PSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION 279 



of the stream of the soul's appearances. Seizing upon itself in the 

 practical reality, the practical reason criticises the psychological 

 complex, rejects as illusion and error that which cannot be com- 

 prehended in an a priori law, selects that part of the same which 

 needs basis and centre and requires only clearness with regard to 

 itself, clears the way for revelations of a life consciousness of its own 

 legality and becomes capable of the development of critically purified 

 experience. 



If this is, in principle, valid, the Kantian thought, in the further 

 detail, is maintained in principle only and as a w T hole. The elabora- 

 tion itself will have to be quite different from that of his own. Even 

 by Kant himself, on this very point, the synthesis of empiricism and 

 rationalism is far from being elaborated with the necessary rigor and 

 consistency. And to-day we have a quite differently developed 

 psychology of religion, in contrast with which that presupposed by 

 Kant is bare and thin. Finally, there remain in the whole method of 

 the critical system unsolved problems; by failure to solve these, or 

 by too hasty solution, science of religion, especially, is affected. 



To make clear the present condition of the problem, one ought, 

 above all, to indicate the modifications to which the Kantian theory 

 of religion must submit, -- must submit, especially, by reason of a 

 more delicate psychology, such as we have, with remarkable rich- 

 ness, in James and the American psychologists connected with him. 

 There are four points with regard to this question. 



The first is the question of the relation of psychology and theory 

 of knowledge in the very establishment of the laws of the theory of 

 knowledge. Are not the search for and discovery of the laws of the 

 theory of knowledge themselves possible only by way of psychological 

 ascertainment of facts, itself then a psychological undertaking and 

 consequently dependent upon all its conditions? It is the much dis- 

 cussed question of the circle which itself lies at the outset of the 

 critical system. The answer to this is that this circle lies in the very 

 being of all knowledge, and must therefore be resolutely committed. 

 It signifies nothing more than the presupposition of all thought, the 

 trust in a reason 'which establishes itself only by making use of 

 itself. The unmistakable elements of the logical assert themselves 

 as logical in distinction from the psychological, and from this point 

 on reason must be trusted in all its confusions and entanglements to 

 recognize itself within the psychological. It is the courage of thought . 

 as Hegel says, which may presuppose that the self-knowledge of rea- 

 son may trust itself, presuppose that reason is contained within the 

 psychological; or it is the ethical and teleological presupposition of 

 all thought, as Lotze says, which believes in knowledge and the 

 validity of its laws for the sake of a connected meaning for reality, 

 and which, therefore, trusts to recognize itself out of the psycholog- 



