relations. After the
rise of science this residual environment tends to be conceived as a
unity which is ultimate or fundamental, but for the religious
consciousness it is more commonly regarded as a general source of
influence practically worthy of consideration. Such a belief, like all
belief, is vitally manifested, with such emphasis upon action, feeling,
or intellection as temperament and mood may determine.

[Sidenote: Religion Means to be True.]

Sect. 29. But if the psychology of belief is the proper starting-point
for a description of the religious experience, it is none the less
suggestive of the fact that religion, just because it _is_ belief, is
not wholly a matter for psychology. For religion _means to be true_, and
thus submits itself to valuation as a case of knowledge. The
psychological study of religion is misleading when accepted as a
substitute for philosophical criticism. The religious man takes his
religion not as a narcotic, but as an enlightenment. Its subjective
worth is due at any rate in part to the supposition of its objective
worth. As in any case of insight, that which warms the heart must have
satisfied the mind. The religious experience purports to be the part of
wisdom, and to afford only such happiness as increasing wisdom would
confirm. And the charm of truth cannot survive its truthfulness. Hence,
though religion may be described, it cannot be justified, from the
stand-point of therapeutics. Were such the case it would be the real
problem of religious leaders to find a drug capable of giving a
constantly pleasant tone to their patient's experience.[83:1] There
would be no difference between priests and physicians who make a
specialty of nervous diseases, except that the former would aim at a
more fundamental and perpetual suggestion of serenity. Now no man wants
to be even a blessed fool. He does not want to dwell constantly in a
fictitious world, even if it be after his own heart. He may from the
cynical point of view actually do so, but if he be religious he thinks
it is reality, and is satisfied only in so far as he thinks so. He
regards the man who has said in his heart that there is no God as the
fool, and not because he may have to suffer for it, but because he is
cognitively blind to the real nature of things. Piety, on the other
hand, he regards as the standard experience, the most veracious life.
Hence, it is not an accident that religion has had its creeds and its
controvers