Religion and Psychology 3 1 9 



determined because it is determined by his entire self. This is a 

 doctrine of self-determinism, rather than determinism, because it is 

 determinism within a self which is growing, and which acts as a 

 whole. What we mean by freedom is the power of the mind of 

 the individual acting as a whole. A person is free and is acting 

 freely when he is most himself in carrying out an action. The 

 kind of action that to us seems impulsive action, where we feel out 

 of ourselves, out of our mind, and we wonder later on however we 

 could have done such a thing, such action is not free. So far as 

 conduct is the outcome of the whole mind working in its unity, so 

 far it is self-determined, and free in the only sense in which we can 

 understand freedom. 



Although one may seem to have deviated along another line of 

 thought, and to have left the question of faith, it is of significance 

 for the problem of faith, because faith is such an affirmation of the 

 entire mind. Someone has defined faith as a readiness to trust and 

 to follow the noblest hypothesis ; it is an act of self-assertion, one 

 decides to be on the side of the angels, takes one's side in the battle 

 of existence, for battle it is. Ideally at least, it should represent an 

 attitude of the entire mind, but it may often be not so complete. 

 It may often be rather a momentary mood, and so far as it is that, 

 it may be followed by a relapse. Here the vexed question of 

 spiritual healing arises. The process of spiritual healing is a pro- 

 cess of arousing faith, the faith state, and that faith state may have 

 different degrees of rationality, which is the same thing as saying 

 that it may extend over a smaller or larger area of the self, and if it 

 is limited to a small part of the self, it may mislead the individual 

 instead of helping him. One reason why many of us are very 

 doubtful of the wisdom of spiritual-healing services is that, for 

 many who attend such services, it is an appeal to superficial emotion 

 and to primitive credulity. There is the tendency to intensify 

 that hysterical condition of mind from which many of the patients 

 are already suffering. In some cases there may be a disappearance 

 of hysterical symptoms and apparent cure, but only at the expense 

 of replacement by another symptom — namely, reliance upon a 

 quasi-miraculous possibility, the expectation of getting something 

 for nothing, as it were, of getting direct gifts without full appreciation 

 of corresponding demands upon personality. Mass-suggestion may 

 produce startling results of a temporary and superficial kind, but in- 

 dividual treatment is more likely to produce deep and lasting benefit. 



