The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious ExperienceI think that the method which Mr. Spencer uses in his Data ofEthics will help to fix our opinion. Ideality in conduct is altogethera matter of adaptation. A society where all were invariably aggressivewould destroy itself by inner friction, and in a society wheresome are aggressive, others must be non-resistant, if there is to beany kind of order. This is the present constitution of society, and tothe mixture we owe many of our blessings. But the aggressive membersof society are always tending to become bullies, robbers, andswindlers; and no one believes that such a state of things as we nowlive in is the millennium. It is meanwhile quite possible to conceivean imaginary society in which there should be no aggressiveness,but only sympathy and fairness—any small community of truefriends now realizes such a society. Abstractly considered, such asociety on a large scale would be the millennium, for every goodthing might be realized there with no expense of friction. To such amillennial society the saint would be entirely adapted. His peacefulmodes of appeal would be efficacious over his companions, andthere would be no one extant to take advantage of his non-resistance.The saint is therefore abstractly a higher type of man than the“strong man,” because he is adapted to the highest society conceivable,whether that society ever be concretely possible or not. Thestrong man would immediately tend by his presence to make thatsociety deteriorate. It would become inferior in everything save in acertain kind of bellicose excitement, dear to men as they now are.But if we turn from the abstract question to the actual situation,we find that the individual saint may be well or ill adapted, accordingto particular circumstances. There is, in short, no absolutenessin the excellence of sainthood. It must be confessed that as far asthis world goes, anyone who makes an out-and-out saint of himselfdoes so at his peril. If he is not a large enough man, he may appearmore insignificant and contemptible, for all his saintship, than if hehad remained a worldling.223 Accordingly religion has seldom been223 We all know daft saints, and they inspire a queer kind of aversion. Butin comparing saints with strong men we must choose individuals on thesame intellectual level. The under-witted strong man homologous in hissphere with the under-witted saint, is the bully of the slums, the hooliganor rowdy. Surely on this level also the saint preserves a certain superiority.334