iousness in general have been
brought under discussion and subjected to attacks which sought to show how
vague and questionable was the reality of spirit as contrasted with the
palpable, solid and indubitable reality of the outer world. Prominence was
given to the fact that the spiritual side of our nature is dependent on
and conditioned by the body and bodily states, the external environment,
experiences and impressions. These were often the sole, and always the
chief subjects of the doctrine of the vulgar naturalism. But the same is
true of the naturalism of the higher order, as we described it in Chapter
II. In order to acquire definite guiding principles of investigation, it
makes the attempt to find the true reality of phenomena in the mechanical,
corporeal, physiological processes, and to take little or no account of
the co-operation, the interpolation, the general efficiency of sensation,
perception, thought, or will, and to treat them as though they were a
shadow and accompaniment of reality, but not as an equivalent, much less a
preponderating constituent of it. Out of these fundamental principles of
investigation, and out of the opposition and doubt with which the
spiritual is regarded, there is compounded the current mongrel naturalism,
which, without precision in its ideas, and without any great clearness or
logical consequence in its views, is thoroughly imbued with the notion
that that only is truly real which we can see, hear, and touch--the solid
objective world of matter and energy, and that "science" begins and ends
with this. As for anything outside of or beyond this, it is at most a
beautiful dream of fancy, with which it is quite safe to occupy oneself as
long as one clearly understands that of course it is not true. "Nature" is
the only indubitable reality, and mind is but a kind of _lusus_ or _luxus
naturae_, which accompanies it at some few places, like a peculiarly
coloured aura or shadow, but which must, as far as reality is concerned,
yield pre-eminence to "Nature" in every respect.

The religious conception is deeply and essentially antagonistic to all
such attempts to range spirit, spiritual being, and the subjective world
under "nature," "matter," "energy," or whatever we may call what is
opposed to mind and ranked above it in reality and value. The religious
conception is made up essentially of a belief in spirit, its worth and
pre-eminence. It does not even seek to compare the reality and o