Book Description

Excerpt from The Philosophy of the Spirit: A Study of the Spiritual Nature of Man, and the Presence of God, With a Supplementary Essay on the Logic of Hegel There is a tradition that certain subjects are sacred and can never become matters of scientific inquiry- One of these ineffable subjects is the relationship of God to man in the highest ranges of human experience, particularly in those beatific moments when, in expectant solitude or social worship, the soul communes with the Father. But in these self-conscious days psychology has been triumphantly carried into all fields, and if psychological descriptions have sometimes been irreverent it is a question, not of retreat, but of the analysis which affords the most appreciative description. The success which has attended the psychology of religion shows that very much is to be gained by undertaking an account of the higher experiences of men. What must be said in behalf of the sacred or ineffable may be added when science has achieved its utmost. In the following pages I have ventured to mediate between science and religion by endeavouring to be appreciatively true to the everlasting realities of the religious life while taking account of and passing beyond the results attained by modem psychology. If no subject should more deeply inspire our reverence than that of the presence of God, none is more worthy of our thought. Accordingly I offer what I believe to be a contribution to the study of problems which pertain to a field midway between the philosophy of religion and constructive idealism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.