of interest in this connection is that the same ebb and flow of spiritual interest occurs whether conversion is experienced or not, given only a temperament which works itself up to a lively pitch in the earlier adolescent stage. This is clearly shown in the following instances: F. I had a desire to lead a Christian life. Time after time, until 16, I tried to experience what others said they did. I felt myself a hypocrite. After trying over and over I fell into a state of absolute indifference. I could sit through the most serious revival and make fun. I thought professing Christians hypocrites.' F. 'After joining church I found that my profession of religion hadn't altered my conduct and I doubted that to which I stood pledged. The well-meant efforts of a friend radically different from myself in temperament made bad matters worse. I decided desperately that I didn't care.' M. 'I didn't believe in the doctrines of the church. I disbelieved in resurrection of physical bodies, a literal hell, an angry God, etc. I professed to believe nothing, though I did believe in God and His goodness.' Closely connected with these are the cases in which the person holds aloof in order to see things in their true perspective. M. For a year or two (18 to 20) I stayed away from church entirely, in order not to be influenced unduly by persons.' This shades off into the truth-seeking spirit which is willing to stand or fall by personal conviction. M. 'I began studying Plato's philosophy. I rejected miracles. I rejected miracles. I accepted conditions and took the consequences."

The most central principle underlying the whole alienation phenomenon is found, doubtless, in the necessity to preserve in one way or another the wholeness of the individual life when it is threatened with dissolution. In the presence of conflicting forces within and without, this one thing cannot be surrendered, namely, the integrity of one's own personality; to surrender this would be to do violence to one of the most central and deep-seated instincts. In studying the cases together it appears that people avail themselves of all the means

possible for accomplishing this end. Those who are of an active and vigorous temperament, if they are to preserve their own identity in the midst of the conflict between the personal and social will, can only maintain their equilibrium by expending their energy in some positive way; the result is a vigorous defence of the personal point of view as against that of society. A passive temperament, on the other hand, may find its salvation by sinking into a state of indifference, by letting the old problems take care of themselves and give place to other interests. Half-way between these two extremes is the temperament which becomes irascible and gloomy and cynical. It stands outside of the conventional forms and lets society go its own way. It either utters a wail at the friction it feels between itself and the social complex, or remains doggedly outside and growls at the current of life as it is passing. It frequently happens that one's wholeness is preserved and the pain of the friction is allayed by a playful attitude towards the beliefs and actions of other people. A friend of the writer who is a lecturer, but who feels keenly beforehand the ordeal of facing an audience, becomes not only jocular but positively foolish, as he himself admits, in order to divert his attention from the task before him. It is noticeable that the richest humour is that which has beneath it an undertone of pathos. Perhaps, if rightly understood, the cause underlying an experience like the following would be found essentially to consist in a pérsonality trying to make sure of itself. One of the respondents writes:' When 16 I experienced a period of scepticism, when infidelity seemed fascinating and romantic to me, and there was a pleasure in shocking my friends by avowing such sentiments. It was due, I think, to the natural unrest of the girl developing into womanhood.' Perhaps such attitudes should not be taken too seriously.

This leads to the consideration of another cause underlying the reactionary tendencies. The occasion of them seems often to be the pleasure that comes from

the sense of freedom. The doubter is inventive and constructive, and delights in feeling that he is organising his own world and is responsible to no one F. 'I didn't think it necessary (24 to 29) for a healthy person in the prime of life to believe in a personal God.' F. ‘By the help of mystical writers, the "Gospel of Divine Humanity" and Emerson, I passed out of orthodox Christianity into the free atmosphere of thought.' M. 'I perceived that evolution conflicted with current orthodox beliefs and held to it more strongly on that account.' These attitudes seem likewise to rest back on one of the deeper instincts, the pleasure in free activity, and another closely allied to it, the delight in personal freedom and independence.

In understanding the phenomena of alienation it should be noted that they occur usually towards the latter end of the adolescent period; it is the time when the intellectual life is coming into prominence. The storms and difficulties of earlier adolescence are being settled, and settled from the standpoint of the intellect. As we have noticed, epilepsy and hysteria each indicate an unsettled condition of the motor centres in the brain at this period; these largely disappear and give place to adolescent insanity itself, which is a mental development. Religious doubt, storm and stress, conversions and spontaneous awakenings rarely occur during this later period. During doubt and storm and stress the person is wrestling helplessly with forces beyond his control, which tend to distract and tear his spirit. It is largely a struggle between the powers that be and the force of his own individual will. During the period of alienation there is less feeling of any kind. There is greater poise. The person has either dropped the struggle or decided it for the time in favour of his own will. The attitude is that of indifference or of cynicism. and antagonism.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORN

CHAPTER XX

ADOLESCENCE-THE BIRTH OF A LARGER SELF

IF we stop to glance at the various directions in which the religion of youth tends to develop, adolescence will appear at best to be a very complex affair. We have seen that if we take a cross-section of the composite life of a large number of people at any year during adolescence, it has great diversity of colouring; there seem to be forces interplaying, opposing and conspiring within any one year. If we attempt to follow these forces through successive years, there is distinct continuity, although at the same time great variety in the lines of development. We have found that almost simultaneously there come in different individuals, and occasionally overlapping in the same individual, the distinct breaks in character which we call conversion, the sudden bursts of life which we have termed spontaneous awakenings, fresh enthusiasms and heightened activity in religious work, the emotional strain of storm and stress, and, mingled in among these, periods of carelessness and indifference. These latter coincide, likewise, with the periods of most rapid physical development, and come at about the same time as the great physiological transformation which centres in the awakening of the reproductive life. If, for example, we take the average age of all these events (it should be borne in mind that averages in these cases show only the most general tendencies, and even blur the finer distinctions), they differ only by a fraction of a year. Later by a little comes the doubt phenomenon, and still later,

towards the end of adolescence, the tendency towards alienation from conventions. We have found indications all the way along of essential kinships existing in the character of these phenomena aside from their chronological relationships. The question for us now is to inquire if we can find a simple point of reference for all these phenomena which will bring them into system and order and relative simplicity. What is the central thing in the whole adolescent development, if there is one, from which all these lines of growth diverge?

If we follow up the directions indicated by the facts in the preceding chapters, they seem to lead us toward this fundamental point of view: back of the whole adolescent development, and central in it, is the birth of a new and larger spiritual consciousness. The little child begins life without a consciousness of his selfhood; he looks out upon the world as purely external; his hands and his feet he gazes at as objects and not as part of himself. It is two or three years before he uses the pronoun 'I,' and perhaps nearly as long before he is conscious of his selfhood. Before this time, it is true, this fact is implicitly present in his consciousness, as is shown in the instinct of self-preservation which shows itself almost from the beginning, but it has not yet arisen into clearness. During the early years of childhood the self consists largely in the physiological mechanism and the complex of physiological sensations which come through the senses. Somewhat of the outer life has already been taken up into the self, but the world is largely looked upon still as external and objective. The essential thing in children's religion, we found, was the tendency to look upon God and heaven as something above themselves, and the body of religious doctrine as something external and expressed in ecclesiastical customs and doctrines. But there comes a time in the normal process of development, when the essence of all these things is worked over as itself belonging to the subjective life. God is a Spirit': 'The Kingdom of Heaven is