816 PSYCHOLOGY. 



self is tlie true, the intimate, the ultimate, the perma- 

 nent Me which I seek. This judge is God, the Absolute 

 Mind, the 'Great Companion.' We hear, in these days of 

 scientific enlightenment, a great deal of discussion about 

 the efficacy of prayer ; and many reasons are given us why 

 we should not pray, whilst others are given us why we 

 should. But in all this very little is said of the reason why 

 we do pray, which is simply that we cannot help praying. 

 It seems probable that, in spite of all that ' science ' may do 

 to the contrary, men will continue to pray to the end of time, 

 unless their mental nature changes in a manner which 

 nothing we know^ should lead us to expect. The impulse 

 to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that whilst 

 the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a Self of 

 the social sort, it yet can find its only adequate Sockis in an 

 ideal world. 



All progress in the social Self is the substitution of 

 higher tribunals for lower ; this ideal tribunal is the high- 

 est; and most men, either continually or occasionally, 

 carry a reference to it in their breast. The humblest out- 

 cast on this earth can feel himself to be real and valid by 

 means of this higher recognition. And, on the other hand, 

 for most of us, a world with no such inner refuge when the 

 outer social self failed and dropped from us would be the 

 abyss of horror. I say ' for most of us,' because it is 

 probable that individuals differ a good deal in the degree 

 in which they are haunted by this sense of an ideal specta- 

 tor. It is a much more essential part of the consciousness 

 of some men than of others. Those who have the most of 

 it are possibly the most religions men. But I am sure that 

 even those who say they are altogether without it deceive 

 themselves, and really have it in some degree. Only a 

 non-gregarious animal could be completely without it. 

 Probably no one can make sacrifices for ' right,' without 



ideal judge lies in some outward peculiarity of the immediate case. What 

 once was admired in me as courage has now become in the eyes of mea 

 'impertinence'; what was fortitude is obstinacy: what was fidelity ia 

 now fanaticism. The ideal judge alone, 1 now believe, can read my 

 qualities, my willingnesses, my powers, for what they truly are. My 

 fellows, misled by interest and prejudice, have gone astray. 



