That the very foundations of our psychical life rest on belief and nothing but belief is the theme of this essay. The writer quotes copiously from many authors—Wundt, Balfour, Spencer, and James among them but his main thought is well summed up in an introductory sentence. "These … beliefs have for their object (1) the reality of the self, in which is comprised belief in the existence of others and of an outside world, and (2) the reality of the present, which takes the form of belief in the past and in the future." The treatment throughout is rather psychological than philosophical.
ETHICAL.
In this paper the writer attempts to ascertain certain fundamental principles which must govern us in distinguishing between morality and religion.
I. Generic character. Religion views the individual in his relations to an infinite power more or less completely manifested in the cosmic order. Morality views him in his personal and social relations. Their normal and legitimate relation to one another is that of interaction, although they have existed, and often still exist, independently of each other. Religion has its source primarily in the relations which man sustains to nature, to the totality of those cosmic forces by which he is surrounded, and which produce in him the idea of an infinite power. Morality springs from those human relationships in which the individual finds himself compelled to live and act.
II. Their action and reaction upon one another. Religion draws its moral attributes of deity from the highest ethical ideals among religious persons. Problems of conduct deal primarily with temporal and human relations, and are not hedged about with sacred and awe-inspiring sentiments; hence ethics advances boldly to new positions, and then gradually transforms religious conceptions. Ethical thoughts, once they are taken up into religion as a part of its content, are taught as religious truths, and hence come ultimately to be regarded as transcendently given truth, revelation.
III. Distinction between a theological, or religious, and a scientific treatment of ethics. A theological treatment involves certain presuppositions concerning a superhuman order and man's relation to it. A scientific treatment ignores the question of a supreme Being who is the author and sure support of the moral order, leaving such questions for metaphysics, and seeks to discover and explain the facts of human conduct as facts of the existing order without regard to their ultimate philosophical interpretation. And yet the empirical facts of morality furnish a basis for our metaphysical and religious views of the world.
