POSTSCRIPT
405
Nevertheless, in the interests of intellectual clearness, I feel bound
to say that religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be
cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing
that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union
with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our
greatest peace. Philosophy, with its passion for unity, and mysticism
with its monoideistic bent, both “pass to the limit” and identify
the something with a unique God who is the all-inclusive soul of
the world. Popular opinion, respectful to their authority, follows the
example which they set.
Meanwhile the practical needs and experiences of religion seem
to me sufficiently met by the belief that beyond each man and in
a fashion continuous with him there exists a larger power which is
friendly to him and to his ideals. All that the facts require is that
the power should be both other and larger than our conscious
selves. Anything larger will do, if only it be large enough to trust
for the next step. It need not be infinite, it need not be solitary. It
might conceivably even be only a larger and more godlike self, of
which the present self would then be but the mutilated expression,
and the universe might conceivably be a collection of such selves,
of different degrees of inclusiveness, with no absolute unity realized
in it at all.
1
Thus would a sort of polytheism return upon us — a
polytheism which I do not on this occasion defend, for my only
aim at present is to keep the testimony of religious experience clearly
within its proper bounds. [Compare p. 132 above.]
Upholders of the monistic view will say to such a polytheism
(which, by the way, has always been the real religion of common
people, and is so still to-day) that unless there be one all-inclusive
God, our guarantee of security is left imperfect. In the Absolute,
and in the Absolute only, all is saved. If there be different gods,
each caring for his part, some portion of some of us might not
be covered with divine protection, and our religious consolation
would thus fail to be complete. It goes back to what was said on
pages 131–133, about the possibility of there being portions of the
universe that may irretrievably be lost. Common sense is less sweep-
ing in its demands than philosophy or mysticism have been wont
1
Such a notion is suggested in my Ingersoll Lecture On Human Immortality, Boston and
London, 1899.
406
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
to be, and can suffer the notion of this world being partly saved
and partly lost. The ordinary moralistic state of mind makes the
salvation of the world conditional upon the success with which
each unit does its part. Partial and conditional salvation is in fact a
most familiar notion when taken in the abstract, the only difficulty
being to determine the details. Some men are even disinterested
enough to be willing to be in the unsaved remnant as far as their
persons go, if only they can be persuaded that their cause will
prevail — all of us are willing, whenever our activity-excitement
rises sufficiently high. I think, in fact, that a final philosophy of
religion will have to consider the pluralistic hypothesis more seri-
ously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it. For practical
life at any rate, the chance of salvation is enough. No fact in human
nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance.
The existence of the chance makes the difference, as Edmund
Gurney says, between a life of which the keynote is resignation and
a life of which the keynote is hope.
1
But all these statements are
unsatisfactory from their brevity, and I can only say that I hope to
return to the same questions in another book.
1
Tertium Quid, 1887, p. 99. See also pp. 148, 149.
Index
The index follows the original 1902 structure, with slight amendments, corrections
and additional material from the introductory sections of the present centenary
edition.
Absolute, oneness with the, 325
Abstractness of religious objects, 53
Achilles, 72
A
CKERMANN
, M
ADAME
, 54
Adaptation to environment, of things,
339; of saints, 291–293
Æsthetic elements in religions, 356
A
GASSIZ
, xx
A
LACOQUE
, 222
A
LBRIGHT
, lviii
Alcohol, 300
A
L
-G
HAZZALI
, 311
A
LI
, 266
A
LLEINE
, 180
A
LLINE
, 186
Alternations of personality, 153
A
LVAREZ
DE
P
AZ
, 94
American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, xx
American Philosophical Society, xx;
Arisby, xxvi
American Psychological Assn., xxix
A
MIEL
, 305
Anæsthesia, 255
Anæsthetic revelation, 300
A
NGELUS
S
ILESIUS
, 323
Anger, 143, 206
“Anhedonia”, 116, 390
Aristocratic type, 288
A
RISTOTLE
, 383
Ars, le Curé d’, 236
Asceticism, 214, 222, 231, 272
Aseity, God’s, 340, 344
A
SHBROOK
, lviii
Atman, 310, 322
Attributes of God, 440; their æsthetic
use, 354
A
UGUSTINE
, S
AINT
, lviii, 370
A
URELIUS
,
see M
ARCUS
, 35
Automatic writing, 53
Automatisms, 1, 184, 188, 190, 196, 369
B
AIN
, xvii
B
ALDWIN
, 270, 389
B
ASHKIRTSEFF
, 70
B
EECHER
, 200
B
EHMAN
,
see B
OEHME
Belief, due to non-rationalistic
impulses, 62
B
ELZEN
, xliv, lii
B
ESANT
, M
RS
, 23, 134
Bhagavad-Gita, 281
B
INET
, xxxi
B
LAVATSKY
, M
ADAM
, 326
B
LOOD
, 301
B
LUMHARDT
, 92
B
OEHME
, 318, 323, 324
B
OOTH
, 207
Boston School of Abnormal
Psychology, xxxi
B
OUGARD
, 268
B
OURGET
, 206