266 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 



of consciousness justifies us in taking the position, that certain 

 psychical laws are at the foundation of these conditions which in 

 their kind are as natural and regular in their functions as the physical 

 laws which we observe in physical experiments. These solutions 

 which modern psychology so far has given, and hopes still further 

 to give, are of great importance to the philosophy of religion. They 

 are an indorsement of the general principle which one hundred years 

 ago had been advanced by critical speculation, namely, that in all 

 experiences of the religious life the same principles which control 

 the human mind in all other intellectual and emotional fields shall 

 hold sway. Nothing therefore should hinder us in scientific research 

 from following the well-defined maxims of thought, and unreservedly 

 applying the same methods of scientific analysis in theology as is 

 done generally in the other sciences. 



The claim of the Church to infallibility and divine inspiration of 

 its dogmas is weakened under this view of the work of the philosophy 

 of religion. Prophetical inspiration and ecstasy, which usually were 

 thought to be supernatural revelations, are now declared by the 

 present psychology to come under the category of other analogous 

 experiences, such as the action of mental powers which, under definite 

 conditions of individual gifts and on historical occasions, have 

 manifested themselves in extraordinary forms of consciousness. 

 However, these enthusiastic forms of prophetical consciousness 

 cannot be accepted for a higher form of knowledge or even as of 

 divine origin and as an infallible proclamation of the truth; on the 

 contrary, these forms are to be judged as pathological appearances, 

 which may be more harmful than beneficent for the ethical value 

 of the prophetical intuition. At least, it has come to pass that all 

 forms of revelation must come under the examination of a psycho- 

 logical analysis and of an analogical judgment. Hence their tradi- 

 tional nimbus of unique, supernatural, and absolute authority is for 

 all time destroyed. 



We are carried to the same result by the comparative study of the 

 history of religions. The study shows us that the Christian Church, 

 with its dogma of the divine inspiration of the Bible, does not stand 

 alone; that before and after Christianity other religions made 

 exactly the same claims for their sacred scriptures. By the pious 

 Brahman the Veda is regarded as infallible and eternal; he believes 

 the hymns of the old seers were not composed by the seers them- 

 selves, but were taken from an original copy in heaven. The Buddhist 

 sees in the sayings of his sacred book " Dhammapadam " the exact 

 inheritance of the infallible words of his omniscient teacher Buddha. 

 For the confessor of Ahuramazda the Zendavesta contains the 

 scriptural revelation of the good spirit unto the prophet Zarathustra; 

 according to tke rabbis the laws revealed unto Moses on Mount Sinai 



