In spite of all that has been done in the way of applying scientific
principles to religious ideas, there is much that yet remains to be
accomplished. Generally speaking science has only dealt with the subject
of religion in its more normal and more regularised forms. The last
half-century has produced many elaborate and fruitful studies of the
origin of religious ideas, while comparative mythology has shown a close
and suggestive relationship between creeds and symbols that were once
believed to have nothing in common. But beyond these fields of research
there is at least one other that has hitherto been denied the attention
it richly deserves. When the anthropologist has described those
conditions of primitive culture amid which he believes religious ideas
took their origin, and the comparative mythologist has shown us the
similarities and inter-relations of widely separated creeds, religious
beliefs have yet to submit to the test of a scientific psychology, the
function of which is to determine how far the same principles apply to
all phases of mental life whether religious or non-religious. Moreover,
in addition to the normal psychical life of man, there is that vast
borderland in which the normal merges into the abnormal, and the healthy
state into a pathologic one. That there is a physiology of religion is
now generally admitted; but that there is also a pathology of religion
is not so generally recognised. The present work seeks to emphasise this
last aspect. It does not claim to be more than an outline of the
subject--a sketch map of a territory that others may fill in more
completely.
From another point of view the following pages may be regarded as an
attempt more completely to apply scientific principles to religious
beliefs. And it would be idle to hope that such an attempt could be made
without incurring much hostile criticism. In connection with most other
subjects the help of science is welcomed; in connection with religion
science is still regarded as more or less of an intruder, profaning a
sacred subject with vulgar tests and impertinent enquiries. This must
almost inevitably follow when one has to face the opposition of
thousands of men who have been trained to regard themselves as the
authorised exponents of all that pertains to religion, but whose
training fails to supply them with a genuine scientific equipment. It
should, however, be clear that an attitude of hostility to science,
veiled or open, cannot be maintained. Mere authority has fallen on evil
days, and in all directions is being freely challenged. There is
increasing dislike to systems of thought that shrink from examination,
and to conclusions that cannot withstand the most rigorous
investigation. And if science really has anything of value to say on
this question it cannot be held to silence for ever. Sooner or later the
need for its assistance will be felt, and the self-elected authority of
an order must give way. It is, moreover, impossible for science with its
claim, sometimes avowed, but always implied, to cover the whole of life,
to forego so large a territory as that of religion. For there can be no
reasonable question that religion has played, and still plays a large
part in the life of the race. Whatever be the nature of religion,
science is bound either to deal with it or confess its main task to be
hopeless.
Whether or not it is possible to apply known scientific principles to
the whole of religion will be a matter of opinion; but the attempt is at
least worth making. So much that appeared to be beyond the reach of
science has been ultimately brought within its ken, so many things that
seemed to stand in a class by themselves have been finally brought under
some more comprehensive generalisation, and so become part of the
'cosmic machine,' that one is impelled to believe that given time and
industry the same will result here. And it should never be forgotten
that one aspect of scientific progress has been the taking over of large
tracts of territory that religion once regarded as peculiarly its own;
and just as psychology and pathology were found to hold the key to an
understanding of such a phenomenon as witchcraft, so we may yet realise
that a true explanation of religious phenomena is to be found, not in
some supernatural world, but in the workings of natural forces
imperfectly understood.
The defences set up by theologians against the scientific advance may be
summarised under two heads. It is claimed that the 'facts' of the
religious life belong to a world of inner experience, to a state of
spiritual development which brings the subject into touch with a
super-sensuous world not open to the normal human being, and with which
science, as ordinarily understood, is incompetent to deal. In essence
this is a very old position, and contains the kernel of 'mysticism' in
all ages, from the savage state onward. This position involves a very
obvious begging of the question at issue. It assumes that all attempts
to correlate religious phenomena with phenomena in general have failed,
and that all future attempts are similarly doomed to failure. Of course
nothing of the kind has been shown. On the contrary, the aim of the
present work is to show that no dividing line can be drawn between those
states of mind that have been and are classed as religious, and those
that are admittedly non-religious. For various reasons I have dealt
almost entirely with those conditions that are admittedly pathological,
but I believe it would be possible to prove the same of all normal
frames of mind and emotional states. Any human quality may be enlisted
in the service of religion, but there are none that are specifically
religious. It is a pure assumption that the religious visionary
possesses qualities that are either absent or rudimentary in other
persons. Human faculty is everywhere identical although the form in
which it is expressed differs according to education, the presence of
certain dominating ideas, and the general influence of one's
environment. To admit the claim of the mystic is to surrender all hope
of a scientific co-ordination of life. It is quite fatal to the
scientific ideal and involves the re-introduction into nature of a
dualism the removal of which has been one of the most marked advantages
of scientific thinking.
Moreover, whatever views we may hold as to the ultimate nature of 'mind'
the dependence of all frames of mind upon the brain and nervous system
is now generally accepted. We may hold various theories as to the nature
of mind, we may, with the late William James, treat the brain as merely
a 'transmissive' organ, but even on that assumption--on behalf of which
not a shred of positive evidence has been offered--the frames of mind
expressed are determined by the nervous mechanism, and thus the laws of
mental phenomena become ultimately the laws of the operation of the
nervous system. The 'facts' of the religious life thus become part of
the facts of psychology as a whole. Its 'laws' will form part of
psychological laws as a whole, and religious experiences must be handed
over for examination and classification to the psychologist who in turn
relies for help and understanding on various associated branches of
science.
Closely allied to the claim of the 'mystic' that his experiences bring
him into touch with a world of super-sensuous reality, is the attempt to
prove that science is incapable of dealing with anything but "in the
first place, the endless ascertainment of facts and the physical
conditions under which they occur, and in the second place to the
criticism of error." Well, no one denies that it is part of the work of
science to ascertain facts, or even that its work consists in
ascertaining facts and framing 'laws' that will explain them. But why
are we to limit science to _physical_ facts only? All facts are not
physical. If I have a head-ache, the unpleasant feeling is a fact. If I
feel hot or cold, angry or pleased, think one thing ugly or another
beautiful, my feelings are as much 'facts' as anything else that exists.
Nay, if I fancy I see a ghost, or a vision, these also are 'facts' so
far as my mental state at the time is concerned. So also are my beliefs
about all manner of things, and often the most important facts with
which I am connected. Facts may be objective or subjective. They may
exist in relation to all minds normally constituted, or they may exist
in relation to my own mind only; or, yet again, they may exist only in
relation to certain states of mind, but they do not, nevertheless, cease
to be facts.
Now the business of science is to collect facts--all facts--classify
them, and frame generalisations that will explain their groupings and
modes of operation. It talks of the facts of the physical world, the
facts of the biological world, the facts of the psychological world, and
so forth. This last group comprises all sorts of feelings and ideas,
beliefs and experiences. Some of these facts it calls false, others it
calls true--that is, they are true when they hold good of all men and
women normally constituted, they are not true when they hold good of
isolated individuals only, and can be seen to be the product of
misinterpreted experience, or arise from a derangement--permanent or
temporary--of the nervous system. But true or false they remain facts of
the mental life. They must be collected, grouped, and explained exactly
as other facts are collected, grouped, and explained. They fall within
the scope of science, to be dealt with by scientific methods.
There is really no escape from the position that so far as religious
'facts' are parts of mental life, religion becomes logically a
department of psychology. The substantial identity of all mental facts
is quite unaffected by their being directed to this or that special
object. As mental facts they are part of the material that it is the
work of science to reduce to order. And as mental facts religious
phenomena are seen to follow the same 'laws' that govern mental
phenomena in general. It is perfectly true that we cannot test and
measure the material of psychology with the same definiteness and
accuracy that the chemist applies to the subject-matter of his
department; but that may be due to want of knowledge, or to the extreme
complexity and variability of the matter with which we are dealing. And
if it were true that the same tests could not be applied in psychology
that are applied elsewhere, this would be no cause for scientific
despair. It would only mean that fresh tests would have to be devised
for a new group of facts, as every other science has already, as a
matter of fact, created its own special standard of value.
The second of the two lines of defence consists in the bold assertion
that the religious interpretation of subjective phenomena is itself in
the nature of a true scientific induction. The methods of science are
not repudiated, but welcomed. But it is argued that the non-religious
explanation of religious phenomena breaks down hopelessly, while the
religious explanation fully covers and explains the facts. If this were
true, nothing more remains to be said, and we must accept this dualistic
scheme, however repugnant it may be to orthodox scientific ideas. But is
it true? Is it a fact that the non-religious explanation breaks down so
completely? Hitherto the course of events has been in the contrary
direction. It is the religious explanation that has, over and over
again, been shown to be unreliable, the non-religious explanation that
has been finally established. Insanity and epilepsy, once universally
ascribed to a supernatural order of being, have been reduced to the
level of nervous disorders. All the phenomena of 'possession' are still
with us, it is only our understanding of them that has altered. And
before it is admitted that the phenomena described as religious can
never be affiliated to the phenomena described as non-religious, it must
be shown--beyond all possibility of doubt--that their explanation in
terms of known forces is impossible. As I have said in the body of this
work, the question at issue is essentially one of interpretation. The
'facts' of the religious life are admitted. Science no more questions
the reality of the visions of the medieval mystic than it questions the
visions of the non-mystic admittedly suffering from neural derangement.
The crucial question is whether we have any good reason for separating
the two, and while we dismiss the one as hallucination accept the other
as introducing us to another order of being? I do not think there is the
slightest ground for any such differentiation, and I have given in the
following pages what I conceive to be good reasons for so thinking. And
I hope that the fact of the explanations there offered running counter
to the traditional one will not prevent readers weighing with the utmost
care the proofs that are offered.