The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

I. THE DEFINITION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

The sound practical motive in religion, 214. Religion as belief, 216. Summary definition of religion, 218.

II. THE TESTS OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

The measure of religion, extensive and intensive, 218. The test of truth the fundamental test, 220. The therapeutic test, and its confusion of the issue, 222. The two forms of the truth test, cosmological and ethical, 224. The working of these critical principles, 226. Cosmology and ethics are independent of religion, 228. The optimistic bias, 231. Summary of religious development, 231.

III. SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

The prudential character of superstition, 232. The ethical idea in primitive religion, 233. The cosmological idea, 234. The method of primitive religion, 235. Superstition in Christianity, 235. The ethical and cosmological correction of superstition, 236.

IV. TUTELARY RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

The deity identified with the purpose of the worshipper, 237. The national religion of the Assyrians and Egyptians, 238. The correction of tutelary religion, 239.

V. PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION. METAPHYSICAL IDEALISM . . . . . 241

Religion formally enlightened, 241. Metaphysical and moral idealism, 242. The inherent difficulty in metaphysical idealism, 242. The swing from formalism to materialism. Pessimism, other-worldliness, mysticism, panlogism and aesthetic idealism, 243. Aesthetic idealism falsifies experience and discredits moral distinctions, 246.

VI. MORAL IDEALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Moral idealism reflects moral judgment, 248. Evil real but not deliberately perpetrated. The knowledge of evil, 249. The ground of moral idealism, 252.

VII. THE GENERIC VALUE OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Religion morally inevitable, 252. The value of the religious generalization of life, 253. The immediate reward of service, 254. Religion and moral enthusiasm, 254. Culture and religion, 255.

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

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