The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious ExperienceThrough all the different forms of communion, and all the diversityof the means which help to produce this state, whether it be reachedby a jubilee, by a general confession, by a solitary prayer and effusion,whatever in short to be the place and the occasion, it is easy torecognize that it is fundamentally one state in spirit and fruits. Penetratea little beneath the diversity of circumstances, and it becomesevident that in Christians of different epochs it is always one andthe same modification by which they are affected: there is veritablya single fundamental and identical spirit of piety and charity, commonto those who have received grace; an inner state which beforeall things is one of love and humility, of infinite confidence in God,and of severity for one’s self, accompanied with tenderness for others.The fruits peculiar to this condition of the soul have the samesavor in all, under distant suns and in different surroundings, inSaint Teresa of Avila just as in any Moravian brother ofHerrnhut.”143Sainte-Beuve has here only the more eminent instances of regenerationin mind, and these are of course the instructive ones for usalso to consider. These devotees have often laid their course so differentlyfrom other men that, judging them by worldly law, we might betempted to call them monstrous aberrations from the path of nature.I begin therefore by asking a general psychological question as to whatthe inner conditions are which may make one human character differso extremely from another.I reply at once that where the character, as something distinguishedfrom the intellect, is concerned, the causes of human diversity liechiefly in our differing susceptibilities of emotional excitement, andin the different impulses and inhibitions which these bring in theirtrain. Let me make this more clear.Speaking generally, our moral and practical attitude, at any giventime, is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us, impulsespushing us one way and obstructions and inhibitions holding usback. “Yes! yes!” say the impulses; “No! no!” say the inhibitions.Few people who have not expressly reflected on the matter realizehow constantly this factor of inhibition is upon us, how it contains143 Sainte-Beuve: Port-Royal, vol. i. pp. 95 and 106, abridged.236