NEW FAILURE OF NERVE
7
nature, decrees what may or may not exist. It concerns itself
only with the responsibility of the assertions that proclaim the
existence of anything. It does not forbid but explores and tests.
It does not jeer at the mystical swoon of dumb rapture; it denies
only the mystic's retrospective cognitive claim for which no evi–
dence is offered except the fact of a trance. It does not rule out
on
a priori
grounds the existence of supernatural entities and
forces. The existence of God, immortality, disembodied souls or
spirits, cosmic purpose or design, as these have customarily been
interpreted by the great institutional religions, are denied by
naturalists for the same generic reasons that they deny the ex–
istence of fairies, elves, leprechauns, and an invisible satellite
revolving between the earth and moon. There is no plausible
evidence to warrant belief in them or to justify a probable in–
ference on the basis of partial evidence.
There are other conceptions of God, to be sure, and provided
they are not self-contradictory, the naturalist would be unfaithful
to his own philosophy if he refused to examine the evidence for
their validity. All he asks is that the conception be sufficiently
determinate to make possible specific inferences of the
how, when,
and
where
of His operation. The trouble with most conceptions
of God which differ from the conventional ones is that either
they are so vague that no one can tell what they mean, or else
they designate something in experience for which a perfectly
suitable term already exists.
Unfortunately, for all their talk of appeal to experience,
direct or indirect, religious experientialists dare not appeal to any
experience of sufficiently determinate character to permit of defi–
nite tests. There is a certain wisdom in this reluctance. For if
experience can confirm a belief, it can also disprove it. But to
most supernaturalists the latter is an inadmissable possibility.
We therefore find that the kind of experience to which reference
is made is not only unique but uniquely self-authenticating. Those
who are not blessed by these experiences are regarded as blind
or deaf and, under certain circumstances, dangerous to the com–
munity. But is it not odd that those who worship Zeus on the
ground of a unique experience should deny to others the right
to worship Odin on the ground of a different unique experience?
Scientific method cannot deny that the secular and religious
