{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33677/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33677","id":"gutenberg_33677","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33677","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Religion -- Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by Don Kostuch\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's notes]\n Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly\n braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred\n in the original book.\n\n Obvious spelling or typographical errors have been corrected.\n \"Inventive\" and contemporary spelling is unchanged.\n\n The book \"The Preliminaries\" mentioned on page {241} is available\n on Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/etext/33665.\n[End transcriber's notes]\n\n\nTHE BROSS LIBRARY\n\n\nThe Problem of the Old Testament,\nby James Orr, D.D. (Bross Prize,\n1905) _net_ $1.50\n\nThe Bible: Its Origin and Nature,\nby Marcus Dods, D.D. . . _net_ $1.00\n\nThe Bible of Nature, by J. Arthur\nThomson, M.A net $1.00\n\nThe Religions of Modern Syria and\nPalestine, by Frederick Jones\nBliss, Ph.D net $1.50\n\nThe Sources of Religious Insight, by\nJosiah Royce, Ph.D., LL.D. net $1.25\n\n\n\nTHE BROSS LIBRARY\n\nVOLUME VI\n\n\n\n_THE BROSS LECTURES . . 1911_\n\n\nTHE SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS INSIGHT\n\n\nLECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE LAKE FOREST COLLEGE\nON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE WILLIAM BROSS\n\nBY\n\nJOSIAH ROYCE, Ph.D., LL.D.\n\nPROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY\nIN HARVARD UNIVERSITY\n\n\n\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\nNEW YORK .... 1912\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1912, by\nTHE TRUSTEES OF LAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY\n\nPublished April. 1912\n\n\n{v}\n\nTHE BROSS FOUNDATION\n\nThe Bross Lectures are an outgrowth of a fund established in 1879 by\nthe late William Bross, Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois from 1866 to\n1870. Desiring some memorial of his son, Nathaniel Bross, who died in\n1856, Mr. Bross entered into an agreement with the \"Trustees of Lake\nForest University,\" whereby there was finally transferred to them the\nsum of forty thousand dollars, the income of which was to accumulate\nin perpetuity for successive periods of ten years, the accumulations\nof one decade to be spent in the following decade, for the purpose of\nstimulating the best books or treatises _\"on the connection, relation,\nand mutual bearing of any practical science, the history of our race,\nor the facts in any department of knowledge, with and upon the\nChristian Religion.\"_ The object of the donor was to _\"call out the\nbest efforts of the highest talent and the ripest scholarship of the\nworld to illustrate from science, or from any department of knowledge,\nand to demonstrate the divine origin and the authority of the\nChristian Scriptures; and, further, to show how both science and\nrevelation coincide and prove the existence, {vi} the providence, or\nany or all of the attributes of the only living and true God,\n'infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power,\nholiness, justice, goodness, and truth.'\"_\n\nThe gift contemplated in the original agreement of 1879 was finally\nconsummated in 1890. The first decade of the accumulation of interest\nhaving closed in 1900, the Trustees of the Bross Fund began at this\ntime to carry out the provisions of the deed of gift. It was\ndetermined to give the general title of \"The Bross Library\" to the\nseries of books purchased and published with the proceeds of the Bross\nFund. In accordance with the express wish of the donor, that the\n\"Evidences of Christianity\" of his \"very dear friend and teacher, Mark\nHopkins, D.D.,\" be purchased and \"ever numbered and known as No. 1 of\nthe series,\" the Trustees secured the copyright of this work, which\nhas been republished in a presentation edition as Volume I of the\nBross Library.\n\nThe trust agreement prescribed two methods by which the production of\nbooks and treatises of the nature contemplated by the donor was to be\nstimulated:\n\n1. The Trustees were empowered to offer one or more prizes during each\ndecade, the competition for which was to be thrown open to \"the\nscientific men, the Christian philosophers and historians of all {vii}\nnations.\" In accordance with this provision, a prize of $6,000 was\noffered in 1902 for the best book fulfilling the conditions of the\ndeed of gift, the competing manuscripts to be presented on or before\nJune 1, 1905. The prize was awarded to the Reverend James Orr, D.D.,\nProfessor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology in the United Free\nChurch College, Glasgow, for his treatise on \"The Problem of the Old\nTestament,\" which was published in 1906 as Volume III of the Bross\nLibrary. The next decennial prize will be awarded in 1915, and the\nannouncement of the conditions may be obtained from the President of\nLake Forest College.\n\n2. The Trustees were also empowered to \"select and designate any\nparticular scientific man or Christian philosopher and the subject on\nwhich he shall write,\" and to \"agree with him as to the sum he shall\nreceive for the book or treatise to be written.\" Under this provision\nthe Trustees have, from time to time, invited eminent scholars to\ndeliver courses of lectures before Lake Forest College, such courses\nto be subsequently published as volumes in the Bross Library. The\nfirst course of lectures, on \"Obligatory Morality,\" was delivered in\nMay, 1903, by the Reverend Francis Landey Patton, D.D., LL.D.,\nPresident of Princeton Theological Seminary. The copyright of the\nlectures is now the property of the Trustees of the Bross Fund. The\nsecond course of {viii} lectures, on \"The Bible: Its Origin and\nNature,\" was delivered in May, 1904, by the Reverend Marcus Dods,\nD.D., Professor of Exegetical Theology in New College, Edinburgh.\nThese lectures were published in 1905 as Volume II of the Bross\nLibrary. The third course of lectures, on \"The Bible of Nature,\" was\ndelivered in September and October, 1907, by Mr. J. Arthur Thomson,\nM.A., Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of\nAberdeen. These lectures were published in 1908 as Volume IV of the\nBross Library. The fourth course of lectures, on \"The Religions of\nModern Syria and Palestine,\" was delivered in November and December,\n1908, by Frederick Jones Bliss, Ph.D., of Beirut, Syria. These lectures\nare in process of publication as Volume V of the Bross Library. The\nfifth course of lectures, on \"The Sources of Religious Insight,\" was\ndelivered November 13 to 19, 1911, by Professor Josiah Royce, Ph.D.,\nof Harvard University. These lectures are embodied in the present\nvolume.\n\n JOHN SCHOLTE NOLLEN,\n _President of Lake Forest College._\n\n Lake Forest, Illinois,\n _March_, 1912.\n\n\n{ix}\n\nSUMMARY OF CONTENTS\n\n I\n\n THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND THE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL\n\n PAGE\nIntroductory statement: Limitations of the undertaking 3\n\nI. Definition of Insight, and of Religious Insight. Arbitrary\n limitation of the definition of religion here in question.\n The problem traditionally called that of the \"salvation\n of man\" as the main problem upon which the sources of\n insight here in question are to throw light 5\n\nII. Generalised conception of \"salvation.\" Variety of forms\n in which this conception has been defined and used.\n Resulting problem regarding the meaning of human life 9\n\nIII. Outline of the programme to be followed in the\n subsequent discussion 17\n\nIV. The concept of revelation, and the \"religious paradox.\"\n First statement of this paradox 19\n\nV. Individual experience and the \"inner light.\" What sort\n of religious insight is thus to be gained. Its limitations.\n Prospect of an appeal to other sources for aid 26\n\n{x}\n\n II\n\n INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE\n AS SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS INSIGHT\n\nI. The definition of the religious problem, as given in the\n former lecture, simplifies our undertaking in certain\n respects, but seems to complicate it in others. Review of\n the situation. Outlook for further study 37\n\nII. Outline of the undertaking of the present lecture 41\n\nIII. The motives that lead to religion are natural and\n human. Reasons why the objects of religious insight are\n nevertheless conceived as superhuman, and, as, for our\n individual experience, mysterious 44\n\nIV. Can these objects be defined as realities or as \"values\"\n that our social experience sufficiently brings to our\n knowledge? Social experience as a source of religious\n insight. Its scope and importance 54\n\nV. The inadequacy of social experience as a source of\n religious insight. Objections urged by tradition, by\n recent individualism, and by William James 58\n\nVI. The social consciousness as an indispensable factor in\n religion. The consciousness of guilt as a sense of\n loneliness. Love as a glimpse of something saving and\n divine. The mystical aspect of our social consciousness.\n Despite this mystical aspect of all our better social life,\n our literal social relations are never sufficient to meet\n the religious need. The resulting outlook toward still\n further sources of enlightenment 65\n\n\n{xi}\n\n III\n\n THE OFFICE OF THE REASON\n\nI. Current objections to the Reason as a source of insight.\n Intuition vs. Reason. Reason vs. Experience. Usual\n view of the reason as \"abstract\" and as \"analytic\" in\n its procedure 80\n\nII. But, in common usage, the words \"reason\" and \"reasonable\"\n often refer to something which does not wholly\n depend upon \"abstract thinking\" and mere \"analysis.\"\n The \"rule of reason.\" The concrete use of the reason.\n Reason as a survey of the connections of experience, as\n synthetic, and as involving broader intuitions. The\n alternative: \"Either inarticulate intuition or else barren\n abstract reasoning,\" is falsely stated. The antithesis:\n \"Either experience or else reason,\" also involves failure\n to see how both may be combined. Abstract thinking\n as a means to an end. This end is the attainment of a\n new and broader intuition. Relation between \"becoming\n as a little child\" and \"putting away childish things\" 84\n\nIII. Examples of the synthetic use of the reason. The\n fecundity of deductive reasoning. Novelties discovered by\n the purely deductive sciences. Reason and insight in\n their general relations 93\n\nIV. The reason and the \"religious paradox.\" The \"paradox\"\n as not peculiar to religion. Common sense as an\n appeal to standards which are in some sense superhuman.\n No human individual personally experiences or verifies\n what \"human experience,\" in its conceived character as\n an integral whole, is supposed to confirm. The concepts\n {xii}\n of truth and error are dependent upon the concept of an\n appeal to an insight which no human individual ever\n possesses. This latter concept cannot be limited to the\n mere world of \"common sense,\" but must be universalised.\n The whole real world as the object of an all-seeing\n comprehension of facts as they are. Otherwise our\n opinions about the world cannot even be false. Resulting\n synthetic insight of the reason. The world as the object\n present to the divine wisdom 102\n\n\n\n IV\n\n THE WORLD AND THE WILL\n\n\nI. Historical relations of philosophical idealism. General\n bearing of this doctrine upon the religious interest, and\n upon the history of religion 120\n\nII. Objections to our doctrine of the reason as having no\n value for life, and as failing to help toward solving the\n problem of salvation 129\n\nIII. First answer to these objections. Reports of religious\n experience that show some relations of our doctrine to\n the problem in question 131\n\nIV. Relations of knowledge and will in general. Statement\n of the position of Pragmatism. Resulting objections to\n our whole doctrine of the reason. Truth as tested\n through \"workings.\" Absolute truth as indefinable.\n Pragmatism as taught by James has defined its own\n forms and tests of religious insight. These forms and\n tests of insight are asserted to be superior to our own.\n Religious insight as saving, but as also empirical, in\n James's sense of that term, and as never absolute 135\n\n{xiii}\n\nV. Answer to pragmatism. Our agreement with some of its\n principal positions. Our intelligence as the counsellor of\n our actions. The point where we are at issue with\n pragmatism. Reason and will, their general relations.\n Vindication of the position taken in the former lecture 144\n\nVI. The problem as to the absoluteness of truth. The close\n relations of knowledge and action do not throw doubt\n upon, but rather emphasise this absoluteness. For all\n action is expressed in individual and absolutely\n irrevocable deeds. These deeds, if the practical issues\n of life are sharply defined, remain irrevocably on the\n \"score of life\" as \"hits\" or \"misses.\" This irrevocable\n character of our deeds insures the fact that the\n \"counsels\" or \"ideas\" of the intellect, which guide our\n individual deeds, are as absolutely \"hits\" or \"misses\"\n as are the deeds which they counsel. Resulting definition\n of absolute truth, which is something perfectly concrete,\n and as accessible as life itself 151\n\nVII. Application of this view to the definition of reality.\n The real world as a life of counsels and of deeds. The\n divine wisdom and the divine will as inseparable. The\n eternal as, not the \"timeless,\" but the \"time-inclusive\"\n insight and survey of life 158\n\n\n\n V\n THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY\n\nI. Objections to all the foregoing sources of insight as\n inadequate,--if considered as separate sources,--to\n furnish a basis for a vital and positive religion. Need\n of a new source. Appeal to life to furnish such a source.\n The new source is due to men's efforts to solve the\n problem of duty, and results from the relations between\n the religious and the moral motives 166\n\n{xiv}\n\nII. The historical conflicts between religion and morality.\n The relations between faith and works, divine grace and\n moral strenuousness. Review of these conflicts. Need\n of some unifying motive 170\n\nIII. Analysis of the bases of morals. Individual and social\n elements in the idea of duty. Resulting first statement\n of the search for a moral principle. Incompleteness of\n this first statement 182\n\nIV. The contribution of the reason to the definition of a\n moral principle. Practical inadequacy of the result thus\n far attained 186\n\nV. The loyal spirit illustrated 190\n\nVI. The motives of Loyalty analysed. Definition of what\n is meant by a Cause to which one is loyal. The principal\n of Loyalty, stated and developed. The religious\n aspect of the loyal spirit. The finding of the cause is\n not due to the will of the loyal being; his service of the\n cause is due to his will. Resulting reconciliation of the\n moral and religious motives. The cause as a free gift of\n grace. The service as one's own. The absoluteness of\n the principle of loyalty. The solution of the \"religious\n paradox\" 197\n\n\n VI\n\n THE RELIGIOUS MISSION OF SORROW\n\nI. The consideration of Loyalty leads over to a new problem.\n \"Tribulation\" as a hindrance to religious insight.\n Reasons why this is the case, introduced by a statement\n regarding our experience of evil. The principle that \"Evil\n ought to be altogether put out of existence\" stated, and\n {xv}\n the reasons therefore indicated. Man as in intent a\n \"destroyer of evil.\" Our natural interest in destructive\n prowess 215\n\nII. Resulting situation in which religion seems to be placed.\n Religion appears (1) To presuppose as well as to experience\n a vast range of evils in the real world; (2) To depend\n upon the assurance that the ruling principle of the\n real world is good; and (3) To agree with morality in\n making use of the principle that \"Evil ought to be\n altogether put out of existence.\" Resulting apparent\n dilemma: Religion seems either superfluous or else doomed\n to failure 219\n\nIII. Illustrations of the dilemma as it appears in practical\n life, and as a barrier in the way of the religious life.\n Need of an abstract statement of the dilemma as a means\n of discounting our emotional confusions 227\n\nIV. Reconsideration of the principle that has led to the\n dilemma. Not all evils equally worthy of abolition.\n Idealised ills. Definition of Sorrow. The process and\n the results of idealisation. Creative synthesis vs. mere\n destruction. The winning over and conquest of ill.\n Strength of spirit involved in such creative synthesis,\n which, in its turn, is never passive, but always morally\n active. Suggestions toward a solution of the dilemma.\n Sorrow as a source of religious insight 232\n\nV. A recent literary instance of such insight 241\n\nVI. Summary and suggestion of possible results of such\n insight 250\n\n{xvi}\n\n VII\n\n THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH\n\nI. The sense in which the religious objects are\n \"superhuman\" and \"supernatural.\" Our present \"form of\n consciousness\" and the \"form of consciousness\" that\n belongs to the \"Spirit\" in the sense in which that term\n is here used 257\n\nII. The Church, visible and invisible 272\n\nIII. The membership of the invisible church 282\n\nIV. Communion with the invisible church 291\n\nV. The Spiritual Gifts of the invisible church. Charity,\n Tolerance and Loyalty as the Fruits of the Spirit. The\n work of the invisible church 293\n\n{1}\n I\n THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND THE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL\n{2}\n\n{3}\n I\n\n THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM AND THE HUMAN INDIVIDUAL\n\n\nMy first task must be to forestall possible disappointments regarding\nthe scope of our inquiry. In seven lectures upon a vast topic very\nlittle can at best be accomplished. I want to tell you at the outset\nwhat are some of the limitations to which I propose to subject my\nundertakings.\n\nI come before you as a philosophical inquirer addressing a general\naudience of thoughtful people. This definition of my office implies\nfrom the outset very notable limitations. As a philosophical inquirer\nI am not here to preach to you, but to appeal to your own\nthoughtfulness. Again, since my inquiry concerns the Sources of\nReligious Insight, you will understand, I hope, that I shall not\nundertake to present to you any extended system of religious doctrine.\nUpon sources of insight we are to concentrate our attention. What\ninsight may be obtained from those sources we shall only attempt to\nindicate in the most general way, not at length to expound. What\ntheologians would call a system of dogmas, I shall not undertake to\ndefine. What {4} philosophers would regard as a comprehensive\nphilosophy of religion I shall have no time to develop within our\nlimits. I am to make some comments upon the ways in which religious\ntruths can become accessible to men. What truths thus become\naccessible you must in large measure discover by your own appeal to\nthe sources of which I shall try to tell you.\n\nThese somewhat narrow limitations may have, as I hope, their\ncorrelative advantages. Since I am to speak of sources, rather than of\ncreeds or of philosophies, I may be able to appeal to people of\ndecidedly various opinions without directing undue attention to the\nmotives that divide them. I need not presuppose that my hearers are of\nthe company of believers or of the company of doubters; and if they\nare believers, it matters little, for my present purpose, to what\nhousehold of the faith they belong. I am not here to set people right\nas to matters of doctrine, but rather to point out the way that, if\npatiently followed, may tend to lead us all toward light and unity of\ndoctrine. If you listen to my later lectures you may, indeed, be led\nto ask various questions about my own creed, which, in these lectures,\nI shall not attempt to answer. But I shall be content if what I say\nhelps any of you, however little, toward finding for yourselves\nanswers to your own religious questions.\n\n{5}\n\nThe limitations of my task, thus indicated, will become still clearer\nif I next try to define the term Religious Insight as I intend it to\nbe here understood.\n\nAnd first I must speak briefly of the word Insight. By insight,\nwhatever the object of insight may be, one means some kind of\nknowledge. But the word insight has a certain richness of significance\nwhereby we distinguish what we call insight from knowledge in general.\nA man knows the way to the office where he does his business. But if\nhe is a successful man, he has insight into the nature and rules of\nhis business and into the means whereby success is attained. A man\nknows the names and the faces of his acquaintances. But he has some\nsort of insight into the characters of his familiar friends. As these\nexamples suggest, insight is a name for a special sort and degree of\nknowledge. Insight is knowledge that unites a certain breadth of\nrange, a certain wealth of acquaintance together with a certain unity\nand coherence of grasp, and with a certain closeness of intimacy\nwhereby the one who has insight is brought into near touch with the\nobjects of his insight. To repeat: Insight is knowledge that makes us\naware of the unity of many facts in one whole, and that at the same\ntime brings us into intimate personal contact with these facts {6} and\nwith the whole wherein they are united. The three marks of insight are\nbreadth of range, coherence and unity of view, and closeness of\npersonal touch. A man may get some sort of _sight_ of as many things\nas you please. But if we have insight, we view some connected whole of\nthings, be this whole a landscape as an artist sees it, or as a\nwanderer surveys it from a mountain top, or be this whole an organic\nprocess as a student of the sciences of life aims to comprehend it, or\na human character as an appreciative biographer tries to portray it.\nAgain, we have insight when, as I insist, our acquaintance with our\nobject is not only coherent but close and personal. Insight you cannot\nobtain at second hand. You can learn by rote and by hearsay many\nthings; but if you have won insight, you have won it not without the\naid of your own individual experience. Yet experience is not by itself\nsufficient to produce insight unless the coherence and the breadth of\nrange which I have just mentioned be added.\n\nInsight may belong to the most various sorts of people and may be\nconcerned with the most diverse kinds of objects. Many very unlearned\npeople have won a great deal of insight into the matters that\nintimately concern them. Many very learned people have attained almost\nno insight into anything. Insight is no peculiar possession of the\nstudents of any technical specialty or of any one calling. Men of\nscience aim to reach insight into {7} the objects of their researches;\nmen of affairs, or men of practical efficiency, however plain or\nhumble their calling, may show insight of a very high type, whenever\nthey possess knowledge that bears the marks indicated, knowledge that\nis intimate and personal and that involves a wide survey of the unity\nof many things.\n\nSuch, then, is insight in general. But I am to speak of Religious\nInsight. Religious insight must be distinguished from other sorts of\ninsight by its object, or by its various characteristic objects. Now,\nI have no time to undertake, in this opening discourse, any adequate\ndefinition of the term Religion or of the features that make an object\na religious object. Religion has a long and complex history, and a\ntragic variety of forms and of objects of belief. And so religion\nvaries prodigiously in its characteristics from age to age, from one\nportion of the human race to another, from one individual to another.\nIf we permitted ourselves to define religion so as merely to insist\nupon what is common to all its forms, civilised and savage, our\ndefinition would tend to become so inclusive and so attenuated as to\nbe almost useless for the purposes of the present brief inquiry. If,\non the other hand, we defined religion so as to make the term denote\nmerely what the believer in this or in that creed thinks of as his own\nreligion, we should from the start cut ourselves off from the very\nbreadth of view which I myself suppose to be essential to the highest\nsort of {8} religious Insight. Nobody fully comprehends what religion\nis who imagines that his own religion is the only genuine religion. As\na fact, I shall therefore abandon at present the effort to give a\ntechnically finished definition of what constitutes religion, or of\nthe nature of the religious objects. I shall here limit myself to a\npractically useful preliminary mention of a certain feature that, for\nmy present purpose, shall be viewed as the essential characteristic of\nreligion, and of religious objects, so far as these lectures propose\nto discuss religion.\n\nThe higher religions of mankind--religions such as Buddhism and\nChristianity--have had in common this notable feature, namely, that\nthey have been concerned with the problem of the Salvation of Man.\nThis is sometimes expressed by saying that they are redemptive\nreligions--religions interested in freeing mankind from some vast and\nuniversal burden, of imperfection, of unreasonableness, of evil, of\nmisery, of fate, of unworthiness, or of sin. Now, for my present\npurposes, this _interest in the salvation of man_ shall be made, in\nthese lectures, the essential feature of religion in so far as\nreligion shall here be dealt with. The religious objects, whatever\nthey otherwise may prove to be, shall be defined as objects such that,\nwhen we know them, and in case we can know them, this knowledge of\nthem helps to show us the way of salvation. The central and essential\npostulate of whatever religion we, in these lectures, are to consider,\nis _the postulate that man {9} needs to be saved_. And religious\ninsight shall for us mean insight into the way of salvation and into\nthose objects whereof the knowledge conduces to salvation.\n\nThis preliminary definition, thus somewhat abruptly stated, will\narouse in the minds of many of you serious doubts and questions. And\nonly the whole course of our study can serve to furnish such answer to\nthese doubts and questions as I can hope to supply to you. Yet a\nfurther word or two of purely preliminary explanation may help to\nprevent your thoughts, at this point, from being turned in a wrong\ndirection. I have defined religious insight as insight into the way of\nsalvation. But what, you may ask, do I mean by the salvation of man or\nby man's need of salvation? To this question I still owe you a brief\npreliminary answer.\n\n\n II\n\nThe word salvation naturally first suggests to your own mind certain\nfamiliar traditions which have played a great part in the history of\nChristianity. I do not mean to make light of those traditions nor yet\nof the significance of the historical Christianity to which they\nbelong. Yet, as I have already told you, these lectures will have no\ndogmatic religious system to expound, and, for that very reason, will\nnot attempt the grave task of any extended discussion of Christianity.\nI propose at {10} some future time, not in these lectures, but upon a\nwholly different occasion, to attempt an application of some of the\nprinciples that underlie the present lectures to the special problems\nwhich Christianity offers to the student of religion. But these\nlectures are not to be directly concerned with this special task of\nexpounding or interpreting or estimating Christian doctrines. I\nrepeat: My limited undertaking is to consider in company with you the\nsources of religious insight, not the contents of any one religion.\nYou will understand, therefore, that when I define religious insight\nas insight into the way of salvation, I use the word salvation in a\nsense that I wish you to conceive in terms much more general than\nthose which certain Christian traditions have made familiar to you.\n\nI have already said that both Buddhism and Christianity are interested\nin the problem of the salvation of mankind, and share in common the\npostulate that man needs saving. I could have named still other of the\nworld's higher religions which are characterised by the same great\ninterest. Had I the time and the technical knowledge, I could show you\nhow far backward in time, how deep down into the very essence of some\nof the religions that seem to us extremely primitive, this concern for\nman's salvation, and for a knowledge of the way of salvation, extends.\nBut the history of religion does not fall within my present scope. And\nto the varieties of religious doctrine I can only allude by {11} way\nof illustration. Yet the mere mention of such varieties may serve, I\nhope, to show you that whole nations and races, and that countless\nmillions of men, have conceived of their need for salvation, and have\nsought the way thereto, while they have known nothing of Christian\ndoctrine, and while they have not in the least been influenced by\nthose dogmas regarding the fall of man, the process of redemption, or\nthe future destiny of the soul of man which are brought to your minds\nwhen you hear the word salvation.\n\nBe willing, then, to generalise our term and to dissociate the idea of\nsalvation from some of the settings in which you usually have\nconceived it. Since there is thus far in our discussion no question as\nto whose view of the way of salvation is the true view, you can only\ngain by such a dissociation, even if it be but a temporary effort at\ngeneralisation. The cry of humanity for salvation is not a matter of\nany one time or faith. The pathos of that cry will become only the\ndeeper when you learn to see why it is so universal a cry. The truth,\nif there be any accessible truth, regarding the genuine way of\nsalvation will become only the more precious to you when you know by\nhow widely sundered paths the wanderers in the darkness of this world\nhave sought for the saving light.\n\nSo let me next attempt to define salvation in a sufficiently general\nsense. Man is an infinitely needy creature. He wants endlessly\nnumerous {12} special things--food, sleep, pleasure, fellowship, power\nin all its Protean shapes, peace in all its elusive forms, love in its\ncountless disguises--in brief, all the objects of desire. But amongst\nthese infinitely manifold needs, the need for salvation stands out, in\nthe minds of those who feel it, as a need that is peculiarly\nparamount, so that, according to their view of life, to desire\nsalvation is to long for some pearl of great price, for the sake of\nwhich one would be ready to sell all that one has. The idea that man\nneeds salvation depends, in fact, upon two simpler ideas whereof the\nmain idea is constituted. _The first is the idea that there is some\nend or aim of human life which is more important than all other aims,\nso that, by comparison with this aim all else is secondary and\nsubsidiary, and perhaps relatively unimportant, or even vain and\nempty. The other idea is this: That man as he now is, or as he\nnaturally is, is in great danger of so missing this highest aim as to\nrender his whole life a senseless failure by virtue of thus coming\nshort of his true goal_. Whoever has been led to conceive human life\nin these terms, namely, to think that there is for man some sort of\nhighest good, by contrast with which all other goods are relatively\ntrivial, and that man, as he is, is in great danger of losing this\nhighest good, so that his greatest need is of escape from this\ndanger--whoever, I say, thus views our life, holds that man needs\nsalvation.\n\nNow, I beg you to observe that such a view of {13} life as this is in\nno wise dependent upon any one dogma as to a future state of reward\nand punishment, as to heaven and hell, as to the fall of man, or as to\nany point of the traditional doctrine of this or of that special\nreligion. Philosophers and prophets, and even cynics, learned and\nunlearned men, saints and sinners, sages and fanatics, Christians and\nnon-Christians, believers in immortality and believers that death ends\nall, may agree, yes, have agreed, in viewing human life in the general\nspirit just characterised. A very few examples may serve to show how\nwide-spread this longing for salvation has been and how manifold have\nalso been its guises.\n\nI have already mentioned Buddhism as a religion that seeks the\nsalvation of man. The central idea of the original southern Buddhism,\nas you know, is pessimistic. Man, so the Buddha and his earlier\nfollowers taught, is naturally doomed to misery. This doom is so\npervasive and so fatal that you in vain would seek to escape from it\nthrough any luxuries, or, so to speak, excesses, of good fortune. On\nthe throne or in the dungeon, wealthy or a beggar, man is always (so\nthe Buddhist insists) the prisoner of desire, a creature of longing,\nconsumed by the fires of passion--and therefore miserable. For man's\nwill is insatiable, and hence always disappointed. Now we are here not\nin the least concerned with estimating this pessimism. This gloomy\nancient Indian view of existence may be as false as {14} you please.\nEnough--millions of men have held it, and therefore have longed for\nsalvation. For if, as the early Buddhists held, the evil of human life\nis thus pervasive and paramount, then the aim of escaping from such\nfatal ill must be deeper and more important than any economic aim or\nthan any intent to satisfy this or that special desire. If man is\nnaturally doomed to misery, the escape from this natural doom must be\nat once the hardest and the highest of human tasks. The older Buddhism\nundertakes to accomplish this task by teaching the way to \"the\nextinction of desire\" and by thus striking at \"the root of all\nmisery.\" In Nirvana, those who have attained the goal have won their\nway beyond all desire. They return not. They are free from the burden\nof human existence. Such is one view of the need and the way of\nsalvation.\n\nIf we turn in a wholly different direction, we find Plato, in the\ngreat myth of the \"Phaedrus,\" in the arguments and myths of the\n\"Republic,\" and in various other famous passages, defining what he\nregards as the true goal of the human soul, portraying how far we have\nnaturally come short of that goal, and pointing out a way of\nsalvation. And, in another age, Marcus Aurelius writes his \"Thoughts\"\nin the interest of defining the end for which it is worth while to\nlive, the bondage and failure in which the foolish man actually lives,\nand the way out of our foolishness.\n\nBut are the partisans of ways of salvation {15} confined to such\nserious and unworldly souls as were the early Buddhists and the\nancient moralists? No; turn to modern times. Read the stanzas into\nwhich Fitzgerald, in a highly modern spirit, very freely translated\nthe expressions of an old Persian poet--Omar Khayyam; or, again, read\nthe great programme of Nietzsche's ethical and religious revolt as set\nforth only a few years since in his \"Zarathustra\"; or recall Goethe's\n\"Faust\"; remember even Byron's \"Manfred\"; and these few instances from\namongst a vast wealth of more or less recent literary examples will\nshow you that the idea of salvation and the search for salvation are\nmatters that belong to no one type of piety or of poetry or of\nphilosophy. Cynics and rebels, ancient sages and men who are in our\nforemost rank of time, can agree, and have agreed, in maintaining that\nthere is some goal of life, conceivable, or at least capable of being,\nhowever dimly, appreciated--some goal that, if accessible, would\nfulfil and surpass our lesser desires, or would save us from our\nbondage to lesser ills, while this goal is something that we naturally\nmiss, or that we are in great danger of missing--so that, whatever\nelse we need, we need to be saved from this pervasive and\novermastering danger of failure.\n\n \"Oh love, could thou and I with fate conspire\n To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,\n Would we not shatter it to bits and then,\n Remould it nearer to the heart's desire?\"\n\n{16} Thus Fitzgerald's Omar expresses, in rebellious speech, the need\nof salvation. \"What is your greatest hour?\"--so begins Nietzsche's\nZarathustra in his opening address to the people. And he replies: \"It\nis the hour of your great contempt\"--the hour, so he goes on to\nexplain, when you despise all the conventional values and trivial\nmaxims of a morality and a religion that have become for you merely\ntraditional, conventional, respectable, but infinitely petty. Now, if\nyou observe that St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, despite its utterly\ndifferent religious ideas, begins with an analogous condemnation of\nthe social world as it was, or as it always naturally is, you may\nlearn to appreciate the universal forms in which the need for\nsalvation comes to men's consciousness, however various their creed.\nSwinburne's well-known chorus sums up man's life as it is, thus:\n\n \"He weaves and is clothed with derision,\n Sows, and he shall not reap;\n His life is a watch or a vision\n Between a sleep and a sleep.\"\n\nSuch, then, is man's need. \"Here we have no continuing city, we seek a\ncity out of sight\"--such is another expression of this same need. What\nI ask you to do, just here, is to catch a glimpse of this universal\nform of the need for salvation. As you see, there is always a certain\nelement of gloom and tragedy involved in the first conception of this\nneed. {17} All depends, for the further fortunes of one's religious\nconsciousness, upon whether or not one can get insight into the true\nnature of this need and into the way toward the needed salvation.\n\n\n III\n\nReligious Insight means then, for my present purposes, _insight into\nthe need and into the way of salvation_. If the problem of human\nsalvation has never come home to your mind, as a genuine problem of\nlife and of experience, you will feel no interest in religion in the\nsense to which the present lectures will arbitrarily confine the term.\nIf, on the other hand, your live personal experience has made you\nintimate with any form or phase of this problem of the pathetic need\nand cry of man for salvation, then I care not, at least at the outset\nof these discourses, whether you have thought of this problem in\ntheological or in secular, in reverent or in rebellious, or in cynical\nterms, whether you have tried to solve it by scientific or by\nsentimental or by traditional means, or whether the problem now takes\nshape in your mind as a problem to be dealt with in a spirit of revolt\nor of conformity, of sceptical criticism or of intuitive faith, of\nhope or of despair. What we want is insight, if insight be possible,\ninto the way of salvation. The problem with which these lectures are\nto deal is: What are the sources of such insight?\n\n{18}\n\nAt the outset of our effort to deal with this problem, I shall try to\nshow how the experience of the individual human being is related to\nthe issues that are before us. That is, in this and in part of our\nnext lecture, I shall discuss the sense in which the individual\nexperience of any one of us is a source of insight into the need and\nthe way of salvation. Hereby we shall erelong be led to our social\nexperience as a source of still richer religious insight. And from\nthese beginnings we shall go on to a study of sources which are at\nonce developments from these first mentioned sources, and sources that\nare much more significant than these first ones would be if they could\nbe isolated from such developments. I ask you to follow my discourse\nin the same spirit of tolerance for various opinions and with the same\neffort to understand the great common features and origins of the\nreligious consciousness--with the same spirit and effort, I say, by\nwhich I have tried to be guided in what I have already said to you in\nthis introduction. It is always easy to see that, in religion, one man\nthinks thus and another man thinks otherwise, and that no man knows as\nmuch as we all wish to know. But I want to lay stress upon those\nperennial sources from which human insight has flowed and for ages in\nthe future will continue to flow. To understand what these sources are\nwill help us, I believe, toward unity of spirit, toward co-operation\nin the midst of all our varieties of faith, and toward insight itself\nand the fruits of insight.\n\n{19}\n\n IV\n\nI can best undertake my brief initial study of the way in which the\nexperience of the individual human being is a source of religious\ninsight by meeting an objection that a reading of my printed programme\nmay have aroused in the minds of some of you. My list of the sources\nof religious insight, as contained in the titles of these lectures,\nmakes no express reference to a source which some of you will be\ndisposed to regard as the principal source, namely, Revelation. Here,\nsome of you will already have said, is a very grave omission. Man's\nprincipal insight into the need and the way of salvation comes, and\nmust come, you will say, from without, from the revelation that the\ndivine power which saves, makes of itself, through Scripture or\nthrough the Church. Now, so far as this thesis forms part of the\ndoctrine of a particular religion, namely, in your own case, of\nChristianity, I shall in these lectures omit any direct discussion of\nthat thesis. The reason for the omission I have already pointed out.\nThese lectures undertake a limited task, and must be judged by their\nchosen limitations. But in so far as revelation is a general term,\nmeaning whatever intercourse there may be between the divine and the\nhuman, all these lectures, in dealing with sources of religious\ninsight, will be dealing with processes of revelation. And in what\nsense this {20} assertion is true we shall see as we go on with our\nundertaking. This first mention of revelation enables me, however,\nboth to state and to answer the objection to my programme which I have\njust mentioned, and in doing so to vindicate for the experience of any\nreligiously disposed individual its true significance as a source of\ninsight. Hereby, as I hope, I can forthwith show that even the present\ndeliberately limited undertaking of these lectures has an importance\nwhich you ought to recognise, whatever your own views about revelation\nmay be.\n\nLet me suppose, then, that an objector, speaking on behalf of\nrevelation as the main source of religious insight, states his case\nbriefly thus: \"Man learns of his need for salvation chiefly through\nlearning what God's will is, and through a consequent discovery that\nhis own natural will is not in conformity with God's will. He learns\nabout the way of salvation by finding out by what process God is\nwilling to save him. Both sorts of knowledge must be principally\nmediated through God's revelation of himself, of his will, and of his\nplan of salvation. For, left to himself, man cannot find out these\nthings. Apart from revelation, they are divine secrets. Hence the\nprincipal source of religious insight must be revelation.\"\n\nWhoever states his case thus brings to our attention at this point\nwhat I may venture to name: The Religious Paradox, or, to use other\nterms. The Paradox of Revelation. I call attention to this {21}\nparadox in no spirit of mere cavilling or quibbling. The importance of\nthe matter the whole course of these lectures will show. The religious\nparadox, as we shall define it, is one of the deepest facts in all\nreligious history and experience. It will meet us everywhere; and\nevery devout soul daily faces it. Moreover, as we shall see, it is a\nspecial case of a paradox regarding our human insight which is as\nuniversal and pervasive, in its significance for us, as is our human\nintelligence itself. I call it here the religious paradox. I shall\nlater show you that it might be called, just as correctly, the paradox\nof common-sense, the paradox of reason, the paradox of knowledge, yes,\nthe paradox of being thoughtfully alive in any sense whatever.\n\nThe religious paradox, viewed as it first comes to us, may be stated\nthus: Let a man say: \"I have this or this religious insight because\nGod has revealed to me, thus and thus, his will about me and his\nplans; has taught me my need of salvation and the divine way of\nsalvation.\n\n \"'Man is blind because of sin;\n Revelation makes him sure;\n Without that who looks within,\n Looks in vain; for all's obscure.'\"\n\nLet a man say this. At once, addressing this believer in a revelation,\nwe must ask, in no jesting spirit, but with the fullest sense of the\ntragic gravity of the issue: \"By what marks do you personally {22}\ndistinguish a divine revelation from any other sort of report?\"\n\nConsider for an instant what this question implies. A depositor at a\nbank, in signing a cheque, reveals to his bank his will that such and\nsuch funds, which he already has on deposit at the bank, shall be paid\nto the order of a certain person. How is the bank able to recognise\nthis revelation of the depositor's will? The answer is: The bank,\nacting in the usual order of business, regards this revelation as\ngenuine because its officers already know, with sufficient assurance,\nthe depositor's signature, and can therefore recognise it at sight,\nsubject, of course, to a certain usually negligible risk of forgery.\nApply the principle here involved to the case of the one who\nacknowledges the genuineness of a divine revelation. In asserting: \"I\nknow that this revelation is from God,\" the believer in the revelation\nasserts, in substance, that in some sense and by some means he\npersonally knows, as it were, the divine signature; knows by what\nmarks the divine being reveals himself. This is the vast presumption,\nif you will, upon which the believer in revelation depends for his\nassurance. He knows God's autograph. Now, how shall such a knowledge\nof the divine autograph have arisen in the mind of the individual\nbeliever? Has this believer first wandered through all the worlds to\nlearn how the various orders of beings express themselves, what marks\nof their wisdom and of their interest in humanity {23} they show, and\nwho amongst them are, or who alone is, actually divine?\n\nI repeat--the stupendous question thus suggested is one which I\nmention not in any spirit of cavil, but solely for the sake of\ndirecting us on our further way, and of calling attention at the\noutset to a fact upon which all that is most vital in the religious\nconsciousness has in every age depended. Every acceptance of a\nrevelation, I say, depends upon something that, in the individual's\nmind, must be prior to this acceptance. And this something is an\nassurance that the believer already knows the essential marks by which\na divine revelation is to be distinguished from any other sort of\nreport. In other words, a revelation can be viewed by you as a divine\nrevelation only in case you hold, for whatever reason, or for no\nreason, that you already are acquainted with the signature which the\ndivine will attaches to its documents, that you know the marks of any\nauthentic revelation by which a divine will can make itself known to\nyou. Unless, then, you are to make one supposed revelation depend for\nits warrant upon another in an endless series, you must presuppose\nthat somewhere there is found a revelation that proves its genuineness\nby appealing to what your own interior light, your personal\nacquaintance with the nature of a divine being, enables you to know as\nthe basis of all your further insight into the divine. The one who\nappeals to revelation for guidance cannot then escape from basing his\nappeal {24} upon something which involves a personal and individual\nexperience of what the need and the way of salvation is and of what\nthe divine nature and expression essentially involves.\n\nNor is this remark merely the unsympathetic comment of a philosophical\ncritic of what passes for revelation. The truth of the remark is\nacknowledged by all those who have in one way or another insisted\nthat, without the witness of the spirit in the heart, no external\nrevelation could enlighten those who are in darkness; that miracles by\nthemselves are inadequate, because signs and wonders cannot teach the\ndivine will to those whom grace, working inwardly, does not prepare\nfor enlightenment; and that, in brief, if there is any religious\ninsight whatever accessible, it cannot come to us without our\nindividual experience as its personal foundation.\n\nNow, the religious paradox is this: What one pretends or at least\nhopes to know, when there is any question of religious insight, is\nsomething which has to do with the whole nature and destiny and duty\nand fate of man. For just such matters are in question when we talk,\nnot of how to earn our living or of how to get this or that worldly\nprosperity, but about our need of salvation and about how to be saved.\nSo deep and so weighty are these matters, that to pretend to know\nabout them seems to involve knowing about the whole nature of things.\nAnd when we conceive of the whole nature {25} of things as somehow\ninterested in us and in our salvation, as the religiously minded very\ngenerally do, we call this nature of things divine, in a very familiar\nsense of that word. Hence the higher religions generally undertake to\nknow, as they say, the divine. And by the divine they mean some real\npower or principle or being that saves us or that may save us. But how\nis this divine to be known? By revelation? But knowledge through\nrevelation can enlighten only the one in whose personal experience\nthere is somewhere an adequate interior light, which shines in the\ndarkness, and which permits him to test all revelations by a prior\nacquaintance with the nature and marks and, so to speak, signature of\nthe divine will. Hereupon arises the question: How should I, weak of\nwit as I am, ignorant, fallible, a creature of a day, come to possess\nthat intimate acquaintance with the plan of all things, and with the\nmeaning of life, and with the divine, which I must obtain in case I am\nto pass upon the marks whereby any revelation that can save me is to\nbe tested? The paradox is that a being who is so ignorant of his duty\nand of his destiny as to need guidance at every point, so weak as to\nneed saving, should still hope, in his fallible experience, to get\ninto touch with anything divine. The question is, how is this\npossible? What light can my individual experience throw upon vast\nproblems such as this?\n\n{26}\n V\n\nI have stated what I call the religious paradox. The whole of what I\nhave hereafter to tell you is needed in order to throw such light as I\ncan here attempt to throw upon the solution of the paradox. You will\nnot expect, then, an immediate answer to the question thus brought\nbefore you. Yet you see our present situation: Unless there is\nsomething in our individual experience which at least begins to bring\nus into a genuine touch, both with the fact that we need salvation and\nwith the marks whereby we may recognise the way of salvation, and the\nessentially divine process, if such there be, which alone can\nsave--unless, I say, there is within each of us something of this\ninterior light by which saving divine truth is to be discerned,\nreligious insight is impossible, and then no merely external\nrevelation can help us. Let us then, without further delay, turn\ndirectly to the inner light, if such light there be, and ask what,\napart from tradition, apart from external revelation, apart from\nexplicit theories or reports concerning the universe, apart from all\nother sources, our own individual experience can tell us as to the\nneed and the way of salvation, and as to the marks by which we may\nrecognise whatever real influences, or divine beings, can intervene to\nhelp us in our need. We shall not upon this occasion answer the\nquestion; but we may do something to clarify the issue.\n\n{27}\n\nMy dear friend, the late William James, in his book called \"The\nVarieties of Religious Experience,\" defined, for his own purposes,\nreligious experience as the experience of individuals who regard\nthemselves as \"alone with the divine.\" In portraying what he meant by\n\"the divine,\" James emphasised, although in language different from\nwhat I am using, the very features about the objects of religious\nexperience which I have just been trying to characterise in my own\nway. Those who have religious experience, according to James, get into\ntouch with something which, as he says, gives \"a new dimension\" to\ntheir life. As a result of their better and more exalted religious\nexperience, they win a sense of unity with \"higher powers,\" whose\npresence seems to them to secure a needed but otherwise unattainable\nspiritual unity, peace, power in their lives. This \"divine\" thus\naccomplishes inwardly what the individual \"alone with the divine\"\nfeels to be saving, to be needed, to be his pearl of great price. This\nis James's way of defining the objects of religious experience.\n\nNow James's whole view of religious experience differs in many ways\nfrom mine. But just at the present point in our inquiry, where it is a\nquestion of what I should call the most elementary and intimate, but\nalso the crudest and most capricious source of religious insight,\nnamely, the experience of the individual \"alone with the divine,\" I\nfeel my own account to be most dependent upon that of {28} James and\nmy own position to be most nearly in agreement with his.\n\nLet me refer you, then, at this stage, to James's great collection and\nanalysis of the facts of individual religious experience. Let me\npresuppose some personal acquaintance, on your part, with individual\nexperiences of the various types that James so wonderfully portrays.\nAnd then, in my own way, and as independently of James's special\ntheories as possible, let me tell you what, to my mind, is the\nessential substance of these elementary religious experiences which\nmay come to the individual when he is alone with the problem of his\nown salvation and alone with his efforts to know the divine that can\nsave. Let me try to show you that the individual, thus isolated, is\nindeed in touch with a genuine source of insight. Let me try to\nindicate both the value and the limitations of that source in such\nwise as to prepare us to view this first source in its needed relation\nto the sources hereafter to be studied.\n\nThe religious experience of the individual may concern three objects:\nFirst, his Ideal, that is, the standard in terms of which he estimates\nthe sense and the value of his own personal life; secondly, his Need\nof salvation, that is, the degree to which he falls short of attaining\nhis ideal and is sundered from it by evil fortune, or by his own\nparalysis of will, or by his inward baseness; thirdly, the presence or\nthe coming or the longing for, or the {29} communion with something\nwhich he comes to view as the power that may save him from his need,\nor as the light that may dispel his darkness, or as the truth that\nshows him the way out, or as the great companion who helps him--in a\nword, as his Deliverer. The Ideal, the Need, the Deliverer--these are\nthe three objects which the individual experience, as a source of\nreligious insight, has always undertaken to reveal. James's collection\nof the facts of religious experience richly illustrates what I here\nhave in mind. To that collection, and to your own individual\nexperience, I appeal as my warrant for thus characterising our first\nsource of insight. Can we say that this source gives us genuine\ninsight and is trustworthy? Does it teach us about anything that is\nreal; and if this be so, how far does this source of insight go? What\nis the extent, what are the limitations of the truth that one can hope\nin this way to gain?\n\nAs to the first two objects of the individual religious experience,\nnamely, the individual's own personal ideal and his sense of his need,\nyou will readily agree that one's private experience is, indeed, a\nsource of genuine insight. You will, however, find it hard at first to\ndefine just how far that insight extends. For the world of a man's\nprivate ideals and estimates is a world of precious caprices, because\nnot only does one man's private feelings or intuitions about ideals\nand values differ from another man's, but every man's own ideals, and\nhis sense of {30} need, tend to alter endlessly with the play of his\npassions, with the waxing and waning of all his natural powers, with\nhis health, with his age. One form of the religious paradox may, in\nfact, be stated thus: Without intense and intimate personal feeling,\nyou never learn any valuable truths whatever about life, about its\nideals, or about its problems; but, on the other hand, what you know\nonly through your feelings is, like the foam of the sea, unstable--\nlike the passing hour, doomed to pass away.\n\nJames, as a psychologist, well knew this truth about the value and the\nlimitations of private experience; yet it was characteristic of his\nenterprising soul that he was always looking, in his \"pluralistic\nuniverse,\" for the strange, new religious experiences of other and\nstill other individuals, without being able thereby even to define\nwhat all these ardent souls were seeking, namely, some genuine home\nland of the spirit, some place or experience or insight in which is to\nbe revealed that for the sake of which all the feelings, the caprices,\nthe longings, the efforts of individuals are justified--and fulfilled.\n\nNow the best way of defining what it is which our inner experience of\nour ideal and of our need shows us is, I think, this: We are indeed,\nand so far just as the Buddhists said, naturally the creatures of\ntransient feelings, of passing caprices, of various and wilful\nlongings. But, just because of this fact, we can get an insight, as\nintimate as it is fragmentary, into one absolutely valuable ideal. I\ndo not {31} think that the Buddhists best expressed our ideal by the\nwords \"the extinction of desire.\" It is rather the ideal of triumph\nover our unreason. It is the ideal that the reign of caprice ought to\nbe ended, that the wounds of the spirit ought to be healed. In the\nmidst of all our caprices, yes, because of our caprices, we learn the\nvalue of one great spiritual ideal, the ideal of spiritual unity and\nself-possession. And both our ideal and our need come to consciousness\nat once. We need to bring our caprices into some sort of harmony; to\nbind up the wounds of what James calls the divided \"self\"; to change\nthe wanderings of chance passion into something that shall bring the\nhome land of the spirit, the united goal of life into sight. And so\nmuch all the great cynics, and the nobler rebels, and the prophets and\nthe saints and the martyrs and the sages have in common taught us. So\nmuch Socrates and Plato and Marcus Aurelius, and our modern teachers\nof the wisdom of life, and, in his noblest words, the Buddha also, and\nJesus, have agreed in proclaiming as the ideal and the need revealed\nto us by all that is deepest about our individual experience: We need\nto give life sense, to know and to control our own selves, to end the\nnatural chaos, to bring order and light into our deeds, to make the\nwarfare of natural passion subordinate to the peace and the power of\nthe spirit. This is our need. To live thus is our ideal. And because\nthis need is pressing and this ideal is far off from the natural man,\nwe need salvation.\n\n{32}\n\nSo much, I say, our individual experience can bring before us. This\nideal and this need can become the objects of an insight that is as\nintimate as it is, by itself, unsatisfying. This need, I think, all\nthe devout share, however unlearned their speech, however simple their\nminds, however various their creeds. Unity of Spirit, conformity to an\nuniversal Will, peace with power--this is our need.\n\nIt remains for the individual experience to show to us, if it can, the\npresence of our Deliverer, the coming of that which we shall recognise\nas divine, just because it truly and authoritatively reveals to the\nSelf the fulfilment that we need, by bringing us into touch with the\nreal nature of things. We need to find the presence that can give this\nunity and self-possession to the soul. This presence is what all the\nhigher religions seek to reveal. But if we are to learn of such an\nobject of insight we must, indeed, come into touch with a Power or a\nSpirit that is in some true sense not-Ourselves. And so we must be\nable somehow to transcend the boundaries of any _merely_ individual\nexperience. Our individual experience must become some sort of\nintercourse with Another. And this Other must be in some sense the\nMaster of Life, the Might that overcometh the world, the revealer of\nfinal truth. Without ceasing to be personal and intimate, our\nexperience must in some way come into direct touch with the very\nnature of reality.\n\nIs such a direct touch with the divine possible? The mystics of all\nages have maintained that it is {33} possible. Are they right? To\nanswer this question adequately would be to solve the religious\nparadox. It would be to show whether and how the individual, even in\nhis isolation, \"alone with the divine,\" can come to be nevertheless in\nunity with all other spirits, in touch with all that lies beneath and\nabove himself, and with all that constitutes the essence of reality.\nPerhaps this is indeed possible. Unless it is possible, revelation, as\nwe have seen, loses precisely its most intimate significance, as an\nappeal of the divine spirit directly to the interior light. But, on\nthe other hand, all the mystics confess that, _if_ this is possible,\nand if it happens in their own cases, they alone, viewing their\nexperience merely as an individual experience, know not _how_ it\nhappens, but must accept their revelation as an insight without\nknowing in what precise sense it is insight.\n\nIt follows that individual experience remains a source of religious\ninsight as indispensable and as fundamental as it is, by itself,\ninadequate and in need of supplement. Unless you have inwardly felt\nthe need of salvation, and have learned to hunger and thirst after\nspiritual unity and self-possession, all the rest of religious insight\nis to you a sealed book. And unless, in moments of peace, of\nillumination, of hope, of devotion, of inward vision, you have seemed\nto feel the presence of your Deliverer, unless it has sometimes\n_seemed_ to you as if the way to the home land of the spirit were\nopened to your sight by a revelation as from the divine, unless this\n{34} privilege has been yours, the way to a higher growth in insight\nwill be slow and uncertain to you. But, on the other hand, no one who\nremains content with his merely individual experience of the presence\nof the divine and of his deliverer, has won the whole of any true\ninsight. For, as a fact, we are all members one of another; and I can\nhave no insight into the way of my salvation unless I thereby learn of\nthe way of salvation for all my brethren. And there is no unity of the\nspirit unless all men are privileged to enter it whenever they see it\nand know it and love it.\n\nIndividual Experience, therefore, must abide with us to the very end\nof our quest, as one principal and fundamental source of insight. But\nit is one aspect only of Religious Experience. We shall learn to\nunderstand and to estimate it properly only when we have found its\ndeeper relations with our Social Experience. In passing to our social\nexperience, however, we shall not leave our individual experience\nbehind. On the contrary, through thus passing to our social experience\nas a source of religious insight, we shall for the first time begin to\nsee what our individual experience means.\n\n{35}\n\n II\n\n INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE\n\n{36}\n\n{37}\n II\n\n INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL EXPERIENCE\n\n\nThe results of our first lecture appear to have brought the religious\nproblems, so far as we shall attempt to consider them, into a position\nwhich in one respect simplifies, in another respect greatly\ncomplicates our undertaking.\n\n\n I\n\nIn one way, I say, our undertaking is simplified. For, as we have\ndefined religion, the main concern of any religion that we are to\nrecognise is with the salvation of man, and with whatever objects or\ntruths it is important to know if we are to find the way of salvation.\nNow the experiences which teach us that we need what I have ventured\nto call by the traditional name salvation, are, from my point of view,\nexperiences common to a very large portion of mankind. They are great\nand, in certain respects at least, simple experiences. You can have\nthem and estimate them without being committed to any one form of\nreligious faith, without accepting any special creed about\nsupernatural {38} things, and even without hoping to find out any way\nof salvation whatever. The essential conditions for discovering that\nman needs salvation are these: You must find that human life has some\nhighest end; and you must also find that man, as he naturally is, is\nin great danger of failing to attain this supreme goal. If you\ndiscover these two facts (and I personally hold them to be facts whose\nreality you can experience), then the quest for the salvation of man\ninterests you, and is defined for you in genuinely empirical terms.\nGiven the problem, you may or you may not see how to solve it. You may\nor you may not appeal to what you suppose to be a revelation to guide\nyou on the way. But in any case, granted these conditions, granted\nthat your experience has shown you your need of salvation--then the\nproblem of religion is upon your hands. Soluble or insoluble, the\ntopic of a revelation from above, or of a scientific inquiry, or of a\nphilosophy, or of a haphazard series of efforts to better your\ncondition, this problem, if it once comes to hold your attention, will\nmake of you a religious inquirer. And so long as this is the case, no\ndegree of cynicism or of despair regarding the finding of the way to\nsalvation, will deprive you of genuinely religious interest. The issue\nwill be one regarding facts of live experience. The concerns that for\nyou will seem to be at stake will be perfectly human, and will be in\nclose touch with every interest of daily life.\n\n{39}\n\nTo conceive the business of religion in this way simplifies our\nundertaking, in so far as it connects religion not merely with\ndoubtful dogmas and recondite speculations, but rather with personal\nand practical interests and with the spirit of all serious endeavour.\n\nUpon the other hand, this way of defining religion does, indeed, also\ncomplicate certain aspects of our present task. For if, from our point\nof view, religion thus becomes, in one way or another, the concern of\neverybody who has once seen that life has a highest goal, and that we\nare all naturally in great danger of missing this goal--still any\neffort to study the nature of religious insight seems to require us to\nbe somehow just to all the endless varieties of human opinion\nregarding what the highest goal of human life is, and regarding the\nway to attain that goal after we have once defined it. In some sense,\nin our further inquiry, nothing human can be alien to us, in case it\ninvolves any deep experience of man's purpose in living, or of man's\nperil as a seeker after the attainment of his purpose; or any\nassurance regarding the presence or the power which, entering into\nsome sort of union with any man's own spiritual life, seems to that\nman an apt Deliverer from his evil plight, a genuinely saving\nprinciple in his life.\n\nHow great the resulting complications that threaten our investigation\nseem to be the conclusion of our former lecture showed us. Countless\n{40} souls, trusting to their individual experience, have learned, as\nwe at the last time indicated, to define their ideal, and their need,\nand, upon occasion, to discover the power that they took to be their\nsaving principle--their deliverer. Who amongst all these were right,\neither in their judgment as to their need or in their consciousness\nthat they had found the way that leads to peace, to triumph, to union\nwith the goal of human life? Were all of them more or less right? Were\nany of them wholly deluded? Are there as many supreme aims of life as\nthere are individuals? Are there as many ways of salvation as there\nare religions that men follow? And by what means shall we decide such\nquestions? Grave and infinitely complicated seem the issues which\nthese queries arouse.\n\nUpon one side, then, our problem is pathetically simple, human,\npractical, even commonplace. Daily experience, in serious-minded\npeople, illustrates it. The plainest facts of our life exemplify it.\nIt concerns nothing more recondite than that tragedy of natural human\nfailure which you may constantly witness all about you, if not within\nyou. Upon the other side, no questions more bring you into contact\nwith the chaotic variety of human opinion, and with the complexities\nof the whole universe, than do the religious questions, when thus\ndefined in terms of men's deepest needs and of men's hopes and faiths\nregarding the possible escape from their most pressing peril of\nfailure.\n\n{41}\n\nOur first lecture gave us a glimpse of this simplicity of the main\ndefinition of our problem and of this complication with regard to the\nconflicting proposals that are made toward its special formulation and\ntoward its solution. We have now to study further the sources of\ninsight upon which every solution of our problem must depend.\n\n\n II\n\nOur present lecture will be devoted to three tasks. First, we shall\ntry to show that the religious consciousness of mankind, when it is\nconcerned with the need and with the way of salvation, must needs\nappear in many various and apparently conflicting forms, but that,\nnevertheless, these conflicts need not discourage us. For, as we shall\nattempt still further to explain, the underlying motives of the higher\nreligions are, after all, much more in agreement than the diversities\nof creeds and the apparent chaos of religious experiences would lead\nus to imagine. In order to make this deeper unity of the higher\nreligious life of mankind plain, we shall try to show, more fully than\nwe did in the last lecture, how the consciousness of the ideal of\nlife, and of the need of salvation, naturally arises in the experience\nof the individual man. The religious paradox, as, in our former\nlecture, we defined that paradox, depends upon the fact that the\nprincipal religious motives are indeed perfectly natural and {42}\nhuman motives, which need no mysterious movings from another world to\nexplain their presence in our lives; while, on the other hand, these\nvery motives, when once they appear, force us to seek for relief from\nspiritual sources that cannot satisfy unless they are far above our\nnatural human level of life--that is, unless they are in some\ndefinable sense superhuman. But about superhuman matters it is not\nsurprising that ignorant mortals should widely differ, despite the\ndeeper unity that underlies all our nobler religious needs.\n\nThus the unity of the religious concerns of mankind is perfectly\ncompatible with the fact that men differ so widely in faith. The\nmysteries of religion belong to our natural failure to conceive\nreadily and to grasp adequately the religious objects. But our\nreligious need is not a mystery; and our religious interests are as\nnatural as is our ignorance. The higher forms of the religious\nconsciousness are due to perfectly human motives but lead to a\nstubborn quest for the superhuman. To understand whence the higher\nreligions get their moving principle, you have only to survey our\nnatural life as it is, in all its pathetic and needy fallibility. But\nif the higher religions are to find what they seek, they call for\nsources of insight which you cannot define, unless we are able to know\na reality that transcends human nature as it is--unless we can come\ninto genuine intercourse with a spiritual realm that is above man.\nThis naturalness of the religious {43} motives, this supernatural and\nnaturally baffling character of the religious objects, I am, then,\nfirst to illustrate still further than I at the last time was able to\ndo.\n\nI shall thus be led, in the second place, to the mention of that\nsource of religious insight to which, at the close of the former\nlecture, I directed your attention, namely, to our social experience.\nSociety, in a certain sense, both includes and transcends the\nindividual man. Perhaps, then, something can be done toward solving\nthe problem of the religious paradox, and toward harmonising the\nvarieties of religious opinion, by considering the religious meaning\nof our social consciousness. The religious paradox is that the needy\nand ignorant natural man must somehow obtain the spiritual power to\nget into a genuine touch with a real life that is above his own level.\nIf he is to be saved, something that is divine must come to be born in\nthe humble manger of his poor natural lie. How is this apparition of\nthe divine in the human, of the supernatural in the natural,\nconceivable? It is that question which most of all divides men into\nvarious religious sects. Perhaps a study of our social experience,\nwhich, indeed, often tends to mould our naturally narrow selfishness\ninto nobler spiritual forms, may throw light upon this problem. And so\nI shall, in this second part of the present discourse, state the case\nfor our social experience as a source of religious insight.\n\n{44}\n\nWe shall, however, no sooner state this case than we shall begin to\nsee how inadequate our ordinary social experience is to give us full\nreligious insight. Therefore, in the third place, I shall try to\nestimate more critically both the merits and the imperfections of this\nsecond source of religious light, and thus I shall be led, as I close,\nto the mention of a third source, from which, as I hold, we can learn\nwhat neither our unaided private experience nor our ordinary social\nexperience ever adequately shows.\n\n\n III\n\nLet me proceed at once to the first of these three undertakings. I am\nfurther to illustrate, on the one hand, the unity and the naturalness\nof the religious motives; on the other hand, I am to emphasise the\nmysterious seeming of the religious objects. And I am thus to show the\nreason why the faiths of men are so diverse but their religious needs\nso nearly common.\n\nAt the last time I tried to define for you, in my own terms, what the\nsupreme purpose of human life is, or, in other words, what that\nhighest good is which we are all in such peril of missing that we need\nsalvation from this peril. My definition was this: We are naturally\ncreatures of wavering and conflicting motives, passions, desires. The\nsupreme aim of life is to triumph over this natural chaos, to set some\none plan of life above all the others, to give {45} unity to our\ndesires, to organise our activities, to win, not, indeed, the\npassionless peace of Nirvana, but the strength of spirit which is\nabove the narrowness of each one of our separate passions. We need to\nconceive of such a triumphant and unified life, and successfully to\nlive it. That is our goal: Self-possession, unity, peace, and\nspiritual power through and yet beyond all the turmoil of life--the\nvictory that overcometh in the world.\n\nNow this definition of the ideal life will have seemed to some of you\ntoo much a merely philosophical formula. You will say that this is not\nwhat plain men have in mind when they ask God's help, or lament their\nsins, or look to religion for consolation.\n\nI grant you that, since I am here concerned with philosophy and not\nwith preaching, I, of course, prefer, for my present purpose, a\nformulation of the ideal of life in reflective, in thoughtful terms.\nBut I cannot admit that plain men, in their religious moods, are not\nconcerned with the ideal of life which I thus reflectively formulate.\nI am trying to formulate the ideal of life that seems to me to\nunderlie all the higher religions. It is one thing, however, to feel\nan interest and another thing to become conscious of the meaning of\nthe interest. No matter how inarticulate may be a man's sense of his\nneed, that sense, if deep and genuine, may imply a view of life which\na whole system of ethics and of metaphysics may be needed to expound.\n{46} Philosophy ought to be considerate, and to use more or less\ntechnical speech, but it need not be on that account inhuman. Its\nconcern is with what common-sense means but does not express in\nclearly conscious terms. It does not want to substitute its formulas\nfor life. It does desire to add its thoughtfulness to the intensity of\nlife's great concerns and to enlighten us regarding what aims life has\nalways really intended to pursue.\n\nMy own effort to formulate the supreme end of life does not seem to me\nto be foreign to common-sense. I think that this way of stating the\npurpose of life may help us to see through many of the apparently\nhopeless diversities of human opinion regarding what the highest good\nis.\n\nIt is customary to describe that longing for salvation which is, from\nthe point of view of these lectures, the foundation of religion, by\nsaying that the man who begins to get religious interest discovers\nthat when left to himself he is out of harmony with what James calls\n\"the higher powers,\" that is, with what a Christian calls God. In\nother words, as a customary formula states the case, the religiously\ndisposed man begins by learning that the chief end of his existence is\nto come into harmony with God's will. And this discovery, as such a\nview supposes, teaches him, for the first time, what his ideal of life\nought to be. And therefore, as many say, something that is of the\nnature of a mysterious revelation from without is needed to {47}\ninitiate the religious process and to show us our goal. On the other\nhand, writers like James, who insist upon interpreting religion, so\nfar as that is possible, in terms of personal experience rather than\nin terms of external revelation, have nevertheless been led to agree\nwith many of the partisans of revelation in regarding this sense of\nour disharmony with the \"higher powers\" as something that must have an\nessentially superhuman source. For James, our sense of religious need\nis an experience which mysteriously wells up from the subliminal self,\nfrom the soundless depths of our own subconsciousness. James,\ntherefore, conceives it probable that, through the subliminal or\nsubconscious self, we are actually aroused to religious interest by\nspiritual beings whose level is higher than our own, and whose will,\nexpressed to us through the vague but often intense sense of need\nwhich the religiously minded feel, does set for us an ideal task which\nis of greater worth than our natural desires, and which, when we can\nget into harmony with these powers through the aid of their subliminal\ninfluences, does give a new sense to life.\n\nNow in contrast with such views regarding the origin of that deeper\nsense of need which is indeed the beginning of religion, I have to\ninsist that the basis of the religious interest is something much less\nmysterious than James's supposed workings of the \"higher powers\"\nthrough our subliminal selves, and is also something much more\nuniversally human {48} than is the opportunity to come under the\ninfluence of any one revelation. Men who never heard of Christianity,\nand men who have never felt conscious of any external revelation from\nabove, as well as men who have had no such sudden uprushes from their\nown subconscious natures as James's \"religious geniuses\" have\nreported, are able to win a genuine religious interest, to be aware of\nan intense need for salvation, and to set before themselves, in\nhowever inarticulate a fashion, the very ideal of life which I have\nbeen trying in my own way to formulate. The need and the ideal can\ncome into sight in a manner that indeed does not in the least either\nexclude or require a belief in one or in another reported revelation,\nbut that links both the need and the ideal to our ordinary personal\nexperience by ties which are not at all mysterious. Let me show you,\nthen, better than my time permitted in the former lecture, how an\nindividual may naturally experience what I have called his need of\nsalvation.\n\nNothing is more obvious about the natural course of our lives than is\nthe _narrowness_ of view to which we are usually subject. We are not\nonly the victims of conflicting motives, but we are often too narrow\nto know that this is true. For we see our various life interests, so\nto speak, one at a time. We forget one while we are living out\nanother. And so we are prone to live many lives, seldom noting how ill\nharmonised they are. Home life, for instance, may {49} be one thing;\nbusiness life in principle another; sport or social ambition another.\nAnd these various lives may be lived upon mutually inconsistent\nplans. We forget one part of ourselves in our temporary absorption in\nsome other part. And if, as our naturally complex and often\nconflicting motives determine, these our various lives are out of\nharmony with one another, we constantly do irrevocable deeds that\nemphasise and perpetuate the results of this disharmony. And as we\ngrow older our motives alter; yet because of our natural narrowness of\ninterest, we often do not recognise the change. Our youth consequently\nlays a poor foundation for our age; or perhaps our mature life makes\nnaught of the aspirations of our youth. We thus come to spend a great\npart of our days thwarting ourselves through the results of our\nfickleness, yet without knowing who it is that thwarts us. We love,\nand, like Siegfried, forget our former beloved, and perhaps live to\nfeel the fatal spear-thrust that avenges our treason to our own past.\nThe deeper tragedies of life largely result from this our narrowness\nof view.\n\nBut over against this narrowness of our ordinary activities there,\nindeed, stand certain moments when we get a wider vision of ourselves,\nwhen we review life, or foresee it with a broad outlook. These are,\nindeed, moments of insight. We all know how tragic they often are,\nbecause they show us at a glance how with the left hand we have undone\nthe {50} right hand's work, how we have loved and forgotten, how we\nhave sworn fealty to many masters, and have cheated one while we\nserved another, how absorption in business has made us unworthy of\nhome, or how we have wantonly sacrificed a friend in order to win a\ngame, or gained our bit of the world through what, upon review, we\nhave to call the loss of our souls. Such moments of insight come to us\nsometimes when our friends die, and when memory reminds us of our\nneglected debts of love or of gratitude to them, or when worldly\ndefeat reawakens the long-forgotten unworldly aspirations that we\nabandoned in order to do what has ended in earning the defeat. These\nare, I repeat, often tragic moments. But they enlighten. And they show\nus our need. And they arise as naturally as does any other incident of\na reasonable life.\n\nWhat need do they show? I answer, the need to possess what by mere\nnature we never come to possess, namely, the power to \"see life\nsteadily and see it whole,\" and then to live triumphantly in the light\nof this vision. Can a plain man who is no philosopher feel this need?\nI answer, Yes, whenever he has his moments of vision; whenever he\nfeels the longing for the clean, straight, unswerving will, for the\nhearty whole life; whenever he sees and regrets his fickleness, just\nbecause it means self-defeat; whenever he seeks to be true to himself.\nAt such moment his highest aim is the aim that there should be a\nhighest aim in life, and that {51} this aim should win what it seeks.\nHe has the longing, however inarticulate, for integrity of spirit and\nfor success in winning the fruits of integrity.\n\nWhen the plain man feels what I venture thus to formulate, how will he\nexpress his longing? He will, of course, not use my present formulas.\nHe will seize upon whatever expressions the creed or the language of\nhis tribe may suggest to him. He may say, and perhaps truthfully:\n\"This is the ideal that God sets before me. This is the divine will\nregarding my life.\" For at such times he conceives of God as the being\nwho has widest vision and who knows him best. Therefore he conceives\nof God's plan as the fulfilment of his own rational plan. But the\ninterior source of the plain man's view regarding the divine will is\nsimply his better vision of the meaning of his life, the vision that\ncomes at moments when he is not forgetful of the whole; when he does\nnot want to swear fidelity to one beloved, and then, like Siegfried,\npursue and win another; when he wants to be true to the whole of\nhimself. No wonder that he, indeed, conceives this supreme goal of\nlife as the goal set for him by some will higher than his own private\nwill. He is right. For, as we shall see, throughout our later study,\nwe are, indeed, helpless either to hold before us this our personal\nvision of the triumphant life and of the unity of the spirit, or to\nturn the vision into a practical reality, unless we come into touch\nand keep in touch with an order of spiritual existence which is {52}\nin a perfectly genuine sense superhuman, and in the same sense\nsupernatural, and which certainly is not our natural selves.\n\nBut in any case the plain man must needs interpret his vision of the\nideal in terms of whatever conception of God, or of the triumphant\nlife, or of spiritual power, his traditions and his stage of personal\ndevelopment may suggest to him. Hence the endless varieties in the\nformulation of the religious ideal. Whatever is suggested to a man, at\nhis moments of wider vision, as a law or as a motive which, _if_ it\nwere the ruling motive or the supreme law would make life a consistent\nwhole--this he takes to be God's will, or the truth that is to save\nhim if, indeed, salvation is possible.\n\nIf this account of the sources of the religious motive is right, we\nneed not view the religious interest as the result of an arbitrary\nintrusion from above--as if the gods loved to disturb us and to\ntrouble our peace. Nor need we, with James, speak of a marvellous and\ncapricious uprush from below the level of our natural consciousness.\nYet just as little need we think of religion as having no concern with\nwhat is, indeed, superhuman. Religion is, indeed, our own affair; for\nit grows out of our personal vision of the transformation that a\ndivinely enlarged power to comprehend, to survey, to harmonise, to\ntriumph over our natural life would give. This vision comes to us at\nmoments, in glimpses--and is seen through a glass darkly. Our {53}\nneed is to see face to face and to live in the light thus to be\ndiscovered. And so to live would be salvation. The word salvation is\nfitting, because the need is so great and because the transformation\nwould be so profound. The endlessly various interpretations of this\none ideal and of the nature of the saving process are due to the\nwealth of life and to the imposing multitude of motives and of\nexperiences that the religious consciousness has to consider. But\nbeneath and above all the varieties of religious experience lies the\neffort to win in reality what the vision of the harmonious and\ntriumphant life suggests to us in our moments of clearness. Since our\nown natures leave us hopelessly remote from this goal, while our\nglimpses of spiritual harmony and power reveal to us its preciousness,\nour religious need is supreme, and is accompanied with the perfectly\nwell-warranted assurance that we cannot attain the goal unless we can\nget into some sort of communion with a real life infinitely richer\nthan our own--a life that is guided by a perfect and unwavering\nvision, and that somehow conquers and annuls all fickleness, conflict,\nand estrangement. Such a life rightly seems to us to be superhuman in\nits breadth of view and in its spiritual power, if indeed there be\nsuch a life at all. If there is no such life, none the less we need\nit, and so need salvation. If salvation is possible, then there is in\nthe universe some being that knows us, and that is the master of life.\nAnd we seek ourselves to know {54} even as we are known and to live as\nthe wise one would have us live.\n\nThus simple and, for all to whom even the occasional moments of wider\nvision come, universal are the religious motives. James was wrong when\nhe sought them in any capricious interference of the subliminal self,\nor of its superhuman controls, with our natural selves. It is we who\nin our natural lives are capricious and narrowly interfere with our\nown freedom. It is we who are the disturbers of our own peace. The\nreligious ideal grows out of the vision of a spiritual freedom and\npeace which are not naturally ours. No two of us get that vision in\nquite the same way. But all its forms show us the same far-off shining\nlight. The problem of religious insight is the problem whether that\nlight is a mirage.\n\nNo wonder, then, that men differ as to their special efforts to solve\nsuch a problem. But it is now our task to seek for further sources of\ninsight.\n\n\n IV\n\nThe foregoing discussion may seem to have led us far from the study of\nour social experience as a source of religious insight. But in fact it\nis a necessary preliminary to that study and leads us very near to it.\n\nIf one principal source of our need of salvation is the natural\nnarrowness of our view of the meaning {55} of our own purposes and\nmotives, and the consequent fickleness and the forgetful inconsistency\nwith which we usually live out our days, it seems right, in searching\nfor a way that may lead toward salvation, to get such help as we can\nby looking to our normal social experience for whatever guidance it\ncan give. The social world is wide, even if it is still full of\nconflict. It broadens our outlook at every turn. A man corrects his\nown narrowness by trying to share his fellow's point of view. Our\nsocial responsibilities tend to set limits to our fickleness. Social\ndiscipline removes some of our inner conflicts, by teaching us not to\nindulge caprices. Human companionship may calm, may steady our vision,\nmay bring us into intercourse with what is in general much better than\na man's subliminal self, namely, his public, his humane, his greater\nsocial self, wherein he finds his soul and its interests writ large.\nPerhaps, then, whatever the ultimate goal, the way out of the\ndistractions of the natural self, the way toward the divine insight\nand power that we need, lies through our social experience.\n\nNo wonder, then, that in the religious discussions of to-day our\nsocial experience is that source of insight upon which a great number\nof our teachers, whether they are professional religious teachers or\nnot, most frequently insist. Our present time is an age of great\nconcern with social problems and reforms. No wonder, then, that we\nhave all learned to widen our vision, and to control our {56}\nwaywardness, by remembering that man is a being who can be neither\nunderstood nor directed in case you try to view him in isolation. As\nfor salvation, many of our most influential leaders now teach us that\nthe problem of our day is the problem of saving, not the individual as\nan individual, but the social order as a whole. The two tendencies\nwhich seem to be most potent in the political realm are the general\ntendencies known by the admittedly vague names of democracy and\nsocialism. Solidarity, collectivism, the common life--these are the\nwatchwords of some of the most widely influential movements of our\ntime.\n\nAnd these watchwords have, for many of us, not only a political, but a\nreligious meaning. I need not remind you of the popular influence of\nsuch dramas as \"The Servant in the House,\" or of the numbers of\nclergymen to whom the preaching of religion has come to mean, in the\nmain, the preaching of beneficent social reforms. If teachers who thus\nview religion as, on the whole, a movement toward the increase of\nsocial welfare are asked what their counsel is to the individual\nregarding the salvation of his soul, they will reply: \"If you want to\nbe saved, come out of yourself.\" Some of them would add: \"Forget\nyourself.\" But whether they use this latter extremely ambiguous and\ndoubtful form of advice, they very generally agree that to seek to\nsave your own soul by any merely or mainly inward and non-social\nprocess is to secure perdition. \"It is love that saves,\" they are fond\nof {57} telling us. And in this doctrine, as interpreted in the light\nof our modern social movements, many see the entire essence of\nChristianity adapted to our present situation.\n\nNor is the tendency here in question limited to the practical counsels\nof which I have just reminded you. There are those students of the\npsychology and the philosophy of religion who are disposed to conceive\nthat the whole essence of the religion of all times, the entire\nmeaning of religious beliefs and practices, can be exhaustively and\naccurately described in the purely human and social terms which these\npractical counsels attempt to embody. A recent writer on the\npsychology of religion defines religion as man's consciousness of his\nhighest social values, and maintains that all religious beliefs are\nattempts to express this consciousness in whatever terms a given stage\nof civilisation makes natural and possible.\n\nOne can easily suggest to any student of general history some of the\nfacts which such a writer has in mind. Have not the gods often been\nconceived as tribal deities, and so simply as representatives of the\nwelfare and of the will of the community over against the waywardness\nand the capriciousness of the individual? Was not the transition from\npolytheism to the various forms of pantheism and of monotheism\ndetermined by the social processes that formed kingdoms or empires,\nand that finally led over to the modern appreciation of the value of\nthe {58} common interest of an ideally united humanity? Were not the\nprophets of Israel social reformers? Was not the work of Jesus an\nanticipation and a prophecy of the coming consciousness of the\nbrotherhood of man, as the lovers of mankind now conceive that\nbrotherhood? What has religion had to teach us, some will insistently\nask, more saving, unifying, sustaining, than this love of man for man?\n\nFrom such a point of view, as you see, our social experience is our\nprincipal source of religious insight. And the salvation that this\ninsight brings to our knowledge is salvation through the fostering of\nhuman brotherhood. Such salvation accrues to the individual so far as\nhe gives himself over to the service of man, and to mankind in so far\nas men can only be saved together and not separately.\n\nI am just now depicting, not judging, a view concerning the solution\nof religious problems which you know to be, in our day, as potent as\nit is varied and problematic in its teaching. Can this view satisfy?\nDoes this way of stating the case really indicate to us any adequate\nsource of religious insight, any way in which we can define the true\nsalvation of man?\n\n\n V\n\nWe cannot answer this question without taking account of the views of\nthose of our recent teachers to whom this purely social theory of the\nreligious {59} objects and values is indeed profoundly unsatisfactory.\nThat such opponents of the adequacy of the interpretation of religion\njust suggested are to be found amongst the believers in familiar\nreligious traditions, we need not at any length set forth. The\ntraditions of the great religions of the world do not interpret the\nold faiths in this way, just because these religious traditions all\nagree in regarding the human social order as something which exists\nfor the sake of an essentially superhuman order. As these various\nfaiths assert, man can never be saved by purely human means, whether\nyou call these means preventive medicine, or socialism, or universal\nbrotherhood, or even love, so long as love means simply human love. As\nfor Christianity, in all its older forms, it has emphasised the love\nof man, but always in a certain union with the love of God which\ntradition could never conceive as adequately expressible in terms of\nour recent social movements. The \"Servant in the House\" is supposed to\nbe a modern apparition of the Christ; but he is explicitly a heretic\nregarding the old faith of the church.\n\nBut with tradition as tradition, these lectures have to do only by way\nof occasional illustration. What interests us more, for our present\npurpose, is the fact that, despite the predominance of the social\ninterpretations of religion of which I have just reminded you, there\nare still some of our recent teachers who stoutly insist that our\nsocial {60} experience does not adequately show us any way of\nsalvation whatever.\n\nAnd here first I must call attention to certain of the most modern and\nleast theologically disposed of our leaders, namely, to those who\nemphasise the most characteristic recent forms of individualism. I\nhave mentioned Nietzsche in my former lecture. Surely he stands for\nopposition to tradition and he expresses tendencies that are potent\nto-day. But while he lived and wrote, he aspired to be a sort of\nAntichrist, and preached the doctrine that a religion of love can\nnever save, because, as he insists, what the self needs is power, and\npower is not to be won by attempting to please a world of slaves.\nNietzsche may seem to you, as he has seemed to so many, a hopeless\nabnormity; but his Titanism is in fact a wayward modern expression of\na motive that has always played its notable part in the search for\nsalvation, ever since heroism and the resolute will were first\ndiscovered by man. Nietzsche's insight too, such as it is, is a social\ninsight. It comes through noting that, even if the individual needs\nhis social world as a means of grace and a gateway to salvation, the\nsocial order, in its turn, needs individuals that are worth saving,\nand can never be saved unless it expresses itself through the deeds\nand the inner life of souls deeply conscious of the dignity of\nselfhood, of the infinite worth of unique and intensely conscious\npersonal life.\n\n{61}\n\nAs a fact, individualism is as potent an ethical motive in the life of\nto-day as is the collectivism just characterised. Each of these\ntendencies, in our present social order, feeds upon and intensifies\nthe other. Socialism opposes, and yet inevitably encourages, the\npurposes of the very individual who feels his social ties as a galling\nrestraint. It preaches solidarity and brotherhood and love; but wins a\nready hearing from those who view all these tendencies mainly as means\nwhereby they may hope to have their own way, and to become, as\nNietzsche's Superman, \"beyond good and evil\"--masters in the coming\nworld of triumphant democracy. The social experience of our time is\nfull of ambiguous lessons. Its way toward salvation leads not only\nover the Hill of Difficulty, but both ways around the hill; and it\nshows us no one straight and narrow road to peace. Whoever would\ntraverse its wilderness and reach salvation needs to supplement his\nsocial insight by a use of other and deeper sources.\n\nAnd as to what these deeper sources of insight are, the teacher whom I\nhave already repeatedly cited--William James--asserts a doctrine that,\nas you already know, I do not regard as adequate, but that I must\nagain here emphasise, because its contrast with that social theory of\nreligion which I just characterised is so instructive.\n\nJames, in his \"Varieties of Religious Experience,\" shows the utmost\nliberality toward differences of {62} faith, and insists in the\nopening chapters of his book that religious experience is a field\nwhere one must beware of defining sharp boundary lines or of showing a\nfalse exclusiveness. Yet _one_ boundary line he himself defines with\nthe greatest sharpness; and in respect of _one_ matter he is rigidly\nexclusive. Religious experience, he insists, is, as you will remember\nfrom our first lecture, the experience of an individual who feels\nhimself to be \"alone with the divine.\" And the social types of\nreligious experience James rigidly excludes from the \"varieties\"\nwhereof he takes account. And James's reason for this procedure is\nexplicit. In its social aspects religion, so he insists, always\nbecomes, or has already become, conventional. James no longer finds in\nthe religious life of communities the novelty and independence of\nvision which he prizes. The essence of true religious experience lies,\nfor him, in its originality, in its spontaneity, and so in the very\nsolitude which is a condition, to James's mind, for the discovery of\nthat which saves.\n\nThe words \"originality\" and \"spontaneity\" emphasise the features\nwhich, as I think, James most meant to emphasise. The problem of\nsalvation, for James, must be an essentially individual problem; for\nnobody else ever faced _your_ need of salvation, or had your personal\nissues to meet. If you win religious insight, you will have to win it\nvery much as you will have to die--alone. Of course James does not\nhesitate to test the value of religious {63} experience, in his\npragmatic fashion, by its social as well as by its individual\nconsequences. The fruits of the spirit accrue to the general\nadvantage; and the saint, in James's opinion, must indeed undertake to\nedify, not only himself, but also his brethren. But the effects of\nreligious insight must not be confused with the sources. James insists\nthat the sources are mainly from within the individual and are only\nincidentally social. A religious discovery has in common with a poetic\ncreation the fact that the religious genius, like the artist, sees his\nvision, and produces his spiritual miracle, in solitude.\n\nIf you ask whether this position which James assumes is anything more\nthan his own private opinion, and if you want to know his grounds for\nit, a closer examination of his book will show you why he thus\ndeliberately turns his back upon the favourite recent interpretation\nof religion as an essentially social phenomenon. James, in common with\nthe traditional faiths, although not in conformity with their\nformulas, always conceived religious experience as an intercourse with\nobjects and with powers that, whatever their deeper bases in our\n\"subliminal\" nature, do not adequately express themselves in our\neveryday, worldly, overt human nature. And in our social life, where\nthe conventional reigns, where man imitates man or contends with man,\nwhere crowds bustle and the small-talk or the passionate struggle of\nthe day fill the mind, where lovers pursue their beloved and are\njealous {64} of their rivals, and laborers toil and sweat, and worldly\nauthorities display their pomp, you meet not the solution, but the\nproblem of life. James, as man, was full of social interests, and, as\npsychologist, was fond of studying social processes. But when a man\nwants peace and spiritual triumph, James observes that, as an\nempirical fact, he does not readily find them in the market-place, or\non the battle-field, or in the law courts, unless, indeed, he comes to\nthese places already full of the light that the saintly souls have\noften found in the wilderness or in their meditations. In brief, James\nalways emphasises the mystical element in religious experience and is\nfull of the assurance that religion cannot find its food in the\ncommonplace; while our social life is a realm where the commonplace\nholds sway. Or again, James holds that when the faithful have thought\nof their religious experience as an intercourse with beings of a level\nwholly superhuman, they may, indeed, have been wrong in their creeds,\nbut were right in holding that man as he lives in his social world can\nnever save man. Our social consciousness is too barefaced and open in\nits union of triviality and pathos. What we want as the saving power\nis, for a teacher such as James, something more mysterious, deep,\nsubconscious or superconscious, and in this sense, indeed, superhuman.\n\nStill I am only depicting, not yet judging. I have now briefly stated\nopinions that favour and opinions {65} that oppose an interpretation\nof religious insight in terms of our social experience. But what are\nthe merits of the case? In what sense can there be a religion of the\nsocial consciousness?\n\n\n VI\n\nThe answer to this question involves, I think, two considerations,\nboth of them exemplified by the various views here in question, both\nof them familiar, both of them easily misinterpreted. The first is the\nvery consideration upon which our popular teachers of salvation\nthrough love most insist. We ourselves came upon that consideration at\nthe close of our first lecture. Man is, indeed, a being who cannot be\nsaved alone, however much solitude may help him, at times, toward\ninsight. For he is bound to his brethren by spiritual links that\ncannot be broken. The second consideration is this: So long as man\nviews his fellow-man _merely_ as fellow-man, he only complicates his\nproblem, for both he and his fellow equally need salvation. Their\nplight is common; their very need of salvation chains them together in\nthe prison of human sorrow. If, to adapt the symbolism of ancient\nstories to our case, the angel of love is to appear in their prison,\nis to loosen their chains, is to open the doors, it must be, in some\nwise, as an angel, not as a merely human presence, that love must\nappear.\n\nPerhaps the best way to indicate wherein lies the {66} strength and\nthe weakness, the irresistible authority and the pathetic limitation\nof our social experience as a religious guide, and the best way also\nto indicate its true relations to the religious experience of the\nhuman individual, is to remind ourselves of a very few familiar cases\nin which an individual finds that his own way toward salvation, if any\nsuch way is to exist for him at all, lies through his social world, so\nthat he cannot be saved without the help of his fellows.\n\nOur first instance shall be an extreme one, in which the sense of need\nis intense and the longing for salvation acute, but where there is\nlittle or no hope of finding the way, although one knows that if the\nway could be found it would bring one into touch with a new type of\nhuman companionship. We all know how the sense of guilt may take the\nform of a feeling of overwhelming loneliness. Now the sense of guilt,\nif deep and pervasive and passionate, involves at least a dim\nrecognition that there is some central aim of life and that one has\ncome hopelessly short of that aim. I may regret a blunder, and yet\nhave no hint that there is any unified and supreme ideal of life. For\na blunder is a special affair involving the missing of some particular\naim. I may even bitterly repent a fault, and still think of that fault\nas a refusal to pursue some one separate moral purpose--a violation of\nthis or of that maxim of conduct. But the true sense of guilt in its\ngreater manifestation involves a confession that the {67} whole self\nis somehow tainted, the whole life, for the time being, wrecked. But\nthe bankruptcy of the self implies that there is one highest purpose\nwhich gives the self its value; the sense of total failure is itself a\nrevelation of the value of what was lost. Hence the highly idealising\ntendency of the great experiences of moral suffering. They lead us to\nthink not of this or of that special good, but of salvation and\nperdition in their general bearing upon life. The depth of the despair\nshows the grandeur of what has been missed; and it is therefore not\nsurprising that experiences of this sort have been, for so many, the\nbeginnings of religious insight. To believe that one is cut off from\nsalvation may be the very crisis that in the end saves.\n\nNow some of those who feel this overmastering might of their guilt lay\nmost stress upon their assurance that God has condemned them. And\nreligious tradition has of course emphasised this way of stating the\ncase. But it is perfectly natural, and is surely a humane experience,\nto feel the sense of guilt primarily in the form of a belief that one\nis an outcast from human sympathy and is hopelessly alone. The more\nabnormal types of the sense of guilt, in nervous patients, frequently\nexemplify this terror of the lonely soul, this inner grief over the\nhomelessness of the remorseful outcast. But actual guilt may be\npresent with or without the more abnormal nervous conditions just\nmentioned, and, when present, may bring home to the rueful mind {68}\nthe despair of the awakened but forsaken sinner, and may bring it in\nthe form of the feeling of guilty solitude.\n\nA well-known expression of such a mood you find in Kipling's lyric of\nthe \"Poor little sheep that have gone astray.\" In these verses the\noutcast sons of good families, the \"gentlemen-rankers,\" dwell together\nin an agonised companionship of common loneliness. Their guilt and\ntheir lost homes are for them inseparably associated.\n\nOr again: Beneath all the fantastic imagery of Coleridge's \"Ancient\nMariner,\" the poet uses a perfectly recognisable type of the sense of\nguilt as the means to make his tale of wonders seem, despite all its\nimpossibilities, human and even plausible. The incidents are the\nmiracles of a magic dream; but the human nature depicted is as real as\nis the torment of any guilty conscience. Somehow--no matter how, or\nunder how arbitrary conditions--the hero has committed a crime\nwithout precisely intending it to be a crime. His tale is one of a\nyoung man's adventurous insolence. His deed has all the too familiar\ncharacters of the typical sins of wayward youth. And that is why the\ngay young wedding guest must hear his tale. He--the mariner--in his\nown youth, had consciously meant to be only a little wanton and cruel.\nHe awakened, as many a light-minded youth later awakes, to find that,\nas a fact, he had somehow struck at the very centre of life, at the\nheart of love, at the laws that bind the {69} world together, at the\nspirit of the universe. When one thus awakes, he sees that nature and\nGod are against him. But, worst of all, he has become a curse to his\nfellows; and in turn they curse him; and then they leave him alone\nwith the nightmare life in death of utter solitude. To his mind there\nare no living men. He sees about him only \"the curse in a dead man's\neye.\" What life he can still see is no longer, to his morbid eyes,\nreally human:\n\n \"The many men, so beautiful!\n And they all dead did lie;\n And a thousand, thousand slimy things\n Lived on; and so did I.\"\n\nThe Ancient Mariner's escape from the horrors of this despair, the\nbeginnings of his salvation, date from the first movings of love in\nhis heart toward all living beings. His salvation is won when, at the\nend, he finds God along with the goodly company at the kirk. In brief,\nthe curse of his guilt is to be \"alone on a wide, wide sea.\" His\nsalvation comes in preaching love and companionship, and in uniting\nhimself hereby to the God who loves all things both great and small.\n\nNow one does not often think of the \"Ancient Mariner\" as a poem of\nreligious experience; but apart from its brilliant play with natural\nmagic, its human charm actually depends upon this well-founded\npicture of the loneliness of guilt and of the escape through loving\nunion with one's kind. And {70} the poet deliberately gives to this\npicture the form and the sense of a religious process of salvation.\n\nIf you turn from the dreamy product of Coleridge's youthful fancy to\nthe opposite pole of modern literature, you find an instance of almost\nthe same motives at the basis of that most impressive romance of the\nRussian Dostoieffsky: \"Crime and Punishment.\" Dostoieffsky had himself\nlived long in what he called \"The House of the Dead,\" in Siberia,\nbefore he learned how to write this masterpiece. He had been forced to\nsojourn amongst the guilty of the most various grades. He had come to\nuniversalise their experiences and to struggle himself with one form\nof the problem of salvation. Those who, like Dante, have looked upon\nhell, sometimes have, indeed, wonders to tell us. Dostoieffsky\ncondenses the whole problem of salvation from guilt in this picture of\nan individual. Raskolnikow, the hero, after his thoughtfully conceived\ncrime, and after his laborious effort at self-justification, finds\nhimself the prey of a simply overwhelming sense that he walks alone\namongst men, and that, in the crowded streets of the city, he is as\none dead amongst spectres. There is nowhere, I think, a more\npersuasive picture of the loneliness of great guilt. Raskolnikow could\nnot be more the victim of supernatural forces if he were Coleridge's\nAncient Mariner. Like the Ancient Mariner, Raskolnikow in the end\nfinds the way to salvation through love--the love which the martyred\nSonia teaches him--herself, {71} as our Russian most persuasively\npictures her, at once outcast and saint. The author uses religious\nconceptions which are both ancient and, in his use of them,\nunconventional. But the central one of these is the familiar\nconception that salvation involves a reconciliation both with the\nsocial and with the divine order, a reconciliation through love and\nsuffering--an escape from the wilderness of lonely guilt to the realm\nwhere men can understand one another.\n\nIn such elemental ways the process of salvation can be made to appear\nas essentially a social process, just because its opposite, perdition,\nseems to mean banishment from amongst men.\n\nAnother group of cases presents to us the same need for human\ncompanionship as a means to salvation, but presents it in the winning\nguise of salvation beginning through love, without the main stress\nbeing laid upon the previous despair. In such cases the despair may be\nmentioned but at once relieved. The religion of friendship and of love\nis a familiar human experience. James, in his fear of debasing\nreligion by romantic or by grosser associations, unjustly neglects it\nin his study of \"varieties.\" In fact, to seem to find the divine in\nthe person of your idealised friend or beloved is a perfectly normal\nway of beginning your acquaintance with the means of grace. You meet,\nyou love, and--you seem to be finding God. Or, to use our present\ninterpretation of what reveals the {72} divine, love seems to furnish\nyou with a vision of a perfect life, to give you a total survey of the\nsense of your own life, and to begin to show you how to triumph. If\nthere be any divine life, you say, this is my vision of its beauty and\nits harmony. So the divine appears in one of Browning's later lyrics:\n\n \"Such a starved bank of moss.\n Till, that May morn.\n Blue ran the flash across;\n Violets were born!\n\n \"Sky--what a scowl of cloud\n Till, near and far,\n Ray on ray split the shroud\n Splendid! a star!\n\n \"World--how it walled about\n Life with disgrace,\n Till God's own smile came out;\n That was thy face!\"\n\nIn the sonnets of Shakespeare this religion of friendship has found\nsome of its most perfect expressions.\n\n \"Haply I think of thee, and then my state.\n Like to the lark's, at break of day arising\n From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.\"\n\nAnd again, in Mrs. Browning's \"Sonnets from the Portuguese,\" the\nreligion of love not only uses speech intensely personal, fond,\nintimate, but also, {73} and deliberately, accompanies all this with\nwords derived from reflective metaphysics, or from theology, and\nintended to express the miracle that the nearest movings of affection\nare also a revelation of the highest powers of the spiritual world.\n\n \"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.\n I love thee to the depth and breadth and height\n My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight\n For the ends of Being, and Ideal Grace.\n I love thee to the level of everyday's\n Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.\n I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;\n I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;\n I love thee with the passion put to use\n In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;\n I love thee with a love I seemed to lose\n With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath.\n Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,\n I shall but love thee better after death.\"\n\nSurely one could not better express, than this sonnet does, the\nnaturalness of the religious motive--the mystery of the religious\nobject.\n\nAnd finally, turning from these cases to those which are social in the\nlarger sense, every patriotic song which deifies one's country, every\nother form of the religion of patriotism, exemplifies the experience\nof the devoted lover of his country by teaching that it is \"man's\nperdition to be safe\" in case his social world calls for the sacrifice\nof his life, and that salvation comes through service.\n\n{74}\n\nJames is indeed wrong then to neglect the social roads that lead\ntoward the experience of what one takes to be divine. There is no love\nso simple-minded that, if it be true love, the way of salvation may\nnot seem to be opened through it to the lover.\n\nBut observe that, as we review these instances, they show us how the\nsocial world wherein they bid us seek our salvation is a world whose\nvery essence is transformed by love and by its vision into something\nthat seems to the lover mystical, superhuman, and more than our\nliteral and commonplace social life directly exemplifies. Those who\nhave failed to find in their actual social life such inspirations may,\nindeed, have to look, as the typical mystics have generally done,\nelsewhere, for their vision of the divine, than in so much of the\nsocial world as they know. And such will, indeed, seek their vision of\nsalvation in solitude. When they tell us of their experience, they may\nwell remind the social enthusiast, as well as the lover, that the\nreligion of love is no religion at all, unless it conceives its human\nobject not only as this creature, or as this collection of needy men\nand women, but as a hint, or revelation, or incarnation of a divine\nprocess--of a process which is not only human but superhuman, and\nwhich can never be comprehended in the \"mart and the crowded street\"\nunless by the soul that is either mystical enough to meet God also \"in\nthe bush,\" or rationally enlightened enough to know that human {75}\nlife is indeed a revelation of something that is also superhuman.\n\nI conclude, then, for the moment, thus: Social experience seems to lie\non the way to salvation. Normally the way to salvation, if there be\nany such way, must lead through social experience. But when our social\nexperience shows us any such way upward it does so, if it truly does\nso, because human social life is the hint, the likeness, or the\nincarnation of a life that lies beyond and above our present human\nexistence. For human society as it now is, in this world of care, is a\nchaos of needs; and the whole social order groans and travails\ntogether in pain until now, longing for salvation. It can be saved, as\nthe individual can be saved, only in case there is some way that leads\nupward, through all our turmoil and our social bickerings, to a realm\nwhere that vision of unity and self-possession which our clearest\nmoments bring to us becomes not merely vision, but fulfilment, where\nlove finds its own, and where the power of the spirit triumphs. Of\nsuch a realm the lovers dream and the religions tell. Let us appeal to\na further source of insight. Concerning the realities that we need,\nlet us next consult our Reason.\n\n{76}\n\n{77}\n\n III\n\n THE OFFICE OF THE REASON\n\n{78}\n\n{79}\n\n III\n\n THE OFFICE OF THE REASON\n\nThus far we have dealt with sources of religious insight which are\nindispensable, but which confess their own inadequacy so soon as you\nquestion them closely. Individual experience can show us, in its\nmoments of wider vision, our ideal, and its times of despair, of\naspiration, or of self-examination, our need. But whenever it attempts\nto acquaint us with the way of salvation, its deliveries are clouded\nby the mists of private caprice and of personal emotion. Social\nexperience, in its religious aspects, helps the individual to win the\nwider outlook, helps him also to find his way out of the loneliness of\nguilt and of failure toward wholeness of life, and promises salvation\nthrough love. But, like individual experience, it is beset by what we\nhave called the religious paradox. And it does not solve that paradox.\nConfessing its own defects, it still undertakes to discern how to\novercome them. In so far as it is merely social experience it deals\nwith the world of weak mortals, of futile bickerings, and of love\nthat, in this world, deifies but never quite finds its true beloved.\nBy virtue of this transforming love it indeed gives {80} us the hint\nthat our social world may be an apparition or an incarnation of some\ndiviner life than any mortal now experiences. Yet how can mortals thus\nignorant pretend to get insight into anything that is divinely\nexalted?\n\nThus, both the sources of insight that we have thus far consulted\npoint beyond themselves. Each says, \"If salvation is possible, then\nhuman life must be able to come into touch with a life whose meaning\nis superhuman.\" Our question is: \"Is there, indeed, such a diviner\nlife?\" In order to deal with this question, we have resolved to\nconsult still another source of insight, namely, our Reason. The\npresent lecture must deal with this source of insight.\n\n\n I\n\n\"What does one mean by the Reason?\" As I attempt to answer this\nquestion, with an especial effort to show the relations of reason and\nreligion, I shall be aided by reminding you at the outset that, at the\npresent time, there is a widespread tendency to discredit the reason\nas a source of any notable insight into life or into the universe. And\nthis tendency depends upon so defining the business of the reason as\nsharply to oppose, on the one hand, intuition and reason, and, on the\nother hand, reason and common-sense experience. That is, some of our\nrecent teachers tell us that the only sort of insight which can be of\nany use in religion must be {81} won by intuitions and cannot be\nobtained by what these teachers call the abstract reason. By\nintuition, at least in the religious field, such men mean some sort of\ndirect feeling of the nature of things, some experience such as the\nmystics have reported, or such as many religious people, whether\ntechnical mystics or not, call illumination through faith. Intuitions\nof this sort, they say, are our only guides in the religious field. As\nopposed to such direct apprehension, the use of reason would mean the\neffort to be guided by formulas, by explicitly stated abstract\nprinciples, by processes of inference, by calculations, or by logical\ndemonstrations. James is prominent amongst those who thus oppose the\nabstract reason to the revelations of intuition; and, especially in\nhis later works, he is never weary of emphasising the inarticulate\ncharacter of all our deepest sources of religious insight. When we get\ntrue religious insight, so he teaches, we simply feel convinced that\nthese things are so. If we try to give reasons for our beliefs, James\nholds that the reasons are inapt afterthoughts, the outcome of\nsophistication, or are at best useful only in putting our convictions\ninto convenient order for purposes of record or of teaching. James's\nfavourite statement of the contrast here in question identifies the\npartisans of reason with the defenders of what he calls \"barren\nintellectualism.\" He maintains that religion is hindered rather than\nhelped by such people. You attain conviction by processes of {82}\nwhich the \"barren intellect\" can give no adequate account. Conviction,\nin religious matters, emanates, according to James, from those\nmysterious depths of the subconscious about which I said something in\nthe last lecture. And convictions thus resulting feel overwhelming to\nthe persons who have them. Such convictions are what many denote by\nthe word \"intuitions.\" The effort to define abstract principles, as\ngrounds for holding your convictions to be true, constitutes the only\neffort of the reason in religious matters which James recognises.\nAccording to James, such reasoning processes are inevitably bad. And\nas a fact, so he insists, nobody seriously believes in God because\nsome theologian or philosopher pretends to have demonstrated his\nexistence. On the contrary, he says, belief in God is intuitive or is\nnothing of value. And reason is employed in such matters merely\nbecause of a frequent overfondness for abstract conceptions, or at\nbest because formulas are useful for the teachers of religious\ntraditions.\n\nAnother form of contrast, and one upon which James also often insists,\nwhile many other recent writers, whose interests are not those of\nJames, emphasise the same matter, depends upon opposing reason to\nexperience in general, including under the latter term not only the\nintuitions of the devout, but whatever goes by the name experience in\nordinary speech. We see and hear and touch, and by such means get\nexperience. But we make hypotheses and {83} deduce their consequences;\nwe assume premises and demonstrate conclusions; and, according to such\nwriters, what we then do constitutes the typical work of our reason.\nThe characteristic of the reason is that it attempts either to\nelucidate the meaning of an assertion, or to prove some proposition to\nbe true, without appealing to experience to verify the proposition in\nquestion. And such work of the reason, as these writers tell us, is of\nvery limited use, in comparison to the use of our direct experience as\na guide. What is found to be true through empirical tests is rightly\ntested. What is supposed to be proved true by abstract reasoning is\nthus at best made dependent for its explicit warrant upon the\npresupposed truth of the premises used in the reasoning process. Or,\nas is sometimes said, the reason can discover nothing essentially new.\nIt turns its premises over and over, and gets out of them only what\nhas already been put into them. Experience, on the other hand, is full\nof countless novelties; for what you can find through observation and\nexperiment depends not upon previous assumptions, but upon the skill\nand the good fortune of the inquirer, and upon the wealth of life and\nof the real world.\n\nIn brief, for those who look at reason in this way, to use your reason\nis simply to draw necessary inferences from assumed premises. And no\npremises, as such writers insist, can warrant any inference except the\ninference of a conclusion which is already hidden away, so to speak,\nin the premises themselves. {84} Thus reasoning, as they tell us, is a\nprocess which, in the conclusion inferred, merely lets out of the bag\nthe cat which was concealed in that bag, namely, in the premises.\nReason, therefore, is indeed (so such writers assert) barren wherever\nnovelty is sought. It is useful only for purposes of formulation, and\nin certain parts of the abstract sciences, where deduction has a\ntechnical place, as a means for preparing the way for experimental\ntests. In life, experience is the guide to true novelty. And\ntherefore, if religious insight can be attained at all, it must be due\nnot to the reason, but to some sort of religious experience.\n\nSuch objections to the use of reason in the religious field depend, as\nyou see, upon identifying the reasoning process with the combination\nof two well-known mental processes; first, the process of forming and\nusing abstract conceptions; secondly, the process of analysing\nassertions, or combinations of assertions, to make more explicit what\nis already contained in their meaning. Our next question may well be\nthis: Is such an account of the work of reason just to the actual\nusage that common-sense is accustomed to make of this familiar name?\n\n\n II\n\nTo this question I must at once answer that we all of us daily use the\nword reason as the name for a process, or a set of processes, which\ncertainly {85} cannot be reduced to the mere power to form and to use\nabstract ideas, and to analyse the already predetermined meaning of\nstatements. When we speak of an ill-tempered or of a prejudiced man as\n\"unreasonable,\" we do not merely mean that he is unable to form or to\ndefine abstract ideas, or that he cannot analyse the meaning of his\nown statements. For sometimes such a man is contentiously thoughtful,\nand fond of using too many one-sided abstractions, and eager to argue\naltogether too vehemently. No, when we call him unreasonable, we mean\nthat he takes a narrow view of his life, or of his duties, or of the\ninterests of his fellow-men. We mean, in brief, that he lacks vision\nfor the true relations and for the total values of things. When we try\nto correct this sort of unreasonableness, we do not say to the\npetulant or to the one-sided man: \"Go to the dictionary, and learn how\nto define your abstract terms.\" Sometimes contentiously prejudiced men\nare altogether too fond of the dictionary. Nor do we merely urge him\nto form the habit of analysis. No, we may indeed say to him: \"Be\nreasonable\"; but we mean: \"Take a wider outlook; see things not one at\na time, but many at once; be broad; consider more than one side; bring\nyour ideas together; in a word, get insight.\" For precisely what I\ndefined in my opening lecture as insight is what we have in mind when,\nin such cases, we counsel a man to be reasonable. So, in such uses of\nthe word reason, reason is not opposed to intuition, as the power to\n{86} form abstract ideas is supposed by James to be opposed to the\npower to see things by direct vision. No, reason, in such cases, means\nsimply broader intuition, the sort of seeing that grasps many views in\none, that surveys life as it were from above, that sees, as the\nwanderer views the larger landscape from a mountain top.\n\nWhen, not long since, in a famous decision, the Supreme Court of the\nUnited States called attention to what it called \"The rule of reason,\"\nand declared its intention to judge the workings of well-known modern\nbusiness methods by that rule, the court certainly did not mean by\n\"the rule of reason\" the requirement that acts said to be \"in\nrestraint of trade\" must be judged merely through a process of forming\nabstract ideas or of analysing the signification of assertions. No,\nthe court was explicitly opposing certain methods of estimate which it\nregarded as falsely abstract; and it proposed to substitute for these\nfalse abstractions a mode of judging the workings of certain trade\ncombinations which was to involve taking as wide and concrete and\npractical a view as possible of their total effects. Everybody who\nread the court's words understood that, in this case, it was precisely\nthe merely abstract conception of something technically defined as a\n\"restraint of trade\" which the court wished, not to make sovereign,\nbut to subordinate to the wider intuition of a fair-minded observer of\nthe whole result, of a given sort of corporate combination. The {87}\n\"rule of reason\" was intended to bring the whole question out of the\nrealm of barren abstractions and of mere analysis, and nearer to the\nrealm where the trained observation of the fair minded man would\ndecide the case--nearer, in fact, to the realm of intuition. Only, the\ndecisive intuition must be something broad, and far-seeing, and\nsynthetic, and fair.\n\nNow I submit that this meaning of the word reason is perfectly\nfamiliar to all of you. Reason, from this point of view, is the power\nto see widely and steadily and connectedly. Its true opponent is not\nintuition, but whatever makes us narrow in outlook, and consequently\nthe prey of our own caprices. The unreasonable person is the person\nwho can see but one thing at a time, when he ought to see two or many\nthings together; who can grasp but one idea, when a synthesis of ideas\nis required. The reasonable man is capable of synopsis, of viewing\nboth or many sides of a question, of comparing various motives, of\ntaking interest in a totality rather than in a scattered multiplicity.\n\nYou may, of course, admit that this use of the word reason is\nfamiliar; and still you may say that James's contention is\nnevertheless sound. For, as you may declare, the real issue is not\nregarding the meanings that chance to be linked with the word reason,\nbut regarding the relative impotence of that process which James chose\nto call by this name. As a fact, so you may assert, there exists the\nfamiliar process of forming abstract {88} conceptions; and there also\nexists the process of drawing conclusions through an analysis of what\nis already contained in the meaning of the assumed premises. Whether\nor no one calls these two processes, in their usual combination, by\nthe name reasoning, James is right in saying that abstractions, and\nthat such sorts of purely analytic abstract reasoning as he has in\nmind, are incapable of giving us religious insight. And both James and\nthe others who oppose reason to concrete experience are right in\nasserting that you get no novel insight whatever through mere\nabstractions, or through mere analysis, but are dependent for your\nadvances in knowledge upon experience. Therefore, as you may continue,\nthe issue which James and other empiricists raise must not be evaded\nby any appeal to vaguer uses of the word reason, whether common-sense\nor the Supreme Court chances to authorise such special forms of\nexpression.\n\nI fully agree to the importance of this comment and of the issue as\nthus stated. I am ready to consider the issue. But I also insist upon\nestimating the whole use of reason in its proper context. James, in\ncommon with countless other partisans of intuition in religious\nmatters, is fond of insisting that all our nobler intuitions and all\nour deeper faiths are, in their foundations, inwardly compelling, but\ninarticulate, and that we degrade them rather than help them when we\ndefine their meaning in abstract terms or employ processes of explicit\n{89} demonstration in their defence. James, in common with many\nempiricists, also opposes experience in general to all processes of\nreasoning, and asserts that the latter never teach us anything novel.\nThe issue, fairly viewed, is therefore not a perfectly simple one. It\ninvolves the question whether the two modes of getting knowledge\nbetween which we are asked to choose are the only modes actually in\nuse. Intuition, and experience in general, are by James and by others\nsharply contrasted with certain processes of abstraction and of\nanalysis. It is then pointed out that since these latter processes,\ntaken by themselves, never give us any essentially novel insights, you\nmust on the whole cease to use your powers of abstraction and of\nanalysis, except for the mere purpose of record or of teaching, or of\nsome other such technical end--computation, analysis of hypotheses,\nand the like. You must, at least in religious matters, depend upon the\nuprushes from your subconscious self or upon whatever else is\npersuasively inarticulate. In the ultimate decisions of life,\ninarticulate intuition, mere faith, and that alone, can save you.\nHereupon the perfectly fair question arises whether the alternatives\nare thus exhaustively stated. Must one choose between inarticulate\nfaith and barren abstractions? Must one face the alternative: Either\nintuition without reasoning, or else relatively fruitless analysis\nwithout intuition? Perhaps there is a third possibility. Perhaps one\nmay use one's process of abstraction {90} as a sort of preparation for\ncertain articulate and noble intuitions that cannot be approached, by\nour human sort of consciousness, through any other way. Perhaps\nanalysis is not the whole process which determines demonstrations.\nPerhaps synthesis--the viewing of many facts or principles or\nrelations in some sort of unity and wholeness--perhaps a synoptic\nsurvey of various articulate truths, can lead us to novel insights. In\nthat case inarticulate intuitions and barren abstractions are not the\nonly instruments between which we must choose. For in that case there\nwill be another sort of aid, a more explicit sort of intuition, a more\nconsiderate view of our life and its meaning, which we may adopt, and\nwhich may lead us to novel results. And these results may be not only\narticulate but saving.\n\nOr, to state the issue more generally: In seeking for any sort of\nnovel truth, have we only the choice between the experience of the\ndata of sense or of feeling on the one hand and the analysis of\nabstract ideas and assertions upon the other? May there not be another\nsource of knowledge? May not this source consist in the synthetic view\nof many facts in their unity--in the grasping of a complex of\nrelations in their total significance? And may not just this be a\nsource of insight which is employed in many of the processes\nordinarily known as reasoning processes? May not the formation of\nabstract ideas, when wisely used, be merely a means of helping us\ntoward an easier view of larger unities of fact than {91} our present\nsort of human consciousness could grasp except for this auxiliary\ndevice? May not analysis be merely an aspect, a part of our live\nthinking? May not all genuine demonstration involve synthesis as well\nas analysis, the making of new constructions as well as the dissection\nof old assertions? If so, then the issue as presented by James and his\nallies is not rightly stated, because an essential part of its context\nis neglected. Abstract conceptions are, in fact, in the live and\nserious work of thought, a mere preparation for intuitions and\nexperiences that lie on higher levels than those which, apart from\nabstract conceptions, we men can reach. Reasoning processes are\nfruitful because they involve sorts of experience, forms of intuition,\nthat you cannot reach without them. In brief, reason and experience\nare not opposed. There is an opposition between inarticulate intuition\nand articulate insight. There is also an opposition between relatively\nblind experience of any sort and relatively rational experience. And,\nin view of such oppositions, it will be perfectly fair to define\nreason as the power to get articulate insight--insight into wholes\nrather than fragments. It will also be fair to define the reasoning\nprocess as the process of getting connected experience on a large\nscale.\n\nWhoever views the matter thus will indeed not be forced to be a\none-sided partisan of the reasoning process as thus defined. He will,\nfirst, fully admit that the formation of abstract ideas is but a means\n{92} to an end, and that this end is the enlargement of the range of\nour view of the connections of our experience. He will secondly admit\nthat, as soon as the process of forming abstract ideas is pursued as\nan end in itself, pedantry and formalism result, whether the topic be\none of religion, or of science, or of the world's daily work. He will\nfurther agree with James, and with the empiricists generally, that\nmerely analytic reasoning, if such were, in its isolation, a possible\nthing, would be indeed \"barren intellectualism.\" And finally, if he is\nwise, he will go still further. He will not despise instinct, and\nfeeling, and the movings of faith, and the inarticulate intuitions.\nFor he will know that all these things are human, are indispensable,\nand are the basis upon which the genuine work of the reason, the wider\nview of life, must be carried toward its fulfilment. For whoever is to\ncomprehend the unities of life must first live. Whoever is to be best\nable to survey the landscape from the mountain top must first have\nwandered in its paths and its byways, and must have grown familiar\nwith its valleys and its recesses. Whoever is to get the mature\ninsight must first have become a little child.\n\nBut whoever, remembering the New Testament word about becoming as a\nlittle child, one-sidedly defends the inarticulate intuitions, as the\nonly source of religious insight, should remember also the word of St.\nPaul: \"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child, I\nunderstood as a {93} child; but when I became a man I put away\nchildish things.\"\n\nIt is the business of reason not to make naught of the indispensable\nintuitions of the childlike and of the faithful, but to work toward\nthe insight such that, if we possessed it, we should \"know even as we\nare known.\" That which is weak in this world may indeed confound many\nwho are called wise; but there is no objection to its becoming also\ntruly wise itself. For then it would all the better know why it had\nbeen able to confound false wisdom.\n\n\n II\n\nAll such considerations will seem to many of you hopelessly general.\nYou will have missed, thus far in my account, concrete instances to\nillustrate how what I have now called the reason actually works, how\nit is related to experience, how it helps us toward the broader view\nof things, how it makes the connections of life more obvious, how it\nraises our intuitions to higher levels. And unfortunately, since I\nhave no time to discourse to you upon the science called Logic--the\nscience part of whose proper duty it is to define the nature and the\noffice of what I have now called the reason--I must indeed fail, in\nthis brief summary, to give you any adequate account of what can be\naccomplished through the appeal to this source of insight. All that I\nshall try to do, on this occasion, is to mention {94} to you a very\nfew instances, some of them relatively trivial, wherein, through\nreasoning processes, we actually get these larger intuitions on higher\nlevels, these higher modes of grasping the unity of things. Having\nthus very imperfectly exemplified what I mean by the synthetic\nprocesses of reasoning, I shall be ready barely to suggest to you, as\nI close, how the reason can be, and is, a source of religious insight.\n\nIn some recent logical discussions, and in particular in my colleague\nProfessor Hibben's text-book of logic, there has been used an example,\ntrivial in itself, but in its own way typical--an example which is\nmeant to show how there exists a mental process which is surely worthy\nof the name reasoning, and which is, nevertheless, no mere process of\nforming abstract ideas and no mere analysis of the meaning of assumed\npremises, although, of course, both abstraction and analysis have\ntheir subordinate places in this process. The reasoning involved in\nthis example is of the very simplest sort. It is expressed in an old\nstory which many of you will have heard.\n\nAccording to this story, an aged ecclesiastic, garrulous and\nreminiscent, was once, in a social company, commenting upon the\nexperiences that had come to him in his long and devoted life. Fully\nmeaning to keep sacred the secrets of the confessional, the old man\nwas nevertheless led to say: \"Ah--it is strange, and sometimes\nterrible, what, in my profession, one may have to face and consider.\n{95} You must know, my friends, my very first penitent was--a\nmurderer! I was appalled.\" The old priest had hardly spoken when the\ncompany was joined by an aged and prominent nobleman of the region,\nwhom all present greeted with great respect. Saluting his priestly\nfriend with no little reverence, the nobleman turned to the company\nand said, with calm unconsciousness: \"You must know, my friends, in my\nyouth I was the very first person whom my honored friend here ever\nconfessed.\"\n\nNow observe. The priest had not said who the murderer was. The\nnobleman in his contribution to the conversation had not confessed to\nthe company the murder. He had not mentioned it in any way. And the\npriest had scrupulously avoided mentioning him. But all present drew\nat once the reasonable conclusion that, granting the correctness of\nthe two assertions, the nobleman was a murderer. We, of course, must\nall agree in this conclusion. Now is this conclusion the result of a\nmere analysis of either of the two assertions made? And does the\nconclusion merely result from our power to form abstract ideas?\nPlainly, the conclusion is due to the power of all present to make a\nsynthesis, or, as one sometimes says, to put two and two together.\nPlainly, whatever abstract ideas are here used, it is not these which\nconstitute the main work of a reasonable being who views the situation\nin which the nobleman is placed by the whole sense of the\nconversation. Reason here discovers a novel fact which {96} neither\nthe priest nor the nobleman had stated. This discovery is as much an\nexperience as if it were the observation of an actual killing of one\nman by another. Only it is the discovery of the relations involved in\na synthesis of meanings. This discovery is at once empirical (yes, in\nthe broader sense of the word intuitive), and it is a discovery of a\nnecessary connection. It is not due to mere analysis. It is not a bit\nof barren intellectualism. It is not an unpractical comment. It is a\ndiscovery that might wreck the nobleman's reputation, and that might\nmore or less indirectly lead to his ultimate conviction upon a capital\ncharge. Now, that is an example, trivial enough if viewed as a mere\nanecdote, but a typical example, of the synthetic and constructive use\nof reason as a source of insight.\n\nLet me turn to another also at first sight seemingly trivial case. An\nEnglish logician, De Morgan, long ago called attention to a form of\nreasoning which, up to his time, the logicians had unduly neglected.\nIf you assume that \"a horse is an animal,\" you can reasonably conclude\nthat \"the owner of a horse is the owner of an animal\"; that \"whoever\nloves a horse loves an animal,\" and so on indefinitely. In brief, as\nyou at once see, from the one assertion, \"A horse is an animal,\" there\nrationally follow a limitless number of possible inferences of the\nform: \"Whatever is in any relation R to a horse is in that same\nrelation R to an animal.\" Now you may indeed at first, as I just said,\n{97} imagine such reasonings to be comparatively trivial. Whether they\nprove to be so, however, depends wholly upon the objects in question,\nupon our own interests in these objects, and upon circumstances. They\nmight be vastly important. From the assertion, \"Mr. Taft is President\nof the United States,\" there follows, by this sort of reasoning, the\nassertion, \"Whoever is a personal friend of Mr. Taft is a personal\nfriend of the President of the United States.\" And such a conclusion\nsome people might be very glad to have you draw. So, too, whoever is a\nmember of Mr. Taft's family, or household, or club, or of the\nuniversity whose degrees he holds, or whoever is a fellow-townsman, or\nfellow-countryman, or partisan, or opponent, or enemy of Mr. Taft,\nwhoever agrees with what he says in his speeches, whoever plays golf\nwith him, or whoever hopes or fears for his re-election, stands in\njust that relation, whatever it may be, to the President of the United\nStates. And how important such rational inferences might appear for\nthe comprehension of somebody's actual situation and prospects and\nacts depends upon the persons and the interests that may be in\nquestion. To some people just such inferences, at one moment or\nanother, will not seem trivial, will be worth making, and will be\nanything but feats of barren intellectualism. That they are easy\ninferences to make is beside the mark. I have no time to ask you here\nto study with me the harder inferences upon topics that do not concern\nour main purpose. What I {98} need, however, is to illustrate to you\nthat such reasoning processes go beyond mere analysis, and do involve\na rational and articulate intuition of a novel aspect of experience.\nFor I defy you to find by any mere analysis of the assertion, \"Mr.\nTaft is President,\" the innumerable assertions about friends, about\nfamily, about speeches, and policies, and so on, which as a fact\nrationally follow, in the indicated way, from that first assertion.\nYou find these new results by taking a broader view of the unity of\nexperience. What, then, I need to have you see is that the reason\nwhich, even in its lightest deeds, can accomplish such syntheses, and\nwhich can lead to such ordered intuitions, and can be the endless\nsource of such novelties, is not merely the reason of whose powers as\na source of insight James gives so discouraging a picture.\n\nHaving thus barely illustrated the thesis that reason can be both\nproductive of new insight and constructively synthetic in its grasp of\nwider ranges of experience than we could observe without it, let me\nadd that, in the exact sciences, and in particular in mathematics, the\nreasoning process, using just such forms of synthesis as I have now\nillustrated, is constantly leading investigators to the most varied\nand novel discoveries. These discoveries are not due to mere analysis.\nThey are reports of facts and the results of synthetic construction.\nAs Mr. Charles Peirce loves to point out, the new discoveries made in\nmathematics, and by purely rational processes, {99} are so numerous\nthat for each year a volume of many hundreds of closely printed pages\nis needed to give, with strictly technical brevity, even the barest\noutline of the contents of the papers containing the novel results of\nthat one year's researches. In their union with other sciences, the\nmathematical researches constantly lead to still vaster ranges of\nnovel discovery. Reason, then, is not merely barren, is not mainly\nconcerned with unproductive analysis, but does enrich our survey of\nexperience, of its unity and of its meaning.\n\nPerhaps some of you may still object that, if I define reason in the\nterms suggested by these instances, there seems to be danger of making\nthe word \"reason\" mean simply the same as the word \"insight.\" For\ninsight, as I defined it in my opening lecture, means a coherent view\nof many facts in some sort of unity. And in this case, as you may now\nsay, why use two words at all? I reply that, in fact, all true insight\nis, to my mind, rational insight, upon one or another level of the\ndevelopment of our power to become rational beings. But you will\nremember that insight, as I defined it, also means knowledge which is\nintimate and manifold, as well as knowledge which views facts and\nrelations in their unity. The words intuition and experience are often\nused to lay stress upon that aspect of our insight which either makes\nit intimate or else brings it into touch with many and various facts.\nAnd such usage is convenient. The word reason, as I have just {100}\nexemplified its more synthetic meaning, calls our attention precisely\nto that aspect of our better insight which is involved in our power to\ngrasp many facts in their _unity_, to see the coherence, the\ninter-relationship, the totality of a set of experiences. Now when\ninsight reaches higher levels, these various aspects of our knowledge\nare never sundered. But as we grow toward higher insight, we know in\npart and prophesy in part and are child-like in so far as that which\nis perfect has not yet come.\n\nIn these, our imperfect stages of growth, sometimes our knowledge\npossesses intimacy, but still has to remain content, for the moment,\nwith a more inarticulate grasp of deeper meanings. In such cases\nJames's sort of intuition, or what is often called blind faith, is\nmainly in question. And this is indeed a stage on the way to insight.\nWe feel unities but do not see them. Sometimes, however, as in much of\nour ordinary experience, the state of our minds is different; our\nknowledge revels in, or else contends with, the endless variety and\nmultiplicity of the facts of life, and lacks a grasp of their unity.\nIn that case our insight is often called \"merely empirical.\" We have\nexperience; and so far our knowledge prospers. But we neither feel\nvaguely nor see clearly the total sense of things. And in such cases\nour sight is too busy to give us time for higher insight. As the\nGermans say, we do not see the wood because of the trees.\n\nIn a third stage of partial insight we may stand {101} where, for\ninstance, the masters of the exact sciences stand. We then grasp, with\nclearness, larger unities of controllable experience. We create\nobjects, as the mathematicians create, in an ideal world of our own\ncontemplation; and we then come to see that these ideal creations of\nours do, indeed, reveal the eternal truth regarding a world of\nseemingly impersonal or superpersonal reality. We learn of this\nreality through the coherent synthesis of our ideal constructions. Our\nintuition is in this case at once empirical, articulate, and such as\nto survey the broad landscape of the genuine relations of things. But\nalas! in most such cases our objects, although they are indeed\npresented to our rational intuition, are often abstract enough in\ntheir seeming. They are objects such as numbers, and series, and\nordered arrays of highly ideal entities. In such cases the reason does\nits typical work; but often the objects of our insight fail to meet\nthe more intense needs of life.\n\nThus, then, inarticulate intuitions, ordinary or sometimes more\nscientific observations of the details of life, and mathematical\nreasonings concerning the unity and the connections of highly ideal\nobjects such as numbers, come to stand in our experience as more or\nless sharply sundered grades of imperfect insight. Thus we naturally\ncome to view the typical achievements of our reason as a thing apart,\nand the rational or exact sciences as remote both from the intuitive\nfaith of the little ones and from {102} the wealthy experience of the\nmen of common-sense and of the men of natural science. As a fact, all\nthese stages of insight are hints of what the Supreme Court meant when\nit appealed to the \"rule of reason.\" True insight, if fulfilled, would\nbe empirical, for it would face facts; intuitive, for it would survey\nthem and grasp them, and be intimate with them; rational, for it would\nview them in their unity.\n\n\n IV\n\nOur lengthy effort to define the work and the place of the reason has\nbrought us to the threshold of an appreciation of its relation to the\nreligious insight which we are seeking.\n\nIn looking for salvation, we discover that our task is defined for us\nby those aspects of individual and social experience upon which our\ntwo previous lectures have dwelt. We have learned from the study of\nthese two sorts of experience that, whatever else we need for our\nsalvation, one of our needs is to come into touch with a life that in\nits unity, in its meaning, in its perfection, is vastly superior to\nour present human type of life. And so the question has presented\nitself: Have we any evidence that such a superhuman type of life is a\nreal fact in the world? The mystics, and many of the faithful, answer\nthis question by saying: \"Yes. We have such evidence. It is the\nassurance that we get through intuition, through feeling, through the\nlight revealed to us {103} in certain moments when thought ceases, and\nthe proud intellect is dumb, and when the divine speaks quite directly\nto the passive and humbled soul.\" Now when we calmly consider the\nevidence of such moments of inarticulate conviction, they strongly\nimpress upon us what we have called the religious paradox. Faith, and\nthe passive and mysterious intuitions of the devout, seem to depend on\nfirst admitting that we are naturally blind and helpless and ignorant,\nand worthless to know, of ourselves, any saving truth; and upon\nnevertheless insisting that we are quite capable of one very lofty\ntype of knowledge--that we are capable, namely, of knowing God's voice\nwhen we hear it, of distinguishing a divine revelation from all other\nreports, of being sure, despite all our worthless ignorance, that the\ndivine higher life which seems to speak to us in our moments of\nintuition is what it declares itself to be. If, then, there is a pride\nof intellect, does there not seem to be an equal pride of faith, an\nequal pretentiousness involved in undertaking to judge that certain of\nour least articulate intuitions are infallible? Surely here is a\ngenuine problem, and it is a problem for the reason. We know that men\ndiffer in faith. We know that one man's intuition regarding the way of\nsalvation may seem to another man to be a mere delusion, a deceitful\ndream. We know, from the reports of religious experience, that at\ntimes even the saints of greatest renown have doubted whether some of\ntheir most persuasive visions of the {104} divine were not, after all,\ndue to the cunning deceit of an enemy of souls whom they more or less\nsuperstitiously feared. We know that to common-sense, despite its\ninterest in salvation, the reports of the mystics and of the faithful\nhave often appeared to be but the tale of private and vain imaginings.\nIt is fair to ask what are the criteria whereby the true spiritual\ngifts, the genuine revelations, are to be distinguished. And this, I\ninsist, is a question for the reason, for that aspect of our nature\nwhich has to do with forming estimates of wholes rather than of\nfragments--estimates of life in its entirety rather than of this or\nthat feeling or moment of ecstasy in its isolation.\n\nIf, hereupon, without for the moment attempting to discuss how others,\nas, for instance, James himself, deal with the problem of the\nreasonable estimate of the value of our religious intuitions, I sketch\nfor you my own opinion as to how reason does throw light upon the\nreligious paradox, I must again emphasise a matter that I mentioned in\nmy opening lecture and that is much neglected. Religious faith does,\nindeed, involve a seemingly paradoxical attempt to transcend the\nadmitted ignorance of the needy human being, to admit that of himself\nthis being knows almost nothing about the way of salvation, and\nnevertheless to insist that he is able to recognise his Deliverer's\nvoice as the voice of a real master of life when he hears that voice,\nor--apart from metaphor--that he is able to be sure what revelation of\na divine life, not {105} his own, is the true one when he happens to\nget it. But religion is not alone in this paradoxical pride of\nhumility. Science and common-sense alike involve a similar admission\nof the depths of our human fallibility and ignorance, on the one hand,\nand an analogous assurance that, despite this our fragmentariness of\nexperience, despite our liability to be deceived, we nevertheless can\nrecognise truth when experience once has not wholly verified it, but\nhas sufficiently helped us to get it. For, as individuals, we are\nconstantly confident beyond what our present experience, taken by\nitself, clearly reveals to us. We, for instance, trust our individual\nmemory in the single case, while admitting its pervasive fallibility\nin general. We persistently view ourselves as in reasonably close\ntouch with the general and common results of human experience, even at\nthe moment when we have to admit how little we know about the mind or\nthe experience of any one fellow-man, even our nearest friend. We say\nthat some of our opinions, for instance, are warranted by the\ncommon-sense of mankind. That is, we pretend once for all to know a\ngood deal about what the common experience of mankind is. And yet, if\nwe look closer, we see that we do not directly see or experience the\ngenuine inner life of any one of mankind except the private self which\neach one of us regards as his own, while, if we still further consider\nthe matter, we can readily observe how little each one of us really\nknows even about himself. When {106} we appeal then to what we call\ncommon-sense, we pretend to know what it is that, as we say, the mind\nof mankind finds to be true. But if we are asked to estimate the real\nstate of mind of any individual man, how mysterious that state is! In\nbrief, the paradox of feeling confidence in our own judgment, even\nwhile regarding all human opinion as profoundly fallible, is not\nmerely a religious paradox, but also pervades our whole social and\npersonal and even our scientific types of opinion. Not to have what is\ncalled a reasonable confidence in our own individual opinions is the\nmark of a weakling. But usually, if our personal opinions relate to\nimportant matters, they bring us into more or less serious conflict\nwith at least some of the opinions of other men. Conflict is one mark\nthat your opinions are worth having. When the conflict arises, we are\nusually led to consider how fallible other men are. They are fallible,\nwe say, because they are human. How little any poor man knows! Yes,\nbut if this principle holds true, how doubtful are my own opinions!\nYet if I fill my mind with that reflection, to the exclusion of all\nother reasonable considerations, I condemn myself not to mere\nfallibility, but to certain failure.\n\nThe paradox is universal. It pervades all forms and activities of\nhuman inquiry. That is the first synthetic observation of the reason,\nwhen it surveys the field of human opinion. Everywhere we live by\nundertaking to transcend in opinion what the {107} evidence before us,\nat any one moment, directly and infallibly warrants. But is it\nrational to do this? And if so, _why_ is it rational?\n\nThe answer is that while there is much irrational presumption and\noverconfidence in our human world, there is also a perfectly rational\nprinciple which warrants certain forms and methods of thus\ntranscending in our opinions the immediately presented evidence of the\nmoment when we judge. This principle is as universal as it is\ngenerally neglected. Rightly understood, it simply transforms for you\nyour whole view of the real universe in which you live.\n\nAn opinion of yours may be true or false. But when you form an\nopinion, what are you trying to do? You are trying to anticipate, in\nsome fashion, what a wider view, a larger experience of your present\nsituation, a fuller insight into your present ideas, and into what\nthey mean, would show you, if you now had that wider view and larger\nexperience. Such an effort to anticipate what the wider view would\neven now show, if you were possessed of that view, involves both what\nare usually called theoretical interests and what pragmatists, such as\nJames himself, have often characterised as practical interests. One\ncan express the matter by saying, that you are trying, through your\nopinions, to predict what a larger insight, if it were present to you,\nwould show or would find, that is, would experience. You can also say\nthat you are trying to define what {108} a fuller apprehension and a\nfairer estimate of your present purposes, and intentions, and\ninterests, and deeds, and of their outcome, and of their place in\nlife, would bring before your vision. In brief (whether you lay more\nstress upon deeds and their outcome, or upon experiences and their\ncontents), any expression of opinion, made at any time, is an appeal\nof the self of the moment to the verdict, to the estimate, to the\nexperience of a larger and better informed insight, in the light of\nwhich the self of the moment proposes to be judged. The special\ncriteria by which your momentary opinion is tested, at the time when\nyou form that opinion, vary endlessly with your mood and your training\nand your feelings, and with the topics and tasks in which you happen\nto be interested. But the universal form in which any opinion comes to\nyour consciousness, and gets its definition for your own mind, is this\nform of an appeal to an insight that is superior in grasp, in unity,\nin coherence, in reasonableness to your momentary insight.\n\nNow you can indeed say: \"When I form and express an opinion, I appeal\nfrom my present experiences to some wider insight that I view _as if\nit were_ possible. My opinion asserts that _if I were_ permitted to\nsee what I just now do not directly experience, I should find the\nfacts to be so and so.\" But no such account of the matter is quite\ncomplete. Everything that you regard as possible has to be conceived\nas somehow based upon what you regard {109} as actual. And so, in\nfact, your opinions are always appeals to some form of wider or larger\nor deeper or richer insight that, in the act of appealing to it, you\nregard as a present or as a past or as a future reality--in brief, as\na live and perfectly concrete insight to whose verdict you appeal.\nPhilosophers often express this by saying that all opinions are\nnothing but efforts to formulate the real contents of experience. This\nview I accept.\n\nSo then, as I insist, whatever your opinions, your expression of them\nis an appeal to some wider insight that you regard as real, and that\nyou view as a live insight which comprehends your ideas, and which\nsees how they are related to genuine experience. This, I affirm, is\nthe universal form which all opinion takes. A true opinion is true,\nbecause in fact it expresses what the wider insight confirms. A false\nopinion is false, because it is refuted by the light of this same\nwider view. Apart from such a confirmation or refutation in the light\nof such a larger view, the very concepts of truth and error, as\napplied to opinions which are not wholly confirmed or set aside by the\ninstantaneous evidence of the moment when the opinions are formed or\nuttered, have no meaning. True is the judgment that is confirmed by\nthe larger view to which it appeals. False is the assertion that is\nnot thus confirmed. _Upon such a conception the very ideas of truth\nand error depend. Without such a conception truth and error have no\nsense_. If such a conception is not itself {110} a true view of our\nsituation, that is, if there is no wider insight, our opinions have\nneither truth nor error, and are all of them alike merely meaningless.\nWhen you are ignorant, you are ignorant of what the wider view makes\nclear to its own insight. If you blunder or are deluded, your blunder\nis due to a defective apprehension which the wider view confirms. And\nthus, whether you are ignorant or blundering, wise or foolish, whether\nthe truth or the falsity of your present opinion is supposed to be\nactual, one actuality is equally and rationally presupposed, as the\nactuality to which all your opinions refer, and in the light of which\nthey possess sense. _This is the actuality of some wider insight with\nreference to which your own opinion gets its truth or its falsity_.\n\nTo this wider insight, to this always presupposed vision of experience\nas it is, of the facts as they are, you are always appealing. Your\nevery act of assertion displays the genuineness of the appeal and\nexemplifies the absolute rational necessity of asserting that the\nappeal is made to an insight that is itself real.\n\nFrequently you do, indeed, call this insight merely the common-sense\nof mankind. But, strange to say, this common-sense of mankind is\nalways and inevitably conceived by you in terms that distinguish it\nfrom the fleeting momentary views of any or of all merely individual\nmen. Men--if I may judge them by my own case, and by what I hear other\n{111} men confess--men, when taken merely as individuals, always live\nfrom moment to moment in a flickering way, normally confident, indeed,\nbut clearly seeing at any one instant very little at a time. They are\nnarrow in the span of the more direct insight. They grasp data bit by\nbit, and comprehend, in their instantaneous flashes of insight, only\nlittle scraps and tiny bundles of ideas. I who now speak to you cannot\nhold clearly and momentarily before my mind at once even all of the\nmeaning that I try to express in two or three of my successive\nsentences. I live looking before and after, and pining for what is\nnot, and grasping after unity; and I find each moment crumbling as it\nflies; and each thought and each sentence of my discourse drops into\nmomentary forgetfulness so soon as I have carefully built up its\npassing structure. In our life all thus flows. We fly from one flash\nof insight to another.\n\nBut nevertheless our opinions, so we say, reflect sometimes the\ncommon-sense of mankind. They conform to the verdict of humanity. But\nwho amongst us ever goes beyond thus confidently holding that he\nreflects the common-sense of mankind? Who amongst us personally and\nindividually experiences, at any moment, the confirmation said to be\ngiven by the verdict of humanity? The verdict of humanity? What man\never finds immediately presented to his own personal insight that\ntotality of data upon which this verdict is said to depend? {112} The\ncommon-sense of mankind? What mortal man is there who ever finds\nincorporated in his flickering, fleeting, crumbling, narrow moments of\npersonal experience the calm and secure insight which this\ncommon-sense of mankind, or of enlightened mankind, is said to\npossess?\n\nNo, the common-sense of mankind is, for us all, a sort of\nsuper-individual insight, to which we appeal without ourselves fully\npossessing it. This \"_common_\"-sense of mankind is just the sense\n_which no man of us all ever individually possesses_. For us all it\nis, indeed, something superhuman. We spend part of our busy little\nlives in somewhat pretentiously undertaking to report its dicta. But\nit is simply one of the countless forms in which we conceive the wider\ninsight to be incorporated. _The true rational warrant for this\nconfidence of ours lies in the fact that whatever else is real, some\nform of such a wider insight, some essentially super-individual and\nsuperhuman insight is real_. For unless it is real our opinions,\nincluding any opinion that we may have that doubts or questions or\ndenies its reality, are all equally meaningless. Thus even when we\nappeal to common-sense we really appeal to a genuine but super-human\ninsight.\n\nLet us not here spend time, however, upon analysing this or that\nspecial form in which we are accustomed, for one special purpose or\nanother, to conceive the wider insight. What is clear is that we\nconstantly, and in every opinion, in every confession of {113}\nignorance appeal to such an insight. That such an insight is real,\nmust be presupposed even in order to assert that our present opinions\nare errors. What interests us most at this point is, however, this,\nthat whatever else the whole real universe is, the real universe\nexists only in case it is the object, and the very being, of such an\ninsight, of such an inclusive experience, of such a view of what is.\nFor, when you hold any opinions whatever about the real world, or\nabout any of its contents, characters, or values, your opinions are\neither true or false, and are true or false by virtue of their actual\nconformity to the live insight which experiences what makes them true\nor false, and which therefore _ipso facto_ experiences what the real\nworld is. If there is no such world-possessing insight, then, once\nmore, your opinions about the world are neither true nor false. Or,\notherwise stated, if there is no such inclusive insight there is no\nworld. To the real world, then, this insight which comprehends the\nworld, and which knows whatever is true to be true, and whatever is\nfalse about the world to be false--to the real world this insight, I\nsay, belongs. And the whole world belongs to it and is its object and\nessence. Whatever is real is real for that insight, and is in its\nexperience, and exists as its possession, and as its well-known and\nwell-comprehended content, and as its image and expression and\nmeaning.\n\nAll this I say, as you may note, not because I hold in high esteem any\nof our private human {114} opinions, but only because, _except in the\nlight of such an all-seeing comprehension of facts as they are, our\nindividual opinions about the world cannot even be false_. For\nopinion, in all its fleeting blindness and in its human chaos of\ncaprices, is ceaselessly an appeal to the judge, to the seer, to the\nstandard experience, to the knower of facts as they are, to the wider\nview, to the decisive insight. And opinions about reality in its\nwholeness, about the world, about the all, are appeals to the\nall-judging insight, to the all-seeing view, to the knowledge and\nexperience that grasps the totality of facts, to the widest outlook,\nto the deepest insight, to the absolute rational decision. If this be\nso, then an opinion to the effect that there exists no such widest and\ndeepest insight, and no such final view, is itself just such an appeal\nto the final insight, simply because it is an opinion about reality.\nTo assert then that there is no largest view, no final insight, no\nexperience that is absolute, is to assert that the largest view\nobserves that there is no largest view, that the final insight sees\nthat there is no such insight, that the ultimate experience is aware\nthat there is no ultimate experience. And such an assertion is indeed\na self-contradiction.\n\nThis, I assert, is the only rational way of stating the nature of\nopinion, of truth or error, and consequently of reality. This is the\nsynthesis which reason inevitably accomplishes whenever it rightly\nviews the nature and the implications of even our most flickering and\nerroneous and uncertain {115} opinions. We can err about what you\nwill. But if we err, we simply come short of the insight to which we\nare aiming to conform, and in the light of which our ideas get\nabsolutely all of their meaning. In every error, in every blunder, in\nall our darkness, in all our ignorance, we are still in touch with the\neternal insight. We are always seeking to know even as we are known.\n\n\nI have sought in this sketch to vindicate the general rights of\nrational insight as against mere momentary or fragmentary intuition. I\nhave also tried to show you what synthesis of reason gives us a\ngenuinely religious insight.\n\n\"My first penitent,\" said the priest of our story, \"was a murderer.\"\n\"And I,\" said the nobleman, \"was this priest's first penitent.\"\n\n\"I am ignorant of the vast and mysterious real world\"--thus says our\nsense of human fallibility and weakness when we are first awakened to\nour need of rational guidance. The saying is true. The mystery is\nappalling. \"I am ignorant of the real world.\" Yes; but reason,\nreflecting upon the nature and the essential meaning of opinion, of\ntruth, of error, and of ignorance, points out to us this thesis: \"That\nof which I am ignorant is that about which I can err. But error is\nfailure to conform my momentary opinion to the very insight which I\nmean and to which I am all the while appealing. Error is failure to\nconform to the inclusive insight which {116} overarches my errors with\nthe heaven of its rational clearness. Error is failure to grasp the\nvery light which shines in my darkness, even while my darkness\ncomprehends it not. That of which I am ignorant is then essentially\nthe object of a super-human and divine insight.\"\n\n\"I am ignorant of the world. To be ignorant is to fail to grasp the\nobject of the all-inclusive and divine insight.\" That is the\nexpression of our situation. Reason easily makes the fitting synthesis\nwhen it considers the priest and the nobleman. I ask you to make the\nanalogous synthesis regarding the world and the divine insight. This\nsynthesis here takes form in concluding that the world is the object\nof an all-inclusive and divine insight, which is thus the supreme\nreality.\n\nI have but sketched for you the contribution of reason to our quest.\nThis contribution will seem to many of you too abstract and too\ncontemplative to meet vital religious needs. In fact, what I have said\nwill mean little to you unless you come to see how it can be\ntranslated into an adequate expression in our active life. To this\ntask of such a further interpretation of the mission of the reason as\na guide of life my next lecture shall be devoted.\n\n{117}\n\n IV\n\n THE WORLD AND THE WILL\n\n{118}\n\n{119}\n\n IV\n\n THE WORLD AND THE WILL\n\nI could not discuss, in my last lecture, the office of the reason as a\nsource of religious insight without sketching for you what insight I\npersonally regard as the most important result of the right use of\nreason. This sketch was of course, in my own mind, a part of an\nextended body of philosophical doctrine. It does not lie within the\nintent of these lectures to present a system of philosophy. I ought,\nnevertheless, to begin this lecture by saying a few words about the\nrelation of my last discussion to certain religious and philosophical\nopinions of which you have all heard, and by indicating why it has\nseemed to me worth while to call your attention to the mere hint of a\nphilosophy with which the last discussion closed. Having thus\nindicated the setting in which I want you to see the brief exposition\nof a general theory which I find to be indispensable for our main\npurpose, I shall devote the rest of this lecture to the task of\nconnecting the insight which reason gives to us with the main purpose\nof our inquiry, namely, with the undertaking to know the nature and\nthe way of salvation. Reason is of importance in so {120} far as what\nit shows us enables us to direct our will and to come into closer\ntouch with truths which are not only theoretical, but also practical.\n\nWe shall therefore discuss at some length the relation of our rational\nknowledge to our active life, and the relation of our rational will to\nthe world in which we are to work out our salvation if we can.\n\n\n I\n\nThe nature and the teachings of the human reason have interested\nphilosophers from very nearly the beginning of philosophical inquiry.\nWhat I told you about the subject in our former discussion reports a\ndecidedly modern version of a very old opinion--an opinion which has\nbeen repeatedly examined, revised, assailed, and defended. Let me say\na word as to its history.\n\nPlato held that, through our reason, we are able to rise beyond the\nworld of sense and to hold communion with a realm of ideally\nsignificant and eternal being. What Plato really meant by his ideal\nrealm, and in what sense the world of what Plato called the eternal\nrealities, the forms or ideas, could be, as Plato held it to be, a\ndivine world, in its worth and dignity, later philosophy repeatedly\nattempted to grasp.\n\nThe results of such philosophical thinking have deeply affected the\nhistory of religion and still influence the religious interest of all\nof you. One {121} version of that philosophical tradition whose origin\nis in the thought of Plato--a late version, and also one greatly\ntransformed by motives of which Plato had known in his day nothing, is\nthe familiar version to which, in the last lecture, I in passing\nalluded--the prologue to our Fourth Gospel. You will all agree that\nthis prologue attempts to state a religious insight. The relation of\nthis New Testament view of the world of the reason to the doctrine\nwhich still later came to be formulated by the theologians of the\nChristian Church I have here not time to discuss. It is enough now to\nsay that an opinion according to which our articulate reason, as well\nas the more inarticulate intuition of faith, has some sort of access\nto the world of the \"Logos,\" and some sort of participation in a\ngenuine apprehension of the divine life, has come to form part of the\nreligion in which you all have been trained. In so far, then, it is\nsurely right to say that the reason, as the philosophers have defined\nit, has been an actual source of religious opinion and experience.\n\nIn modern times, and especially since Kant, philosophy has been led to\nsee the older doctrines of the human reason, and of its knowledge of\nthe divine, from various decidedly novel points of view. The sketch of\na theory of the reason as a source of insight, which I gave, was\ninfluenced by Kant's famous teaching about the nature and unity of\nhuman experience. Kant stated this theory as the doctrine that all our\nhuman knowledge involves an {122} interpretation of the data of our\nsenses in the light of what he called the \"unity of apperception.\" In\nless technical terms, Kant's meaning is that all facts of which a\nhuman experience can obtain knowledge are known to us as the possible\nobjects of an insight which we conceive to be virtually one, as the\ninsight of our own truly knowing Self, and as the insight without\nreference to which no opinion of ours has any sense whatever. This one\ncognitive Self is, according to Kant, the conceived virtual subject or\npossessor of all that we view as our experience. And this presupposed\nunity is the condition of all our knowledge.\n\nBut Kant's doctrine, as he stated it, is in many ways problematic and\ndissatisfying. The form of philosophical idealism which I myself\ndefend goes in certain respects far beyond Kant's position. The \"one\nexperience,\" in which, according to him, we find a place for any fact\nwhich we conceive as knowable at all, is defined by Kant as a virtual\ninsight, not, so to speak, a live and concrete consciousness. He\nregards it also as purely human, as a knowledge of appearances--not of\nany ultimate realities. The form of philosophical idealism which, at\nthe last time, I outlined depends, however, upon simply\nuniversalising, and rendering live and concrete, Kant's conception of\nthe Self, of the united experience, to which we appeal, and in the\nlight of which our opinions get all their sense--all their character\nand value as true or as false opinions. {123} This one Self, this\nunity of experience, to which we always appeal, cannot consistently be\nviewed by us as merely our own individual or private self, or as\nmerely human; and its insight cannot rationally be interpreted merely\nas an insight into what is apparent, that is into what is not really\nreal. Nor can it be viewed merely as something virtual--a possible\nunity of experience, to which we would appeal if we could. In my\nopinion it must be conceived as more live and real and concrete and\nconscious and genuine than are any of our passing moments of fleeting\nhuman experience. It must be viewed as an actual and inclusive and\ndivinely rational knowledge of all facts in their unity. And the very\nnature of facts, their very being as facts, must be determined by\ntheir presence as objects in the experience of this world-embracing\ninsight. This was the philosophical theory that I sketched in my\nformer lecture. This is my view of what reason teaches.\n\nNow this thesis, this somewhat remote descendant of the Platonic\ndoctrine of the function of reason, this modern version of the concept\nof the \"Logos\" as the light that \"shineth in the darkness\" of our\nordinary human experience, this revision and transformation of the\nKantian theory of knowledge, has, by virtue of the long history of the\ndoctrine in question, and by virtue of the difficult considerations\nupon which, as a philosophical thesis, it rests, a highly technical\ncharacter. This technical aspect of the teaching in question forbids,\nin these lectures. {124} any adequate exposition, or criticism, or\ndefence of its problems and of its merits as a basis for a system of\nphilosophy. And you will surely not find unnatural the fact that a\nstudy of the function of the reason should indeed involve such\ntechnical and complex issues. I mention these issues only to say at\nonce how and how far, in the present lectures, we are concerned with\nthem.\n\nWe are seeking a way of salvation. And in these discussions we are\nmainly concerned with the sources of insight into what that way is. I\nam not attempting to work out, in your presence, a systematic\nphilosophy. Why, then, have I introduced this mere sketch of\nphilosophical idealism into our inevitably crowded programme? I\nanswer: I have done so because I have wanted to illustrate the office\nof reason by telling you in my own way how I view the matter. The\nreason is, in fact, a source of religious insight to many people who\ndo not reflect upon its deliverances as philosophers seek to reflect,\nand who may not agree with me in what little I have time to expound of\nmy own philosophical opinions. My effort has been to tell in\nphilosophical terms what such people really mean.\n\nIn such people reason very often shows itself indirectly and\nconcretely, by its fruits, through their deeds, through their purpose,\nin a word, through their will. We shall ere long see how this can be\nand is the case. Reason is present in such lives and inspires them. A\ngenuine relation to some {125} spirit of all truth, a perfectly\nsincere touch with an articulate and universal insight, a translation\nof the lesson and the meaning of the synthetic reason into a definite\npractical postulate that life shall be and is an essentially\nreasonable and therefore an essentially divine enterprise--such I find\nto be the essence of the religious insight of many serious minds.\nBeside the earnest devotion of such people to the business which life\nassigns to them, the mere theories of a philosopher may seem shadowy\nenough. And if such people comment upon what they hear of my\nphilosophy by saying that they do not understand it, and doubt whether\nthey agree with it, I am not on that account at all disposed to\ncomplain of them, or to assert that reason is to them no source of\nreligious insight. I take pleasure, however, in observing that, in my\nopinion, they agree with my doctrine in the concrete, and express it\nin their religious life far better than I can express it in my\ntechnical terms, however much these people may fail to grasp what my\nterms mean or to accept my formulations. The best expression of your\nreason is your life, if you live as one enlightened from above ought\nto live. You are not obliged to accept a technical formula in order to\nembody the spirit of that formula in your daily work. I know many men\nwho are far more the servants and ministers of the true rational\ninsight than, in my present human life, I shall ever succeed in\nbecoming, and who, nevertheless, either are impatient of every {126}\nphilosophical theory, or, if philosophically trained, are opposed to\nme in my philosophy.\n\nNevertheless, I need to express, in my own way, what is the insight\nthat is really at the heart of the lives of just such people. What I\nam first interested in emphasising is of course this, that, in my\nopinion, my interpretation of the insight of which reason is the\nsource, actually expresses one important aspect of the spirit in which\nthose live whom I regard as the true servants of the divine reason.\nBut my interest in the matter does not cease here. I can, of course,\nexpress my opinions only in the terms that appeal to me. But whatever\nyou think of my formulas, I am very anxious to have you see that, as\nthe life of such people convincingly shows, reason has been, and is, a\nsource of religious insight to them, and that our philosophical\ndifferences relate simply to the way in which we formulate our\ninterpretation of the meaning of this source.\n\nReason has been such a source of insight. That is true as an\nhistorical fact. If you can find anything in the Platonic dialogues\nwhich appeals to you as involving an insight that has religious value,\nyou must recognise this truth. It is a mere matter of history that\nChristian doctrine as it has come down to us is, in one aspect,\nprofoundly affected by Plato's influence. The myth of the men in the\ncave, in the \"Platonic Republic,\" the myth in Plato's \"Phaedrus,\"\nwhich tells about the banishment of the soul from its heavenly life\nand from its intercourse with the {127} ideal world, and which\ninterprets all our loftier human loves as a longing of the soul for\nits divine home land--these myths are allegories which Plato intended\nto illustrate his own view of what reason teaches us. These myths\nexpress in figurative speech a philosophy that actually affects to-day\nyour own religious interests. For instance, this philosophy influences\nyour traditional conception of God, and your ideas about the immortal\nlife of the soul. And if the prologue of the Fourth Gospel seems to\nyou to contain any truth, your religious ideas are again moulded by a\nform of ancient philosophy which dealt with the nature and with the\ninsight of the reason. My own sketch of modern philosophy is but a\nreinterpretation of the very truth which that ancient doctrine\nattempted to portray. Historically, then, some of your religious\nopinions are actually due to the work of the reason. My philosophy\nsimply tries to interpret to you this work.\n\nAnd reason not only has been, but now is, such a source of insight.\nAnd this is the case whenever you try to apply the \"rule of reason\" to\nany problem of your life, and hereby gain a confidence that, by being\nas reasonable and fair as you can, you are learning to conform your\nlife to the view which, as you suppose, an all-wise God takes of its\nmeaning. My philosophy simply tries to tell you why you have a right\nto hold that an all-wise being is real.\n\nI am anxious, I say, to have such facts about the {128} office of\nreason recognised, whatever you may think of my philosophy. And this\nis my purpose when I use my philosophy merely to illustrate the office\nof reason. For indispensable as individual religious experience is, in\nall the capriciousness of its feelings--indispensable also as social\nreligious experience is, with all its insistence upon human love and\nalso upon human religious convention--the synthetic use of the reason,\nthat is, the systematic effort \"to see life steadily and see it\nwhole,\" is also indispensable. The recent efforts to make light of the\nwork of reason--efforts to which, at the last lecture, I directed\nyour attention, would tend, if taken by themselves, to result in\nbasing religion upon an inarticulate occultism, upon a sort of\npsychical research that would regard whatever witch may peep and\nmutter, whatever mystic may be unable to tell what he means, whatever\ndumb cry of the soul may remain stubbornly inarticulate, as a _more_\npromising religious guide than is any form of serious and far-seeing\ndevotion to the wider insight, which ought to survey life and to light\nour path.\n\nLet my own appeal to philosophy, then, even if you do not agree with\nmy formulas, stand as my protest against occultism and against the\nexclusive devotion to the inarticulate sources of religious insight.\nThat I also prize the perfectly indispensable office of the more\nchild-like intuitions, when they occupy their true place, you already\nknow from my first two lectures. We cannot in our present life {129}\ndo without these child-like intuitions. We cannot be just to them\nwithout aiming to live beyond them and to put away childish things.\n\n\n II\n\nIf my interpretation of the reason thus gets its worth from the fact\nthat it attempts by a formula simply to illustrate the view which the\nservants of the divine reason actually and practically translate into\nlife, and express through their spirit and through their deeds, you\nmay hereupon object that my view of the reason as a source of\nreligious insight still seems to you to be one which it is not easy to\ntranslate into life at all. What does it profit a man, you will say,\nto view the whole world as the object present to an all-embracing and\ndivine insight? How does such a view give a man the power to live more\nreasonably than he otherwise would live? Is a world-embracing reason\nthat sees all things in their unity really that master of life whom\nour simpler religious intuitions call upon us to seek as our Deliverer\nfrom our natural chaos of desires? I have just asserted that there are\npeople who devote their lives to the service of such a divine reason.\nBut if the divine reason is eternal and perfect, and if it sees all\nreality as an unity, and if this is its only function, how can any one\nserve it at all? The eternal needs no help, you may insist, and\napparently has no concern for us. We need, for our {130} salvation,\nsomething, or some personal deliverer, that can teach us not merely to\nutter true assertions, but to live worthy lives. How does the insight\nof the reason enlighten us in this respect? What would one do for a\ndivine Logos, for an all-observant and all-comprehending seer? Could\none love such a being, or devoutly commune with his perfect but\nmotionless wisdom? Is it true then, as I have just maintained it to be\ntrue, that the insight of the reason, as I have expounded it in my\nsketch of a philosophy, does really inspire the earnest and devoted\nsouls whose spirit I have attempted to express? Whatever they may\nthink of my philosophy, have I been just to their practical fervour\nand to their energetic devotion? Do they merely say: God is\nomniscient, therefore our life has its purpose defined, and we are\nsaved?\n\nIn brief, the insight of the reason, as I have been stating its dicta,\nmay seem to you, at best, to show us a sort of heaven which, as I\nsaid, overarches our unwisdom with its starry clearness, but which as\nyou may now add we can neither reach, nor use, nor regard as a\nrational inspiration of our active life. If it is real, it can observe\nus, as it observes all reality. But can it save us? It can rise above\nus. But can it enter into our will and give us a plan of life?\nGranting the validity of the argument sketched in our last lecture,\nwhat has the all-wise knower of truth to do with our salvation?\n\nThese are familiar objections to such a view as {131} mine. James\nrepeatedly urged them in his comment upon what he regarded as not\nmerely the fallibility, but the futility, or, as he said, the\n\"thinness\" of the idealistic interpretation of the world of the\nreason. Similar objections have been urged by many of the critics of\nany doctrine similar to mine. Are these objections just?\n\n\n III\n\nI can answer such questions only through a certain gradual approach to\ntheir complications. I want to show you how the insight of the reason\nnot only points out a heaven that overarches us, but also reveals an\ninfluence that can inwardly transform us. To this end I shall next\nillustrate, by instances taken from life, how some people actually\nview their own personal relations to what they take to be the divine\nreason. I shall thus indicate in what way such people connect this\ndivine reason with personal needs of their own which they regard as\nvital. Then I shall show why this not only is so in the lives of some\npeople, but ought to be so for all of us. As a result we shall soon\nfind that, just as our first statement of the insight of reason, if\nindeed it is a true statement, transforms our view of the sense in\nwhich the world is real, so a deeper study of the relations of insight\nto action transforms our first cruder notion of the reason itself, of\nits office in life, and of the truth that it reveals.\n\n{132}\n\nI begin with illustrations taken from life. A former college student\nof mine, some of whose papers upon his own religious experience I was\nnot very long ago privileged to read, undertook, in one of these\npapers, to explain how, at the time, he viewed the place of prayer in\nhis own life. He was a man capable, upon the one hand, of deep emotion\nand of rich inner life, but on the other hand highly self-critical and\ndisposed to doubt. After a somewhat plentiful early interest in\nreligion, the result of home training and of personal experience, he\nhad come, as he studied more, and looked about his world more\ncritically, to part company almost altogether with positive faiths\nabout religious matters. His childhood beliefs had dropped away.\nDoubts and disbeliefs had taken their place. In opinion, when he wrote\nhis papers for me, he was mainly disposed to a pure naturalism. The\ngods of the past had vanished from his life almost altogether.\n\n\"But,\" said he, in his account (I follow not his exact words but their\ngeneral sense), \"one old religious exercise I have never quite given\nup. That was and is prayer. A good while ago I dropped all\nconventional forms of prayer. I did not say my prayers in the old way.\nAnd when I prayed I no longer fancied that the course of nature or of\nmy luck was going to be altered for my sake, or that my prayers would\nhelp me to avoid any consequences of my folly or my ignorance. I did\nnot pray to get anybody to mix in my affairs, so as to get me things\n{133} that I wanted. But this was, and is, my feeling about prayer:\nWhen things are too much for me, and I am down on my luck, and\neverything is dark, I go alone by myself, and I bury my head in my\nhands, and I think hard that God must know it all and will see how\nmatters really are, and understands me, and in just that way alone, by\nunderstanding me, will help me. And so I try to get myself together.\nAnd that, for me, is prayer.\"\n\nI cannot repeat my student's precise form of expression. I think that\nI express to you the spirit of what he wrote. In any case, this form\nof prayer is not peculiar to that man. You see in what way the thought\nof the divine wisdom became a practical thought for him--a thought at\nonce rational and, as far as it went, saving. When life shattered his\nlittle human plans--well, he lifted up his eyes unto the hills. He won\na sort of conscious and reasonable union with the all-seeing life. He\ndid not ask its aid as a giver of good fortunes. He waited patiently\nfor the light. Now I do not think that to be an expression of the\nwhole insight of reason; but, so far as it went, that sort of prayer\nwas an essentially religious act. And for that youth it was also a\nvery practical act.\n\nLet me turn to another case. Many years ago I well knew a man, much\nolder than myself, who has long since died. A highly intelligent man,\nambitious for the things of the spirit, he was also beset with some\ndefects of health and with many worldly {134} cares. His defects of\nhealth made him sensitive to the sort of observation that his physical\nweaknesses often attracted. In addition, he had enemies, and once had\nto endure the long-continued trial of a public attack upon his\nreputation--an attack from which he at length came forth triumphant,\nbut not without long suffering. Once I heard him telling about his own\nreligion, which was the faith of a highly independent mind. \"What I\nmost value about my thought of God,\" he in effect said, \"is that I\nconceive God as the one who knows us through and through, and who\nestimates us not as we seem, but as we are, and who is absolutely fair\nin his judgment of us.\" My friend had no concern for future rewards\nand punishments. The judgment of God to which he appealed, and in\nwhich, without any vanity, he delighted, was simply the fair and true\njudgment, the divine knowing of us all just as we are.\n\nNow do you not know people whose religion is of this sort? And are not\nall such forms of religion, as far as they go, practical? Is the\nrecognition of an all-seeing insight, as something real, not in itself\ncalming, sustaining, rationalising? Does it not at the very least\nawaken in us the ideal which I repeatedly mentioned in our last\nlecture, the ideal of knowing ourselves even as we are known, and of\nguiding our lives in the light of such a view of ourselves? Can such\nan ideal remain wholly a matter of theory? Is it not from its very\nessence an appeal to the will? {135} Was not my elder friend finding a\nguiding principle of action in a world where he was often\nmisunderstood? Could one steadily conceive God in these terms without\nconstantly renewing one's power to face the world with courage?\n\nSurely you all know many people who value the divine as they define\nthe divine, mainly because they conceive God as what they call the\nGreat Companion. And, for many such, it is the intimately perfect\ninsight of this companion that they seem to themselves most to value.\nThe ways of this companion are to them mysterious. But he knows them.\nThey repeat the word: \"He knoweth the way that I take.\" He sees them.\nHe is close to them. He estimates them. So they view the matter. Is\nnot such a conception a vitally important spring of action for those\nwho possess it?\n\nThese illustrations suggest that one ill appreciates the insight of\nreason, even as so imperfectly and one-sidedly sketched by me at the\nlast lecture, who does not see that this insight has an extremely\nclose connection with the will.\n\n\n IV\n\nOur illustrations have now prepared the way for a general review of\nthe relations between our reason and our will. We are ready at length\nto ask whether any insight of reason, whether any general view of the\nnature and of the unity of the world or of life, {136} could possibly\nbe a merely theoretical insight. And if we rightly answer this\nquestion, we shall be prepared to reply to the objection that,\naccording to the doctrine of the last lecture, the divine insight\nwhich overarches our ignorance, and which has all reality for its\nobject, is a lifeless, or an unpractical, or a merely remote type of\npure knowledge.\n\nOur attempt to deal with this new question can best be made by taking\na direct advantage of what some of you may suppose to be the most\nformidable of all objections to the whole argument of the last\nlecture. In my sketch of a philosophy of the reason, I have so far\ndeliberately avoided mentioning what many of you will have had in mind\nas you have listened to me, namely, that doctrine about our knowledge,\nand about truth, and about our mode of access to truth, which to-day\ngoes by the name of Pragmatism. Here we have to do, once more, with\nsome of the favourite theses of James's later years. We have also to\ndo with a view with which my present audience is likely to be\nfamiliar, at least so far as concerns both the name pragmatism and the\nbest-known fundamental theses of the pragmatist. For I speak in the\nimmediate neighbourhood of one of the most famous strongholds of the\nrecent pragmatic movement. I can give but a comparatively small\nportion of our limited time to the task of explaining to you how I\nview those aspects of pragmatism which here concern our enterprise.\nYet this summary discussion will go far, I hope, to show how {137} I\nview the relations between the reason and the will, and in how far our\nwill also seems to me to be a source of religious insight.\n\nThat human knowledge is confined to the range furnished by human\nexperience, and cannot be used to transcend that experience, is an\nopinion widely represented in all modern discussion, and especially in\nthe most recent times. My own account of the insight which I refer to\nthe reason depends not upon simply ignoring this general doctrine\nabout the limitations of our human knowledge, but upon an effort to\nget a rational view of what it is that we mean by human experience. My\nresult, as I have stated it, may have seemed paradoxical; and I am far\nfrom supposing that my brief sketch could remove this paradoxical\nseeming, or could answer all objections. My thesis is essentially\nthis, that you cannot rationally conceive what human experience is,\nand means, except by regarding it as the fragment of an experience\nthat is infinitely richer than ours, and that possesses a\nworld-embracing unity and completeness of constitution. My argument\nfor this thesis has been dependent on an assertion about the sense in\nwhich any opinion whatever can be either true or false, and upon a\ndoctrine regarding that insight to which we appeal whenever we make\nany significant assertion.\n\nNow this argument will seem to some of you to have been wholly set\naside by that account of the nature of judgments, of assertions, and\nof their truth or falsity, which pragmatism has recently {138}\nmaintained. A new definition of truth, you will say--or, an old\ndefinition revived and revised; a new clearness also as to the ancient\nissues of philosophy; an equally novel recent assimilation of\nphilosophical methods to those that have long been prominent in\nnatural science--these things have combined, at the present moment, to\nrender the Platonic tradition in philosophy and the laborious\ndeductions of Kant, as well as the speculations of the post-Kantian\nidealists, no longer interesting. I ought, you may insist, to have\ntaken note of this fact before presenting my now antiquated version of\nthe idealistic doctrine of the reason. I ought to have considered\nfairly the pragmatist's theory of truth. I should then have seen that\nour human experience may safely be left and must rationally be left,\nto fight its own way to salvation without any aid from the idea of an\nuniversal or all-embracing or divine insight.\n\nHow does pragmatism view the very problem about the truth and error of\nour human opinions which has led me to such far-reaching consequences?\nFor the first, it is the boast of pragmatists that they deal, by\npreference, with what they call \"concrete situations,\" and our\n\"concrete situation\" as human beings dealing with reality is, as they\nmaintain, something much more readily comprehensible than is the\nidealistic theory of a divine insight. Truth and error are characters\nthat belong to our assertions for reasons which need no overarching\nheavenly insight to make them clear. In brief, as the {139}\npragmatists tell us, the story of the nature of truth and of error is\nthis:\n\nAn assertion, a judgment, is always an active attitude of a man,\nwhereby, at the moment when he makes this assertion he directs the\ncourse of his further activities. To say \"My best way out of the woods\nlies in that direction\" is, for a wanderer lost in the forest, simply\nto point out a rule or plan of action and to expect certain results\nfrom following out that plan. This illustration of the man in the\nwoods is due to James. An analogous principle, according to\npragmatism, holds for any assertion. To judge is to expect some\nconcrete consequence to follow from some form of activity. An\nassertion has meaning only in so far as it refers to some object that\ncan be defined in empirical terms and that can be subjected to further\ndirect or indirect tests, whereby its relations to our own activities\ncan become determinate. Thus, then, a judgment, an opinion, if it\nmeans anything concrete, is always an appeal to more or less\naccessible human experience--and is not, as I have been asserting, an\nappeal to an overarching higher insight. When you make any significant\nassertion, you appeal to whatever concrete human observations,\nexperiments, or other findings of data, actual or possible, can\nfurnish the test that the opinion calls for. If I assert: \"It will\nrain to-morrow,\" the assertion is to be verified or refuted by the\nexperience of men just as they live, from moment to moment.\n\n{140}\n\nIt remains to define, a little more precisely, wherein consists this\nempirical verification or refutation for which a human opinion calls.\nAn opinion is a definite one, as has just been said, because it guides\nthe will of the person who holds the opinion to some definite course\nof action. An opinion then, if sincere and significant, has\n_consequences,_ leads to deeds, modifies conduct, and is thus the\nsource of the experiences which one gets as a result of holding that\nopinion and of acting upon it. In brief, an opinion has what the\npragmatists love to call its _\"workings.\"_ Now when the workings of a\ngiven opinion, the empirical results to which, through our actions, it\nleads, agree with the expectations of the one who holds the opinion,\nthe opinion is to be called true. Or, in the now well-known phrase,\n\"An idea (or opinion) is true if it works.\" To use the repeated\nexample of Professor Moore, an opinion that a certain toothache is due\nto a condition present in a given tooth is true, when an operation\nperformed upon that tooth, and performed as a consequence of that\nopinion, and with the expectation of curing the toothache works as\nexpected. For the operation is itself one of the workings of the\nopinion in question.\n\nTo assert an opinion, then, is not to appeal to an essentially\nsuperior insight, but is to appeal to the workings that follow from\nthis opinion when you act upon it in concrete life. No other sort of\ntruth is knowable.\n\n{141}\n\nA consequence of these views, often insisted upon by pragmatists, is\nthat truth is relative to the various \"concrete situations\" which\narise; so that absolute or final truth is indefinable by us mortals.\nHence an opinion may be true for a given purpose, or in one situation\n(because in that situation its workings prove to be as expected),\nalthough it is relatively false when applied to some other situation,\nor to some wider range of experience. Absolute truth is as\nunobservable by us in our experience as is absolute position or\nabsolute motion in the physical world. Every truth is definable with\nreference to somebody's intentions, actions, and successes or\nfailures. These things change from person to person, from time to\ntime, from plan to plan. What is true from the point of view of my\nplans need not be so from your point of view. The workings of an\nopinion vary in their significance with the expectations of those\nconcerned. Truth absolute is at best a mere ideal, which for us throws\nno light upon the nature of the real world.\n\nThus, at a stroke, pragmatism, as understood by its chief\nrepresentatives at the present time, is supposed to make naught of the\nsubtle, and, as the pragmatists say, airy and fantastic considerations\nupon which my sketch of a philosophical idealism at the last lecture\ndepended. Truth, they insist, is a perfectly human and for us mortals\nnot in the least a supernatural affair. We test it as we can, by\nfollowing the experienced workings to which our {142} ideas lead. If\nthese workings are what we meant them to be, our opinions are just in\nso far proven true. If no human and empirical tests of the workings of\nan opinion are accessible to us, the opinion remains in so far\nmeaningless. If concrete tests lead to workings that disappoint our\nhuman expectations, our opinions are in so far false. Moreover (and\nupon this all the pragmatists lay great stress), truth is for us a\ntemporal affair. It changes, it flows, it grows, it decays. It can be\nmade eternal only by tying ourselves, for a given purpose, to abstract\nideas which we arbitrarily require to remain, like mathematical\ndefinitions, unchanged. Even such ideas have no sense apart from the\nuses to which they can be put. Concrete truth grows or diminishes as\nour successes in controlling our experience, through acting upon our\nbeliefs, wax or wane. Truth is subject to all the processes of the\nevolution of our concrete lives. The eternal is nothing that can be\nfor us a live presence. What we deal with is, like ourselves, fluent,\nsubject to growth and decay, dynamic, and never static. The pragmatist\nrecoils with a certain mixture of horror and amusement from the\nconception of an all-inclusive divine insight. That, he says, would be\nsomething static. Its world of absolute reality would be a \"block\nuniverse\" and itself merely an aspect of a part, or perhaps the whole,\nof just this block. Its supposed truth would be static like itself,\nand therefore dead.\n\n{143}\n\nBut does pragmatism forbid us to have religious insight? No; James, in\nways which you have repeatedly heard me mention, insists that\npragmatism leaves open ample room for what he thinks to be the best\nsort of religion, namely, for a religion suited to what he calls the\n\"dramatic temper\" of mind. Truth, so far as we men can attain to it,\nhas indeed to be human enough. But nothing forbids us to entertain the\nbelief that there are superhuman and supernatural realities, forms of\nbeing, living and spiritual personalities, or superpersonalities, as\nvarious and lofty as you please, provided only that they be such as to\nmake whatever evidence of their being is accessible to us capable of\ndefinition in a human and empirical way. The truth, namely, of our\nbelief about such beings, has to be tested by us in terms of our own\nconcrete religious experience. Such beliefs, like others, must \"work\"\nin order to be true. That is, these beliefs, however they arise, must\nlead to conduct; and the results of this conduct must tend to our\nreligious comfort, to our unity of feeling, to our peace, or power, or\nsaintliness, or other form of spiritual perfection. The fruits of the\nspirit are the empirical tests of a religious doctrine; and, apart\nfrom those uprushes of faith from the subconscious whereof we have\nspoken in previous lectures, there are for James no other tests of the\ntruth of religious convictions than these. The truth of religion\nconsists in its successful \"workings.\"\n\nHence, however, religion depends upon an {144} ever-renewed testing of\nits opinions through a carrying of them out in life. Insight would be\nbarren were it not quickened and applied through our will. To James,\nas we already know, reason, as such, seems to be of little use in\nreligion. But action, resolute living, testing of your faith through\nyour works and through its own workings, this is religion--an\nendlessly restless and dramatic process, never an union with any\nabsolute attainment of the goal.\n\n\n V\n\nNow in what way can I hope, you may ask, to answer these impressive\nand to many recent writers decisive considerations of the pragmatists?\nMy answer, like my foregoing statement of my own form of idealism,\ndepends upon extremely simple considerations. Their interest for our\ndiscussion lies in the fact that they have to do with the relation\nbetween reason and action, and between the real world and the human\nwill. As a fact, the will as well as the reason is a source of\nreligious insight. No truth is a saving truth--yes, no truth is a\ntruth at all unless it guides and directs life. Therein I heartily\nagree with current pragmatism and with James himself. On the other\nhand, the will is a collection of restless caprices unless it is\nunified by a rational ideal. And no truth can have any workings at\nall, without even thereby showing itself to be, just in so far as it\nactually works, an eternal {145} truth. And, furthermore, what I have\nasserted about the insight which the reason gives us is so far from\nbeing opposed to the pragmatist's facts, that every rational\nconsideration of the type of truth which they define leads us back to\nthe consideration of absolute truth and to the assertion of an\nall-inclusive insight. Only, when we view this all-inclusive insight\nfrom the point of view which the pragmatists now emphasise (and which\nI myself have emphasised from a period long antedating the recent\npragmatist movement), such a fair estimate of the insight of reason\ntransforms our first and superficial opinion of its nature and of its\nmeaning. It becomes the insight of a rational will, whose expression\nis the world, and whose life is that in which we too live and move and\nhave our being.\n\nLet me briefly dwell on each of the considerations which I here have\nin mind. To me, as a philosophical student, they are not new; for, as\nI repeat, I insisted upon them years ago, before the modern\npragmatistic controversy began.\n\nFirst, then, there are certain respects in which I fully agree with\nrecent pragmatism. I agree that every opinion expresses an attitude of\nthe will, a preparedness for action, a determination to guide a plan\nof action in accordance with an idea. Whoever asserts anything about\nthe way out of the woods, or about the cause and possible cure of a\ntoothache, defines a course of action in accordance with some purpose,\nand amongst other things predicts the {146} possible outcome of that\ncourse of action. The outcome that he predicts is defined in terms of\nexperience, and, so far as that is possible, in terms of human\nexperience. And now this is true, not only of assertions or opinions\nabout toothaches. It is true also of assertions about all objects in\nheaven or earth. There is no such thing as a purely intellectual form\nof assertion which has no element of action about it. An opinion is a\ndeed. It is a deed intended to guide other deeds. It proposes to have\nwhat the pragmatists call \"workings.\" That is, it undertakes to guide\nthe life of the one who asserts the opinion. In that sense, all truth\nis practical. If you assert a proposition in mathematics, you propose\nto guide the computations, or other synthetic processes, of whoever is\ninterested in certain mathematical objects. If you say \"There is a\nGod,\" and know what you mean by the term \"God,\" you lay down some sort\nof rule for such forms of action as involve a fitting acknowledgment\nof God's being and significance. So far, then, I wholly side with the\npragmatists. There is no pure intellect. There is no genuine insight\nwhich does not also exist as a guide to some sort of action.\n\nFurthermore, the proper \"workings\" of an assertion, the rational\nresults of the application of this opinion to life, must, if the\nassertion is true, agree with the expectations of the one who defines\nthe assertion. And these \"workings\" belong, indeed, to the realm of\nactual and concrete experience, be this {147} experience wholly human,\nor be it, in some respect, an experience which is higher and richer\nthan any merely human experience. Opinions are active appeals to real\nlife--a life to which we are always seeking to adjust ourselves, and\nin which we are always looking to find our place. The quest for\nsalvation itself is such an effort to adjust our own life to the\nworld's life. And if the world's life finds our efforts to define our\nrelation to the world's actual and perfectly concrete experience\ninadequate, then our assertions are in just so far false; they lead in\nthat case to blundering actions. We fail. And in such cases our\nopinions, indeed, \"do not work.\"\n\nAll this I myself insist upon. But next I ask you to note that the\nvery significance of our human life depends upon the fact that we are\nalways undertaking to adjust ourselves to a life, and to a type of\nexperience, which, concrete and real though it is, is never reducible\nto the terms of any purely human experience. Were this not the case;\nwere not every significant assertion concerned with a type and form of\nlife and of experience which no man ever gets; were not all our\nactions guided by ideas and ideals that can never be adequately\nexpressed in simply human terms; were all this, I say, not the case,\nthen--neither science nor religion, neither worldly prudence nor\nideal morality, neither natural common-sense nor the loftiest forms of\nspirituality would be possible. Here I can only repeat, but now with\nexplicit reference to the active aspect of our opinions {148} and of\nour experience, the comments that I made in my former lecture. Man as\nhe is experiences from moment to moment. What is here and now, not\nfuture \"workings,\" not past expectations, but the present--this is\nwhat he more immediately gets and verifies. These momentary\nexperiences of his, these pains and these data of perception, are what\nhe can personally verify for himself. And to this life in each instant\nhe is confined, so far as his own personal and individual experience\nis concerned. But man _means_, he _intends_, he _estimates_, he\n_judges_ life, not as it appears to him at any one instant, but as \"in\nthe long run,\" or \"for the common-sense of mankind,\" or as \"from a\nrational point of view\" he holds that it ought to be judged. Now I\nagain insist--there is not one of us who ever directly observes in his\nown person what it is which even the so-called common-sense of mankind\nis said to verify and find to be true. The experience which \"mankind\"\nis said to possess is not merely the mere collection of your momentary\nfeelings or perceptions, or mine. It is a conceived integral\nexperience which no individual man ever gets before him. When we\nconceive it, we first treat it as something impersonal. If it is\npersonal, the person who gets it before him is greater than any man.\nYet unless some such integral experience is as concrete and genuine a\nfact, as real a life, as any life that you and I from moment to moment\nlead, then all so-called \"common-sense\" is meaningless. But if such an\nintegral experience {149} is real, then that by which the pragmatic\n\"workings\" of our private and personal opinions are to be tested and\nare tested is a certain integral whole of life in which we all live\nand move and have our being, but which is no more the mere heap and\ncollection of our moments of fragmentary experience, and of our\nvicissitudes of shifting moods, than a symphony is a mere collection\nof notes on paper, or of scraped strings and quivering tubes, or of\nair waves, or even of the deeds of separate musicians.\n\nThe life, then, the experience, the concrete whole, wherein our\nassertions have their workings, with which our active ideas are\nlabouring to agree, to which our will endlessly strives to adjust\nitself, in which we are saved or lost, is a life whose touch with our\nefforts is as close as its superiority to our merely human narrowness\nis concretely and actively triumphant whenever our pettiness gets\nmoulded to a higher reasonableness. And unless such a life above our\nindividual level is real, our human efforts have no sense whatever,\nand chaos drowns out the meaning of the pragmatists and of the\nidealists alike. _If one asks, however, by what workings our\nsignificant assertions propose to be judged, I answer, by their\nworkings as experienced and estimated from the point of view of such a\nlarger life, as conforming to its will, or falling short thereof, as\nleading toward or away from our salvation._ For it is just such a\nlarger life by which we all propose and intend to be judged, whenever\nwe make our active appeal to life take the {150} form of any serious\nassertion whatever. If a man proposes to let his ideas be tested not\nby his momentary caprice, and not by any momentary datum of\nexperience, but by \"what proves to be their workings in the long run,\"\nthen already he is appealing to an essentially superhuman type of\nempirical test and estimate. For no man taken as this individual ever\npersonally experiences \"the long run,\" that is, the integral course\nand meaning, the right estimate and working of a long series of\nexperiences and deeds. For a man individually observes now this moment\nand now that--never their presupposed integration, never their union\nin a single whole of significant life.\n\nIf a man says that the workings of his ideas are to be tested by\n\"scientific experience,\" then again he appeals not to the verdict of\nany human observer, but to the integrated and universalised and\nrelatively impersonal and superpersonal synthesis of the results of\ncountless observers.\n\nAnd so, whatever you regard as a genuine test of the workings of your\nideas is some living whole of experience above the level of any one of\nour individual human lives. To this whole you indeed actively appeal.\nThe appeal is an act of will. And in turn you regard that to which you\nappeal as an experience which is just as live and concrete as your\nown, and which carries out its own will in that it snubs or welcomes\nyour efforts with a will as hearty as is your own. For what estimates\nyour deeds, {151} and gives them their meaning, is a life as genuine\nas yours and an activity as real as yours. Pragmatism is perfectly\njustified in regarding the whole process as no mere contemplation, no\nmerely restful or static conformity of passive idea to motionless\ninsight, but, on the contrary, as a significant interaction of life\nwith life and of will with will. But the more vital the process, the\nmore pragmatic the test of our active opinions through the conformity\nor non-conformity of their purposes to the life wherein we dwell and\nhave our being, the more vital becomes the fact that, whether we are\nsaved or lost, we belong to the world's life, and are part thereof,\nwhile, unless this life is more than merely human in its rational\nwealth of concrete meaning, we mortals have no meaning whatever, and\nthe assertions of common-sense as well as of religion lapse into\nabsurdity.\n\n\n VI\n\nIn order fairly to estimate aright our relation to this larger life,\nwe must briefly review the further thesis upon which recent pragmatism\nlays so much stress--the thesis that, since the truth of an opinion\nconsists in the agreement or disagreement of its empirical workings\nwith their anticipated consequences, all truth is both temporal and\nrelative and cannot be either eternal or absolute. Let me then say a\nword as to the absoluteness of truth.\n\nThe thesis of pragmatism as to the active nature {152} and the\npractical meaning of all opinions may be illustrated by a simile that,\nas I think, well brings out the sense in which, as I hold, pragmatism\nitself is a true doctrine. Any sincere opinion announces a plan of\naction whereby we are, in some way, to adjust ourselves for some\npurpose to a real object. That is, an opinion lays down, in some form,\na rule for some sort of conduct. This rule is of course valid only for\none who has some specific interest in the object in question. For you\ncan guide action only by appealing to the will of the one whom you\nguide. This is the pragmatist's view of the nature of all assertions\nand opinions. And so far, as you already know, I agree with the\npragmatist. This account is correct.\n\nThis being so, we can, for the sake of a simile, compare any definite\nopinion to the counsel that a coach may give to a player whom he is\ndirecting. The player wants to \"play the game.\" He therefore accepts\nits rules, and has his interests in what the pragmatists call \"the\nconcrete situation.\" The player, at any point in his training or in\nhis activities as a player, may also accept the coach's guidance, and\nput himself under the coach's directions. If, hereupon, the player\nacts in accordance with what the coach ordains, the coach's directions\nhave \"workings.\" Their \"workings\" are in so far the deeds of the\nplayer. These deeds, if the issues of the game are sharply defined,\nare what we may call hits or misses. That is, each one of them either\nis {153} what, for the purposes of the game and the player, it ought\nto be, or else it is not what it ought to be. And each act of the\nplayer is a hit or a miss in a perfectly objective sense, as a real\ndeed belonging to a world whose relations are determined by the rules\nand events of the game and by the purposes of the whole body of\nplayers.\n\nApplying the simile to the case of assertions, we may say: An\nassertion is an act whereby our deeds are provided with a sort of\ncoaching. Life itself is our game. Opinions coach the active will as\nto how to do its deed. If the opinion is definite enough, and if the\nactive will obeys the coach, the opinion has \"workings.\" These\nworkings are our intelligent deeds, which translate our opinions into\nnew life. If our purposes are definite enough, and if the issues of\nlife are for us sharply defined, these deeds are, with reference to\nour purposes, either hits or misses, either successful or unsuccessful\nacts, either steps toward winning or steps toward failure. All this is\nsurely concrete enough. And, in real life, this account applies\nequally to the practical situations of the workshop or of the\nmarket-place, and to the ideas and deeds of a religious man seeking\nsalvation.\n\nBut now one of the central facts about life is that every deed once\ndone is _ipso facto_ irrevocable. That is, at any moment you perform a\ngiven deed or you do not. If you perform it, it is done and cannot be\nundone. This difference between what {154} is done and what is left\nundone is, in the real and empirical world, a _perfectly absolute\ndifference._ The opportunity for a given individual deed returns not;\nfor the moment when that individual deed can be done never recurs.\nHere is a case where the rational constitution of the whole universe\ngets into definite relation to our momentary experience. _And if any\none wants to be in touch with the \"Absolute\"--with that reality which\nthe pragmatists fancy to be peculiarly remote and abstract--let him\nsimply do any individual deed whatever and then try to undo that deed.\nLet the experiment teach him what one means by calling reality\nabsolute. Let the truths which that experience teaches any rational\nbeing show him also what is meant by absolute truth._\n\nFor this irrevocable and absolute character of the deed, when once\ndone, rationally determines an equally irrevocable character about the\ntruth or falsity of any act of judgment, of any assertion or opinion,\nwhich has actually called in a concrete situation for a given deed,\nand which therefore has had this individual deed for any part of its\nintended \"workings.\" Let us return to the simile of the game. Suppose\nthe coach to counsel a given deed of the player. Suppose the player,\nacting on the coach's advice, to perform that deed, to make that play.\nSuppose the play to be a misplay. The play, once made, cannot be\nrecalled. It stands, if the rules of the game require it so to stand,\non the score. If it stands there, then just _that_ item of the score\n{155} can never be changed under the rules of the game. The score is,\nfor the game, absolute and irrevocable. If the coach counselled that\nmisplay, his counsel was an error. And just as the player's score\ncannot be changed without simply abandoning the rules of the game, so\ntoo the coach's record as a blunderer is, in respect of this one bit\nof counsel, unalterable. Analogous results hold for the player's\nsuccessful hits and for the coaching that required them. All this is\nno result of abstractions or of bare theory. It is the result of\nhaving the will to play the game. It is the absolute truth that\nresults from joining definite practical issues.\n\nReturning to life, we must say: If our assertions have a determinate\nmeaning, they get their concrete workings through counselling\ndeterminate individual deeds. Each deed, as an individual act, is\nirrevocable and is absolutely what it is. Our deeds, judged in the\nlight of a reasonable survey of life--a survey of life such as that to\nwhich, when we form our opinions, and when we act on our opinions, we\nintend to appeal--are, for a determinate purpose, either hits or\nmisses. If the issues of life in question when we act are definite\nenough, our deeds, under the rules of the game of life, cannot avoid\nthis character of being the right deeds or the wrong deeds for the\npurpose in question and in view of their actual place in real life.\nWhoever so acts that his deeds are done, as a cant phrase has it,\n\"with a string attached to them\"--that is, whoever regards {156} his\ndeeds as having only relative reality, as capable of being recalled if\nhe chooses, is not acting seriously. He is not, as they say, really\n\"playing the game.\" And, as a fact, he is trifling with absolute\nreality. He is not only not serious; he views real life as it\nabsolutely is not. For whatever individual deed he actually does is\nabsolutely irrevocable, whether he wants to recall it or not. Once\ndone, it stands eternally on the world's score.\n\nNow I insist, whatever assertion, or opinion, regarded as itself an\nexpression of one's will, has for its intended working one of these\nirrevocable deeds, is in so far forth true, as the individual deed\nwhich it counsels is for the required purpose quite irrevocably a\nright deed when estimated with reference to this purpose and to the\nlife into whose score it enters. That is, the opinion is true in so\nfar as the working which it counsels is a deed that is in fact a hit\nin the chosen game of life under the rules of that game. And whatever\nopinion counsels a deed that, as the working of this opinion, is a\nmiss in the game of life, is a false opinion. And, so I insist, _this\ndistinction between the truth and falsity of an opinion that counsels\nan individual deed is as absolute and irrevocable as is the place of\nthe deed when once done on the score of the game of life._\n\nWhoever denies this position simply trifles with the very nature of\nall individual facts of experience; trifles also with life and with\nhis own decisive will. Every serious man does his daily business with\nan {157} assurance that, since his deeds are irrevocable, his guiding\nopinions, that counsel his individual deeds give, in an equally\nirrevocable way, right or wrong guidance, precisely in so far as they\nget their workings concretely presented in his deeds. And this view\nabout life is no philosopher's abstraction. It is the only genuinely\nconcrete view. Its contradiction is not merely illogical, but\npractically inane. I cannot do a deed and then undo it. Therefore I\ncannot declare it to be for a determinate purpose the right individual\ndeed at this point in life, and then say that I did not really mean\nthat counsel to be taken as simply and therefore absolutely true.\nAbsolute reality (namely, the sort of reality that belongs to\nirrevocable deeds), absolute truth (namely, the sort of truth that\nbelongs to those opinions which, for a given purpose, counsel\nindividual deeds, when the deeds in fact meet the purpose for which\nthey were intended)--these two are not remote affairs invented by\nphilosophers for the sake of \"barren intellectualism.\" _Such absolute\nreality and absolute truth are the most concrete and practical and\nfamiliar of matters._ The pragmatist who denies that there is any\nabsolute truth accessible has never rightly considered the very most\ncharacteristic feature of the reasonable will, namely, that it is\nalways counselling irrevocable deeds, and therefore is always giving\ncounsel that is for its own determinate purpose irrevocably right or\nwrong precisely in so far as it is definite counsel.\n\n{158}\n\nOne of the least encouraging features of recent discussion is the\nprominence and popularity of those philosophical opinions which are\nalways proclaiming their \"concrete\" and \"practical\" character, while\nignoring the most vital and concrete feature of all voluntary life.\nFor the very essence of the will is that, at every moment of action,\nit decides absolute issues, because it does irrevocable deeds, and\ntherefore, if intelligent at all, is guided by opinions that are as\nabsolutely true or false as their intended workings are irrevocable. I\nrepeat: If you want to know what an absolute truth is, and what an\nabsolute falsity, do anything whatever, and then try to undo your\ndeed. You will find that the opinion which should counsel you to\nregard it as capable of being undone gives you simply and absolutely\nfalse coaching as to any game of life whatever. Every effort to undo\nyour deed is a blunder. Every opinion that you can undo is a trivial\nand absolutely false absurdity. Just such triviality and absurdity\nbelong to the thesis that absolute truth is an unpractical and\ninaccessible abstraction.\n\n\n VII\n\nIf, with such a view of the nature of absolute truth, we turn back to\nestimate the sense in which our opinions about the world as a whole\ncan be true or false, we now see that our account both of the insight\nof the reason, and of the nature of the world, {159} has become\nenriched by this whole analysis of the nature of opinion. _Opinions\nabout the universe are counsels as to how to adjust your deeds to the\npurposes and requirements which a survey of the whole of the life\nwhereto your life belongs shows to be the genuinely rational purposes\nand requirements._ Every such opinion then, whether true or false, is\nan effort to adjust your will and your conduct to the intents of a\nsupreme will which decides values, establishes the rule of life,\nestimates purposes in the light of complete insight. That is, the\ninsight to which your opinions appeal is indeed the insight of a real\nbeing who values, estimates, establishes, decides, as concretely as\nyou do, and who is therefore not only all-wise, but possessed of a\nwill. Your search for salvation is a seeking to adjust yourself to\nthis supreme will. That such a will is real is as true as it is true\nthat any opinion whatever which you can form with regard to the real\nworld is either true or false. However ignorant you are, you are,\nthen, in constant touch with the master of life; for you are\nconstantly doing irrevocable deeds whose final value, whose actual and\ntotal success or failure, can only be real, or be known, from the\npoint of view of the insight that faces the whole of real life, and\nwith reference to the purposes of the will whose expression is the\nentire universe.\n\nIf, however, you say, with the pragmatists: \"There is no whole world,\nthere is no complete view, there is no will that wills the world; for\nall {160} is temporal, and time flows, and novelties constantly\nappear, and the world is just now incomplete, and therefore there is\nnothing eternal,\" then my answer is perfectly definite. Of course\nthere is, _just at this point of time,_ no complete world. Of course,\nevery new deed introduces novelties into the temporal world. But, on\nthe other hand, even to assert this is to assert _that the future, and\nin fact all the future, in all its individual detail, belongs to\nreality, and forms part of its wholeness._ To admit this is to admit\nthat the true insight, and the divine will, require, and get, _the\nendless whole of future time, as well as of past time, before them in\none, not timeless, but time-inclusive survey, which embraces the whole\nof real life._ And just such a survey, and just such a life, not\ntimeless, but time-inclusive, constitute the eternal, which is real,\nnot apart from time, and from our lives, but in, and through and above\nall our individual lives. The divine will wills in us and in all this\nworld, with its endless past and its endless future, at once. The\ndivine insight is not lifeless. It includes and surveys all life. All\nis temporal in its ceaseless flow and in its sequence of individual\ndeeds. All is eternal in the unity of its meaning.\n\nTo assert this, I insist, is not to deny our freedom and our\ninitiative. The divine will wills me, precisely in so far as it wills\nthat, in each of my individual deeds, I should then and there express\nmy own unique, and in so far free, choice. And to assert, as I do,\nthat the divine will wills all \"at once\" {161} is not to assert that\nit wills all _at any one moment of time,_ but only that the divine\nwill is expressed in the totality of its deeds that are done in all\nmoments of time.\n\nBut this, you will say, is still philosophy, not what the plain man\nneeds for his religion. The question remains: Through what source of\ninsight are we able to adjust our daily lives to this divine wisdom\nand to this divine will? I answer: Through a source of insight which\nis accessible to the plainest and simplest reasonable and sincere\nhuman being. Yet this source of insight, not yet expressly named in\nour study, includes in a beautiful and spiritual unity the true sense\nof our individual experience, of our social experience, of our reason,\nand of our will, and gives us at length a genuine religion. This new\nsource we are to study in our next lecture.\n\n{162}\n\n{163}\n\n V\n\n THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY\n\n{164}\n\n{165}\n V\n\n THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY\n\nOur first two lectures dealt with sources of religious insight well\nknown to all of you, however unsatisfactory you may have found them.\nOur third and fourth lectures have led us into philosophical\ndiscussions which many of you will have found neither satisfactory nor\nfamiliar. And so, in imagination, I can hear you declaring that, if\nthe foregoing sources of insight are indeed all that we have,\nreligious truth seems still very far away. \"The saints,\" I hear you\nsaying, \"may comfort us when they tell us of their personal and\nprivate intuitions; but they perplex us with the conflicting variety\nof their experiences. The social enthusiasts undertake to show us the\nway to salvation through love; but the world of men in which they bid\nus seek the divine is a world that is by nature as much in need of\nsalvation as we ourselves are. The sages point to the starry heaven of\nreason which, as they insist, overarches us; but this heaven seems\ncold; and its stars appear far away from our needy life. And if,\nreplying to this very objection, and, incidentally, replying also to\nthe doctrine of the pragmatists, {166} somebody insists that this\nheavenly world of the reason is also an expression of the living\ndivine will, we still remember that our deepest need is to see how the\ndivine will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. And this is what\nwe have not yet learned to see. The foregoing sources then appear to\nleave us, after all, with no vital and positive religion.\"\n\n\n I\n\nThus some of you may at this point express your discontent. If you do,\nI find this discontent justified. If the foregoing lectures had indeed\nexhausted the account of the accessible sources of religious insight,\nwe should be hopeless of finding any religion that could satisfy at\nonce the individual need for salvation, the social requirement that we\nshould seek for salvation through union with our brethren, the\nrational demand for a coherent view of truth, and the aim of the will\nto conform itself to the laws of the master of life with whom we need\nto be united. In other words, all of the foregoing sources of insight,\nconsidered as separate sources, present to us problems which they do\nnot solve, and leave the real nature of the saving process clouded by\nmists of ignorance. What we most need at this point is some source of\ninsight which shall show how to unite the lessons that the preceding\nsources have furnished. The present lecture must be devoted to an\naccount of such a source. I should be quite {167} helpless to engage\nin this new undertaking were it not for the fact that the spiritual\nlife of humanity's best servants and friends has long since shown us\nhow to overcome the difficulties by which our present inquiry is, at\nthis point, beset. These friends and servants of mankind have used, in\nfact, that source of insight which I mentioned in the closing words of\nthe last lecture, a source by means of which the results and the\nmoving principles of individual experience, of social experience, of\nreason, and of will are brought into a certain creative unity to which\nthe noblest spiritual attainments of our world are due. We shall\nreturn, therefore, in this lecture, from speculation to life; and our\nguides will be, not the philosophers, nor yet the geniuses of the\ninarticulate religious intuitions, but those who, while they indeed\npossess intuitions and thoughts, also actually live in the spirit.\n\nNevertheless, for our purpose, the foregoing method of approaching our\ntopic has been, I hope, justified. We wish to know the sources and to\nsee what each is worth. We must therefore consider each source in its\ndistinction from the others. Then only can we see what brings them\ntogether in the higher religious life. We must reflect where religion\nitself wins its way without reflection. Had we begun our study where\nthis lecture begins, with the effort to understand at once this new\nsource of insight, we should have been less able than we now are to\ndiscern the motives that enter into its {168} constitution and to\nappreciate its accomplishments. We have had to emphasise difficulties\nin order to prepare the way for our study of that source of insight\nwhich, in the history of humanity's struggles toward the light, has\nbest enabled men to triumph over these difficulties.\n\nThis new source has come into the lives of men in intimate connection\nwith their efforts to solve the problem not merely of religion, in our\npresent sense of the word, but also of duty. I shall therefore first\nhave to tell you how the problem of duty is distinguished from the\nproblem of religion. Then I shall show you how the effort to solve\neach of these problems has thrown light upon the other.\n\nDuty and religion have, in the minds of all of you, close relations.\nBoth have to do with our ideals, with our needs, with the conforming\nof our lives to our ideals, and with the attainment of some sort of\ngood. Yet you also well know that these relations of duty and of\nmorality on the one hand, of religion and of salvation on the other,\nare not relations easy to define with entire clearness. Some men in\nour age, as you know, tell you that they are unable, in their present\nstate of mind, to get much help from religion. And some men who insist\nthat the religious problems have for them no solution whatever, are\nardently and sincerely dutiful in spirit. On the other hand, there are\nthose who, in their own minds, are so sure of salvation that they\nactually make light of the call of duty, or at least {169} see little\nthat is saving in the thought of duty. In the opinion of very many, no\neffort to lead a dutiful life can lead to salvation unless some sort\nof divine grace, which is a free gift from above, intervenes to\naccomplish the saving process. Meanwhile, there are those who declare\nnot only that the dutiful life tends of itself to lead to salvation,\nbut that the persistent doing of our duty is precisely the whole of\nwhat constitutes salvation.\n\nYou will readily see that the plan of these lectures forbids any\ndirect study of the Pauline doctrine regarding the relation of faith\nto works, of divine grace to human dutifulness. The mere mention of\nSt. Paul, however, side by side with the reminder that, at many times\nin history, and especially to-day, there are those for whom, despite\nPaul's teaching as to the vanity of mere works, there is no religion\nbut the religion of duty, will serve to show that serious questions\nare here involved, and that the true relations between religion and\nmorality are by no means self-evident.\n\nLet me briefly distinguish between the religious interest and the\nmoral interest. Then we may be able to recognise how closely they are\nrelated, and yet how far, under certain conditions, they may drift\napart, and how sharply they may sometimes come to be opposed.\n\n{170}\n\n II\n\nThere is an obvious contrast between the points of view from which\nmorality and religion consider the problem of life. Whatever may be\nyour views as to what your duty is, it is plain that the moral\ninterest centres about this idea of duty. That is, the moral interest\nseeks to define right deeds and to insist that they shall be done. It\nestimates the rightness of deeds with reference to some ideal of life.\nBut however it conceives this ideal, it makes its main appeal to the\nactive individual. It says: \"Do this.\" The religious interest, on the\nother hand, centres about the sense of need, or, if it is successful\nin finding this need satisfied, it centres about the knowledge of that\nwhich has delivered the needy from their danger. It appeals for help,\nor waits patiently for the Lord, or rejoices in the presence of\nsalvation. It therefore may assume any one of many different attitudes\ntoward the problem of duty. It may seek salvation through deeds, or\nagain it may not, in the minds of some men, appeal to the active\nnature in any vigorous way whatever. Some religious moods are passive,\ncontemplative, receptive, adoring rather than strenuous. It is\ntherefore quite consistent with the existence of a religious interest\nto feel suspicious of the dutiful restlessness of many ardent souls.\n\n \"They also serve who only stand and wait.\"\n\n{171}\nSuch is sometimes the comforting, sometimes the warning word that\nseems to many to express the religious interest.\n\nThis general contrast between the two interests assumes many special\nforms when we consider how moralists--that is, teachers who especially\nemphasise the call of duty--may stand related to the two postulates\nupon which, as we have seen, the higher religions base their appeal.\nReligion, in our sense of the word, depends upon asserting: (1) That\nthere is some one highest end of existence, some goal of life, some\nchief good; and (2) That, by nature, man is in great danger of\ncompletely failing to attain this good, so that he needs to be saved\nfrom this danger.\n\nNow the first of these two postulates religion has frequently,\nalthough not always, shared with the moralists, that is, with those\nwho devote themselves to teaching us how to act rightly. Aristotle,\nfor instance, based his ethical doctrine (one of the most influential\nbooks in the history of morals) upon the postulate that there is a\nhighest good. Many others who have discussed or have preached\nmorality, have asserted that all obligations are subject to one\nultimate obligation, which is the requirement to act with reference to\nthe highest good. Yet this agreement as to the highest good turns out\nto be not quite universal when one compares the opinions of the\nteachers of religion, on the one hand, and of the moralists on the\nother. Popular and traditional morality often takes the form of a\nlittle hoard of {172} maxims about right acts--maxims whose relations\nto one another, and to any one highest goal of life, remain obscure.\nEach maxim is supposed to define a duty. Of course it also tells us\nhow to win some special good or how to avoid some particular evil. But\nwhat this special duty has to do with winning any one highest good is\nnot thus made explicit. And since many who make traditional morality\nprominent in their minds and lives are unaware of the deeper spirit\nthat indeed, as I hold, underlies every serious endeavour, these\npersons simply remain unconscious that their morality has any\nreligious motive or that they are dealing with the problem of\nsalvation. Even some professional teachers of duty are mere legalists\nwho do not succeed in reducing the law which they teach to any\nrational unity. And for such people the postulate which religion makes\nthe head of the corner is rather a stumbling-stone. They doubt or\nquestion whether there is any highest good whatever or any pearl of\ngreat price. Yet they illustrate the essential feature of morality by\ninsisting that certain deeds must be done.\n\nBut, however it may be with the first of the religious postulates, it\nis the second (the postulate that we are naturally in very great\ndanger of missing the true goal of life) which leaves open the greater\nroom for differences of interest as between the religious teachers and\nthe teachers of duty. Suppose that we are in agreement in holding that\nthere is a highest {173} good. Nevertheless, the question: How far is\nman naturally in danger of missing this supreme goal? is a question\nwhich, since we are all fallible mortals, leaves room for many\nvarieties of opinion. How I myself view the matter, I told you in our\nfirst lecture. And to me the religious need seems an insistent and\nclear need. But many moralists are partisans of duty as a substitute\nfor religion. And they are often much more optimistic regarding human\nnature than I am. In their opinion the goal can be reached, or at\nleast steadily approached, by simple dutifulness in conduct, without\nany aid from other motives that should tend to our salvation.\n\nThere is, then, a pearl of great price. But--so such teachers\nhold--why sell all that you have to buy that pearl, when by nature you\nare able to win it through a reasonable effort? Dutifulness is the\nname for the spirit that leads to such an effort. And dutifulness, say\nthese teachers, is as natural as any other normal function. \"No\ngeneral catastrophe threatens our destiny,\" they insist. \"Why not do\nright? That is in your own personal power and is sufficient for your\ndeepest need. You need cry out for no aid from above. You can be saved\nif you choose. There is no dark problem of salvation.\"\n\nTo such optimists the intensely religious often respond with that\nstrange horror and, repugnance which only very close agreement can\nmake possible. Near spiritual kin can war together with a bitterness\nthat mutual strangers cannot share. In this case, {174} as you see,\nthe goal is the same for both parties to the controversy. Both want to\nreach some highest good. The cheerful optimists simply feel sure of\nbeing able to reach, through action, what the earnestly devout are\npassionately seeking by the aid of faith. Yet each side may regard the\nother with a deep sense of sacred aversion. \"Fanatic!\" cries the\npartisan of duty to his religious brother. \"Mere moralist,\" retorts\nthe other, and feels that no ill name could carry more well-founded\nopprobrium. The issue involved is indeed both delicate and momentous.\n\nThe same issue may become only graver in its intensity when, in a\ngiven case, a religious man and a moralist agree as to _both_ of the\nmain postulates of religion, so that for both there is a highest good\nto seek and a great peril to avoid. For now the question arises: What\nway leads to salvation?\n\nSuppose that the answer to this question seems, at any point in the\ndevelopment of human insight, simply doubtful. Suppose mystery\noverhangs the further path that lies before both the religious\ninquirer and the moralist. In such a case the religious interest meets\nat least a temporary defeat. The religious inquirer must acknowledge\nthat he is baffled. But just this defeat of the religious interest\noften seems to be the moralist's opportunity. \"You cannot discover\nyour needed superhuman truths,\" he then says. \"You cannot touch\nheaven. You remain but a man. But at all events you can {175} do a\nman's work, however hard that work is, however opposed it is to your\nnatural sloth and degradation, however great the danger of perdition.\nPerhaps nobody knows the way of salvation. But a man can know and can\ndaily do each day's duty. He does not know how to attain the goal. But\nhe knows what the goal is, and it is better to die striving for the\ngoal than to live idly gazing up into heaven.\" In such a case, even if\nthe moralist fully recognises the depth of our need of salvation, and\nthe greatness of the danger, still the strenuous pursuit of duty often\nseems to him to be a necessary substitute for religion. And then the\nmoralist may regard his own position as the only one that befits a\ntruth-loving man; and the religious interests, which appear to fix the\nattention upon remote and hopeless mysteries, may seem to him\nhindrances to the devoted moral life. Against all dangers and doubts\nhe hurls his \"everlasting No.\" His only solution lies in\nstrenuousness. He is far from the Father's house. He knows not even\nwhether there is any father or any home of the spirit. But he proposes\nto face the truth as it is, and to die as a warrior dies, fighting for\nduty.\n\nBut of course quite a different outcome is, for many minds, the true\nlesson of life. The religious man may come to feel sure that the way\nof salvation is indeed known to him; but it may seem to him a way that\nis opened not through the efforts of moral individuals, but only\nthrough the workings {176} of some divine power that, of its own\nmoving, elects to save mankind. In this case the classic doctrine that\ngrace alone saves, and that, without such grace, works are but vanity,\nis, in one form or another, emphasised by religious teachers in their\ncontroversies with the moralists. The history of Christianity\nillustrates several types of doctrine according to which divine grace\nis necessary to salvation, so that mere morality not only cannot save,\nbut of itself even tends to insure perdition. And in the history of\nNorthern Buddhism there appear teachings closely analogous to these\nevangelical forms of Christianity. So the religious interests here in\nquestion are very human and wide-spread. Whoever thus views the way of\nsalvation can in fact appeal to vast bodies of religious experience,\nboth individual and social, to support his opposition against those\nwho see in the strenuous life the only honest mode of dealing with our\nproblem. Whoever has once felt, under any circumstances, his\nhelplessness to do right knows what such religious experience of the\nneed of grace means. Hence it is easy to see how the earnest followers\nof a religion may condemn those moralists who agree with them both as\nto the need and as to the dangers of the natural man. In fact the two\nparties may condemn each other all the more because both accept the\ntwo postulates upon which the quest for salvation is based.\n\nYet even these are not the only forms in which this tragic conflict\namongst brethren often appears. {177} I must mention still another\nform. Suppose that, in the opinion of the followers of some religion,\nnot only the knowledge of the way of salvation is open, but also the\nattainment of the goal, the entering into rest, the fruition, is, for\nthe saints or for the enlightened, an actual experience. There is,\nthen, such a thing as a complete winning of the highest good. So the\nfaithful may teach. Hereupon the moralists may adopt the phrase which\nJames frequently used in opposing those who seemed to themselves to be\nin actual touch with some absolute Being. The only use of the opinion\nof such people, James in substance said, is that it gives them a sort\nof \"moral holiday.\" For James, quite erroneously, as I think, supposed\nthat whoever believed the highest good to be in any way realised in\nthe actual world, was thereby consciously released from the call of\nduty, and need only say:\n\n \"God's in his heaven,\n All's right with the world.\"\n\nIn such a world, namely, there would be, as James supposed, nothing\nfor a righteous man to do. The alternative that perhaps the only way\nwhereby God can be in his heaven, or all right with the world, is the\nway that essentially includes the doing of strenuous deeds by\nrighteous men, James persistently ignored, near as such an alternative\nwas to the spirit of his own pragmatism.\n\nNevertheless, it is true that there have indeed {178} been, amongst\nthe religiously minded, many who have conceived the highest good\nmerely in the form of some restful communion with the master of life,\nmerely as tranquillity in the presence of God, or merely as a\ncontemplative delight in some sort of beauty. And it is true that some\nof these have said: \"The saints, or at all events the enlightened,\neven in the present life, do enter into this rest. And for them there\nis indeed nothing left to do.\" To such, of course, the moralists may\nreply: \"You enlightened ones seem to think yourselves entitled to a\n'moral holiday.' We strenuous souls reject your idleness as unworthy\nof a man. Your religion is a barren aestheticism, and is so whether it\ntakes the outward form of an ascetic and unworldly contemplation or\nassumes the behaviour of a company of highly cultivated\npleasure-seekers who delight in art merely for art's sake and know\nnothing of duty.\" To such believers in salvation through mere\nattainment of peace, James's criticism rightly applies. In these\nlectures, as I ask you to note, I have never defined salvation in such\nterms. Salvation includes triumph and peace, but peace only in and\nthrough the power of the spirit and the life of strenuous activity.\n\nBut such partisans of the religion of spiritual idleness as I have\nmentioned may nevertheless return the moralist's scorn with scorn. If\nthey are advocates of art for art's sake, of mere beauty as the\nhighest good, they find the restlessness of the {179} moralists hectic\nor barbarous. If they are mystical quietists, they regard mere\nmoralism as the struggling of a soul that is not saved. If moral\nendeavour were the last word, they insist, we should all of us be in\nthe Hades of Sisyphus. And no doubt their scorn, even if ill-founded,\ndeserves consideration. For even the most one-sided emphasis upon any\naspect of spiritual truth is instructive, if only your eyes are open.\n\nSuch are some of the ways in which, in the course of human history,\nthe religiously minded and the moralists have been divided. To sum up:\nCertain of the lovers of religion have, upon occasion, condemned\nmoralists, sometimes as legalists who do not know that there is any\nhighest good, sometimes as vain optimists who ignore the danger of\nperdition, sometimes as despisers of divine grace, sometimes as the\nbarbarous troublers of spiritual peace. Certain moralists, in their\nturn, and according as they ignore or accept the postulates upon which\nthe religious interest is based, have condemned the devout, sometimes\nas the slanderers of our healthy human nature, sometimes as seekers in\nthe void for a light that does not shine, sometimes as slavish souls\nwho hope to get from grace gifts that they have not the courage to\nearn for themselves, sometimes as idlers too fond of \"moral holidays.\"\nAnd, as moralists, their common cry has been, ever since the times of\nAmos: \"Woe unto those who are at ease in Zion.\"\n\n{180}\n\nWe have reviewed, then, some of these conflicts. I hope that you see\nupon what general issue they all alike turn. The moralists are\nessentially the partisans of action. They seek a good. But their great\npostulate is that there is something right for us to do. Therefore the\nissue is that between our need of something not ourselves to save us\nand our power to win a greater or lesser good through our own moral\nactivity. Whoever so exclusively emphasises the fact that the divine\nis not of our making, and that its ways are not our ways, and that its\ngood is something beyond our power to create or attain of\nourselves--whoever, I say, so exclusively emphasises these things that\nhe makes light of our efforts to attain the good somewhere comes into\nconflict with moralists. Whoever, as moralist, so exclusively appeals\nto our own energies that he seems to hold that our duty would be just\nas much our duty, \"If we were alone upon the earth and the gods\nblind,\" somewhere meets the religious opponent who mocks his pride, or\ndespises his restlessness, or laments his contempt for the divine\ngrace.\n\nNow these conflicts are, I insist, no merely speculative\ncontroversies. They play a great part in history. They have darkened\ncountless lives. And they grow out of motives deep in human nature.\nWhat is here most important for us is that they point us toward our\nnew source of insight. What a narrower way of living can divide, a\ndeeper and {181} truer mode of living can unite. Our problem assumes a\nnew form. Is there any mode of living that is just _both_ to the moral\nand to the religious motives? Is there any way of reconciling our\nneed, of a grace that shall save with the call of the moral life that\nwe shall be strenuous in the pursuit of our duty?\n\nLet us here approach this problem from the side of our moral\nconsciousness. For at this point we are already familiar with the\nreligious need. Does there exist amongst men a type of morality that,\nin and for itself, is already essentially religious, so that it knows\nnothing of this conflict between duty and religion? I reply, there is\nsuch a type of morality. There is a sort of consciousness which\nequally demands of those whom it inspires, spiritual attainment and\nstrenuousness, serenity and activity, resignation and vigour, life in\nthe spirit and ceaseless enterprise in service. Is this form of\nconsciousness something belonging only to highly and intellectually\ncultivated souls? Is it the fruit of abstract thinking alone? Is it\nthe peculiar possession of the philosophers? Or, on the other hand,\ndoes it arise solely through dumb and inarticulate intuitions? Is it\nconsistent only with a highly sensitive and mystical temperament? Does\nit belong only to the childhood of the spirit? Is it exclusively\nconnected with the belief in some one creed? To all these questions I\nreply: No.\n\nThis sort of consciousness is possessed in a very {182} high degree by\nsome of the humblest and least erudite of mankind. Those in whose\nlives it is a notable feature may be personally known only to a few\nnear friends. But the spirit in which they live is the most precious\nof humanity's possessions. And such people may be found belonging to\nall the ages in which we can discover any genuinely humane activities,\nand to all those peoples that have been able to do great work, and to\nall the faiths that contain any recognisable element of higher\nreligious significance.\n\n\n III\n\nI can best show you what I mean by next very briefly reviewing the\nmotives upon which the idea of duty itself rests, and by then showing\nto what, upon the noblest level of human effort, these motives lead.\n\nOur moral interests have a development which, in all its higher\nphases, runs at least parallel to the development of our religious\ninterests, even in cases where the two sorts of interests seem to\nclash. The moral problems arise through certain interactions that take\nplace between our individual and our social experience. The reason\nreviews these interactions and takes interest in unifying our plan of\nlife. The will is always, from the very nature of the case, concerned\nin the questions that here arise. For whatever else morality is, it is\ncertain that your morality has to do with your conduct, and that {183}\nmoral goodness cannot be yours unless your will itself is good. Wealth\nmight come to you as a mere gift of fortune. Pleasure might be brought\nto you from without, so far as you have the mere capacity for\npleasure. The same might appear to be true even in case of salvation,\nif, indeed, salvation is wholly due to saving grace. But moral\ngoodness, if you can get it at all, requires your active cooperation.\nYou can earn it only in case you do something to possess it. Its motto\nreads: _\"Erwirb es um es zu besitzen.\"_\n\nTherefore the moral question always takes the form of asking: What am\nI to do? The first contribution to the answer is furnished, upon all\nlevels of our self-consciousness, by our individual experience. And\none apparently simple teaching that we get from this source may be\nstated in a maxim which wayward people often insist upon, but which\nonly the very highest type of morality can rationally interpret: \"I am\nto do what I choose, in case only I know what I choose and am able to\ndo it.\" From this point of view, my only limitations, at first sight,\nseem to be those set for me by my physical weakness. There are many\nthings that, if I had the power, I should or might choose to do. But\nsince I frequently cannot accomplish my will, I must learn to limit\nmyself to what I can carry out. So far, I say, our individual\nexperience, if taken as our sole moral guide, seems at first to point\nout the way.\n\n{184}\n\nBut this first teaching of our individual experience is by no means so\nsimple as it seems. For the question arises: What is it, on the whole,\nthat I choose to do? And, as we saw very early in these discussions,\neach of us is by nature so full of caprices and of various aims, that,\nleft to ourselves, we live not only narrowly but inconsistently. Hence\nwe spend much of our lives in finding out, after the fact, that what\nwe chose to do at one moment of our lives has hopelessly thwarted what\nwe intended to do at some other moment. Self-will then, left to\nitself, means self-defeat. That is the lesson of life. And the\nquestion: What is it that, on the whole, I would choose to do if I had\nthe power? is a question that individual experience, taken by itself,\nnever answers in any steadily consistent way. Therefore, as we all\nsooner or later come to see, one of our most persistent limitations is\nnot our physical weakness to accomplish what we choose, but our\nincapacity, when left to ourselves, to find out what it is that we\npropose and really choose to do. Therefore, just because individual\nexperience, taken by itself, never gives steady guidance, we have to\nlook elsewhere for a rule.\n\nThe question: What am I to do? is never in practice answered without\nconsulting, more or less persistently, our social experience. Being\nwhat we are, naturally gregarious, imitative, and, when trained,\nconventional creatures, who, indeed, often fight with our kind, but\nwho also love our kind, who not only {185} cannot bear to be too much\nalone, but are simply helpless when wholly isolated from our fellows\n(unless we have already learned in their company the very arts that we\nmay be able to use while we are alone), we can give no answer to the\nquestion: What is to be my choice? without pretty constantly\nconsulting our social interests. And these interests are indeed\nplentiful and absorbing. But they too are naturally conflicting. And\nso, taken as they come, they give us no rule of life.\n\nTo be sure, the social will in general says to us: \"Live with your\nfellows, for you cannot do without them. Learn from them how to live;\nfor you have to live more or less in their way. Imitate them,\nco-operate with them, at least enough to win such ideas as will help\nyou to know what you want and such skill as will make you best able to\naccomplish whatever, in view of your social training, you are led to\nchoose. Do not oppose them too much, for they are many, and, if\nstirred up against you, can easily destroy you. Conform, then, to\ntheir will enough to get power to have your own way.\" And so far our\nordinary social will gives us more or less consistent counsel. But\nbeyond such really rather barren advice (the counsel of an inane\nworldly prudence), our social experience, as it daily comes to us, has\nno single ideal to furnish, no actually universal rules to lay down.\nFor, as I go about in social relations, sometimes I love my fellows\nand sometimes I feel antipathy for them. Sometimes {186} I am full of\npity for their woes and long to help them. Sometimes they are my\nrivals; and I then naturally try to crush them. There is thus no one\nsocial tendency that, as it comes to us in the course of our ordinary\nsocial experience, gives us sufficient guidance to tell us how to\nescape self-defeat. For my love and pity war with my social greed and\nwith my rivalries. I am so far left to my chaos.\n\nThus, then, if I sum up my position, I indeed propose to do what I\nchoose, in so far as I am able, and in so far as I can find out what\nit is that I choose and can avoid thwarting myself by my own choices.\nAnd the art of learning how to choose, and what to choose, and how to\ncarry out my will, is for me, since I am gregarious, imitative, and\nconventionalised, a social art. But, on the other hand, no social art\nthat I ordinarily learn is sufficient either to teach me my whole\npurpose in life, or to make a consistent self of me, or to lead me out\nof that chaos of self-thwarting efforts wherein so many men pass their\nlives.\n\n\n IV\n\nYou already know, from our former discussion, how our reason views the\nsituation thus created by this chaos of social and of individual\ninterests. How real and how confused this chaos is, the daily record\nof certain aspects of the ordinary social life of men which you see in\neach morning's newspaper {187} may serve to illustrate. These princes\nand peoples, these rebels and executioners, these strikers and\nemployers, these lovers and murderers, these traders and bankrupts,\nthese who seem for the moment to triumph and these who just now appear\nto be ground under the opponent's or the oppressor's heel, what arts\nof living were they and are they all following? Well, each in his way\nappears to have been choosing to have his own will; yet each, being a\nsocial creature, had learned from his fellows all his vain little arts\nof life. Each loved some of his fellows and was the rival of others.\nEach had his standards of living, standards due to some more or less\naccidental and unstable union of all the motives thus barely\nsuggested. The news of the day tells you how some of these won their\naims, for the moment, while others were thwarted. What I ask you to\nnote, and what the reason of every man in his more enlightened moments\nshows him, is that each of these who at any moment was thwarted,\nprecisely in so far as he had any will of his own at all, was defeated\nnot only by his fellows, but by himself. For this special will of his\nwas some caprice not large enough to meet his own ends. The career,\nfor instance, of that man who failed in love or in business or in\npolitics is wrecked. His reputation is lost. Well, it was his will, as\na social being, to aim at just such a career and to value just that\nsort of reputation. Had he chosen to be a hermit, or a saint, or a\nStoic, what would just such {188} a career and such a reputation have\nbeen to him? How could he have lost unless he had sought? And his\nfailure, to what was it due? No doubt to some choice of his own quite\nas much as to his rival's skill. He wanted freedom to carry on his own\nspeculations. He got that freedom and lost his fortune. He wanted to\nbe free to choose whom and how to love. He had his way and defeated\nhis own aim. He chose to follow his ambitions. They have led him where\nhe is.\n\nSuch are perfectly reasonable reflections upon the course of ordinary\nsocial conflicts. They suggest to our more considerate moments the\nvery sort of reflection which, at the outset of the present\ndiscussion, led us to define the religious ideal of salvation. Only\nnow this type of reflection appears as aiming to lead us to some\npractical rule for guiding our active life. For our attention is now\nfixed, not on a condition to be called salvation, but on a rule for\ndoing something in accordance with our own true will. This rule is,\nnegatively stated, the following: Do _not_ seek, either in your\nindividual self as you are or in your social experience as it comes,\nfor the whole truth either about what your own will is or about how\nyou can get your aims. For if you confine yourself to such sources of\nmoral insight, you will go on thwarting yourself quite as genuinely,\neven if by good luck, not quite as scandalously, as the bankrupt\nspeculators and the strikers and the outcast oppressors, and the\npoliticians {189} and the murderers, and the deposed monarchs and the\ndefeated revolutionists, of whom you read in the newspapers, have\nthwarted both their individual and their social will. In brief: Put\nnot your trust in caprices, either individual or social. On the\npositive side, the rule here in question is: In order to find out what\nis your true choice, and how you can live without thwarting yourself,\nmake your _principle_ of life such that whatever fortune besets you,\nyou can inwardly say: \"I have not really failed, for I have acted as I\nintended, and also as I still intend to act, and have had my will\nwhatever the consequences that fortune has brought to me, or however\nmy momentary mood happens to change, or however this or that social\ncaprice leads men to love or to despise me.\" Such is the moral insight\nthat the first use of your reason, in thus reviewing life, suggests.\nOr, as the moral common-sense of the wise has often stated the rule\nhere in question: So act that, upon any calm review of the sense of\nyour individual and of your social life, you shall never have ground\nto regret the principle of your action, never have ground to say: \"By\nchoosing thus I thwarted my own will.\"\n\nAs you hear these statements, I hope that, reduced to their very\nlowest terms: _\"So act as never to have reason to regret the principle\nof your action,\"_ they express a sort of counsel for life which is not\nstrange to common-sense, even if it has received an abstract\nexpression in the famous ethical philosophy of Kant. {190} Only, as\nyou will rightly insist, this counsel is indeed a seemingly hopeless\ncounsel of perfection when it is addressed to the natural man, who\nmerely has taken his instincts as he found them developing, and his\nsocial world as he has felt it fascinating or disturbing him, and who\nhas then stumbled on, more or less prudently and obstinately trying to\nfind out what it really is that he wants to do in life. Such a man\nwill cry out: \"But how shall I discover a principle of life such that,\nif I hold thereto, I shall never, upon any reasonable survey of life,\nregret following that principle?\"\n\n\n V\n\nHere at length let life itself answer the question. As I was preparing\nthese very words, and thinking what new instance to choose, in order\nto illustrate afresh the very principle that I have in mind, the\nnewspaper of the day, side by side with its usual chronicle of\nunreason and of disaster, reported the approaching end of a public\nservant. This public servant was Ida Lewis, who for fifty years was\nthe official keeper of the Lime Rock lighthouse in Narragansett Bay.\nShe had been known for more than fifty years for her early and later\noften-repeated heroism as a life-saver. And now she was at last on her\ndeath-bed. She has since died. I know nothing of her career but what\npublic reports have told. So far as her duty required her at her post,\n{191} she kept her light burning through all the nights and the storms\nof those many years. She saved, in all, upon various occasions,\neighteen lives of those who were in danger from wreck. Her occupation\nthus had its perils. It had, what must have been much harder to\nendure, its steady call upon daily fidelity. It was, on the whole, an\nobscure and humble occupation; although by chance, as well as by\nreason of her skill and devotion, this particular lighthouse keeper\nwas privileged to become in a sense famous. But certainly it could\nhave been no part of her original plan to pursue a famous career. When\nwe seek public prominence we do not select the calling of the\nlighthouse keeper. I do not know how she came to find this calling.\nShe may not even have chosen it. But she certainly chose how to live\nher life when she had found it. What it means for the world to have\nsuch lives lived, a very little thought will show us. What spirit is\nneeded to live such lives as they should be lived, we seldom consider,\nuntil such a public servant, dying with the fruits of her years to\nsome extent known to the public, reminds us of our debt and of her\ndevotion.\n\nThe newspaper in which I read of this case, in commenting upon its\nsignificance, also reported (I do not know how accurately), this\nincident, of which some of you may know more than I do. I quote the\nwords: [Footnote: _Boston Evening Transcript,_ October 23, 1911.]\n\n \"Forty-one years ago, Daniel Williams, keeper of {192} the light at\n Little Traverse Bay, in Lake Michigan, went out in a boat for the\n rescue of a ship's crew in distress, and did not come back alive.\n For three days the storm continued. But his sorrowing widow did not\n forget other lives, and each night climbed the winding stairs and\n trimmed the lamp. This duty she discharged until the government\n learned the situation, when it authorised her to continue. And she\n is still at her post.\"\n\nLighthouse keepers are not the only people who live thus. There are\ncountless lights kept alive in homes where want or weariness or stormy\nsorrow have long since and often entered, and have again and again\nseemed about to overwhelm, but where, after many years, faithful\nsouls, well known to many of you, are, despite fortune, still at their\npost, with the light burning.\n\nAnd now, I ask you, What is the spirit which rules such lives? It is a\nspirit which is familiar in song and story; for men always love to\ntell about it when they meet with impressive examples of its workings.\nWhat I regret is that, when men repeat such songs and stories,\nfamiliarity breeds, not indeed contempt (for our whole nature rejoices\nto think of such deeds), but a certain tendency to false emphasis. We\nnotice the dramatic and heroic incidents of such lives, and are\ncharmed with the picturesque or with the thrilling features of the\ntale. And so we seem to ourselves to be dealing mainly with anecdotes\nand with accidents. We fail {193} sufficiently to consider that back\nof the exceptional show of heroism there has to be the personal\ncharacter, itself the result of years of devotion and of training--\nthe character that has made itself ready for these dramatic but, after\nall, not supremely significant opportunities. Only when we in mind run\nover series of such cases do we see that we are dealing with a spirit\nsuited not only to great occasions, but to every moment of reasonable\nlife, and not only to any one or two callings, but to all sorts and\nconditions of men.\n\nThe spirit in question is the one which is often well illustrated in\nthe lives of warriors who willingly face death for their flag--if only\nthey face death not merely as brutes may also face it (because their\nfighting blood is aroused), but as reasonable men face death who\nclearly see what conditions make it \"man's perdition to be safe.\"\nThere are two tests by which we may know whether the warriors really\nhave the spirit of which I am speaking, namely, the spirit that was\nalso, and quite equally, present in the widow who, in all the agony of\na new grief, and through the storm that had taken away her husband,\nstill climbed the lonely stairway and trimmed the lamp which he could\nnever again tend. The first test that the warrior and the lighthouse\ntender are moved by the same spirit is furnished by the fact that\nthose warriors who are rightly filled with this spirit are as well\nable to live by it in peace as in war; are, for instance, able even to\nsurrender to {194} the foe, when fortune and duty require them to do\nso--to surrender, I say, with the same calm dignity and unbroken\ncourage that Lee showed in his interview with Grant at Appomattox, and\nthat inspired him in the years of defeat and of new toils through\nwhich he had still to live after the war. That is, the warrior, if\nrightly inspired, is as ready for life as for death, is as ready for\npeace as for war; and despises defeat as much as danger--fearing only\nsloth and dishonour and abandonment of the service. The other test is\nwhether the warrior is ready to recognise and to honour, with clear\ncordiality, this same spirit when it is manifested in another calling,\nor in another service, and, in particular, is manifested by his enemy.\nFor then the warrior knows that warfare itself is only the accident of\nfortune, and that the true spirit of his own act is one which could be\nmanifested without regard to the special occasion that has required\nhim to face death just here or to fight on this side. If the spirit of\nthe warrior bears these tests, his faithfulness is of the type that\ncould be shown as well by the lonely light-tender in her grief as by\nthe hero for whom glory waits. And again, this spirit is the very one\nthat martyrs have shown when they died for their faith; that patient\nmothers and fathers, however obscure and humble, show when they toil,\nin true devotion, for their homes; that lovers mean to express when\nthey utter such words as the ones which we earlier quoted from Mrs.\nBrowning. And lest all these {195} instances should impress you with\nthe idea that the spirit in question has to do only with brilliant\nemotional colourings, such as those which fill our imaginations when\nwe think of war, and of brave deaths, and of heroic triumph over\ngrief, and of lovers' vows, let me turn at once to what some of you\nmay think to be the other extreme of life. Let me say that, to my\nmind, the calm and laborious devotion to a science which has made\npossible the life-work of a Newton, or of a Maxwell, or of a Darwin is\nstill another example, and a very great example, of this same\nspirit--an example full of the same strenuousness, the same fascinated\nlove of an idealised object, and, best of all, full of the willingness\nto face unknown fortunes, however hard, and to abandon, when that is\nnecessary, momentary joys, however dear, in a pursuit of one of the\nprincipal goods which humanity needs--namely, an understanding of the\nwonderful world in which we mortals are required to work out our\ndestiny. It is not a superficial resemblance that the lighthouse\ntender and the scientific man both seek to keep and to spread light\nfor the guidance of men.\n\nThe lighthouse tender, the mother, the warrior, the patriot, the\nmartyr, the true lover, the scientific investigator--they all may\nshow, I insist, this same essential spirit,\n\n \"Patient through the watches long,\n Serving most with none to see;\"\n\n{196} superior to fortune because something that is worthier than any\nfortune seems to call them to their task. Such are undismayed in\ndefeat. So Newton was undismayed when he looked for the needed\nconfirmation of his theory in the motion of the moon and for the time\nfailed. He worked on steadily, without any effort to win renown by\nhasty publication of possible explanations, until new advances of\nscience showed why confirmation had so far been lacking and brought\nhim what he needed. So Lee turned to the new life after the war. So\nthe widow climbed the lonely stairway, despite her lost one, and\nbecause of her lost one. So the martyrs faced the lions. These all\nwere sustained through long toil, or bewildering grief, by a spirit\nthat tended to make them masters of their own lives and to bring them\ninto unity with the master of all life.\n\nWe have illustrated the spirit. We now ask: What is the principle\nwhich dominates such lives? Is it or is it not a principle such, that\none at any time wholly devoted to it could thereafter, upon a\nreasonable review of life, wisely regret having chosen to live thus?\nIf it is not such a principle, if on the contrary it is a principle\nsuch that any reasonable view of life approves it, let us know what it\nis, let us detach it from the accidental conditions which at once\nadorn and disguise it for our imagination, let us read it so as to see\nhow it applies to every sort of reasonable life--and then we shall be\nin possession {197} of the solution of our moral problem. Then we\nshall know what it is that, if we are indeed rational, we really\nchoose to do so soon as we learn how to live.\n\n\n VI\n\nIf we consider carefully any such faithful lives as I have just\nexemplified, we see that, however simple-minded and unreflective some\nof the people may be who learn to live in this way, the motives that\nguide them are such as will bear a great deal of thoughtful\nreflection.\n\nThe people whom I have in mind, and of whom such instances teach us\nsomething, are, in the first place, individuals of considerable wealth\nand strength of personal character. They certainly are resolute. They\nhave a will of their own. They make choices. And so the contribution\nof their individual experience to their moral purpose is large. It\nwould be wrong to say, as some do, that they are characterised by mere\n\"altruism,\" by utter \"self-forgetfulness,\" by \"living solely for\nothers.\" If you were on a wreck in a storm, and the lighthouse keeper\nwere coming out to save you, you would take little comfort in the\nbelief, if you had such a belief, that, since he was a man who had\nalways \"lived for others,\" he had never allowed himself the selfish\ndelight of being fond of handling a boat with skill or of swimming for\nthe mere love of the water. No, on the contrary, you would rejoice to\nbelieve, if you {198} could, that he had always delighted in boating\nand in swimming, and was justly vain of his prowess on the water. The\nmore of a self he had delightedly or with a just pride trained on the\nwater, the more of a self he might have to save you with. When we are\nin desperate need, we never wish beings who, as some say, \"have no\nthought of self\" to help us in our plight. We want robust helpers who\nhave been trained through their personal fondness for the skill and\nthe prowess that they can now show in helping us. So individual\nself-development belongs of necessity to the people whose faithfulness\nwe are to prize in an emergency. And if people resolve to become\neffectively faithful in some practical service, their principle of\naction includes individual self-development.\n\nIn the second place, people of the type whom I here have in mind have\nstrong social motives. Their faithfulness is a recognition of the\nsignificance, in their eyes, of some socially important call. And\nthis, of course, is too obvious a fact to need further mention.\n\nBut in the third place, these people are guided by a motive which\ndistinguishes their type of social consciousness from the chance and\nfickle interests in this or that form of personal and social success\nwhich I exemplified a short time since. A peculiar grace has been\nindeed granted to them--a free gift, but one which they can only\naccept by being ready to earn it--a precious treasure that they cannot\n{199} possess without loving and serving the life that has thus\nendowed them--a talent which they cannot hide, but must employ to earn\nnew usury--a talent which seems to them not to belong to themselves,\nbut to their master, who will require it of them, increased. This\ngrace, this gift, is what may be called their Cause. Sometimes it\nappears to them in winning guise, seen in the depths of the eyes of a\nbeloved one, or symbolised by a flag, or expressed through a song.\nSometimes they think of it more austerely, and name it \"science,\" or\n\"the service,\" or \"the truth.\" Sometimes they conceive it expressly as\na religious object, and call it, not unwisely, \"God's will.\" But\nhowever they conceive it, or whatever name they give to it, it has\ncertain features by which you may easily know it.\n\nThe Cause, for people of this spirit, is never one individual person\nalone, even if, as in the lover's case, the devoted person centres it\nabout the self of one beloved. For even the lovers know that they\ntransfigure the beloved being, and speak of their love in terms that\ncould not be true, unless that which they really serve were much more\nthan any one individual. The Cause for any such devoted servant of a\ncause as we have been describing _is some conceived, and yet also\nreal, spiritual unity which links many individual lives in one, and\nwhich is therefore essentially superhuman, in exactly the sense in\nwhich we found the realities of the world of the reason to be\nsuperhuman._ Yet the cause is not, on that {200} account, any mere\nabstraction. It is a live something: \"My home,\" \"my family,\" \"my\ncountry,\" \"my service,\" \"mankind,\" \"the church,\" \"my art,\" \"my\nScience,\" \"the cause of humanity,\" or, once more, \"God's will,\"--such\nare names for the cause. One thinks of all these objects as living\nexpressions of what perfectly concrete and needy people want and\nrequire. But one also thinks of the cause as unifying many individuals\nin its service, and as graciously furnishing to them what they need,\nnamely, the opportunity to be one in spirit. The cause, then, is\nsomething based upon human needs, and inclusive of human efforts, and\nalive with all the warmth of human consciousness and of human love and\ndesire and effort. One also thinks of the cause as _superhuman in the\nscope, the wealth, the unity, and the reasonableness of its purposes\nand of its accomplishments._\n\nSuch is the cause. That the individual loves it is, in any one case,\ndue to the chances of his temperament and of his development. That it\ncan be conceived and served is a matter of social experience. That it\nis more worthy to be served than are any passing whims, individual or\nsocial, is the insight which the individual gets whenever he surveys\nhis life in its wider unities. That to serve it requires creative\neffort; that it cannot be served except by positive deeds is the\nresult of all one's knowledge of it. That in such service one finds\nself-expression even in and through self-surrender, and is more of a\nself even because one gives one's {201} self, is the daily experience\nof all who have found such a cause. That such service enables one to\nface fortune with a new courage, because, whatever happens to the\nservant of the cause, he is seeking not his own fortune, but that of\nthe cause, and has therefore discounted his own personal defeats, is\nthe result of the whole spirit here in question.\n\nFor such a practical attitude toward such a cause I know no better\nname than the good old word Loyalty. And hereupon we are ready for a\nstatement of the principle which dominates loyal lives. All the\nforegoing cases were cases of loyalty. In each some one had found a\ncause, a live spiritual unity, above his own individual level. This\ncause is no mere heap or collection of other human beings; it is a\nlife of many brethren in unity. The simplest statement of the\nprinciple of the loyal person was the maxim: _\"Be loyal to your\ncause.\"_ Somewhat more fully stated this principle would read:\n_\"Devote your whole self to your cause.\"_ Such a principle does not\nmean \"Lose yourself,\" or \"Abolish yourself,\" or even simply \"Sacrifice\nyourself.\" It means: \"Be as rich and full and strong a self as you\ncan, and then, with all your heart and your soul and your mind and\nyour strength, devote yourself to this your cause, to this spiritual\nunity in which individuals may be, and (when they are loyal) actually\nare, united in a life whose meaning is above the separate meanings of\nany or of all natural human beings.\"\n\n{202}\n\nYet even thus the principle which actually inspires every thoroughly\nloyal action has not been fully stated. For, as we have seen, the\nwarriors, despite the fact that their duty requires them to compass if\nthey can the defeat of their foes, best show their loyal spirit if\nthey prize the loyalty of their foes and honour loyalty wherever they\nfind it. We call such a spirit that honours loyalty in the foe a\nspirit of chivalry. You and I may remember that Lee was the foe of\nthat Union in whose triumph we now rejoice. Yet we may and should look\nupon him as, in his own personal intent, a model of the spirit of true\nloyalty; for he gave all that he had and was to what he found to be\nhis cause. Such an insight into the meaning of the loyalty of the foe,\nchivalry requires. Therefore, the true spirit of loyalty, including,\nas is reasonable, this spirit of chivalry, also requires us to state\nthe principle of loyalty in a still deeper and more universal form.\nThe true principle of loyalty is, in fact, an union of two principles.\nThe first is: _Be loyal._ The second is: _So be loyal, that is, so\nseek, so accept, so serve your cause that thereby the loyalty of all\nyour brethren throughout all the world, through your example, through\nyour influence, through your own love of loyalty wherever you find it,\nas well as through the sort of loyalty which you exemplify in your\ndeeds, shall be aided, furthered, increased so far as in you lies._\n\nCan this principle be acted out? Can it direct life? Is it a barren\nabstraction? Let the life and {203} the deed of the lonely lighthouse\nkeeper give the reply. Who, amongst us, whatever his own cause, is not\ninstructed and aided in his loyalty by the faithful deed of such a\ndevoted soul? Such people are then, in truth, not loyal _merely_ to\ntheir own private cause. _They are loyal to the cause of all loyal\npeople._ For, to any enlightened survey of life, all the loyal, even\nwhen chance and human blindness force them at any moment to war with\none another, are, in fact, spiritual brethren. They have a common\ncause--the cause of furthering universal loyalty through their own\nchoice and their own service. The spirit of chivalry simply brings\nthis fact to mind. The loyal are inspired by the loyal, are sustained\nby them. Every one of them finds in the loyal his kindred, his\nfellow-servants. Whoever is concretely loyal, that is, whoever wholly\ngives himself to some cause that binds many human souls in one\nsuperhuman unity, is just in so far serving the cause not only of all\nmankind, but of all the rational spiritual world. I repeat then: The\ntrue principle of all the loyal is: _So be loyal to your own cause as\nthereby to serve the advancement of the cause of universal loyalty._\n\nNow of the principle thus formulated I assert that it is a principle\nfit to be made the basis of an universal moral code. There is no duty,\nthere is no virtue whose warrant and whose value you cannot deduce\nfrom this one principle. Charity, justice, fidelity, decisiveness,\nstrenuousness, truthfulness, {204} efficiency, wise self-assertion,\nwatchful self-restraint, patience, defiance of fortune, resignation in\ndefeat, your daily social duties, your individual self-development,\nyour personal rights and dignity, your obedience to the calls of duty,\nyour justified self-sacrifices, your rational pride in the unique\nmoral office to which you have individually been called--all these, I\nassert, can be rightly defined, defended, estimated, and put into\npractice through an accurate understanding and development of the\nprinciple of loyalty just laid down.\n\nSince I am, indeed, speaking of sources of insight, and am not\nportraying at any length their results, you will not expect of me a\ndeduction of such a moral code here. But this assertion of mine is no\nmere boast. I have repeatedly endeavoured, elsewhere, to portray\nloyalty and to apply its principles to life. For the moment it\nsuffices to ask you to consider the lives of the loyal, in such\nexamples as I have suggested to you, and to try for yourselves to see\nwhat they teach. To help you in such a consideration, I may here\nsimply remind you that when one is not only loyal but enlightened, one\ncannot finally approve or accept any cause or any mode of living that,\nwhile seeming in itself to be a cause or a mode of living such as\nembodies the spirit of loyalty, still depends upon or involves\ncontempt for the loyalty of other men, or a disposition to prey upon\ntheir loyalty and to deprive them of any cause to which they can be\nloyal. No loyalty that lives by {205} destroying the loyalty of your\nneighbour is just to its own true intent. And that is why charity and\njustice are fruits of the loyal spirit. And that is why, if your cause\nand your loyal action are rightly accepted and carried out, the common\ninterests of all rational beings are served by your loyalty precisely\nin so far as your powers permit. Whatever your special cause (and your\nspecial personal cause--your love, your home, or your calling--you\nmust have), _your true cause is the spiritual unity of all the world\nof reasonable beings._ This cause you further, so far as in you lies,\nby your every deed.\n\nAnd that also is why the principle of loyalty, once rightly defined\nand served by you--served with the whole energy and power of your\npersonal self--is a principle that, upon any enlightened survey of\nyour life you can never regret having served. This, then, is what we\nwere seeking--an absolute moral principle, a guide for all action.\n\nBut even this is not the whole meaning of what the spirit of loyalty\nhas to teach you. Your cause, thus concretely and yet universally\ndefined, is something of which you can always, and now truthfully and\nwithout any pathetic fallacy, say, what Browning's lover said in the\nlyric that I quoted in our second lecture:\n\n \"World, how it walled about\n Life with disgrace,\n Till God's own smile came out\n That was thy face.\"\n\n{206} For your cause can only be revealed to you through some presence\nthat first teaches you to love this unity of the spiritual life. This\npresence will come to you in a beloved form, as something human, dear,\nvitally fascinating. It may be a person--a face--or a living\ncommunity of human beings that first reveals it to you. You can,\nindeed, choose it as your cause. Your will is needed. Loyalty is no\nmere sentiment. It is the willing and practical and thorough-going\ndevotion of a self to a cause. But you can never choose your cause\nuntil you have first found it. And you must find it in human shape.\nAnd you must love it before you can choose its service.\n\n_Therefore, however far you go in loyalty, you will never regard your\nloyalty as a mere morality. It will also be in essence a religion._ It\nwill always be to you a finding of an object that comes to you from\nwithout and above, as divine grace has always been said to come. Hence\nloyalty is a source not only of moral but of religious insight. The\nspirit of true loyalty is of its very essence a complete synthesis of\nthe moral and of the religious interests. The cause is a religious\nobject. It finds you in your need. It points out to you the way of\nsalvation. Its presence in your world is to you a free gift from the\nrealm of the spirit--a gift that you have not of yourself, but through\nthe willingness of the world to manifest to you the way of salvation.\nThis free gift first compels your love. Then you freely give yourself\nin return.\n\n{207}\n\nTherefore, the spirit of loyalty completely reconciles those bitter\nand tragic wrangles between the mere moralists and the partisans of\ndivine grace. It supplies in its unity also the way to define, in\nharmonious fashion, the ideal of what your individual experience seeks\nin its need, of what your social world, groaning and travailing in\npain together, longs for as our common salvation, of what the reason\nconceives as the divine unity of the world's meaning, of what the\nrational will requires you to serve as God's will. Through loyalty,\nthen, not only the absolute moral insight, but the absolute religious\ninsight, as you grow in grace and persist in service, may be and will\nbe gradually and truthfully revealed to you.\n\nFor loyalty, though justifying no \"moral holidays,\" shows you the will\nof the spiritual world, the divine will, and so gives you rest in\ntoil, peace in the midst of care. And loyalty also, though leaving you\nin no mystic trance, displays to you the law that holds the whole\nrational world together; though showing you the divine grace, calls\nupon you for the strenuous giving of your whole self to action; though\nrequiring of you no philosophical training, tells you what the highest\nreason can but justify; and, though concerned with no mere signs and\nwonders, shows you the gracious and eternal miracle of a spiritual\nrealm where, whatever fortunes and miracles and divine beings there\nmay be, you, in so far as you are loyal, are and are to be always at\nhome.\n\n{208}\n\nAnd all this is true because the spirit of loyalty at once expresses\nyour own personal need and reason, and defines for you the only\npurpose that could be justified from the point of view of one who\nsurveyed all voluntary and rational life. This is the purpose to\nfurther the unity of whatever spiritual life you can influence, and to\ndo this by your every rational deed, precisely in so far as your\npowers permit. This is a law for all rational beings. No angels could\ndo more than this.\n\nThere is a famous word that Chaucer put into the mouth of his Griselda\nat the moment when her husband tried her patience with his last and\nutmost cruelty. That word, uttered by a woman to a mere individual\nhuman creature who happened to be her husband, seems helplessly\npathetic and slavish enough. Yet Chaucer himself warns us that the old\ntale, truly interpreted, should be viewed as an allegory of the deeper\nrelations between the soul and God. Even so, to many of our leading\nmodern minds the allegory, when interpreted in this way, may seem\nharsh enough. Mere moralists may make light of it, because it seems\nopposed to the dignity of the moral spirit of individual self-respect.\nOnly the partisans of a divine grace, administered through inscrutable\ndivine decrees, would, you might suppose, still see any worth in so\ncruel an allegory. Nevertheless, this judgment of the allegory is\nfalse. Let a truly loyal being--our lighthouse keeper, for\ninstance--our patriot or martyr, let Lee or Newton, {209} let whoever\nis filled with the right spirit of loyalty--whoever, through the\nlight that he trims, intends to lighten and to unify so much of the\nspiritual world as he can ever reach by his deed--let _such_ a loyal\nbeing utter Griselda's word. Let him utter it as in the presence of\nthe master of life, who offers to all the loyal the divine grace of\nfinding themselves through their devotion to their cause. Let him\naddress this word\n\n \"As unto one that hears\n A cry above the conquered years.\"\n\nLet him utter this word as the summary and confession of his whole\nlife of loyalty. And then Griselda's word is no longer slavish. It is\nfull of the resolute courage, of the splendid contempt for mere\nfortune, of the unconquerable spiritual self-assertion, yes, it is\nfull of the deathless will, which are of the very essence of loyalty,\nand which, indeed, must overcome and, in the eternal realm, do\novercome the world.\n\nGriselda's word was this:\n\n \"But certes, Lord, for none adversitie,\n To dien in this case it shall not be\n That I in herte and minde should aye repente,\n That I you gave my soul with whole intente.\"\n\nWhoever thus addresses his word, not to a human individual, but as\nunto the master of life, and then. {210} sincerely and persistently\nand lovingly, lives that word out in his life, has solved the\nreligious paradox. From out the lonely and darkened depths of his\npersonal finitude, from out the chaos of his social promptings and of\nhis worldly ambitions, amid all the storms of fortune, \"midst of\nhell's laughter and noises appalling,\" he has heard the voice of the\nSpirit. He has heard, and--however unlearned--he has understood. His\nown lamp is burning, and through his deed the eternal light shines in\nthe darkness of this world.\n\n{211}\n\n VI\n\n THE RELIGIOUS MISSION OF SORROW\n\n{212}\n\n{213}\n\n VI\n\n THE RELIGIOUS MISSION OF SORROW\n\nIt very often happens to us that to reach any notable result, either\nin life or in insight, is even thereby to introduce ourselves to a new\nproblem. In the present state of the undertaking of these lectures\nsuch is our experience. The religious insight whose source is the\nloyal spirit was our topic in the foregoing lecture. If my own view is\ncorrect, this source is by far the most important that we have yet\nconsidered. It unites the spirit and the meaning of all the foregoing\nsources. Rightly interpreted, it points the way to a true salvation.\n\nYet the very last words of our sketch of the fruits of loyalty were of\nnecessity grave words. Intending to show through what spirit man\nescapes from total failure, we were brought face to face with the\ntragedies which still beset the higher life. \"Adversity\"--poor\nGriselda faced it in the tale. We left the loyal spirit appearing to\nus--as it does appear in its strongest representatives, able, somehow,\nin the power that is due to its insight, to triumph over fortune. But\nside by side with this suggestion {214} of the nature of that which\novercomes the world stood the inevitable reminder of the word: \"In\nthis world ye shall have tribulation.\"\n\nHow is tribulation related to religious insight? That is our present\nproblem. It has been forced upon our attention by the study of the\nplace and the meaning of loyalty. Some understanding of this problem\nis necessary to any further comprehension of the lessons of all the\nforegoing sources of insight, and is of peculiar significance for any\ndefinition of the office of religion.\n\nTo nearly all of us, at some time in our lives, and to many of us at\nall times, the tragic aspect of human life seems to be a profound\nhindrance to religious insight of any stable sort. I must here first\nbring more fully to your minds why this is so--why the existence of\ntragedy in human existence appears to many moods, and to many people,\ndestructive of faith in any religious truth and a barrier against\nrational assurance regarding the ultimate triumph of anything good.\nThen I want to devote the rest of this lecture to showing how sorrow,\nhow the whole burden of human tribulation, has been, and reasonably\nmay be, not merely a barrier in the way of insight, but also a source\nof religious insight. And this is the explanation of the title of the\npresent lecture.\n\n{215}\n\n I\n\nWe approach our problem fully mindful of the limitations to which the\npurpose of these lectures confines us. The problem of evil has many\nmetaphysical, theological, moral, and common-sense aspects upon which\nI can say nothing whatever in the present context. Human sorrow\nappears in our pathway in these lectures as a topic for us to\nconsider, first, because whatever source of religious insight we have\nthus far consulted has shown us man struggling with some sort of ill,\nand, secondly, because there are aspects of this very struggle which\nwill provide us with a new source of religious insight, and which will\nthus tend to throw new light upon the meaning of all the other\nsources. A thorough-going study of the problem of evil would require\nof us a complete philosophy not only of religion but of reality. But\nwe are limiting ourselves, in these discussions, to a survey of\ncertain sources.\n\nThe reasons why the existence and the prominence of evil in human life\nseem to all of us at some times, and to many of us at all times, a\nhindrance to the acceptance of any religious solution of the problems\nof life are familiar. I need then only to remind you what they are.\n\nWithout going into any subtleties regarding the definition of evil, it\nis obvious that our first characteristic reaction when we meet with\nwhat we take {216} to be an evil is an effort to get rid of it, to\nshun its presence, or to remove it from existence. Pain, cold, burning\nheat, disease, starvation, death, our enemies, our dangers, these are\nfacts that, precisely so far as we find them evil, we face with the\ndetermination to annul altogether their evil aspect.\n\nA characteristic result of this tendency appears in the fact that man,\nwho of all animals is most clearly aware of the presence of evil in\nhis world, is for that very reason not only an ingenious deviser of\nnew inventions for getting good things and for supplying his needs,\nbut is also the most destructive of animals. He wars with his natural\nsurroundings, and still more with his fellow-men, in ways that show\nhow the instinctive aversions upon which his estimates of evil are\nfounded are reinforced by the habits which he forms in his contests\nwith ill fortune. Man the destroyer of evil thus appears, in much of\nhis life, as a destroyer who is also largely moved by a love of\ndestruction for its own sake. This love plays a great part in the\nformation of even very high levels of our social and moral\nconsciousness. The heroes of song and story, and often of history as\nwell, are fascinating partly, or chiefly, because they could kill and\ndid so. We love victory over ill. Killing seems to involve such a\nvictory. So we love killing, at least in the hero tales. The result is\noften a certain inconsistency. The gods offered Achilles the choice\nbetween a short life full of the glorious slaying of enemies and a\nlong life of {217} harmless obscurity. He chose the short life; and\ntherefore he is to be remembered forever. For even when he would not\nfight, his \"destructive wrath sent the souls of many valiant heroes to\nHades, and left themselves a prey to the dogs and birds of the air.\"\nAnd when he returned to battle, what became of Hector? The song of the\nNibelungs opens by assuring us that the old stories tell of many\nwonders, and of heroes worthy of praise _(von Helden lobebaeren)_,\nand of great labours _(von grosser Arebeit)_. These \"great labours\"\nconsisted mainly in the slaying of other men. And this slaying was\nobviously \"worthy of praise\"; for it gave us a model for all our own\nstruggle with evil. As for the heroes of history, of course, we love\nto dwell upon their constructive labours. But, after all, what sort of\ncomparison is there in what the plain man, apart from a higher\nenlightenment, usually calls glory, between Washington and Napoleon?\nNo doubt there will always be admirers of Napoleon who will think of\nhim as a misunderstood reformer labouring for the building up of an\nideal Europe. But even such admirers will join with the plain man in\ndwelling, with especial fascination, upon the Napoleon of Austerlitz.\nAnd they will not forget even Borodino. No doubt the lovers of\nWashington find him glorious. But where, in his career, belongs the\nglory of having put an end to the Holy Roman Empire, or of having\ndestroyed the polity of the Europe of the old maps?\n\n{218}\n\nMan the destroyer thus glories in his prowess, and adores the heroes\nwho were the ministers of death. And since, of course, his warfare is\nalways directed against something that he takes to be an evil, the\nprinciple which directs his glorious conflicts seems to be one easy of\ngeneral statement, inconsistent as some of the reasonings founded upon\nit seem to be. This principle is: \"All evil ought to be destroyed.\nThere ought to be none. It should be swept out of existence.\"\n\nOf course, when the principle of the warfare with evil is thus\nabstractly stated, it does not tell us what we are to regard as an\nevil. It leaves the wise estimate of good and evil to be learned\nthrough a closer study of the facts of life. No doubt, then, Achilles,\nand the other heroes of song and story, may have become as glorious as\nthey are by reason of our excessive love of destruction due to some\nimperfect estimate of the true values of life. And therefore the mere\nstatement of the principle leaves open a very wide range for\ndifference of opinion and for inconsistency of view as to what it is\nthat ought to be destroyed. The natural estimate of the plain man,\nwhen he loves the heroes of old, seems to imply that one of the chief\nills that man ought to destroy usually takes the form of some other\nman. And this way of estimating men in terms of their success in\nkilling other men has its obvious inconsistencies. But, after all, as\none may insist, much is gained when we have made up our minds as to\nwhat {219} ought to be done with evil, whether evil is incorporated in\nour enemies, in our pains, or in our sins. We may leave to advancing\ncivilisation, or perhaps to some triumph of religion, the correction\nof our excessive fondness for the destruction of human life. What is\nessentially important is that it is part of man's mission to destroy\nevil. And about this general teaching the saints and the warriors, so\nit seems, may well agree.\n\nReligion, it may be said, can have nothing to urge against this\nfundamental axiom. So far all appears clear. Evil ought to be driven\nout of the world. Common-sense says this. Every struggle with climate\nor with disease or with our foes is carried on in this spirit. The\nsearch for salvation is itself--so one may insist--simply another\ninstance of this destructive conflict with impending ills. All that is\nmost elemental in our hatreds thus agrees with whatever is loftiest in\nour souls, in facing evils with our \"everlasting No.\" All the\ndifferences of moral opinion are mere differences as to what to\ndestroy. Man is always the destroyer of ill.\n\n\n II\n\nBut if you grant the general principle thus stated, the presence of\nevil in this world, in the forms that we all recognise, and in the\ndegree of importance that it attains in all our lives, seems, indeed,\na very serious hindrance in the way of religious insight. {220} And\nthe reason is plain. Religion, as we have said, in seeking salvation,\nseeks some form of communion with the master of life. That is, it\nseeks to come into touch with a power, a principle, or a mind, or a\nheart, that, on the one hand, possesses, or, with approval, surveys or\ncontrols the real nature of things, and that, on the other hand,\nwelcomes us in our conflicts with evil, supports our efforts, and\nsecures our success. I have made no effort, in these lectures, to\ndefine a theological creed. Such a creed forms a topic in which I take\ngreat interest but which lies beyond the limitations of this\ndiscourse. Yet our study of the historical relations between religion\nand morality, our earlier analysis of the religious need, have shown\nus that unless you are able to make some sort of effective appeal to\nprinciples that link you with the whole nature of things, your\nreligious need must remain unsatisfied, and your last word will have\nto take, at best, the form of a moral, not a religious doctrine.\nReligion does not require us to solve all mysteries; but it does\nrequire for its stability some assurance that, so far as concerns our\nneed of salvation, and despite the dangers that imperil our salvation,\nthose that are with us, when we are rightly enlightened, are more than\nthose that are against us.\n\nIn order to make this fact yet clearer, let us suppose that all such\nassurance is taken away from us. Review the result. Let it be supposed\nthat we need salvation. Let it be granted that, as we naturally {221}\nare, In our blindness and narrowness, and in the caprices of our\npassions, we cannot find the way out unless we can get into touch with\nsome spiritual unity and reasonable life such as the loyal man's cause\nseems to reveal to him. Let it be further supposed, however, that all\nhuman causes are, in their way and time, as much subject to chance and\nto the capricious blows of fortune as we ourselves individually are.\nLet it be imagined that the cause of causes, the unity of the whole\nspiritual world, is, in fact, a mere dream. Let the insight of the\nreason and of the will, which, when taken in their unity, have been\nsaid by me to reveal to us that the universe is in its essence Spirit,\nand that the cause of the loyal is not only a reality, but _the_\nreality--let this insight, I say, be regarded as an illusion. Let no\nother spiritual view of reality prove probable. Then, indeed, we shall\nbe left merely with ideals of life in our hands, but with no assurance\nthat real life, in its wholeness, approves or furthers these ideals.\nOur need of salvation will then, to be sure, still remain. Our\ndefinition of what salvation would be if it should become ours will be\nunchanged. But, having thus abandoned as illusory or as uncertain all\nthe sources of insight which I have so far been defending, we shall\nhave upon our hands only the moral struggle for the good as our best\nresource. We shall then hope for no assurance of salvation. We shall\nabandon religion to the realm of mythical consolations, and shall face\na grim world with only {222} such moral courage as we can muster for\nthe uncertain conflict. Our loyalty itself will lose its religious\naspect. For the objective goodness of our cause--the divine grace\nwhich its presence seems to offer to our life--will no longer mean\nanything but a faint and uncertain hope, which we shall keep or not\naccording to the caprices of our personal resolutions. Such, I say,\nwould be the outcome of rejecting all sources of religious insight\ninto the real nature of things.\n\nThe result, in the case now supposed, will be one which any honest man\nwill indeed accept if he must, but which no one can regard as\nincluding any satisfactory religious insight whatever. I certainly do\nnot here present these considerations as in themselves any arguments\nfor religion, or as in themselves furnishing support for our previous\narguments regarding the nature and the merits of the sources of\ninsight which we have been reviewing. The case for which I have argued\nin the foregoing lectures must indeed stand or fall solely upon its\nown merits. And if the reason and the will, as the spirit of loyalty\ninterprets and unifies their teachings, do _not_ really show us any\ntruth about the whole nature of things, I would not for a moment ask\nto have their teachings tolerated merely because, without such\nteachings, we should lose our grounds for holding to a religious\ninterpretation of life. If we _must_ fall back upon mere moral\nresoluteness, and abandon any assurance as to the religious objects,\nand as to {223} the way and the attainment of salvation, I, for one,\nam quite ready to accept the call of life, and to fight on for a good\nend so long as I can, without seeking for religious consolations that\nhave once been shown to be mythical. But I have indicated to you, in\ngeneral, my grounds for holding that our previous sources actually do\ngive us an insight which is not only moral but religious, and do throw\nlight upon our relations to a reason which moves in all things, to a\ndivine will which expresses itself in all the universe, and to a\ngenuine revelation of its purposes which this makes of itself when it\ninspires our loyalty. My present purpose is, not to reinforce these\ngrounds by the mere threat that their rejection would involve an\nabandonment of any well-grounded religious assurance, but to present\nto you the fact that religion is, indeed, a search for a really divine\nfoundation for the saving process.\n\nReligion differs from morality in looking beyond our own active\nresoluteness for something--not ourselves--that gives a warrant,\nfounded in the whole nature of things--a warrant for holding that this\nresoluteness will succeed and will bring us into union with that which\nsaves.\n\nHence it is, indeed, true that if there is _no_ master of life with\nwhom we can come into touch, _no_ triumph of the good in the universe,\n_no_ real source of salvation--religion must result in disappointment.\nAnd then our only recourse must, indeed, be the moral will. This\nrecourse is one that, as we have seen, {224} many in our time are\nquite ready to accept. And such, in my own opinion, are for reasons\nthat they do not themselves admit actually well on their way toward\nreal salvation. Only it is useless to attribute to them, in their\npresent stage of conviction, any conscious and assured possession of\nreligious insight. To sum up, then, religion demands the presence of\nthe master of life as a real being, and depends upon holding that the\ngood triumphs.\n\nBut if we attempt to combine the two assertions, \"All evil ought to be\ndestroyed\" and \"In the universe as a whole the good triumphs,\" and\nhereupon to face the facts of human life as religion finds them, we\nare at once involved in familiar perplexities. With many of these\nperplexities the limitations of the present discussion, as already\nexplained, forbid us to deal. I am merely trying to show, for the\nmoment, why the presence of evil in our lives seems to be a hindrance\nin the way of religious insight. And it is enough if I emphasise at\nthis point what must readily come to the consciousness of all of you\nwhen you consider the situation in which our whole argument seems now\nto have placed us.\n\nThe very existence of the religious need itself presupposes not only\nthe presence, but the usual prevalence of very great evils in human\nlife. For unless man is in great danger of missing the pearl of great\nprice, he stands in no need of a saving process. A religious man may\ncome to possess an acquired optimism--the hard-won result of the\nreligious {225} process which seems to him to have pointed out the way\nof salvation. But a man who begins with the assurance that all is\nordinarily well with human nature is precluded from religion, in our\nsense of the word religion, by his very type of optimism. Such an\noptimist of the \"first intention,\" such a believer that in the main it\nis well with human nature, can be, as we have seen, a moralist,\nalthough he is usually a very simple-minded moralist, as unaware of\nthe graver moral problems as he is cheerfully indifferent to the hard\ncase in which most of his brethren live. But whoever sees the deep\nneed of human salvation, as the various cynics and rebels and sages\nand prophets whom we cited in our first lecture have seen it, has\nbegun by recognising the bitterness of human loss and defeat--the\ngravity of the evil case of the natural man. Were not the world as it\nnow is very evil, what, then, were the call for religion? Religion\ntakes its origin in our sense of deep need--in other words, in our\nrecognition that evil has a very real place in life. _\"Tempora\npessima\"_--\"The times are very evil\"--is thus no phrase of a merely\nmediaeval type of world-hatred. The woes of man are the presupposed\nbasis of fact upon which the search for salvation rests.\n\nAnd the further one goes in the pursuit of the sources of religious\ninsight, the more, as we have ourselves found, does one's original\nrecognition of the ill of the human world become both deepened and\nvaried. From the solitude of one's individual {226} sorrows one goes\nout to seek for religious relief in the social world, only to find how\nmuch more manifold the chaos of ordinary social life is than is the\nconflict of one's private passions. If one asks guidance from reason,\nreason appears at first as a sort of spirit brooding upon the face of\nthe depths of unreason. When loyalty itself is created, it finds\nitself beset by adversities. If evil drives us to seek relief in\nreligion, religion thus teaches us to know, better and better, the\ntragedy of life. Its first word is, thus, about evil and about the\nescape from evil. But its later words appear to have been a persistent\ndiscourse upon our tribulations.\n\nBut how can religion, thus presupposing the presence of evil in our\nlife, and illustrating this presence anew at every step, undertake to\nlead us to any assurance of the triumph of a good principle in the\nreal world, in case, as seems so far obvious, such a triumph of a good\nprinciple would mean that all evil is to be simply destroyed and wiped\nout of existence?\n\nBriefly restating the situation, it is this: If the evils of human\nlife are indeed but transient and superficial incidents, or if--to use\na well-known extreme form of statement--evil is an \"unreality\"\naltogether--then religion is superfluous. For there is no need of\nsalvation unless man's ordinary case is, indeed, very really a hard\ncase, that is, unless evil is a reality, and a deep-rooted one. But,\non the other hand, if evil is thus deep-rooted in the very {227}\nconditions of human life as they are, and if it persists upon higher\nlevels even of the religious life, religion seems in danger of total\nfailure. For unless goodness is somehow at the real heart of\nthings--is, so to speak, the core of reality--the hope of salvation is\na dream, and religion deceives us. But goodness, by the hypothesis\nthat we are just now considering, requires that evil should be wholly\nabolished. How can that which should not exist at all, namely, evil,\nbe in such wise the expression of the real nature of things that on\nthe one hand religion is needed to save us from evil, and yet is able\nto do so only by bringing us to know that the real nature of things is\ngood? Here is our problem. And it is a hard one.\n\nIn brief, as you may say, religion must take its choice. Either the\nevil in the world is of no great importance, and then religion is\nuseless; or the need of salvation is great, and the way is straight\nand narrow; and then evil is deeply rooted in the very nature of\nreality, and religion seems a failure.\n\n\n III\n\nI believe that there is some advantage in stating in this somewhat\ncrabbed and dialectical fashion, a problem which most of us usually\napproach through much more direct and pathetic experience. One\nadvantage in crabbedness and in fondness for dialectic is that it\nsometimes tends to clear away the clouds {228} with which emotion from\nmoment to moment surrounds certain great problems of life. As I said\nearlier, in speaking of the office of the reason, abstract ideas are\nbut means to an end. Their end is to help us to a clear and rational\nsurvey of the connections of things. When you are to examine the\nlandscape from a height, in order to obtain a wide prospect, you may\nhave to use a glass, or a compass, or some other instrument of\nabstraction, in order to define what the distance tends to render\nobscure, or what the manifoldness of the scenery surveyed makes it\nhard rightly to view in its true relations. And, in such cases, the\nglass or the compass is but an auxiliary, intended to help in the end\nyour whole outlook. Now the world of good and evil is a world of wide\nprospects, of vast distances, of manifold features. A bit of\ndialectics, using abstract and one-sided considerations in succession,\nmay prepare the way for seeing the whole better.\n\nThe plain man well knows the problem that I have just been\ncharacterising. He knows how it may enter his religious life. Only he\ndoes not usually think of it abstractly. It pierces his heart. Stunned\nby a grief, he may say: \"I have trusted God, and now he forsakes me.\nHow can a good God permit this horror in my life?\" Yet the plain man,\nif religiously minded, also knows what is meant by saying, \"Out of the\ndepths have I cried.\" And he knows, too, that part of the preciousness\nof his {229} very idea of God depends upon the fact that there are\ndepths, and that out of them one can cry, and that God is precisely a\nbeing who somehow hears the cry from the depths. God, \"pragmatically\nviewed,\" as some of our recent teachers express the matter, is thus\noften defined for the plain man's religious experience as a helper in\ntrouble. Were there no trouble, there would be, then, it would seem,\nno cry of the soul for such a being, and very possibly no such being\nconceived by the soul that now cries. Yet this very God--one cries to\nhim because he is supposed to be all-powerful, and to do all things\nwell, and therefore to be a very present help in time of trouble. All\nthis seems clear enough at the time when one is on the way up, out of\nthe depths, or when one begins to praise God in the Psalmist's words,\nbecause, as one now says: \"He hath planted my feet upon a rock, and\nhath established my goings.\" But how does all this seem at the moment\nwhen one suddenly falls into the pit of sorrow, and when one's eyes\nare turned downward; when he who doeth all things well permits the\nutmost treachery of fortune, and when the one who can hear every cry\nseems deaf to one's most heartrending pleadings? The familiar\nexplanation that all this is a penalty for one's sins may awaken an\necho of Job's protest in the mind of the man who knows not how he has\ndeserved this woe, or may arouse the deeper and now consciously\ndialectical comments on the mystery involved in the fact that God\n{230} permits sin. \"Why was I made thus blind and sinful?\" one may\ncry. And hereupon religious insight becomes, indeed, confused enough,\nand may turn for relief to that well-known type of defiance which, if\nnot religious, is at least moral; for it is a protest against evil. If\nat such moments God is, indeed, to our darkened vision, and, for us,\nwho wait for his blessing, as if he were sleeping or on a journey, one\ncan at least, as moral agent, utter this protest against ill, and\nwonder why his omnipotence does not make it effective. One thus\nbegins, as it were, to try heroically to do the absent God's work for\nhim.\n\nAll these are familiar experiences. They find us, too often,\nunprepared. They find us when emotion tends to cloud every insight.\nThey illustrate a certain dialectical process which belongs to all\nhuman life and which plays its part in the whole history of religion.\nPerhaps it is well to state an aspect of this dialectical process\nabstractly, crabbedly, and unemotionally, as we have just done, in\norder that we may make ourselves the more ready to face the issue when\nlife exemplifies it with crushing suddenness, and when\n\n \"The painful ploughshare of passion\n Grinds down to our uttermost rock.\"\n\nThe problem, as just abstractly stated, is this. Religion seems to\nface this dilemma: Either there are no great and essential ills about\nhuman life; {231} and then there is no great danger of perdition, and\nno great need of salvation, and religion has no notable office; or\nthere are great and essential ills, and man's life is in bitter need\nof salvation; but in that case evil is deeply rooted in the very\nnature of the reality from which we have sprung; and therefore\nreligion has no right to assure us of communion with a real master of\nlife who is able to do with evil what not only ought to be done with\nit, but ought always to have been done with it by any being able to\noffer man any genuine salvation. For (as we are assuming) what ought\nto be done, yes, what ought to have been done with evil from the\nbeginning, is and was this: To banish it altogether from existence.\n\nThis, I say, is, when abstractly stated, the dilemma in which religion\nseems to be placed. Of this dilemma the countless struggles of the\nhuman soul when, in the spirit of some practical religion, it seeks\nfor salvation and faces its woes are examples. These struggles are\ninfinitely pathetic and in life are often confusing to insight. Is\nthere any value in considering this abstract statement of the\nprinciples upon which this dilemma seems to be founded? Possibly there\nis, if we can hereby be led also to consider--not indeed, in this\nplace, the problems of theology, or the metaphysics of evil, but a new\nsource of insight.\n\n{232}\n\n IV\n\nThis new source of insight begins to come to us when we observe, as we\ncan often observe if we listen with closer attention to the voices of\nour own hearts, that the general principle, \"Evil ought simply to be\nput out of existence,\" does _not_ express our whole attitude toward\nall evils, and gives only an imperfect account either of our more\ncommon-place and elemental or of our more elevated, heroic, and\nreasonable estimates of life.\n\nThe principle: \"Evil ought to be simply abolished,\" is, indeed, one\nthat we unquestionably apply, in our ordinary life, to a vast range of\nnatural ills. But it is not universal. Let us first indicate its\napparent range. Physical pain, when sufficiently violent, is an\nexample of an ill that appears to us, in all its greater\nmanifestations, plainly intolerable. So it seems to us to illustrate\nthe principle that \"Evil ought to be put out of existence.\" We desire,\nwith regard to it, simply its abolition. The same is true of what one\nmay call _unassimilated_ griefs of all levels--the shocks of calamity\nat the moment when they first strike, the anguish of loss or of\ndisappointment precisely when these things are new to us and appear to\nhave no place in our life-plan. These are typical ills. And they all\nillustrate ills that seem to us to be worthy only of destruction. The\nmagnitude of such ills as factors in {233} the individual and in the\nsocial world often appears to us immeasurable. Pestilence, famine, the\ncruelties of oppressors, the wrecks of innocent human lives by cruel\nfortunes--all these seem, for our ordinary estimates, facts that we\ncan in no wise assimilate, justify, or reasonably comprehend. That is,\nwe can see, in the single case, no reason why such events should form\npart of human life--except that so it indeed is. They seem, to our\nnatural understanding, simply opaque data of experience, to be\nannulled or removed if we can. And to such ills, from our human point\nof view, the principle: \"They ought to be simply driven out of\nexistence,\" is naturally applied without limitation. The apparent\nrange of this principle is therefore, indeed, very wide.\n\nNow it forms no part of our present discourse to consider in detail\nthe possible theological or metaphysical basis for a possible\nexplanation of such ills, I have elsewhere written too much and too\noften about the problem of evil to be subject to the accusation of\nneglecting the pathos and the tragedy of these massive ills. This,\nhowever, I can at once say. _In so far as_ ills appear to us thus,\nthey are, indeed, _no_ sources of religious insight. On the other\nhand, even when thus viewed, in all their blackness, they can be, and\nare, sources of moral enthusiasm and earnestness. Man the destroyer,\nwhen, awaking to the presence of such ills in his world, he contends\nwith them, gets a perfectly {234} definite moral content into his\nlife. And he has his right to do so. Whatever his religion, he is\nmorally authorised to labour against these unmediated evils with the\nheartiest intolerance. When such labour takes on social forms, it\nhelps toward the loftiest humanity. The war with pain and disease and\noppression, the effort to bind up wounds and to snatch souls from\ndestruction--all these things constitute some of man's greatest\nopportunities for loyalty. Nevertheless, when man loyally wars with\nthe ills such as physical anguish and pestilence and famine and\noppression, he does not thereby tend to discover, through his own\nloyal act, why such individual ills are permitted in the world. In so\nfar as these evils give him opportunity for service, they appeal to\nhis loyalty as a warrior against them. If his cause includes, for him,\nactivities that enter into this warfare with ills that are to be\ndestroyed, these ills have thus indirectly conduced to his religious\nlife. But it is his loyalty that in such cases is his source of\nreligious insight. The ills themselves that he thus destructively\nfights remain to him as opaque as before. Why they find their place in\nthe world he does not see. Now that they are found there, he knows\nwhat to do with them--namely, to annul them, to put them out of\nexistence, as a part of his loyal service. But if he is religiously\nminded, he does not for a moment conceive that the ills with which he\nwars are there simply to give him the opportunity for his service. So\nfar then it is, indeed. {235} true that the ills which we have simply\nto destroy offer us no source of religious insight.\n\nBut now, as I must insist, _not all_ the ills that we know are of this\nnature. Wide and deep and terrible as are those conflicts with the\nincomprehensible ills of fortune whose presence in the world we do not\nunderstand, there are other ills. And toward these other ills we take\nan attitude which is not wholly destructive. We find them, upon a\ncloser view, inseparably bound up with good--so closely bound up\ntherewith that we could not conceive a life wherein this sort of good\nwhich is here bound up with this sort of ill could be separated\ntherefrom. In these cases the principle: \"Evil should be simply put\nout of existence,\" proves to be a palpable falsity. As our knowledge\nof such ills grows clearer, we commonly find that there is, indeed,\nsomething about them, as they at any one moment appear to us, which\nought, indeed, to be annulled, set aside, destroyed. But this\nannulling of one momentary or at least transient aspect of the ill is\nbut part, in such cases, of a constructive process, which involves\ngrowth rather than destruction--a passage to a new life rather than a\ncasting wholly out of life. Such ills we remove only in so far as we\nassimilate them, idealise them, take them up into the plan of our\nlives, give them meaning, set them in their place in the whole.\n\nNow such ills, as I must insist, play a very great part in life and\nespecially in the higher life. Our {236} attitude toward them\nconstitutes, above all, on the very highest levels of our\nreasonableness, a very great part of our attitude toward the whole\nproblem of life. In the presence of these idealised evils, man the\ndestroyer becomes transformed into man the creator. And he does so\nwithout in the least abandoning his justified moral distinctions,\nwithout indulging in any sort of \"moral holiday,\" and without becoming\nunwilling to destroy when he cannot otherwise rationally face the\nfacts before him than by destroying. He is not less strenuous in his\ndealing with his moral situation because he has discovered how to\nsubstitute growth for destruction and creative assimilation for barren\nhostility. He is all the more effectively loyal in the presence of\nsuch ills, because he sees how they can become, for his consciousness,\nparts of a good whole.\n\nIlls of this sort may become, and in the better cases do become,\nsources of religious insight. Their presence in our world enables us\nthe better to comprehend its spiritual unity. And because they are\noften very deep and tragic ills, which we face only with very deep and\ndear travail of spirit, they hint to us how, from the point of view of\na world-embracing insight, the countless and terrible ills of the\nother sort, which we _cannot_ now understand, and which, at present,\nappear to us merely as worthy of utter destruction, may still also\nhave their places, as stages and phases of expression, in the larger\nlife to which we belong. In our own power to assimilate {237} and\nspiritualise our own ills, we can get at times a hint of such larger\nspiritual processes. In these very processes we also, through our\nloyal endeavour, can act our own real part; although _what_ the larger\nprocesses are we cannot expect at present to comprehend better than a\nsympathising dog, whose master is devoting his life to furthering the\nhighest spiritual welfare of a nation or of all mankind, can know why\nhis master's face is now grief-stricken and now joyous.\n\nIn other words, the ills that we _can_ spiritualise and idealise\nwithout merely destroying them hint to us that, despite the\nuncomprehended chaos of seemingly hopeless tragedy with which for our\npresent view human life seems to be beset, the vision of the spiritual\ntriumph of the good which reason and loyalty present to us need not be\nan illusion, but is perfectly consistent with the facts. The world is\ninfinite. With our present view we could not expect to grasp directly\nthe unity of its meaning. We have sources of insight which tend to our\nsalvation by showing us, in general, although certainly not in detail,\nthe nature of the spiritual process which, as these sources of insight\npersistently point out, constitutes the essence of reality. Whether\nthese sources are themselves valid and trustworthy is a question to be\nconsidered upon its own merits. I have stated my case so far as our\nbrief review requires it to be stated. I must leave to your own\nconsiderateness the further estimate of what these {238} sources\nteach, both as to the reality of the master of life and as to the\nnature of the process of salvation. My present concern is simply with\nthe cloud that the presence of evil seems to cause to pass over the\nface of all these sources. I cannot undertake wholly to dispel this\ncloud by showing you in detail why pestilences or why broken hearts\nare permitted to exist in this world. But I can show you that there\nare, indeed, ills, and very dark ills in life, which not only are\nthere, but are essential to the highest life. I do not exaggerate our\npower to solve mysteries when I insist that _these_ ills constitute\nnot an opaque hindrance to insight, not a cloud over the sun of reason\nand of loyalty, but rather a source of insight. And, as I insist, they\nconstitute such a source without being in the least an excuse for any\nindolence in our moral struggle with precisely those aspects of such\nills as we ought to destroy. They show us how the triumph of the moral\nwill over such adversities is perfectly consistent with the\nrecognition that the most rational type of life demands the existence\nof just such adversities. Their presence in our world does not excuse\nsloth, does not justify a \"moral holiday,\" does not permit us to enjoy\nany mere luxury of mystical contemplation of the triumph of the divine\nin the world, without ourselves taking our rational and strenuous part\nin the actual attainment of such triumph. But what these forms of ill\nshow us is that there are accessible cases in which if--but only\nif--one does the divine will--one {239} can know of the doctrine that\nteaches how the divine will can and does become perfect, not through\nthe mere abolition of evil, but through suffering. Such cases of ill\nare true sources of insight. They reveal to us some of the deepest\ntruths about what loyalty, and spiritual triumph, and the good really\nare. They make for salvation. They drive away clouds and bring us face\nto face with the will of the world.\n\nI have so far spoken of evil in general. For the present purpose I\nneed a name for the ills that one rationally faces only when one,\nthrough some essentially active, constructive, moral process,\ncreatively assimilates and idealise them, and thus wins them over to\nbe a part of good--not when one merely drives them out of existence.\nOne name for such ills is Griselda's name: \"Adversities.\" But I have\nchosen, in the title of this lecture, to use the vaguer untechnical\nname: Sorrow. A great physical pain, you in general cannot, at least\nat the moment, idealise. You then and there face it only as something\nintolerable, and can see no good except through its mere abolition.\nThe same is true of any crushing blow of fortune, precisely in so far\nas it crushes. All such things you then and there view narrowly. Their\nmystery lies in the very fact that they are thus, for the moment, seen\nonly narrowly. Hence, they are _ipso facto_ hindrances to insight. But\na sorrow--when you use the word you have already begun to assimilate\nand idealise the fact that you {240} call a sorrow. That you have\nbegun to idealise it, the very luxury of deep grief often vaguely\nhints, sometimes clearly shows. For sorrows may have already become\ntragically precious to you. Would you forget your lost love, or your\ndead, or your \"days that are no more,\" even if you could? Is mere\ndestruction, then, your _only_ tendency in the presence of such\nsorrows. A closer view of your attitude toward such sorrows shows that\nthey are not only clouding but revealing. They begin, they may\nendlessly continue, to show you the way into the spiritual realm and\nthe nature of this realm.\n\nBy sorrow, then, I here mean an experience of ill which is not wholly\nan experience of that which as you then and there believe ought to be\nsimply driven out of existence. The insight of which sorrow is the\nsource, is an insight that tends to awaken within you a new view of\nwhat the spiritual realm is. This view is not in the least what some\nrecent writers have blindly proclaimed it to be--a philosopher's\nartificial abstraction--a cruel effort to substitute a \"soft\" doctrine\nof the study for a moral and humane facing of the \"hard\" facts of\nhuman life. No, this view is the soul of the teaching of all the\nworld's noblest and most practical guides to the most concrete living.\nThis view faces hardness, it endures and overcomes. Poets, prophets,\nmartyrs, sages, artists, the heroes of spirituality of every land and\nclime, have found in it comfort, resolution, and triumph. The\nphilosopher, at best, can report what {241} these have seen. And\n\"soft,\" indeed, is the type of thoughtful effort which declines to\nfollow with its ideas what all these have learned to express in their\nlives and in their religion.\n\n\n V\n\nBecause I am here not stating for you a merely speculative doctrine\nconcerning the place of evil in a good and rational spiritual world, I\nonce more need, at this point, to appeal as directly as I can to life.\nLet me present to you, from recent literature, a noteworthy instance\nof the use of our present source of insight. The instance is\nconfessedly one where no complete and determinate religious creed is\ndefended as the result of the use of the insight in question. And an\nactually eternal truth about the spiritual world--a very old truth in\nthe lore of the wise, but a deeply needed truth for our own day--is\nillustrated by the instance which the tale portrays.\n\nI refer to a recent short story, published in the _Atlantic Monthly_\nfor November, 1910, and written by Cornelia A. P. Comer. It is\nentitled \"The Preliminaries.\" It is, to my mind, an impressive union\nof a genuinely effective realism and a deep symbolism. The characters\nare very real human beings. Their problem is one of the most familiar\nproblems of daily life--the problem as to the advisability of the\nproposed marriage of two young lovers. The {242} conditions of the\nproblem are hard facts, of a general type that is unfortunately\nfrequent enough under our confusing modern conditions. These facts are\nviewed in the tale as such people might well view them. And yet the\nissues involved are, like all the problems of young lovers, issues\nthat are bound up with all the interests of religion and with the\nwhole problem of the reality of a spiritual world. These issues are\ntreated as they truly are, with a result that is fairly supernatural\nin its ancient but always new appeal to a source of insight that we\ncan reach only through sorrow.\n\nSince the question inevitably concerns the prospects of the proposed\nmarriage, the first statement of the problem is fully in harmony with\nthe spirit of recent pragmatism. The truth of the assertion: \"We ought\nto marry,\" is surely a truth that, as the pragmatists would say, the\nyoung lovers who make the assertion should regard as quite inseparable\nfrom the probable results to which this marriage will lead in concrete\nlife. Such a truth then is, one would say, wholly empirical. A\nmarriage proposal, to use the favourite phrase of pragmatism, is a\n\"working hypothesis.\" Such hypotheses must be submitted to the test of\nexperience. No such test, it would seem, would be absolute. What does\npoor humanity know as to the real values of our destiny? Meanwhile the\nwhole problem of good and evil is in question. Marriage, especially\nunder certain conditions, will lead to one or another sorrow. Can one\nface {243} sorrow with any really deeper trust in life? Is life really\na good at all, since there is so much sorrow in it? Must not any\nprudent person be afraid of life? Ought the lovers to defy fortune and\nto ignore obvious worldly prudence?\n\nSuch is the first statement of the problem. Its treatment in this\nadmirable sketch shows an insight into the nature of good and evil\nwhich I had myself come to regard as very little present to the minds\nof the story-tellers of to-day, who are so often dominated by the\nrecent love of power, by the tedious blindness of modern\nindividualism, by false doctrines as to the merely temporal expediency\nof truth, and by the merely glittering show of unspiritual worldly\nefficiency. I rejoice to find that, in a literature which has been, of\nlate, so devastated by a popularly trivial interpretation of\npragmatism, and by an equally trivial disregard for the \"rule of\nreason,\" there is still place for so straightforward and practical a\nrecognition of eternal truth as the wise woman who has written this\nshort story exemplifies.\n\nThe issue regarding this particular marriage proposal is stated at\nonce in the opening words of the tale:\n\n\"Young Oliver Pickersgill was in love with Peter Lannithorne's\ndaughter. Peter Lannithorne was serving a six-year term in the\npenitentiary for embezzlement.\"\n\nThe young hero is depicted as a high-minded youth of unquestionable\nand prosperous social {244} position in his community. His beloved is\na loyal daughter who is convinced that her father's crime was due\nsolely to a momentary and benevolent weakness, and to a mind confused\nby care for the needs and too importunate requirements of his own\nfamily. Not unjustly attributing the father's final downfall to the\nimpatience, to the agonising discontent, and to the worldly ambition\nof her own mother, the daughter with spirit replies to the lover's\nproposal by saying plainly: \"I will never marry any one who doesn't\nrespect my father as I do.\" The lovers somewhat easily come to terms,\nat least apparently, as to this sole present ground for disagreement.\nThe youth, not without inward difficulty, is ready to accept the\ndaughter's version of her father's misadventure. In any case, love\nmakes him indifferent to merely worldly scruples, and he has no fear\nof his own power to face his community as the loving husband of a\nconvict's daughter; though there is, indeed, no doubt as to the\nfather's actual guilt, and although Lannithorne is known to have\nadmitted the justice of his sentence.\n\nBut to love, and to be magnanimously hopeful--this is not the same as\nto convince other people that such a marriage is prudent, or is\nlikely, as the pragmatists would say, to have \"expedient workings.\"\nYoung Oliver has to persuade Ruth's mother on the one hand, his own\nfather on the other, that such a marriage is reasonable. Both prove to\nbe hard to convince. To the ordinary scruples of worldly {245}\nprudence which young lovers generally have to answer, they easily add\nseemingly unanswerable objections. The mother--the convict's wife--now\na brilliantly clear-witted but hopelessly narrow-minded invalid--a\nbroken woman of the world--pragmatically enlightened, in a way, by the\nbitter experience of sorrow, but not in the least brought thereby to\nany deeper insight, faces the lover as an intruder upon her daughter's\npeace and her own desolation. She has known, she says, what the\nbitterness of an unhappy marriage can be and is. If she herself has\nhad her share of blame for her husband's downfall, that only the more\nshows her such truth as, in this dark world, she still can grasp. \"I\ndo not want my daughters to marry\"--this is, to her, the conclusion of\nthe whole matter. The bitterness of her own marriage has taught her\nthis lesson, which she expounds to the lover with all the passion of\nwounded pride and the dear-bought lore of life as she has learned it.\nBut of course, as she admits, she may be wrong. Let the lover consult\nher husband at the jail. He--the convict--is a well-meaning man,\nafter all. He fell; but he is not at heart a criminal. Let him say\nwhether he wants his daughter to take up the burden of this new\ntragedy. So the mother concludes her parable.\n\nThe lover, baffled, but still hopeful, next turns to his own father\nfor consent and encouragement. But now he has to listen to the\nteachings of a loftier yet to him profoundly discouraging prudence.\n{246} Oliver's father is a truly high-minded man of the world, with a\ngenuinely religious feeling in the background of his mind, and is\nintensely devoted to his son. But from this proposed match he recoils\nwith a natural horror. The world is full of good girls. Why not choose\none who brings no such sorrow with her? Peter Lannithorne was in his\ncrime no worse, indeed, than many other men who are not in jail. He\neven meant on the whole well, and blundered, until at last from\nblunder he drifted into crime. He then took his penalty like a man,\nand owned that it was just. But, after all, he was found out. Such a\ntaint lasts. It cannot be removed by repentance. The proposed marriage\ncan only lead to misery. Peter Lannithorne himself, who, after all,\n\"knows what's what,\" would be the first to admit this fact, if one\nasked his advice. If the son must persist in making light of a loving\nfather's wisdom--well, let him then consult Peter Lannithorne himself.\nAsk the convict in his prison what a man needs and expects in the\nfamily of the woman whom he is to marry. This is the father's firm but\nkindly ultimatum.\n\nTerrified by the gravity of repeated warnings, and dispirited by\nhaving to leave his dearest problem to the decision of the convict\nhimself, Oliver determines to face the inevitable. He arranges for the\ninterview at the jail, and is left by the warden alone with the\nprisoner in the prison library. Suddenly, as he faces his man, the\nyouth finds himself {247} in the presence of one who has somehow been\ntransformed as if by a supernatural power. As for the convict's\nperson--\n\n His features were irregular and unnoticeable; but the sum-total of\n them gave the impression of force. It was a strong face, yet you\n could see that it had once been a weak one. It was a tremendously\n human face, a face like a battle-ground, scarred and seamed and\n lined with the stress of invisible conflicts.... Not a triumphant\n face at all, and yet there was peace in it. Somehow, the man had\n achieved something, arrived somewhere, and the record of the journey\n was piteous and terrible. Yet it drew the eyes in awe as much as in\n wonder, and in pity not at all.\n\nOliver, reassured by the new presence, and glad to find himself at\nlast facing a man who has nothing left to fear in life, states as well\nas possible his main problem. The father of his beloved listens, first\nwith surprise at the news, then with seriousness. Oliver finds himself\nforced to cut deep when he repeats his own father's appeal to know the\nconvict's opinion about what a man expects to meet in his future\nwife's family, and then pauses with a keen sense of the cruelty of his\nown position. But Lannithorne, who has long since become accustomed to\nfeeling the ploughshare of passion grind down to his uttermost rock,\nis perfectly ready with his response. As the youth pauses and then\nbegins a new appeal--\n\n The man looked up and held up an arresting hand. \"Let me clear the\n way for you a little,\" he said. \"It was a hard {248} thing for you\n to come and seek me out in this place. I like your coming. Most\n young men would have refused, or come in a different spirit. I want\n you to understand that if in Ruth's eyes, and my wife's, and your\n father's, my counsel has value, it is because they think I see\n things as they are. And that means, first of all, that I know myself\n for a man who committed a crime and is paying the penalty. I am\n satisfied to be paying it. As I see justice, it is just. So, if I\n seem to wince at your necessary allusions to it, that is part of the\n price. I don't want you to feel that you are blundering or hurting\n me more than is necessary. You have got to lay the thing before me\n as it is.\"\n\n Something in the words, in the dry, patient manner, in the endurance\n of the man's face, touched Oliver to the quick and made him feel all\n manner of new things: such as a sense of the moral poise of the\n universe, acquiescence in its retributions, and a curious pride,\n akin to Ruth's own, in a man who could meet him after this fashion,\n in this place.\n\nHereupon, fully aroused, the youth tells with freedom why the problem\nseems so hard for the young people, and how their elders all insist\nupon such frightful discouragements, and how much he longs to know the\ntruth about life, and whether all such doubts and scruples as those of\nhis own father and of Ruth's mother are well founded. At last the\nprisoner begins his reply:\n\n \"They haven't the point of view,\" he said. \"It is life that is the\n great adventure. Not love, not marriage, not business. They are just\n chapters in the book. The main thing is to take the road\n fearlessly--to have courage to live one's life.\"\n\n \"Courage?\"\n\n{249}\n\n Lannithorne nodded.\n\n \"That is the great word. Don't you see what ails your father's point\n of view, and my wife's? One wants absolute security in one way for\n Ruth; the other wants absolute security in another way for you. And\n security--why, it's just the one thing a human being can't have, the\n thing that's the damnation of him if he gets it! The reason it is so\n hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is that he has\n that false sense of security. To demand it just disintegrates a man.\n I don't know why. It does.\"\n\n Oliver shook his head uncertainly.\n\n \"I don't quite follow you, sir. Oughtn't one to try to be safe?\"\n\n \"One ought to try, yes. That is common prudence. But the point is\n that, whatever you do or get, you aren't after all secure. There is\n no such condition, and the harder you demand it, the more risk you\n run. So it is up to a man to take all reasonable precautions about\n his money, or his happiness, or his life, and trust the rest. What\n every man in the world is looking for is the sense of having the\n mastery over life. But I tell you, boy, there is only one thing that\n really gives it!\"\n\n \"And that is?\"\n\n Lannithorne hesitated perceptibly. For the thing he was about to\n tell this undisciplined lad was his most precious possession; it was\n the price of wisdom for which he had paid with the years of his\n life. No man parts lightly with such knowledge.\n\n \"It comes,\" he said, with an effort, \"with the knowledge of our\n power to endure. That's it. _You are safe only when you can stand\n everything that can happen to you._ Then, and then only! Endurance\n is the measure of a man! ... Sometimes I think it is harder to\n endure what we deserve, like me,\" said Lannithorne, \"than what we\n don't. I was afraid, you see, afraid for my wife and all of them.\n Anyhow, take my word for it. Courage is security. There is no other\n kind.\"\n\n{250}\n\n \"Then--Ruth and I--\"\n\n \"Ruth is the core of my heart!\" said Lannithorne thickly. \"I would\n rather die than have her suffer more than she must. But she must\n take her chances like the rest. It is the law of things. If you know\n yourself fit for her, and feel reasonably sure you can take care of\n her, you have a right to trust the future. Myself, I believe there\n is some One to trust it to.\"\n\nThe speaker of this hard-won wisdom, after this appeal to the eternal,\nutters his last tremulous word as from a father's loving heart, and\nthen the interview must end. The author concludes:\n\n Finding his way out of the prison yard a few minutes later, Oliver\n looked, unseeing, at the high walls that soared against the blue\n spring sky. He could not realise them, there was such a sense of\n light, air, space, in his spirit.\n\n Apparently, he was just where he had been an hour before, with all\n his battles still to fight, but really he knew they were already\n won, for his weapon had been forged and put in his hand. He left his\n boyhood behind him as he passed that stern threshold, for the last\n hour had made a man of him, and a prisoner had given him the\n master-key that opens every door.\n\n\n VI\n\nNow this, I insist, is insight. It is no \"soft\" doctrine. It is far\nbeyond the sort of pragmatism that accepts the test of momentary\nresults. As far as it goes, it is religious insight. It is insight,\nmoreover, into the nature of certain ills which cannot, yes, which in\nprinciple, and even by omnipotence, {251} could not, be simply removed\nfrom existence without abolishing the conditions which are logically\nnecessary to the very highest good that we know. Life in the spirit\nsimply presupposes the conditions that these ills exemplify.\n\nWhat sorrow is deeper than the full recognition of one's own now\nirrevocable deed, if one has, hereupon, fully to confess that this\ndeed is, from one's own present point of view, a crime? Yet how could\nsuch ills be simply removed from existence if any range of individual\nexpression, of freedom, of power to choose is to be left open at all?\nHow can one possess spiritual effectiveness--the privilege that youth\nmost ardently demands--without assuming the risk involved in taking\npersonal responsibility for some aspects of the lives of our fellows?\nAs for our blunders, what more precious privilege do we all claim than\nthe privilege of making our own blunders, or at least a due proportion\nof them? When we act, every act is done for eternity, since it is\nirrevocable. When we love, we ask the privilege to bind up other\ndestinies with our own. The tragedies of such a world as ours are,\ntherefore, not such as could be simply wiped out of existence, unless\none were ready to deprive every individual personality both of its\nrange of free choice and of its effectiveness of action. When we\nsuffer, then, in such a world, we know indeed that there need have\nbeen no such suffering had there been no world at all. But precisely\nwhen our ills are most bound up with {252} our own personal wills, we\nknow that no mere removal of such ills could have occurred without the\nabolition of all the conditions which our spiritual freedom, our\nlonging for effectiveness, and our love for union with other\npersonalities make us regard as the conditions of the highest good. No\nGod could conceivably give you the good of self-expression without\ngranting you the privilege, not only of choosing wrongly, but of\ninvolving your brethren in the results of your misdeed. For when you\nlove your kind, you aim to be a factor in their lives; and to deprive\nyou of this privilege would be to insure your total failure. But if\nyou possess this privilege, you share in a life that, in proportion to\nits importance and depth and range and richness of spiritual\nrelations, is full of the possibilities of tragedy.\n\nFace such tragedy, however, and what does it show you? The\npossibility, not of annulling an evil, or of ceasing to regret it, but\nof showing spiritual power, first, through idealising your grief, by\nseeing even through this grief the depth of the significance of our\nrelations as individuals to one another, to our social order, and to\nthe whole of life; secondly, through enduring your fortune; and\nthirdly, through conquering, by the might of the spirit, those goods\nwhich can only be won through such sorrow. What those goods are, the\nconvict has just, if only in small part, told us. Griselda told us\nsomething about them which is much deeper still. For adversity and\nloyalty are, indeed, simply inseparable {253} companions. There could\nnot be loyalty in a world where the loyal being himself met no\nadversities that personally belonged to and entered his own inner\nlife. That this is true, let every loyal experience bear witness.\n\nNow such sorrows, such idealised evils, which are so interwoven with\ngood that if the precious grief were wholly removed from existence,\nthe courage, the fidelity, the spiritual self-possession, the peace\nthrough and in and beyond tribulation which such trials alone make\npossible, would also be removed--they surely show us that the\nabstract principle: \"Evil ought to be abolished,\" is false. They show\nus that the divine will also must be made perfect through suffering.\nSince we can comprehend the meaning of such experiences only through\nresolute action, through courage, through loyalty, through the power\nof the spirit, they in no wise justify sloth, or mere passivity, or\nmystical idleness. The active dealing with such sorrow gives, as James\nhimself once well asserts, a new dimension to life. No experiences go\nfurther than do these to show us how, in our loyalty and in our\ncourage, we are becoming one with the master of life, who through\nsorrow overcomes.\n\nLet man, the destroyer, then remember that there is one ill which he\ncould not destroy, even if he were God, without also destroying all\nthe spiritual prowess in which all those rejoice who, inspired by an\nambition infinitely above that of Achilles, long {254} to be one with\nGod through bearing and overcoming the sorrows of a world.\n\nWe have thus indicated a source of insight. To tell more about what it\nreveals would at once lead me, as you see, close to the most vital of\nall Christian teachings, the doctrine of the Atonement. But such a\nstudy belongs elsewhere.\n\n{255}\n\n VII\n\n THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH\n\n{256}\n\n{257}\n\n VII\n\n THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH\n\n\nMy present and concluding lecture must begin with some explanations of\nwhat I mean by the term \"The Unity of the Spirit.\" Then I shall have\nto define my use of the term \"The Invisible Church.\" Thereafter, we\nshall be free to devote ourselves to the consideration of a source of\nreligious insight as omnipresent as it is variously interpreted by\nthose who, throughout all the religious world, daily appeal to its\nguidance. The outcome of our discussion may help some of you, as I\nhope, to turn your attention more toward the region where the greatest\nhelp is to be found in the cultivation of that true loyalty which, if\nI am right, is the heart and core of every higher religion.\n\n\n I\n\nIn these lectures I have repeatedly called the religious objects, that\nis, the objects whereof the knowledge tends to the salvation of man,\n\"superhuman\" and \"supernatural\" objects. I have more or less fully\nexplained, as I went, the sense in which {258} I hold these objects to\nbe both superhuman and supernatural. But every use of familiar\ntraditional terms is likely to arouse misunderstandings. I have\nperfectly definite reasons for my choice of the traditional words in\nquestion as adjectives wherewith to characterise the religious\nobjects. But I do not want to leave in your minds any doubts as to\nwhat my usage is deliberately intended to imply. I do not want to seem\nto make any wrong use of the vaguer associations which will be in your\nminds when something human is compared with something superhuman, and\nwhen the natural and the supernatural are contrasted. This closing\nlecture, in which I am to deal with an aspect of spiritual life which\nwe have everywhere in our discourse tacitly presupposed, but which now\nis to take its definitive place on our list of sources of religious\ninsight, gives me my best opportunity to forestall useless\nmisunderstandings by putting myself upon record as to the precise\nsense in which both the new source itself and everything else\nsuperhuman and supernatural to which religion has a rational right to\nappeal is, to my mind, a reality, and is a source or an object of\nhuman insight. I shall therefore explain the two adjectives just\nemphasised by giving you a somewhat fuller account of their sense than\nI have heretofore stated. If the new account touches upon technical\nmatters, I hope that, by our long list of illustrations of the\nsuperhuman and of the supernatural, we have now sufficiently prepared\nthe way.\n\n{259}\n\nIn my general sketch of the characteristics of human nature which\nawaken in us the sense of our need for salvation, I laid stress, both\nin our first and in our second lectures, upon our narrowness of\noutlook as one principal and pervasive defect of man as he naturally\nis constituted. I illustrated this narrowness by some of its most\npractically noteworthy instances. Repeatedly I returned, in later\ndiscussions, to this same feature of our life. Now man's narrowness of\nnatural outlook upon life is first of all due to something which I\nhave to call the \"form\" of human consciousness. What I mean by this\nform, I have already illustrated to you freely by the very instances\nto which I have just referred. But technical clearness as to such\ntopics is hard to attain. Allow me, then, to insist with some care\nupon matters which are as influential in moulding our whole destiny as\nthey are commonly neglected in our discussions of the problems of life\nand of reality.\n\n_Man can attend to but a very narrow range of facts at any one\ninstant._ Common-sense observation shows you this. Psychological\nexperiment emphasises it in manifold ways. Listen to a rhythmic series\nof beats--drum beats--or the strokes of an engine, or the feet of\nhorses passing by in the street. You cannot directly grasp with entire\nclearness more than a very brief sequence of these beats, or other\nsounds, or of rhythmic phrases of any kind. If the rhythm of a\nregularly repeated set of sounds is too {260} long, or too complex, it\nbecomes confused for you. You cannot make out by your direct attention\nwhat it is at least until it has by repetition grown familiar. Let\nseveral objects be brought before you at once. You can attend to one\nand then to another at pleasure if only they stay there to be attended\nto. But only a very few distinct objects can be suddenly seen at once,\nand at a single glance, and recognised, through that one instantaneous\npresentation, for what they are. If the objects are revealed to you in\nthe darkness by an electric spark, or are seen through a single slit\nin a screen that rapidly moves before your eyes--so that the objects\nare exposed to your observation only during the extremely brief time\nwhen the slit passes directly between them and your eyes--this limit\nof your power to grasp several distinct objects at once, upon a single\ninspection, can be experimentally tested. The results of such\nexperiments concern us here only in the most general way. Enough--as\nsuch tests show--what one may call the span of our consciousness, its\npower to grasp many facts in any one individual moment of our lives,\nis extremely limited. It is limited as to the number of simultaneously\npresented facts that we can grasp at one view, can distinguish, and\nrecognise, and hold clearly before us. It is also limited with regard\nto the number and the duration of the successive facts that we can so\nface as directly to grasp the character of their succession, rhythmic\nor otherwise.\n\n{261}\n\nNow this limitation of the span of our consciousness is, I repeat, an\never-present defect of our human type of conscious life. That is why I\ncall it a defect in the \"form\" of our conscious life. It is not a\ndefect limited to the use of any one of our senses. It is not a\nfailure of eyes or of ears to furnish to us a sufficient variety of\nfacts to observe. On the contrary, both our eyes and our ears almost\nconstantly rain in upon us, especially during our more desultory\nwaking life, an overwealth of impressions. If we want to know facts,\nand to attain clearness, we have to pick out a few of these\nimpressions, from instant to instant, for more careful direct\ninspection. In any case, then, this limitation is not due to the\ndefects of our senses. It is our whole conscious make-up, our\ncharacteristic way of becoming aware of things, which is expressed by\nthis limitation of our conscious span. On this plan our human\nconsciousness is formed. Thus our type of awareness is constituted. In\nthis way we are all doomed to live. It is our human fate to grasp\nclearly only a few facts or ideas at any one instant. And so, being\nwhat we are, we have to make the best of our human nature.\n\nMeanwhile, it is of our very essence as reasonable beings that we are\nalways contending with the consequences of this our natural narrowness\nof span. We are always actively rebelling at our own form of\nconsciousness, so long as we are trying to know or to do anything\nsignificant. We want to grasp {262} many things at once, not merely a\nfew. We want to survey life in long stretches, not merely in\ninstantaneous glimpses. We are always like beings who have to see our\nuniverse through the cracks that our successive instants open before\nus, and as quickly close again. And we want to see things, not through\nthese instantaneous cracks, but without intervening walls, with wide\noutlook, and in all their true variety and unity. Nor is this\nrebellion of ours against the mere form of consciousness any merely\nidle curiosity or peevish seeking for a barren wealth of varieties.\nSalvation itself is at stake in this struggle for a wider clearness of\noutlook. The wisest souls, as we have throughout seen, agree with\ncommon-sense prudence in the desire to see at any one instant greater\nvarieties of ideas and of objects than our form of consciousness\npermits us to grasp. To escape from the limitations imposed upon us by\nthe natural narrowness of our span of consciousness--by the form of\nconsciousness in which we live--this is the common interest of science\nand of religion, of the more contemplative and of the more active\naspects of our higher nature. _Our form of consciousness is one of our\nchief human sorrows._\n\nBy devices such as the rhythmic presentation of facts to our attention\nwe can do something--not very much--to enlarge our span of\nconsciousness. But for most purposes we can make only an _indirect,_\nnot a _direct,_ escape from our limitations of span. Our salvation\ndepends upon the winning of such {263} indirect successes. Indirectly\nwe escape, in so far as we use our powers of habit-forming, of memory,\nand of abstraction, to prepare for us objects of momentary experience\nsuch as have come to acquire for us a wide range of meaning, so that,\nwhen we get before our momentary attention but a few of these objects\nat once, we still are able to comprehend, after our human fashion,\nranges and connections and unities of fact which the narrow form of\nour span of consciousness forbids us to grasp with directness. Thus,\nthe repetition of similar experiences forms habits such that each\nelement of some new instant of passing experience comes to us\nsaturated with the meaning that, as we look back upon our past life,\nwe suppose to have resulted from the whole course of what has\nhappened. And through such endlessly varied processes of\nhabit-forming, we come to reach stages of insight in which the\ninstantaneous presentation of a few facts gets for us, at a given\nmoment, the value of an indirect appreciation of what we never\ndirectly grasp--that is, the value of a wide survey of life. All that\nwe usually call knowledge is due to such indirect grasping of what the\ninstant can only hint to us, although we usually feel as if this\nindirect presentation were itself a direct insight. Let me exemplify:\nThe odour of a flower may come to us burdened with a meaning that we\nregard as the total result of a whole summer of our life. The wrinkled\nface of an old man reveals to us, in its momentarily presented {264}\ntraces, the signs of what we take to have been his lifetime's\nexperience and slowly won personal character. And, in very much the\nsame way, almost any passing experience may seem to us to speak with\nthe voice of years, or even of ages, of human life. To take yet\nanother instance: a single musical chord epitomises the result of all\nour former hearings of the musical composition which it introduces.\n\nIn this way we live, despite our narrowness, _as if_ we saw widely;\nand we constantly view _as if it were_ our actual experience, a sense\nand connection of things which actually never gets fully translated in\nany moment of our lives, but is always simply presupposed as the\ninterpretation which a wider view of life _would_ verify. Thus bounded\nin the nutshell of the passing instant, we count ourselves (in one way\nor another, and whatever our opinions), kings of the infinite realm of\nexperience, or would do so were it not that, like Hamlet, we have so\nmany \"bad dreams,\" which make us doubt the correctness of our\ninterpretations, and feel our need of an escape from this stubborn\nnatural prison of our own form of consciousness. We therefore appeal,\nin all our truth-seeking, to a wider view than our own present view.\n\nOur most systematic mode of indirect escape from the consequences of\nour narrow span of consciousness, is the mode which our thinking\nprocesses, that is, our dealings with abstract and general ideas\nexemplify.\n\n{265}\n\nSuch abstract and general ideas, as we earlier saw, are means to\nends--never ends in themselves. By means of generalisation or\nabstraction we can gradually come to choose signs which we can more or\nless successfully substitute for long series of presented objects of\nexperience; and we can also train ourselves into active ways of\nestimating or of describing things--ways such, that by reminding\nourselves of these our active attitudes toward the business of life,\nwe can seem to ourselves to epitomise in an instant the sense of years\nor even of ages of human experience. Such signs and symbols and\nattitudes constitute our store of general and abstract ideas. Our more\nor less systematic and voluntary thinking is a process of observing,\nat one or another instant, the connections and the meanings of a very\nfew of these our signs and attitudes at once. We actively put together\nthese ideas of ours, and watch, at the instant, the little connections\nthat then and there are able to appear, despite the narrowness of our\nspan of consciousness. That, for instance, is what happens when we add\nup columns of figures, or think out a problem, or plan our practical\nlives. But because each of the ideas used, each of these signs or\nsymbols or attitudes, can be more or less safely substituted for some\nvast body of facts of experience, what we observe only in and through\nour narrow span can indirectly help us to appreciate something whose\nreal meaning only a very wide range of experience, a consciousness\nwhose {266} span is enormously vaster than ours, could possibly\npresent directly.\n\nThus, confined to our own form and span of consciousness as we are, we\nspend our lives in acquiring or devising ways to accomplish indirectly\nwhat we are forbidden directly to attain, namely, the discovery of\ntruth and of meaning such as only a consciousness of another form than\nours can realise. Now, as I maintained in our third and fourth\nlectures, _the whole validity and value of this indirect procedure of\nours depends upon the principle that such a wider view of things, such\na larger unity of consciousness, such a direct grasp of the meanings\nat which we indirectly but ceaselessly aim is a reality in the\nuniverse._ As I there maintained, _the whole reality of the universe\nitself must he defined, in terms of the reality of such an inclusive\nand direct grasp of the whole sense of things._ I can here only repeat\nmy opinion that this thesis is one which nobody can deny without\nself-contradiction.\n\nNow the difference between the narrow form of consciousness that we\nhuman beings possess and the wider and widest forms of consciousness\nwhose reality every common-sense effort to give sense to life, and\nevery scientific effort to discover the total verdict of experience\npresupposes--the difference, I say, between these two forms of\nconsciousness is _literally_ expressed by calling the one form (the\nform that we all possess) _human,_ and by calling the other form (the\nform of a wider consciousness which views {267} experience as it is)\n_superhuman._ The wider conscious view of things that we share only\nindirectly, through the devices just pointed out, is certainly not\nhuman; for no mortal man ever directly possesses it. It is real; for,\nas we saw in our study of the reason, if you deny this assertion in\none shape, you reaffirm it in another. For you can define the truth\nand falsity of your own opinions only by presupposing a wider view\nthat sees as a whole what you see in fragments. That unity of\nconsciousness which we presuppose in all our indirect efforts to get\ninto touch with its direct view of truth is above our level. It\nincludes what we actually get before us in our form of consciousness.\nIt also includes all that we are trying to grasp indirectly. Now what\nis not human, and is above our level, and includes all of our insight,\nbut transcends and corrects our indirect efforts by its direct grasp\nof facts as they are, can best be called superhuman. _The thesis that\nsuch a superhuman consciousness is a reality is a thesis precisely\nequivalent to the assertion that our experience has any real sense or\nconnection whatever_ beyond the mere fragment of connectedness that,\nat any one instant, we directly grasp.\n\nFurthermore, to call such a larger consciousness--inclusive of our\nown, but differing from ours, in form, by the vastness of its span and\nthe variety and completeness of the connections that it surveys--to\ncall it, I say, a _supernatural_ consciousness is to use a phraseology\nthat can be very {268} deliberately and, if you choose, technically\ndefended. By \"natural\" we mean simply: Subject to the laws which hold\nfor the sorts of beings whose character and behaviour our empirical\nsciences can study. If you suddenly found that you could personally\nand individually and clearly grasp, by an act of direct attention, the\nsense and connection of thousands of experiences at once, instead of\nthe three or four presented facts of experience whose relations you\ncan now directly observe in any one of your moments of consciousness,\nyou would indeed say that you had been miraculously transformed into\nanother type of being whose insight had acquired an angelic sort of\nwealth and clearness. But whenever you assert (as every scientific\ntheory, and every common-sense opinion, regarding the real connections\nof the facts of human experience requires you to assert), that not\nonly thousands, but a countless collection of data of human experience\nactually possess a perfectly coherent total sense and meaning, such as\nno individual man ever directly observes, this your assertion, which\nundertakes to be a report of facts, and which explicitly relates to\nfacts of experience, implies the assertion that there exists such a\nsuperhuman survey of the real nature and connection of our own natural\nrealm of conscious life. We ourselves are strictly limited by the\nnatural conditions that determine our own form of consciousness. And\nno conditions can be regarded by us as more characteristically natural\nthan are these. For {269} us human beings to transcend those\nconditions, by surveying countless data at once, would require an\nuttermost exception to the natural laws which are found to govern our\nhuman type of consciousness. To believe that any man ever had\naccomplished the direct survey of the whole range of the physical\nconnections of the solar and stellar systems at once--in other words,\nhad grasped the whole range of astronomical experience in a single act\nof attention--would be to believe that a most incredible miracle had\nat some time taken place--an incredible miracle so far as any\nknowledge that we now possess enables us to foresee what the natural\nconditions under which man lives, and is, in human form, conscious,\npermit. But, on the other hand, to accept, as we all do, the validity\nof that scientific interpretation of the data of human experience\nwhich astronomy reports is to acknowledge that such an interpretation\nmore or less completely records a system of facts which are nothing if\nthey are not in some definite sense empirical, although, in their\nwholeness, they are experienced by no man. That is, the acceptance of\nthe substantial truth of astronomy involves the acknowledgment that\nsome such, to us simply superhuman, consciousness is precisely as real\nas the stars are real, and as their courses, and as all their\nrelations are real. Yet, of course, we cannot undertake to investigate\nany process such as would enable us to define the natural conditions\nunder which any such superhuman {270} survey of astronomical facts\nwould become psychologically possible.\n\nThe acceptance of our natural sciences, as valid interpretations of\nconnections of experience which our form of consciousness forbids us\ndirectly to verify, logically presupposes, at every step, that such\nsuperhuman forms and unities of consciousness are real. For the facts\nof science are indefinable except as facts in and for a real\nexperience. But, on the other hand, we can hope for no advance in\nphysical or in psychological knowledge which would enable us to bring\nthese higher forms of consciousness under what we call natural laws.\nSo the superhuman forms of consciousness remain for us also\nsupernatural. _That_ they are, we must acknowledge, if any assertion\nwhatever about our world is to be either true or false. For all\nassertions are made about experience, and about its real connections,\nand about its systems. But _what_ conditions, _what_ natural causes,\nbring such superhuman forms of consciousness into existence we are\nunable to investigate. For every assertion about nature or about\nnatural laws presupposes that natural facts and laws are real only in\nso far as they are the objects known to such higher unities of\nconsciousness. The unities in question are themselves no natural\nobjects; while all natural facts are objects for them and are\nexpressions of their meaning.\n\nThus definite are my reasons for asserting that forms of consciousness\nsuperior to our own are real, {271} and that they are all finally\nunited in a single, world-embracing insight, which has also the\ncharacter of expressing a world-will. Thus definite are also my\ngrounds for calling such higher unities of consciousness both\nsuperhuman and supernatural. By the term \"The unity of the spirit\" I\nname simply _the unity of meaning which belongs to these superhuman\nforms of consciousness._ We ourselves partake of this unity, and share\nit, in so far as, in our lives also, we discover and express, in\nwhatever way our own form of consciousness permits, truth and life\nthat bring us into touch and into harmony with the higher forms of\nconsciousness, that is, with the spirit which, in its wholeness, knows\nand estimates the world, and which expresses itself in the life of the\nworld.\n\nThus near are we, in every exercise of our reasonable life, to the\nsuperhuman and to the supernatural. Upon the other hand, there is\npositively no need of magic, or of miracle, or of mysterious\npromptings from the subconscious, to prove to us the reality of the\nhuman and of the supernatural, or to define our reasonable relations\nwith it. And the essential difference between our own type of\nconsciousness and this higher life is a difference of form, and is\nalso a difference of content precisely in so far as its wider and\nwidest span of conscious insight implies that the superhuman type of\nconsciousness possesses a depth of meaning, a completeness of\nexpression, a wealth of facts, a clearness of vision, a successful\n{272} embodiment of purpose which, in view of the narrowness of our\nform of consciousness, do not belong to us.\n\nMan needs no miracles to show him the supernatural and the superhuman.\nYou need no signs and wonders, and no psychical research, to prove\nthat the unity of the spirit is a fact in the world. Common-sense\ntacitly presupposes the reality of the unity of the spirit. Science\nstudies the ways in which its life is expressed in the laws which\ngovern the order of experience. Reason gives us insight into its real\nbeing. Loyalty serves it, and repents not of the service. Salvation\nmeans our positive harmony with its purpose and with its\nmanifestation.\n\n\n II\n\nAmongst the sources of insight which bring us into definite and\npractical relations with that spiritual world whose nature has now\nbeen again defined, one of the most effective is the life and the word\nof other men who are minded to be loyal to genuine causes, and who are\nalready, through the service of their common causes, brought together\nin some form of spiritual brotherhood. The real unity of the life of\nsuch fellow-servants of the Spirit is itself an instance of a\nsuperhuman conscious reality; and its members are devoted to bringing\nthemselves into harmony with the purposes of the universe. Any {273}\nbrotherhood of men who thus loyally live in the Spirit is, from my\npoint of view, a brotherhood essentially religious in its nature,\nprecisely in proportion as it is practically moved by an effort to\nserve--not merely the special cause to which its members, because of\ntheir training and their traditions, happen to be devoted, but also\nthe common cause of all the loyal. Such a brotherhood, so far as it is\nindeed human, and, therefore narrow, may not very expressly define\nwhat this common cause of all the loyal is, for its members may not be\nthoughtfully reflective people. But if, while rejoicing in their own\nperfectly real fraternal unity, they are also practically guided by\nthe love of furthering brotherhood amongst men in general; if they\nrespect the loyalty of other men so far as they understand that\nloyalty; if they seek, not to sow discord amongst the brethren of our\ncommunities, but to be a city set on a hill, that not only cannot be\nhid, but is also a model for other cities--a centre for the spreading\nof the spirit of loyalty--then the members of such an essentially\nfruitful brotherhood are actually loyal to the cause of causes. They\nare a source of insight to all who know of their life, and who rightly\nappreciate its meaning. And of such is the kingdom of loyalty. And the\ncommunities which such men form and serve are essentially religious\ncommunities. Each one is an example of the unity of the Spirit. Each\none stands for a reality that belongs to the superhuman world.\n\n{274}\n\nSince the variety of social forms which appear under human conditions\nis an unpredictably vast variety, and since the motives which guide\nmen are endlessly complex, different communities of loyal people may\npossess such a religious character and value in the most various\ndegrees. For it results from the narrowness of the human form of\nconsciousness that men, at any one moment, know not the whole of what\nthey mean. No sharp line can be drawn sundering the brotherhoods and\npartnerships, and other social organisations which men devise, into\nthose which for the men concerned are consciously religious, and those\nwhich, by virtue of their absence of interest in the larger and deeper\nloyalties are secular. The test whereby such a distinction should be\nmade is in principle a definite test. But to apply the test to every\npossible case requires a searching of human hearts and a just estimate\nof deeds and motives whereto, in our ignorance, we are very generally\ninadequate.\n\nA business firm would seem to be, in general, no model of a religious\norganisation. Yet it justly demands loyalty from its members and its\nservants. If it lives and acts merely for gain, it is secular indeed.\nBut if its business is socially beneficent, if its cause is\nhonourable, if its dealings are honest, if its treatment of its allies\nand rivals is such as makes for the confidence, the cordiality, and\nthe stability of the whole commercial life of its community and (when\nits influence extends so far) of the world, if {275} public spirit and\ntrue patriotism inspire its doings, if it is always ready on occasion\nto sacrifice gain for honour's sake--then there is no reason why it\nmay not become and be a genuinely and fervently religious brotherhood.\nCertainly a family can become a religious organisation; and some of\nthe most ancient traditions of mankind have demanded that it should be\none. There is also, and justly, a religion of patriotism, which\nregards the country as a divine institution. Such a religion serves\nthe unity of the spirit in a perfectly genuine way. Some of the most\nmomentous religious movements in the world's history have grown out of\nsuch an idealised patriotism. Christianity, in transferring local\nnames from Judea to a heavenly world, has borne witness to the\nsacredness that patriotism, upon its higher levels, acquires.\n\nIn brief, the question whether a given human brotherhood is a\nreligious institution or not is a question for that brotherhood to\ndecide for itself, subject only to the truth about its real motives.\nHas its cause the characters that mark a fitting cause of loyalty?\nDoes it so serve its cause as thereby to further the expression of the\ndivine unity of the spirit in the form of devoted human lives, not\nonly within its own brotherhood, but as widely as its influence\nextends? Then it is an essentially religious organisation. Nor does\nthe extent of its worldly influence enable you to decide how far it\nmeets these requirements. Nor yet does the {276} number of persons in\nits membership form any essential criterion. Wherever two or three are\ngathered together, and are living as they can in the Spirit that the\ndivine will (which wills the loyal union of all mankind) requires of\nthem--there, indeed, the work of the Spirit is done; and the\norganisation in question is a religious brotherhood. It needs no human\nsanction to make it such. Though it dwell on a desert island, and\nthough all its members soon die and are forgotten of men, its loyal\ndeeds are irrevocable facts of the eternal world; and the universal\nlife knows that here at least the divine will is expressed in human\nacts.\n\nBut so far as such communities both exist and are distinctly\nrecognisable as religious in their life and intent, they form a source\nof religious insight to all who come under their influence. Such a\nsource acts as a means whereby any or all of our previous sources may\nbe opened to us, may become effective, may bear fruit. _Hence, in this\nnew source, we find the crowning source of religious insight._\n\nThis last statement is one which is accepted by many who would\nnevertheless limit its application to certain religious communities,\nand to those only; or who, in some cases, would limit its application\nto some one religious community. There are, for instance, many who\nsay, for various special reasons, that the crowning source of\nreligious insight is the visible church. By this term those who use it\nin any of its traditional senses, mean one religious {277} institution\nonly, or at most only a certain group of religious organisations. The\nvisible church is a religious organisation, or group of such\norganisations, which is characterised by certain traditions, by a\ncertain real or supposed history, by a more or less well-defined\ncreed, and by further assertions concerning the divine revelation to\nwhich it owes its origin and authority. With the doctrinal questions\ninvolved in the understanding of this definition, these lectures, as\nyou now well know, have no direct concern. It is enough for our\npresent purpose to say that the visible church thus defined is indeed,\nand explicitly, and in our present sense, a religious organisation. In\nall those historical forms which here concern us, the visible church\nhas undertaken to show men the way to salvation. It has carried out\nits task by uniting its members in a spiritual brotherhood. It has in\nideal extended its interest to all mankind. It has aimed at universal\nbrotherhood. It has defined and called out loyalty. It has conceived\nthis loyalty as a service of God and as a loyalty to the cause of all\nmankind. Its traditions, the lives of its servants, its services, its\nteachings, have been and are an inexhaustible source of religious\ninsight to the vast multitudes whom it has influenced and, in its\nvarious forms and embodiments, still influences. Not unnaturally,\ntherefore, those who accept its own doctrines regarding its origin and\nhistory view such a visible church not only as by far the most\nimportant source of religious {278} insight, but also as a source\noccupying an entirely unique position.\n\nThe deliberate limitations of the undertaking of these lectures forbid\nme, as I have just reminded you, to consider in any detail this\nsupposed uniqueness of the position which so many of you will assign\nto some form of the historical Christian church. After what I have\nsaid as to the nature and the variety of the forms which the spiritual\nlife has taken, and still takes, amongst men, you will nevertheless\nnot be surprised if, without attempting to judge the correctness of\nthe traditions of the visible church, I forthwith point out that, to\nthe higher religious life of mankind the life of the visible church\nstands related as part to whole; and that very vast ranges of the\nhigher religious life of mankind have grown and flourished outside of\nthe influence of Christianity. And when the religious life of mankind\nis viewed in its historical connections, truth requires us to insist\nthat Christianity itself has been dependent for its insight and its\npower upon many different sources, some of which assumed human form\nnot only long before Christianity came into being, but in nations and\nin civilisations which were not dependent for their own spiritual\nwealth upon the Jewish religious traditions that Christianity itself\nundertook to transform and to assimilate. Christianity is, in its\norigins, not only Jewish but Hellenic, both as to its doctrines and as\nto its type of spirituality. It is a synthesis of religious motives\n{279} which had their sources widely spread throughout the\npre-Christian world of Hellenism. Its own insight is partly due to the\nnon-Christian world.\n\nAs a fact, then, the unity of the Spirit, the religious life which has\nbeen and is embodied in the form of human fraternities, is the\npeculiar possession of no one time, or nation, and belongs to no\nunique and visible church. Yet such an unity is a source of religious\ninsight. We have a right to use it wherever we find it and however it\nbecomes accessible to us. As a fact, we all use such insight without\nfollowing any one principle as to the selection of the historical\nsources. Socrates and Plato and Sophocles are religious teachers from\nwhom we have all directly or indirectly learned, whether we know it or\nnot. Our own Germanic ancestors, and the traditions of the Roman\nEmpire, have influenced our type of loyalty and have taught us\nspiritual truth that we should not otherwise know.\n\nMoreover, that which I have called the cause of all the loyal, the\nreal unity of the whole spiritual world, is not merely a moral ideal.\nIt is a religious reality. Its servants and ministers are present\nwherever religious brotherhood finds sincere and hearty manifestation.\nIn the sight of a perfectly real but superhuman knowledge of the real\npurposes and effective deeds of mankind, _all the loyal, whether they\nindividually know the fact or not, are, and in all times have been,\none genuine and religious brotherhood._ Human narrowness and the {280}\nvicissitudes of the world of time have hidden, and still hide, the\nknowledge of this community of the loyal from human eyes. But\nindirectly it comes to light whenever the loyalty of one visible\nspiritual community comes, through any sort of tradition, or custom,\nor song or story, or wise word or noble deed, to awaken new\nmanifestations of the loyal life in faithful souls anywhere amongst\nmen.\n\n_I call the community of all who have sought for salvation through\nloyalty the Invisible Church._ What makes it invisible to us is our\nignorance of the facts of human history and, still more, our\nnarrowness in our appreciation of spiritual truth. And I merely report\nthe genuine facts, human and superhuman, when I say that _whatever any\nform of the visible church has done or will do for the religious life\nof mankind, the crowning source of religious insight is, for us all,\nthe actual loyalty, service, devotion, suffering, accomplishment,\ntraditions, example, teaching, and triumphs of the invisible church of\nall the faithful._ And by the invisible church I mean the brotherhood\nconsisting of all who, in any clime or land, live in the Spirit.\n\nOur terms have now been, so far as my time permits, sharply defined. I\nam here not appealing to vague sentiments about human brotherhood, or\nto merely moral ideals about what we merely hope that man may yet come\nto be. And I am not for a moment committing myself to any mere worship\nof humanity, so long as one conceives humanity as the mere collection\nof those who are subject to the {281} natural laws that govern our\npresent physical and mental existence. Humanity, viewed as a mere\nproduct of nature, is narrow-minded and degraded enough. Its life is\nfull of uncomprehended evils and of mutual misunderstandings. It is\nnot a fitting object of any religious reverence. But it needs\nsalvation. It has been finding salvation through loyalty. And the true\ncause, the genuine community, the real spiritual brotherhood of the\nloyal is a superhuman and not merely a human reality. It expresses\nitself in the lives of the loyal. In so far as these expressions\ndirectly or indirectly inspire our own genuine loyalty, they give us\ninsight. Of such insight, whatever you may learn from communion with\nany form of the visible church, is an instance--a special embodiment.\nThe invisible church, then, is no merely human and secular\ninstitution. It is a real and superhuman organisation. It includes and\ntranscends every form of the visible church. It is the actual subject\nto which belong all the spiritual gifts which we can hope to enjoy. If\nyour spiritual eyes were open, no diversity of human tongues, no\nstrangeness of rites or of customs or of other forms of service, no\naccidental quaintnesses of tradition or of symbols or of creeds, would\nhide from your vision its perfections. It believes everywhere in the\nunity of the Spirit, and aims to save men through winning them over to\nthe conscious service of its own unity. And it grants you the free\ngrace of whatever religious insight you can acquire from outside\nyourself. {282} If you are truly religious, you live in it and for it.\nYou conceive its life in your own way and, no doubt, under the\nlimitations of your own time and creed. But you cannot flee from its\npresence. And your salvation lies in its reality, in your service, and\nin your communion with its endlessly varied company of those who\nsuffer and who in the might of the spirit overcome.\n\nLet me tell you something of this life of the invisible church.\n\n\n III\n\nAnd first let me speak of its membership. We have now repeatedly\ndefined the test of such membership. The invisible church is the\nspiritual brotherhood of the loyal. Only a searcher of hearts can\nquite certainly know who are the really loyal. We can be sure\nregarding the nature of loyalty. That loyalty itself should come to\nmen's consciousness in the most various forms and degrees, and clouded\nby the most tragic misunderstandings, the narrow form of human\nconsciousness, and the blindness and variety of human passion, make\nnecessary.\n\nIf one is loyal to a narrow and evil cause, as the robber or the\npirate may be loyal to his band or to his ship, a conscious effort to\nserve the unity of the whole spiritual world may seem at first sight\nto be excluded by the nature of the loyalty in question. But what\nmakes a cause evil, and unworthy of loyal {283} service, is the fact\nthat its service is destructive of the causes of other men, so that\nthe evil cause preys upon the loyalty of the spiritual brethren of\nthose who serve it, and so that thereby the servants of this cause do\nactual wrong to mankind. But this very fact may not be understood by\nthe individual robber or pirate. He may be devoted with all his heart\nand soul and mind and strength to the best cause that he knows. He may\ntherefore sincerely conceive that the master of life authorises his\ncause. In that case, and so far as this belief is sincere, the robber\nor pirate may be a genuinely religious man.\n\nDoes this statement seem to you an absurd quibble? Then look over the\npast history of mankind. Some at least of the Crusaders were genuinely\nreligious. That we all readily admit. But they were obviously, for the\nmost part, robbers and murderers, and sometimes pirates, of what we\nshould now think the least religious type if they were to-day sailing\nthe Mediterranean or devastating the lands. Read in \"Hakluyt's\nVoyages\" the accounts of the spirit in which the English explorers and\nwarriors of the Elizabethan age accomplished their great work. In\nthese accounts a genuinely religious type of patriotism and of\nChristianity often expresses itself side by side with a reckless\nhatred of the Spaniard and a ferocity which tolerates the most obvious\nexpressions of mere natural greed. These heroes of the beginnings of\nthe British Empire often hardly knew whether they were rather the\nadventurous {284} merchants, or the loyal warriors for England, or the\ndefenders of the Christian faith, or simply pirates. In fact they were\nall these things at once. Consider the Scottish clans as they were up\nto the eighteenth century. The spirit that they fostered has since\nfound magnificent expression in the loyalty of the Scottish people and\nin its later and far-reaching service of some of the noblest causes\nthat men know. Yet these clans loved cattle-thieving and tortured\ntheir enemies. When did they begin to be really patriots and servants\nof mankind? When did they begin to be truly and heartily religious?\nWho of us can tell?\n\nGreed and blindness are natural to man. His form of consciousness\nrenders him unable, in many cases, to realise their unreasonableness,\neven when he has already come into sincerely spiritual relations with\nthe cause of all the loyal. What we _can_ know is that greed and\nblindness are never of themselves religious, and that the way of\nsalvation is the way of loyalty. But I know not what degrees of greedy\nblindness are consistent with an actual membership in the invisible\nchurch, as I have just defined its membership. When I meet, however,\nwith the manifestations of the spirit of universal loyalty, whether in\nclansman, or in crusader, or in Elizabethan and piratical English\ndefender of his country's faith, or in the Spaniard whom he hated, I\nhope that I may be able to use, not the greed or the passions of these\npeople, but their {285} religious prowess, their free surrender of\nthemselves to their cause, as a source of insight.\n\nMembership in the invisible church is therefore not to be determined\nby mere conventions, but by the inward spirit of the faithful, as\nexpressed in their loyal life according to their lights. Yet of those\nwho seem to us most clearly to belong to the service of the spirit, it\nis easy to enumerate certain very potent groups, to whose devotion we\nall owe an unspeakably great debt. The sages, the poets, the prophets,\nwhose insight we consulted in our opening lecture, and have used\nthroughout these discourses, form such groups. It is indifferent to us\nto what clime or land or tongue or visible religious body they\nbelonged or to-day belong. They have sincerely served the cause of the\nspirit. They are to us constant sources of religious insight. Even the\ncynics and the rebels, whom we cited in our opening lecture, have\nbeen, in many individual cases, devoutly religious souls who simply\ncould not see the light as they consciously needed to see it, and who\nloyally refused to lie for convention's sake. Such have often served\nthe cause of the spirit with a fervour that you ill understand so long\nas their words merely shock you. They often seem as if they were\nhostile to the unity of the spirit. But, in many cases, it is the\nnarrowness of our nature, the chaos of our unspiritual passions, the\nbarren formalism of our conventions that they assail. And such\nassaults turn our eyes upward to the unity of {286} the spirit from\nwhence alone consolation and escape may come. Indirectly, therefore,\nsuch souls are often the misunderstood prophets of new ways of\nsalvation for men. When they are loyal, when their very hardness is\ndue to their resolute truthfulness, they are often amongst the most\neffective friends of a deeper religious life.\n\nA notable criterion whereby, quite apart from mere conventions, you\nmay try the spirits that pretend or appear to be religious, and may\ndiscern the members of the invisible church from those who are not\nmembers, is the criterion of the prophet Amos: \"Woe unto them that are\nat ease in Zion.\" This, as I said earlier, is one of the favourite\ntests applied by moralists for distinguishing those who serve from\nthose who merely enjoy. That it is also a religious test, and _why_ it\nis a religious test, our acquaintance with the spirit of loyalty has\nshown us. Religion, when triumphant, includes, indeed, the experience\nof inward peace; but the peace which is not won through strenuous\nloyal service is deceitful and corrupting. It is the conquest over and\nthrough tribulation which saves. Whoever conceives religion merely as\na comfortable release from sorrows, as an agreeable banishment of\ncares, as a simple escape from pain, knows not what evil is, or what\nour human nature is, or what our need of salvation means, or what the\nwill of the master of life demands. Therefore, a visible church that\nappears simply in the form of a cure for worry, or a {287} preventive\nof trouble, seems to me to be lacking in a full sense of what loyalty\nis. Worry is indeed, in itself, not a religious exercise. But it is\noften an effective preliminary, and is sometimes, according to the\nvicissitudes of natural temper, a relatively harmless accompaniment,\nto a deeply religious life. Certainly the mere absence of worry, the\nmere attainment of a sensuous tranquillity, is no criterion of\nmembership in the invisible church. Better a cynic or a rebel against\nconventional religious forms, or a pessimist, or a worrying soul, if\nonly such a being is strenuously loyal according to his lights, than\none to whom religion means simply a tranquil adoration without\nloyalty. But, of course, many of the tranquil are also loyal. When\nthis is true we can only rejoice in their attainments.\n\nIf we look for other examples still of types of spirituality which\nseem to imply membership in the invisible church, I myself know of few\nbetter instances of the genuinely religious spirit than those which\nare presented to us, in recent times, by the more devoted servants of\nthe cause of any one of the advancing natural sciences. And such\ninstances are peculiarly instructive, because many great men of\nscience, as a result of their personal temperament and training, are\nlittle interested in the forms of the visible church, and very\nfrequently are loath to admit that their calling has religious\nbearings. But when the matter is rightly viewed, one sees that the\ngreat scientific investigator is not only profoundly {288} loyal, but\nserves a cause which, at the present time, probably does more to unify\nevery sort of wholesome human activity, to bind in one all the higher\ninterests of humanity, to bring men of various lands and races close\ntogether in spirit than does any other one special cause that modern\nmen serve. The cause of any serious scientific investigator is, from\nmy point of view, a superhuman cause, for precisely the reasons which\nI have already explained to you.\n\nThe individual scientific worker, uninterested as he usually is in\nmetaphysics, and unconcerned as he often is about the relation of his\ntask to the interests of the visible church, knows indeed that with\nall his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength he serves a cause that\nhe conceives to be worthy. He knows, also, that this cause is\nbeneficent, and that it plays a great part in the directing of human\nactivities, whether because his science already has practical\napplications, or because the knowledge of nature is in itself an\nelevating and enlarging influence for mankind. The scientific\ninvestigator knows also that, while his individual experience is the\nsource to which he personally looks for new observations of facts, his\nprivate observations contribute to science only in so far as other\ninvestigators can verify his results. Hence his whole scientific life\nconsists in submitting all his most prized discoveries to the rigid\ntest of an estimate that belongs to no individual human experience,\nbut that is, or that through loyal efforts tends to become, the common\npossession {289} of the organised experience of all the workers in his\nfield. So far the devoted investigator goes in his own consciousness\nas to his work.\n\nBeyond this point, in estimating his ideals and his value, he\nsometimes seems not to wish to go, either because he is unreflective\nor because he is modest. But when we remember that the unity of human\nexperience, in the light of which scientific results are tested, and\nto whose growth and enrichment the scientific worker is devoted, is\nindeed a superhuman reality of the type that we have now discussed;\nwhen we also recall the profound values which the scientific ideal has\nfor all departments of human life in our day; when, further, we see\nhow resolutely the true investigator gives his all to contribute to\nwhat is really the unity of the spirit, we may well wonder who is in\nessence more heartily religious than the completely devoted scientific\ninvestigator--such a man, for instance, as was Faraday.\n\nWhen I have the fortune to hear of really great scientific workers who\nare as ready to die for their science (if an experiment or an\nobservation requires risk) as to live for it through years of worldly\nprivation and of rigid surrender of private interests to truth, and\nwhen I then by chance also hear that some of them were called, or\nperhaps even called themselves, irreligious men, I confess that I\nthink of the little girl who walked by Wordsworth's side on the beach\nat Calais. The poet estimated her {290} variety of religious\nexperience in words that I feel moved to apply to the ardently loyal\nhero of science:\n\n \"Thou dwellest in Abraham's bosom all the year,\n And worship'st at the temple's inmost shrine,\n God being with thee when we know it not.\"\n\nThere also exists a somewhat threadbare verse of the poet Young which\ntells us how \"the undevout astronomer is mad.\" I should prefer to say\nthat the really loyal scientific man who imagines himself undevout is\nnot indeed mad at all, but, like Wordsworth's young companion at\nCalais, unobservant of himself and of the wondrous and beautiful love\nthat inspires him. For he is, indeed, inspired by a love for something\nmuch more divine than is that august assemblage of mechanical and\nphysical phenomena called the starry heavens. The soul of his work is\nthe service of the unity of the spirit in one of its most exalted\nforms.\n\nThat all who, belonging to any body of the visible church, are\nseriously loyal to the divine according to their lights, are members\nalso of the invisible church, needs, after what I have said, no\nfurther explanation.\n\nBut if, surveying this multitude that no man can number from every\nkindred, and tribe, and nation, and tongue, you say that entrance to\nthe invisible church is guarded by barriers that seem to you not high\nenough or strong enough, I reply that this membership is indeed tested\nby the severest of rules. {291} Do you serve with all your heart, and\nsoul, and mind, and strength a cause that is superhuman and that is\nindeed divine? This is the question which all have to answer who are\nto enter this the most spiritual of all human brotherhoods.\n\n\n IV\n\nThe invisible church is to be to us a source of insight. This means\nthat we must enter into some sort of communion with the faithful if we\nare to enjoy the fruits of their insight. And, apart from one's own\nlife of loyal service itself, the principal means of grace--that is,\nthe principal means of attaining instruction in the spirit of loyalty,\nencouragement in its toils, solace in its sorrows, and power to endure\nand to triumph--the principal means of grace, I say, which is open to\nany man lies in such communion with the faithful and with the unity of\nthe spirit which they express in their lives. It is natural that we\nshould begin this process of communion through direct personal\nrelations with the fellow-servants of our own special cause. Hence\nwhatever is usually said by those who belong to any section of the\nvisible church regarding the spiritual advantages which follow from\nentering the communion of their own body may be accepted, from our\npresent point of view, as having whatever truth the devotion and the\nreligious life of any one body of faithful servants of the unity of\nthe spirit may give {292} to such statements when applied precisely to\ntheir own members. But to us all alike the voice of the invisible\nchurch speaks--it sustains us all alike by its counsels, not merely in\nso far as our own personal cause and our brethren of that service are\nknown to us, but in so far as we are ready to understand the loyal\nlife, and to be inspired by it, even when those who exemplify its\nintents and its values are far from us in their type of experience and\nin the manner of their service.\n\nYou remember the rule of loyalty: \"So serve your cause that if\npossible through your service everybody whom you influence shall be\nrendered a more devoted servant of his own cause, and thereby of the\ncause of causes--the unity of all the loyal.\" Now the rule for using\nthe invisible church as a source of insight is this: \"So be prepared\nto interpret, and sympathetically to comprehend, the causes and the\nservice of other men, that whoever serves the cause of causes, the\nunity of all the loyal, may even thereby tend to help you in your\npersonal service of your own special cause.\" To cultivate the\ncomprehension and the reverence for loyalty, however, and wherever\nloyalty may be found, is to prepare yourself for a fitting communion\nwith the invisible church.\n\nAnd in such communion I find the crowning source of religious insight.\nWhat I say is wholly consistent then with the recognition of the\npreciousness of the visible church to its members. Once more, {293}\nhowever, I point out the fact that the visible church is as precious\nas it is because it is indeed devoted to the unity of the spirit, that\nis, because it is a part and an organ of the invisible church.\n\n\n V\n\nI cannot close this extremely imperfect sketch of our crowning source\nof insight without applying to our present doctrine of the invisible\nchurch, the eternally true teaching of St. Paul regarding spiritual\ngifts.\n\nAs Paul's Corinthians, in their little community, faced the problem of\nthe diversity of the gifts and powers whereby their various members\nundertook to serve the common cause--as this diversity of gifts tended\nfrom the outset to doctrinal differences of opinion, as the\ndifferences threatened to confuse loyalty by bringing brethren into\nconflict--even so, but with immeasurably vaster complications, the\nwhole religious world, the invisible community of the loyal, has\nalways faced, and still faces, a diversity of powers and of forms of\ninsight, a diversity due to the endlessly various temperaments,\ncapacities and sorts and conditions of men. The Corinthian church, as\nPaul sketched its situation, was a miniature of religious humanity.\nAll the ways that the loyal follow lead upward to the realm of the\nspirit, where reason is at once the overarching heaven and the\nall-vitalising devotion which binds {294} every loyal individual to\nthe master of life. But in our universe the one demands the many. The\ninfinite becomes incarnate through the finite. The paths that lead the\nloyal to the knowledge of the eternal pass for our vision, with\nmanifold crossings and with perplexing wanderings, through the\nwilderness of this present world. The divine life is won through\nsuffering. And religious history is a tale of suffering--of mutual\nmisunderstanding amongst brethren who have from moment to moment been\nable to remember God only by narrowly misreading the hearts of their\nbrethren. The diversity of spiritual gifts has developed, in religious\nhistory, an endless war of factions. The invisible church has\nfrequently come to consciousness in the form of sects that say: \"Ours\nalone is the true spiritual gift. Through our triumph alone is the\nworld to be saved. Man will reach salvation only when our own\nJerusalem is the universally recognised holy city.\"\n\nNow it is useless to reduce the many to the one merely by wiping out\nthe many. It is useless to make some new sect whose creed shall be\nthat there are to be no sects. _The unity of the visible church, under\nany one creed, or with any one settled system of religious practices,\nis an unattainable and undesirable ideal._ The varieties of religious\nexperience in James's sense of that term are endless. The diversity of\ngifts is as great as is the diversity of strong and loyal\npersonalities. What St. Paul saw, in the miniature case presented to\nhim by the {295} Corinthian church, was that all the real gifts, and\nall the consequently inevitable differences of approach to the\nreligious problems, and all the differences of individual religious\ninsight were necessary to a wealthy religious life, and might serve\nthe unity of the spirit, if only they were conceived and used subject\nto the spiritual gift which he defined as Charity.\n\nNow the Pauline Charity is simply _that_ form of loyalty which should\ncharacterise a company of brethren who already have recognised their\nbrotherhood, who consciously know that their cause is one and that the\nspirit which they serve is one. For such brethren, loyalty naturally\ntakes the form of a self-surrender that need not seek its own, or\nassert itself vehemently, because the visible unity of the community\nin question is already acknowledged by all the faithful present, so\nthat each intends to edify, not himself alone, but his brethren, and\nalso intends not to convert his brother to a new faith, but to\nestablish him in a faith already recognised by the community. Yet\nsince the Corinthians, warring over their diversity of gifts, had come\nto lose sight of the common spirit, Paul simply recalls them to their\nflag, by his poem of charity, which is also a technically true\nstatement of how the principle of loyalty applies to a brotherhood\nfully conscious of its common aim.\n\nBut the very intimacy of the Pauline picture of charity makes it hard\nto apply this account of the {296} loyalty that should reign within a\nreligious family to the problems of a world where faith does not\nunderstand faith, where the contrasts of opinion seem to the men in\nquestion to exclude community of the spirit, where the fighting blood\neven of saintly souls is stirred by persecutions or heated by a hatred\nof seemingly false creeds. And Paul himself could not speak in the\nlanguage of charity, either when he referred to those whom he called\n\"false brethren\" or characterised the Hellenic-Roman spiritual world\nto whose thought and spirit he owed so much. As the Corinthians,\nwarring over the spiritual gifts, were a miniature representation of\nthe motives that have led to religious wars, so St. Paul's own failure\nto speak with charity as soon as certain matters of controversy arose\nin his mind, shows in miniature the difficulty that the visible\nchurch, in all its forms, has had to unite loyal strenuousness of\ndevotion to the truth that one sees with tolerance for the faiths\nwhose meaning one cannot understand.\n\nAnd yet, what Paul said about charity must be universalised if it is\ntrue. When we universalise the Pauline Charity, it becomes once more\nthe loyalty that, as a fact, is now justified in seeking her loyal\nown; but that still, like charity, rejoices in the truth. Such loyalty\nloves loyalty even when race or creed distinctions make it hard or\nimpossible for us to feel fond of the persons and practices and\nopinions whereby our more distant brethren {297} embody their\nspiritual gifts. Such loyalty is tolerant. Tolerance is what charity\nbecomes when we have to deal with those whose special cause we just\nnow cannot understand. Loyalty is tolerant, not as if truth were\nindifferent, or as if there were no contrast between worldliness and\nspirituality, but is tolerant precisely in so far as the best service\nof loyalty and of religion and of the unity of the spirit consists in\nhelping our brethren not to our own, but to _their_ own. _Such loyalty\nimplies genuine faith in the abiding and supreme unity of the spirit._\n\nOnly by thus universalising the doctrine which Paul preached to the\nCorinthians can we be prepared to use to the full this crowning source\nof insight--the doctrine, the example, the life, the inspiration,\nwhich is embodied in the countless forms and expressions of the\ninvisible church.\n\nThe work of the invisible church--it is just that work to which all\nthese lectures have been directing your attention. The sources of\ninsight are themselves the working of its spirit in our spirits.\n\nIf I have done anything (however unworthy) to open the minds of any of\nyou to these workings, my fragmentary efforts will not have been in\nvain. I have no authority to determine your own insight. Seek insight\nwhere it is to be found.","title":"The Sources of Religious Insight","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":74222}