blatant contempt for idealism, whether of the ancient or modern type, and the democratic claim to decide all things in heaven and earth by popular vote. It is possible to sympathise thoroughly with the spread of education, and yet to be aware of the enormous dangers to civilisation which the false theory of natural equality brings with it. It has bred a dislike of intellectual superiority, and a reluctance to allow reason and knowledge to arbitrate on burning questions. Everywhere we find the praises of feeling or instinct sung, and the dangers of intellectualism exposed. Now instinct is the tendency in humanity to persistence, reason is the tendency to variation. Most variations, we are reminded, fail to establish themselves; instinct is therefore the safer guide. But the tendency to variation is just what has raised man above the lower animals; it is the condition of progress. And in civilised man reason has largely displaced instinct, which is no longer so trustworthy as in the brutes. Since this process is certain to go further, distrust of reason is suicidal, and to exclude it from matters of Faith must be disastrous. I believe that the Kantian antithesis between the speculative and practical reason is wholly fallacious, a residuum of the dualism which Kant found dominant in philosophy and failed to overcome. If this dualism is abandoned, the contrast between Faith and knowledge falls with it. And yet the temptation to heal slightly' the wounds of religion by reverting to this separation of Faith from fact has proved irresistible to very many, and I believe that it is a main source of the notorious inefficacy of our apologetics. The intellectual difficulties raised by science are not popular, and we are tempted to override them because the masses are still ignorant and superstitious; but I believe that here is still our great problem, and that we shall do well to agree with our adversary quickly, while we are in the way with him.

This is not the kind of intellectualism which paralyses

action. To escape this, it is only necessary to remember that, in the life of man, thought and action are equally important. The normal course of all experience is expansion followed by concentration. Ideals are painted by imaginative thought, but realised only in action. Character is consolidated thought. Action and contemplation must act and react upon each other; otherwise our actions will have no soul, and our thoughts no body. This is the great truth which the higher religions express in their sacraments. A sacrament is more than a symbol. The perception of symbols leads us from the many to the one, from the transitory to the permanent, but not from appearance to reality. This belongs to the sacramental experience, which is symbolism retranslating itself into concrete action, returning to the outer world and to mundane interests; but in how different a manner from our earlier superficial experience! The formula' From symbol to sacrament' completes and Christianises the Platonic (or Plotinian) scheme, and gives the mystic a rule of life. 'Are we not here to make the transitory permanent?' asks Goethe. 'This we can only do if we know how to value both.' There are two essential movements in the spiritual life: one which finds God in the world, mainly through thought and feeling; the other which re-finds the world in God, mainly through moral action. The former reaches permanence through change, the latter change through permanence. So the spiral goes on, in ever-diminishing circles (gyrans gyrando vadit Spiritus), till in heaven, we may be sure, the disharmony between thought and action is finally attuned.

NOTE.-This book is an expansion of ten lectures which were delivered in London on the Jowett Foundation, in the early months of this year. For this reason, the form of lectures has been adhered to throughout.

FAITH AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER I

'FAITH' AS A RELIGIOUS TERM

(a) In the Bible

I PROPOSE to consider the first of the theological virtues, in order to determine, if possible, in what it consists. I will not begin by attempting a definition of 'Faith'; but a brief indication of the sense in which the word will be used in the course of the discussion seems desirable. Broadly speaking, when we use the word Faith, without special reference to religion, we mean, either the holding for true of something which is not already verified by experience or demonstrated by logical conclusion,1 or confidence in the wisdom and integrity of a person. In the former sense, the corresponding verb is believe,' in the latter it is trust.' In the former sense, the conception of Faith is independent of the character or quality of the thing believed. I may believe in a God or in a devil; in the habitability of Mars or in the man in the moon; or I may believe that if I make one of a party of thirteen at dinner it will be a good speculation to insure my life. The grossest superstition might be called Faith in this sense. But in religious language, to which the word more properly belongs, Faith has a more limited and a more dignified meaning. It is the general expression for subjective religion.' It is used for conviction as to certain ultimate 1 Cf. Fechner, Die drei Motive und Gründe des Glaubens, p. 1.

2

• Dorner.

A