RATIONALISM AND THE IDEA OF GOD 229 



will not be thought to be the voice of a personal 

 Devil, nor neglected ideals the voice of a personal 

 God. Irrational fear, to-day still the greatest enemy 

 of mankind and most potent annihilator of happi- 

 ness, will, by comprehension of its curious mechanism 

 and its persistence, often transformed, from child- 

 hood to adult life, become amenable to treatment 

 and be made more and more to disappear. Proper 

 analysis of mental processes such as repression, sup- 

 pression, and sublimation will enable us to make 

 better use of our faculties, and deliberately to build 

 up treasures of spiritual experience now attainable 

 only by the lucky few in whom temperament and 

 circumstances accidentally conspire. 



On the moral side, the idea that a Divine com- 

 mand has, at some remote period in the past, pro- 

 vided a fixed code, and the belief in the immutable 

 truth of certain dogmas — these will happily disap- 

 pear. Morals, like all else, not only have evolved, 

 but should evolve. We shall fmd, for instance, that 

 no excuse will be left for the common horrified (and 

 horrible) views of sex, as of something inherently 

 hateful, of all its pleasures as involving sin; for it 

 will be realized that too much of the present attitude 

 is due to the projection of our own conflicts and com- 

 plexes, our own pruriences and pruderies, into what 

 might be innocent and joyous. But this merits a 

 fuller discussion than we can here allot. 



Again, if I had space at my disposal, I would write 

 of the changes in the position and constitution of re- 



