One way to mark it out easily is to say what aspects of the subject we leave out. At the outset weare struck by one great partition which divides the religious
field. On the one side of it liesinstitutional, on the other personal religion. As M. P. Sabatier says, one branch of religion keepsthe divinity, another keeps man
most in view. Worship and sacrifice, procedures for working onthe dispositions of the deity, theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization, are theessentials
of religion in the institutional branch. Were we to limit our view to it, we should have todefine religion as an external art, the art of winning the favor of the
gods. In the more personalbranch of religion it is on the contrary the inner dispositions of man himself which form the centerof interest, his conscience, his
deserts, his helplessness, his incompleteness. And although thefavor of the God, as forfeited or gained, is still an essential feature of the story, and theology
playsa vital part therein, yet the acts to which this sort of religion prompts are personal not ritual acts,the individual transacts the business by himself alone,
and the ecclesiastical organization, with itspriests and sacraments and other go-betweens, sinks to an altogether secondary place. The relationgoes direct from heart
to heart, from soul to soul, between man and his maker.
Now in these lectures I propose to ignore the institutional branch entirely, to say nothing of theecclesiastical organization, to consider as little as possible the
systematic theology and the ideasabout the gods themselves, and to confine myself as far as I can to personal religion pure andsimple. To some of you personal
religion, thus nakedly considered, will no doubt seem tooincomplete a thing to wear the general name. "It is a part of religion," you will say, "but only
itsunorganized rudiment; if we are to name it by itself, we had better call it man's conscience ormorality than his religion. The name 'religion' should be reserved
offeeling, thought, and institution, for the Church, in short, of which this personal religion, so called,is but a fractional
element."But if you say this, it will only show the more plainly how much the question of definition tendsto become a dispute about names.
Rather than prolong such a dispute, I am willing to accept almost any name for the personalreligion of which I propose to treat. Call it conscience or morality, if
you yourselves prefer, andnot religion--under either name it will be equally worthy of our study. As for myself, I think it willprove to contain some elements which
morality pure and simple does not contain, and theseelements I shall soon seek to point out; so I will myself continue to apply the word "religion" to it; and in the
last lecture of all, I will bring in the theologies and the ecclesiasticisms, and saysomething of its relation to them.
