her mother and sister, both very rigid Methodists, attended. She then asked whether I had any objection to administer the Sacrament to her, that she had been formerly in the habit of receiving it but not for many years. I replied I should certainly have no objection but should wish her to wait a few days in order to prepare her mind properly for the serious ceremony. She said she hoped she was prepared. I then fixed on the Sunday following between the Services which she said would suit her very well. I saw the old man her father who was so insolent to me the other day, the old man is nearly superannuated now, and obliged through weakness to lie down on the bed several times in the day.

The boys drove to Bath in the car and I sent in by them the total of the money collected at Camerton for the relief of the Irish.

Which I directed my Banker to remit to Town to be at the

disposal of the Committee.

ART. II.-RELIGIOUS BELIEF AS DERIVED FROM EXPERIENCE.

1. Belief and Practice. By W. SPENS, M.A. (London : Longmans. 1917.)

2 The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology. The Bampton Lectures for 1915. By HASTINGS Rashdall, D.Litt., D.C.L., LL.D., Dean of Carlisle. (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1919.)

I

In recent years there has been a tendency to appeal to the authority of experience in support of belief, instead of, as formerly, to the authority of the Church or of the Bible. The question which naturally arises from this change is by no means an easy one to answer. Can the belief claiming to rest on religious experience be said to yield a valid interpretation of Reality, or is it as liable to error as that deriving its authority from the Church or the Bible? The answer given to the question will be very considerably influenced by the meaning ascribed to the terms 'belief' and experience.'

Hume's definition of Belief occurs at once to the mind. He described it as a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression,' and, when comparing it with an act of the imagination, as being nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object than what the imagination alone is able to attain.' This definition falls very far short of what the average person means when he speaks of 'belief.' For him it implies much more than a lively idea; it conveys the thought of an attitude of mind resulting either in a definite judgement that something is true of Reality or in a judgement that

some one thing has more worth than another and is therefore nearer to Ultimate Value. Hume's theory of knowledge, we know, prevented his relating the impression in any definite sense with objective reality. If we regard 'Belief' as implying a judgement of values the following definition expresses what we require. Belief is the attitude of mind towards its own experiences in which it accepts and endorses them as referring to Reality and as having real significance and value. Lotze and Ritschl would, in the main, agree with this definition. The former held that 'faith is the feeling which is appreciative of values,' and maintained that through our values we reach a knowledge of things as authentic as that in science.' The latter considered that 'religious beliefs are judgements of value, and that it is the feeling for values that lies at the basis of the affirmations which faith makes about Jesus Christ.'

The term experience' is used chiefly in one of two senses, either as the present consciousness of communion. with the spiritual, or as the wisdom accumulated from spiritual facts derived from the inner and outer world. It is often difficult to distinguish between these two meanings of the word, for the second really implies reflection upon the first. The definitions of the term given by Dr. Rashdall and Mr. C. C. Hall are interesting because of the different aspects they emphasize. Dr. Rashdall draws a distinction between two uses of the word and at the same time points out an objection to each of them. First, he says, the word experience is made to include all that is meant by philosophers when they speak of the moral and religious consciousness'; and, secondly, 'it is thought of as some kind of subjective feeling or emotion." In criticism of the first definition he remarks that 'when philosophers oppose reason to experience and reject the authority of the moral consciousness, they reject the only basis on which the Christian conception of God can be defended'; and against the second he urges that such an emotion can never give us an objective fact.' The objections which Dr. Rashdall raises against these two definitions are important in considering the relation between

'belief' and 'experience.' On the one hand, if the connotation of experience be narrowed down to 'some kind of subjective feeling or emotion,' it is extremely difficult to see in what way it can be a ground of authority for belief as we have defined it. It would be easy to give instances when emotional states have been experienced which have had no raison d'être beyond a purely subjective state of nervous excitement. On the other hand, if experience includes the moral and religious consciousness it is difficult to see how any seriously-minded person can lightly set aside the evidence of a belief based on such authority. Mr. C. C. Hall's definition is worth noting because he has emphasized the fact that an experience is not founded on any particular emotion or feeling, but on the whole personality. 'Experience,' he tells us, 'is the sum of effects realized through feeling, conscience, reason and conduct in the self-consciousness of a believer in religion.' It is in this wide sense that the term is most frequently used by Methodists, for whom 'experience' is the test of the reality of the spiritual life.

The complex nature of experience can be most easily perceived by noticing two of its main characteristics. First, it is essential to remember that the experience of others can only be interpreted by us in the light of our own. There is much truth in the statement that the results of experience are only conclusive for him who has the experience, for another they are strictly relative. Secondly, the experience of any individual is dependent on the social environment for its form of expression; and, moreover, unless it is expressed through the medium of current thought and language it can convey no clear meaning either to the individual concerned or to contemporary society.

II

Two different answers have been given to the question 'What is the value of religious belief as derived from experience? The one is that of the Catholic as voiced

by Mr. Will Spens, and the other that of scholars who, like Dr. Rashdall, are conscious of the weakness of the more orthodox position.

Mr. Will Spens' book, Belief and Practice, is an interesting exposition of the relation between belief and experience from a Catholic point of view. The problem, as Mr. Spens sees it, turns on the answer given to the question Is a supernatural Christology essential to Christian experience?' and he maintains that the true answer is that if we admit the Christian experience, we shall find that it can only be explained by such an hypothesis.' The purpose of the book is to defend this position. Theology,' he claims, 'should take as its data experience rather than propositions,' and in this way it would have greater and not less authority. 'Revelation,' he tells us, 'is not less real because it is given in experience and especially in the experience of Apostles and Apostolic witnesses.' Though Mr. Spens begins by apparently clearing the ground and intimating his willingness to follow wherever the study of the experience' of Jesus and the Apostles may lead him, one cannot help feeling that he is from the outset prejudiced in favour of the Catholic interpretation. He invariably approaches each problem as it arises with the Catholic answer and minimizes the force of other interpretations. Perhaps Mr. Spens' position can be best explained by giving quotations from his book. Speaking generally,' he tells us, 'whatever view we take of the intellectual character of those doctrines which are peculiar to Catholicism, which it does not share even with orthodox Protestant belief, it seems difficult to avoid a further admission that these also minister, in a very real manner, to the spiritual life. Whether or not Catholic doctrines are adequate as philosophy or sound as history, there is, to say the least, a strong case for the view that they supply a map to the spiritual life which is unexceptionally reliable. However inadequate as explanations, their theories relate and express religious experience with peculiar success. In many directions and over a wide field, the conditions they suggest appear to operate, and the experience they imply