rver to note a developmental
process and to discover a principle which links it in with a universal
scheme of evolution.

But religion can never be adequately treated either in terms of racial
origins or of biological history, though there can be no doubt whatever
that there are genetic and biological factors to be considered. Nor,
again, can religion be adequately and exhaustively dealt with by the
psychological method of investigation. The psychological studies of
religion in recent years have greatly enriched our knowledge of the
range and scope and power of man's psychic nature and functions, of his
instincts, desires, valuations, needs, yearnings, beliefs, and modes of
activity and behaviour, and particularly of the important influence
which the social group has exercised and still exercises in the
furtherance of religious attitudes and ideals. But the psychological
method has obvious and inherent limitations. Like any other natural
science, psychology is limited to description and causal explanation of
the phenomena of its special field, which in this case is states of
consciousness. It does not pretend, or even aspire, to pronounce upon
the ultimate nature of consciousness, nor upon the moral significance
of personality. Psychology is as empirical as any other science. It
modestly confines its scope of research to what _appears_ in finite and
describable forms. It possesses no ladder by which it can transcend
the empirical order, the fact-level. The religion which the
psychologist reports upon is necessarily stripped of all transcendental
and objective reference. Its wings are severely clipped. It is only
one of man's multitudinous _reactions_ in the presence of the facts of
his time and space world. It is nakedly subjective and _works_, not
because there is Something or Some One beyond, which answers it, and
corresponds with its up-reach, but only {xvii} because undivided
faith-attitudes always liberate within the field of consciousness
energy for life-activity.

We need not blame the psychologist for this radical reduction of the
age-long pretensions of religion. If he is to bring religion over into
the purview of the scientific field, he can do nothing else but reduce
it. Science can admit into its world nothing that successfully defies
descriptive treatment. The poet may know of flowers which "can give
thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," but science discovers
no such flowers in it