The Sphere of Religion 283 



to the material world in profession while all our actions in it 

 prove our theory to be mere intellectual gymnastic, so we may be 

 materialists in theory while we show that our real faith is of quite a 

 different quality. But this does not make theory of no importance, 

 because it always in time works back into our experience and comes 

 to determine the kind of experience of which we are capable. If 

 we are not continually seeing our theory through our experience, 

 we shall come to see our experience through our theory. Thus 

 the theory of the Indian about the world of the senses being 

 illusion, makes the world to him in time a dream and paralyses his 

 practical dealing with it. In the same way, what we may call our 

 theology is of vital importance, for though our practical spiritual 

 world may Jong continue very different from our theoretical, the 

 theoretical will gradually bring it to its own level, so that, as a 

 matter of fact, nothing has more determined the history of the race 

 than men's conscious, though not necessarily their formulated, 

 theologies, meaning by that their ideas about the supernatural. 

 Thus, even for seeing the highest, we may say that the greatest 

 need of every age is a true theology. 



Yet, while we cannot have a true experience without thinking 

 rightly, we cannot have a new experience by any kind of thinking. 

 Therefore, the idea that theology is religion merely puts all religion 

 in the air. Like every other science, theology is never more than 

 the interpretation of what is otherwise given. It must, to be 

 of profit, be science within experience and not instead of it. 



Here we have the other side which gives interest and some 

 appearance of truth to the subjective theories of religion. Religion 

 does not deal with its environment by way of metaphysical inference, 

 but by way of feeling and value. From this it is concluded that 

 the main question must concern our feelings and practical purposes 

 themselves. But they are not more subjective in religion than 

 they are in our dealing with the visible world. 



It is plainly not possible to go with any fullness here into a 

 matter which would involve us in a whole theory of knowledge, 

 and it must suffice to make some statements which may seem to be 

 no more than assertions. We know all environment, not as 

 impact or physical influx, but as meaning : and this meaning 

 depends on (i) the unique character of the feeling it creates ; 

 (2} the unique value it has for us ; (3) the immediate conviction 

 of a special kind of objective reality, which is inseparable from 



