Page:The varieties of religious experience, a study in human nature.djvu/11

 LECTURE I PAGE

Introduction: the course is not anthropological, but deals with personal documents, 1. Questions of fact and questions of value, 4. In point of fact, the religious are often neurotic, 6. Criticism of medical materialism, which condemns religion on that account, 10. Theory that religion has a sexual origin refuted, 11. All states of mind are neurally conditioned, 14. Their significance must be tested not by their origin but by the value of their fruits, 15. Three criteria of value; origin useless as a criterion, 18. Advantages of the psychopathic temperament when a superior intellect goes with it, 22; especially for the religious life, 24.

LECTURE II

Futility of simple definitions of religion, 26. No one specific 'religious sentiment,' 27. Institutional and personal religion, 28. We confine ourselves to the personal branch, 29. Definition of religion for the purpose of these lectures, 31. Meaning of the term 'divine,' 31. The divine is what prompts solemn reactions, 38. Impossible to make our definitions sharp, 39. We must study the more extreme cases, 40. Two ways of accepting the universe, 41. Religion is more enthusiastic than philosophy, 45. Its characteristic is enthusiasm in solemn emotion, 48. Its ability to overcome unhappiness, 50. Need of such a faculty from the biological point of view, 51.

LECTURE III

Percepts versus abstract concepts, 53. Influence of the latter on belief, 54. Kant's theological Ideas, 55. We have a sense of reality other than that given by the special senses, 58. Examples of 'sense of presence,' 59. The feeling of unreality, 63. Sense