THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION 251 



the form of religion." " Hence," he adds," faith infers that an inner 

 connection exists between the real and the valuable within the 

 domain of history, and believes that in history something like an 

 immanent principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good 

 and leads it to victory over all resisting forces." 1 It is impossible, 

 that is, for a man with full consciousness to throw himself enthusias- 

 tically into a work which he regards from the start as absolutely 

 hopeless. When, then, he takes up the work of his life calling, or the 

 cause to which he devotes himself, as work really worth while, in 

 which he can lose himself with joy, whether consciously or not, he 

 is virtually asserting his faith in a plan larger than his own plan, the 

 all-embracing plan of the on-going providence of God, which shall 

 catch up the little fragments of his work into a larger whole and 

 make them contribute, thus, to a goal greater than any that the 

 man himself may set. To believe in the final worth of one's own 

 work, then, logically implies a real belief in God. For " principles " 

 and " plans " and " laws," so far as I am able to see, have no real 

 existence that will bear thorough thinking, and can do nothing apart 

 from Being that must be conceived ultimately in essentially personal 

 terms. A fully religious conviction logically underlies all enthu- 

 siastic work. 



(3) In all strenuous moral endeavor, in the fight for character for 

 one's self, a faith essentially religious is in like manner involved. 

 So Martineau asserts: " Nothing less than the majesty of God, and 

 the power of the world to come, can maintain the place and sanctity 

 of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of 

 patience and tender mercy in our hearts." For here, once more, we 

 shall not earnestly attempt a hopeless task. And if, in the surrender 

 to the highest in us, we cannot believe that we thereby at the same 

 time link ourselves to the highest in the universe, we shall not be able 

 to reach that courage which gives promise of any high attainment. 

 Only the highest motives are finally sufficient here. If our faith 

 in the ultimate ethical trend of the great power back of the universe 

 really breaks down, we shall hardly be able to keep our faith even 

 in our own ideals. 



That this faith in the ethical trend of the universe is always con- 

 sciously present, or even the need of it definitely felt in any recog- 

 nized religious way, I am far from affirming. There may even be such a 

 kind of intoxication with life itself, as should lead one, as in a recorded 

 case, on the one hand, to deny any relation to God, and yet, on the 

 other hand, to assert in the most varied and ardent ways, " I 

 trust the laws that govern my destiny." 2 And the emotional and 

 general volitional state of such a one might conceivably be almost 



1 Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 8, 9. 



2 American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, Vol. i, No. 1, p. 72. 



