Preface

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Gp Hilliam James
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: A STUDY IN HUMAN NATURE. Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh University. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
PRAGMATISM: A NEW NAME FOR SOME OLD WAYS OF THINKING: POPULAR LECTURES ON PHILOSOPHY. 8vo. New York, London, Bom- bay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co. :
THE MEANING OF TRUTH: A SEQUEL TO ''PRAGMATISM." 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE: HIBBERT LECTURES ON THE PRESENT SITUATION IN PHILOSOPHY. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Cal- cutta: Longmans, Green & Co,
SOME PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY: A BEGINNING OF AN INTRODUC- TION TO PHILOSOPHY. 8vo, New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co. :
ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
THE WILL TO BELIEVE, AND OTHER ESSAYS IN POPULAR PHILOS- OPHY. 12zmo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
MEMORIES AND STUDIES. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co,
THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 2 vols., 8vo. New York: Henry Holt & Co. London: Macmillan & Co.
PSYCHOLOGY: BRIEFER COURSE. 12mo, New York: Henry Holt & Co, London: Macmillan & Co.
TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY: AND TO STUDENTS ON SOME OF LIFE’S IDEALS. 1:2mo. New York: Henry Holt & Co. London, Bom- bay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
HUMAN IMMORTALITY: TWO SUPPOSED OBJECTIONS TO THE DOC- TRINE. x6mo. Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
COLLECTED ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. Edited by R. B. Perry. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co. 1920.
HABIT. Reprint of a chapter in ‘‘ The Principles of Psychology.” 16mo. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
ON VITAL RESERVES. Reprint of ‘‘The Energies of Men’? and the ‘‘ Gospel of Relaxation.”” 16mo. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
ON SOME OF LIFE’S IDEALS. Reprint of ‘ Ona Certain Blindness in Human Beings” and ‘‘What Makes a Life Significant.” 16mo. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM JAMES,
By R. B. Perry. 8vo. New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co. 1920.
THE LITERARY REMAINS OF HENRY JAMES. Edited, with an Introduction, by William James. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1885.
LETTERS OF WILLIAM JAMES. Selected and edited with Biographical Intro- duction and Notes by his son Henry James. 2 vols., 8vo. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, Inc. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1920.
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
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THE
VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS
26 EXPERIENCE Je ‘72° A STUDY IN HUMAN NATURE
BEING THE GIFFORD LECTURES ON NATURAL RELIGION DELIVERED AT EDINBURGH IN 1901-1902
BY WILLIAM JAMES
@
THIRTY-FIFTH IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1925
Theolog y Library
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AT. CLAREMONT California
Copyright, 1902, By WILLIAM JAMES.
All rights reserved.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
First Edition, June, 1902. Reprinted, with revisions, August, 1902. Reprinted, October, November, Decem- ber, 1902, January, March, November, 1903, April, September, 1904, Febru- ary, 1905, February, November, 1906, May, 1907, February, September, 1908, August, 1909, June, October, 1910, January, August, 1911, January, June, 1912, March, 1913, January, 1914, Jan- uary, 1915, January, October, 1916, September, 1917, February, 1919, Sep- tember, 1919, March, 1920, December, "1921, August, 1923, May, 1925.
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IN FILIAL GRATITUDE AND LOVE
PREFACE
HIS book would never have been written had I not
been honored with an appointment as Gifford Lec- turer on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh. In casting about me for subjects of the two courses of ten lectures each for which I thus became responsible, it seemed to me that the first course might well be a descriptive one on ‘ Man’s Religious Appetites,’ and the second a metaphysical one on ‘ Their Satisfaction through Philosophy.’ But the unexpected growth of the psycho- logical matter as I came to write it out has resulted in the second subject being postponed entirely, and the description of man’s religious constitution now fills the twenty lectures. In Lecture XX I have suggested rather than stated my own philosophic conclusions, and the reader who desires immediately to know them should turn to pages 511-519, and to the ‘ Postscript’ of the book. I hope to be able at some later day to express them in more explicit form.
In my belief that a large acquaintance with particulars often makes us wiser than the possession of abstract for- mulas, however deep, I have loaded the lectures with concrete examples, and I have chosen these among the extremer expressions of the religious temperament. To some readers I may consequently seem, before they get beyond the middle of the book, to offer a caricature of
vi PREFACE
the subject. Such convulsions of piety, they will say, are not sane. If, however, they will have the patience to read to the end, I believe that this unfavorable impres- sion will disappear; for I there combine the religious impulses with other principles of common sense which serve as correctives of exaggeration, and allow the indi- vidual reader to draw as moderate conclusions as he will.
My thanks for help in writing these lectures are due to Edwin D. Starbuck, of Stanford University, who made over to me his large collection of manuscript material ; to Henry W. Rankin, of East Northfield, a friend unseen but proved, to whom I owe precious information; to Theodore Flournoy, of Geneva, to Canning Schiller, of Oxford, and to my colleague Benjamin Rand, for docu- ments; to my colleague Dickinson 8. Miller, and to my friends, Thomas Wren Ward, of New York, and Win- centy Lutoslawski, late of Cracow, for important sugges- tions and advice. Finally, to conversations with the lamented Thomas Davidson and to the use of his books, at Glenmore, above Keene Valley, I owe more obliga- tions than I can well express.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, March, 1902,
CONTENTS
LECTURE I PAGE
Marinion.ann NacROLOGY 9256 58 E80 OP Ae
Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal documents, 1. Questions of fact and questions of value, 4. In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic, 6. Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion on that account, 10. Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted, 11. All states of mind are neurally conditioned, 14. Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by the value of their fruits, 15. Three criteria of value; ori- gin useless as a criterion, 18. Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a superior intellect goes with it, 22; especially for the religious life, 24.
LECTURE II
CIRCUMSCRIPTION OF THE ToPIC . hehe ae : . 26 Futility of simple definitions of religion, 26. No one specific ‘religious sentiment,’ 27. Institutional and personal religion, 28. We confine ourselves to the personal branch, 29. Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures, 31. Meaning of the term ‘divine,’ 31. The divine is what prompts solemn _re- actions, 38. Impossible to make our definitions sharp, 39. We must study the more extreme cases, 40. Two ways of accepting the universe, 41. Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy, 45. Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion, 48. Its ability to overcome unhappiness, 50. Need of such a faculty _ from the biological point of view, 51.
LECTURE {II
Tse REALITY OF THE UNSEEN : : , : - 53 Percepts versus abstract concepts, 53. Influence of the latter on belief, 54. Kant’s theological Ideas, 55. We have a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses, 58. Examples of ‘sense of presence,’ 59. The feeling of unreality, 63. Sense
viii CONTENTS
of a divine presence: examples, 65. Mystical experiences: examples, 69. Other cases of sense of God’s presence, 70. Convincingness of unreasoned experience, 72. Inferiority of rationalism in establishing belief, 73. Either enthusiasm or solemnity may preponderate in the religious attitude of indi- viduals, 75. 7
LECTURES IV AND V
Tue Reuicion or HEALTHY-MINDEDNESS +=. - « « 178
Happiness is man’s chief concern, 78. ‘Once-born’ and ‘twice-born ’ characters, 80. Walt Whitman, 84. Mixed nature of Greek feeling, 86. Systematic healthy-mindedness, 87. Ite reasonableness, 88. Liberal Christianity shows it, 91. Opti- mism as encouraged by Popular Science, 92. The ‘Mind-cure’ movement, 94. Its creed, 97. Cases, 102. Its doctrine of evil, 106. Its analogy to Lutheran theology, 108. Salvation by relax- ation, 109. Its methods: suggestion, 112; meditation, 115; ‘recollection, 116; verification, 118. Diversity of possible schemes of adaptation to the universe, 122. ApprEnpix: Two mind-cure cases, 123.
LECTURES VI AND VII
Tue Sick Sour . A : . . F ‘ . Lat
Healthy-mindedness and repentance, 127. Essential plural-_ plist ism of the healthy-minded philosophy, 131. “Morbid-minded- ness —its two degrees, 134. The pain-threshold varies in indi- viduals, 135. Insecurity of natural goods, 136. Failure, or vain success of every life, 138. Pessimism of all pure naturalism, 140. Hopelessness of Greek and Roman view, 142. Pathological unhappiness, 144. ‘Anhedonia,’ 145. Querulous melancholy, 148, Vital zest is a pure gift, 150. Loss of it makes physical world look different, 151. Tolstoy, 152. Bunyan, 157. Alline, 159. Morbid fear, 160. Such cases need a supernatural religion for relief, 162. Antagonism of healthy-mindedness and morbid- ness, 163. The problem of eyil cannot be escaped, 164.
LECTURE VIII
Tue Divipep SELF, AND THE PROCEss OF ITS UNIFICATION . 166 Heterogeneous personality, 167. Character gradually attains unity, 170. Examples of divided self, 171. The unity attained , need not be religious, 175. ‘Counter conversion’ cases, 177.
ConvVERSION .«
CONTENTS
Other cases, 178. Gradual and sudden unification, 183. Tol- stoy’s recovery, 184. Bunyan’s, 186.
LECTURE IX
Case of Stephen Bradley, 189. The hevekolig: of Shasanten: changes, 193. Emotional excitements make new centres of per- sonal energy, 196. Schematic ways of representing this, 197. Starbuck likens conversion to normal moral ripening, 198. Leuba’s ideas, 201. Seemingly unconvertible persons, 204. Two types of conversion, 205. Subconscious incubation of mo-
‘i tives, 206. Self-surrender, 208. Its importance in religious history, 211. Cases, 212. LECTURE X Conversion —concluded. . . sith 6
SAINTLINESS . 5
Cases of sudden conversion, 217. se suddenness essential ? 227. No, it depends on psychological idiosyncrasy, 230. Proved existence of transmarginal, or subliminal, consciousness, 233. ‘ Automatisms,’ 234. Instantaneous conversions seem due to the possession of an active subconscious self by the subject, 236. The value of « nversion depends not on the process, but on the fruits, 237. These are not superior in sudden conversion, 238. Professor Coe’s views, 240. Sanctification as a result, 241. Our psychological account does not exclude direct presence of the Deity, 242. Sense of higher control, 243. Relations of the emotional ‘ faith-state ’ to intellectual beliefs, 246. Leuba quoted, 247. Characteristics of the faith-state: sense of truth ; the world appears new, 248. Sensory and motor automatisms, 250. Permanency of conversions, 256.
LECTURES XI, XII, AND XIII
Sainte-Beuve on the State of Grae, 260. Dynes of poe ter as due to the balance of impulses and inhibitions, 261. Sov- ereign excitements, 262. Irascibility, 264. Effects of higher excitement in general, 266. The saintly life is ruled by spir- itual excitement, 267. This may annul sensual impulses perma- nently, 268. Probable subconscious influences involved, 270. Mechanical scheme for representing permanent alteration in character, 270. Characteristics of saintliness, 271. Sense of
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. 217
. 259
x CONTENTS
reality of a higher power, 274. Peace of mind, charity, 278. Equanimity, fortitude, etc., 284. Connection of this with relax- ation, 289. Purity of life, 290. Asceticism, 296. Obedience, 310. Poverty, 315. The sentiments of democracy and of hu- manity, 324. General effects of higher excitements, 325.
LECTURES XIV AND XV
THE VALUE oF SAINTLINESS . : . 326 It must be tested by the human salud of its truli, 397. The
reality of the God must, however, also be judged, 328. ‘Unfit’ religions get eliminated by ‘experience,’ 331. Empiricism is not skepticism, 332. Individual and tribal religion, 334. Lone- liness of religious originators, 335. Corruption follows success, 337. Extravagances, 339. Excessive devoutness, as fanaticism, 340; as theopathic absorption, 343. Excessive purity, 348. Excessive charity, 355. The perfect man is adapted only to the / perfect environment, 356. Saints are leavens, 357. Excesses (7 ”' of asceticism, 360. Asceticism symbolically stands for the = = ~~ heroic life, 363. Militarism and voluntary poverty as possible equivalents, 365. Pros and cons of the saintly character, 369. Saints versus ‘strong’ men, 371. Their social function must be considered, 374. Abstractly the saint is the highest type, but in the present environment it may fail, so we make cur- selves saints at our peril, 375. The question of theological truth, 377.
LECTURES XVI AND XVII
Mysticism. . 879
Mysticism defined, 379. Four marke ‘of shyatic istuce 380. They form a distinct region of « consciousness, 382. Examples of their lower grades, 382. Mysticism and alcohol, 386. ‘The anesthetic revelation,’ 387. Religious mysticism, 393. Aspects of Nature, 394. Consciousness of God, 396. ‘Cosmic conscious- ness,’ 398. Yoga, 400. Buddhistic mysticism, 401. Sufism, 402. Christian mystics, 406. Their sense of revelation, 408. Tonic effects of mystic states, 414. They describe by negatives, 416. Sense of union with the Absolute, 419. Mysticism and music, 420. Three conclusions, 422. (1) Mystical states carry au- thority for him who has them, 423. (2) But for no one else, 424. (3) Nevertheless, they break down the exclusive author- ity of rationalistic states, 427. They strengthen monistic and optimistic hypotheses, 428. .
CONTENTS a
LECTURE XVIII PHILosoPEy : - 436
Primacy of feline in ae phicashy a eos a bole apt function, 430. Intellectualism professes to escape subjective standards in her theological constructions, 433. ‘ Dogmatic theology,’ 436. Criticism of its account of God’s attributes, 442. ‘ Pragmatism’ as a test of the value of conceptions, 444. God’s metaphysical attributes have no practical significance, 445. His moral attributes are proved by bad arguments ; col- lapse of systematic theology, 448. Does transcendental ideal- ism fare better? Its principles, 449. Quotations from John Caird, 450. They are good as restatements of religious experi- ence, but uncoercive as reasoned proof, 453. What puvoupay, can do for religion by transforming herself into ‘science of religions,’ 455.
LECTURE XIX
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS. ; - 458
Esthetic elements in religion, 458. costae of Cerulean
and Protestantism, 461. Sacrifice and Confession, 462. Prayer,
463. Religion holds that spiritual work is really effected in prayer, 465. Three degrees of opinion as to what is effected,
: 467. First degree, 468. Second degree, 472. Third degree, 474. Automatisms, their frequency among religious leaders,
478. Jewish cases, 479. Mohammed, 481. Joseph Smith, 482.
Religion and the subconscious region in general, 483. sy
Ee LECTURE XX ConcLusions - . A : - —« 485 Summary of religious chevaetenetica “ABS. Men’ s religions g need not be identical, 487. ‘The science of religions’ can only . suggest, not proclaim, a religious creed, 489. Is religion a ‘sur-
* vival’ of primitive thought? 490. Modern science rules out the ‘aL concept of personality, 491. Anthropomorphism and belief in 16" > the personal characterized pre-scientific thought, 493. Personal forces are real, in spite of this, 498. Scientific objects are ab- stractions, only individualized experiences are concrete, 498. Religion holds by the concrete, 500. Primarily religion is a € biological reaction, 504. Its simplest terms are an uneasiness
and a deliverance ; description of the deliverance, 508. Ques-
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CONTENTS
tion of the reality of the higher power, 510. The author’s hypotheses: 1. The subconscious self as intermediating be- tween nature and the higher region, 511; 2. The higher
region, or ‘God,’ 515; 3. He produces real effects in nature, 518.
Postscriet . : ; ‘ ; ‘ ° .
Philosophie position of the present work defined as piece meal supernaturalism, 520. Criticism of universalistic super- naturalism, 521. Different principles must occasion differences in fact, 522. What differences in fact can God’s existence oc- casion ? 523. The question of immortality, 524. Question of God’s uniqueness and infinity: religious experience does not settle this question in the affirmative, 525. The pluralistic hypo- thesis is more conformed to common sense, 526.
520.
Invex e ® e e zd e e e e 2 e 529
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
LECTURE I RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY
T is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my place behind this desk, and face this learned audience.
To us Americans, the experience of receiving instruction from the living voice, as well as from the books, of Euro- pean scholars, is very familiar. At my own University of Harvard, not a winter passes without its harvest, large or small, of lectures from Scottish, English, French, or German representatives of the science or literature of their respective countries whom we have either induced to cross the ocean to address us, or captured on the wing as they were visiting our land. It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk. The contrary habit, of talking whilst the Europeans listen, we have not yet acquired; and in him who first makes the adventure it begets a certain sense of apology being due for so presumptuous an act. Particularly must this be the case on a soil as sacred to the American imagination as that of Edinburgh. The glories of the philosophic chair of this university were deeply impressed on my imagina- tion in boyhood. Professor Fraser’s Essays in Philo- - sophy, then just published, was the first philosophic