The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

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The Varieties of Religious Experience“Therefore, in our rooms,” Father Rodriguez continues, “theremust be no other furniture than a bed, a table, a bench, and a candlestick,things purely necessary, and nothing more. It is not allowedamong us that our cells should be ornamented with pictures or aughtelse, neither armchairs, carpets, curtains, nor any sort of cabinet orbureau of any elegance. Neither is it allowed us to keep anything toeat, either for ourselves or for those who may come to visit us. Wemust ask permission to go to the refectory even for a glass of water;and finally we may not keep a book in which we can write a line, orwhich we may take away with us. One cannot deny that thus we arein great poverty.But this poverty is at the same time a great repose and a greatperfection. For it would be inevitable, in case a religious personwere allowed to own supernuous possessions, that these things wouldgreatly occupy his mind, be it to acquire them, to preserve them, orto increase them; so that in not permitting us at all to own them, allthese inconveniences are remedied. Among the various good reasonswhy the company forbids secular persons to enter our cells, theprincipal one is that thus we may the easier be kept in poverty. Afterall, we are all men, and if we were to receive people of the world intoour rooms, we should not have the strength to remain within thebounds prescribed, but should at least wish to adorn them withsome books to give the visitors a better opinion of our scholarship.”192Since Hindu fakirs, Buddhist monks, and Mohammedan dervishesunite with Jesuits and Franciscans in idealizing poverty as the loftiestindividual state, it is worth while to examine into the spiritualgrounds for such a seemingly unnatural opinion. And first, of thosewhich lie closest to common human nature.The opposition between the men who have and the men who areis immemorial. Though the gentleman, in the old- fashioned senseof the man who is well born, has usually in point of fact been predaceousand reveled in lands and goods, yet he has never identified hisessence with these possessions, but rather with the personal superiorities,the courage, generosity, and pride supposed to be his birth-192 Rodriguez: Op. cit., Part iii, Treatise iii., chaps. vi., vii.286
William Jamesright. To certain huckstering kinds of consideration he thanked Godhe was forever inaccessible, and if in life’s vicissitudes he shouldbecome destitute through their lack, he was glad to think that withhis sheer valor he was all the freer to work out his salvation. “Wernur selbst was hatte,” says Lessing’s Tempelherr, in Nathan the Wise,“mein Gott, mein Gott, ich habe nichts!” This ideal of the wellbornman without possessions was embodied in knight-errantry andtemplardom; and, hideously corrupted as it has always been, it stilldominates sentimentally, if not practically, the military and aristocraticview of life. We glorify the soldier as the man absolutely unincumbered.Owning nothing but his bare life, and willing to tossthat up at any moment when the cause commands him, he is therepresentative of unhampered freedom in ideal directions. The laborerwho pays with his person day by day, and has no rights investedin the future, offers also much of this ideal detachment. Likethe savage, he may make his bed wherever his right arm can supporthim, and from his simple and athletic attitude of observation, theproperty-owner seems buried and smothered in ignoble externalitiesand trammels, “wading in straw and rubbish to his knees.” Theclaims which things make are corrupters of manhood, mortgages onthe soul, and a drag anchor on our progress towards the empyrean.“Everything I meet with,” writes Whitefield, “seems to carry thisvoice with it—’Go thou and preach the Gospel; be a pilgrim onearth; have no party or certain dwelling place.’ My heart echoesback, ‘Lord Jesus, help me to do or suffer thy will. When thou seestme in danger of nestling—in pity—in tender pity—put a thorn inmy nest to prevent me from it.’”193The loathing of “capital” with which our laboring classes todayare growing more and more infected seems largely composed of thissound sentiment of antipathy for lives based on mere having. As ananarchist poet writes:—“Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away that which youhave,“Shall you become beautiful;[193] R. Philip: The Life and Times of George Whitefield, London, 1842,p. 366.287
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The Varieties ofReligiousExperience
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ContentsPREFACE....................
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William JamesLECTURE II CIRCUMSCRIP
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William JamesLECTURES XI, XII, AND
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William Jameseses: 1. The subconsci
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William Jamesmy colleague Dickinson
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William Jamesits heroic obligations
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William Jamesas a guide to life and
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William Jamespower. Yet from the po
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William Jamesthors are actually abl
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William Jamesin favor of the sexual
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William Jamesof our states of mind,
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William Jamesstrictly to the medica
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William Jamesment from origin has s
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William Jamesthe bugaboo of morbid
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William Jamesreligious evolution. T
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William JamesLecture e IICIRCUMSCRI
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William Jamesnot prevent me from ta
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