1

absorbed into the being or existence of the universe," 1 entering a still, mysterious, desolate wilderness where there is nothing but God,—“the Quiet Desert of the Godhead," 2 losing "in the love of thee, all perception of myself," 3 allowing the will to be "so absorbed in the divine will that it cannot be distinguished from it," "floating in a clear atmosphere, almost untrammeled by earthly limitations," getting up and beyond one's self and mounting up to God, keeping their bodies motionless, lest "at the least movement they will lose this sweet peace.'

Experiences of this sort are not uncommon, especially with relation to music. Various persons describe this effect of music upon them. They are lifted out of their surroundings into another realm, do not hear those who speak to them, have "a feeling of balance," feel that the music fulfils every desire. Music seems to Es- bring to one young woman a similar inner illumination to that of thetic the religious mystics. "I sometimes feel as though I suddenly understood the whole universe." Similar experiences have been occasioned by seeing a great work of art, or have come when standing on a mountain slope overlooking a magnificent landscape. One man describes an experience under the influence of Wordsworth's Excursion:

Ecstasy

"As I was reading the book I suddenly felt at peace with everything. It didn't matter whether I lived or died. But I didn't recognize this experience as religious."

In their essential aspects these ecstatic experiences, musicinduced and otherwise, seem to be at one with those distinctly involving the God-relation. There appears to be a relative subsidence of the more clearly objectifying sense experiences, a pleasant blending of intimate sense elements, feelings of satisfaction and sometimes of buoyancy or bodily lightness, tending toward, or merging into, unconsciousness.

The ecstatic experiences described above, while characteristic, are but a few out of many types and degrees. The extreme experiences of trances and catalepsies are evidently not conducive to mental or physical health. But occasional experiences approaching the ecstatic are a normal element in the life of appreciation. Even in a mild degree, a constant state of ecstatic elevation would be unwholesome, or impossible. But the index of normality is not

dead-levelness of experience, and a high moment of appreciation may be of value to the practical adjustments of life.

The types of intimate sense complexes above studied do not constitute a comprehensive list. Such a list would include complexes involving the sex feelings and the organs of reproduction, and many others. But those treated are representative in that they illustrate the important place of such complexes in the Godexperience. The following chapters will consist of more general discussions of the place of these sense and feeling elements in the God-experience.

perience

XI

Feeling and Sensation

TO SAY that the God-experience is predominantly feelingful is not to depreciate the experience, but rather to recognize the high importance of the feelings. Our highest values are found in and Feeling un through the affective phases of consciousness. Psychology has been damen- slow to recognize this. We have centered our systems in the talin Ex- cognitive aspects of mind, and have consequently exalted those sense processes which mediate most definitely between us and the outside world. To be sure, one reason for this is the relative ease of experimenting upon the more objective senses. They seem distinct, disparate, analyzable. We can hold them in attention as we cannot hold any other phenomena of consciousness. But these objective senses and the cognitive processes which we have thought to derive from them do not exist for themselves alone. They serve in the interest of the life of appreciation and evaluation. They minister to the inner feelings, and through them stimulate us to active volitional responsiveness. A sensation without this inner connection with the affective life would stand in meaningless isolation; while any mental process based entirely upon such isolated sensations (were such a condition possible), would be without human significance or interest. It is our feelings, involving the more deep-seated intimate reactions, which condition all our attitudes, appreciations, recognitions, and evaluations. The highest human values, ethical, æsthetic, and religious, are thus most fundamentally involved in these often undervalued elements of sense and feeling.

Concerning the psycho-physical basis of the feelings there has been much controversy, out of which have appeared several points of quite general agreement, although there is need for much more investigation. The feelings are conditioned by characteristic reactions of the vital organs of the body. Professor Calkins considers. the following distinctions "more or less probable:

"(1) Pleasantness is characterized by a slow and strong pulse, by dilating arteries, and by bodily warmth. Unpleasantness is characterized by a fast, weak pulse and by bodily chill. This is the result best established by experiment and by introspection.

1

"(2) Pleasantness is perhaps characterized by relatively quick and weak breathing; unpleasantness by slow and deep breathing. This conclusion is not so well substantiated."

While pleasantness and unpleasantness do not constitute a satisfactory classification of feeling states, the quotation illustrates the general agreement that there is a close relation between such physiological phenomena as are mentioned and states of feeling. Such processes as the above are the more commonly observed accompaniments of feeling, but there are many others which may be discovered both by introspection and by experimental methods.

lation of Feeling to Sen

It seems to be generally agreed, also, that the above organic processes, with many others involved in the various visceral organs, are accompanied by characteristic sensations, difficult to analyze but definitely related to consciousness, and hence inextricably involved in our various feeling states. Even those who insist upon an elemental feeling process, co-ordinate with sensation, agree that the process "is akin to sensation and is derived from the The Resame source, made (so to speak) out of the same kind of primitive mental material." This being true, why is the assumption of an extra-sensational element necessary? If sensation and feeling are of one origin, and if it is true that every sensation involves a complex, with a certain feeling tone, it is probable that our distinctions are between variously formed complexes rather than between elementally different experiences. If we are to insist upon absolutely elemental experiences, it may be well to search underneath even sensation for something still more fundamental. Professor Muensterberg, with this possibility in mind, writes:

"Are these sensations the ultimate elements of the contents of our consciousness, or is that which we call a blue or hot sensation, a sweet taste, a tone C, a muscle sensation, or a pain sensation itself a complex affair which consists of more elementary parts: in short, have we in mind ultimate elements which are simpler than the sensations?" 2

sation

The intimate senses have proved difficult of study because of the vague localization of their functions by introspection, and the lack of such definitely observable end organs as are related to other The Insenses. What we have chiefly observed has been the bodily tone involved in a mingling of sensations, called by various names, such as cœnesthesia or common feeling.

1 Titchener, A Text Book of Psychology, New York, 1912, p. 226.

2 Muensterberg, Psychological Atomism, Psychological Review, Vol. VII, p. 4.

timate Senses

"Certain mixtures of vaguely localized sensations, with feelings of a more or less pleasant or unpleasant tone, have acquired the name of sensus communis, of 'common feeling.' Such feeling may have more or less of content of one kind or another, according to the state of perception and ideation with which it is combined. Nervous impulses of indefinite variety and the most manifold peripheral origin are constantly pouring in, as it were, upon the cerebral centers each one contributing some element to the characteristic tone of consciousness. The resulting feelings are modes of our being affected which are not converted into definite presentations of sense, or referred to a particular part of our own bodies. The effect of changes in the minute blood-vessels and other capillaries about the nerve-endings, the presence of impurities in the blood, the condition of the lower cerebral centers, the action of the heart and lungs and other internal organs, and the connection of the sympathetic with the cerebrospinal nervous system, are all felt in this way. Moreover, inasmuch as few (if any) sensations are without some tone of feeling, while many sensations are exceedingly heterogeneous in their elements, and not clearly referred to the place of their origin, a mélange, as it were, of obscure bodily affections is readily formed." 1

Such a mélange is not an unusual accompaniment of a sensory experience, but rather the normal content of every sense experience, in which obscure and perhaps disregarded elements so modify the more conspicuous sensations as to determine their feeling-tone and indeed their meaning and value. It should be remarked, however, that these usually unnoticed elements are not necessarily altogether vague. Were not some of them observable at times Professor Ladd's paragraph would be a pure and unsupported hypothesis. In certain feeling states, especially in strong emotion, organic and kinesthetic sensations make themselves felt. Reactions of the heart, lungs, stomach, and other visceral organs become distinct in consciousness. We can localize them and observe, with relative clearness, their place in the total affective complex.

The fact that no special sense organs have been correlated with the intimate sense-feelings does not argue against their sensory nature. Sense organs are relatively recent acquisitions, and sensation is older than any special organ. And in the developed organism there are definite sensations which are not conditioned by end-organs, but by the direct stimulation of a nerve. It is held by 1 Ladd and Woodworth, Elements of Physiological Psychology, New York, 1911, p. 518. 2 Sherrington, The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, New York, 1906, p. 227.