THE FOUNDATIONS 
 OF RELIGION 
 
 TH E-PEO PLE'S B OOKS
 
 THE FOUNDATIONS 
 OF RELIGION 
 
 BY STANLEY A. COOK, M.A. 
 
 EX-FELLOW AND LECTURER IN THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGIONS 
 GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK 
 67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH 
 NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
 
 5' 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 F CALIFORNIA 
 BARBARA 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS little book is based upon the application of psycho- 
 logy and psychological methods to the comparative and 
 historical study of religions and religious material. No 
 writer on the subject of Religion can avoid what to 
 every reader will be sins of commission and sins of 
 omission. He can only write as the subject presents 
 itself to him at the time, with the recognition that a less 
 imperfect knowledge and a greater attention to the 
 work of others would have increased whatever value his 
 own work may have. Moreover, in his desire to em- 
 phasize certain points that seem to him essential, he is 
 doubtless ignoring or dealing too inadequately with 
 pouits that to others may seem more essential. This 
 little book aims merely at introducing the reader to 
 certain fundamental aspects of the vast subject of 
 Religion ; it does not concern itself with the value of 
 any particular religion, or with what may be called the 
 '* Foundations of Theology." It seeks to deal with the 
 subject quite generally, though, it is hoped, in a way 
 that may interest and stimulate.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. RELIGION AND LIFE 9 
 
 II. THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT ... 19 
 
 m. THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS DEVELOPMENT . 30 
 
 IV. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE UNIVERSE . . 37 
 
 V. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL . 48 
 
 VT. PROCESS IN MANKIND 60 
 
 VH. PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT IN MANKIND . 75 
 
 vm. CONCLUSION 87 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 93 
 
 INDEX 95 
 
 vii
 
 THE 
 FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 RELIGION AND LIFE * 
 
 THE term Religion is applied to man's recognition of 
 superhuman controlling power, more especially of a 
 personal God, which regulates his beliefs and behaviour, 
 or to such a particular system or body of beliefs and 
 behaviour. Everywhere the term is applied to some 
 part of a closely-interconnected whole : of an indi- 
 vidual's beliefs and behaviour only a; certain section 
 can be styled religious ; the religious side or aspect of 
 him is only one of other sides or aspects ; he himself is 
 only a single member of an interrelated environment ; 
 and all his religious and other ideas are only a small 
 portion of the entire world of thought. Our knowledge 
 of any part depends upon that of the whole to which 
 it belongs, and since Religion is everywhere bound up 
 with beliefs and behaviour which are not distinctively 
 religious, we cannot properly understand the subject if 
 we confine ourselves to particular pieces of evidence 
 which have been amputated, as it were, and handed 
 over for our inspection. For even if we agree upon a 
 definition of Religion, there is considerable difference 
 of opinion as to where the line is to be drawn between 
 Religion and all that is non-religious. 
 
 In course of discussion we often realize that while
 
 10 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 some terms are unambiguous (e.g. deity), or are clear 
 from their context (e.g. spirit), we differ because we are 
 taking different attitudes to the subject implied by the 
 term, and do not give it the same meaning (e.g. Religion, 
 Socialism, Democracy). The same term may mean 
 different things to different people, and its meaning 
 depends upon people. When we discuss Religion, or 
 Science, or Socialism, we are also implicating indi- 
 viduals who are religious, or scientists, or socialists. 
 Now such terms are the " labels " upon " parcels " of 
 ideas, beliefs, data, phenomena, &c., and we " pack " 
 them according to our experience and knowledge. Your 
 " parcel " labelled " Socialism " doubtless differs from 
 your neighbour's differs probably from what it was 
 ten or twenty years ago. The name of any particular 
 political party does not necessarily connote all that it 
 did a generation ago, and we all refuse to allow terms 
 to imply just what our opponent suggests. Language 
 is our servant ; we do not lightly change our labels, 
 but we are able to modify the contents of the parcel, 
 and thus we can think of the development of a term, 
 i.e. of a body of ideas and beliefs. Further, since for 
 practical purposes" we must have a certain amount of 
 uniformity, a group of people will have a more rigid, 
 stereotyped, and conservative conception of a term than 
 will any one individual. Hence Religion, Socialism, 
 and the like will not necessarily mean for any one 
 individual precisely what they mean for his neighbour, 
 or for the group, class, or body to which both of them 
 belong. What the terms connote depends upon experi- 
 ence and knowledge, and the history and development 
 of the full meaning of the terms introduce us to the 
 history and development of experience and thought. 
 
 The meaning of the term is bound up with experience 
 and knowledge ; if it is to work it must be practical 
 and efficient. And the tendency therefore is to have 
 clearly -cut differences. We class people according to 
 religion, politics, occupation, &c. ; and hence, although 
 the premier and the peasant, and the millionaire and
 
 RELIGION AND LIFE 11 
 
 the menial may have much in common, we incline to 
 obliterate the points of resemblance. Nay more, our con- 
 ception of millionaires, middle-classes and menials, will 
 rest upon those individuals who are thus classified, and 
 after stigmatizing certain work as " menial " we actually 
 proceed to wonder why it is disliked ! Now, since all 
 argument must be tested by reference to the real data, 
 unless a discussion of Religion, Socialism, &c., keeps in 
 touch with ordinary human nature, the argument, 
 though primarily based upon experience and observa- 
 tion, may soon become more abstract than practical. 
 Hence a critical study of Religion must be tested by 
 reference to religious individuals of all kinds, and when 
 we hear of the possible decay or overthrow of Religion 
 (or of any system of ideas whatsoever), we have to 
 realize that this can occur only through individuals 
 whose experience is no longer in harmony with the 
 thought of their environment. But immediately this is 
 recognized we ask whether the persistence of Religion 
 has not been due to its continuance to harmonize, in 
 some degree at least, with human life. Did it survive 
 because it was fit ? Does not the fact that we change 
 impel us to ask the significance of the things we have 
 retained ? 
 
 The comparative study of the forms and vicissitudes 
 of Religion has revealed the enormous amount of varia- 
 tion and development in human thought from the 
 earliest times to the present day. But the innumerable 
 striking resemblances are quite as impressive as the 
 differences, and indeed they are of a sort that people 
 are often distressed because the uniqueness of their 
 own religion is affected. Others, however, will recall 
 the famous words of St. Augustine (about A.D. 400) 
 " that which is now called the Christian religion existed 
 among the ancients, and, in fact, was not wanting from 
 the beginning of the human race." The lowest of extant 
 cults has essential points of contact with higher ones, 
 and thence with the great historical religions, including 
 Christianity ; and there is every reason to infer that
 
 12 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 Religion has slowly developed from forms in the pre- 
 historic past which certainly were not superior to the 
 modern rudimentary examples. The lowest extant 
 cults thus enable us to form some idea of the great 
 evolution in the history of Religion. At the same time 
 comparison shows that fundamental points of resem- 
 blance between the lowest and the highest types under- 
 lie the most fundamental of differences. Consequently, 
 when we think of the evolution of religious thought it 
 must be remembered that what has made for evolution, 
 for growth, and for the existing differences, has also 
 made for a certain identity and permanence. The 
 factors we postulate for the development in the past 
 cannot be severed from those which explain current 
 and impending conditions : e.g. conceptions of a Supreme 
 Being must not sever his part in the history of mankind 
 from his activity at the present day. 
 
 Modern anthropological research, in throwing a flood 
 of light upon past and present religious, social, legal, 
 and other ideas, is laying the foundation for a more 
 critical knowledge of human nature and the predomi- 
 nating tendencies of life and thought. It is thus of 
 great practical value for the testing and improving of 
 constructive schemes, the success of which demands 
 some movement of thought. The fundamental resem- 
 blances which are everywhere found evidently point to 
 something invariable in man, and warn us of limita- 
 tions ; whereas the fundamental differences suggest the 
 possibility of further development, provided the limita- 
 tions are recognized. We may distinguish between 
 (a) a relatively invariable substratum, kernel, skeleton, 
 or background, and (6) that which is more external, 
 changeable, fluctuating, and relatively variable ; and 
 we can perceive that there is an obvious possibility of 
 (6) new external forms of (a) underlying principles and 
 ideas. The critical study that does justice to both 
 resemblances and differences illuminates the nature of 
 men who can, at the same time, profoundly differ from, 
 and profoundly resemble, each other, according to the
 
 RELIGION AND LIFE 18 
 
 particular evidence we employ. It follows from this 
 that the more we are impressed by the similarities 
 among men the more improbable that there will be a 
 new psychical or mental development leading to the 
 decay or disappearance of the fundamental religious 
 ideas which are to be found in one form or another 
 among the vast majority of men. On the other hand 
 it follows equally that it is only to be expected that, 
 as thought develops, Religion will develop, and that it 
 will adhere to those general features that may be found 
 to characterize all religions from the lowest to the 
 highest. The modern tendencies, some diametrically 
 antagonistic to all that has been distinctive of Religion, 
 others keenly alive to the need for " reconstruction " or 
 " reinterpretation," prove that if there is to be any 
 coherence or harmony in the world of thought, a 
 further development in the history of Religion is 
 inevitable. 
 
 Since the vicissitudes of history testify to the futility 
 of all schemes that for some reason or another did not 
 appeal to the generality of men, the rational and 
 " critical " individual will prefer to be guided by the 
 fruits of experience, and will test all impulsive tendencies 
 in the light of the accumulated knowledge of the past. 
 The " critical " method of inquiry tests and balances 
 opinions, and in paying attention to contradictory and 
 contrary views is the antithesis of that dogmatism and 
 false rationalism which assumes that its own position 
 is complete, and that Truth lies with it alone, and has 
 only to shine forth in order to dissipate the clouds of 
 error and the mists of obscurantism. An attitude of 
 patronage, contempt, or intolerance towards other posi- 
 tions that are regarded as inferior finds in them weak 
 points and imperfections which some fresh impartial 
 observer finds in it ; and when it passes judgment it 
 is implicitly fixing a standard by which it in turn can 
 be judged. The " critical " inquirer must assume that 
 people are intellectually as honest and sincere as him- 
 self. Man's common sense impels him to maintain
 
 14 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 beliefs and practices which he sees no reason to modify 
 or reject, and he usually prefers to retain an imperfect 
 position rather than accept another which does not 
 " appeal " to him. There are minds, intelligent, learned, 
 and usually honest, which genuinely hold beliefs which 
 are variously styled religious, supernatural, super- 
 stitious, or irrational, while other minds are genuinely 
 unable to accept those beliefs which, to others, are 
 the most real truths. The " critical " method is to 
 treat the beliefs and ideas of others as we would that 
 they should treat ours, to allow that they may hold 
 them for reasons not very different from those that 
 actuate us, and to assume that the disharmony in 
 thought is due to bona fide differences in experience 
 and knowledge. 
 
 Now, two opposing positions cannot each be right, 
 and so long as the various departments of research and 
 knowledge do not lead to unanimous conclusions, it is 
 evident that an individual, however sincere, cannot be 
 relying upon any unanimity of tested knowledge, but 
 rather upon himself. Hence the popular rationalism 
 of the day, for example, is not properly rational, because 
 specialists are divided upon many fundamental ques- 
 tions, and it is " uncritical " to point only to those who 
 are in harmony with oneself. The ordinary rationalist 
 is, of course, influenced by the impressions made upon 
 him by sundry evidence, and herein he illustrates the 
 tendency of us all to assume an objective and rational 
 basis for our sincerest convictions, and often to ques- 
 tion the existence of such a basis in our opponents. 
 We all of us tend to build into one single system our 
 small amount of tested knowledge, and the great mass 
 of the untested ; but when we speak of the " cobbler 
 sticking to his last " we are very ready to recognize 
 the importance of this difference in others ! For the 
 study of Religion it is necessary to observe the 
 tendency of man to blend into one whole his tested 
 and untested knowledge, his own experience and that 
 of others.
 
 RELIGION AND LIFE 15 
 
 So seriously do all men differ that a " messenger 
 from Mars " would find that every individual was hold- 
 ing various beliefs which another individual could, or 
 did, stigmatize as irrational, absurd, superstitious, and 
 the like. Value-judgments of this sort are futile in 
 critical inquiry. Besides, scientific research has so un- 
 compromisingly linked together all mankind that it is a 
 better method to assume that all men are mentally or 
 psychically more alike than unlike, than to proceed to 
 classify them into separate mental or psychical types. 
 To take an example. Modern knowledge makes it diffi- 
 cult for both the European and the Australian to think 
 of a Heaven in the skies above him or of a Hell under- 
 neath his feet. But the comparative study of religions 
 collects and compares all the various relevant beliefs, 
 and enables us to sever (a) the kernel from (6) the 
 several external forms (cf. p. 12). Hence we have 
 (a) certain similar mental or psychical states, feelings, 
 experiences and convictions of profoundest happiness 
 and of profoundest misery and despair. These are 
 (6) expressed in a great variety of ways, some of which 
 are very familiar in Christian thought. Under certain 
 conditions ideas of Heaven and Hell have been per- 
 suasive and effective, and the fact that the ideas take 
 various external shapes and can even decay shows that 
 they depend primarily upon psychical causes. Every- 
 one will express his (a) experiences, impressions, and 
 states in (6) the language and phraseology of his par- 
 ticular environment, and where necessary one must 
 always distinguish between what is generally common 
 to man as a thinking or psychical being and the more 
 particularized and external forms of thought which 
 develop, decay, and can be replaced by others. Hence, 
 any assertion that particular ideas of Heaven and Hell 
 are irrational and contrary to modern knowledge does 
 not affect the underlying psychological aspect of the 
 question, which is, indeed, the more fundamental. 
 
 One may ask : Are there really a Heaven and a Hell ? 
 Can the beliefs be reconstructed to harmonize with
 
 16 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 modern knowledge ? Or, leaving all controversial 
 questions, we may satisfy ourselves by objective com- 
 parison : (1) that men have tended to entertain the 
 beliefs, even in a form that to us of to-day may seem 
 irrational ; (2) that such beliefs have helped to regulate 
 their hie and thought ; and (3) that they have been 
 indisputably real and effective. In other words, they 
 were psychical realities. Indeed, there were (a) psychical 
 states which found so immediate an expression in (6) the 
 beliefs and ideas of the environment that subject and 
 object were as one ; men found that their feelings were 
 made explicit and real by the ideas : they experienced 
 what the environment enabled them to describe as 
 " heavenly " bliss or the despair of " hell." Again, we 
 may leave the controversial questions of the objective 
 existence of a Deity. Simple objective comparison 
 reveals fundamental similarities in the ideas entertained 
 of a supernatural being or beings, the enormous part they 
 have played in thought and action, and the keen resent- 
 ment caused even by the criticism of the ideas. In 
 other words, the ideas are so effective and so underlie 
 belief and behaviour, that the supernatural being can 
 be called a psychical reality. Thus the study of human 
 experience, its expression and its evolution, provides an 
 objective foundation for the investigation of Religion : 
 we deal with what men experienced and thought and 
 what actuated their lives, as apart from any question 
 of the rationality and validity of the ideas. Man's pro- 
 foundest and most effective realities are primarily 
 psychical realities, whether the individual be a mystic 
 or a rationalist, a scientist or a religious devotee. 
 
 Now, it is true that arguments based directly upon 
 the Supernatural are all-sufficing to many minds. But 
 they do not appeal to those whose experience has been 
 different, and the progress of Religion has always been 
 stimulated in a very large measure by those who have 
 been dissatisfied with current religious thought. Had 
 the arguments from the Supernatural sufficed from the 
 first, others would not have been needed, and the advance
 
 RELIGION AND LIFE 17 
 
 of knowledge would assuredly have been exceedingly 
 slow. Those who have objected to Religion usually a 
 particular religion have not rarely served, however 
 unintentionally, to make it more comprehensive in that 
 they have compelled others to justify their inmost con- 
 victions hi a way that satisfied the thought of the age. 
 The comparison of religions shows that religious expres- 
 sion moves along with the general progress of thought. 
 There is an interconnection between religious and other 
 aspects of thought, between Religion and all ordinary 
 knowledge. What has regulated the life and thought of 
 men has been Religion, or a nucleus of profound feelings 
 and thoughts that corresponded to a Religion. A living 
 Religion always was and always must be in harmony 
 with the profoundest side of the individual, and unless 
 the latter is in harmony with current thought there is 
 no harmony between him and his fellows. The aims of 
 philosophy and the convergence of diverse departments 
 of knowledge point towards an ideal state of harmony 
 or coherence which, however, must satisfy the pro- 
 foundest side of men : such is the interconnection of 
 life and thought that the progress of thought in general 
 and of Religion in particular is bound up with that of 
 the individual and his entire environment. 
 
 A man's experience and knowledge determine his 
 attitude to Religion, Science, &c., and consequently 
 everything depends upon his position or attitude. If 
 he thinks he possesses an absolute or final one, he forgets 
 the absence of convergence of knowledge, and may thus 
 hinder his further psychical development. In an inquiry, 
 therefore, we distinguish between our present attitude, 
 inevitably incomplete, and an ideal one, more complete. 
 So, too, as regards the whole Universe, we may have an 
 attitude dependent upon our entire world of thought, 
 but there must be a far more complete one dependent 
 upon the continued development of ourselves and of 
 aU the relevant knowledge in the world. Religion is an 
 inseparable part of Life and Thought, and the problem 
 of Life is to find an attitude which enables the individual
 
 18 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 to make the most and the best of Life. But it is essential 
 to remember that there is all the difference between the 
 effort to find a solution and the desire to justify and 
 otherwise substantiate such solution as we have already 
 accepted. 
 
 Religion cannot be regarded as a separate entity ; as 
 a part of a large interconnected whole, it is neither un- 
 influenced by Science, Politics, and other " parts " of 
 Life and Thought, nor is it without influence upon them. 
 Its history forbids the supposition that the psychical 
 nature of man will be so different that he will cease to 
 maintain the distinctive features of Religion, the vary- 
 ing external forms of which are not to be confused with 
 their fundamental psychological aspects. The stability 
 of every society depends upon a harmonious interrela- 
 tionship of the profoundest ideas of all its members, and 
 upon this depends coherence of Life and Thought. 
 Such coherence is not due to arbitrary adjustment or 
 artificial compromise, but it can be consciously striven 
 for, by seeking a standpoint or attitude that shall 
 answer the religious and other evidence. Such an atti- 
 tude would effect a harmony without the exclusion of 
 those features that at present preclude harmony. .It 
 would involve a re-expression of the most fundamental 
 ideas in accordance with the best knowledge, and this 
 would require a development of thought beyond the 
 present stage, where the very striking and often dis- 
 turbing differences in the total world of thought, due to 
 the extreme complexity of life and knowledge, tend to 
 obscure the psychical resemblances among all men.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 
 
 WHEN we speak of the " destruction " or " overthrow " 
 of religious or other beliefs and ideas, and of the " build- 
 ing up " of new ones, we use metaphors of a misleading 
 character ; for though we tend to think of thought as a 
 structure, it is rather something that grows, develops, 
 and evolves. A " body " or system of beliefs, practices, 
 and the like (e.g. Christianity), depends upon people ; it 
 is part of their larger total " body " of thought, and 
 undergoes development. Consider any significant body 
 of thought or position which is intimately bound up 
 with some earlier name x (e.g. Mohammed, Luther, 
 Kant, Spencer, Mill, Darwin, Marx, Cobden) : any 
 attack upon or refutation of x does not necessarily 
 affect the present stage, because what was due to him 
 is no longer in its original context ; it is wrapped up 
 with subsequent experience and knowledge, and if a 
 man attacks your authority x, he has also you to deal 
 with. A present stage may certainly be imperfect, 
 but not necessarily so because of its earlier stages ; and 
 a scientist, for example, who acknowledged the in- 
 debtedness of his position to Darwin would more natu- 
 rally tend to improve it than to accept the position 
 held by an opponent who argued that Darwin's con- 
 clusions were incorrect or imperfect, and that conse- 
 quently the subsequent stage was completely erroneous. 
 Attitudes and positions have evolved in the history of 
 religions, as in other fields of life, and though much 
 may be due to the stimulus afforded by those who 
 misunderstood, attacked, and repudiated them, the more 
 comprehensive advances were due to those who could 
 
 19 B
 
 20 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 sympathize, who saw the superior merits of the position, 
 and who found that it offered a better answer to Life 
 than that of the opponent. What has developed has 
 been a view taken of the Universe which has enabled 
 man to cope with Life. Subjectively, Religion was a 
 life to be lived ; viewed objectively, there is a difference 
 between the demands of the individual and the supply, 
 and to confuse these is as wrong as to confuse the Truth 
 that satisfies the individual (whether rationalist or 
 mystic) with the absolute objective Truth. 
 
 Any careful study of the development of thought 
 reveals the close relationship between successive stages 
 despite the great landmarks that seem to sever them. 
 As epoch-making landmarks we think of Darwin, the 
 ^French Revolution, the Reformation, the rise of Moham- 
 medanism, &c. Yet, every stage is the sequel of the 
 preceding and the forerunner of the next ; everywhere 
 there are antecedents and consequences, causes and 
 effects. There is no break in the " genetic " series. 
 So also, in the history of any man, such landmarks 
 as conversion, marriage, bankruptcy, immigration, &c., 
 do not obliterate the real interconnection between the 
 before and after. There are no " leaps " in psychical 
 evolution, provided we take a wider outlook or make a 
 deeper analysis. And only thereby can we appreciate 
 the significance of both the differences and resemblances. 
 We gain a better view of the history of thought by en- 
 larging our horizon and by associating with ourselves 
 the rise and fall of the remote civilizations of Babylon 
 or Palestine, Greece or Rome. This we do instinctively 
 when we speak of the Dark or Middle Ages, of the 
 Arrest of Enquiry, and of the Revival of Learning. 
 Here we combine Western Europe, which had been 
 slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, with the 
 earlier civilizations in other lands ; we associate the 
 rise and coming-of-age of Western Europe with the 
 vicissitudes further east, as though the whole formed a 
 single unit. Strictly speaking, the evolution of any 
 aspect of thought (e.g. religion, philosophy), should not
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 21 
 
 be confused with the history of particular areas ; but 
 our instinctive attitude is instructive, and, when we 
 put aside some national or particularistic point of view, 
 and think " universally " as it were, we have a grander 
 impression of the significance of the inauguration of 
 new conditions (e.g. the rise of Judaism, Christianity, 
 Mohammedanism) as part of a world-wide process. 
 
 We cannot properly understand things (men, events, 
 beliefs, practices) unless we view them in their context, 
 in the whole of which they are part, in the light of the 
 preceding and following stages. The ape and the man 
 are remarkably alike or unlike it depends upon the 
 particular group of details (resemblances or differences) ; 
 and the only critical estimate will be based upon both 
 groups of evidence, and will refer the ape and the man 
 to their environments and to their place in evolution. 
 So, too, a religion (e.g. Christianity) may have remark- 
 able resemblances with other religions whether (1) now 
 current, or (2) historically prior to it ; but it would be 
 unwise to base an estimate upon those features alone 
 or upon the differences alone. And if we proceed on 
 these principles we must apply the same method to 
 ourselves : what we condemn in others may be virtually 
 identical with something in ourselves, and what we think 
 meritorious in our friends may be found in our foes. 
 The fundamental resemblances will be obscured because 
 of the fundamental differences, or vice versa. And if 
 we pursue this further and compare men who are warmly 
 enthusiastic and keenly zealous, we should find most 
 interesting points of resemblance, so that the fiery 
 religionist and the violent rationalist would have 
 certain fundamental psychical similarities although 
 their bodies of beliefs and practices might differ 
 fundamentally. Cf. above, p. 12 (foot). 
 
 To take other examples. All men tend to rely upon 
 their own authorities while repudiating those to whom 
 their opponents appeal ; it would be very difficult to 
 find one who, however antagonistic to " Authority," 
 had not one of his own ! So, also, men have a certain
 
 22 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 similarity of attitude to their favourite personality be 
 he athlete, minister, politician, peer, president, or king. 
 Our judgment depends upon our estimate of the par- 
 ticular authority or person, with the result that we are 
 readily guilty of the sort of enthusiasm and respect 
 that we condemn in others. But we must look abroad 
 and observe the same essential features when the hero 
 of civilized life is replaced by sacred individuals, spirits 
 or saints. The psychical state tends everywhere to be 
 more or less similar. The difference lies in more ex- 
 ternal considerations the saint, the athlete, or the 
 cabinet minister ! in the impression the phenomenon 
 makes upon our particular body of thought. 
 
 The body of thought or synthesis determine the 
 attitude to phenomena. A man's conceptions of Chris- 
 tianity, Socialism, &c., are such that any new relevant 
 datum (a new idea, proposal, theory, &c.) will be judged 
 in the light of this body. It is tempting to say that the 
 body has a " skeleton," a " vital principle," or some- 
 thing that makes it " live," for, as everybody knows, 
 we often feel that it would be destroyed if certain new 
 ideas were to take effect. Religion, Christianity, and 
 the Constitution have survived certain novel introduc- 
 tions which, at the time, seemed bound to shatter them ; 
 some people felt that the body of ideas implied by 
 these terms could not stand the shock, and events 
 proved that they were mistaken. We commonly feel 
 that our " bodies " of thought (e.g. Darwinism, Non- 
 conformity, Socialism, &c.) have a part or section or 
 whatever we may call it which is vital ; and since, in 
 the course of history, religions, institutions, and the like 
 have died, it is evident that the underlying " bodies " 
 of ideas upon which they depended were vulnerable. 
 To understand the significance of this we must observe 
 that we are dealing with individuals ; it is they who 
 fight for the convictions, beliefs, and theories that seem 
 to be essentially part of themselves. The development 
 of a man's life and that of his total world of thought 
 are interconnected ; and since his profoundest and most
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 23 
 
 valued beliefs are not unchangeable, the most vital part 
 of his psychical being and that of his world of thought 
 are both capable of development. Each depends upon 
 the other, and the whole evolves. 
 
 Often in course of discussion, of reading, or of think- 
 ing, a point is reached where a man is suddenly aware 
 of a marked difference within himself. Some " depth " 
 is sounded, some " inmost " part is touched, some more 
 real or vital part is affected. Men will differ as to what 
 is and what is not profound, but here are their pro- 
 foundest things their religion, or what corresponds to 
 it or takes the place of it. " There is an inmost centre 
 in us all, where truth abides in fulness." What we all 
 feel to be most significant, most essential, and most 
 real in our mental or psychical life is in some way con- 
 nected with that " remoter " side of ourselves which 
 we can describe only by metaphors. The ordinary 
 sincere individual is guided by this side of himself rather 
 than by any opposing opinion of Church and State ; 
 and just as he will reject the theology that does not 
 touch this " depth," so also scientific, political, social, 
 and legal ideas are in their turn subject to the same 
 test. Whence it follows that any body of thought, in 
 whatever form, out of touch with this side of man does 
 not last, but if it lasts it is because it has in some way 
 hitherto answered some need. Now we, when we survey 
 the world of beliefs and behaviour, may see a distinction 
 between (a) the sacred, holy, religious, profound, &c., 
 and (6) all that is secular, profane, common, ordinary, 
 and that does not come into the former class. But the 
 difference we see between a and 6, and the gulf we may 
 fix between the sacred and the non-sacred, depends 
 essentially upon the impression made by the phenomena 
 upon our " remoter " or " deeper " self, that integral 
 though little-known part of our self. This determines 
 the practical difference between the supernatural and 
 the natural, between the extraordinary and the ordinary ; 
 and consequently the gulf we see when we look ob- 
 jectively at a and 6 is neither so great nor so funda-
 
 24 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 mental as we external observers are apt to imagine. 
 The real difference rests within the individual and 
 depends upon the profounder side of his self. The 
 differences we feel in our states, in our existence as 
 human beings, are of fundamental importance for the 
 problem of man's place hi the Universe. 
 
 A study of any far-reaching movement in history 
 and thought reveals the general truth that the resultant 
 conditions are due to all the individuals concerned. 
 " Genius begins great works, but labour alone finishes 
 them " (Joubert). The men who stand out conspicu- 
 ously are indebted to the inconspicuous ; every individual 
 has been shaped by the current conditions and has 
 helped to shape them, and they are the result of a 
 collective process, due as much to the rank-and-file as 
 to those of outstanding merit. If " the future works 
 out great men's purposes," there is a difference between 
 the goal as apprehended by the few and the actual 
 conditions that result from the co-operation of the 
 many. The most active and far-seeing cannot foresee 
 the actual results of their plans or labours ; and every- 
 one who has aims is consciously working for them, but 
 is more unconsciously contributing to subsequent con- 
 ditions of the character of which he is ignorant. Yet 
 it is very difficult to regard any sequence of events or 
 any system of conditions as the chance result of the 
 more deliberate strivings of innumerable men. Man is 
 undoubtedly purposive : he feels that he has a part in 
 making conditions : yet the process must be viewed 
 as a collective one, due not to individuals, but to the 
 mutual interdependence of individuals, and the inter- 
 relationship is indispensable. 
 
 If we regard ourselves as the instruments of a Process, 
 we are clearly a part of it, and we usually feel ourselves 
 to be free agents. Such a Process is something vaster 
 and more permanent than man with his threescore 
 years and ten. Men are thinking, working, and writing 
 for a future they will not live to see, and instinctively 
 they co-ordinate and synthesize their experience and
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 25 
 
 knowledge and thus develop psychically. They usually 
 feel themselves to be persons that feel, desire and think, 
 and, as a rule, the only Process that they can intelligently 
 conceive is of a personal nature. The only cause of 
 which a man has immediate knowledge is himself, and 
 it is easier for him to think of a personal Power or 
 Process at work hi the Universe than of an impersonal 
 one for which man has no analogy hi his own experi- 
 ence. It is, of course, difficult to think of a personal 
 Power outside persons, but man tends intuitively to 
 recognize one. We all instinctively associate causes in 
 Nature with the striving we experience in ourselves; 
 we tend to speak of " natural " causes (e.g. natural 
 selection itself) as though they were persons with will 
 and aim, and under the influence of any strong emotion 
 the most inveterate " naturalistic " conceptions tend 
 to fall away. It is important, therefore, to notice that 
 the fundamental problem is the meaning of " person " 
 and " personality," of " individual " and " individu- 
 ality." It is precisely his own Self that man has had 
 to learn ; we cannot think of ourselves as other than 
 persons, yet we have not a full knowledge of our per- 
 sonal selves. Hence, the better the knowledge of the* 
 Self and of the psychical processes hi man, the better 
 could man think intelligently and effectively about the 
 process in the Universe. The fullest knowledge of the 
 process that works in the Universe involves the fullest 
 consciousness of the Self. 
 
 Not only has man a remoter and profounder side of 
 himself, but it is immeasurably vaster than the portion 
 of his total thought in conscious play at any given 
 moment. He may be deliberately reading a book, but, 
 the senses will be alert to irrelevant sounds, smells and 
 sights. Disturbing thoughts now and again will come 
 to the surface. Meanwhile the mind is classifying and 
 co-ordinating the new impressions with the older ones ; 
 older problems take a new form, and " deep " down, 
 the profoundest ideas, the character and the personality 
 are subconsciously maturing. Although much remains
 
 26 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 to be discovered of the subliminal, subconscious or un- 
 conscious part of ourselves, even the normal examples 
 are wonderfully valuable. If we think or calculate 
 more or less automatically, it is because the mind was 
 trained ; and only by discipline and attention will it 
 do readily and easily what once required expenditure 
 of thought and labour. An exhibition of spontaneous 
 skill or ability, however impressive, has generally re- 
 quired a necessary preparation, and only by further 
 labour can the ability be enhanced. We may recog- 
 nize (A) the more conscious part of ourselves and (B) 
 the less conscious, (A) a conscious assimilation and 
 activity, and (B) a less conscious process. B and B 
 seem in some respects mechanical and automatic, but 
 we cannot sever A and B or A and B. Both require a 
 conscious exercise of control, because we are aware 
 that B and B can temporarily gain the upper hand. 
 When we say that a man was not himself, beside him- 
 self, or lost control of himself, we intuitively recognize 
 (what is proved by analysis) that man has a more 
 conscious and responsible side and a side less conscious, 
 but vaster and profounder. 
 
 If we look back on our lives it is evident that a long 
 time elapsed before we recognized the plans and pur- 
 poses that now guide us. There seems to have been 
 an unconscious preparation for every conscious activity ; 
 the conscious purpose at one stage was unconsciously 
 preparing for another conscious purpose at the next. 
 Indeed, increase of experience sometimes impresses us 
 BO vividly that we feel we had hitherto been relatively 
 mechanical and unconscious ; we " wake up " to life, 
 although we know quite well we were not " asleep " 
 before. We are not aware of our wlwle Self, yet its 
 vicissitudes are as important as those of which we are 
 actually conscious. If an individual has a serious 
 accident, loses his intellect, and becomes insane, or if 
 in his old age he becomes senile and childish, are we to 
 suppose that the earliest dawn of mind, its ripening and 
 the subsequent disaster the whole series which we
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 27 
 
 could trace by simple observation are the Alpha and 
 Omega of his history ? Now the way in which we can 
 introspect, analyze, cross-examine ourselves and control 
 our mind shows that our world of thought and we our- 
 selves are not precisely one and the same. Moreover, 
 there is reason to believe that our memory is fuller than 
 we consciously realize, and that long-forgotten vicissi- 
 tudes are not entirely removed from our complete 
 consciousness. Finally, man has had the intuitive con- 
 viction that, bound up though he was with the haps 
 and chances of the body, he was in a sense independent 
 of and superior to it, and the intense consciousness of 
 his existence and continuance has made the idea of an 
 existence after death a " psychical reality." The Self 
 has a vaster kingdom than it imagines ; but the Self 
 is not the same as the kingdom which alone makes it 
 a king : the Self is not identical with its psychical realm 
 by which we know and test it. 
 
 The development of man as a psychical being brings 
 problems of its origin and sequel. The young child is 
 obviously able to profit from his environment, but, 
 primarily, he is not self-conscious, and there can be no 
 difference between A, A and B, B (see p. 26). There is 
 something more than the surface indications by which 
 we estimate him ; and, as we follow him from birth to 
 death, something develops and evolves, something over 
 and above that of which either we or the individual 
 himself are fully aware. These remarks bear directly 
 upon our conceptions of Personality, Personal Power, 
 and Process. What is effective is due to the inter- 
 connection of men (see p. 24). It does not rest upon 
 individual " machines " or " nervous systems," but 
 upon an appropriate relationship between many. The 
 cruder materialism overlooks this. The whole of which 
 the individual is part involves the remoter, profounder, 
 and unknown side of all the interconnected individuals 
 concerned. Hence our conception of the Power or 
 Process in the Universe already is seen to demand a 
 knowledge far more complete than what is already
 
 28 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 possessed, far superior though it may now be to that 
 possessed by rudunentary races. 
 
 In every individual we see a development from the 
 more instinctive and unconscious to the more conscious, 
 intelligent, and purposive. It is a development wherein 
 he gains a fuller consciousness of his possibilities and 
 limitations ; he enlarges his environment, his world of 
 thought, and he grows in knowledge of Self. There is 
 the greatest difference between the earliest stages and 
 the most recent ; but all the successive stages are 
 interrelated. This is analogous to the evolution of the 
 Universe, from the inorganic to the organic, from the 
 appearance of Life to that of Intelligence. Everywhere 
 there are very striking differences which would allow 
 us to classify and isolate ; but we should require pre- 
 liminary definitions (of matter, inorganic, organic, life, 
 mind, instinct), and these may beg the question. On 
 the other hand, the very striking resemblances in the 
 successive and interrelated stages are like those that 
 unite the infant, child, youth, and adult with the old 
 man. What we see around us we divide and classify 
 for present practical purposes, but the clear-cut differ- 
 ences we are obliged to make tend to obliterate the 
 fundamental points of resemblance and obscure the 
 overlapping of successive stages (cf. pp. 10 seq., 20). 
 
 Evolution in the Universe culminates in the self- 
 consciousness of man who is aware of the Universe 
 and strives to comprehend it in its fulness. But the 
 process in history cannot be viewed apart from current 
 immanent processes. " Matter " is taking various 
 forms, each going along lines proper to itself crystal, 
 jelly-fish, insect, tree, man, &c. yet " matter " is ulti- 
 mately something more subtle than what can be seen, 
 touched, or weighed ; and though we are not aware 
 of Mind as apart from body, our conception of Mind 
 involves a collective process in all human minds (see 
 p. 24). Further, unless we sever human mind from the 
 "consciousness" of animals, from the ability of organ- 
 isms to respond to stimuli, from the power of the crystal
 
 THOUGHT AND ITS MOVEMENT 29 
 
 to behave decently and symmetrically, as every proper 
 crystal should do, and unless we are influenced solely 
 by the differences, the human mind will invariably 
 tend to co-ordinate and synthesize all its experience 
 and knowledge. Either the differences in " matter " 
 lead us to differentiate our conceptions of Powers and 
 Processes ; or unity of the conceptions of Power and 
 Process tends to unify the material forms in spite of 
 their present striking differences. For, if we take a 
 sufficiently long and wide view the differences in the 
 form of " matter " are relatively ephemeral ; they may 
 be transitory from the point of view of Eternity. 
 
 The mind instinctively tends to hold synthesizing 
 ideas of permanence, continuity, and unity, whereby 
 man normally rises above changes, and is not lastingly 
 overwhelmed by accidents. The mind is very apt to 
 ignore difference, growth, and development where they 
 exist ; but when it recognizes them it is very ready to 
 exaggerate them and thus obscure the underlying con- 
 nexions and interrelations. When the mind becomes 
 conscious of the Universe, it becomes conscious of what 
 was already in existence, but the gradual growth of 
 mind makes it difficult for man to estimate his place 
 in the Universe and his relationship to its processes. 
 Just as our conceptions of Life will be based upon 
 personal experience and knowledge, so our ideas of the 
 Universe are not so much a description of it as the 
 result of its significance for us. Our ideas thus tend 
 to represent what we have come to understand, how- 
 ever imperfectly, in the course of our development 
 they are, in this way, our contribution to a less im- 
 perfect knowledge of what the Universe really is, of 
 what that whole is of which we are a part. In this we 
 are swayed by feeling and temperament, as also by 
 intellect and reason.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS DEVELOPMENT 
 
 WE contrast the heart with the head, feeling with 
 thought, faith with reason, insight and intuition with 
 reflection, poetry with prose, speculation with induction, 
 spontaneity with cautious circumspection, religion with 
 science, all that is impulsive and instinctive with that 
 which is deliberate, and the like. On the one side (x) 
 we place all that easily tends to the imaginative, the 
 non-rational and the irrational, and on the other (y) we 
 find what pertains to reason and the rational. But x 
 comprises what is elevated, stirring, and highly-de- 
 veloped, as well as what is open to objection ; while as 
 regards y, what is most rational and intellectual is only 
 relatively so it may be far removed from human inte- 
 rests, it is not rarely unsatisfying to life, and the march 
 of knowledge shows how imperfect each stage in the 
 past proves to have been. In other words, there can 
 be no a priori assumption that the one or the other is 
 necessarily good or bad. When we condemn or re- 
 pudiate we are influenced by particular cases and forget 
 how largely we are ruled by the non-rational and sub- 
 conscious side of ourselves. Psychologically we cannot 
 sever (save for some analysis) the feeling from the 
 reflective side of man. From prehistoric man onwards 
 the advance of thought has been due to the combina- 
 tion of x and y. In a; we may have a greater fulness 
 of existence, but it is precisely the exercise of reason 
 and control that has made experience valuable. Life is 
 interpreted through thought and then enriches thought ; 
 they move side by side, though thought is in arrear, 
 
 so
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND DEVELOPMENT 31 
 
 reflecting upon experience, and making a wider and 
 deeper synthesis which will interpret new experience. 
 
 Broadly speaking, we may say that x is characterized 
 by the diminution or absence of control, by a manifes- 
 tation of the whole. Self, by existence and life, rather 
 than by reflection and thought. But when we reason, 
 we concentrate upon particulars, we " specialize " and 
 ignore what seems irrelevant. Increase of knowledge 
 comes by attention to a small portion of some whole 
 that presents itself. The full significance of an impres- 
 sion always depends upon the knowledge of the indi- 
 vidual. At an early stage our knowledge was exces- 
 sively small ; impressions aroused feelings rather than 
 thoughts. Control of attention (y) is necessary for all 
 progress. Man does not feel that his uncontrolled Self 
 is his true and ideal Self. The ideal may be remote, 
 but certainly is not thought to be unattainable ; it is 
 a controlled Self, depending upon general guiding prin- 
 ciples, co-ordination of ideas, and mastery over dis- 
 turbing impulses. There is always a tendency to 
 repudiate the non-normal state when, as we afterwards 
 say, we were "not ourselves." The non-normal state 
 is not necessarily " higher " or " lower " or " abnormal "; 
 it is a highly significant aspect of ourselves, and the 
 feeling (e.g. temper, joy, enthusiasm) is uicr? ^rofound 
 and intense than in the nearest corresponding normal 
 state. It is part of our development, intensely real at 
 the time ; but on reflection it seems too removed from 
 normal hie ; it is not the sort of Self that is suitable 
 for everyday existence. Yet it is to be reckoned with, 
 because it is a state of existence or being, not one into 
 which we actually develop, but one which in course of 
 our development can be made richer and more valuable. 
 The non-normal state is an indication of something 
 more profound than the everyday normal fife, but it is 
 not controlled ; and while the exercise of control tends 
 to shape our individuality, it tends thereby to sever us 
 from our fellows. 
 
 We may regard a man as a unit in course of a very
 
 32 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 wonderful, psychical development. But he is one of, 
 and he depends upon, myriads of similar units. Pro- 
 gress comes from the activity of numerous individuals ; 
 the environment checks those who diverge too seriously : 
 it criticizes, hinders, moderates, and adjusts their plans. 
 The environment gives us our stock of general know- 
 ledge. The great men are those who impressed the 
 environment ; it recognized their worth, and hence we 
 praise and revere them. The environment moves by a 
 kind of " collective " process ; it has a large mass of 
 average opinion, and those too much outside it will 
 suffer. " The voice of the people is the voice of God " 
 the saying indicates the impression made by the " col- 
 lective thought," although we tacitly apply it only to 
 those cases where we feel it to be appropriate. The 
 modern study of social psychology has strongly empha- 
 sized the immense importance of the social body and 
 its collective thought which is imposed upon the indi- 
 vidual, and consequently the individual, as an integral 
 part of his social group or environment, may be regarded 
 as a unit, part of some larger unit. 
 
 Now, when a man associates himself -r.ith others, he 
 says " we," not " I." " I " live only a few decades, 
 but the larger unit is '~LO transitory, whether we refer 
 to school, ^vb, town, country, or empire. " Our " land 
 .ami its history form a unit which carries us far away in 
 space and time, and when we talk of the Middle Ages 
 we instinctively associate ourselves with those of Ancient 
 Greece and Rome who contributed to the development 
 of the present conditions (see p. 20). We may specu- 
 late whether the dead are interested in our problems, or 
 whether we, when dead, shall be interested in the con- 
 ditions we are making ; but unconsciously we weld into 
 one whole the past and the present, and we both identify 
 ourselves with those who made the past, and we fight 
 in order to make the future. And, biologically, on the 
 theory of the common descent of all mankind, an in- 
 stinct of unity is not unnatural ! Our unit, however, 
 is not constant. The feeling of " we " and " our "
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND DEVELOPMENT 33 
 
 varies ; it depends upon our sympathies, our land and 
 its history and extent ; it depends upon our feelings, 
 ideas, and knowledge of things. Instinctively we claim 
 to be part of a larger unit, a larger existence, which 
 must needs be formulated in order that the significance 
 of the instinct may be realized. 
 
 A man who stands up against common opinion sets 
 himself against the collective thought. Even among 
 savage peoples there are men of individuality, and all 
 such men in diverging from the environment stand 
 psychically outside the group. Such a term as " col- 
 lective thought " usefully symbolizes the homogeneity 
 of a group, and there is abundant evidence for its force. 
 But other evidence, equally impressive, shows us men 
 striving to influence their environment, and though they 
 suffered because it was antagonistic, they felt them- 
 selves to be in the right. Sociological explanations of 
 the phenomenon may transfer the problem from the 
 man to the group, but the secret lies outside the visible 
 group. However large the group, however impressive 
 its solidarity, when the individual diverges the unit is 
 expanded and can be expanded indefinitely. What is 
 fundamental is not man's conception of his fellow-men, 
 but something over and above them, whether it be in 
 his conception of himself or of a superhuman Power. 
 Every idea of a Power in man must be extended outside 
 the " environment," " group," or " society," and, if 
 thought is to be co-ordinated, the unit of which man is 
 part must be the largest conceivable. The mind cannot 
 accept as its ultimate unit one that does not include 
 all men, nor can it sever itself from all that influences 
 it. The unit must be the whole of which a man feels 
 himself part, and it must not be limited by his particular 
 knowledge at a particular date. His knowledge of the 
 whole develops as he develops, and the complete unit 
 the Universe he can fully comprehend only when he 
 has completed his development (cf. p. 25). 
 
 When ideas of a Supreme Being are presented to a 
 man he tests them in the light of his body of thought
 
 34 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 as it then is. " A man only understands what is akin 
 to something already existing in himself " (Henri Amiel). 
 The child has his instinctive activities, and observation 
 shows that his ability to assimilate experience and 
 knowledge depends upon the stage already reached. 
 Especially significant is his ability to assimilate the 
 things that " appeal to his heart," as we say, rather 
 than to his head : to accept fruitful ideas, valuable 
 truths, and simple religious teaching. There is a cer- 
 tain readiness to assimilate what, in a sense, belongs to 
 the " supernatural " (religious ideas, fairies, spirits, and 
 the like), and to share in an existence which may be said 
 to be more psychical than physical (as, e.g., in "make- 
 believe "). It is true that time will modify these ideas, 
 or perhaps remove some or all of them ; but while 
 increase of experience and knowledge may seriously 
 affect ideas of the supernatural, there is throughout an 
 active development of the Self. A man will feel that 
 he must be true to himself, and must work and fight 
 for his valued ideas as he would for any valued material 
 object. But a man will also be conscious of a tran- 
 scendent superior Power, immediately interested in his 
 development, ready to help and to warn, a Power to 
 be approached and worshipped. The consciousness of 
 Self is no less a problem than that of the consciousness 
 of a Supreme Power both are psychical realities. A 
 man works out a career to which he had been drawn 
 at a time when he was ignorant of the possibilities, 
 and such is the profundity and value of the subconscious 
 side of man that it is little wonder that men of all ages 
 and lands have believed in guardian spirits or angels, 
 in tutelary deities and protective geniuses. The mystery 
 of the developing Self involves intricate psychological 
 questions which, when co-ordinated with the compara- 
 tive study of religious beliefs, bear upon the problem 
 of the recognition of a Deity. If the man in course of 
 years comes to realize his Self, he clearly becomes aware 
 of something of which he had already been part ; while 
 the possibility of an intimate and immediate relation-
 
 ship with a Deity who had always been interested in 
 the Self is characteristic of Religion. 
 
 Increase of experience and knowledge may enrich the 
 " natural " at the expense of the " supernatural " ; it 
 takes the extraordinary and marvellous and makes it 
 ordinary or even commonplace. It strips Religion. 
 But we have not yet reached the bed-rock of fact. 
 Man has frequently associated rain and crops with the 
 supernatural ; but although we may give a " natural " 
 description of the rain and of the growth of corn, there 
 are ultimate questions which are connected with un- 
 solved problems of Energy, Personal or Impersonal 
 Powers or Processes, Purpose and Mind. Whereas man 
 has from tune to tune been able to co-ordinate his ideas 
 of Nature and his experience of the Universe, modern 
 knowledge scarcely allows us to do this to-day. But if 
 knowledge based upon scientific research formed one 
 synthesis with the experience and knowledge of the 
 ordinary individual, man would once more associate the 
 blessings of the earth with the supernatural. A man's 
 recognition of the existence and providence of the Deity 
 depend upon his body of experience and thought. Now, 
 although increase of knowledge may seem to enrich 
 (a) the " natural " and the " secular " at the expense 
 of (6) the " supernatural " and the " sacred," we must 
 not suppose that the contents of b are passing over 
 and enriching a. The process in question has always 
 been going on, and it is significant that not only does 
 Religion persist and develop, but there is apt to be a 
 recrudescence of very undesirable types of super- 
 naturalism. The difference between a and 6 depends 
 more upon the individual as a whole than upon the 
 quantity of knowledge he possesses (cf. p. 23). If we 
 could imagine a comprehensive system of thought based 
 upon a, it would satisfy only a very limited number of 
 individuals, and indeed it would not nourish them unless 
 it satisfied the whole man. But where there is a com- 
 prehensive and co-ordinated body of thought in an 
 environment, there is that which feeds the profounder 
 

 
 36 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 side of man, and experience and knowledge are in a 
 certain harmony, uniting the religious and the non- 
 religious aspects. Religion, so far from being founded 
 upon the gaps in knowledge, is seen, when living, to 
 permeate all life and thought. This is why when we 
 start from b all seems to be part of one body of religious 
 thought, whereas when we work from a everything 
 seems " natural," and the necessity for Religion seems 
 to disappear. None the less, however " natural " the 
 Universe may appear, no one would deny the value of 
 those generous sentiments that actuate men and make 
 them lovable, or of that admiration for Nature which 
 cannot be suppressed, or of those subconscious prompt- 
 ings which lead men to work out their lives and build 
 better than they know. Man does not live by know- 
 ledge alone, but knowledge gives greater richness to 
 Life, and the exercise of reason alone produces permanent 
 advances and reveals to man his significance for the 
 evolution of the Universe. 
 
 A comprehensive and co-ordinated body of thought 
 combines in one whole that which satisfies the whole of 
 the ordinary individual and allows him 
 
 To see a world in a grain of sand, 
 And a Heaven in a wild flower. 
 
 It is this ideal of a systematization of experience and 
 knowledge, harmonizing all that goes to make up the 
 Universe, that inspires Tennyson's familiar lines : 
 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 
 I pluck you out of the crannies. 
 
 I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 
 Little flower but if I could understand, 
 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE UNIVERSE 
 
 MAN instinctively resents opposition ; he prefers others 
 to agree with him. The more the agreement the more 
 complete the harmony, but at the cost of that indi- 
 viduality and of that conflict of ideas and aims which 
 has led to the increasing richness and complexity of 
 the world of thought. In rudimentary societies variance 
 of thought is relatively very small, and in higher levels, 
 where there is some equilibrium or co-ordination of 
 thought, the divergence is relatively smaller than that 
 at periods of transition where individuality tends to be 
 extreme. Now the young child in course of growth 
 manifests with increasing intensity the fact that he has 
 an individuality of his own. But in times of great joy, 
 grief, fear, enthusiasm, or expectation at times when 
 he is not quite normal, or on non-normal occasions 
 his distinctive individuality is more vividly expressed 
 (e.g. in a bad temper) or suppressed (e.g. in comradeship 
 and unselfishness). The Self is expanded either for 
 itself or for others. All non-normal occasions disturb 
 and deflect the stream of life, and characteristically 
 bring a need for contact with others. Great disasters, 
 stirring occurrences, and even humorous events tend 
 to force a co-operation and relationship, however 
 temporary. Man is both social and selfish ; on occasion 
 he tends to throw off all acquired convention and re- 
 straint, as though the psychical unity of all men broke 
 down the differences that were due to the growth of 
 individuality. But any tendency to repress the Self is 
 making for homogeneity, and this would make ultimately 
 for an inconceivable state of stagnation; whereas 
 
 37
 
 38 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 normally we tend to assert ourselves, and this makes 
 for development, richness, and diversity, and for a 
 heterogeneity which, if excessive, would lead ultimately 
 to an inconceivable state of chaos. Something keeps 
 mankind between the two extremes, just as the " col- 
 lective process " moderates and adjusts the more exces- 
 sive activities of individuals. Not the tendency towards 
 heterogeneity but that towards homogeneity is obviously 
 the more essential; not continued change but the 
 exercise of control is the more significant factor for the 
 harmonious evolution of the Universe (cf. p. 12, foot). 
 The men passing to and fro in the next street are 
 heterogeneous, but if they were united for a time we 
 should find some suppression of individuality and of 
 reason, a certain contagiousness of feeling, and some 
 manifestation of a collective spirit. A crowd when 
 united is remarkably open to suggestion, and when one 
 or more individuals command its attention and control 
 it, the homogeneity becomes astonishing. He who is 
 controlling seems to have almost unlimited powers ; 
 while he who, for the time being, is controlled seems to 
 be an insignificant fraction. We may regard the whole 
 as a psychical unit, of variable size, the predominating 
 part of which is taken by one or more, who are not 
 separate from or above the rest, but a superior part of 
 them, the reflective and guiding part of a whole. The 
 relationship is familiar, subtle, and suggestive. Sym- 
 pathetic minds tend to a unity, at all events, in certain 
 particulars, and the union gives a greater emotional 
 strength. The teacher's success depends upon the re- 
 lationship he can establish with his pupil. We, as per- 
 sons, have to control our little world of " individual " 
 ideas and thoughts, and when we put our " whole self " 
 into a job the controlling part stands to the rest of us 
 like the leader to his band. Not to delay further, here 
 is a normal psychical relationship which enables us to 
 form some notion of a psychical unit composed of 
 separate individual parts, but with one controlling 
 mind : mind working upon mind.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSE 39 
 
 Morally and intellectually the crowd is not upon a 
 very high level ; but a moral and intellectual homo- 
 geneity or harmony as regards certain particulars 
 would be found in groups with similar aims e.g. poli- 
 tical, social, charitable or intellectual. Every group 
 which depends upon the " corporate spirit " animating 
 its members must discountenance individuality that 
 diverges to a degree felt to be dangerous to j^ stability ; 
 but the psychical unity will be primarily departmental, 
 specialistic, and confined to particulars. The indivi- 
 dual, however progressive, usually appreciates homo- 
 geneity, provided he is on the ruling side ; otherwise an 
 instinctive self-assertiveness manifests itself against 
 those who, after profiting from the development of 
 their own individuality, are repressing that of others, 
 perhaps with the best intentions in the world. Among 
 the lower orders the homogeneity or harmony is more 
 complete. The bee or the ant is practically a fraction 
 of a unit ; and the homogeneity and differentiation in 
 a hive of bees or a colony of ants would be incon- 
 ceivable in man because his environment is too complex 
 and mutable. In love there may be an almost perfect 
 homogeneity with retention of individuality and scope 
 for further development, but we obviously cannot 
 imagine such a state on an unlimited scale among the 
 whole of mankind. Yet such are the tendencies to 
 combination and homogeneity on the one side, and to 
 differentiation and heterogeneity on the other, that 
 they are unintelligible and meaningless unless they sug- 
 gest a state of equilibrium where every individual, as 
 a result of his psychical development, might have the 
 fullest realization of his individuality. And this is 
 comparable only with the conviction of a state of one- 
 ness with a Supreme Being, with a God who is Love, an 
 idea which in various forms recurs independently in 
 man at various levels of thought. 
 
 Individuality and Personality depend on control. A 
 man may be " carried away " by a book, a play, an 
 address, or by bis thoughts ; his life seems richer and
 
 40 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 fuller ; his experience may seem real at the time, but 
 he is not his normal self. He is in a psychical " king- 
 dom " which is his very own ; he is not so much aware 
 of it, as of it and in it. Like a man in love, he is not so 
 much consciously and objectively aware that he is in 
 a certain state, rather is he living a new life and exist- 
 ence. It is imperative that he restrain undue criticism, 
 nor must he lose himself entirely ; his individuality is 
 not gone, it seems to be expanded and to share in another 
 or a larger existence. But when he sleeps and dreams 
 he is a puppet ; something uncontrolled now controls 
 him. The vicissitudes are often more disturbing and 
 distressing than when he is awake, because he usually 
 cannot reflect and adjust himself to the environment. 
 Awake, he may strive to be his ideals, but dreaming, 
 he is what his dream makes him. He is a pawn in a 
 very realistic game, even though he dream himself a 
 king. When awake, the more complete his experience 
 and knowledge the more intelligent, effective, and 
 realistic the constructions of his imagination. The 
 novelist may see and hear the characters he has created, 
 and there is always a tendency to give material reality 
 to what is really only a psychical reality. In patho- 
 logical cases a man may so lose control that he is and 
 acts that which had in some way vividly impressed 
 itself upon his mind. Thus there is a tendency to be 
 in a real or a seemingly real manner what exists in the 
 mind in the form of ideas to be what one wants to be, 
 to be what has become exceedingly interesting, to ex- 
 perience one's ideas and realize one's thoughts, to 
 subordinate the material and the physical to the psychi- 
 cal and the spiritual. In the uncontrolled state every- 
 thing is exceeding real, and we gain a vivid notion of 
 the mysteries and marvels of the mind, and of the way 
 in which, on occasion, the difference between the subject 
 and the object can fade away. But it is evident that 
 safety lies in the exercise of control and reason, and 
 though these may seem to hamper life, they enrich the 
 mind and make its fruits more valuable.
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSE 41 
 
 " Nature " appears to cherish the rank-and-file ; those 
 too much above or below the average suffer. Extreme 
 individuality, like extreme obsession, tends to sever a 
 man from his environment and may harm him. At the 
 same time, extreme self-consciousness and morbidity 
 are relieved when a man ceases to be dreadfully sorry 
 for himself, when he puts aside himself and thinks of 
 others. " There is joy in self-forgetfulness " (Helen 
 Keller). The objective worth of the individual lies in 
 his contribution to the environment. The non-normal 
 states, temperaments and intellects, have a real value 
 of their own, but they are not invariably suitable for 
 everyday life. Religion, poetry, music, art, philosophy, 
 research, reforming ideals like " love in a cottage " 
 may be exceedingly stimulating to those concerned, 
 but they become more objectively valuable when they 
 are attuned to the ordinary world. The non-normal 
 will take man away from the rough-and-tumble of life 
 to a larger and grander existence, but the objective 
 development of thought comes through intelligent ad- 
 justment with a larger field of thought. The subjec- 
 tively profound is not objectively so until it has been 
 made intelligible to a larger variety of minds and tem- 
 peraments. Thereby it is enriched and is of more 
 comprehensive and more permanent utility ; and the 
 individual who will make the adjustment is develop- 
 ing his own existence less specialistically and more 
 comprehensively. The great seers, prophets, and in- 
 augurators of new religions benefited the environment 
 which succeeded in adjusting them to itself, and thereby 
 tended to work out its own career even as they had 
 done. What seems to be a deterioration between the 
 teaching and ideals of the individual and the subsequent 
 adjustment by the environment represents the latter's 
 gain. After all, the greatest geniuses are the most 
 indebted men. The vast and incalculable difference 
 between the average thought of to-day and that of the 
 first prehistoric society is due to a very gradual move- 
 ment influenced by myriads of individuals each of
 
 42 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 whom, in working out his own aims, has contributed 
 something, and whose value has not always lain where 
 he thought. Those who diverged from the rest and 
 followed out their own ideas have caused a development 
 of ideas of righteousness and good, of sin and of evil ; 
 and the most moderate of " progressive " ideas are not 
 essentially different from those that actuate the most 
 anarchistical and revolutionary of men. 
 
 The environment has often misjudged the individual ; 
 the fairer estimate has been made afterwards when the 
 consequences of his work have been perceived. A man's 
 real value is seen to lie in that which is effective for a 
 later stage of development. Now, what a man feels to 
 be profound for himself must be translated into action. 
 He may study principles and methods, and he may look 
 back and ask whether he has practised them ; but when 
 he is actually at work he does not continuously cross- 
 examine himself and introspect and scrutinize his 
 steps. He advances by being subconsciously assisted 
 by what he has more consciously and laboriously assi- 
 milated ; and the aim of all training and discipline is to 
 hand over as much as possible to the subconscious, 
 automatic, and mechanical side, and thus leave more 
 scope for the conscious, reflective, and purposive side. 
 A man may believe that on a certain occasion he acted 
 up to his very best and truest Self, but he did not make 
 that judgment at that very tune. Though on retro- 
 spect he feels he tuas that Self then, he does not now 
 experience this Self, nor does he feel that he has reached 
 the limit of development. There is still a " psychical 
 gulf," the need of a development towards some higher 
 Self, to be achieved not by contemplation but by 
 activity. If death might seem to destroy that develop- 
 ment, the normal instinctive or intuitive feeling has 
 been that the development of man does not cease 
 with death. The Self is not quite the same as the 
 ordinary stumbling and erring man which it must 
 guide and control. 
 
 The really effective things do not die. We are
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSE 43 
 
 thoroughly accustomed to the fact that groups, institu- 
 tions, countries, subjects of research, and everything 
 that depends on individuals, survive most catastrophes. 
 Men die, but we invariably assume the persistence of 
 the activities connected with them and the survival of 
 the ideas they introduced. The continuity of the stages 
 hi the life-history of man is so impressive that the mind 
 does not naturally imagine that death means annihila- 
 tion. The real worth of a man is so invariably seen 
 only when we take a broader view of the events with 
 which he was connected that we cannot properly esti- 
 mate the individual aright by confining ourselves to our 
 imperfect survey of his short years. The simplest 
 organisms can hardly be said to die, the more complex 
 disintegrate, but something is indestructible. The death 
 of the bee or the ant is not catastrophic because they 
 are only fractions of a unit, and the man in like manner 
 is not only part of a larger permanent unit, but instinc- 
 tively and intuitively recognizes this. It is very diffi- 
 cult for the mind to believe that whatever evolves or 
 develops stage by stage can suddenly be annihilated ; 
 only by taking a very narrow view, and by ignoring the 
 whole of which a thing is part, can annihilation or even 
 a radical change seem possible. 
 
 In all ages and lands men have felt that death would 
 not remove them from their environment, that they 
 would exist or be present perhaps in some new form, or 
 perhaps absorbed in some larger unit. There have been 
 converging intuitive convictions (1) that there is an 
 existence after death not radically different from the 
 experiences, scenes, and vicissitudes of the bodily life, 
 and (2) that the dead are near and interested in the lives 
 of their descendants, or (3) that the welfare of the 
 former even depends upon the behaviour of the latter. 
 The essential difference between Life or the Living, and 
 Death or the Dead, is what we decide it to be. Death 
 is not terrible ; " the terror," says Epictetus, the old 
 Greek philosopher (first century A.D.), " consists in our 
 idea that death is terrible." It is characteristic of
 
 44 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 Religion to link the two together, not primarily as a 
 philosophy or dogma, but as an intuitive and instinctive 
 conviction of man's relation to the past, present, and 
 future of his environment. Only rarely has annihila- 
 tion been anticipated. The theory that death is an 
 endless sleep forgets that this will be annihilation 
 unless the Self subsequently " wakes up," as it were, 
 and becomes aware that it has experienced sleep ! A 
 consciousness of continuity is indispensable, and the 
 theory that the individual loses his individuality in 
 another vaster one or in some ultimate principle is 
 ambiguous if it does not deal with the question of the 
 recognition of continuity. These theories, like the ideas 
 of rebirth, reincarnation, transmigration, and the like, 
 are more instructive as instinctive feelings that death 
 is not annihilation, than for the intelligibility of their 
 speculations. If A dies and is reborn in B, unless A 
 is aware that he survives, or B becomes aware that A 
 survives in him, A has certainly suffered annihilation. 
 And if A survives in B we have still the problem of 
 the relation between the inexperienced B and the far 
 more experienced A ; and the question of A's influence 
 over B is exactly analogous to that of the influence 
 exercised by a Supreme Mind upon every individual. 
 The theological and the non-theological problems are 
 similar and are equally important. 
 
 The instincts of self-preservation are beneficial to the 
 subject ; but the impulse that sends men to self -sacrifice 
 is unintelligible and irrational if death is the end of 
 all. Yet men instinctively commend self-sacrifice, and 
 as instinctively abhor and fear suicide, and the differ- 
 ence which is felt has been for the benefit of the race. 
 The intellectualistic arguments against the continuity of 
 the individual have never prevailed against the sub- 
 jective experiences of individuals and against the more 
 objective fact of the instinctive tendency of man to 
 regard himself as only part of a more permanent unit. 
 This instinct leads men to work for conditions and 
 ideals they will never see in the flesh and in a future
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSE 45 
 
 beyond their bodily life. Strenuous arguments against 
 individual immortality not only have the beneficial 
 effect of impelling others to justify their convictions 
 more in accordance with the best thought of their time, 
 they also reflect the subconscious feeling that man's inte- 
 rest in the history of the Universe is not limited to his 
 few decades. Why should I trouble to argue against 
 immortality if death is the end of all things, or if 
 thenceforth I have no interest in this world ! More- 
 over, the arguments are obviously not based upon 
 personal experience ; nor are they based on scientific 
 grounds, because science cannot inquire into the future 
 life; nor are they strictly and absolutely rational, be- 
 cause the knowledge of the age is too disparate. On 
 the other hand, when the experience and knowledge of 
 any environment are co-ordinated, the persistence of 
 some psychical part of the individual after death has 
 seemed only " natural." 
 
 The convictions of immortality are not some " happy 
 thought " or " refuge of despair " invented to give solace 
 to life ; such a notion is mischievous and uncritical. 
 Not only are they fundamental and " structural," 
 directing and regulating other beliefs and practices, but 
 they are of a sort that could not be invented and cer- 
 tainly could not persist unless they found a response. 
 It is of course true that the convictions may take a 
 very strange form. For example, we may find the 
 belief that a man may appear after death in the shape 
 of a serpent or a bird. But we must distinguish (a) the 
 underlying belief in some continuity from (&) the par- 
 ticular form the belief takes. Primarily, 6 demands a, 
 it is only one of a large variety of beliefs, all of which 
 imply the kernel a (cf. pp. 12, 15). Much nonsense has 
 been written about curious and quaint " survivals " 
 simply because it was not realized that the data pre- 
 supposed certain underlying ideas which elsewhere 
 reappear in a form more in touch with modern civilized 
 thought. Superstition and Religion are psychologically 
 related, but the former term is applied properly to
 
 46 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 ideas out of harmony with the thought of the environ- 
 ment. Religion cannot tolerate superstition, and 
 rightly, and the attitude of critical sympathy it 
 must take is that of all research which is neither too 
 intellectualistic and cold, nor irrationally sympathetic 
 and credulous. 
 
 Now sympathy is a highly significant trait. The 
 sympathetic individual must lay aside some control, 
 give a little rein to the feelings, depart from a purely 
 objective and reflective position, and attempt to see 
 phenomena in their own light. In studying history one 
 endeavours to get into the situation, realize it, and 
 follow the human interests. In scientific research, if 
 we would follow a process or movement, it is no less 
 necessary to put one's self into the heart of the object 
 and know it, as it were, from within. To quote the old 
 sage Plotinus (third century A.D.) : " Like is known 
 only by like, and the condition of all knowledge is that 
 the subject should become like the object." Sympathy 
 adds to knowledge, and is itself thereby made wiser ; 
 it sinks itself into the object but does not lose itself 
 therein under risk of losing the control that makes for 
 individuality. To try and " think " child is in a sense 
 to " be " child ; but there is a vast difference between 
 the childlike and the childish. The objective increase 
 of knowledge corresponds to a subjective psychical de- 
 velopment, which must not be too " departmental " ; 
 for, just as a man's work and his general character are 
 interconnected, so, unless the development be alike 
 both moral and intellectual, the tendency towards a 
 complete development is impeded. This has always 
 been so in the evolution of thought, and morality in 
 man finds its parallel in the lower orders. Irrational 
 sympathy would suppress all that makes and has made 
 for development : it is ignorant and intolerant, if not 
 irreligious ; but when rational it tends towards the 
 ideal where feeling is under the control of knowledge 
 and compassion is based on comprehension. The com- 
 pletest knowledge and the completest sympathy are
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSE 47 
 
 mutually dependent; the intellectual side cannot be 
 severed from the moral, and we cannot consider the 
 normal tendencies of the development of the individual 
 apart from the profoundest and vastest problems of the 
 Universe. 
 
 Human personality is a mysterious thing. Man's 
 responsibility is not merely to his neighbours, it is also 
 to himself, as part of that larger unit of which all are 
 integral portions. There is no absolute difference be- 
 tween the highest and the lowest of men, or between 
 life and death, or even between the divine and that 
 which is not divine (see p. 29). Man is part of a larger 
 whole, his knowledge of which increases as he increases 
 comprehensively. Now, just as his many instinctive 
 and other tendencies incline to be harmful when un- 
 controlled and undisciplined, so his most excellent 
 traits may be injurious through lack of reason. It is 
 an extremely thankless but thoroughly necessary duty 
 to bring the schemes and the dreams of the zealous 
 reformer to the light of reason. More so, when Re- 
 ligion is concerned, is this duty indispensable ; for, if 
 that which is highly appreciated because of the profound 
 impression it makes upon us, remain untested, and fall 
 below the level of the best thought, the further evolution 
 of Religion itself is thereby impeded. Man is in the 
 closest touch with the realities of the Universe, but his 
 intuitions, however stirring and impressive, must be 
 submitted to the judgement of Thought ; only thereby 
 have the higher religions risen above the lower ones.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 
 
 OF all spontaneous, intense, and uncontrolled psychical 
 states the most remarkable are those that can be classed 
 together as " mystical " Mysticism has different aspects 
 according as the mystic is emotional, devotional, nature- 
 loving, intellectual, philosophical, &c. Although the 
 mystical phenomena differ in content and value, it is 
 impossible to find any perfectly objective division or 
 classification. The mystics are essentially akin. But 
 the Christians resemble one another more than they do 
 the Jews, and both have more in common than those 
 to whom the Old Testament is not a Sacred Book. 
 Those who adhere to the great positive religions are 
 more akin than the pantheists, and all these could be 
 viewed apart from the purely philosophical. The mystic 
 may perhaps be said to experience the unity under- 
 lying all things, to be in a state of oneness with a whole, 
 or of complete harmony with a transcendental order, 
 or tx> realize in himself the ultimate reality of all 
 things. He approaches very very nearly, if he does 
 not feel he is one with, the most profound, supreme, 
 and ultimate principle which lies beneath the thought 
 of his environment. Mysticism is an intensely non- 
 normal form of what is more normal in ordinary Religion, 
 a more comprehensive form of absorption which is 
 more normal in smaller " departmental " matters where 
 control is laid aside (see p. 40). Even the truths that 
 the mystic gains, like all religious inspiration, cannot 
 be psychologically severed from inspiration in poetry, 
 art, literature, or even from those mysterious and 
 
 43
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 49 
 
 striking ideas or solutions that suddenly break in upon 
 the ordinary individual and astonish him. 
 
 Some of the greatest seers and thinkers of the world 
 have been mystics, and mysticism has been responsible 
 for the sublimest spirituality and the most cherished of 
 truths. But it has distinctly harmful and dangerous 
 aspects. If mystics have tended to see some inner 
 spiritual meaning where the common mind sees only 
 the material shell, they have also seen mystery because 
 of their ignorance. They must needs express their ex- 
 perience in terms of the current thought ; and if they 
 tend to be somewhat incomprehensible, they freely 
 admit the inadequacy of current language. Hence the 
 effort is made to adjust language to experience, and 
 language consequently bears witness to experience (cf. 
 
 E. 10), although its imperfections are still felt as keenly 
 y the mystic as by the lover, and the lover of nature. 
 The mystic's profoundest thoughts have for him an ob- 
 jective validity ; the questioning and criticism of them 
 are resented. But such is the variation among the 
 mystics of the various religions and apart from them 
 that they cannot be said to give us absolute objective 
 truth. The experience may be felt to be perfectly ab- 
 solute ; but just as the man who has been in love several 
 times feels that each occasion was the " real thing," so 
 the mystic, a human being, has obviously not reached 
 the limits of psychical development. The more he is 
 in touch with current thought, the more powerful his 
 appeal ; and the more ideally complete the thought and 
 knowledge of his environment, the more complete his 
 experience and the wider his appeal to different minds. 
 But when the mystic finds his greatest authority within 
 himself, when he confuses himself with what is mirrored 
 in him, he tends to become a law unto himself ; he is 
 harmful to himself and his followers, a stumbling-block 
 to the weak and the undiscriminating. 
 
 Mysticism often appears as a protest against exces- 
 sive formalism and intellectualism. It fights against 
 tendencies to delimit Religion or to force an abdication
 
 50 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 of thought in favour of absolute faith. But it verges on 
 the vague, the intangible, and the irrational. If it 
 comes in to thwart the tendencies that would sever God 
 and man, it tends to ignore that man is still man ; if 
 it would bring God and man near together, it has at 
 times sunk the divine in the human. Because mystical 
 and ecstatic experiences seem to furnish immediate and 
 absolute Truth, it can be forgotten that, since they are 
 expressed in terms of current thought, they are indebted 
 to what has been slowly and laboriously hammered out 
 in the general advance of thought. If mysticism holds 
 out hopes of a direct source of inspiration, the all too- 
 familiar fact was long ago well observed by Plotinus, 
 that " to seek to rise above intelligence is to fall outside 
 it." From the psychological point of view the mystical 
 state or temperament is not peculiar to any age or land ; 
 consequently (a) on low levels we may find all the vivid 
 and impressive characteristics of mysticism in a crude 
 or lowly form, and (6) any appearance or recrudescence 
 of mysticism, however impressive, must be estimated 
 critically, i.e. intellectually, lest it be below the level of 
 the highest development of ethical and all other thought. 
 Mysticism is significant for Religion, because it reveals 
 the most fundamental part of man. It is an " aware- 
 ness," varying in intensity and in expression ; and it is 
 persuasive, because all men have a profounder side 
 waiting to be touched, as surely as everything that 
 appeal! to us is something to which we were already 
 prepared to respond (cf. p. 34). Certainly, mysticism 
 appeals to those who repress control and are influenced 
 by feeling, but the intellect plays a part, and every 
 mystic must always be in some measure judged by the 
 intellect. If the intellect would seem to weave a cover- 
 ing over the " remoter depths " of man, the mysticism 
 that is in touch with the intellectual thought of the age 
 can rend it asunder. Mysticism, then, will vary in lands 
 and ages. Among rudimentary peoples there is, on 
 occasion, a feeling of the closest intimacy with the object 
 of their profoundest and most real beliefs, while on
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 51 
 
 higher levels men have felt the experience of a veritable 
 communion with the Divine. Says Eckhart, the old 
 German philosopher and mystic (thirteenth century) : 
 " God and I are one in the act of my perceiving Him." 
 But, in the words of John Smith, the Cambridge Platon- 
 ist (seventeenth century) : " Such as men themselves 
 are, such will God Himself seem to them to be." In all 
 Religion man's knowledge of God is limited by his 
 capacity to understand Him ; increase of knowledge 
 permits a greater knowledge of God, and the more the 
 individual develops comprehensively, the nearer does 
 man approach the realities of the Universe. Mysticism 
 viewed generally, with ecstasy, occultism, and the like, 
 mingles the inferior and earthly with the sublime and 
 spiritual ; we estimate from our body of thought both 
 the phenomena of mysticism and any discussion of it. 
 Where we are most keenly touched, it seems almost 
 blasphemous to speak of the phenomena as of other 
 than divine origin ; where they are most displeasing 
 it seems as blasphemous to mention them in the same 
 breath with the others. Here are the most fundamental 
 psychical realities for man's conception of himself, of 
 God and of the Universe, so real that those who experi- 
 ence them can with difficulty view them objectively. 
 
 There must needs be an adjustment between ordinary 
 life and the mystical, religious and related experiences ; 
 there is the usual conflict between experience and reflec- 
 tive formulation, between the " being " and the " think- 
 ing " (cf. p. 30). In everyday life a man may have so 
 deep a feeling of his own value that he will take a per- 
 verse view of things ; and the environment, which in- 
 stinctively respects him who believes in himself, as 
 instinctively disapproves of excessive egotism, thus 
 insisting upon the value of other individualities. In 
 mystical, as in all religious experience, the individual 
 gains a deeper realization of himself, often with unsettling 
 or disturbing effects ; and it is not easy for him to recog- 
 nize that the objective value of the experience lies in its 
 effects upon his relation to the environment (cf. p. 41). 
 
 D
 
 52 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 His psychical development is vitally affected . Sometimes 
 the individual feels his own littleness and unworthiness 
 in the exceeding nearness of an ineffably grand and 
 supreme Reality. But at other times he does not realize 
 that there is still a profound gulf between him and the 
 Ultimate. Mysticism, like Religion, may make a man 
 more humble, or more self-assertive ; even as men of 
 more exceptional ability are the more unassuming or 
 the more egotistic. The awareness or consciousness of 
 privilege is not always followed by a recognition of what 
 is involved. " He who ceases to kneel before the Divine 
 wisdom," says James Martineau, " soon talks super- 
 ciliously of the human, and ends with the worship of 
 his own." 
 
 When one is conscious of a " psychical gulf " (p. 42), 
 further development may lead to a feeling that it has 
 been bridged. Sometimes man has a sense of disap- 
 pointment, self-complacence, or aggressiveness when, 
 on fuller knowledge, the psychical difference seems to 
 have disappeared. On the other hand, development 
 may still continue, some psychical gulf remains, and 
 fuller knowledge only increases the appreciation of the 
 object in all its manifold relations. Everyone is familiar 
 with the transition from an attitude that recognizes 
 the psychical superiority of another to that where the 
 attitude is rather of one's own superiority. The transi- 
 tion may also be illustrated by the individual's attitude 
 to the human object of his or her profoundest and most 
 cherished thoughts. At first some psychical gulf is 
 recognized, but subsequently (e.g. after marriage) the 
 gulf may be bridged, the psychical difference that 
 attracted and stimulated is obscured. On the other 
 hand, although both parties may develop, some psychical 
 difference may still remain, and this will stimulate 
 further development. The problem of finding a proper 
 attitude where there is a psychical gulf recurs in hie as 
 in Religion ; and observation of human relationships is 
 suggestive, in that Religion is characterized by the 
 experience or the conviction of a Supreme Being,
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 53 
 
 immensely superior, but in some immediate and sympa- 
 thetic relationship with the individual. 
 
 Men have declared their inability to sever their own 
 activities from God's working in them, and frequently 
 there have been those who have not necessarily claimed, 
 but have been freely attributed, a close association, 
 when not a virtual identification, with the Divine. 
 There are psychical states which are inwardly felt to 
 bring the individual very near the Divine ; there have 
 been men who have aroused the conviction in others 
 that they were more divine than human. This exceed- 
 ing nearness of God and Man has found innumerable 
 forms of expression. It is of the first importance for 
 any conception of the psychical nature of man ; since, 
 if man does not recognize a supreme transcendent 
 Power in the Universe, he may find some wonderful 
 Power inherent in human beings or in himself. Now, 
 on psychological grounds the mystical and all related 
 experiences are not to be confined to any single age or 
 land, and they will express themselves variously accord- 
 ing to the belief and custom of the individual's en- 
 vironment. It is exceedingly significant, therefore, 
 that a reverent and humble attitude in man is empha- 
 sized in many different ways all the world over. If we 
 consider man's attitude to his sacred places (tombs, 
 shrines, &c.) and objects of cult, to his sacred animals, 
 images, and individuals (prophets, priests, &c.), and to 
 his spirits and deities, we find a very general resemblance. 
 Everywhere there is a similar attitude where a psychical 
 difference is felt, where the deepest and profoundest 
 feelings and thoughts are aroused, and where the indi- 
 vidual recognizes what to him is sacred and holy. The 
 feeling is a blend of reverence and awe, if not of 
 alarm, an obligation to do and not to do, attraction 
 and repulsion, love and fear, anticipation of benefit 
 and dread of harm. The innumerable prohibitions, 
 restrictions, and regulations illustrate the widespread 
 conviction of man that there is in the Universe " some- 
 thing " which though exceedingly beneficent and helpful
 
 54 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 is not to be ignored or lightly regarded. The con- 
 victions are intensely real, they affect belief and custom ; 
 primarily they are in no degree artificial, abstract, or 
 intellectualistic. 
 
 So impressive is the evidence that it has been often, 
 though wrongly, supposed that Religion arose from 
 fear. No one is afraid of the invisible or the unknown, 
 because these do not enter the consciousness ; but one 
 may have a vague sense of fear the cause of which 
 may be unknown. If any fear gave rise to supernatural 
 beliefs, these must evidently have afforded confidence, 
 relief, and courage. It is obvious that fear must always 
 have been followed sooner or later by some psychical 
 change ; it was paralyzing until there was a develop- 
 ment in the individual which drove out fear. What 
 outweighed fear ? The transition in question may often 
 seem perfectly normal, but this does not alter the fact 
 that under certain circumstances the psychical transition 
 involves convictions of an essentially religious character. 
 What is normal is not the state of fear but the possi- 
 bility of conquering it, even unconsciously. The 
 tendency to take this for granted is also normal ; it is 
 the unexpected and the defeat of anticipation that 
 stimulate development. Fear only gave rise to Religion 
 in the way that a doll gives rise to the familiar behaviour 
 of the child ; that is to say, an incident evokes a certain 
 latent tendency, even as the appearance of any problem 
 is a direct invitation to sally forth and attack it. The 
 conquest of fear and difficulty is a natural process, but 
 from time to time man cannot avoid the conviction 
 that it is far from natural, that some strength not of 
 himself is needed. The transitional process is recog- 
 nized as extraordinary or as ordinary according to 
 experience and feeling ; the distinction has always been 
 effective, but it is not absolute (cf. p. 23 seq.). 
 
 In course of development the innumerable prohibi- 
 tions and restrictions have undergone many changes 
 that may now be done with impunity, this may not be 
 done. The fundamental ideas are invariably effective
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 55 
 
 in spite of the changes that meet our eye ; man continues 
 to be aware of something in touch with himself, full of 
 wondrous power and grandeur, but a source of awe. 
 Among rudimentary peoples death has been the penalty 
 and the sequel for an infraction of a " taboo," and the 
 genuineness of their awe on the occasion of their pro- 
 foundest rites is beyond dispute. In fairy folk-lore the 
 fear of curious gazing upon the sacred survives hi the 
 belief that it might be death to see one of the beings 
 with whom the unseen world is peopled. In the Old 
 Testament we find that though men might gaze upon 
 an angel, no one could see the Supreme God and live. 
 Mysticism has had its " unspeakable words which it is 
 not lawful for man to utter " : there are some things 
 so intensely real that they can hardly be thought of. 
 A man's greatest Truth is the most fundamental reality 
 he can conceive, and, in his Essay on Intellect, Emerson 
 says : " I would put myself in the attitude to look in 
 the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot, I blench and 
 withdraw on this side and on that, I seem to know what 
 he meant who said, No man can see God face to face 
 and live." In this gulf between man and the Reality 
 of the Universe, between normal existence and a pro- 
 founder ultimate one, a gulf which man of himself 
 cannot bridge, is the root of Religion ; and no Religion 
 that merits the name obliterates the fact of the funda- 
 mental distinction between the human and the divine. 
 The recognition of a transcendent Power, felt to be the 
 greatest of all Realities, lies at the heart of Religion, 
 and distinguishes it from any ethical cult or cult of 
 humanity. 
 
 Among rudimentary peoples the " taboos," among 
 other functions, regulate man's attitude to the super- 
 natural. Where the chief or ruler has been regarded as 
 a divine representative he has naturally had the pro- 
 foundest sense of his own position ; just as a natural 
 feeling of self-importance will often accompany a very 
 keen sense of the importance of one's duty. But it is 
 precisely here that man has had impressed upon him the
 
 56 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 difference between himself and the transcendent Power. 
 The Greeks insisted npon this gulf in their notion of the 
 envy of the gods, and the insistence finds its counter- 
 part in the Hebrew stories of the expulsion of man from 
 Eden when about to become like the Deity, and of the 
 dispersion of mankind when attempting to reach Heaven. 
 While one Babylonian monarch, who had set himself 
 upon an equality with the Almighty, is threatened with 
 a fall into Hell (Isaiah xiv. 12-15), the story of the pun- 
 ishment of Nebuchadrezzar turns upon a similar arro- 
 gance. Even Moses and Aaron are said to have been 
 punished for failing to give the Deity the sanctity due 
 to Him (Num. xx. 12) : neither entered the promised 
 land to which they led the people. That extreme self- 
 consciousness makes life more difficult is an everyday 
 fact, and the self-consciousness of privilege entails 
 responsibility noblesse oblige ; so, when the Hebrew 
 prophet warns the " chosen people " (Amos iii. 2), he 
 expresses in his own way the truth that consciousness of 
 special favour involves a higher standard of behaviour. 
 Man has set on record the results of personal experience, 
 eternal psychical truths that seem strange only when 
 they are in a form conditioned by and adapted to their 
 own particular environments. Man may not ignore or 
 be indifferent to the Divine ; he has to find a proper 
 attitude towards the Supreme Power of the Universe. 
 
 To rudimentary peoples any infraction of a " taboo " 
 was a shock, stimulating the profoundest thoughts of the 
 individual and his group. It affected his ideas of him- 
 self or of the supernatural. But all ideas of the Self are 
 necessarily imperfect ; like the ideas of the supernatural, 
 they await the completest development of the individual. 
 The Book of Job is the great classic, teaching that man 
 as man has limits to his knowledge, and that the most 
 vivid sense of blamelessnees only enhances the inferiority 
 of man before a transcendent Power with whom he feels 
 himself to be related. The loftiest and the deepest ex- 
 perience possessed by the Self is not of a greater Self, a 
 superman, but of a Power superhuman, yet so related to
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 57 
 
 man that man even feels himself to be part of or related 
 to it. The experience must be co-ordinated with a 
 survey of the individual developing into a superman ? 
 or some closer contact with Reality ? (See pp. 34, 52.) 
 
 The value of Religion lies in its recognition of the 
 individual's profound and even subconscious intuitions 
 of something more divine than humanity. It must 
 appeal to the individual, because to him all develop- 
 ment and progress are due. And it must deal frankly 
 with the individual, because upon his sincerity and in- 
 tegrity depends the stability of civilized social life ; for, 
 in course of evolution, as the individual has gained more 
 power for good or for evil, far more depends upon his 
 honesty to himself and to others. " Society," writes 
 Henri Amiel, " rests upon conscience and not upon 
 science ; civilization is first and foremost a moral thing." 
 
 Fear, distress, and resentment are invariably felt at 
 any new thing that strikes at the supernatural and at 
 the profoundest beliefs of the tune. But later, when 
 adjustment has been made, these gain a newer and 
 another value ; and, as far back as one can see, there 
 have been alternations as the profoundest ideas have 
 now been shaken and now developed and adjusted to 
 the general advance of thought. Neither the environ- 
 ment nor humanity at large bears the burden, but in- 
 dividuals. There is always a conflict between, on the 
 one side, the many, instinctively and rightly clinging to 
 all that has survived change, and has approved itself to 
 experience; and, on the other, the few, diverging from 
 the environment, readily becoming extreme and harm- 
 ful, working out then: own aims, and thus contributing 
 io the vitality of the whole. The individuals " experi- 
 ment " and take the risks, and the whole course of evolu- 
 tion is not for them, but for the Unit of which they are 
 part. " Nature " appears to care more for the rank- 
 and-file than for the average physical and psychical 
 stock ; but the progress of the latter depends upon the 
 adjustment between the activity of individuals and the 
 less specialistic, more comprehensive and more slowly
 
 58 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 moving environment. At any given time the current 
 conditions are due to the action and interaction of all 
 that has gone before, and, hi like manner, for the culmi- 
 nation of the evolution of conditions all the constituent 
 members are necessary. It is the function of Religion 
 to enable the individual to find his place in the Universe, 
 to enhance his individuality by assisting hi the process 
 of evolution, and to develop psychically by rising above 
 the wrongs and worries caused by others who are work- 
 ing out their own individuality hi their own way. 
 
 We take our leave of the individual. He is self-asser- 
 tive, and his selfishness, thoughtlessness, and ignorance 
 are the cause of evil to himself and to others. He is 
 continually showing himself to be one with others, but a 
 persisting repression or suppression of individuality 
 would be detrimental to his development and to that of 
 his environment. The collective movement of the en- 
 vironment makes for adjustment of all extremeness, 
 and as man learns the significance of this he becomes 
 more conscious of his possibilities and responsibilities. 
 In understanding something of the process at work he 
 can understand something of the Power working in man ; 
 and the synthesis he demands will be based upon the 
 experience of a supreme Power with which man has 
 relations. All man's tendencies point to a rational 
 sequence as against any purposeless sequence of happen- 
 ings ; and the normal, intelligent, and rational man 
 must normally conceive of the Process in terms of 
 Person. The effort to synthesize knowledge is instinc- 
 tive. The ideal outcome would be the completeet and 
 most absolute Truth. Man is a combination of the 
 instinctive, impulsive, and subconscious, with the more 
 conscious, reflective, and purposive. The ideal outcome 
 of this would have all the wealth of intuition, feeling, 
 and lif e, without the dangers of spontaneity and impulse, 
 but with the gifts of intellectual reflection a complete- 
 ness of self-realization without harmful selfishness. If 
 man's relations with the environment were ideally com- 
 plete, all would enjoy the completest sense of individu-
 
 INDIVIDUAL AND SUPERNATURAL 59 
 
 ality in a state of harmonious equilibrium. The analysis 
 of the individual as a unit is incomplete if it does not 
 recognize the larger unit of which he is psychically a 
 part, and that larger unit must be the largest conceiv- 
 able (p. 33). While man's instinctive ideas associate 
 him with both the past and the future, his knowledge of 
 himself is incomplete. Philosophy bids man know him- 
 self ; in Religion the supreme Self gives way to the 
 Supreme Power of the Universe, of which man is a part. 
 Man, although one form of evolving matter, and an 
 infinitesimal creature in an inconceivably vast Universe, 
 has both consciously and unconsciously claimed a one- 
 ness with the Unity underlying all things, in so far as 
 he has been able to apprehend them. He has felt 
 himself to be the centre of the Universe, an integral 
 part of the Ultimate Existence. His intuitions have 
 associated him with a transcendent source whence he 
 came and whither, as his Self developed, he would 
 return. His intuitions regulated his life and thought, 
 he has sought to confirm and establish them ; and in 
 maintaining them against his opponents and against 
 life's troubles, there has been a wonderful advance of 
 thought. All men have been consciously and uncon- 
 sciously fighting for then: values and thus contributing 
 directly and indirectly to the history of man. Although 
 since the time of Copernicus a mere four centuries 
 ago man and his earth are seen to be no longer the 
 objective centre of all things, none the less man's in- 
 tuitions remain and await the knowledge of the relation 
 between his life and mind, and the ultimate principle 
 in the Universe. Upon the slow march of knowledge 
 depends the expression of these intuitions, and the 
 history is a long educative Process, during which he 
 has gained increasing responsibility and power, and an 
 increasing ability for good or evil. To this Process we 
 now turn.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 
 
 THE saying " God helps those who help themselves " is 
 one of the many popular sayings that become perplex- 
 ingly interesting when viewed as the outcome of re- 
 peated experience. But do we include the atheist, the 
 monopolist, and the selfish egotist ? How do we dis- 
 tinguish unless we already have some ideas of God's 
 working ? Where do we draw the line between a man's 
 natural courage and superhuman aid ? From a reli- 
 gious standpoint the working of the Deity will seem so 
 universal that any objections brought against it will 
 surely disappear with fuller knowledge. But from a 
 non-religious standpoint so much can be explained 
 without resort to the religious argument, that once 
 more we say that with the further advance of research 
 surely the objections of our opponents will be removed. 
 In the former case, as we enlarge the realm of the Divine 
 we begin to include much that seems too ordinary and 
 common, perhaps somewhat derogatory. But in the 
 latter case, a conception of a Universe in terms of 
 scientifically-tested knowledge would not be the world 
 of man's feelings, aspirations, relationships the world 
 in which we live, think, and have our being. Again, 
 serious difficulties arise when we consider the problems 
 of instinct and intellect ; since all that is not associated 
 with man's intellect, intelligence and purposive activities 
 diminishes his freedom and emphasizes the automatic, 
 mechanical, and determined aspects of his life. Sundry 
 theological doctrines combine with sundry philosophical 
 and scientific arguments to oppose the notion of man as 
 
 60
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 61 
 
 a creative autonomous being with freedom of mind and 
 will. On any standpoint there are exceedingly difficult 
 problems. 
 
 Now, in so far as theologians, scientists, and philo- 
 sophers differ, it is obvious that the experience, observa- 
 tion, and trained knowledge by which they are influ- 
 enced do not make for identical conclusions. And if 
 the conclusions depend upon intellect, we can hardly 
 sever the " intellectual " writers from the rest accord- 
 ing to our own particular beliefs. Certainly, so far as 
 knowledge itself is concerned, it is as yet evidently 
 incomplete and indecisive. And if the serious differ- 
 ences among writers rest upon the general complex 
 psychical differences among all men, we can say with 
 Pascal, " the heart has reasons which reason does not 
 know." It is very necessary to remember that the 
 main tendencies of the mind are pretty definite before 
 a man be he theologian, scientist, or philosopher has 
 reached that point where he can be said to have a 
 competent opinion upon his particular subject he is a 
 man before he is a specialist ; and as for those who 
 agree with him, without having his tested knowledge, 
 they are clearly influenced more by feeling than by 
 independent knowledge. Further, although retrospect 
 will allow the conviction that what has been must have 
 been, individuals will differ, some seeing in their lives 
 chance, but others a supernatural guidance, some a 
 predetermined course, but others a greater freedom. 
 But the study of history shows that although the future 
 is the inevitable sequel of the past, it is never possible 
 to tell with any effectiveness precisely what that future 
 will be. In this respect there is a similarity in the 
 development of a body of thought, an individual, a 
 people, or an area ; the sequence is genetic, retrospect 
 proves the interconnection, and can tempt a fatalism, 
 but the next stage cannot be foreshadowed with any 
 distinctness. There is an orderly development, but it 
 does not exclude a considerable play of freedom. 
 
 The problem of freedom of mind and will involves
 
 62 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 both reason and feeling, both intellect and temperament. 
 The more any mechanistic views of life are emphasized, 
 the more are we impelled to perceive the fundamental 
 differences between a machine, the offspring of mind, 
 and an active, developing hie. Any comparison forces 
 man to justify his convictions of the differences, and to 
 formulate more clearly the distinctive superiority of 
 the human organism. To define mind so as to include 
 the machine is as uncritical as to define the machine 
 so as to cover the working of the mind ; and the many 
 interesting and suggestive similarities do not conceal 
 the fact that, psychologically, mechanism is inferior 
 even to the inorganic crystal with its unity and self- 
 adjusting ability. Mechanistic interpretations are influ- 
 enced by a mechanical age. The unknown must be 
 explained from the known, and the Universe is usually 
 apprehended in a way suggested by such experience 
 and knowledge as the individual may happen to possess. 
 The fundamental ideas are worked into bodies of thought 
 which are conditioned by the industries, interests, and 
 knowledge of an environment. The fact that there is a 
 usual desire to represent process in terms of what can 
 be modelled, visualized, and apprehended in concrete 
 form, is also exceedingly interesting, as will subsequently 
 be seen (p. 70). But because a thing is expressed in 
 terms of the known, it is a mistake to suppose that it 
 is known ; the knowledge of the known is merely an 
 introduction to the unknown. The stage with its 
 players and the stage of life may seem alike, but when 
 we say " all the world's a stage " we do not proceed to 
 build up our ideas of the world in a way suggested by a 
 stage. It would be equally fallacious to construct a 
 naturalistic or mechanistic view of the Universe because 
 much is " natural " and has mechanistic analogies. 
 
 We see that a machine works through the combina- 
 tion and interaction of its parts ; we explain the whole 
 from the parts. But the machine must be analyzed, 
 both when working and when at rest, and analysis must 
 discover what is necessary for its continued effective-
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 63 
 
 ness. A problematic situation appears to us as a whole, 
 but repeated experience warns us of the difficulty of 
 determining what the whole is, and what is and is not 
 relevant to it. The skilful detective story is one thing, 
 but it is quite another when there is a problem before 
 us, and we have to find serviceable clues. One man 
 cleverly justifies his position, his solution of the prob- 
 lems of life ; but another, finding the problem still 
 unsolved, cannot rest content and the two attitudes 
 are entirely distinct. Although we may see things as a 
 whole, the ultimate whole so depends upon our experi- 
 ence and knowledge that our solution of the problems 
 of the Universe involves our continued development 
 until we see what is the Whole to be analyzed. In the 
 meantime our explanation may ignore some salient facts. 
 There is a story of a savage who thought that the train 
 was a demon-monster running off with a row of huts. It 
 is perhaps apocryphal, but it is a ben trovato, because 
 the savage would justify himself from his experience 
 and knowledge of demons ! Only further advance of 
 thought would show him that demons did not exist, and 
 that he had left out some most essential details. Thus, 
 an explanation may answer some evidence, but this is 
 not to say that it answers all ; the best and only critical 
 explanation is the most comprehensive, and does justice 
 to all the evidence utilized in all contending and contrary 
 theories. The naturalistic and mechanistic views of 
 the Universe are based upon an incomplete analysis ; 
 they do not do justice to the available evidence, and they 
 overlook the most significant part of the Universe the 
 presence of individuals who insist upon attempting to 
 explain it. 
 
 He who feels himself to be free is untouched by the 
 arguments of his opponent against the freedom of the 
 spirit. Both are insisting upon aspects of the Process 
 of the Universe. Both, by using the tools of intelli- 
 gence, are parts of an intelligent Whole ; and any denial 
 of the autonomous power of intelligence virtually weakens 
 the results of the enquiry into the problem and invali-
 
 64 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 dates the arguments of the intelligent opponent himself. 
 Furthermore, man is instinctively penitent and con- 
 science-stricken. " Remorse is only a darker name for 
 man's conviction of his own free-will " (Illingworth) ; 
 and while man instinctively feels that he might have done 
 otherwise, he as instinctively blames the evil-doer. The 
 profounder side of man inevitably impels him to recog- 
 nise a certain freedom while impressing upon him that 
 .there are limits not to be overstepped. No conception 
 of the Universe from a psychical point of view can ignore 
 the phenomena of conscience. It is a simple fact that 
 our conscience is often stronger and more authoritative 
 than our ordinary selves and our environment. There 
 are limits to our power of hushing its voice or of neglect- 
 ing its warnings. Where conscience is concerned the 
 psychical vicissitudes and transitions are such that it is 
 thoroughly erroneous to go to one extreme and suppose 
 that man can casually " work " himself or " think " 
 himself into the required state, either of penitence or of 
 relief ; or to go to the other extreme and suppose that 
 man's conscious Self is psychically isolated from some 
 influence or process vaster than himself. Any investiga- 
 tion of the significance of conscience speedily brings us 
 to perceive man's integral relationship with something 
 so vast and so profound that the only synthetic inter- 
 pretation can be given in terms of Religion. 
 
 " Nature is commanded by obeying her," said Lord 
 Bacon. There are physical laws of the Universe which 
 we cannot control, and only by harmony with which 
 further progress is made ; and there are psychical laws 
 and uniformities to which we are inevitably subject. 
 Anthropological research discovers fundamental simil- 
 arities in man's beliefs and behaviour which imply an 
 unconscious adherence to those uniformities. Men were 
 grammatical before there were grammars, and there was 
 poetry before prosody. Reflection upon what has been 
 more or less instinctively or unconsciously done makes 
 for positive advance ; and as man grows in conscious- 
 ness, the increase of knowledge of Self moves with
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 65 
 
 an increasing knowledge of all that of which man is 
 an integral part. Only by learning more of the pro- 
 cess in past history can mankind expect to progress ; 
 progress rests entirely upon intelligence ; and such have 
 been man's experiments and failures in his desire to live 
 and to enrich his life, that progress so far from being 
 the outcome of any mechanical or bund process, looks 
 more like an effort at self-education and self-discipline, 
 of which, however, man has not been consciously aware. 
 Man verily seems to have improved in spite of himself, and 
 his purposes have developed beyond their original aims. 
 
 Behaviour may seem instinctive, mechanical, or pre- 
 determined when we see a result or a sequel of which 
 the creature or individual is ignorant (cf. p. 24), when we 
 forget that the conscious purpose at any given time is 
 not to be confused with the result which is afterwards 
 manifest (cf. p. 26), and when we hesitate to allow the 
 creature a psychical individuality. Behaviour may 
 seem mechanical, but an individual would feel free if 
 his activities were not out of harmony with the laws 
 that would thwart or restrict. Even in the land of the 
 greatest freedom transgressors have not complete liberty. 
 The experience and feeling of freedom are more effective 
 than counter-argument based upon a necessarily im- 
 perfect knowledge. The members of a team keep to- 
 gether and combine like the parts of a machine though 
 the machine lacks the indispensable esprit de corps ; but 
 although there must not be conflicting individualities, 
 the members do not feel themselves to be mechanical. 
 Moreover, the essence of the game depends upon the 
 laws that thwart or restrict ! Or take the crowd as a 
 psychical unit ; those who are swayed by the rhetorician 
 have surrendered their distinctive individuality (cf. p. 
 38), but they do not feel that they are mere fractions of 
 this unit ; they all share, in some particular respect and 
 for some limited time, one psychical life which is free 
 and creative. 
 
 And if we turn to those who are exercising influence 
 how familiar is the fact that they must adjust themselves
 
 66 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 so as to avoid too disturbing an intervention ! The 
 child learns to walk, fancying its first steps are its own ; 
 the class progresses by being helped to develop itself ; 
 and the amenities of life are increased by tactfully per- 
 suading people that they are pleasing themselves when 
 in reality they are taking our advice and our plans they 
 are furthering. Thus does mind act upon mind and 
 enable all to work out their own career. We commonly 
 prefer our own muddling schemes to the immeasurably 
 superior ones you offer us or impose upon us ; ours may 
 be poor things, but they are our own and develop our 
 lives. Hence well-meant efforts to benefit others can 
 go astray, can be harmful, and can injure the spirit 
 of a people, because the mind of the few does not 
 realize that the Process in the Universe that has made 
 for the advance from primitive, pre-historic man has 
 been wise, patient, self-effacing, sympathetic, and com- 
 prehensive. 
 
 We must needs think of any Process associated with 
 man in psychical terms. But we cannot treat Mind as 
 merely intellectual ; for the wise mind involves attri- 
 butes of love and reproof, of help and warning, and of all 
 that enhances relationship. The fullest knowledge of 
 personality leads to that of a supreme Power ; and if we 
 think of a Universe without a transcendent Power, it is 
 because the latter has no place in our current system of 
 ideas. It is a common error to confuse the Universe 
 in which we live with our particular conceptions of it 
 to-day ; but since we must think in terms of what is 
 known, it is obvious that a better knowledge of the 
 interrelations of minds, of the control of mind, and of its 
 evolution, would allow us to understand less imper- 
 fectly the processes in the Universe (cf. p. 25). All 
 advances in the psychical world, the world of thought, 
 bring us nearer to the realities which impress themselves 
 upon us psychical beings ; and consequently the increase 
 of ordinary knowledge is invariably for the good of 
 Religion, the permanent advances of which have never 
 been along isolated lines (cf. p. 18).
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 67 
 
 In turning to some examples of the Process we may 
 notice, first, some features of interest for the develop- 
 ment of society. An exceedingly important step has 
 been the change in social organization marked by the 
 introduction of certain marriage-bars, which put an end 
 to an earlier system of relationships where very close 
 intermarriages prevailed. At this secondary stage there 
 is an intensely profound horror of incest ; it is bound up 
 with supernatural ideas of its danger for the people and 
 the land ; and Dr. J. G. Frazer has emphasized the fact 
 that the bars and restrictions find a noteworthy parallel 
 in biological principles (Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 160, 
 sqq.). The order in which the prohibitions appear and 
 the permission of intermarriage when the parents, though 
 members of the same group, live in different districts 
 correspond with the data of biology and scientific breed- 
 ing. Now it is impossible to ascribe this to exact know- 
 ledge or to any far-seeing care on the part of the savage ; 
 whatever the impulse, whatever the cause, the develop- 
 ment is beneficial, and it is remarkably hi harmony with 
 " natural " law. 
 
 Next, we may turn to those ceremonies among rudi- 
 mentary peoples which, on all occasions of unusual 
 stress, anxiety, or anticipation, bring the individual 
 into touch with the profoundest fundamental beliefs 
 and help to adjust him to the social body. Especially 
 is this to be observed at the difficult period of adoles- 
 cence, a time when, biologically, one enters into a new 
 and deep relation with the race, and when " conversion " 
 most normally occurs. The age of increased vitality 
 and emotional sensibility is one of the awakening of the 
 individual as a social and religious member of his race. 
 Evidence for sporadic sexual and religious perversity is 
 not so significant as the persistent tendency of Religion 
 to regulate and control all instincts for the general wel- 
 fare of the individual and his environment. As a time 
 of " rebirth " for so it is very commonly regarded it is 
 a rebirth into a larger and more permanent life, that of 
 the group, and rudimentary peoples have taken the in-
 
 68 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 dividual at a critical period and have made initiation a 
 discipline and a training for the benefit of all concerned. 
 Only by this initiation did a man come to share the 
 privileges and responsibilities of the community. To 
 the superficial observer there is but a medley of super- 
 stitions, of absurd and quite unnecessary beliefs and 
 customs ; only on critical inspection is it clear that 
 rudimentary man was building better than he knew, 
 and that his work was more potential than he could 
 realise. Neither prescience nor science actuated him, 
 and an examination of rudimentary bodies of thought 
 among savages of to-day shows clearly that the value 
 of the activities for them is not to be confused with the 
 fuller meaning they have for us whose experience and 
 knowledge are superior. A survey of the development 
 of society reveals the fact that many of our valued cus- 
 toms and principles of law and morality involved in the 
 lower levels a nexus of supernaturalistic and other ideas 
 which appear irrational only when we have outgrown 
 them. Man was on the right track, as it were, without 
 being aware of the road he was laying down. Thus, a 
 study of the progress of society reveals a Process of 
 which the savage was ignorant, one of which we of to-day 
 are still very incompletely cognizant, and one which 
 covers all aspects of fife. 
 
 Now there is a very close relationship between the 
 lowest and the highest forms of Religion all the world 
 over ; men everywhere incline to similar attitudes where 
 then* sincerest convictions are at stake (cf. p. 22). 
 No doubt the beliefs, customs, and cults often appear 
 crude, but the people, the most backward in culture, 
 cherish some fundamental ethical and religious ideas 
 not substantially different from those inculcated in civil- 
 ized lands. In totemism, perhaps the most rudimentary 
 of all cults, the members of each group are linked to- 
 gether by an " object," usually a species of animal or 
 plant. In other cults the " object " will be a single 
 animal, an image or idol. But everywhere the psychical 
 resemblances are such that we cannot isolate any one
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 60 
 
 kind of cult from another. The savage " in his bund- 
 ness " does not bow down to wood or stone ; he finds in 
 them what the Roman Catholic peasant finds in some 
 cherished relic something that makes for support and 
 aid. If we compare the child's attitude to the teddy- 
 bear or doll with that of the mother to her babe, we shall 
 agree that the toy does not " develop " into a babe, that 
 the child has not precisely the feelings and thoughts of 
 the mother ; and that, if it conceivably had, an irre- 
 sponsive toy could not influence or evoke them. What 
 develops is the whole complex : a subject, an object, 
 and the subject's ideas of the particular object. It is 
 not otherwise in the development of thought. It is 
 that of a wkole : the stages are potential, full of greater 
 promise, the steps are educative : at the humbler stage 
 there is no conception of the later stages. Only retro- 
 spect reveals the interconnection. If we call the be- 
 haviour instinctive we must ascribe conscious intelli- 
 gence and purposiveness to the Process ; just as the idea 
 of the " survival of the fittest," and of " natural selec- 
 tion" forces us to recognize somewhere a process that 
 has attributes of intelligence. To deny to the Process 
 in the Universe attributes of intelligence and conscious- 
 ness of development is uncritical ; for we, as human 
 beings, have innumerable examples of the more experi- 
 enced guiding the less experienced ; but the only apparent 
 example of the ignorant educating itself is the slow 
 development of mankind, the very problem to be solved ! 
 Finally, the recognition of the unity of the Process in 
 the Universe does not make common or derogate from 
 its profoundest and divinest aspects; rather does it 
 dignify and spiritualize the most common : and no sur- 
 vey of rudimentary cults is complete if it does not reveal 
 a sanctification of life even in the lowlier levels of man. 
 *' Anything man can do may be divinely done." 
 
 While in totemism a child may receive a name asso- 
 ciated with the totem, among the Hebrews and otfier 
 Semitic peoples we find names directly associating the 
 bearer with convictions of the Deity -e.g. Azariah,
 
 70 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 " Yah (Yahweh, Jehovah) helps " ; Hannibal, " Baal's 
 mercy " ; Merodach-baladan, " Marduk gave a son," <fec. 
 The totem was thought to be beneficial ; hence a symbol 
 or sign of it is used as a protection, even as on the higher 
 levels it is that of a deity. In every case the visible 
 object arouses profound ideas ; and it is a further 
 advance when the thought of a Deity is felt to be 
 sufficient. On the lower levels not only is the visible 
 mark effective, but men array and mark themselves so 
 as to represent or symbolize the totem, the guardian 
 or ancestral spirit, and the deity. This " external " 
 imitation is only effective when it stimulates appro- 
 priate ideas ; as it loses its primary value it becomes 
 conventional, or as weight is laid upon the external 
 aspect it is bereft of its earlier psychical accompani- 
 ment. It is " external imitation " when the child's 
 conception of the soldier or the clergyman manifests 
 itself in a few external trappings ; but it is potential, 
 and the striving and desire can obviously be effective for 
 further and deeper imitation. Education passes from 
 concrete examples to the abstract, from perception 
 and imagery to conceptual thought. Children and 
 others learn by observing behaviour, or by concrete 
 examples of principles and ideas in touch with their 
 psychical environment. Among rudimentary peoples, 
 " external imitation " has been educative and stimu- 
 lating, and we often find a sort of mimetic display ; 
 concrete beliefs and traditions are represented visibly, 
 and are thus impressed upon actors and observers. As 
 apart from the problem of the origin of the practice, 
 its psychological appropriateness is indisputable ; but 
 of this rudimentary men are unaware. 
 
 Further, in the " external imitation " rudimentary 
 men frequently take the part of their most sacred and 
 venerated beings, as in the old mediaeval Mystery-plays 
 or in the modern festival of Ober-ammergau. In the 
 lower levels the totem or spirit is " externally " imi- 
 tated, but on the higher levels the " internal " or 
 psychical imitation of the Deity is urged, while midway
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 71 
 
 may be placed the custom of appealing to a god arrayed 
 in a manner representative or symbolical of him. Before 
 man could think of being perfect as his Heavenly Father 
 was perfect, he had to be educated in the rudiments of 
 imitation, and the phrases " garment of righteousness," 
 " to put on " a Deity, and the like, reflect the transition 
 from the more perceptual to the more conceptual stages 
 of thought. The desire to " imitate " a spiritual being 
 did not appear suddenly in the development of man ; 
 as we descend to the lowlier levels the " external imi- 
 tation " of the totem is a solemn occasion, of profound 
 significance for the humble group. In " external imi- 
 tation " it is natural to see the origin of the traditional 
 knowledge of the external appearance of the sacred 
 and mysterious beings ; and at this later stage, where 
 these beings have more " specialized " representatives 
 (e.g. priests, kings), significant advances are made 
 through the fact that the human representatives are 
 commonly regarded as more divine than human. They 
 thus affect the current conceptions of the divine. 
 
 This leads us to anthropomorphism and anthropo- 
 pathism, the attribution of human form and personality 
 to a transcendent Power. It makes an important dif- 
 ference whether the " object " of the profoundest ideas 
 of a group has human associations or not. If it has, 
 there is a tendency to delimit the Deity to one's experi- 
 ence of human personality and to degrade his transcend- 
 ence. But in the lower levels the knowledge of human 
 personality is extremely small, and the psychical differ- 
 ence between an individual and his totem like that 
 between a child and its doll is not clearly apprehended. 
 Although the totem may be regarded in the same light 
 as an individual, it has not human powers, the ideas 
 are thereby limited ; and among rudimentary peoples 
 we sometimes find that the peculiar value of the animal, 
 whatever it may be, lies in the peculiar qualities of the 
 creature its strength, swiftness, or cunning. But, 
 again, because the " object " is not human, man is not 
 hampered by his knowledge of human limitations ; ideas
 
 72 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 can be unlimited, and all non-human powers can be 
 associated with it. The familiar exercises no stimulus, 
 the better we think we know an object the less do we 
 develop ; but when the thing that excites us lies out- 
 side our knowledge, there is room for imagination the 
 psychical appetite is whetted, the mind has more scope. 
 Indeed our very ignorance sometimes allows the most 
 absurd ideas, just as when we attribute to the conjuror 
 whose trick has completely mystified us the most extra- 
 ordinary abilities without considering the most ele- 
 mentary facts. When experience and knowledge fail 
 the mind tends to find some satisfaction; there is a 
 psychical transition, a change in thought, but not 
 necessarily an immediate advance. 
 
 Man by his anthropomorphism may degrade the 
 Divine by bringing it down to his own level ; thinking 
 he knows man, he thinks he knows the Divine. The 
 psychical difference is obscured just as, when a man's 
 wife is simply and merely a female, the ennobling ideas 
 involved in the relationship are, at least temporarily, 
 obliterated by the transition (c/. p. 52). On the other 
 hand, the anthropomorphic development of conceptions 
 of the Deity represents man's unfolding of his experi- 
 ences, intuitions, and ideals ; the development of man's 
 attitude to his Deity is an index to his own psychical 
 growth. Like only knows like, and, as all intercourse 
 with personality unfolds and develops one's own per- 
 sonality, man's advance can be ascribed to the influence 
 of that psychical relationship which is usually felt to 
 be more real and potent than the relationships of 
 everyday physical existence. To the ordinary individual 
 it is the non-anthropomorphic that tends to be un- 
 intelligible ; the anthropomorphic phases appeal natu- 
 rally to him, the non-human and all that falls outside 
 anthropomorphism find a less intellectual response. 
 The metaphysics and philosophy seem barren and un- 
 real, the naturalism and all other systems of thought 
 not in terms of a Divine Personality incline to be remote 
 from ordinary thought. Like all poetical, artistic, and
 
 PROCESS IN MANKIND 73 
 
 mystical ideas they certainly appear to be subjectively 
 valuable, but they do not necessarily ennoble or even 
 affect everyday experience and the normally constituted 
 mind (cf. p. 41). 
 
 Now anthropomorphism is the predominating stage 
 in all ordinary thought, religious and scientific. Man 
 knows of himself as a cause, and his mind has its 
 materials within itself (cf. p. 25). But neither the 
 very young child nor the most rudimentary stage of 
 society could be anthropomorphic ; neither has primarily 
 the necessary self-knowledge. Nor can we attribute 
 bodily parts and passions to a Supreme Being or to the 
 individual after death. Anthropomorphism thus seems 
 to be a stage where man comes to know something about 
 his own personality. Efforts are repeatedly made to 
 escape the limitations of anthropomorphism ; but there 
 can be no presupposition that they are necessarily 
 worthy or unworthy : they must be tested. The non- 
 anthropomorphic, like the mystical, may tend to be 
 vaguely persuasive ; but it must be critically viewed, 
 lest ethically and intellectually it fall below the level of 
 the best (cf. p. 50). It is persuasive, because man 
 has his glimpses of something more real than the Uni- 
 verse as he knows it ; he has whispers of an existence 
 richer and fuller than his own drabbled life ; and his 
 unspeakable longings are for something that cannot be 
 formulated, for a realm which reaches beyond the 
 limits fixed by the thought of his environment. No 
 body of thought, be it religious, theological, philosophical, 
 political, scientific or social, can lastingly satisfy the 
 individual ; if it did there would be no movement : it 
 changes and develops because individuals persist in 
 working out their individuality. So long as there is 
 psychical development there is always a Quest of a 
 Holy Grail. The systematized religion and theology of 
 the day will invariably demand some " plus," because 
 existence is vaster than the current comprehension of 
 it. Outside the systematized thought are the ideas 
 psychologically connected with it, due to individuals
 
 74 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 who will be estimated in the light of the thought they 
 are disturbing and developing. 
 
 Experience and thought are continuously moving and 
 influencing each other (cf. p. 30, foot). Systematized 
 thought both develops the individual and restricts 
 individualistic development. The differences around us 
 are due to men of different experience, knowledge, in- 
 terests, &c. ; the underlying resemblances we perceive 
 only on closer inspection, and by renouncing some rela- 
 tively narrow religious or rationalistic standpoint (p. 12 
 seq.). In gaining thereby a fairer estimate of the general 
 tendencies of thought, we understand hi some small 
 degree what would be already known to a Universal or 
 Supreme Mind ; in aiming at a more objective stand- 
 point we actually approach a somewhat universalistic 
 point of view. Now, if at the present day Religion 
 suffers at all from an uncompromising and rationalistic 
 investigation of its nature, precisely this procedure 
 furnishes both a clearer and more scientific knowledge 
 of Religion, and a deeper and more permanent concep- 
 tion of the " Process " in the Universe i.e. of the 
 working of a Supreme Power among men. Here Re- 
 ligion is indebted to a perfectly unconscious co-opera- 
 tion, to steps in the study of religions which have been 
 hewn by innumerable individuals working out their 
 own plans (p. 24). In particular, Religion is indebted 
 to those who, actuated by whatever motive, have been 
 honestly unable to accept the religious ideas which 
 they found in their environment, and who by their 
 conscientious labours have assisted to produce a sounder 
 knowledge of Man's nature and of the Universe.
 
 CHAPTER VH 
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT IN MANKIND 
 
 SOME notion of the essential features of the psychical 
 development of thought can be obtained from a com- 
 parative survey of the various existing levels. The 
 totemism of Central Australia probably represents what 
 is relatively the most primitive of modern systematic 
 cults. Here are many interrelated groups, each with a 
 totem which is mainly a species of edible animal or 
 plant with which the members feel themselves to be 
 virtually one. We must not suppose that the Emu- 
 group, for example, did not know the difference between 
 the emu and the Emu-men. They recognized a sort of 
 psychical identity. Just as we may be deeply moved 
 by a scrap of paper, which, however, happens to 
 be the photograph of a dear friend, so the group acts 
 in an astonishing manner to the species which happens 
 to be its totem. We are reminded of the child and the 
 teddy-bear, because in spite of the difference between 
 the two which we see, there is something that makes 
 the child treat it in the well-known way that he does. 
 The totem-group is, in a sense, bound up with the 
 totem and the cult from birth to death. The behaviour 
 of the men proves that the totem is felt to be psychically 
 superior ; but it is not a Deity, and if deities are recog- 
 nized in the area, they do not have that effective place 
 in the cult which is held by the totem. 
 
 Now, these groups practise remarkable mimetic cere- 
 monies in the belief that their relationship with the 
 totem enables each group to control its own for the 
 benefit of the others. It is thought that the edible 
 
 75
 
 76 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 plants grow abundantly, and the animals multiply 
 through the rites which each group performs. Thus, by 
 its mystical ceremonies the Emu-group provides emu for 
 the rest to eat, the kangaroo-group supplies Kangaroo, 
 and so on. Consequently the whole tribe is closely 
 knit together, and its solidarity depends upon the 
 obvious fact that the groups are mutually independent. 
 On this low level, therefore, the very remarkable beliefs 
 at least bind the men together, and they can learn, 
 what is perhaps overlooked on the higher levels, that 
 the security of a group, of whatever size, depends on 
 the recognition of the mutual interdependence of all the 
 constituent parts. 
 
 Moreover, the group may not eat of then* food-totem, 
 or at least only rarely ; but on the occasion of these 
 ceremonies it is obligatory, they must eat a little. On 
 other levels we meet with the familiar practice of pre- 
 senting first-fruits or firstlings to a Deity, or to his 
 representative or minister, in return for the gifts of 
 nature. But the totem-cult has no deity ; and if the 
 Emu-group is supposed to further the increase of emu, 
 it stands to other groups, in this respect, as would a 
 deity on those levels where men prayed to one for their 
 food. And so of other groups. Hence, when the 
 officiating group solemnly partakes of food we are re- 
 minded of the offerings to the deities on other levels. 
 For several reasons it is more probable that the 
 Australian practice is the earlier type than that it is 
 of secondary origin and has been derived from the 
 practice of giving offerings to a deity. The totem itself 
 is in many respects analogous to the god on other levels. 
 The totem and its group form one whole, and, as we 
 ascend, the god is regarded as united with the body of 
 worshippers ; throughout, the Deity and his people are 
 normally two parts of a single unit ; both are closely 
 interconnected in the same body or system of thought. 
 
 Now the totem rites are felt to be exceedingly pro- 
 found ; they involve self-denial, restraint, and sacrifice, 
 and the occasions are understood to be quite distinct
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT 77 
 
 from ordinary life. Hence, from a psychological point 
 of view, the totem-group practising its sacred rites finds 
 analogies in other groups on their solemn occasions. 
 The psychical state is everywhere profound and im- 
 pressive, as are all ecstatic, semi-ecstatic, and distinctly 
 non-normal states (see Chap. V.). It is well-known 
 that they exercise great influence, and that artificial 
 means (e.g. drugs, music, &c.) are used to reproduce 
 them. But the real value of the state lies in its influence 
 for the welfare of the individual and of his environment, 
 and one of the features of the development of thought 
 is the discrimination between its desirable and un- 
 desirable forms and aspects. The totem-group, in its 
 most solemn ceremonies for the welfare of other groups, 
 is in a profound psychical state ; its mimetic and other 
 practices associate it with the external object of its 
 profoundest ideas (see p. 70 seq.). The natives with 
 then: self-denial and sacrifice for others enter a psychical 
 state which can only be described as a communion 
 with something transcendent and unspeakably real ; 
 they are one with the totem, which, in the higher levels, 
 is replaced by a Deity. The theory of totem-com- 
 munion, a brilliant theory of William Robertson Smith 
 (hi 1889), is confirmed by the Australian evidence ; 
 but it must be observed that the confirmation rests 
 upon the recognition that the beliefs and practices 
 reflect a very rudimentary stage in the development 
 of Religion. 
 
 Totemism unites members and groups ; it has discip- 
 linary and beneficial aspects. As the totem is generally 
 a species, the cult is not seriously disturbed by the death 
 of any one of them ; the species thus makes for a certain 
 stability of conditions. On higher levels, where the ob- 
 ject of the cult is a singular and particular " thing," an 
 accident or disaster obviously has a dislocating effect. 
 It stimulates thought ; but we are at a higher level, the 
 group has had its lesson in stability, a foundation has 
 been laid. There is always a desire to feel that one is not 
 at the mercy of accidents, and the mind invariably tends
 
 78 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 to develop so that ideas of continuity and permanence 
 are still retained. Further, while totemism links men 
 together, elsewhere we often find individual guardian 
 spirits, a feature that makes for the strengthening of 
 individuality as against group-solidarity. At a low 
 stage of development it is obvious that ideas of the 
 closest and most intimate union are more effective and 
 valuable than those of distinctive individuality. Totem- 
 ism presents many serious problems ; it is very difficult 
 to imagine its origin, but it has features exceedingly 
 valuable from religious, ethical, social, and economical 
 points of view. There is no reason to suppose that the 
 natives are as aware of this as we are, still less that the 
 system was consciously planned by their ancestors ; but 
 it has all the marks of wisdom, and is a profound ex- 
 ample of the many-sided " Process " as it works on the 
 lower levels at the present age. 
 
 No doubt totemism seems crude and in some respects 
 derogatory from certain conceptions of a Deity. The 
 point, however, is not whether an area possesses the 
 beliefs and practices we appreciate, but whether what 
 they have may be said to be effective and potential. Our 
 attitude to the religious and other ideas of men is an 
 index to our own, and man may not specify the limits 
 of the Deity's working nor the manner in which others 
 are to recognize Him : nor can one assume that if a man 
 does not recognize the Deity, the Deity is not interested 
 in him. The problem of " revelation " in the past in- 
 volves that of existing conditions to-day ; the ideas one 
 may have of a loving and long-suffering Deity in the 
 course of ages must be tested by the present situation ; 
 conceptions of God's relation to us involve those of His 
 relation to the savage (cf. p. 12). Or, from a non- 
 religious point of view, the Process that has made for 
 the differing conditions to-day, for the " inferiority " of 
 one and the " superiority " of another, is assuredly im- 
 manent ; and not only does the self -consciousness of any 
 superiority entail a greater responsibility (p. 56), but 
 there can never be any a 'priori assumption that the
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT 79 
 
 highest level of thought will always be where it happens 
 to be at some particular age. 
 
 In totemism the essentially religious ideas correspond 
 with the low stage of conditions ; every apology for 
 Religion must virtually apologize for the culture and 
 civilization in which it is found and vice versa. It is 
 at least evident that, as the savage finds strength and 
 comfort in his nucleus of beliefs and practices, so, in the 
 distant past, when man had to get on terms with Nature, 
 man either had no psychical needs, or those he had were 
 in some way answered. His psychical endowment grew 
 with his physical environment. Could primitive man 
 have had any idea of a universal God unless he had some 
 idea of a Universe ? The idea of a " universal " God 
 involves a synthesis of experience and knowledge of the 
 world. Man may see a thing as a whole in all its relations, 
 i.e. the experience the feeling may be subjectively 
 absolute and complete ; but objectively it is imperfect, 
 because man's conceptions of the Universe are imperfect 
 (cf. p. 66). At a low level man's conceptions could be 
 such that they completely filled such psychical life as 
 he had ; but they would necessarily be exceedingly 
 rudimentary. In various parts of the world we find 
 generalizing conceptions of the supernatural : in Melan- 
 esia, Mana, and among the North American Indians, 
 Wakonda (Sioux), Orenda (Iroquois), and Manitou (Al- 
 gonkin) . The terms are applied to distinctly non-normal 
 phenomena and occasions where, primarily, the individ- 
 ual felt, or was taught to feel, that they were quite apart 
 from the normal. The test must primarily be subjective 
 (p. 23 seq.); tradition enters subsequently, and the feeling 
 of a difference between the sacred, holy, and extraordin- 
 ary, as contrasted with all that is not so, combines with 
 the traditional knowledge deciding to which of the two 
 so-and-so belonged. The terms presuppose the appre- 
 hension of something too universal, too distributed and 
 too vague to be personal ; yet, when it is particularized, 
 and a particular manifestation is recognized, there seems 
 to be an immediate tendency for man to think of it as
 
 80 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 something approaching personality, and directly related 
 to himself. The terms and their application may recall 
 the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit in that a won- 
 drous Power is recognized where the individual experi- 
 ences, or expects, or is taught to expect it. 
 
 Now the above generalized terms, obviously go back 
 to personal experience, and they persisted because ex- 
 perience continued to be essentially similar in spite of 
 the more external differences in the history of thought. 
 We all have feelings and thoughts that lie too deep for 
 words, and we are indebted to those whose gifts of ex- 
 pression allow us to make them explicit. No individual 
 could use these terms unless the environment had them, 
 and was applying them to appropriate phenomena. The 
 experience is to some degree shared by the environment ; 
 yet the latter, in its turn, must be indebted primarily to 
 individuals. As far back as we can go, therefore, we 
 have to postulate (a) individual experience, shared by 
 individuals, and (6) the common recognition that here 
 was something profoundly different from ordinary life. 
 The beginning of Religion is like the beginning of Science, 
 we must first clearly understand what we mean, so as to 
 know what to look for, and then recognize that, from 
 the evolutionary point of view, at any stage where we 
 can say, " here is the beginning," there must have been 
 a necessary antecedent stage of which this is the genetic 
 successor. Like the dawn of Religion in the child, there 
 must be the preliminary steps, though we cannot per- 
 ceive in them Religion as we define it. Clear definitions 
 are necessary, but they obscure some questions and tend to 
 ignore the continuous evolution of thought (seep. 28 seq.} ; 
 hence the best definition of Religion as also of Science 
 must be one that will enable both to do more effectively 
 in the future what they have already done so well in 
 the past. The precise origin of Religion is a question we 
 can neither answer nor ask. At the earliest stage where 
 man had conscious feelings, his fear and despair were 
 not so significant as his courage, joy, and confidence 
 (see p. 54). At the point where it could be legitimately
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT 81 
 
 said that he had supernatural ideas, everything suggests 
 that man was conscious of something to be approached, 
 though with heed, something beneficent, but not to be 
 lightly esteemed or ignored (p. 53). The first step, one 
 may conjecture, was the consciousness of a psychical 
 gulf which even yet has not been bridged (cf. p. 55 seq.). 
 The fundamental features of Religion are now to be 
 found in varying bodies of belief and behaviour, the 
 critical comparison of which is most important for the 
 study of man's unconscious and conscious cravings (p. 
 11 seq.). The differences and advances are throughout 
 due to psychical development. There is reason to be- 
 lieve that in the development of society the collective 
 " we " preceded the individual " I," and that the 
 central " object " of the cult was psychically one with 
 the group. The totem on the lower levels and the god 
 on the higher primarily belong to one unit with their 
 followers ; each is essentially an integral and central 
 part of the body of thought shared by all. But even 
 the totem is superior, just as the stone which is regarded 
 as a fetish differs from any other stone, because very 
 profound thoughts are focussed upon it. So long as a 
 totem, fetish, image, deity, symbol, or even a name, 
 aroused appropriate feelings and thoughts, it was effec- 
 tive. We ourselves know how we can be influenced by 
 flag, badge, " think button," photograph, or honoured 
 name. If a man assume that the " thing " (whatever 
 it is) is effective in itself, obviously he deceives him- 
 self ; unless there be an appropriate psychical accom- 
 paniment there can be no advance. It is sterile, and is 
 characteristic of " Magic." Very difficult questions 
 arise, mainly because we cannot understand other 
 points of view ; but the great changes, and the in- 
 numerable transitions thereby involved, lead us to 
 infer that the features that persist in similar or in 
 related forms are those that usually proved themselves 
 effective (p. 12 seq.). If so, it is evident that the pre- 
 dominating tendency throughout every stage of develop- 
 ment has been for man to find a source of strength in
 
 82 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 something psychically superior to himself and to all 
 his fellows. 
 
 The belief has prevailed widely that a man's soul, 
 vital principle, or life could be transferred to some 
 external object where it would be tolerably secure. It 
 is easy to understand the solace afforded by this belief. 
 At another level we find man putting his trust in a 
 spiritual Being and gaining comfort in this psychical 
 relationship ; and this stage, of course, presupposes 
 earlier ones before there were conceptions of a spiritual 
 Being. Now, when the belief in the " external soul " 
 broke down, the consequent fear, anxiety, and resent- 
 ment can be readily imagined. A greater strain was 
 laid upon men and a psychical development was forced. 
 The result is seen in the higher levels where the concrete 
 external object has disappeared; there is a generally 
 higher character of thought, and a body of ideas asso- 
 ciate man with his God. But this body, in turn, is so 
 regarded as a material structure that what affects part 
 is often thought to affect the whole. Consequently, 
 when the body or doctrine is endangered by the progress 
 of knowledge, once more there are the disturbing 
 features, once more there is need for faith, for reason, 
 for further psychical advance, and for the recognition 
 that bodies of thought grow and evolve (p. 19). The 
 body of thought, whatever be its external form, is 
 everywhere founded upon experience ; and even the 
 rudimentary conviction of an " external soul " is quite 
 unintelligible unless it rested upon some psychical 
 foundation of confidence and courage. Throughout 
 there is a common feeling of security due to a psychical 
 relationship ; it expresses itself in varying forms, and 
 consequently there may be new external forms, more in 
 accord with the thought of the age (cf. p. 12). 
 
 At earlier stages of development human sacrifice 
 has often been viewed as a valuable and impressive 
 offering. But when it was condemned, it would doubt- 
 less seem to some that the animal surrogate, simpler 
 and less valuable, could hardly be acceptable. Indeed,
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT 83 
 
 to " cheapen " sacrifice really laid a greater responsi- 
 bility upon man ; yet, at the same time, the develop- 
 ment enforced the fact that the essence of sacrifice lay 
 in the attitude of the individual i.e. in the psychical 
 accompaniment. Even in the Central Australian 
 totemism the men by self-denial, restraint, and self- 
 inflicted suffering recognize the special character of 
 their solemn occasions, and the ceremonial eating of 
 the totem entails the object of then* profoundest ideas 
 who is one with themselves (pp. 75 sqq.). Here, as 
 elsewhere, sacrifice is primarily something personal and 
 valuable, involving an ennobling and sanctifying feeling 
 of psychical relationship. It is perfectly true that 
 sacrifice sometimes assumes forms suggestive of barter 
 or exchange, but not only does man persist in seeking 
 this relationship even when the expected fails, it rests 
 entirely with him whether his motives are what they 
 appear to be to the external observer. If sacrifice 
 was invariably regarded as a convenient and handy 
 method of producing desired results, it was of no ethical 
 benefit, and its persistence from level to level in the 
 course of the development of thought would destroy 
 our most fundamental postulates of right and wrong, 
 and of our race. It is quite intelligible that particular 
 sacrificial practices should disappear as men found 
 them psychically useless, but that sacrificial ideas should 
 reappear is an indication of their new value. Just as 
 no man can believe himself loved unless he has ex- 
 perienced love, so no man could have a sense of relation- 
 ship, more real and fundamental than any human 
 relationship, unless a psychical experience justified him. 
 The supposition that man by thought and imagination 
 can " work himself " into some desirable state, over- 
 looks the fact that in conscience, prayer, sacrifice, &c. 
 we have phenomena proving that there are unmis- 
 takable limits to what man can do by exercise of will or 
 by Ms own aided powers. There is-no " will to forget " ; 
 the phenomena involve man's profounder part of himself 
 and all that is bound up therewith (cf. p. 64). If we
 
 84 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 view prayer as a communion and an appeal, it is note- 
 worthy that although even in totemism we find the 
 germs or the essentials of communion (p. 77), there is 
 no appeal, or, to be more precise, the appeal here and 
 elsewhere takes a remarkably concrete form. Men repre- 
 sent their needs visibly, or they act them. The mimetic 
 ceremonies believed to bring ram, crops, and even 
 offspring, are not necessarily coupled with what we 
 should call prayer ; the savage in his profound psychi- 
 cal state objectifies concretely, as it were, his wants 
 and desires. Any unselfish and lovable behaviour on 
 the lower levels is naturally of a somewhat rudimentary 
 character, but it is more significant than the crudeness 
 of the concrete activities or the absence of explicit 
 prayer. And just as the parent does not wait for the 
 child to formulate its needs in adult language, so no 
 superior mind would refrain from intervention simply 
 because the appeal has not been couched in particular 
 terms. The fact remains that on the lower levels men 
 act their wants, yet, in spite of the usual disappoint- 
 ments, they persist in their beliefs and practices. It is 
 open for us to pity and deplore their senseless and 
 pathetic blindness ; but it may be more scientific, and 
 also more courteous to our race, to suppose that they 
 persist for the same reason that men on higher levels 
 persist in explicit prayer and implicit appeal in spite 
 of apparent failure. 
 
 Strangely concrete also is the behaviour where sin, 
 offence, purification, and forgiveness are concerned. 
 Abundant evidence shows how keenly man felt the 
 necessity of assuming a proper attitude to the object of 
 his supernatural beliefs, and the taboos indicate the 
 reality of man's awe and fear at any infraction of the 
 regulations (p. 53 seq.). There can be no doubt that even 
 on the lowest levels man has the keenest sense of fear, 
 regret, remorse, and subsequent rehabilitation. The 
 concrete ceremonial must, on psychological grounds, be 
 primarily effective ; but since we find considerable varia- 
 tion and development of detail, we can infer that the
 
 PSYCHICAL DEVELOPMENT 85 
 
 changes occurred when its value lay merely in exter- 
 nalities and there was no appropriate psychical accom- 
 paniment. On the other nand, the persistence on 
 various levels, underlying the external differences, points 
 to the fundamental similarities in the psychical nature 
 of man : his grief when in some way the relationship 
 was obscured by his own acts and by those of his group, 
 and his desire to have it renewed. When there is a 
 common group-feeling we may find a conviction of joint 
 or corporate responsibility for sin, man's guilt or for- 
 giveness rest upon his being one of the group. But, as 
 ideas of individuality advance he has to bear the re- 
 sponsibility himself, and as he comes to perceive how 
 his offences wrong others, he learns that the psychical 
 transitions whereby those who are wronged rise above 
 injury, are compassionate and forgive, involve a great 
 collective " process " of which we are only imperfectly 
 aware. Though every act has its inevitable conse- 
 quences, there is a " process " which shapes them so that 
 the good outweighs the evil, and the past changes with 
 our changing point of view but the " process," though 
 man is an integral part of it, is vaster than man, and here 
 man knows only too well his own limits. 
 
 Throughout, the underlying intuition that man is 
 part of some larger unit regulates life and thought ; the 
 persistent belief that man (or his group) and the god 
 form one whole, as it were, accompanies the conviction 
 that the god is interested primarily in his land. When 
 groups differ their gods tend to be different, and as they 
 converge the gods converge ; the link is the identity or 
 harmony of the profoundest feelings and thoughts. The 
 relations between men and their gods are influenced by 
 the vicissitudes of history. In war the deity, of course, 
 fought for his people. But if there was defeat he might 
 be replaced by another ; or there was faith, and by 
 a psychical development came the conviction that he 
 was punishing his own people. When the god and his 
 people form a separate whole, there was increasing 
 fluctuation of thought. In like manner when we find
 
 86 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 group and deity and human representative, numerous 
 developments recur influenced by the ideas of the last 
 of the trio. When in the body of thought the ideas of 
 the Deity are severed from the rest, Religion is out of 
 touch with life ; God seems to be remote. We then find 
 trustful faith, recrudescence of superstition and growth 
 of new cults, anticipation of a coming change, a deliverer 
 or a new age, and a more objective and critical attitude 
 towards those questions which had previously been too 
 sacred to be discussed. All these prepare for positive 
 advances at another stage. Especially characteristic 
 then is the renewed emphasis upon the nearness of the 
 supernatural the accessibility of God ; it will be ex- 
 pressed in the best thought and knowledge of the time : 
 for God and the group will once more form part of the 
 same unit of thought. Throughout, the advances are 
 due to individuals, man draws out what is in man, and 
 that intense feeling for those who have brought a new 
 stage into our life has in the past seen in them men more 
 Godlike and Divine than ourselves. Yet, the gulf be- 
 tween man and the Ultimate is so profound, and man's 
 indebtedness to his fellows so complete, that before the 
 Supreme Power of the Universe all men are equal, and 
 those who have most privileges and are most gifted have 
 the heaviest burdens. Those who have the keenest 
 realization of the psychical relationship, which assuredly 
 all men, unconsciously or consciously, reveal in some 
 degree, are those to whom the question " Lovest thou 
 me ? " always brings the command " Feed my sheep." 
 " The spirit of Heaven," says Novalis, " reveals itself 
 most clearly in human events and feelings " ; and as 
 the critical and rationally sympathetic study of man 
 reveals the immanence of a Divine Power, gratitude is 
 shown by intelligent devotion to the members of the 
 Unit to which all belong.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 THIS booklet handles neither metaphysical questions of 
 reality nor the systematized bodies of thought which 
 unite the fundamental religious convictions with current 
 knowledge. The examination of religious and related 
 beliefs and practices reveals fundamental similarities 
 touching man's intuitions and convictions of a personal 
 relationship with an immanent and transcendent Power. 
 The very profound differences indicate the continuous 
 development as man learns more of himself and of his 
 environment. His conceptions of the Universe rest 
 upon his thoughts and ideas ; every eye can see plants, 
 animals, skeletons, and fossils, but the fruitful ideas of 
 evolution depend primarily upon the way in which the 
 concrete objects are viewed. Increase of thought de- 
 velops conceptions of God and of the world, and in this 
 respect both are " man made." The development is a 
 collective movement, and all share in the good and evil 
 they have wrought. It has been due to mind in the 
 past, and in the future the process will be essentially 
 psychical. 
 
 Although modern complexity and differentiation of 
 life and thought compel a certain specialism, progress 
 in the past has been " all along the line," and must 
 assuredly be as comprehensive in the future. Religion 
 dignifies and sanctifies the whole life ; it nourishes the 
 whole man, and must be in harmony with all thought 
 and practice. There are those who frankly condemn 
 certain aspects or features of Religion, yet have funda- 
 mental beliefs and ideas of a religious character e.g. 
 
 87
 
 88 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 immortality, pre-existence, a psychical Power realizing 
 itself in humanity, a system of spiritual selves, and so 
 forth. These ideas must obviously be formulated very 
 carefully, lest people read into them what the writers 
 themselves would repudiate. Hence we may perceive 
 the invariable necessity of placing in a sort of framework 
 all fundamental convictions and ideas of a religious or 
 semi-religious character, partly to guide the ordinary 
 man and partly to exclude undesirable interpretations 
 and accretions. Ideas of this character, even among 
 writers who condemn some or all doctrinal systems, 
 must, like all ideas that involve other nuclei, be elabor- 
 ated with some completeness and systematized. As a 
 result of this, the very systematization of thought, which 
 directs and unites men, may subsequently hinder con- 
 tinued development (c/. p. 74). It is important, there- 
 fore, to realize the difference between a current situation 
 and future development. 
 
 Every man comes between an unknown prelude and 
 an unknown sequel ; his own body of thought is never 
 really complete, his environment is merely at some 
 intermediate stage of development. All the tendencies 
 of the normal man involve the antithesis between exist- 
 ing conditions and ideas and ideals reaching forward to 
 some later stage. The next stage is invariably the 
 result of collective and, therefore, comprehensive effort, 
 even as each stage in thought is due to the collective 
 result of diverse departments of knowledge and research 
 (c/. p. 24). The individual in his life history is develop- 
 ing some- whither ; but while his fullest self-realization 
 cannot conceivably require the explicit subordination of 
 others, self-renunciation does actually lead to a greater 
 independence and frees a man of accidents. With La 
 Cordaire : " to possess oneself is the first act of the divine 
 life ; to give oneself is the second." Poets, mystics, 
 and others all speak of a vaster existence of which every- 
 one at some time or other is at least half conscious for 
 even the love of fiction is the craving for a bigger life 
 and the survey of human development so emphatically 
 indicates the moral, rational, and comprehensive char-
 
 CONCLUSION 89 
 
 acter of the Process working in the Universe that life 
 seems but an education for something grander and more 
 perfect. Step by step man is learning to discipline him- 
 self, to handle more difficult problems, to fit himself for 
 greater powers and heavier responsibilities. Hard 
 though the burdens of this life may be, they are lightened 
 by the conviction of a " worth-while-ness." 
 
 The language that expresses our experience is as in- 
 adequate as the clumsy chalk mark on the blackboard, 
 which is supposed to represent a mathematical line 
 devoid of breadth and absolutely straight. It is an 
 error to use our imperfect symbols as bases for investiga- 
 tion ; rather must one go below the surface, recover the 
 underlying meaning, and seek to improve the tools and 
 instruments of thought. Our intellect both assists and 
 impedes us, but only through it can progress come (p. 
 31 seq.). The intellect enriches the profound experiences 
 which language can scarce formulate, and only the most 
 persistent industry leads man to realize in a newer way 
 his place in the Universe. But the intellectual life is 
 only part of existence. The intellect, by putting the 
 supernatural on one side, has learned more of the mys- 
 teries of Life ; it has yet to consecrate itself to the work 
 of determining the significance of Life so far as current 
 knowledge permits. 
 
 There are those who feel that the world stands on the 
 threshold of a new era ; and certainly stage by stage the 
 Process is such that the creature and its environment 
 develop together. Moreover, thought is becoming more 
 international, and any distinctive results tend to have 
 a world- wide effect. " But Jeshurun waxed fat and 
 kicked," and when civilization has a Pisgah-view of new 
 possibilities and powers, it is not quite so certain that it 
 feels the need of a Deity. On the other hand, there is 
 no reason to suppose that the Process in the Universe 
 will be different in the future ; and to the leader who 
 did not " sanctify " the Lord in the midst of the children 
 of Israel (Deut. xxxii. 51 ; c/. p. 66), Pisgah was the 
 end of his labours. Since civilization depends upon the 
 co-operation and mutual forbearance of men and upon
 
 90 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 a harmony of their profoundest ideas, any weakness 
 where Religion is concerned affects precisely that which 
 makes for solidarity and cohesion. The whole course of 
 evolution is marked by the weeding-out of the unfit and 
 by the fall of civilizations in the past ; it has essentially 
 been for the whole and not for any one of the parts. 
 Yet, while the interconnexion of history is such that 
 the loss of one area is always the gain of another, and 
 while every stage is the genetic outcome of the pre- 
 ceding, man can never foresee the exact results of his 
 endeavours, and a throttling pessimism would be as 
 wrong as a blind optimism. The unit of activity extends 
 outside man's conscious plans and beyond himself, and 
 common experience acknowledges that God's ways are 
 not man's ways. 
 
 Man instinctively associates himself with the past and 
 the future, as though he were part of a larger whole. 
 His duty is to carry on the work of his predecessors. He 
 can work for the Process or against it, and such is the 
 psychical interrelation that if man needs God, God needs 
 man. It is immaterial whether man's activity, be it 
 good or bad, is known only to himself ; his part in the 
 collective process, and his intuitive apprehension of a 
 larger relationship, give him an integral share in the 
 world's good or evil. Man cannot escape the Universe 
 of which he has become conscious, and if man and the 
 Universe are so related, there is a fuller truth in the old 
 proverb : " It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest " ! 
 Better knowledge and clearer retrospect give a greater 
 significance to the less conscious and less purposive 
 steps in the past, and further progress comes only by 
 the most comprehensive thought and by attention to 
 the elemental principles of right and wrong. Increase 
 of consciousness and of power brings increase of re- 
 sponsibility ; and more than ever man will need that 
 psychical relationship which alone gives strength and 
 wisdom. In the recognition of a transcendent Supreme 
 Power which man calls God human differences are 
 seen to be temporal and man can only be humble. At 
 the same time, as the conditions at every stage depend
 
 CONCLUSION 91 
 
 upon all that has gone before, so in the further develop- 
 ment all must play their part. 
 
 No man is born into the world whose work 
 Is not born with him ; there is always work, 
 And tools to work withal, for those who will. 
 And he who waits to have his task marked out 
 Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. 
 
 Man may not bury his single talent in the ground : 
 to quote further from Lowell : " Not failure, but low 
 aim, is crime." Nor is it easy for man to double his 
 five talents without in some way thwarting his fellows. 
 The world consists of individuals by whose deeds, as 
 each strives to realize himself, the good and the evil 
 are multiplied. Man is the great experimenter, striving 
 for good which too often produces evil, doing evil which 
 is often transmuted into good. His activities are his 
 contribution to the delights and the difficulties of the 
 Universe ; and if man is an integral part of the Uni- 
 verse, the Universe is incomplete without the individual, 
 despite the fact that Nature pays more regard to the 
 race as a whole. So, too, the Christian conviction that 
 God so loved the World that He would not intervene 
 on behalf of His beloved, brings with it the corollary 
 that His evident love for the whole of creation must 
 extend to every part thereof. And herein lies the 
 trust of all individuals, from those we place the highest 
 to those who seem to us to be the lowest. 
 
 The comparative study of religions has proved the 
 fundamental similarities in the different forms of Re- 
 ligion, a not altogether surprising result when we con- 
 sider the scientific evidence for the oneness of all 
 mankind. Psychology next comes forward and proves 
 the fundamental connexion between the religious and the 
 non-religious aspects of Life and Thought. Man must 
 form ideas of a Universe the largest Unit of which he 
 is part of Process in the Universe, and of his relation- 
 ship to the Universe. Religion, with its intuitive ideas 
 and its experience of man's relationship to a great Per- 
 sonal Power, must express itself according to the par-
 
 92 THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 
 
 ticular experience and knowledge of the particular 
 individual ; while the environment, in tending to re- 
 press all extreme individualism, is the more effectively 
 stimulated by the individual. 
 
 At the present day there is a marked absence of pro- 
 perly co-ordinated and synthesized thought, due to the 
 relatively recent and very conspicuous advances in 
 practically every branch of knowledge. None the less, 
 men are fundamentally psychically similar, and there is 
 a keen spirit, which whether religious, quasi-religious, or 
 psychologically connected with the religious spirit, has 
 not the customary religious expression. 
 
 Serious problems thus arise, since Religion out of 
 touch with the best knowledge may deteriorate and 
 become Superstition, and the best thought cannot con- 
 ceivably be co-ordinated or synthesized with the ex- 
 clusion of Religion (see p. 18). Hence, the problems of 
 the age are not merely social, economic, and political, 
 not merely psychological and scientific. They are the 
 outcome of a genetic and orderly development leading 
 to a very vivid self -consciousness which makes a land- 
 mark in the history of our Universe. The problems 
 involve the adjustment of experience, knowledge, and 
 thought, and a recognition of man's place in the world 
 of Life and Thought. The problems partly demand 
 clear, strenuous, and sane intellectual enquiry, and 
 partly the realization that man is only part of the 
 Process in the Universe, and that he is not alone in his 
 endeavours to deal with his difficulties. Man cannot 
 with impunity go back to earlier types of belief and 
 behaviour ; and every advance has been psychical, 
 rational, with enrichment of thought and for the benefit 
 of the average man. Every advance in consciousness 
 brings heavier responsibilities and greater opportunities ; 
 but there has been no progress unless Religion has 
 accompanied it, because Religion deals with the pro- 
 foundest and the most fundamental of all man's ideas, 
 beliefs, and convictions, whether he consciously realizes 
 them or not. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 TTKTVERSTTY OF CAT IFORNIA
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE literature is enormous. Psychology, by H. J. Watt, 
 in this series, gives a helpful introduction and biblio- 
 graphy, while, for the application of psychology to 
 religion, reference may be made to the American 
 writers, E. S. Ames, Psychology of Rdigious Experience 
 (Constable, 1910) ; I. King, Development of Religion 
 (Macmillan, 1910) ; G. M. Stratton, Psychology of the 
 Religious Life (Allen, 1911) ; J. H. Leuba, Psychological 
 Study of Religion (Allen, 1912). The evidence for Mys- 
 ticism is scattered ; a good introductory account with 
 bibliography is given by C. F. E. Spurgeon, Mysticism 
 in English Literature (Cambridge University Press, 1913). 
 For the comparative study of religions special reference 
 may be made to the works of J. G. Frazer (Golden 
 Bough, &c.), and to Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion 
 and Ethics. For the subject in its philosophical and 
 religious bearings, see E. Durkheim, Les Formes EUmen- 
 taires de la Vie Religieuse (Paris, 1912), and the more 
 apologetic works of F. B. Jevons (The Idea of GodinEarly 
 Religions, Comparative Religion, &c.), and J. A. Maccul- 
 loch, Comparative Theology (Methuen, 1902). Especially 
 important for their sympathetic, though quite objective 
 treatment, are the writings of A. C. Haddon, Magic and 
 Fetichism (Constable, 1906), &c., and R. R. Marett, 
 Threshold of Religion (Methuen, 1909), Birth of Humility 
 (Oxford University Pi-ess, 1910), and articles in the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, "Prayer," 
 "Religion," "Ritual" (see alsoother articles mentioned in 
 the Index Volume, p. 945). General questions of a philo- 
 sophical and scientific nature are, of course, fundamental ; 
 the following vary greatly in standpoint and aim, and 
 
 93
 
 94 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 are merely a few examples of the numerous works that 
 contribute to the subject of this booklet : H. W. Carr, 
 The Problem of Truth ; A. J. Jones, Rudolf Eucken (both 
 in this series) ; J. R. Illingworth, Personality Hu,nan and 
 Divine (Macmillan) ; J. M. E. M'Taggart, Some Dogmas 
 of Religion (Arnold, 1906) ; G. T. Ladd, Knowledge, 
 Life and Reality (Longmans, 1909); C. F. Keary, The 
 Pursuit of Reason (Cambridge, 1910) ; W. E. Hocking, 
 The Meaning of God in Human Experience (Yale, 1912) ; 
 L. T. Hobhouse, Development and Purpose (Macmillan, 
 1913). As for the present writer's standpoint, he may 
 be permitted to refer to his essays on the Evolution and 
 Survival of Primitive Thought, Ridgeway Presentation 
 Volume (Cambridge, 1913), and on The Critical Study of 
 Religions (A. & C. Black, in the Press).
 
 INDEX 
 
 ADOLESCENCE, 67 
 Anthropology, 12, 64 
 Anthropomorphism, 71 sqq. 
 Authority, 21 seq., 49 
 
 CAUSE, 25, 73 
 
 Child thought, 27, 54, 69, 71, 
 
 75, 80, 84 
 Christianity, 11 seq., 19, 21 aeq., 
 
 80, 91 
 Collective (process, ideas, &c.), 
 
 24, 27 seq., 32 seq., 38, 85, 88, 
 
 90 
 
 Communion, 39, 51, 77, 84 
 Comparative method, 11 seq., 
 
 21 seq. 
 Concrete (material) thought, 19, 
 
 62, 70 seq., 81, 84 
 Conscience, 64, 83 
 Consciousness (awareness), 24 
 
 seq., 34, 50 seq. 
 
 Control, 26, 31, 38 sqq., 46, 50 
 Critical method, 12 sqq., 21, 61 
 
 seq. 
 Crowd, psychology of, 38 seq., 65 
 
 DEAD, the, 27, 32, 42 sqq. 
 Deity, objective existence, 16 
 
 consciousness of, 34 seq., 78 
 sqq. 
 
 development of ideas of, 70 
 sqq., 76, 78 sqq., 85 seq. 
 
 ENVIRONMENT andtheindividual, 
 15, 32, 41 seq., 51, 57 seq., 64, 
 74, 86, 89 
 
 Evolution (development), gene- 
 tic, 20, 61, 80, 90 ; of concepts, 
 
 10 ; religion, 12 ; thought, 
 19 sqq., 61, 69 ; of the indivi- 
 dual, 26 sqq., 42 seq., 57 seq. ; 
 its reality, 87 
 
 Experience, its interpretation. 
 10, 16, 30 seq., 49 sqq. 
 
 FATALISM, 61, 90 
 Fear and religion, 54 
 Food, rites, 76 
 Frazer, Dr. J. G., 67 
 Freedom, freewill, 24, 60 sqq. 
 
 GENIUS, 24, 32, 41 
 
 HEAVEN and Hell, 15 seq., 56 
 Humility, 52 seq. 
 
 IDOLS, idolatry, 68 seq., 81 
 Imitation, 70 seq., 75 sqq. 
 Immortality, 27, 42 seq. 
 Individual, objective value of, 
 
 41, 51, 86. See Environment 
 Individuality, 31, 33, 37 sqq., 41, 
 
 44, 66 
 
 Initiation, 68 
 Instinct (instinctive ideas, &c.), 
 
 20, 25 sqq., 30, 32 seq., 42 sqq., 
 
 51, 57, 60, 64, 67, 69, 90 
 Intellect, 30, 50, 89 
 
 LANGUAGE, 10, 49, 89 
 
 MAGIC, 81 
 Mana, 79 
 Marriage bars, 67 
 Materialism, 27 
 Matter, 28 seq.
 
 96 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mechanism, mechanistic theo- 
 ries, &c., 26 seq., 42, 60 sqq. 
 
 Mind, 28, 30, 61 seq. ; influence 
 on mind, 38, 44, 65 seq., 84 
 
 Mysticism 48 sqq., 55, 73 
 
 NATUBB, 35, 57, 91 
 
 PERSONALITY, 22, 71 seq. 
 
 Personal power, 25, 33, 58, 66, 
 79 aeq. 
 
 Prayer, 84 
 
 Process in the Universe, 24 seq., 
 27, 29, 66, 69, 78, 85, 90. See 
 Collective 
 
 Psychical (mental, spiritual, as 
 opposed to the bodily, con- 
 crete, material, and physical), 
 gulfs, 42, 52 seq., 81 
 tealitiea, 16, 27, 34, 40, 51, 
 56, cf. 87 
 
 Purpose, 24, 26, 28, 65, 74. See 
 Evolution 
 
 RATIONALISM, 13 seq., 74 
 
 Re-birth, 44, 67 
 
 Religion, beginning, 54 seq., 80 ; 
 comparison of, 11 seq. ; defini- 
 tion, 9, 80 ; evolution, 12 seq., 
 17 eeq., 20, 74, 86 ; function, 
 57 seq. See Mysticism, Super- 
 natural, Superstition 
 
 SACBBD, test of, 23, 79 
 
 Sacrifice, 44, 82 seq. 
 
 Self, consciousness of, 25 sqq., 
 
 28 seq., 72 seq. ; development 
 
 of, 34, 37, 42, 52, 72 ; extreme, 
 
 41, 56 ; and Deity, 34, 53, 56 
 
 seq., 59, 64, 86 
 Sin, 53 sqq., 84 seq. 
 Smith, Robertson, 77 
 Society, solidarity of, 18, 76, 
 
 78 
 Subconscious (unconscious), 24 
 
 sqq., 34, 42 
 Suicide, 44 
 Supernaturalism (as opposed to 
 
 the natural), 16, 23, 34 seq., 
 
 53, 56, 60 seq., 79 
 Superstition, 45 seq., 86, 92 
 Survival (persistence) of ideas, 
 
 &c., 11, 45, 69, 80 sqq. 
 Symbol, 70, 81 
 Sympathy, 46 
 
 TABOOS, 53 sqq., 84 
 Totemism, 68 sqq., 75 sqq., 81, 
 83 
 
 UNIVEBSB and man, 17, 28, 59 ; 
 ideas of, 29, 33, 35 seq., 51, 62 
 sqq. See Process. 
 
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