The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experienceour irony as a sort of personal reprisal. In this way we return to theright quarter jest for jest; we play the trick that has been played onus. Saint Augustine’s phrase: Lord, if we arc deceived, it is by thee!remains a fine one, well suited to our modern feeling. Only we wishthe Eternal to know that if we accept the fraud, we accept it knowinglyand willingly. We are resigned in advance to losing the intereston our investments of virtue, but we wish not to appear ridiculousby having counted on them too securely.”12Surely all the usual associations of the word “religion” would haveto be stripped away if such a systematic parti pris of irony were alsoto be denoted by the name. For common men “religion,” whatevermore special meanings it may have, signifies always a serious state ofmind. If any one phrase could gather its universal message, thatphrase would be, “All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever theappearances may suggest.” If it can stop anything, religion as commonlyapprehended can stop just such chaffing talk as Renan’s. Itfavors gravity, not pertness; it says “hush” to all vain chatter andsmart wit.But if hostile to light irony, religion is equally hostile to heavygrumbling and complaint. The world appears tragic enough in somereligions, but the tragedy is realized as purging, and a way of deliveranceis held to exist. We shall see enough of the religious melancholyin a future lecture; but melancholy, according to our ordinaryuse of language, forfeits all title to be called religious when, in MarcusAurelius’s racy words, the sufferer simply lies kicking and screamingafter the fashion of a sacrificed pig. The mood of a Schopenhauer ora Nietzsche—and in a less degree one may sometimes say the sameof our own sad Carlyle—though often an ennobling sadness, is almostas often only peevishness running away with the bit betweenits teeth. The sallies of the two German authors remind one, halfthe time, of the sick shriekings of two dying rats. They lack thepurgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth.There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about anyattitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin orsnicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse. It is precisely as being[12] Feuilles detachees, pp. 394-398 (abridged).42