SOCIOLOGICAL NECESSITY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF 525 



Having thus justified tlie persistence of supra-rational belief 

 as an essential part of the desire for vital expansion — for such. 

 beHef responds to the need of expansion of our emotional nature 

 — ^let us return to the question of the social organisation of these 

 supra-rational principles by a spiritual body capable of per- 

 meating society with its influence, of knitting together the 

 individuals which compose society, and of giving an adequate 

 sanction to those conditions of conflict so indispensable to 

 progress — conditions which are caused by the inherent tendency 

 of all hfe to expand to the utmost hmits allowed it by its 

 constitution. If the necessity for supra-rational principles is 

 recognised, it follows that these principles must be incarnated 

 in a spiritual organisation capable of giving efEect to them. 

 For supra-rational principles are, by definition, principles which 

 transcend the limits of individual reason ; and the individual 

 cannot by himself organise these principles in such a way as to 

 render them adequate to their ultimate function of social inte- 

 gration. For the individual, supra-rational belief is the means 

 by which the expansion of the emotional nature is effected. 

 But it is obvious that this is not the only function of such 

 beHef. In proportion as the desires of the emotional nature 

 in the individual are gratified, the conflict which arises from 

 the expansion of the various individuals composing society 

 must also be justified by an adequate sanction. So that we may 

 say that supra-rational behef possesses both social and indi- 

 vidual value ; in other words, that such bdief is a sociological as 

 well as an individual necessity. 



Society cannot be disintegrated without a simultaneous 

 loosening of the bonds which unite the individuals composing 

 it ; and, conversely, the disintegration of the social organism 

 cannot take place if there be a set of coherent and vivifying 



the works of art which, are the most studied, the most perfect, the most 

 slowly executed " {Le Monde comme Volonte et comme Representation, 

 vol. ui., p. 219. French translation by Burdeau, Paris, 1903). 



