The psychology of religion

Front matter

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Preface

The author of the following pages has thought in his modesty that, since his name is as yet unknown to fame, his book might gain a prompter recognition if it were prefaced by a word of recommendation from some more hardened writer. Believing the book to be valuable, I am glad to be able to write such a preface.

Many years ago Dr Starbuck, then a student in Harvard University, tried to enlist my sympathies in his statistical inquiry into the religious ideas and experiences of the circumambient population. I fear that to his mind I rather damned the whole project with my words of faint praise. The question-circular method of collecting information had already, in America, reached the proportions of an incipient nuisance in psychological and pedagogical matters. Dr Starbuck's questions were of a peculiarly searching and intimate nature, to which it seemed possible that an undue number of answers from egotists lacking in sincerity might come. Moreover, so few minds have the least spark of originality that answers to questions scattered broadcast would be likely to show a purely conventional content. The writers' ideas, as well as their phraseology, would be the stock-in-trade of the Protestant Volksgeist, historically and not psychologically based ; and, being in it one's self, one might as well cipher it all out a priori as seek to

vii viii PREFACE

collect it in this burdensome, inductive fashion. I think I said to Dr Starbuck that I expected the chief result of his circulars would be a certain number of individual answers relating peculiar experiences and ideas in a way that might be held as typical. The sorting and extracting of percentages and reducing to averages, I thought, would give results of comparatively little significance.

But Dr Starbuck kept all the more resolutely at his task, which has involved an almost incredible amount of drudging labour. I have handled and read a large proportion of his raw material, and I have just finished reading the revised proofs of the book. I must say that the results amply justify his own confidence in his methods, and that I feel somewhat ashamed at present of the littleness of my own faith.

The material, quite apart from the many acutely interesting individual confessions which it contains, is evidently sincere in its general mass. The Volksgeist of course dictates its special phraseology and most of its conceptions, which are almost without exception Protestant, and predominantly of the Evangelical sort; and for comparative purposes similar collections ought yet to be made from Catholic, Jewish, Mohammedan, Buddhist and Hindoo sources.

But it has been Dr Starbuck's express aim to disengage the general from the specific and local in his critical discussion, and to reduce the reports to their most universal psychological value. It seems to me that here the statistical method has held its own, and that its percentages and averages have proved to possess

PREFACE ix

genuine significance. Dr Starbucks conclusion, for example, that ' conversion ' is not a unique experience, but has its correspondences in the common events of moral and religious development, emerges from the general parallelism of ages, sexes, and symptoms shown by statistical comparison of different types of personal evolution, in some of which conversion, technically so called, was present, whilst it was absent in others. Such statistical arguments are not mathematical proofs, but they support presumptions and establish probabilities, and in spite of the lack of precision in many of their data, they yield results not to be got at in any less clumsy way.

Rightly interpreted, the whole tendency of Dr Starbuck's patient labour is to bring compromise and conciliation into the long standing feud of Science and Religion. Your ' evangelical ' extremist will have it that conversion is an absolutely supernatural event, with nothing cognate to it in ordinary psychology. Your 'scientist* sectary, on the other hand, sees nothing in it but hysterics and emotionalism, an absolutely pernicious pathological disturbance. For Dr Starbuck, it is not necessarily either of these things. It may in countless cases be a perfectly normal psychologic crisis, marking the transition from the child's world to the wider world of youth, or from that of youth to that of maturity — a crisis which the evangelical machinery only methodically emphasises, abridges and regulates.

But I must not in this preface forestall the results of the pages that follow it. They group together a x PREFACE

mass of hitherto unpublished facts, forming a most interesting contribution both to individual and to collective psychology. They interpret these facts with rare discriminatingness and liberality — broad-mindedness being indeed their most striking characteristic. They explain two extremes of opinion to each other in so sympathetic a way that, although either may think the last word has yet to be said, neither will be left with that sense of irremediable misunderstanding which is so common after disputes between scientific and religious persons. And, finally, they draw sagacious educational inferences. On the whole, then, Christians and Scientists alike must find in them matter for edification and improvement.

Dr Starbuck, in short, has made a weighty addition to that great process of taking account of psychological and sociological stock, with which our generation has come to occupy itself so busily. He has broken ground in a new place, his only predecessor (so far as I am aware) being Dr Leuba, in his similar but less elaborate investigation in Volume VII. of the American Journal of Psychology, The examples ought to find imitators, and the inquiry ought to be extended to other lands, and to populations of other faiths.

I have no hesitation in recommending the volume, both for its religious and for its psychological interest. I am sure it will obtain the prompt recognition which its importance as a documentary study of human nature deserves.

WILLIAM JAMES.

Harvard University, October 1899.

Author's Preface

In 1890 I read a paper before the Indiana College Association, which was the first crystallisation of vague ideas which had been forming, that religion might be studied in the more careful ways we call scientific, with profit to both science and religion. This was elaborated still further, on the basis of empirical data, in two lectures, in 1894 and 1895, before the Harvard Religious Union. These were expanded later into two articles in the American Journal of Psychology — the first, * A Study of Conversion/ in January 1897 ; and the other, ' Some Aspects of Religious Growth/ in October 1897. The interest shown in the articles, and the fact that the subject has since then been steadily growing, seem to warrant the presentation of the results in a more permanent and generally accessible form.

In setting out to work in a relatively new field, there are, of course, many crudities and imperfections, which will have to be sifted out as such studies continue. However, there is much, I trust, which will stand the test, and form a nucleus for the prosecution of similar investigations along many kindred lines.

I wish to acknowledge gratefully the services of those persons, several hundreds in number, who have furnished xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE

the raw material out of which the contents of this volume are formed. Being, as it is, a purely empirical study, it could not have arisen at all without their co-operation, which, to a surprising degree, has been warmly given. I am sorry that it is not possible to give them credit individually for their part in the work, especially those who have been most active in obtaining replies to the question-lists ; but there are too many for personal mention.

I wish especially to acknowledge the active sympathy and encouragement of Dr G. Stanley Hall, whose interest had already drawn him in this direction ; and also that of President David Starr Jordan, whose recognition of the value of the application of scientific methods to the study of religion led him to give it a place in the curriculum of Stanford University, where it has had two years of peaceful growth.

I regret having been unable, in the presentation

which follows, to take into account sufficiently the

work of other persons who are working on the same

topics by different methods — philosophical, sociological,

theological, and the like. To do so would partially

have defeated the end in view, which is simply to make

a faithful inductive generalisation. When several

empirical studies are made, then it will be time enough

to begin working out the kinship between them and

synthesising them.

E. D. S.

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGF.

I. — Showing the number of conversions which occur each

year in several groups of persons . . • 33

II. — Showing the relation between the years of greatest frequency of conversion and puberty in both sexes . 40 III. — Showing the relation in time between conversion and

IV. — Showing the relation in time between conversion and

most rapid bodily growth in individual instances . 42

V. — Showing by how much conversion precedes or follows

VI. — Showing the relative frequency of certain motives and

forces which lead to conversion . . . 52

VII. — A comparison of the revival and non-revival cases in

regard to the motives and forces leading to conversion 54

VIII. — Representing the different ways in which the sense of sin shows itself, as determined by temperament and by whether the ideal life or the sinful life is dominant in consciousness ...... 59

IX. — Showing the relative prominence of the various mental

and bodily affections for both sexes . . .63

X. — Showing the frequency in per cents, of different mental and bodily affections preceding conversion in revival cases as compared with others . . . 6j

XL — Showing the relative frequency of certain things regarded

as central in conversion . . . .94

XII. — Comparing the revival and non-revival cases in regard

to certain elements looked upon as central in conversion 96 xiii xiv LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

XIII. — Showing the relation between certain conviction experiences and the elements thought to be central at the point of transition • . . . 97

XIIIa. — Showing the result of an attempt to estimate the degree

of the conscious element present in conversions . 104

XIV. — Showing the relative prominence of some characteristic

feelings following conversion . . . .121

XV. — Showing the relation between the pre-conversion and the

post-conversion feelings . . . .123

XVI. — Showing the percentage of cases in which a changed relation to God, nature and persons was mentioned as the result of conversion . . . ,128

XVII. — Showing distribution of cases used, according to age • 187 XVIII. — Showing the relative prominence of some features of childhood religion ♦ . . . . .192

XIX. — Showing some facts in" regard to religious clarification at

the beginning of adolescence . . . .198

XX. — Showing the relative prominence of the ways in which

storm and stress manifests itself . . . 220

XXI. — Showing the relative prominence of the occasions of religious doubt ...... 236

XXII. — Showing the relative prominence of the first objects

XXIII. — Showing the actual prominence of certain elements which take the place of religious feeling during doubt and storm and stress ..... 273

XXIV. — Showing some facts in regard to the trend of religious

experience ...... 282

XXV. — Showing the relative prominence of the external influences which shape the religious life . . . 294 XXVI. — Showing in per cent, of cases the most central religious

XXVII. — Showing how religious beliefs vary in different stages

of development . . . . .316

XXVIII. — Showing how beliefs vary with age . . . 320

XXIX. — Showing the absolute and relative prominence of religious

LIST OF TABLES xv

PAGE

XXX. — Showing the absolute and relative prominence of certain

religious ideals ...... 343

XXXI. — Showing the frequency and nature of the post-conversion struggles . . . . . 357

XXXII. — Comparing the ideals of the conversion and non-conversion cases . . . . . .371

LIST OF FIGURES

I. — Curves showing the frequency of conversions in different years 2. — Curve showing the frequency of conversions of Drew theological students and general curve for males 3. — Curves for height and weight of average American boys and

girls

4. — Showing the frequency of various motives for different years (females) ......

5. — Diagram'representing the feelings at the time of conversion 6. — Illustrating roughly the mental processes at conversion, as

shown by the feeling accompaniments 7. — Before conversion 8. — Conversion 9. — Before Conversion 10. — Conversion . .

11. — (1) Conviction (2) Crisis (3) New Life 12. — Showing the distribution according to years of cases of

spontaneous awakening, deepened interest, etc. 13. — Composite curves of religious awakenings 14. — Diagram representing adolescent awakening ,

PAGE

29 32 no no

115 159

205 253

XVI 1

Contents

CHAP.

I. — Introduction

PAGE I

Part I. — Conversion

II.— Sources for the Study of Conversion III. — The Age of Conversion

IV. — The Motives and Forces leading to Conversion V. — Experiences preceding Conversion VI. — The Mental and Bodily Affections immediately panying Conversion .

VII. — In what Conversion consists, VIII. — The Conscious and Sub-Conscious Elements in Conversion ....

IX. — The Quality of Feeling following Conversion X.— The Character of the New Life .

XI. — Conversion as a Normal Human Experience XII. — A General View of Conversion . XIII. — The Abnormal Aspect of Conversion

49 58

76 90

IOI

118 125 135 145 163

Part II. — Lines of Religious Growth not involving Conversion XIV.— Sources of Data .... 1S3

XV. — The Religion of Childhood . . . , 188

XVI. — Adolescence — Spontaneous Religious Awakenings . 195

XVII. — Adolescence— Storm and Stress . . .213 xx CONTENTS

CHAP PAGE

XVIII. — Adolescence — Doubt .

XIX. — Adolescence — Alienation XX. — Adolescence — The Birth of a Larger Self XXI. — Adolescence — Substitutes for Religious Feeling . XXII. — Adult Life — The Period of Reconstruction XXIII. — External Influences .

XXIV. — Growth without Definite Transitions XXV.— Adult Life— Beliefs .

XXVI.— Adult Life— Religious Feelings XXVII. — Adult Life — Motives and Purposes

Part III. — Comparison of the Lines of Growth with AND WITHOUT CONVERSION

XXVIII. — The Line of Growth following Conversion . -353

XXIX. — Sanctification . . . . , -375

XXX. — A General View of the Line of Religious Growth . 392

XXXI. — Some Educational Inferences .... 408

Introduction

Science has conquered one field after another, until now it is entering the most complex, the most inaccessible, and, of all, the most sacred domain — that of religion. The Psychology of Religion has for its work to carry the well-established methods of science into the analysis and organisation of the facts of the religious consciousness, and to ascertain the laws which determine its growth and character.

It will be a source of delight to many persons, and of regret to others, that the attempt is at last made to study the facts of religion by scientific methods. Those who believe that law reigns, not only in the physical world but in the mental and spiritual — in other words, that we live in a lawful universe — and who believe, furthermore, that we are helped in becoming lawful creatures by comprehending the order that reigns, will hail this new development with gladness. Those, on the other hand, who hold conceptions which separate sharply the spiritual realm from the mundane, who acknowledge law and the consequent validity of science in the one, but set the other under the control of voluntary and arbitrary decrees, will look on a scientific study of religion with distrust and suspicion. In fact, during the years that these studies in the psychology of religion have been in progress the warning has often been given in good faith that we are entering upon a hopeless quest. The ways of God, it is said, are beyond human comprehension. * The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth ; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit/ is the oftrepeated quotation. Now, it is not the purpose of this chapter to answer objections to the scientific study of religion or to justify it — a thing which may safely be left to time — but to help the patient student of the pages which follow to reap what good they may contain by falling in line with their point of view.

Let us understand each other in the beginning. We proceed on the assumption that this is a lawful universe ; that there is no fraction of any part of it which is not entirely determined and conditioned by orderly sequence ; that the laws which determine every event, no matter how mysterious, are ascertainable and thinkable, provided we have time, patience and wisdom enough to unravel them. The growth of science has been a growth of the recognition of law. A little while ago comets and meteors were the heralds of good or ill to man ; historical events were the sequence of juxtaposition of planets or flight of birds ; sickness, misfortune and death were visitations of divine displeasure — and science under such conditions was impossible. Now, in the physical world, caprice and chance have been eliminated. All things follow an irresistible sequence of cause and effect. When a new and strange fact of nature occurs we are not satisfied to regard it as a stroke of magic or an arbitrary decree of Providence. If a new reaction appears in the test-tube, or we get evidence of the existence of X-rays, we ask immediately what new laws of nature are shown here ? How do these new phenomena fit into the old ? Law reigns everywhere. The meteorologist is even studying the wind, and with some degree of success is finding whence it comes and whither it goes.

Nor do we limit our generalisation to the facts of the physical world, but assume that in the mental life also there are laws as dominant and unchangeable, although these are of different character and are peculiar to their own sphere. It has been one of the greatest triumphs of modern times to bring under investigation by empirical methods the processes of human consciousness. The student in the psychological laboratory meets with as great orderliness and sequence among the facts of emotion or memory or reasoning as the physicist in his laboratory. Even the various types of insanity are usually traceable to natural causes, and recognisable as the result of exaggerated elements in the interplay of psychic forces, and not as manifestations of demoniacal possession, as was once commonly believed. It is scarcely questioned at the present time that all our mental processes follow an orderly sequence. We go one step further, and affirm that there is no event in the spiritual life which does not occur in accordance with immutable laws. The study of religion is to-day where astronomy and chemistry were four centuries ago. The world has been taken away from the oracle, alchemist, astrologer and petty gods, and given over to the control of law. Another four hundred years may restore to law the soul of man, with all its hopes, aspirations and yearnings.

We shall be able more easily to put ourselves in the point of view of the psychology of religion by considering briefly its relation to four other lines of human interest.

1. Relation to Sociology and History. — There are two general lines of approach to an understanding of the growth of religion. We may study religion either in the race or in individuals. Our principal knowledge of its development up to the present has been through sociology and history, which give us glimpses of its beginnings and of the influences which have shaped its growth from the earliest times to the present. The raw material for these researches is found in the institutions and customs of peoples. Typical instances of such studies are Tylor's Primitive Culture and Spencer's Sociology. Especially should the article of Dr Daniels, 1 The New Life: A Study of Regeneration, be mentioned in this connection, as it deals from a sociological standpoint with the same topic which occupies Part I. of this volume.

We may turn, however, to the study of the religious instinct in individuals, and discover there its roots and the law of sequence of its elements from childhood to maturity. This is the work of the psychology of religion. The problem is the same, whether studied in the individual or the race ; the data in the two fields and the methods of interpretation are different. We may find at some time the same principles of growth in both — discover, as is often at present assumed, that the individual passes through the same stages of religious development as the race, or that the race is but a longlived individual ; but that must be settled by scientific investigation, and not by philosophical speculation.

2. Relation to Psychology. — The psychology of religion and modern experimental psychology are closely related both in method and subject-matter. The method of both is inductive. In point of time one of them represents the next to the last step in the growth of empiricism ; the other, the last. In subjecting the facts of nature to scientific treatment, it was a long step in advance when, recently, it was recognised that every thought or volition or emotion, every expression of consciousness, is an index of some law of life ; and that the best way to understand the mental life is to view each of its manifestations as a fact of nature, and to study such expressions objectively. So marked has been the swing away from the rational, introspective standpoint, that no serious modern psychological work exists which does not at least* take into account laboratory experimentation. Still, there has been one reserve which has not, until lately, been entered by the well-established methods of science, namely, religion. It is

1 Arthur Daniel, American Journal of Psychology, VI., No. I.

an equally important step with that which marked the beginning of experimental psychology that now the whole range of human experience, including its most sacred realm, is thrown open to scientific investigation. We shall show in another connection that the psychology of religion employs the same methods as psychology proper, and shall make clear in the proper place that such means of approach are in the interest of the comprehension and assimilation of that which is the centre and heart of life.

These two departments of study are closely related, likewise, in subject-matter. There seems to be no reason longer to make a sharp distinction between those functionings of consciousness which may be termed religious, and those, on the other hand, which belong to the so-called mental life. Just as in psychology proper the artificial walls have been shattered which separate intellectual, emotional and volitional activities and all the ' faculties/ and we have come to look upon each activity in the light of the whole consciousness, so we are discovering that the religious and secular aspects of the soul-life constantly flow into each other, and that each helps in the interpretation of the other. We shall find that the data of religious experience are being illuminated at every point by the results of physiological psychology. The exact relation which we conceive to exist then between the psychology of religion and psychology proper will depend on how inclusive the definition of each becomes. If we should define religion broadly enough to include the whole of life, then the science of it becomes the whole of which psychology is a part ; but if we consider psychology as the science which discusses the laws of all the psychic functionings whatever, and include within them reverence, dependence, worship, and the like, then the psychology of religion is a special branch of psychology. In a volume like this, which concerns itself very little with definitions, it makes little difference which branch of study swallows up the other. Only this should be clear, that the two spheres of investigation are not clearly separable, either in method or subject-matter.

3. Relation to the Philosophy of Religion and Theology, — The psychology and the philosophy of religion have identical problems, but in this they differ widely, that they approach the problems in different ways. The philosophy of religion and theology insist on seeing things in wholes. They resort to introspection, intuition, rational analysis and definition. The psychology of religion sees in the scattered facts of religious experience an evidence that spiritual forces are at work. It believes that by viewing these facts objectively and minutely they will constantly reflect new truth or new and larger aspects of the old. The one works at the finished end of knowledge, and is, to be sure, more artistic and self-contained ; the other, active, energetic, grovels among details, but at the same time has the larger faith, and hopes to come into the central life problems doubly enriched and illuminated. It is as if I wished to know more about a new and strange locality. I may sit at my tent door and reason out many things about it. I may infer many things truthfully in regard to the contour of the country from the nature of the air currents, much about the nature of the soil and vegetation by watching what the stream carries past my door. Or I may set out and explore the locality, and gather information from a thousand sources, and let my knowledge grow as the facts fall into numberless combinations and mutually interpret each other. Now, if my knowledge of the country is really to increase, both things are necessary — to gather the data and to interpret them. The facts in themselves are voiceless and helpless ; their value lies simply in what I bring to them of my own subjective life. Just as truly is my thought-life helpless unless it has the facts of experience to call it out and correct it. The business of the psychology of religion is to bring together a systematised body of evidence which shall make it possible to comprehend new regions in the spiritual life of man, and to read old dogmas in larger and fresher terms.

The condition in our present era is as if, in exploring the land, there were a division of labour and one group of men busied themselves only in gathering data while another was concerned only with the interpretation of them, and as if one band, the scientists, had almost lost acquaintance with their co-workers, the philosophers. The gap between them has become so great that science often wanders aimlessly into new regions or amuses itself by counting grains of sand, and philosophy, on its part, sits at ease and withers under a sense of finality and sufficiency. Such a divorce, which is a relatively modern one, may be likewise a necessary and permanent one. It may be unavoidable, from the very nature of evolving consciousness that we must always turn to the objective aspect of experience and then from that to the subjective interpretation of it — in other words, science and metaphysics may always exist side by side ; but it will be a happy consummation if we come generally to recognise that each exists for the other. As surely as the theologian and philosopher become seized with a larger faith and push out into new regions, and the psychologist remains alive to the infinite significance of his facts, we shall have no breach between the philosophy of religion and theology, on the one hand, and the scientific study of religion, on the other.

4. Relation to Religion. — Religion is a life, a deep-rooted instinct. It exists and continues to express itself whether we study it or not. Just as hunger and the desire for exercise still assert themselves whether or not one knows the conditions underlying them, so will one's spiritual nature function and seek objects for its expression even if we are wholly ignorant intellectually of its nature. But it is in the interest of religion that it should not remain submerged in the sea of feeling, that in some degree it should be lifted up within the range of intellectual comprehension. Here is this life of the physical organism. It will continue to function, feed, grow and maintain its rights whether or not we understand its mechanism. Still we do not hesitate to say that its interests are better conserved if we comprehend the laws of its parts. The physician who goes through the body with scalpel and microscope does a service to the living human being who rejoices in his strength and pulsing life. Psychology is to religion what the science of medicine is to health, or what the study of botany is to the appreciation of plants. The relation is the same as that of any science to its corresponding art. It is art coming to comprehend itself for its own betterment. The development of the psychology of religion is another step in the growth of racial self-consciousness, which seems to be nature's way of self-improvement. Let us ask what religion may hope to gain by a study of its nature and laws.

In the first place, psychology will contribute to religion by leading tozvard greater wisdom in religious education. There are in this country several thousand ministers who professedly devote their lives to the spiritual culture of those in their charge ; there are several million parents, whose highest desire is to meet wisely the moral and religious needs of their children at every step in their growth. There can be no doubt that the larger share of wisdom in such matters will come from the doing as our fathers have done, combined with a fine intuition, which feels its way into the life that is hungering for wisdom ; but it is each person's business to seek to add a little to the wisdom of the past. This can be done only through a more adequate comprehension of life by reading into it until its processes become transparent. I do not trust a physician to prescribe food or exercise to my child or to heal it, unless I fully trust his knowledge of its anatomy and physiology. During all those years when he is dissecting human bodies, or studying circulation or nerve anatomy in the laboratory, he is storing up information and gaining such an insight as will safely bridge over some crisis in the life of his patient. The time is almost past when we entrust our children in school to a teacher who does not know something of psychology. It is a mere platitude to say that the skilled mechanic must know the laws of the stress of steel or the pressure of steam, that the electrician must understand the materials he is dealing with, that the teacher must share the knowledge of the psychologist as to the laws of the conscious life. It will become likewise a commonplace to say that a religious teacher cannot stand between a hungering soul and its future self, or between men and God, who does not know something of the laws of spiritual evolution, who does not know at every step something of where the life is, whither it is tending, and the means by which it is to attain its end. That the soul be no longer left to drift aimlessly and to select chance objects for its expression, or remain without an object, is partially to be the work of the psychology of religion. Psychology will contribute to religion also by increasing our power of appreciation of spiritual things. Religion, in part, is, in the language of Professor Royce, concerned with the world of subjective ' appreciation/ or, as Dr Paulsen puts it, it deals with values. But the world of appreciation is never opened to him who has not found doors opening up into it. I may look upon flowers in a purely objective way, but if I find some road leading into the life of the plant, there is awakened a subjective response to it. To Peter Bell