Religious Experience.—Among the ancient arguments for Theism should be enumerated the argument e consensu Gentium, from the agreement .of the nations. The evidence to be derived from the fact that all men everywhere believed in the Divine was insisted on by the Stoics and has been held to show that the idea of God is "innate" in the human mind. Precisely in this form the reasoning is open to objection. Locke, in his polemic against "innate ideas" in general, pointed out that the argument collapsed when we asked, what idea of God is innate? for the conceptions of the divine held by savages differ profoundly from those of civilized nations. The study of Comparative Religions since the time of Locke has served to support in detail his contention ; but on the other hand it has shown that religion is practically a uni versal phenomenon wherever the human race is found. A new and more profound approach to Theism, which has some affinity with the old argument e consensu Gentium, has been opened by this enlarged knowledge. It is now possible to study the religious experience of mankind as a whole. When this is done we can dis cern an upward movement of the experience and of the concepts of the Divine in which it finds expression. This upward movement does not take place over the whole field, but certain principles of development may be noticed which are fully exemplified only where the religious impulse has free course. The primitive ideas of animism and polydaemonism, give place to polytheism, which in turn is displaced by monotheism either in the form of pan theism or ethical monotheism. It is always open to the critic to dismiss the whole religious experience of humanity as based on illusion and mistake; but such a drastic rejection of a universal type of consciousness is hard to justify. If we base our knowledge of the Universe on experience, religious experience has a claim to be included. If further, we find that the religious experience tends to pass from obviously inadequate forms to forms which lend themselves to rational presentation, we shall be justified in regarding the later and higher as the nearest approximations so far to adequate discriminations of the Object with which all religious experience is concerned.
Parallel to this consideration of the general development of religious experience runs the evidence to be derived from a study of the great religious personalities, and particularly of the mystics. The mystical type of religious "genius" seems to enjoy an imme diate contact with the Divine, and the statements made by such persons have some general agreement. Too much stress should not be laid on their testimony to the truth of Theism, since some of the evidence would support Pantheism rather than Theism, and there is a tendency among mystics to interpret their experience in terms of the religious imagery in which they have been brought up. The witness of the mystics to the supernatural is impressive, and they may be linked with the general argument from religious experience as salient instances of its power at every level. It is urged by several Christian writers that the definitely Theistic mysticism of the Christian mystics is a higher and more complete type of mysticism than any other. (See, for example, W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, E. Underhill, Mys ticism, and R. Otto, West Ostliche Mystik.) In concluding this summary of grounds of Theistic belief we must remark again that few philosophical Theists would rest their case on a direct demonstration or claim that they were in posses sion of an "apodeictic" argument ; they would urge that the full force of the reasons in favour of Theism can only be appreciated when it is compared with other possible views of the Universe, and that several converging lines of thought form a cumulative argument which is difficult to resist.