ysteric subjects; our supra-normal cognitions, if such there be,
and if we are telepathic subjects. It is also the fountain-head of
much that feeds our religion. In persons deep in the religious life, as
we have now abundantly seen--and this is my conclusion--the door into
this region seems unusually wide open; at any rate, experiences making
their entrance through that door have had emphatic influence in shaping
religious history.

With this conclusion I turn back and close the circle which I opened in
my first lecture, terminating thus the review which I then announced of
inner religious phenomena as we find them in developed and articulate
human individuals. I might easily, if the time allowed, multiply both
my documents and my discriminations, but a broad treatment is, I
believe, in itself better, and the most important characteristics of
the subject lie, I think, before us already. In the next lecture, which
is also the last one, we must try to draw the critical conclusions
which so much material may suggest.

Lecture XX

CONCLUSIONS

The material of our study of human nature is now spread before us; and
in this parting hour, set free from the duty of description, we can
draw our theoretical and practical conclusions. In my first lecture,
defending the empirical method, I foretold that whatever conclusions we
might come to could be reached by spiritual judgments only,
appreciations of the significance for life of religion, taken "on the
whole." Our conclusions cannot be as sharp as dogmatic conclusions
would be, but I will formulate them, when the time comes, as sharply as
I can.

Summing up in the broadest possible way the characteristics of the
religious life, as we have found them, it includes the following
beliefs:--

1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from
which it draws its chief significance;

2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our
true end;

3. That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof-- be that
spirit "God" or "law"--is a process wherein work is really done, and
spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or
material, within the phenomenal world.

Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics:--

4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the
form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and
heroism.

5. An assurance of safety and a