304 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 399. 



saved from the wrongness by making the prop- 

 er connection witli the higher powers. - * * 

 Along with the wrong part there is a better 

 part of him, even though it be a most helpless 

 germ. * * * When stage two (the stage of 

 solution or salvation) arrives, the man identi- 

 fies his real being with the germinal higher 

 part of himself; and does so in the following 

 way. He becomes conscious that this higher 

 part is * * * continuous with a more of the 

 same quality, which is operative in the uni- 

 verse outside of him, and which he can keep 

 in working touch with, and in a fashion get 

 on board of and save himself." This more, 

 Mr. James is disposed to think, is first of all 

 the subconscious mind or 'subliminal con- 

 sciousness' whose discovery in 1886 was 'the 

 most important step forward that has occurred 

 in psychology' since he became a student of the 

 science. In conversion, mystical experiences, 

 'mind-cure' and the effects of prayer, he of- 

 fers abundant reason for thinking that influ- 

 ences from this region play a leading part. 

 "It is one of the peculiarities of invasions from 

 the subconscious region to take on objective 

 appearances and to suggest to the subject an 

 external control. In the religious life the con- 

 trol is felt as ' higher ' ; but since on our hy- 

 pothesis it is primarily the faculties of our own 

 hidden mind which are controlling, the sense 

 of union with the power beyond us is a sense 

 of something, not merely apparently, but liter- 

 ally true." 



How completely this accords with Arnold's 

 conception of the name God as a symbolic ex- 

 pression for the purely natural stream of tend- 

 ency, not our narrower selves, that makes for 

 righteousness, will be seen at once. Beyond 

 this, our author holds, articulate proof cannot 

 go. But let us not, therefore, he would add, 

 make haste to close the door against what may 

 lie beyond. Here begin his 'supernaturalism' 

 and the grounds he recognizes for faith in its 

 ' objective truth.' From two points of view it 

 is legitimate to cross the line. First, the lu- 

 minous perceptions of the mystical state, sup- 

 posing them to be as they are reported, are by 

 the logic of the case all-sulEcient for the per- 

 ceiver, but unfortunately non-transferable. 

 Secondly, those who do not share the mystical 



experience may ' in the exercise of [their] in- 

 dividual freedom ' embrace ' over-beliefs ' and 

 ' build out their religion ' in the direction to 

 which their inward need and ' the total expres- 

 sion of human experience as [they] view it ob- 

 jectively' seem to point. This is of course the 

 thesis of his well-known essays on 'The Will 

 to Believe.' The last phrase quoted shows 

 him still holding to ' experience.' It is not to 

 mere desire or will that he consigns the deci- 

 sion — so one is led, despite some of his own 

 words, to infer; but to the inmost judgment, 

 dealing with probabilities and tokens too deli- 

 cate for speech. Thus we have in the second 

 basis of belief a fainter sort of perception, 

 which, like the first, must be incommunicable. 

 According to Mr. James's own profession of 

 faith, ' in communion with the Ideal new force 

 comes into the world, and new departures are 

 made here below.' The supernatural force 

 probably enters 'through the subliminal door,' 

 i. e., affecting the subconscious life first, and 

 through it the conscious life. " The current of 

 thought in academic circles runs against me, 

 and I feel like a man who must set his back 

 against an open door if he does not wish to 

 see it closed and locked." That is, though 

 there is nothing, as he has shown, in the psy- 

 chology of religion that does not seem expli- 

 cable by natural causes, yet such is our author's 

 jealous fidelity to the religious consciousness 

 and the forms its experiences take that he will 

 not accept an explanation that seems to him 

 to impoverish their meaning. One might sug- 

 gest that these forms, as a symbolic expression 

 of the deepest facts in human life, are no 

 greater than the things symbolized; and that, 

 needful though it be to preach to science an 

 open imagination, yet it is no service to the 

 general world to identify religion with what 

 is from the general standpoint a mere possibil- 

 ity, not a sure and common possession. 



I have been obliged to neglect some of the 

 chief thoughts of the book, such as the psy- 

 chological distinction between ' moralism ' 

 and religion (which recalls the writings of the 

 author's father, the elder Henry James), that 

 between the 'once-born' and 'twice-born' 

 types of religious spirit, the comparison be- 

 tween the principle of modern 'mental heal- 



