The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James
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p. 173I was so wonted held me more than the better life I had not tried. 1 There could be no more perfect description of the divided will, when the higher wishes lack just that last acuteness, that touch of explosive intensity, of dynamogenie quality (to use the slang of the psychologists), that enables them to burst their shell, and make irruption - efficaciously into life and quell the lower tendencies forever.
In a later lecture we shall have much to say about this higher excitability. I find another good description of the divided will in the autobiography of Henry AUine, the Nova Scotian evangeHst, of whose melancholy I read a brief account in my last lecture. The poor youth's sins were, as you will see, of the most harmless order, yet they interfered with what proved to be his truest vocation, so they gave him great distress.
" I was now very moral in my life, but found no rest of conscience.
I now began to be esteemed in young company, who knew nothing of my mind all this while, and their esteem began to be a snare to my soul, for I soon began to be fond of carnal mirth, though I still flattered myself that if I did not get drunk, nor curse, nor swear, there would be no sin in frolicking and carnal mirth, and I thought God would indulge young people with some (what I called simple or civil) recreation.
I still kept a round of duties, and would not suffer myself to run into any open vices, and so got along very well in time of health and prosperity, but when I was distressed or threatened by sickness, death, or heavy storms of thunder, my religion would not do, and I found there was something wanting, and would begin to repent my going so much to frolics, but when the distress was over, the devil and my own wicked heart, with the solicitations of my associates, and my fondness for young com- 1 Confessions, Book VIII., chaps, v., vii., xi., abridged.
p. 174pany, were such strong allurements, I would again give way, and thus I got to be very wild and rude, at the same time kept up my rounds of secret prayer and reading ; but God, not willing I should destroy myself, still followed me with his calls, and moved with such power upon my conscience, that I could not satisfy myself with my diversions, and in the midst of my mirth sometimes would have such a sense of my lost and undone condition, that I would wish myself from the company, and after it was over, when I went home, would make many promises that I would attend no more on these frolics, and would beg forgiveness for hours and hours ; but when I came to have the temptation again, I would give way : no sooner would I hear the music and drink a glass of wine, but I would find my mind elevated and soon proceed to any sort of merriment or diversion, that I thought was not debauched or openly vicious ; but when I returned from my carnal mirth I felt as guilty as ever, and could sometimes not close my eyes for some hours after I had gone to my bed.
I was one of the most unhappy creatures on earth. " Sometimes I would leave the company (often speaking to the fiddler to cease from playing, as if I was tired), and go out and walk about crying and praying, as if my very heart would break, and beseeching God that he would not cut me off, nor give me up to hardness of heart. Oh, what unhappy hours and nights I thus wore away !
When I met sometimes with merry companions, and my heart was ready to sink, I would labor to put on as cheerful a countenance as possible, that they might not distrust anything, and sometimes would begin some discourse with young men or young women on purpose, or propose a merry song, lest the distress of my soul would be discovered, or mistrusted, when at the same time I would then rather have been in a wilderness in exile, than with them or any of their pleasures or enjoyments.
Thus for many months when I was in company, I would act the hypocrite and feign a merry heart, but at the same time would endeavor as much as I could to shun their company, oh wretched and unhappy mortal that I was ! Everything I did, and wherever I went, I was still in a storm, and yet I continued to be the chief contriver and ringp. 175leader of the frolics for many months after ; though it was a toil and torment to attend them ; but the devil and my own wicked heart drove me about like a slave, telling me that I must do this and do that, and bear this and bear that, and turn here and turn there, to keep my credit up, and retain the esteem of my associates : and all this while I continued as strict as possible in my duties, and left no stone unturned to pacify my conscience, watching even against my thoughts, and praying continually wherever I went : for I did not think there was any sin in my conduct, when I was among carnal company, because I did not take any satisfaction there, but only followed it, I thought, for sufficient reasons.
" But still, all that I did or could do, conscience would roar night and day. Saint Augustine and Alline both emerged into the smooth waters of inner unity and peace, and I shall next ( ask you to consider more closely some of the peculiarities of the process of unification, when it occurs.
It may come gradually, or it may occur abruptly ; it may come through altered feelings, or through altered powers of action ; or it may come through new intellectual insights, or through experiences which we shall later have to designate as ^ mystical. However it come, it brings a characteristic sort of relief ; and never such extreme relief as when it is cast into the religious mould.
Happiness ! happiness ! religion is only one of the ways in which men gain that gift. Easily, permanently, and successfully, it often transforms the most intolerable misery into the profoundest and most enduring happiness.
But to find religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unity ; and the process of remedying inner incompleteness and reducing inner discord is a general psychological process, which may take place with any sort of mental material, and need not necessarily assume the religious form. In judging of the religious types of
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