l world. For my purpose it
suffices to adopt the popular and convenient distinction of mind and
matter and hence to divide experience into two sorts, an inward
experience of the acts and states of our own minds, and an outward
experience of the acts and states of that physical universe by which we
seem to be surrounded.

[Sidenote: The knowledge or conception of God has been attained both by
inward and by outward experience.]

Now if a natural knowledge of God is only possible by means of
experience, in other words, by a process of reasoning based on
observation, it will follow that such a knowledge may conceivably be
acquired either by the way of inward or of outward experience; in other
words, it may be attained either by reflecting on the processes of our
own minds or by observing the processes of external nature. In point of
fact, if we survey the history of thought, mankind appears to have
arrived at a knowledge, or at all events at a conception, of deity by
both these roads. Let me say a few words as to the two roads which lead,
or seem to lead, man to God.

[Sidenote: The conception of God is attained by inward experience, that
is, by the observation of certain remarkable thoughts and feelings which
are attributed to the inspiration of a deity. Practical dangers of the
theory of inspiration.]

In the first place, then, men in many lands and many ages have
experienced certain extraordinary emotions and entertained certain
extraordinary ideas, which, unable to account for them by reference to
the ordinary forms of experience, they have set down to the direct
action of a powerful spirit or deity working on their minds and even
entering into and taking possession of their bodies; and in this excited
state--for violent excitement is characteristic of these
manifestations--the patient believes himself to be possessed of
supernatural knowledge and supernatural power. This real or supposed
mode of apprehending a divine spirit and entering into communion with
it, is commonly and appropriately called inspiration. The phenomenon is
familiar to us from the example of the Hebrew nation, who believed that
their prophets were thus inspired by the deity, and that their sacred
books were regularly composed under the divine afflatus. The belief is
by no means singular, indeed it appears to be world-wide; for it would
be hard to point to any race of men among whom instances of such
inspiration have not been reported; and the m