Human Traits and their Social Significance Part 24

[Footnote 1: Emerson: _Miscellanies_, quoted by James in _Varieties_, pp. 32-33.]

It may be conceived as Nature itself, as it was by Spinoza, for whom Nature was identical with G.o.d. It may be the World-Soul which Sh.e.l.ley sings with such rapture:

"That Light whose smile kindles the universe, That beauty in which all things work and move, That benediction which the eclipsing curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining love, Which through the web of being, blindly wove, By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst--now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality."[1]

[Footnote 1: From _Adonais_.]

In all these conceptions it still seems to be a hushed sense of reverential relationship to the divine power that most specifically const.i.tutes the religious experience. The latter exhibits certain recurrent elements, any of which may be present in a more intense degree in some individuals than in others, but all of which appear in some degree in most of the phenomena of personal life that we call religious.

"THE REALITY OF THE UNSEEN." In the first place may be noted the sense of the actuality and nearness of the divine power, what James calls the "reality of the unseen," and what is frequently spoken of by religious men as "the presence of G.o.d." James quotes in this connection an interesting letter of James Russell Lowell's:

I had a revelation last Friday evening.... Happening to say something of the presence of spirits of whom, as I said, I was often dimly aware, Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. As I was speaking, the whole system seemed to rise up before me, like a vague destiny looming from the abyss. I never before felt the spirit of G.o.d so keenly in me, and around me.

The whole room seemed to me full of G.o.d. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the presence of something I knew not what. I spoke with the calmness and clearness of a prophet.[2]

[Footnote 2: Lowell: _Letters_, I, p. 75.]

The archives of the psychology of religion are crowded with instances of men who have felt deeply, intimately, and irrefutably the near and actual presence of G.o.d. This sense of the reality of an unseen Thing or Power is not always identified with G.o.d. There come moments in the lives of normal men and women when the world of experience seems alive with something that is apprehended through none of the five senses. There are times when things unseen, unheard, and untouched seem to have, nay, for those concerned, do have, a clearer and more unmistakable reality than the things we can touch, hear, and see. Sometimes, in the hearing of beautiful music, we sense a transcendent beauty which is something other than, something more real than, the specific harmonies which we physically hear. In rare moments of rapture, when the imagination or the affections are intensely stirred, we become intensely aware of this reality which is made known to us through none of the ordinary avenues of experience. The Unseen is not only vividly felt, but is deeply felt and regarded as a thing of deep significance, and is experienced in most cases with great inexplicable joy. And, not infrequently, this significant and beautiful Unseen Somewhat is identified with G.o.d.

The sense of the reality of the divine, is, however, as it were, only the prerequisite of the religious experience. When an individual does have this sense, what interests the student of the psychology of religion is the att.i.tude it provokes and the satisfactions it gives. These we can the better understand if we examine the conditions in an individual's experience which make this longing for the divine presence acute, and the general circ.u.mstances of human life which make it a continuous desire in many people.

There are, to begin with, constant facts of experience which make the realization of the divine presence not only a satisfaction, but the indispensable "staff of life" for certain human beings. In their unfaltering faith in G.o.d's enduring and proximate actuality lies their sole source of security and trust.

For such persons a lapse or a lack of faith is the prelude to utter collapse. A vague general a.s.surance of the dependability of the future is, for most people, a prerequisite for a sane and untroubled existence. Even those who live in unreflective satisfaction with the fruits of the moment would find these moments less satisfactory were they not set in a background of reasonably fair promise. The exuberant optimist, when he stops to reflect, has a buoyant and inclusive faith in the essential goodness of man and the universe.

Whitman stands out in this connection as the cla.s.sic type.

Evil and good were to him indifferently beautiful. He maintained an incredibly large-hearted and magnanimous receptivity to all things great or small, charming or ugly, that lightened or blackened the face of the planet.

While the average man accepts the universe with a less wholesale and indiscriminate appreciation, yet he does feel vaguely a.s.sured that the nature of things is ordered, harmonious, dependable, and regular, that affairs are, cosmically speaking, in a sound state. He feels a vast and comfortable solidity about the frame of things in which his life is set; he can depend on the familiar risings and settings of the sun, the recurrent and a.s.sured movement of the seasons. Were this trust suddenly removed, were the cosmic guarantee withdrawn, to live would be one long mortal terror. That this is precisely what does happen under such circ.u.mstances, the voluminous literature of melancholia sufficiently proves.

The sense of insecurity takes various forms. Sometimes the patient experiences a profound and intimate conviction of the unreality of the world about him. His whole physical environment comes to seem a mere phantasy and a delusion.

In some cases he finds himself unmoved by the normal interests and excitements of men, unable to find any stimulus, value, or significance in the world.

Esquirol observed the case of a very intelligent magistrate....

Every emotion appeared dead within him. He manifested neither perversion nor violence, but a complete absence of emotional reaction.

If he went to the theater, which he did out of habit, he could find no pleasure there. The thought of his house, of his home, of his wife, and of his absent children, moved him as little, he said, as a theorem of Euclid.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ribot: _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 54.]

The sense of futility, of the flatness, staleness, and unprofitableness of the world, which is felt in such extreme forms by p.r.o.nounced melancholiacs, is experienced sometimes, though to a lesser degree, by every sensitive mind that reflects much upon life. Such an att.i.tude, it is true, arises princ.i.p.ally during moments of fatigue and low vitality, and is undoubtedly organic in its origins, as for that matter is optimism. Again such a sense of world-weariness comes often in moments of personal disappointment and disillusion, when friends have proved false, ambitions empty, efforts wasted. At such times even the normal man echoes Swinburne's beautiful melancholy:

"We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure, To-day will die to-morrow, Time stoops to no man's lure; And love grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful, Sighs, and with eyes forgetful, Weeps that no loves endure.

"From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever G.o.ds may be, That no life lives, forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river, Winds somewhere safe to sea."[1]

[Footnote 1: From _A Garden of Proserpine_.]

Even the eager and exuberant, if sufficiently philosophical and generous-minded, may come, despite their own success, to a deep realization of the utter futility, meaninglessness, and stupidity of life, of the essential blindnesses, cruelties, and insecurities which seem to characterize the nature of things.

Unless against this dark insight some rea.s.suring faith arises, life may become almost unbearable. In extreme cases it has driven men to suicide. Take, for example, the picture of the universe as modern materialism presents it:

Purposeless... and void of meaning is the world which science reveals for our belief.... That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave, that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievements must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.[1]

[Footnote 1: Bertrand Russell: _Philosophical Essays_, pp. 60-61 ("The Free Man's Worship").]

Such a prospect to the serious-minded and sensitive-spirited cannot but provoke the profoundest melancholy. There is, even for the most healthy-minded of us, sufficient ground for pessimism, bitterness, insecurity. Even if we personally--largely through the accidents of circ.u.mstance--happen to be successful, "our joy is a vulgar glee, not unlike the snicker of any rogue at his success." The utter futility and evanescence of earthly goods, beauties, and achievements is sensed at least sometimes by normally complacent souls. And so patent and ubiquitous are the evidences of decay, disease, and death at our disposal, that they may easily be erected into a thoroughgoing philosophy of life:

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?...

All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good so is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath....

For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Ecclesiastes_.]

Religion offers solace to those perturbed and pa.s.sionate souls, among others, to whom these futilities have become a rankling, continuous torment and depression. When life on earth appears fragmentary and disordered, not only nonsense but terrifying nonsense, full of hideous injustices, sickening uncertainties, and cruel destructions, men have not infrequently found a refuge in the divine. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

In the religious experience man finds life to be made clear, complete, and beautiful. What seems a contradictory fragment finds its precise niche in the divine scheme, what seems dark and cruel shines out in a setting of eternal beneficence and wisdom. The experience of the individual, even the happiest, is always partial, broken, and disordered. No ideal is ever completely realized, or if realized leaves some perfection to be desired. Men living in a natural existence imagine values and ideals which can never be realized there. In religion, if anywhere, men have found perfection, and ultimate sufficiency.

This perfection, completion, and clarification of life has been attained in various ways. The religious experience itself, when intense, may give to the individual apart from a reasoned judgment, or from any actual change in his physical surroundings, a translucent insight during which he sees deeply, calmly, joyously into the beautiful eternal order of things. This mystic insight has been experienced on occasion by quite normal and prosaic men and women. While it lasts, reality seems to take on new colors and dimensions. It becomes vivid, luminous, and intense. The mystic seems to rise to a higher level of consciousness, in which he experiences a universe more significant, ordered, and unified than any commonly experienced through the senses. One may take, as an example, such an instance autobiographically and anonymously reported a few years ago, and well doc.u.mented:

It was not that for a few keyed-up moments I _imagined_ all existence as beautiful, but that my inner vision was cleared to the truth so that I _saw_ the actual loveliness which is always there, but which we so rarely perceive; and I knew that every man, woman, bird, and tree, every living thing before me, was extravagantly beautiful, and extravagantly important. And as I beheld, my heart melted out of me in a rapture of love and delight. A nurse was walking past; the wind caught a strand of her hair and blew it out in a momentary gleam of sunshine, and never in my life before had I seen how beautiful beyond all belief is a woman's hair. Nor had I ever guessed how marvelous it is for a human being to walk. As for the internes in their white suits, I had never realized before the whiteness of white linen; but much more than that, I had never so much as dreamed of the beauty of young manhood. A little sparrow chirped and flew to a near-by branch, and I honestly believe that only "the morning stars singing together, and the sons of G.o.d shouting for joy" can in the least express the ecstasy of a bird's flight. I cannot express it, but I have seen it.

Once out of all the gray days of my life I have looked into the heart of reality; I have witnessed the truth; I have seen life as it really is--ravishingly, ecstatically, madly beautiful, and filled to overflowing with a wild joy, and a value unspeakable. For those glorified moments I was in love with every living thing before me--the trees in the wind, the little birds flying, the nurses, the internes, the people who came and went. There was nothing that was alive that was not a miracle. Just to be alive was in itself a miracle. My very soul flowed out of me in a great joy.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Twenty Minutes of Reality," _The Atlantic Monthly_, vol. 117, p. 592.]

The mystic experience is important in the study of religion because it has so frequently given those who have had it a very real feeling of "cosmic consciousness." The individual feels "for one luminously transparent conscious moment," at one with the universe; he has a realization at once rapturous and tranquil of the pa.s.sionate and wonderful significance of things. He has moved "from the chill periphery to the radiant core." All the discrepancies which bestrew ordinary life are absent. All the negations of disappointment, all conflicts of desire disappear. The mystic lives perfection at first hand:

"The One remains, the many change and pa.s.s, Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly, Life, like a dome of many colored gla.s.s, Stains the white radiance of eternity."

This sense of splendid unity in which all the divisive and corroding elements of selfhood are obliterated has "to those who have been there" no refutation. "It is," writes William James, "an open question whether mystic states may not be superior points of view, windows through which the mind looks out on a more extensive and inclusive world."

Whatever be the logical validity of the intense mystical insight, of his singular gift for a vivid and intimate union with eternity which has been known by so many mystics, the fruits of this insight are undeniable. During such a vision the world is perfect. There is no fever or confusion, but rapture and rest. And to some degree, at a religious service, a momentous crisis, joy at deliverance or resignation at calamity, during beatific interludes of friendship or of love, men have felt a clear enveloping oneness with divinity.

Such states of intense religious experience, however, are as transient as they are ineffable. Though they recur, they are not continuous, and something more than occasional vivid unions with the divine enter into the constant perfection with which the world, as it appears to the religious man, is endowed.

He feels himself, in the first place, to be part of a world scheme in which ultimate perfection is secured. It has already been pointed out that any individual human life is characterized by negation, conflict, and disappointment. Our lives seem largely to be at the mercy of circ.u.mstance. Our inheritance is fixed for us without our connivance in the matter; accident determines in which social environment we happen to be born.

And these two facts are the chief determinants of our careers.

Even when successful we realize either the emptiness of the prize we had desired, or the distance we are in reality from the goal we had set ourselves. Generalizing thus from his own experience, the individual notes the similar disheartening discrepancies throughout human life. He sees the good suffer, and the wicked prosper; the innocent die, and the guilty escape. Disease is no respecter of persons, and death comes to the just and the unjust alike.

Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?

Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.

Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of G.o.d upon them.

Their bull gendereth and faileth not; their cow calveth and casteth not her calf.

They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

Therefore they say unto G.o.d; depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

What is the Almighty that we should serve him? And what profit should we have if we pray unto him?[1]