count able to believe in the existence of anything and everything which for selfish reasons he may regard as desirable. Surely there must have been some reason besides human selfishness for the so extensive acceptance of religion. Many philosophers and theologians have made religion to consist in desire, or feeling. So the author of “Natural Religion" defines religion as "a habitual and permanent feeling of admiration"; Mill, as a "craving for an ideal object"; Goethe, as "a feeling of reverence for what is above, around, and what is beneath us." Teichmüller makes religion to consist of feelings of fear, of æsthetic feelings, such as admiration for the beautiful, and of moral feelings. Among definitions of this class, most important and influential, probably, has been that of Schleiermacher, who says that religion "considered simply in itself, is neither a knowing or a doing, but a determination of the feelings."1 That which distinguishes the religious feeling from all other feelings is said to be this, that "we are conscious of ourselves as absolutely 1 "Der Christliche Glaube," 5te Ausg., S. 6. 1 dependent." It should be well understood that Schleiermacher did not by these words intend to exclude either knowledge or action from religion, but only to deny that the essence of religion consisted in either of these. He argues that religion cannot consist in knowing, else the man who knows most would be the most 2 religious; neither in action, else the religiousness of an action would be determined by its own inherent character, as bad or good, as significant or absurd; but actions of every variety, the best and the worst, the most significant, and the most silly and absurd, are recognised by some as religious; whence he infers that the religiousness of any act must be determined, not by its own essential character, but by the feeling of which it is the expression." It is to be admitted that this well-known definition rightly calls attention to the fact that a feeling of dependence upon an invisible Power beyond man's control, is manifested, in one form or another, in all religions. Even the Buddhist 1"Der Christliche Glaube," 5te Ausg., S. 5. 2 Ib. S. 11. regards himself as in bondage, not indeed to a person, but to the mysterious power known as Karma, which has determined all his thinking, feeling, and acting, his suffering and enjoyment. Nevertheless, as has often been pointed out, the definition of Schleiermacher is inadequate. It is so because, on the one hand, a feeling is inconceivable, which does not suppose a previous perception or cognition of something, as its occasion; and, on the other hand, this feeling of dependence, which is an element in all religion, universally prompts to action. It is not accurate, therefore, to represent feeling as any more essential to religion than knowledge or action. Nor, again, although all religion expresses a feeling of dependence, is it true that this is the only feeling which is essential to religion. It was Hegel's rather rough criticism of this definition, that if it were true that the sentiment of dependence was the one essential element in religion, then a dog would be the most religious of all creatures; a remark which must be admitted to be not wholly without reason. Hegel's own definition, however, we must also reject as inadequate, that religion is "perfect freedom." In this we understand him to refer to the fact that in the consciousness of every free moral agent, there is a contrast and a conflict between the actual and the ideal. And whereas man, in his efforts to realise the moral and spiritual ideal, ever feels himself resisted and thwarted by forces without and within him, it is, as he regards it, distinctive of religion that man therein escapes from this bondage, so that his inner impulses are no longer in conflict with his aspirations after moral and spiritual perfection; and in reaching forth unto perfection, he is thus thwarted no longer. The thought has been finely expressed by Principal Caird, who tells us that it is of "the very essence of religion that the Infinite has ceased to be merely a faroff vision of spiritual attainment, and ideal of indefinite future perfection, and has become a present reality." 1 But if the definition of Schleiermacher was at 1 66 Philosophy of Religion," p. 294. Italics not Principal Caird's. fault in that it centred religion in the feelings, as that of Fichte, in knowledge, so is this faulty in that it centres all in the will. It may be readily granted that religion concerns the will, and that so closely and necessarily, that where there is no willing, there cannot be said to be religion. But we can no more restrict religion to the volitional, than to the emotional or the cognitive faculty. It has also been justly objected to this definition, and to others essentially like it, that it logically excludes progress in religion, in that it apparently disallows the existence of religion where anything less than this perfect spiritual freedom and inner harmony of the soul with God is found. Nor is the answer which Principal Caird has given to this objection satisfactory. He has said that the religious life is indeed a progressive one; but that the infinite ideal is not realised" only in the way of adding perpetually to the sum of its spiritual attainments,” in which case the infinite perfection of the ideal "would be forever unattainable." The infinitude of 1 1 "Philosophy of Religion," p. 295. |