The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experienceing, lest I should yield to the too easy temptation of putting an endto myself with my gun.“I did not know what I wanted. I was afraid of life; I was driven toleave it; and in spite of that I still hoped something from it.“All this took place at a time when so far as all my outer circumstanceswent, I ought to have been completely happy. I had a goodwife who loved me and whom I loved; good children and a largeproperty which was increasing with no pains taken on my part. Iwas more respected by my kinsfolk and acquaintance than I hadever been; I was loaded with praise by strangers; and without exaggerationI could believe my name already famous. Moreover I wasneither insane nor ill. On the contrary, I possessed a physical andmental strength which I have rarely met in persons of my age. Icould mow as well as the peasants, I could work with my brain eighthours uninterruptedly and feel no bad effects.“And yet I could give no reasonable meaning to any actions of mylife. And I was surprised that I had not understood this from thevery beginning. My state of mind was as if some wicked and stupidjest was being played upon me by some one. One can live only solong as one is intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one growssober one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat.What is truest about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it; itis cruel and stupid, purely and simply.“The oriental fable of the traveler surprised in the desert by a wildbeast is very old.“Seeking to save himself from the fierce animal, the traveler jumpsinto a well with no water in it; but at the bottom of this well he seesa dragon waiting with open mouth to devour him. And the unhappyman, not daring to go out lest he should be the prey of thebeast, not daring to jump to the bottom lest he should be devouredby the dragon, clings to the branches of a wild bush which growsout of one of the cracks of the well. His hands weaken, and he feelsthat he must soon give way to certain fate; but still he clings, and seetwo mice, one white, the other black, evenly moving round the bushto which he hangs, and gnawing off its roots“The traveler sees this and knows that he must inevitably perish;but while thus hanging he looks about him and finds on the leaves142