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246 CRITICAL NOTICES: and human experience which are too often undreamed of in the formal philosophy of the schools. It is well that the theologian should be compelled to recognise how ideas and experiences which he is in the habit of supposing to be peculiar to his own religion and perhaps to his own form of that religion are really, not indeed without characteristic differences and modifications but still to a large extent, common to many widely different faiths. But here we are obliged to ask what is the value of Prof. James's book, not merely as an interesting piece of literature, or even as a piece of psychological research, but as an actual contribution to Philo- sophy and particularly to the Philosophy of Keligion. I shall best perhaps answer this question by confining my detailed criticism to the chapter entitled " Conclusions ". My space will not allow of much argument in favour of or against Prof. James's views. Prof. James would, I am sure, be the last man in the world to complain if the review on so personal a book should be somewhat personal also a mere statement of personal impressions and appreciations rather than an elaborate discus- sion. I pass over the merely psychological part of Prof. James's conclusions his mere summary of the leading characteristics of religious experience and his estimate of its partial utility and of the limitations of that utility. Against the fairness and general healthy-mindedness of his summing-up I have nothing to say. The only remark that seems called for is this that Prof. James deals almost exclusively with abnormal and exceptional experi- ences. His own defence of this procedure is that the exceptional or extreme cases show more clearly than others what is the general character of the normal or ordinary cases. If the object be to test the existence of some specific faculty of spiritual insight, distinguishable from the ordinary operations of the reason, understanding, or moral consciousness, there may be much to be said for such a course. But when the question is as to the value of religion in life, its advantages are more questionable. Prof. James is quite alive to the defects of these abnormal types of character the social uselessness and even perniciousness for in- stance of the more ascetic lives which he records. He fails to consider how far this is due to the very exaggeration or isolation of the qualities or tendencies in question. There is too little attempt to distinguish from an ethical or religious point of view between different kinds and varieties of the religious consciousness, though the feelings of most readers in the perusal of these " human documents " will probably range from the highest admiration and sympathy to a loathing and disgust relieved only by pity. He is right in demurring to the typical " alienist's " attempt to minimise the significance of all such experiences by a free use of such terms as "morbid" or "neurotic"; but we may surely be allowed to protest also against a study of religion in which the sole interest .of the inquirer in his subject seems to lie in their abnormal char- acter. To take a concrete case, St. Paul was " caught up into the