their manifestation. It is too often
assumed--sometimes it is explicitly claimed--that one with what is
called "a strong religious nature" possesses some quality of mind absent
or undeveloped in those of an opposite type. This assumption is quite
unwarrantable. The religious man is marked off from the non-religious
man, not by the possession of distinct mental qualities, but solely by
holding different ideas concerning the cause and significance of his
mental states. There is no such thing as a religious "faculty," but
only qualities of mind expressed in terms of the religious idea. If I am
conscious of a strong desire to work on behalf of the social betterment
of my fellows, I may account for this either by attributing it to having
inherited a nature modified by generations of social intercourse, or on
the hypothesis that I am an instrument in the hands of a superhuman
personality. But in either case the qualities manifested remain the
same. Love and hatred, fear and courage, honesty and roguery, with all
other human qualities, may be expressed in terms of religion, or they
may be expressed in non-religious terms. It is the cause to which they
are attributed, or the object to which they are directed, that marks off
the religious from the non-religious person.

The second point is that the whole issue arises on a conflict of
interpretations. If I question the reality of the visions or states of
illumination experienced by Santa Teresa, I am not questioning that, so
far as the saint herself was concerned, these states of exaltation were
real. All mental states--whether arising under normal or abnormal
conditions--are quite real to those who experience them. The visions of
the hashish-eater are real, while they last; so are those of the victim
of delirium tremens. All I question is their genuineness as
corresponding to an objective reality. Over the mind of the subject
these visions may exercise an absolute sway. As to their occurrence, he
or she is the final and absolute authority. There can be no question
here. But when we proceed from the occurrence of these visions to the
question of their causation, then we are on entirely different ground.
Here it is not a question of their genuineness, or of their power, but
a question of how we are to interpret them. The honesty and
singlemindedness of these "inspired" characters may be admitted, but
honesty or singlemindedness is no guarantee of accuracy. We do not need
to ask wh