Page:Philosophical Review Volume 24.djvu/190

174 worship find in the Alter (God), the "home and fatherland of the soul," the satisfaction of all its strivings. And in this comparatively rare instance what has happened, of course, is that the conception of God has become inclusive of all other ends, and that accordingly the sentiment toward God has become inclusive of all other sentiments and instincts.

For the benefit of those who raise objections against tracing higher values back to the instincts, one may here point out that such a treatment of religion does not for a moment question its great value as a factor of prime importance in human progress. The outcome of a psychological study of religion is to insist, I believe, upon the inestimable personal and social effectiveness of prayer and all religious worship; and to explain the nature of this efficacy psychologically is not to condemn but to justify an intelligent employment of religion. Both economy and religious piety are virtues that need cultivation in order to effect a solider and more stable organization of conative impulses, the former about more material goods, and the latter about the higher moral ideals. It remains open to the religious apologist who believes in evolution as a process of divine creation to survey the evolution of the religious sentiment in man as a process of divine revelation by which man becomes conscious of his Creator immanent within his own spiritual development. Such a form of religious apologetics would have the merit of not being antagonistic to scientific conceptions.

4. Hitherto we have been concerned with values attached to objects external to the evaluating individual himself, which are either themselves the ends of instinctive or sentimental desires, or are objects associated with the gaining of goods immediately desired. A stage which is later logically, at least, arises when the qualities of human character also become values. The men of the group have become reflective enough to appreciate certain qualities of character that lead to success in war and the chase, and, later on, in other aspects of associated life. The virtues accordingly appear. Thus Courage at its lowest level is the