284 Science Religion and Reality 



this valuation ; and (4) the necessity of thinking it in relation 

 to the rest of experience and the rest of experience in relation 

 to it. 



In all experience these four aspects are indivisibly joined in one, 

 and each loses its significance in isolation. The feeling depends 

 on the value, and the value on thp feeling ; the conviction of 

 reality is not an additional inference, but the valuation depends on 

 the conviction of reality and the conviction of reality on the correct- 

 ness of the valuation ; the thinking of it in its place in our whole 

 experience is not after we have received it, but is necessary for 

 receiving it, and essential to the conviction of its reality. These 

 elements are the same for the experience of things physical as for 

 the experience of things spiritual. What does distinguish religion 

 from all else is the unique quality of the feeling, of the valuation 

 of the nature of the object, and of the way of thinking things 

 together. 



There is, however, a constant necessity to distinguish what we 

 may not divide, nor is it specially difficult with the world of religion, 

 because, as with every other environment, there is (i) a reflection 

 of it in a feeling of its own special quality ; (2} an immediate judge- 

 ment of worth of a kind different from all others ; (3} a conviction 

 of a peculiar kind of reality; and (4} a special way of thinking it all 

 together as one experience. For the first two I propose to dis- 

 tinguish two words which are only vaguely distinct in our language, 

 and, as is often necessary in the use of terms for more technical 

 purposes, to differentiate them somewhat more precisely than is 

 done by common usage. These words are the " holy " and the 

 " sacred." The "holy " I propose to use for the direct sense or feeling 

 of the supernatural, and the " sacred " for its valuation as of absolute 

 worth. The Special object I shall call " the supernatural," and 

 the thinking together " theology," both words, however, having a 

 somewhat more definite meaning than they have in popular usage. 

 By the sacred, in particular, all religion is distinguished, and all 

 religious thinking is right thinking as it is about what is truly 

 sacred. The supernatural is not a further inference from it as 

 from effects to a cause, but is felt and valued in it ; and, when 

 separated from this manifestation, it is without content and deprived 

 of all reality, because it no longer deals with an environment, but 

 is mere abstract argument about the universe. 



