WHY SO MANY DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION? 351 



they are only a hindrance to the attainment of the God-conscious- 

 ness. Hegel-like, they find that " religion is a perfect freedom, 

 for it is nothing more or less than the Divine Spirit becoming 

 conscious of itself through the finite' spirit/' They can also say, 

 with Martineau, it is " the human mind standing in reverence and 

 inspiration before the Infinite Energy of the universe, asking to be 

 lifted into it," or " ascent through the conscience to God." Re- 

 ligion to them is the last step of the Leibnitz's monad coming 

 into the consciousness of the divinity ever potentially present. 



Besides the types of minds thus far studied, there is a large 

 proportion of the race influenced almost entirely by what may be 

 called personal influences — love, pity, sympathy, and the like. All 

 these, upon becoming religious, at once bestow similar feelings on 

 the gods, and imagine that these in turn bestow the same on them. 

 This mode of religious awakening is almost a universal one in the 

 earlier stages of race development. Many also feel, as Mr. Mar- 

 tineau says in his Study of Religion, that in some form or other 

 this will be likewise the final and highest stage of religious 

 growth. It is well described by both Profs. Flint and "Whitney, 

 as noted above, and is also implied in the terse expression of De 

 Pressense', " Religion is the relation of the soul to God." 



Thus it will be seen that the various definitions of religion 

 are but facets of a common precious truth, reflecting at different 

 angles the light of a heart all aglow with the thought of personal 

 responsibility in individual destiny. They vary at times so as to 

 indicate almost generic differences, but they all describe facts 

 having a common psychological cause and point to a single pur- 

 pose. As the same sunlight that hardens the bricks in the cathe- 

 dral walls also melts the waxen taper at the altar, so a reflection 

 on personal destiny often calls forth in one a religious life entirely 

 different from that in another ; for the precise effect depends as 

 much on surroundings and internal difference as on that which 

 calls forth the religious life. These definitions are not found to 

 be like the Ptolemaic planets, mere lawless wanderers, in the 

 realm of religious thought, but have a common center, and are 

 guided by a universal law. 



Me. John Aitkins's later observations on the number of dust-particles in the 

 atmosphere show that a very large proportion of the pollution caused thereby is 

 the product of human agencies. Both dust and humidity tend to decrease the 

 transparency of the air. Humidity alone seems to have no influence on the trans- 

 parency apart from the dust, but it increases the effect of dust by increasing the 

 size of the particles. Its modifying effect is influenced by the temperature. Dust 

 appears to condense vapor long before the air is cooled to the dew-point. Haze 

 is shown in many cases to be simply dust, on which there seems to be always more 

 or less moisture. All the fogs tested contained much dust. 



