To James Henry Leuba

CAMBRIDGE, Apr. 17, 1904.

...My personal position is simple. I have no living sense of commerce with a God. I envy those who have, for I know the addition of such a sense would help me immensely. The Divine, for my active life, is limited to abstract concepts which, as ideals, interest and determine me, but do so but faintly, in comparison with what a feeling of God might effect, if I had one. It is largely a question of intensity, but differences of intensity may make one's whole centre of energy shift. Now, although I am so devoid of Gottesbewustsein in the directer and stronger sense, yet there is something in me which makes response when I hear utterances made from that lead by others. I recognize the deeper voice. Something tells me, "thither lies truth"—and I am sure it is not old theistic habits and prejudices of infancy. Those are Christian; and I have grown so out of Christianity that entanglement therewith on the part of a mystical utterance has to be abstracted from and overcome, before I can listen. Call this, if you like, my mystical germ. It is a very common germ. It creates the rank and file of believers. As it withstands in my case, so it will withstand in most cases, all purely atheistic criticism, but interpretative criticism (not of the mere "hysteria" and "nerves" order) it can energetically combine with. Your criticism seems to amount to a pure non possumus: "Mystical deliverances must be infallible revelations in every particular, or nothing. Therefore they are nothing, for anyone else than their owner." Why may they not be something, although not everything?

Your only consistent position, it strikes me, would be a dogmatic atheistic naturalism; and, without any mystical germ in us, that, I believe, is where we all should unhesitatingly be today.

Once allow the mystical germ to influence our beliefs, and I believe that we are in my position. Of course the "subliminal" theory is an inessential hypothesis, and the question of pluralism or monism is equally inessential.

I am letting loose a deluge on you! Don't reply at length, or at all. I hate to reply to anybody, and will sympathize with your silence. But I had to restate my position more clearly. Yours truly,

WM. JAMES.

The following document is not a letter, but a series of answers to a questionnaire upon the subject of religious belief, which was sent out in 1904 by Professor James B. Pratt of Williams College, and to which James filled out a reply at an unascertained date in the autumn of that year.

QUESTIONNAIRE

It is being realized as never before that religion, as one of the most important things in the life both of the community and of the individual, deserves close and extended study. Such study can be of value only if based upon the personal experiences of many individuals. If you are in sympathy with such study and are willing to assist in it, will you kindly write out the answers to the following questions and return them with this questionnaire, as soon as you conveniently can, to James B. Pratt, 20 Shepard Street, Cambridge, Mass.

Please answer the questions at length and in detail. Do not give philosophical generalizations, but your own personal experience.

1. What does religion mean to you personally? Is it

(1) A belief that something exists? Yes.

(2) An emotional experience? Not powerfully so, yet a social reality.

(3) A general attitude of the will toward God or toward righteousness! It involves these.

(4) Or something else?

If it has several elements, which is for you the most important? The social appeal for corroboration, consolation, etc., when things are going wrong with my causes (my truth denied), etc.

2. What do you mean by God? A combination of Ideality and (final) efficacity.

(1) Is He a person—if so, what do you mean by His being a person? He must be cognizant and responsive in some way.

(2) Or is He only a Force? He must do.

(3) Or is God an attitude of the Universe toward you? Yes, but more conscious. "God" to me, is not the only spiritual reality to believe in. Religion means primarily a universe of spiritual relations surrounding the earthly practical ones, not merely relations of "value," but agencies and their activities. I suppose that the chief premise for my hospitality towards the religious testimony of others is my conviction that "normal" or "sane" consciousness is so small a part of actual experience. What e'er be true, it is not true exclusively, as philistine scientific opinion assumes. The other kinds of consciousness bear witness to a much wider universe of experiences, from which our belief selects and emphasizes such parts as best satisfy our needs.

How do you apprehend his relation to mankind -Uncertain.

If your position on any of these matters is uncertain, please state the fact.

3. Why do you believe in God? Is it

(1) From some argument? Emphatically, no.

Or (2) Because you have experienced His presence? No, but rather because I need it so that it "must" be true.

Or (3) From authority, such as that of the Bible or of some prophetic person? Only the whole tradition of religious people, to which something in me makes admiring response.

Or (4) From any other reason? Only for the social reasons.

If from several of these reasons, please indicate carefully the order of their importance.

4. Or do you not so much believe in God as want to use Him? I can't use him very definitely, yet I believe. Do you accept Him not so much as a real existent Being, but rather as an ideal to live by? More as a more powerful ally of my own ideals. If you should become thoroughly convinced that there was no God, would it make any great difference in your life—either in happiness, morality, or in other respects? Hard to say. It would surely make some difference.

5. Is God very real to you, as real as an earthly friend, though different? Dimly [real]; not [as an earthly friend].

Do you feel that you have experienced His presence? If so, please describe what you mean by such an experience. Never.

How vague or how distinct is it? How does it affect you mentally and physically?

If you have had no such experience, do you accept the testimony of others who claim to have felt God's presence directly? Please answer this question with special care and in as great detail as possible. Yes! The whole line of testimony on this point is so strong that I am unable to pooh-pooh it away. No doubt there is a germ in me of something similar that makes response.

6. Do you pray, and if so, why? That is, is it purely from habit, and social custom, or do you really believe that God hears your prayers? I can't possibly pray—I feel foolish and artificial.

Is prayer with you one-sided or two-sided—i.e., do you sometimes feel that in prayer you receive something—such as strength or the divine spirit—from God? Is it a real communion?

7. What do you mean by "spirituality"? Susceptibility to ideals, but with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain amount of "other worldly" fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or "taste."

Describe a typical spiritual person. Phillips Brooks.

8. Do you believe in personal immortality? Never keenly; but more strongly as I grow older. If so, why? Because I am just getting fit to live.

9. Do you accept the Bible as authority in religious matters? Are your religious faith and your religious life based on it? If so, how would your belief in God and your life toward Him and your fellow men be affected by loss of faith in the authority of the Bible? No. No. No. It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authorship can survive the reading of it.

10. What do you mean by a "religious experience"? Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more "home" to one.