: "Das Streben der Natur ist auf etwas Unbeschraenktes
gerichtet." "Die Natur mit endlichen Mitteln unendliche Zwecke
verfolgt." _Ueber den Geschlechtsunterschied, etc._

[112-1] Wilhelm von Humboldt, _Sonnette_, "Hoechste Gerechtigkeit."

[113-1] Isaiah, xlv. 7; xlvi. 10.

[113-2] _Khordah--avesta_, _Ormazd--Yasht_, 38, and _Yacna_, 42.

[113-3] _The Koran_, Suras lxxxvii., xlvi.

THE PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER.

SUMMARY.

Religion starts with a Prayer. This is an appeal to the unknown,
and is indispensable in religious thought. The apparent exceptions
of Buddhism and Confucianism.

All prayers relate to the fulfilment of a wish. At first its direct
object is alone thought of. This so frequently fails that the
indirect object rises into view. This stated to be the increase of
the pleasurable emotions. The inadequacy of this statement.

The answers to prayer. As a form of Expectant Attention, it exerts
much subjective power. Can it influence external phenomena? It is
possible. Deeply religious minds reject both these answers,
however. They claim the objective answer to be Inspiration. All
religions unite in this claim.

Inspirations have been contradictory. That is genuine which teaches
truths which cannot be doubted concerning duty and deity. A certain
mental condition favors the attainment of such truths. This
simulated in religious entheasm. Examples. It is allied to the most
intense intellectual action, but its steps remain unknown.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER.

The foregoing analysis of the religious sentiment results in finding it,
even in its simplest forms, a product of complicated reasoning forced
into action by some of the strongest emotions, and maintaining its
position indefeasibly through the limitations of the intellect. This it
does, however, with a certain nobleness, for while it wraps the unknown
in sacred mystery, it proclaims man one in nature with the Highest, by
birthright a son of the gods, of an intelligence akin to theirs, and
less than they only in degree. Through thus presenting at once his
strength and his feebleness, his grandeur and his degradation, religion
goes beyond philosophy or utility in suggesting motives for exertion,
stimuli to labor. This phase of it will now occupy us.

The Religious Sentiment manifests itself in thought, in word and in act
through the resp