ligion by the sword.

[30] In his book (too little read, I fear), Natural Religion, 3d
edition, Boston, 1886, pp. 91, 122.

In my last lecture I quoted to you the ultra-radical opinion of Mr.
Havelock Ellis, that laughter of any sort may be considered a religious
exercise, for it bears witness to the soul's emancipation. I quoted
this opinion in order to deny its adequacy. But we must now settle our
scores more carefully with this whole optimistic way of thinking. It
is far too complex to be decided off-hand. I propose accordingly that
we make of religious optimism the theme of the next two lectures.

Lectures IV and V

THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY MINDEDNESS

If we were to ask the question: "What is human life's chief concern?"
one of the answers we should receive would be: "It is happiness." How
to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men
at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are
willing to endure. The hedonistic school in ethics deduces the moral
life wholly from the experiences of happiness and unhappiness which
different kinds of conduct bring; and, even more in the religious life
than in the moral life, happiness and unhappiness seem to be the poles
round which the interest revolves. We need not go so far as to say with
the author whom I lately quoted that any persistent enthusiasm is, as
such, religion, nor need we call mere laughter a religious exercise;
but we must admit that any persistent enjoyment may PRODUCE the sort of
religion which consists in a grateful admiration of the gift of so
happy an existence; and we must also acknowledge that the more complex
ways of experiencing religion are new manners of producing happiness,
wonderful inner paths to a supernatural kind of happiness, when the
first gift of natural existence is unhappy, as it so often proves
itself to be.

With such relations between religion and happiness, it is perhaps not
surprising that men come to regard the happiness which a religious
belief affords as a proof of its truth. If a creed makes a man feel
happy, he almost inevitably adopts it. Such a belief ought to be true;
therefore it is true--such, rightly or wrongly, is one of the
"immediate inferences" of the religious logic used by ordinary men.

"The near presence of God's spirit," says a German writer,[31] "may be
experienced in its reality--indeed ONLY experienced. And the mark by
which the spirit's existence