Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/684



Therefore it may prove false,

is in reality to seek to overthrow a strong conviction by a weak one; an intuition by a syllogism; a proposition felt immediately to be true by an inference open to discussion. Arguments like this resemble the procedure of a man who should tell us, when we meet a friend, that we cannot possibly be sure of his identity because on some previous occasion in our lives we mistook Jones for Thompson.

Exaggerated as this doctrine of the experiential school is thus seen to be, yet it has done good service by putting thinkers on their guard, not to accept as necessary and ultimate some beliefs which are only contingent and dissoluble. Two conditions must be fulfilled in order to effect a presumption of necessity. The belief must always arise under certain conditions; that is, it must be universal in the only sense in which that term can fitly be applied. Having arisen, it must be incapable of expulsion from the mind; its terms must adhere together so firmly that they cannot be parted by adverse criticism, either our own or that of others. Both these conditions are fulfilled by the fundamental postulate of religion. Given the appropriate conditions—human beings raised even a little above the lowest savagery—and it at once takes possession of their minds. After this, it persists in spite of every attempt to do without it, and the highest philosophy is compelled to give it the place of honor in the forefront of its teaching.

Observe now, that what this philosophy accepts and incorporates into its system is religion and not theology. These two must be broadly distinguished from one another. Religion might be described as the soul of which theology is the body. Religion is an abstract, indefinable, pervading sentiment; theology a concrete, well-defined, limited creed. The one is emotional; the other intellectual. The one is a constant element of our nature; the other fluctuates from generation to generation, and varies from place to place. Theology seeks to bind down religion with immovable forms. Against these forms there is constantly arising both an intellectual and an emotional protest. The intellect objects to them as untrue in the name of science (in the largest sense); the emotions struggle against them as