becomes aware of differences to which, in
the first confusion of thought, he paid little attention; and
ultimately may become conscious of the first principles of reason,
morality or religion, as normative principles, in accordance with
which he feels that he should act, though he has not always acted, and
does not always act in accordance with them. In the beginning there is
confusion of feeling and confusion of thought both as to the quarter
to which prayer is addressed and as to the nature of the petitions
which should be proffered. But we should be mistaken, if from the
confusion we were to infer that there was no principle underlying the
confusion. We should be mistaken, were we to say that prayer, if
addressed to polytheistic gods, is not prayer; or that prayer, if
addressed to a fetish, is not prayer. In both cases, the being to whom
prayer is offered is misconceived and misrepresented by polytheism and
fetishism; and the misconception is due to want of discrimination and
spiritual insight. But failure to observe is no proof either that the
power of observation is wanting or that there is nothing to be
observed. The being to whom prayer is offered may be very different
from the conception which the person praying has of him, and may yet
be real.

Petitions, then, put up to polytheistic gods, or even to fetishes, may
still be prayers. But petitions may be put up, not only to
polytheistic gods, or to fetishes, but even to the one god of the
monotheist, which never should be put up. 'Of thy goodness, slay mine
enemies,' is, in form, prayer: it is a desire, a petition to a god,
implying recognition of the superiority of the divine power, implying
adoration even. But eventually it comes to be condemned as an
impossible prayer: spiritually it is a contradiction in terms. If
however we say that it is not, and never was, prayer; and that only by
confusion of thought was it ever considered so, we may be told that,
as a simple matter of actual fact, it is an actual prayer that was
actually put up. That it ought not--from the point of view of a later
stage in the development of religion--to have been put up, may be
admitted; but that it was a prayer actually put up, cannot be denied.
To this the reply seems to be that it is with prayer as it is with
argument: a fallacy is a fallacy, just as much before it is detected
as afterwards. The fact that it is not detected does not make it a
sound argument; still less does it prove