Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/452

442 creation in Genesis, and now even the miracles of the New Testament, as fictions which are to be valued as symbols, tradition, poetry, or as parts of a system of faith which as a whole is to be judged not by reference to historic fact but by its comforting or regenerating effect upon the believer. But if we recall to our minds that original human need in response to which religion arises, it is unmistakably evident that there must be a nucleus of truth in a religion if it is to meet that need at all. In religion man seeks to relate himself profitably to things as they are. He seeks to save his soul by adopting the course that is consistent with the deeper reality. If he is misled as to the nature of reality, then his whole plan is founded on error and is foredoomed to failure. If the forces of nature have no power, or are not to be influenced by human importunity, then it is folly to worship them. If there be no deeper cause that guarantees the triumph of righteousness, then the Christian's hope is illusory, and his prayer and worship idle. In short, every religion is at heart a belief in something as true, and if that something be not true, then the religion is discredited.

Nevertheless, although there is a scientific nucleus in every religion, that nucleus is but a small fraction of it. In the first place religion differs from science proper in that it deliberately adopts a view of things according to which man is the central fact of the universe. Religion is interested in cosmic affairs only in so far as they bear upon human fortunes. Hence it finally expresses itself not in judgments of fact, but in emotion, such as hope, fear, confidence, despair, reverence, love, gratitude, or self-subjection. Its object is the cosmos or some ulterior cosmic agency, construed as helpful or hurtful, colored by the worshiper's solicitude. Hence much religious literature, such, for example, as the Psalms, or St. Augustine's Confessions, are essentially expressions of the religious emotions, characterizations of deity not by the use of cold scientific formulas, but by the use of epithets that signify the feelings and attitude of the worshiper himself.

A second non-scientific factor in religion is that contributed by the imagination and by social tradition. Religion differs from theory in that it comes after and not before belief. Religion is not effective,