
 
 251
 
 252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Conditions, failure to fulfil, 109. 
 Cornill, quoted, 203. 
 Cosmological proof, 204. 
 Creed, Seth Pattison on, 44. 
 
 Davenport, F. M., quoted, 29. 
 
 Demonstration, absolute, not pos- 
 sible in concrete life, 3S; in 
 spiritual life, 39. 
 
 Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason, 
 Kant, quoted, 152. 
 
 Difference between philosophical and 
 religious problems, 85. 
 
 Difference between scientific and 
 religious problems, 79. 
 
 Difficulty in the conception of God, 
 72. 
 
 Doctrine, as expression of experi- 
 ence with Christ, 231; of personal 
 immortality, 237; Christ's, of un- 
 limited self-sacrifice, 245. 
 
 Doctrines, as to particular Christian, 
 229. 
 
 Drummond, referred to, 103, 227; 
 quoted, 106. 
 
 Emerson, referred to, 157. 
 
 Emotions, strained and sham and 
 passive, set aside, 177. 
 
 Encyclopedia Britannica, quoted on 
 Scepticism, 49. 
 
 Epistcmology, problems of, 64. 
 
 Essay Concerning Human Under- 
 standing, Locke, quoted, 124. 
 
 Everett, C. C, quoted on relativity 
 of thought, 66; referred to, 167. 
 
 Evil, problem of, 155. 
 
 Experience, necessary in religion, 
 40; in other spheres, 41; restric- 
 tion of science to, 79. 
 
 External rules, in spiritual life, 105. 
 
 Faith, physiological effects of, 26; 
 
 religious, way to, 46; need < > f , 
 
 182. 
 fallacy, psychologist's, 156. 
 fatigue, effects of, 127. 
 
 Eichte, referred to, 154. 
 Finiteness, a limit to insight, 125. 
 Freedom, question of, 156. 
 Friendship, conditions of, 117. 
 
 Generation, alternate, 48. 
 
 God, universal need of, 3, 198; fact 
 of, 8; personal relation to, 8, 213; 
 obscurity of, n; existence of, 50; 
 relativity of our conceptions of, 
 65; difficulty in the conception of, 
 72 ; application of term "abso- 
 lute," 72; "unchangeable," 73; 
 "Infinite," 74; personality of, 
 74; revelation of, in Christ, 114, 
 118; relation to, 119; reverence 
 of, for human personality, 149; 
 need of hidden, 152; question of 
 existence and love of, 158; com- 
 munion with, 186, 215; strict 
 proof for, impossible, 199; main 
 lines of argument for, 202 ff. ; 
 argument from Christ, 202; from 
 the prophets, 203; defects in or- 
 dinary proofs of, 204; proof of, 
 in our standard of truth, 204; 
 communion with, through Christ, 
 232; as Father, 244. 
 
 Habit, physical basis of, 26. 
 Harnack, quoted, 237, 240, 247, 249. 
 Herrmann, quoted, 96, 115,- 149, 
 
 215, 216, 217; referred to, 233. 
 Hibbert Journal, referred to, 172. 
 Ilinton, referred to, 34. 
 Hoffding, quoted, 28. 
 Honesty, need of, in coming into 
 
 values, 112. 
 Hosea, referred to, 86, 203. 
 Hume, referred to, 28, 80. 
 
 Image, danger of domination by, 60. 
 
 Immortality, question of, 157; quo- 
 tation from Tennyson on, 207; 
 Harnack on, 237; grounded in 
 Christ, 238, 246; Matheson on.
 
 INDEX 
 
 253 
 
 241 ; faith in, linked with the 
 ethical, 245. 
 
 "Impersonal Spirit," 76. 
 
 Independent, The, quoted, 30; re- 
 ferred to, 157. 
 
 Infinite, applied to God, 75. 
 
 "Infinite Substance," 76. 
 
 [ntellectualism, abstract, 526°., 56ft'., 
 
 63, 195- 
 Interaction, problem of, 61. 
 Introduction to Philosophy, Paulsen, 
 
 quoted, 75, 87, 206. 
 Isaiah, referred to, 86. 
 
 James, William, on value of reli- 
 gious opinions, 7; on the rein- 
 statement of the vague and in- 
 articulate, 27; referred to, 83, 
 154; quoted, 207. 
 
 Jesus (See also Christ), referred to, 
 86; attitude on emotion, 96, 177. 
 
 lob, quoted, 11. 
 
 John, referred to, on preexistence 
 of Christ, 234. 
 
 Kant, referred to, 49, 137, 145; 
 quoted, 152. 
 
 Knowledge, never merely passive, 
 32; relation between that of 
 outer and spiritual worlds, 34; 
 gradual development of, 36; rela- 
 tivity of, 66. 
 
 Lange, referred to, 83. 
 
 Law, sense of, in religion, 169. 
 
 Laws, hypostasizing of, 63, 195; 
 recognition of, 102. 
 
 Leuba, referred to, 29. 
 
 Liberal, the radical, 15; emphasis on 
 unity, 16. 
 
 Liberty, in spiritual life, 105. 
 
 Life, complexity of, 172. 
 
 Limitations and fluctuations of our 
 natures, 121, 123, 197; due to 
 our finiteness, 125; in bodily and 
 psychical conditions, 126; bearing 
 on spiritual life, 131. 
 
 Living, common conditions of, 18. 
 
 Locke, referred to, 58; quoted, 124. 
 Logical fallacies, some common, 56. 
 Lotze, on fanaticism, 5; quoted, 35, 
 
 48, 60, 74, 84, 143, 201, 205; r« 
 
 f erred to, 76, 142. 
 Love, as essence of life, 226. 
 
 MacDonald, George, quoted, 134. 
 
 Magical inheritance, not possible in 
 spiritual life, 102. 
 
 Alan's Place in the Cosmos, Seth 
 Pattison, quoted, 44, 144. 
 
 Materialism, abandonment of, 63. 
 
 Mathematical proofs, 210. 
 
 Mathematico-mechanical view of the 
 world, 63, 194. 
 
 Mathematics, demonstration in, 38. 
 
 Matheson, on immortality of Christ, 
 quoted, 241. 
 
 Maxwell, Clerk, quoted, 47. 
 
 Metaphysics, problems of, 64. 
 
 Mierocosmus, The, Lotze, quoted, 
 35, 48, 60, 143. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 175. 
 
 Mind, influence over body, 26. 
 
 Misconceptions of spiritual life, 
 two classes, 16; from ignoring 
 the likeness of the spiritual life 
 to the rest of life, 17, 21; from 
 ignoring bodily conditions, 23 ff. ; 
 from ignoring psychical condi- 
 tions, 27; spiritual life as life of 
 strain, 9off. 
 
 Modesty, need of, in coming into 
 values, 112. 
 
 "Moral World Order," 76. 
 
 More, Paul E., referred to, 157. 
 
 Mornings in the College Chapel, 
 Peabody, quoted, 50. 
 
 Miinsterberg, referred to, 83, 243. 
 
 Muscular activity and will, 6. 
 
 Nash, IT. S., quoted, 185. 
 Naturalism and Agnosticism, Ward, 
 
 referred to, 62, 68; quoted, on 
 
 knowledge, 69.
 
 254 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Objections, some traditional, 63. 
 
 Obscurity of God, needed, 197; 
 moral reasons for, 200. 
 
 Ontological proof, 204. 
 
 Organization and machinery in 
 religious work, 107. 
 
 Orr, quoted, 136. 
 
 Orthodox, emphasis of the, on in- 
 dividuality of religion, 16. 
 
 Outlines of the Philosophy of Re- 
 ligion, Lotze, quoted, 74, 84. 
 
 Pascal, quoted, 150. 
 
 Pattison, Seth, quoted, 44, 49, 144- 
 
 Paul, referred to, on preexistence 
 
 of Christ, 234. 
 Paulsen, quoted on pantheism, 75; 
 
 referred to, 78, So; quoted, 87, 
 
 183, 206. 
 Peabody, F. G., quoted, 50. 
 Person, the value and sacredness 
 
 of, in religion, 170. 
 Personal relation, conditions of a 
 
 deepening, 117. 
 Personal and Ideal Elements in 
 
 Education, King, referred to, 39; 
 
 quoted on man's essential need 
 
 of religion, 182. 
 Personality, applied to God, 73. 
 Pfleiderer, referred to, 15. 
 Phenomena, restriction of science 
 
 to, 81. 
 Philosophical and religious prob- 
 lems, difference between, 85. 
 Philosophy, leading up to theology, 
 
 4; restrictions of, 86, 87; relation 
 
 to science, 88; test applied by, to 
 
 religion, 167. 
 Philosophy of Theism, Bowne, 
 
 quoted, 55. 
 Physicus, quoted, 158. 
 Plato, referred to, 123, 125, 126; 
 
 contrasted with Christ, 175. 
 Plutarch, referred to, 131. 
 Poetry of Arthur Symonds, The, 
 
 More, referred to, 157. 
 Practical nature of all belief, 52. 
 
 Prayer, chief difficulty in, 33. 
 
 Presumptive evidence, 163. 
 
 Problem of evil, 155. 
 
 Prophets, The, Cornill, quoted, 203. 
 
 Protestant procedure, in religious 
 life, 92. 
 
 Psychical conditions, limitations of, 
 126. 
 
 Psychological conditions of sense of 
 reality, 27ff. 
 
 Psychologist's fallacy, 156. 
 
 Psychology, James, quoted, 207. 
 
 Psychology, four great inferences 
 from, 27; recognition of the prac- 
 tical, and of the whole man, 46. 
 
 Purinton, referred to, 199. 
 
 Questionings, a proof of reality, 156. 
 
 Rational Living, King, reference to 
 asceticism, 24, 172; reference to 
 four inferences from psychology, 
 27; reference to unity of the 
 mind, 31; on the importance of 
 action, 37; on solution of ulti- 
 mate problems, 38; on influence 
 of practical interests, 52. 
 
 Real, concreteness of the, 179. 
 
 Reality, question as to meaning 
 of, 7; requirements for, in spirit- 
 ual life, 7; necessity of ex- 
 perience for, 40; feeling in, 128; 
 questionings, a proof of, 156; 
 way into, 161; concreteness of, 
 56, 179- 
 
 Reason, trustworthiness of, 66; 
 Everett on, 66. 
 
 Reconstruction in Theology, King, 
 referred to, 76. 
 
 Relativity of human knowledge, 47, 
 
 6S. 
 Religion, not apart from life, 29; 
 
 must meet test of modern trends 
 
 of thought, 166; man's essential 
 
 need of, 181. 
 Religion of a Mature Mind, The, 
 
 G. A. Coe, quoted, 170.
 
 INDEX 
 
 255 
 
 Religious faith, way to, 46; prob- 
 lems of, 85; need of unobtrusive- 
 ness of spiritual in, 147. 
 
 Religious life, the needed emphases 
 in modern, 220; ethical, 220; 
 Christian, 220; social, 220; bib- 
 lical, 221; wrought out in ex- 
 perience, 222. 
 
 Renan, referred to, 145. 
 
 Richard, Timothy, on conversion, 
 30. 
 
 Ritschl, referred to, 167, 233. 
 
 Romanes, quoted, 174. 
 
 Rules, external, 105; emphasis on, 
 107. 
 
 Saul, Browning, quoted, 77. 
 Scepticism, Bowne on, 48; Seth 
 
 Pattison on, 49. 
 Scherer, Edmond, quoted on the 
 
 Bible, 222. 
 Schopenhauer, referred to, 210. 
 Science of Thought, The, Everett, 
 
 quoted, 66. 
 Science's threefold restriction of 
 
 itself, 79. 
 Scientific problem, never purely 
 
 intellectual, 83. 
 Selective activity, 50. 
 "Self-developing Idea," 76. 
 Seth, James, referred to, 172. 
 Shorthouse, quoted, seeking after 
 
 truth, 45. 
 Similarity between spiritual life and 
 
 other spheres, 141. 
 Simon, D. W., quoted, 67. 
 Smyth, Newman, quoted, 44. 
 Social service, need of religious 
 
 faith in, 185. 
 Speculative power, 42. 
 Spencer, referred to, 209. 
 Spiritual life, reality of, 7; three 
 
 requirements for reality of, 7; 
 definition of, 7; unreality of, 8, 
 12; relation of, to bodily condi- 
 tions, 25; knowledge of, a grad- 
 ual growth, 36; makes no peculiar 
 
 demand-, 55; not a life of strain, 
 90; not a life of stress of feeling 
 or of attention, 92; not a life of 
 imitation, 98; not a life of mag- 
 ical inheritance, 102; not a life 
 of external rules, 105; a personal 
 relation to God, 106; conditions 
 of, 11 1 ; bearing of limitations 
 and fluctuations on, 131; gradual 
 growth in, 134; a purposed seem- 
 ing unreality of, 139; similarity 
 to other spheres, 141; element of 
 struggle in, 143; connected with 
 present trends of thought, 165, 
 172; facing the facts of the, 193; 
 method of the, 224. 
 
 Spiritual Romance of John Ingle- 
 sant, Shorthouse, quoted, 45. 
 
 Strain, psychological impossibility 
 of life of, 95. 
 
 Sunday School Times, quoted, 10. 
 
 Teleological proof, 204. 
 
 Temptation, power of repeated, 143. 
 
 Tennyson, quoted, 207. 
 
 Theistic hypothesis, open to objec- 
 tion, 8; must recognize expression 
 of God's will in men, 23 ; not 
 peculiar in its difficulties, 64; 
 argument for, 189; limitations of, 
 209. 
 
 Theologian, task of, 5; problem of, 
 6. 
 
 Theology, as science and philosophy 
 of religion, 4; queen of the 
 sciences, 4; chief business of, 5; 
 culmination of science and phil- 
 osophy, 89. 
 
 Theology and the Social Conscious- 
 ness, King, referred to, 52, 116, 
 171. 
 
 Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 
 Bowne, quoted, 48. 
 
 Thoughts and Letters, Pascal, 
 quoted, 150. 
 
 Trends of thought, the test of 
 present, 165, 172.
 
 256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Truth, our standard of, 205. 
 "Truths eternal," 208. 
 Tyndall, quoted, 136. 
 
 Unbelief, fluctuation in, 129. 
 Unchangeableness, applied to God, 
 
 73* 
 
 Unity, final, required, 132; in view 
 of world, 168; of the mind, 174; 
 in expression of faith, 235. 
 
 Unity of the mind, ignoring the, 
 30. 
 
 Unobtrusiveness of the spiritual, 
 special need of, 147. 
 
 Unreality of spiritual life, causes of, 
 13, 19; removable causes of, 13, 
 14; unremovable, but recognizable, 
 causes of, 13, 14, 123; a pur- 
 posed seeming, 139; a factor in 
 moral and spiritual training, 141, 
 155; seeming, a ground for trust, 
 
 150; failure to fulfil natural con- 
 ditions, a cause of, 196. 
 
 Values, the way into the great, 1 1 1 ; 
 introduction to, 112; reached by 
 honesty and modesty, 112; reached 
 by staying in their presence, 113; 
 differences in spheres of, 114; 
 analogy of spiritual life to other, 
 116. 
 
 Ward, referred to, 62, 68; quoted, 
 
 69. 
 What is Christianity? Harnack, 
 
 quoted, 238, 240, 
 Whitman, quoted, 41. 
 Will, and muscular activity, 26; 
 
 and action, 32, 178; place of, in 
 
 life, 178. 
 Words, domination by, 57, 194. 
 Wordsworth, referred to, 157.
 
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