religious phenomena.
The story is not only continuous, but the same elements remain unchanged
with only those modifications initiated by a changed environment. And
just as we are driven back to the cell to explain organic structure, so
for an understanding of the phenomena under consideration we must study
their primitive elements. Analysis must precede synthesis here as
elsewhere.

A survey of the subject is not at all exhausted by a study of abnormal
conditions, so far as these have entered into the life of religion.
There still remains the study of perfectly normal frames of mind that
are misinterpreted and diverted into religious channels. The importance
of this will be seen more clearly when we come to deal with the subject
of conversion. That "conversion" is a phenomenon of adolescence is now
settled beyond all reasonable doubt. Statistics are conclusive on this
point. But the advocate of revivalism quite misses the true significance
of the fact. Current religious literature is full of quite meaningless
chatter concerning the change of view, the larger and more unselfish
activities, that arise as a consequence of conversion. There is really
no evidence that the changes indicated have any connection with
conversion. All that does happen can be more simply and more adequately
explained as resulting from physiological and psychological changes in
terms of racial and social evolution. The whole significance of
adolescence lies in the bursting into activity of feelings hitherto
dormant, and the quickening of a desire for communion with a larger
social life. The individual becomes less self-centred, more alive to,
and more responsive to the claims of others; he displays tendencies
towards what the world calls self-sacrifice, but which mean, in the
truest sense, self-realisation. That these changes are often expressed
in terms of religion is undeniable. This, however, may be no more than
an environmental accident, quite as much so as was the case when
epilepsy was explained in terms of possession.

So far as one can see, there are no feelings or impulses characteristic
of adolescence that could not receive complete satisfaction in a
rationally ordered social life. To-day it usually happens that the
strongest expressed influences brought to bear upon the individual are
of a religious kind, with the result that adolescent human nature is
most apt to express itself in religious language. It must always be
borne in mind t