they looked for
such reactions within the narrower circle of ordinary intercourse. The
advance of science has brought into vogue a description of nature that
inhibits such expectations. The result has been that men, continuing to
use the same terms, essentially expressive as they are of a practical
relationship, have come to regard them as only a general expression of
their attitude. The differences of content that are in excess of factors
of expectation remain as poetry and myth. On the other hand, it is
equally possible, if not equally common, for that which was once
imagined to come to be believed. Such a transformation is, perhaps,
normally the case when the inspired utterance passes from its author to
the cult. The prophets and sweet singers are likely to possess an
exuberance of imagination not appreciated by their followers; and for
this reason almost certainly misunderstood. For these reasons it is
manifestly absurd to fasten the name of myth or the name of creed upon
any religious utterance whatsoever, unless it be so regarded from the
stand-point of the personal religion which it originally expressed, or
unless one means by so doing to define it as an expression of his own
religion. He who defines "the myth of creation," or "the poetical story
of Samson," as parts of the pre-Christian Judaic religion, exhibits a
total loss of historical sense. The distinction between cognition and
fancy does not exist among objects, but only in the _intending_
experience; hence, for me to attach my own distinction to any individual
case of belief, viewed apart from the believer, is an utterly confusing
projection of my own personality into the field of my study.

[Sidenote: The Philosophy Implied in Religion and in Religions.]

Sect. 38. Only after such considerations as these are we qualified to
attack that much-vexed question as to whether religion deals invariably
with a personal god. It is often assumed in discussion of this question
that "personal god," as well as "god," is a distinct and familiar kind
of entity, like a dragon or centaur; its existence alone being
problematical. This is doubly false to the religious employment of such
an object. If it be true that in religion we mean by God a practical
interpretation of the world, _whatsoever be its nature_, then the
personality of God must be a derivative of the attitude, and not of the
nature of the world. Given the practical outlook upon life, there is no
definable w