302 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



ance as a bond of civilization and a guarantee of 

 the federalist as against the solely nationalist ideal. 

 Moreover, to many types of mind, and to almost 

 all men in certain circumstances, the partaking in 

 a public religious ceremony in common with others 

 is of real importance. It is safe to say, therefore, 

 that these ceremonies will continue, however much 

 modified, and that for them a mediator or priest, 

 even if but temporarily acting as such, will be needed. 

 The problem is largely that of combining in public 

 worship the religious effectiveness of the simple, the 

 hallowed, and the universally familiar — such as 

 inheres in many of the prayers, psalms, and hymns 

 of the Church to-day — with the spontaneity and 

 immediacy which, for instance, are to be found at a 

 devotional meeting of the Society of Friends. 



In any case, the new intellectual premisses once 

 granted, the limitations imposed on human mind 

 once understood, the important thing is to give a 

 greater vigour and reality to religious experience 

 itself, whether personal and private or social and 

 public. It is just here that Science may help, where 

 knowledge may be power. Atonement, conversion, 

 sense of grace, ecstasy, prayer, sacrifice — the meaning 

 and value of these and of other religious acts and 

 experiences can be put on a proper psychological 

 basis, they can be shorn of excrescences, and their 

 practice take its place in normal spiritual develop- 

 ment. That is of the essence of any religion rooted 



