we have found to be one of the central factors which determine the character of religious experience. Given two persons reared in perfectly wholesome religious surroundings, if one is naturally highly sensitive, and the other phlegmatic, the former is more likely to become restless and reactionary during the adolescent transformations, while the other may have an uneventful growth. If we appreciate the complexity of life in both its outer and inner relations, we shall see the liability of producing a tangle in the warp and woof of the inter-acting forces. In the multiform society in which a human being is compelled to live, it is manifestly impossible to control all of the influences and be sure that they are the very best-many of the difficulties. which arise are professedly the result of unpropitious surroundings. And the complexity is just as great on the subjective side. Out of the multitude of conceptions which it is possible for a mind to entertain, only one, or at most a few, can be held as the object of clear consciousness at one time. But we live in an environment in which there are no end of conceptions that are imposed on one, in which there are countless duties that arise to crowd out or offset one's habitual mode of activity. The problem of squaring one's life with these is not the difficulty of steering between Scylla and Charybdis, but a thousandfold more delicate. One can, indeed, let the problems go, and live in one's own way; but unless one's own way happens to be nature's way, as determined by the course that the whole of life is pursuing, one's life becomes severed from the whole, and is consequently lost. Society insists on her forms as inviolably right. Each individual is compelled sooner or later to take them into account; and this is no easy matter, for it is one of the deepest instincts, which shows itself at the very beginning of life, to hold one's own ground, to insist on one's own point of view. But another instinct, just as forceful, draws one toward the thought-life of the whole-the instinct of sociality, the desire to share the life of society. The chances are very great that one will be caught between these warring influences. It is an inevitable condition of developing consciousness that there shall be great tenacity for a conception, religious or otherwise, which is once entertained. Consciousness grows by such conceptions, and for a time they seem all-important It is equally inevitable, as one develops out of a childhood in which a few conceptions fill one's mental horizon, that new ones should project themselves into the field of consciousness. It is difficult to gain a new idea, and next to impossible to change one's point of view. Some sort of friction and clash is almost sure to arise. It is certain to come in adolescence, when the great transition from a life of the senses into a world of ideas and spiritual perceptions is to be accomplished, unless the youth is so happily constituted that nature works out the result for him and he wakens up to the fact that he is a full-grown spirit. And the struggle is likely to continue until one comes to welcome the approach of new conceptions, while at the same time treasuring the old; until he looks on life as a growing thing; until he has set his faith on ideals, and has learned the secret of helping them to develop. The end of life seems to be growth, and in the very analysis of these difficulties which seem to bar the way of free development, they present themselves as imperfections which must be overcome. That is, it appears to be an ideal constantly.to be striven after, that growth should be full and harmonious and beautiful, and that the end should be reached without a hitch. We may be led into some wisdom in the attainment of this ideal by keeping in mind what appears to be the condition which underlies it, expressed in physiological terms—namely, the final, complete co-ordination of the lower and higher brain areas. The difficulty during adolescence is to bring into activity a new brain area and make it harmonise with the rest. Whatever steps will make this co-ordination keep up with the rate of growth, whatever will progressively bring into free activity any part which is ripe for functioning, will tend to ward off a catastrophe. Expressed in these terms, one sees the danger, for example, of crystallising the life of a child. about conceptions which are too far beyond its grasp; to dose children on constantly reiterated theological doctrines establishes channels of nervous discharge which must of necessity in childhood be on a lower level, and which are so deeply cut that, a little later, any new discharges from a higher level are wilfully inhibited. There is doubtless no surer way of passing through adolescence safely than by a wise anticipation during later childhood of the most healthy lines of growth. If the higher brain areas which are to function in the fully developed spiritual life are brought little by little into activity, their more complete functioning at a later time will be a matter of course. Any means whatsoever which will lead toward the most complete co-ordination of the brain areas and unification of the personality by a process of harmonious development seems to be in accord with nature's way. A few persons seem to have an uneventful development because they do not leave the religion of childhood, perhaps never wake up to an immediate realisation of religion. They raise the question whether it would not have been conducive to growth even to have suffered a little on the rack of doubt and storm and stress. CHAPTER XXV ADULT LIFE-BELIEFS IN the chapters preceding, we have followed the development of religion from childhood through the many diverging lines of adolescence. In these complexities. we found a unifying centre in the development of religious self-consciousness. Somewhat to our surprise, at the close of adolescence, we came upon a definite turningpoint, which marked the entrance upon mature life. The fact which underlay this transition from youth to manhood and womanhood, and brought unity into its very great diversity, appeared to be the final coordination of the higher life of intelligence and insight and the lower life of the senses. The mature person we found to be one who carries his higher unity over into a life of action. In the following three chapters we shall follow up the line of evidence still further by analysing the beliefs, feelings and ideals given by the respondents as a description of their status at the time when they made their records. In doing this we shall meet greater differences than heretofore. As life advances, it becomes progressively more complex. There are in reality as many lines of growth from earliest childhood as there are persons who develop; but by studying them in their relation to one another, we are able to find a few well-marked types that reflect certain great trends of development. We may trace the line of growth by three methods. In the first place we may follow the individual tendencies as the respondents analyse their development step by step. Again, since we have already noticed a tendency towards adolescent storm and stress, followed usually by a reconstruction, we may keep the beliefs, feelings and ideals of the persons in different stages of this process separate, and so let them cast their special horoscope at different points in the line of advance. These persons in turn we shall compare with those whose growth has been entirely gradual) In the third place we may separate the subjects into age-groups and so determine what beliefs, feelings and ideals are characteristic of different periods in life.) Central Beliefs. Before we trace the line of growth through mature life, it is important to get a picture of those beliefs that are actually present and central in adult religious consciousness, and about which religious consciousness organises itself. These, together with the percentages of their frequency, are shown in Table XXVI. TABLE XXVI.—Showing in per cent. of cases the most central religious beliefs. These headings will not be clear without some elucidation. Each of them is a composite of somewhat varying conceptions. The beliefs included in the first heading centre in the conception of a Being who is back |