78 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



I must not venture to speak of a special side of 

 psychology which has been lately brought into 

 prominence, and in regard to which words from 

 Birmingham are greatly valued, the study of the 

 sub-conscious side of man. Hence has come in- 

 deed a great revelation. And I venture to say 

 that as regards human progress and human happi- 

 ness this great accession to our knowledge is 

 far heavier in the balances than such discoveries 

 as those of radium or of wireless telegraphy 

 which only touch human life on the outside. 



Perhaps it is the new psychology of religion 

 which has, or is destined to have, the greatest 

 effect on our practical and ethical life. In recent 

 years there has been an immense deal of research 

 and of writing in regard to such matters as the 

 relations between reason and faith, or the con- 

 nexion between fact and doctrine, or the 

 phenomena of religious experience, which must 

 needs have a profound influence on the faith of 

 the Christian Church. It is now realized that 

 religion does not lie in the reception of certain 

 facts as historic, but in an attitude of the spirit; 

 and that attitude is the result of an immense his- 

 torical process. Like all great discoveries this 

 change sometimes dazzles the explorer. We 

 have perversions, as when some of the reactionary 

 parties, more especially the Jesuits, think they 

 can justify on psychologic grounds all the super- 

 stitions of the Middle Ages. But without going 

 this length we may see that too great reliance on 



