Particularlymustthisbet(a) hecaseona(sense) soilassacredtotheAmerican(so) imagination as that ofEdinburgh. The glories of the philosophic5 chair of this university were deeply impressed on myimagination in boyhood. Professor Fraser's Essays in Philosophy, then just published, was the firstphilosophic book I ever looked into, and I well remember the awestruck feeling I received from theaccount of Sir William Hamilton's classroom therein contained. Hamilton's own lectures were thefirst philosophic writings I ever forced myself to study, and after that I was immersed in DugaldStewart and Thomas Brown. Such juvenile6 emotions of reverence7 never get outgrown8; and Iconfess that to find my humble9 self promoted from my native wilderness10 to be actually for the timean official here, and transmuted11 into a colleague of these illustrious names, carries with it a senseof dreamland quite as much as of reality.
But since I have received the honor of this appointment I have felt that it would never do todecline. The academic career also has its heroic obligations, so I stand here without furtherdeprecatory words. Let me say only this, that now that the current, here and at Aberdeen, hasbegun to run from west to east, I hope it may continue to do so. As the years go by, I hope thatmany of my countrymen may be asked to lecture in the Scottish universities, changing places withScotsmen lecturing in the United States; I hope that our people may become in all these highermatters even as one people; and that the peculiar12 philosophic temperament13, as well as the peculiarpolitical temperament, that goes with our English speech may more and more pervade14 andinfluence the world.
As regards the manner in which I shall have to administer this lectureship, I am neither atheologian, nor a scholar learned in the history of religions, nor an anthropologist15. Psychology16 isthe only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed17. To the psychologist the religiouspropensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining19 to his mentalconstitution. It would seem, therefore, that, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me would be toinvite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities18.
If the inquiry20 be psychological, not religious institutions, but rather religious feelings andreligious impulses must be its subject, and I must confine myself to those more developedsubjective phenomena22 recorded in literature produced by articulate and fully23 self-conscious men,in works of piety24 and autobiography25. Interesting as the origins and early stages of a subject alwaysare, yet when one seeks earnestly for its full significance, one must always look to its morecompletely evolved and perfect forms. It follows from this that the documents that will mostconcern us will be those of the men who were most accomplished26 in the religious life and best ableto give an intelligible27 account of their ideas and motives28. These men, of course, are eithercomparatively modern writers, or else such earlier ones as have become religious classics. Thedocuments humains which we shall find most instructive need not then be sought for in the hauntsof special erudition--they lie along the beaten highway; and this circumstance, which flows sonaturally from the character of our problem, suits admirably also your lecturer's lack of specialtheological learning. I may take my citations29, my sentences and paragraphs of personal confession,from books that most of you at some time will have had already in your hands, and yet this will beno detriment30 to the value of my conclusions. It is true that some more adventurous31 reader andinvestigator, lecturing here in future, may unearth32 from the shelves of libraries documents that willmake a more delectable33 and curious entertainment to listen to than mine. Yet I doubt whether hewill necessarily, by his control of so much more out-of-the-way material, get much closer to theessence of the matter in hand.
The question, What are the religious propensities? and the question, What is their philosophicsignificance? are two entirely34 different orders of question from the logical point of view; and, as afailure to recognize this fact distinctly may breed confusion, I wish to insist upon the point a littlebefore we enter into the documents and materials to which I have referred.
In recent books on logic21, distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything.
First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history?
And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? Theanswer to the one question is given in an existential judgment35 or proposition. The answer to theother is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werthurtheil, or what we may, if we like,denominate a spiritual judgment. Neither judgment can be deduced immediately from the other.
They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines them only bymaking them first separately, and then adding them together.
In the matter of religions it is particularly easy to distinguish the two orders of question. Everyreligious phenomenon has its history and its derivation from natural antecedents. What isnowadays called the higher criticism of the Bible is only a study of the Bible from this existentialpoint of view, neglected too much by the earlier church. Under just what biographic conditions didthe sacred writers bring forth37 their various contributions to the holy volume? And what had theyexactly in their several individual minds, when they delivered their utterances38? These aremanifestly questions of historical fact, and one does not see how the answer to them can decideoffhand the still further question: of what use should such a volume, with its manner of cominginto existence so defined, be to us as a guide to life and a revelation? To answer this other questionwe must have already in our mind some sort of a general theory as to what the peculiarities40 in athing should be which give it value for purposes of revelation; and this theory itself would be what I just called a spiritual judgment. Combining it with our existential judgment, we might indeeddeduce another spiritual judgment as to the Bible's worth. Thus if our theory of revelation-valuewere to affirm that any book, to possess it, must have been composed automatically or not by thefree caprice of the writer, or that it must exhibit no scientific and historic errors and express nolocal or personal passions, the Bible would probably fare ill at our hands. But if, on the other hand,our theory should allow that a book may well be a revelation in spite of errors and passions anddeliberate human composition, if only it be a true record of the inner experiences of great-souledpersons wrestling with the crises of their fate, then the verdict would be much more favorable. Yousee that the existential facts by themselves are insufficient41 for determining the value; and the bestadepts of the higher criticism accordingly never confound the existential with the spiritualproblem. With the same conclusions of fact before them, some take one view, and some another,of the Bible's value as a revelation, according as their spiritual judgment as to the foundation ofvalues differs.
I make these general remarks about the two sorts of judgment, because there are many religiouspersons--some of you now present, possibly, are among them--who do not yet make a working useof the distinction, and who may therefore feel first a little startled at the purely42 existential point ofview from which in the following lectures the phenomena of religious experience must beconsidered. When I handle them biologically and psychologically as if they were mere43 curiousfacts of individual history, some of you may think it a degradation44 of so sublime45 a subject, andmay even suspect me, until my purpose gets more fully expressed, of deliberately46 seeking todiscredit the religious side of life.
Such a result is of course absolutely alien to my intention; and since such a prejudice on yourpart would seriously obstruct48 the due effect of much of what I have to relate, I will devote a fewmore words to the point.
There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend tomake the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer,who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist49, Christian50, orMohammedan. His religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition,determined to fixed51 forms by imitation, and retained by habit. It would profit us little to study thissecond-hand religious life. We must make search rather for the original experiences which werethe pattern-setters to all this mass of suggested feeling and imitated conduct. These experiences wecan only find in individuals for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute feverrather. But such individuals are "geniuses" in the religious line; and like many other geniuses whohave brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, suchreligious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Even more perhaps thanother kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical52 visitations.
Invariably they have been creatures of exalted53 emotional sensibility. Often they have led adiscordant inner life, and had melancholy54 during a part of their career. They have known nomeasure, been liable to obsessions55 and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances,heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed aspathological. Often, moreover, these pathological features in their career have helped to give themtheir religious authority and influence.
If you ask for a concrete example, there can be no better one than is furnished by the person ofGeorge Fox. The Quaker religion which he founded is something which it is impossible tooverpraise. In a day of shams56, it was a religion of veracity57 rooted in spiritual inwardness, and areturn to something more like the original gospel truth than men had ever known in England. Sofar as our Christian sects58 today are evolving into liberality, they are simply reverting59 in essence tothe position which Fox and the early Quakers so long ago assumed. No one can pretend for amoment that in point of spiritual sagacity and capacity, Fox's mind was unsound. Everyone whoconfronted him personally, from Oliver Cromwell down to county magistrates60 and jailers, seems tohave acknowledged his superior power. Yet from the point of view of his nervous constitution, Foxwas a psychopath or detraque of the deepest dye. His Journal abounds61 in entries of this sort:-"As I was walking with several friends, I lifted up my head and saw three steeple-house spires,and they struck at my life. I asked them what place that was? They said, Lichfield. Immediately theword of the Lord came to me, that I must go thither62. Being come to the house we were going to, Iwished the friends to walk into the house, saying nothing to them of whither I was to go. As soonas they were gone I stept away, and went by my eye over hedge and ditch till I came within a mileof Lichfield where, in a great field, shepherds were keeping their sheep. Then was I commandedby the Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood still, for it was winter: but the word of the Lord was like afire in me. So I put off my shoes and left them with the shepherds; and the poor shepherdstrembled, and were astonished. Then I walked on about a mile, and as soon as I was got within thecity, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Cry, 'Wo to the bloody63 city of Lichfield!' So Iwent up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield! It beingmarket day, I went into the market-place, and to and fro in the several parts of it, and made stands,crying as before, Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield! And no one laid hands on me. As I went thuscrying through the streets, there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running down the streets,and the market-place appeared like a pool of blood. When I had declared what was upon me, andfelt myself clear, I went out of the town in peace; and returning to the shepherds gave them somemoney, and took my shoes of them again. But the fire of the Lord was so on my feet, and all overme, that I did not matter to put on my shoes again, and was at a stand whether I should or no, till Ifelt freedom from the Lord so to do: then, after I had washed my feet, I put on my shoes again.
After this a deep consideration came upon me, for what reason I should be sent to cry against thatcity, and call it The bloody city! For though the parliament had the minister one while, and theking another, and much blood had been shed in the town during the wars between them, yet therewas no more than had befallen many other places. But afterwards I came to understand, that in theEmperor Diocletian's time a thousand Christians64 were martyr'd in Lichfield. So I was to go,without my shoes, through the channel of their blood, and into the pool of their blood in themarket-place, that I might raise up the memorial of the blood of those martyrs65, which had beenshed above a thousand years before, and lay cold in their streets. So the sense of this blood wasupon me, and I obeyed the word of the Lord."Bent66 as we are on studying religion's existential conditions, we cannot possibly ignore thesepathological aspects of the subject.
We must describe and name them just as if they occurred in non-religious men. It is true that weinstinctively recoil67 from seeing an object to which our emotions and affections are committed handled by the intellect as any other object is handled. The first thing the intellect does with anobject is to class it along with something else. But any object that is infinitely68 important to us andawakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and unique. Probably a crabwould be filled with a sense of personal outrage69 if it could hear us class it without ado or apologyas a crustacean70, and thus dispose of it. "I am no such thing, it would say; I am MYSELF, MYSELFalone.
The next thing the intellect does is to lay bare the causes in which the thing originates. Spinozasays: "I will analyze71 the actions and appetites of men as if it were a question of lines, of planes,and of solids." And elsewhere he remarks that he will consider our passions and their propertieswith the same eye with which he looks on all other natural things, since the consequences of ouraffections flow from their nature with the same necessity as it results from the nature of a trianglethat its three angles should be equal to two right angles. Similarly M. Taine, in the introduction tohis history of English literature, has written: "Whether facts be moral or physical, it makes nomatter. They always have their causes. There are causes for ambition, courage, veracity, just asthere are for digestion72, muscular movement, animal heat. Vice73 and virtue74 are products like vitrioland sugar." When we read such proclamations of the intellect bent on showing the existentialconditions of absolutely everything, we feel--quite apart from our legitimate75 impatience76 at thesomewhat ridiculous swagger of the program, in view of what the authors are actually able toperform--menaced and negated77 in the springs of our innermost life. Such cold-bloodedassimilations threaten, we think, to undo78 our soul's vital secrets, as if the same breath which shouldsucceed in explaining their origin would simultaneously79 explain away their significance, and makethem appear of no more preciousness, either, than the useful groceries of which M. Taine speaks.
Perhaps the commonest expression of this assumption that spiritual value is undone80 if lowlyorigin be asserted is seen in those comments which unsentimental people so often pass on theirmore sentimental81 acquaintances. Alfred believes in immortality82 so strongly because histemperament is so emotional. Fanny's extraordinary conscientiousness83 is merely a matter ofoverinstigated nerves. William's melancholy about the universe is due to bad digestion--probablyhis liver is torpid84. Eliza's delight in her church is a symptom of her hysterical85 constitution. Peterwould be less troubled about his soul if he would take more exercise in the open air, etc. A morefully developed example of the same kind of reasoning is the fashion, quite common nowadaysamong certain writers, of criticizing the religious emotions by showing a connection between themand the sexual life. Conversion86 is a crisis of puberty and adolescence87. The macerations of saints,and the devotion of missionaries88, are only instances of the parental89 instinct of self-sacrifice goneastray. For the hysterical nun90, starving for natural life, Christ is but an imaginary substitute for amore earthly object of affection. And the like.[1]
[1] As with many ideas that float in the air of one's time, this notion shrinks from dogmaticgeneral statement and expresses itself only partially91 and by innuendo92. It seems to me that fewconceptions are less instructive than this re-interpretation of religion as perverted93 sexuality. Itreminds one, so crudely is it often employed, of the famous Catholic taunt94, that the Reformationmay be best understood by remembering that its fons et origo was Luther's wish to marry a nun:-theeffects are infinitely wider than the alleged95 causes, and for the most part opposite in nature. Itis true that in the vast collection of religious phenomena, some are undisguisedly amatory--e.g., sex-deities and obscene rites96 in polytheism, and ecstatic feelings of union with the Savior in a fewChristian mystics. But then why not equally call religion an aberration97 of the digestive function,and prove one's point by the worship of Bacchus and Ceres, or by the ecstatic feelings of someother saints about the Eucharist? Religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our lifeaffords, and the whole organism gives overtones of comment whenever the mind is strongly stirredto expression. Language drawn98 from eating and drinking is probably as common in religiousliterature as is language drawn from the sexual life. We "hunger and thirst" after righteousness; we"find the Lord a sweet savor99;" we "taste and see that he is good." "Spiritual milk for Americanbabes, drawn from the breasts of both testaments," is a sub-title of the once famous New EnglandPrimer, and Christian devotional literature indeed quite floats in milk, thought of from the point ofview, not of the mother, but of the greedy babe.
Saint Francois de Sales, for instance, thus describes the "orison of quietude": "In this state thesoul is like a little child still at the breast, whose mother to caress100 him whilst he is still in her armsmakes her milk distill101 into his mouth without his even moving his lips. So it is here. . . . Our Lorddesires that our will should be satisfied with sucking the milk which His Majesty102 pours into ourmouth, and that we should relish103 the sweetness without even knowing that it cometh from theLord." And again: "Consider the little infants, united and joined to the breasts of their nursingmothers you will see that from time to time they press themselves closer by little starts to whichthe pleasure of sucking prompts them. Even so, during its orison, the heart united to its Godoftentimes makes attempts at closer union by movements during which it presses closer upon thedivine sweetness." Chemin de la Perfection, ch. xxxi.; Amour de Dieu, vii. ch. i.
In fact, one might almost as well interpret religion as a perversion104 of the respiratory function.
The Bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression: "Hide not thine ear at my breathing; mygroaning is not hid from thee; my heart panteth, my strength faileth me; my bones are hot with myroaring all the night long; as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so my soul panteth after thee,O my God:" God's Breath in Man is the title of the chief work of our best known American mystic(Thomas Lake Harris), and in certain non-Christian countries the foundation of all religiousdiscipline consists in regulation of the inspiration and expiration105.
These arguments are as good as much of the reasoning one hears in favor of the sexual theory.
But the champions of the latter will then say that their chief argument has no analogue106 elsewhere.
The two main phenomena of religion, namely, melancholy and conversion, they will say, areessentially phenomena of adolescence, and therefore synchronous107 with the development of sexuallife. To which the retort again is easy. Even were the asserted synchrony unrestrictedly true as afact (which it is not), it is not only the sexual life, but the entire higher mental life which awakensduring adolescence. One might then as well set up the thesis that the interest in mechanics, physics,chemistry, logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent years along withthat in poetry and religion, is also a perversion of the sexual instinct:--but that would be too absurd.
Moreover, if the argument from synchrony is to decide, what is to be done with the fact that thereligious age par4 excellence108 would seem to be old age, when the uproar109 of the sexual life is past?
The plain truth is that to interpret religion one must in the end look at the immediate36 content ofthe religious consciousness. The moment one does this, one sees how wholly disconnected it is in the main from the content of the sexual consciousness. Everything about the two things differs,objects, moods, faculties110 concerned, and acts impelled111 to. Any GENERAL assimilation is simplyimpossible: what we find most often is complete hostility112 and contrast. If now the defenders113 of thesex-theory say that this makes no difference to their thesis; that without the chemical contributionswhich the sex-organs make to the blood, the brain would not be nourished so as to carry onreligious activities, this final proposition may be true or not true; but at any rate it has becomeprofoundly uninstructive: we can deduce no consequences from it which help us to interpretreligion's meaning or value. In this sense the religious life depends just as much upon the spleen,the pancreas, and the kidneys as on the sexual apparatus114, and the whole theory has lost its point inevaporating into a vague general assertion of the dependence115, SOMEHOW, of the mind upon thebody.
We are surely all familiar in a general way with this method of discrediting116 states of mind forwhich we have an antipathy117. We all use it to some degree in criticizing persons whose states ofmind we regard as overstrained. But when other people criticize our own more exalted soul-flightsby calling them 'nothing but' expressions of our organic disposition118, we feel outraged119 and hurt, forwe know that, whatever be our organism's peculiarities, our mental states have their substantivevalue as revelations of the living truth; and we wish that all this medical materialism120 could bemade to hold its tongue.
Medical materialism seems indeed a good appellation121 for the too simple-minded system ofthought which we are considering. Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his visionon the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffsout Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary122 degenerate123. George Fox'sdiscontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom ofa disordered colon124. Carlyle's organ-tones of misery125 it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal catarrh.
All such mental overtensions, it says, are, when you come to the bottom of the matter, mere affairsof diathesis (auto-intoxications most probably), due to the perverted action of various glands126 whichphysiology will yet discover. And medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of allsuch personages is successfully undermined.[2]
[2] For a first-rate example of medical-materialist reasoning, see an article on "les varietes duType devot," by Dr. Binet-Sangle, in the Revue de l'Hypnotisme, xiv. 161.
Let us ourselves look at the matter in the largest possible way. Modern psychology, findingdefinite psycho-physical connections to hold good, assumes as a convenient hypothesis that thedependence of mental states upon bodily conditions must be thoroughgoing and complete. If weadopt the assumption, then of course what medical materialism insists on must be true in a generalway, if not in every detail: Saint Paul certainly had once an epileptoid, if not an epileptic seizure;George Fox was an hereditary degenerate; Carlyle was undoubtedly127 auto-intoxicated by someorgan or other, no matter which--and the rest. But now, I ask you, how can such an existentialaccount of facts of mental history decide in one way or another upon their spiritual significance?
According to the general postulate128 of psychology just referred to, there is not a single one of ourstates of mind, high or low, healthy or morbid129, that has not some organic process as its condition.
Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are; and if we only knew the facts intimately enough, we should doubtless see "the liver" determining the dicta ofthe sturdy atheist130 as decisively as it does those of the Methodist under conviction anxious about hissoul. When it alters in one way the blood that percolates131 it, we get the methodist, when in anotherway, we get the atheist form of mind. So of all our raptures132 and our drynesses, our longings133 andpantings, our questions and beliefs. They are equally organically founded, be they religious or ofnon-religious content.
To plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim topossess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one has already worked outin advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinatesorts of physiological134 change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientificdoctrines, not even our DIS-beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every oneof them without exception flows from the state of its possessor's body at the time.
It is needless to say that medical materialism draws in point of fact no such sweeping136 skepticalconclusion. It is sure, just as every simple man is sure, that some states of mind are inwardlysuperior to others, and reveal to us more truth, and in this it simply makes use of an ordinaryspiritual judgment. It has no physiological theory of the production of these its favorite states, bywhich it may accredit137 them; and its attempt to discredit47 the states which it dislikes, by vaguelyassociating them with nerves and liver, and connecting them with names connoting bodilyaffliction, is altogether illogical and inconsistent.
Let us play fair in this whole matter, and be quite candid138 with ourselves and with the facts. Whenwe think certain states of mind superior to others, is it ever because of what we know concerningtheir organic antecedents? No! it is always for two entirely different reasons. It is either becausewe take an immediate delight in them; or else it is because we believe them to bring us goodconsequential fruits for life. When we speak disparagingly139 of "feverish140 fancies," surely the fever-process as such is not the ground of our disesteem--for aught we know to the contrary, 103 degreesor 104 degrees Fahrenheit141 might be a much more favorable temperature for truths to germinate142 andsprout in, than the more ordinary blood-heat of 97 or 98 degrees. It is either the disagreeablenessitself of the fancies, or their inability to bear the criticisms of the convalescent hour. When wepraise the thoughts which health brings, health's peculiar chemical metabolisms143 have nothing to dowith determining our judgment. We know in fact almost nothing about these metabolisms. It is thecharacter of inner happiness in the thoughts which stamps them as good, or else their consistencywith our other opinions and their serviceability for our needs, which make them pass for true in ouresteem.
Now the more intrinsic and the more remote of these criteria145 do not always hang together. Innerhappiness and serviceability do not always agree. What immediately feels most "good" is notalways most "true," when measured by the verdict of the rest of experience. The differencebetween Philip drunk and Philip sober is the classic instance in corroboration146. If merely "feelinggood" could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely147 valid149 human experience. But itsrevelations, however acutely satisfying at the moment, are inserted into an environment whichrefuses to bear them out for any length of time. The consequence of this discrepancy150 of the twocriteria is the uncertainty151 which still prevails over so many of our spiritual judgments152. There aremoments of sentimental and mystical experience--we shall hereafter hear much of them--that carry an enormous sense of inner authority and illumination with them when they come. But they comeseldom, and they do not come to everyone; and the rest of life makes either no connection withthem, or tends to contradict them more than it confirms them. Some persons follow more the voiceof the moment in these cases, some prefer to be guided by the average results. Hence the saddiscordancy of so many of the spiritual judgments of human beings; a discordancy153 which will bebrought home to us acutely enough before these lectures end.
It is, however, a discordancy that can never be resolved by any merely medical test. A goodexample of the impossibility of holding strictly154 to the medical tests is seen in the theory of thepathological causation of genius promulgated155 by recent authors. "Genius," said Dr. Moreau, "is butone of the many branches of the neuropathic tree." "Genius," says Dr. Lombroso, "is a symptom ofhereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety, and is allied156 to moral insanity157." "Whenever aman's life," writes Mr. Nisbet, "is at once sufficiently158 illustrious and recorded with sufficientfullness to be a subject of profitable study, he inevitably159 falls into the morbid category. . . . And itis worthy160 of remark that, as a rule, the greater the genius, the greater the unsoundness."[3]
[3] J. F. Nisbet: The Insanity of Genius, 3d ed., London, 1893, pp. xvi., xxiv.
Now do these authors, after having succeeded in establishing to their own satisfaction that theworks of genius are fruits of disease, consistently proceed thereupon to impugn161 the VALUE of thefruits? Do they deduce a new spiritual judgment from their new doctrine135 of existential conditions?
Do they frankly162 forbid us to admire the productions of genius from now onwards? and say outrightthat no neuropath can ever be a revealer of new truth?
No! their immediate spiritual instincts are too strong for them here, and hold their own againstinferences which, in mere love of logical consistency144, medical materialism ought to be only tooglad to draw. One disciple163 of the school, indeed, has striven to impugn the value of works ofgenius in a wholesale164 way (such works of contemporary art, namely, as he himself is unable toenjoy, and they are many) by using medical arguments.[4] But for the most part the masterpiecesare left unchallenged; and the medical line of attack either confines itself to such secularproductions as everyone admits to be intrinsically eccentric, or else addresses itself exclusively toreligious manifestations165. And then it is because the religious manifestations have been alreadycondemned because the critic dislikes them on internal or spiritual grounds.
[4] Max Nordau, in his bulky book entitled Degeneration.
In the natural sciences and industrial arts it never occurs to anyone to try to refute opinions byshowing up their author's neurotic166 constitution. Opinions here are invariably tested by logic and byexperiment, no matter what may be their author's neurological type. It should be no otherwise withreligious opinions. Their value can only be ascertained168 by spiritual judgments directly passed uponthem, judgments based on our own immediate feeling primarily; and secondarily on what we canascertain of their experiential relations to our moral needs and to the rest of what we hold as true.
Immediate luminousness169, in short, philosophical170 reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are theonly available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and itwould not now save her theology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible171. And conversely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make nodifference how hysterical or nervously172 off her balance Saint Teresa may have been when she waswith us here below.
You see that at bottom we are thrown back upon the general principles by which the empiricalphilosophy has always contended that we must be guided in our search for truth. Dogmaticphilosophies have sought for tests for truth which might dispense173 us from appealing to the future.
Some direct mark, by noting which we can be protected immediately and absolutely, now andforever, against all mistake--such has been the darling dream of philosophic dogmatists. It is clearthat the ORIGIN of the truth would be an admirable criterion of this sort, if only the variousorigins could be discriminated174 from one another from this point of view, and the history ofdogmatic opinion shows that origin has always been a favorite test. Origin in immediate intuition;origin in pontifical176 authority; origin in supernatural revelation, as by vision, hearing, orunaccountable impression; origin in direct possession by a higher spirit, expressing itself inprophecy and warning; origin in automatic utterance39 generally--these origins have been stockwarrants for the truth of one opinion after another which we find represented in religious history.
The medical materialists are therefore only so many belated dogmatists, neatly177 turning the tableson their predecessors178 by using the criterion of origin in a destructive instead of an accreditive way.
They are effective with their talk of pathological origin only so long as supernatural origin ispleaded by the other side, and nothing but the argument from origin is under discussion. But theargument from origin has seldom been used alone, for it is too obviously insufficient. Dr.
Maudsley is perhaps the cleverest of the rebutters of supernatural religion on grounds of origin.
Yet he finds himself forced to write:-"What right have we to believe Nature under any obligation to do her work by means ofcomplete minds only? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instrument for a particularpurpose. It is the work that is done, and the quality in the worker by which it was done, that isalone of moment; and it may be no great matter from a cosmical standpoint, if in other qualities ofcharacter he was singularly defective--if indeed he were hypocrite, adulterer, eccentric, or lunatic. .
. . Home we come again, then, to the old and last resort of certitude--namely the common assent179 ofmankind, or of the competent by instruction and training among mankind."[5]
[5] H. Maudsley: Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings, 1886, pp. 256, 257.
In other words, not its origin, but THE WAY IN WHICH IT WORKS ON THE WHOLE, is Dr.
Maudsley's final test of a belief. This is our own empiricist criterion; and this criterion the stoutestinsisters on supernatural origin have also been forced to use in the end. Among the visions andmessages some have always been too patently silly, among the trances and convulsive seizuressome have been too fruitless for conduct and character, to pass themselves off as significant, stillless as divine. In the history of Christian mysticism the problem how to discriminate175 between suchmessages and experiences as were really divine miracles, and such others as the demon180 in hismalice was able to counterfeit181, thus making the religious person twofold more the child of hell hewas before, has always been a difficult one to solve, needing all the sagacity and experience of thebest directors of conscience. In the end it had to come to our empiricist criterion: By their fruits yeshall know them, not by their roots. Jonathan Edwards's Treatise182 on Religious Affections is an elaborate working out of this thesis. The ROOTS of a man's virtue are inaccessible183 to us. Noappearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace. Our practice is the only sure evidence, even toourselves, that we are genuinely Christians.
"In forming a judgment of ourselves now," Edwards writes, we should certainly adopt thatevidence which our supreme148 Judge will chiefly make use of when we come to stand before him atthe last day. . . . There is not one grace of the Spirit of God, of the existence of which, in anyprofessor of religion, Christian practice is not the most decisive evidence. . . . The degree in whichour experience is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual anddivine."Catholic writers are equally emphatic184. The good dispositions185 which a vision, or voice, or otherapparent heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by which we <22> may be sure theyare not possible deceptions186 of the tempter. Says Saint Teresa:-"Like imperfect sleep which, instead of giving more strength to the head, doth but leave it themore exhausted187, the result of mere operations of the imagination is but to weaken the soul. Insteadof nourishment188 and energy she reaps only lassitude and disgust: whereas a genuine heavenly visionyields to her a harvest of ineffable189 spiritual riches, and an admirable renewal190 of bodily strength. Ialleged these reasons to those who so often accused my visions of being the work of the enemy ofmankind and the sport of my imagination. . . . I showed them the jewels which the divine hand hadleft with me:--they were my actual dispositions. All those who knew me saw that I was changed;my confessor bore witness to the fact; this improvement, palpable in all respects, far from beinghidden, was brilliantly evident to all men. As for myself, it was impossible to believe that if thedemon were its author, he could have used, in order to lose me and lead me to hell, an expedient191 socontrary to his own interests as that of uprooting192 my vices193, and filling me with masculine courageand other virtues194 instead, for I saw clearly that a single one of these visions was enough to enrichme with all that wealth."[6]
[6] Autobiography, ch. xxviii.
I fear I may have made a longer excursus than was necessary, and that fewer words would havedispelled the uneasiness which may have arisen among some of you as I announced mypathological programme. At any rate you must all be ready now to judge the religious life by itsresults exclusively, and I shall assume that the bugaboo of morbid origin will scandalize your pietyno more.
Still, you may ask me, if its results are to be the ground of our final spiritual estimate of areligious phenomenon, why threaten us at all with so much existential study of its conditions? Whynot simply leave pathological questions out?
To this I reply in two ways. First, I say, irrepressible curiosity imperiously leads one on; and Isay, secondly195, that it always leads to a better understanding of a thing's significance to consider itsexaggerations and perversions196 its equivalents and substitutes and nearest relatives elsewhere. Notthat we may thereby197 swamp the thing in the wholesale condemnation198 which we pass on its inferiorcongeners, but rather that we may by contrast ascertain167 the more precisely199 in what its merits consist, by learning at the same time to what particular dangers of corruption200 it may also beexposed.
Insane conditions have this advantage, that they isolate201 special factors of the mental life, andenable us to inspect them unmasked by their more usual surroundings. They play the part in mentalanatomy which the scalpel and the microscope play in the anatomy202 of the body. To understand athing rightly we need to see it both out of its environment and in it, and to have acquaintance withthe whole range of its variations. The study of hallucinations has in this way been for psychologiststhe key to their comprehension of normal sensation, that of illusions has been the key to the rightcomprehension of perception. Morbid impulses and imperative203 conceptions, "fixed ideas," socalled, have thrown a flood of light on the psychology of the normal will; and obsessions anddelusions have performed the same service for that of the normal faculty204 of belief.
Similarly, the nature of genius has been illuminated205 by the attempts, of which I already mademention, to class it with psychopathical phenomena. Borderland insanity, crankiness, insanetemperament, loss of mental balance, psychopathic degeneration (to use a few of the manysynonyms by which it has been called), has certain peculiarities and liabilities which, whencombined with a superior quality of intellect in an individual, make it more probable that he willmake his mark and affect his age, than if his temperament were less neurotic. There is of course nospecial affinity206 between crankiness as such and superior intellect,[7] for most psychopaths havefeeble intellects, and superior intellects more commonly have normal nervous systems. But thepsychopathic temperament, whatever be the intellect with which it finds itself paired, often bringswith it ardor207 and excitability of character. The cranky person has extraordinary emotionalsusceptibility. He is liable to fixed ideas and obsessions. His conceptions tend to pass immediatelyinto belief and action; and when he gets a new idea, he has no rest till he proclaims it, or in someway "works it off." "What shall I think of it?" a common person says to himself about a vexedquestion; but in a "cranky" mind "What must I do about it?" is the form the question tends to take.
In the autobiography of that high-souled woman, Mrs. Annie Besant, I read the following passage:
"Plenty of people wish well to any good cause, but very few care to exert themselves to help it, andstill fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Someone ought to do it, but why should I?' is the everreechoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability208. 'Someone ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry ofsome earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous209 duty. Between thesetwo sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution." True enough! and between these twosentences lie also the different destinies of the ordinary sluggard210 and the psychopathic man. Thus,when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce211--as in the endless permutationsand combinations of human faculty, they are bound to coalesce often enough--in the sameindividual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the<25> biographical dictionaries. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with theirintellect. Their ideas possess them, they inflict212 them, for better or worse, upon their companions ortheir age. It is they who get counted when Messrs. Lombroso, Nisbet, and others invoke213 statisticsto defend their paradox214.
[7] Superior intellect, as Professor Bain has admirably shown, seems to consist in nothing somuch as in a large development of the faculty of association by similarity.
To pass now to religious phenomena, take the melancholy which, as we shall see, constitutes anessential moment in every complete religious evolution. Take the happiness which achievedreligious belief confers. Take the trancelike states of insight into truth which all religious mysticsreport.[8] These are each and all of them special cases of kinds of human experience of muchwider scope. Religious melancholy, whatever peculiarities it may have qua religious, is at any ratemelancholy. Religious happiness is happiness. Religious trance is trance. And the moment werenounce the absurd notion that a thing is exploded away as soon as it is classed with others, or itsorigin is shown; the moment we agree to stand by experimental results and inner quality, injudging of values--who does not see that we are likely to ascertain the distinctive215 significance ofreligious melancholy and happiness, or of religious trances, far better by comparing them asconscientiously as we can with other varieties of melancholy, happiness, and trance, than byrefusing to consider their place in any more general series, and treating them as if they wereoutside of nature's order altogether?
I hope that the course of these lectures will confirm us in this supposition. As regards thepsychopathic origin of so many religious phenomena, that would not be in the least surprising ordisconcerting, even were such phenomena certified216 from on high to be the most precious of humanexperiences. No one organism can possibly yield to its owner the whole body of truth. Few of usare not in some way infirm, or even diseased; and our very infirmities help us unexpectedly. In thepsychopathic temperament we have the emotionality which is the sine qua non of moralperception; we have the intensity217 and tendency to emphasis which are the essence of practicalmoral vigor218; and we have the love of metaphysics and mysticism which carry one's interestsbeyond the surface of the sensible world. What, then, is more natural than that this temperamentshould introduce one to regions of religious truth, to corners of the universe, which your robustPhilistine type of nervous system, forever offering its biceps to be felt, thumping219 its breast, andthanking Heaven that it hasn't a single morbid fiber220 in its composition, would be sure to hideforever from its self-satisfied possessors?
[8] I may refer to a criticism of the insanity theory of genius in the Psychological Review, ii. 287(1895).
If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotictemperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite221 receptivity. And having said thusmuch, I think that I may let the matter of religion and neuroticism222 drop.
The mass of collateral223 phenomena, morbid or healthy, with which the various religiousphenomena must be compared in order to understand them better, forms what in the slang ofpedagogics is termed "the apperceiving mass" by which we comprehend them. The only noveltythat I can imagine this course of lectures to possess lies in the breadth of the apperceiving mass. Imay succeed in discussing religious experiences in a wider context than has been usual inuniversity courses.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
trepidation
|
|
| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
begets
|
|
| v.为…之生父( beget的第三人称单数 )；产生，引起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
presumptuous
|
|
| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
par
|
|
| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
philosophic
|
|
| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
juvenile
|
|
| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
reverence
|
|
| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
outgrown
|
|
| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
wilderness
|
|
| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
transmuted
|
|
| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
temperament
|
|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pervade
|
|
| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
anthropologist
|
|
| n.人类学家，人类学者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
psychology
|
|
| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
versed
|
|
| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
propensities
|
|
| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
pertaining
|
|
| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
logic
|
|
| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
piety
|
|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
autobiography
|
|
| n.自传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
intelligible
|
|
| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
motives
|
|
| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
citations
|
|
| n.引用( citation的名词复数 )；引证；引文；表扬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
detriment
|
|
| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
adventurous
|
|
| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
unearth
|
|
| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
delectable
|
|
| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
utterances
|
|
| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
utterance
|
|
| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
peculiarities
|
|
| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
insufficient
|
|
| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
discredit
|
|
| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
obstruct
|
|
| v.阻隔，阻塞(道路、通道等)；n.阻碍物，障碍物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
Buddhist
|
|
| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
psychical
|
|
| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
exalted
|
|
| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
obsessions
|
|
| n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
shams
|
|
| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
veracity
|
|
| n.诚实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
sects
|
|
| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
reverting
|
|
| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
magistrates
|
|
| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
abounds
|
|
| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
thither
|
|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
Christians
|
|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
martyrs
|
|
| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
recoil
|
|
| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
outrage
|
|
| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
crustacean
|
|
| n.甲壳动物；adj.甲壳纲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
analyze
|
|
| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
digestion
|
|
| n.消化，吸收 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
impatience
|
|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
negated
|
|
| v.取消( negate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；否定；否认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
undo
|
|
| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
undone
|
|
| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
conscientiousness
|
|
| 责任心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
torpid
|
|
| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
hysterical
|
|
| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
conversion
|
|
| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
adolescence
|
|
| n.青春期，青少年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
missionaries
|
|
| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
parental
|
|
| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
nun
|
|
| n.修女，尼姑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
partially
|
|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
innuendo
|
|
| n.暗指，讽刺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
perverted
|
|
| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
taunt
|
|
| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
alleged
|
|
| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
rites
|
|
| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
aberration
|
|
| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
savor
|
|
| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
caress
|
|
| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
distill
|
|
| vt.蒸馏，用蒸馏法提取，吸取，提炼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
majesty
|
|
| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
relish
|
|
| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
perversion
|
|
| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
expiration
|
|
| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
analogue
|
|
| n.类似物；同源语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
synchronous
|
|
| adj.同步的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
excellence
|
|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
uproar
|
|
| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
faculties
|
|
| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
hostility
|
|
| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
defenders
|
|
| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
apparatus
|
|
| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
dependence
|
|
| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
discrediting
|
|
| 使不相信( discredit的现在分词 )； 使怀疑； 败坏…的名声； 拒绝相信 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
antipathy
|
|
| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
outraged
|
|
| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
materialism
|
|
| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
appellation
|
|
| n.名称，称呼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
degenerate
|
|
| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
colon
|
|
| n.冒号，结肠，直肠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
glands
|
|
| n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
postulate
|
|
| n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
morbid
|
|
| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
atheist
|
|
| n.无神论者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
percolates
|
|
| v.滤( percolate的第三人称单数 )；渗透；（思想等）渗透；渗入 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
raptures
|
|
| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
longings
|
|
| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
physiological
|
|
| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
doctrine
|
|
| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
accredit
|
|
| vt.归功于，认为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
candid
|
|
| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
disparagingly
|
|
| adv.以贬抑的口吻，以轻视的态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
feverish
|
|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
Fahrenheit
|
|
| n./adj.华氏温度；华氏温度计(的) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
germinate
|
|
| v.发芽；发生；发展 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
metabolisms
|
|
| n.新陈代谢( metabolism的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
consistency
|
|
| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
criteria
|
|
| n.标准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
corroboration
|
|
| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
supremely
|
|
| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
valid
|
|
| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
discrepancy
|
|
| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
uncertainty
|
|
| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
judgments
|
|
| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
discordancy
|
|
| n.不一致，不和 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
154
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
promulgated
|
|
| v.宣扬（某事物）( promulgate的过去式和过去分词 )；传播；公布；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
allied
|
|
| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
insanity
|
|
| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
impugn
|
|
| v.指责，对…表示怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
disciple
|
|
| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
wholesale
|
|
| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
manifestations
|
|
| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
neurotic
|
|
| adj.神经病的，神经过敏的；n.神经过敏者，神经病患者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
ascertain
|
|
| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
ascertained
|
|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
luminousness
|
|
| 透光率 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
170
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
contemptible
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
nervously
|
|
| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
dispense
|
|
| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
discriminated
|
|
| 分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
discriminate
|
|
| v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
pontifical
|
|
| adj.自以为是的，武断的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
neatly
|
|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
predecessors
|
|
| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
assent
|
|
| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
demon
|
|
| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
counterfeit
|
|
| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
treatise
|
|
| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
inaccessible
|
|
| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
emphatic
|
|
| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
dispositions
|
|
| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
deceptions
|
|
| 欺骗( deception的名词复数 )； 骗术，诡计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
nourishment
|
|
| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
ineffable
|
|
| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
renewal
|
|
| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
expedient
|
|
| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
uprooting
|
|
| n.倒根，挖除伐根v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的现在分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
vices
|
|
| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
virtues
|
|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
secondly
|
|
| adv.第二，其次 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
perversions
|
|
| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
thereby
|
|
| adv.因此，从而 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
condemnation
|
|
| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
corruption
|
|
| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
isolate
|
|
| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
anatomy
|
|
| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
imperative
|
|
| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
illuminated
|
|
| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
affinity
|
|
| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
ardor
|
|
| n.热情，狂热 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
208
amiability
|
|
| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
perilous
|
|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
sluggard
|
|
| n.懒人；adj.懒惰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
coalesce
|
|
| v.联合，结合，合并 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
inflict
|
|
| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
invoke
|
|
| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
paradox
|
|
| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
distinctive
|
|
| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
certified
|
|
| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
vigor
|
|
| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
thumping
|
|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
fiber
|
|
| n.纤维，纤维质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
requisite
|
|
| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
neuroticism
|
|
| n.神经过敏症 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
collateral
|
|
| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |