Excerpt from Psychology of the Religious Life In the present study an attempt is made to describe some of the more significant features of religion, and to discover the cause that give them their peculiar character. Perhaps a word may be said as to the method used. There are objections, I feel, to basing a psychological account of religion mainly upon answers received from individuals when directly questioned in regard to their religious experience, even when these answers are supplemented by material gathered from life-histories, especially from autobiographies of the religious. It is true that a method which has been followed with signal effect by James, Starbuck, Coe, Pratt, and others is certainly justified. And yet the persons most easily reached by such means are, for the most part, adherents of one and the same religion, they are of the Occident, and naturally show a preponderance of that special type of character that is ready to grant to a stranger an access to the secret places of personality. To escape some of these difficulties one ought to observe from the standpoint of psychology the religious life of a wide variety of peoples, even those most reticent, and when they are off their guard and without self-consciousness. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.

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