intimate friends, a far closer approach to this
difficult co-ordination than others who are not only well-educated
but are regarded by the world as famous leaders of modern
thought.

It will be remarked that in my list of the primordial energies of the
complex vision I do not mention religion. This is not because I do
not recognize the passionate and formidable role played by
religion in the history of the human race, nor because I regard the
"religious instinct" as a thing outgrown and done with. I have not
included it because I cannot regard it as a distinct and separate
attribute, in the sense in which reason, conscience, intuition and so
forth, are distinct and separate attributes, of the complex vision.

I regard it as a name given in common usage to certain premature
and disproportioned efforts at co-ordination among these
attributes, and I am well content to apply the word "religion" to
that sacred ecstasy, at once passionate and calm, at once personal
and impersonal, which suffuses our being with an unutterable
happiness when the energies of the complex vision are brought
into focus. I regard the word religion as a word that has drawn and
attracted to itself, in its descent down the stream of time, so rich
and so intricate a cargo of human feelings that it has come to mean
too many things to be any longer of specific value in a
philosophical analysis.

Any sort of reaction against the primeval fear with which man
contemplates the unknown, is religion. The passionate craving of
human beings for a love which changes not nor passes away, is
religion.

The desperate longing to find an idea, a principle, a truth, a
"cause," for the sake of which we can sacrifice our personal
pleasure and our personal selfishness, is religion.

The craving for some unity, some synthesis, some universal
meaning in the system of things, is religion. The desire for an
"over-life" or an "over-world," in which the distress, disorder,
misunderstandings and cruelties of our present existence are
redeemed, is religion.

The desire to find something real and eternal behind the transient
flow of appearance, is religion. The desire to force upon others by
violence, by trickery, by fire, by sword, by persecution, by magic,
by persuasion, by eloquence, by martyrdom, an idea which is more
important to us than life itself, is religion.

It will be seen from this brief survey of the immense field which
the word "religion" has come to cover