The second correction of the Kantian teaching is only a further consequence from this state of things. If the attitude of psychology and theory of knowledge requires a strict separation, it requires it only for the purpose of more correct relation. The laws of the theory of knowledge are separated from the merely psychological actuality, but still can be produced only out of it. Thus, as a matter of fact, psychological analysis is always the presupposition for the correct conception of all these laws. Psychology is the entrance gate to theory of knowledge. This is true for theoretical logic as well as for the practical logic of the moral, the æsthetical, and the religious. But just at this point the present, on the basis of its psychological investigation, presses far beyond the original form of the Kantian teaching. This is not the place to describe this, more closely, with reference to the first of the subjects just mentioned. But it is important to insist that this is especially true with respect to the Kantian doctrine of religion. The Kantian doctrine of religion is founded on the moral and religious psychology of Deism, which had made the connection, frequent in experience, of moral feelings with religious emotion the sole basis of the philosophy of religion, and had, in the manner of the psychology of the eighteenth century, immediately changed this connection into intellectual reflections, in accord with which the moral law demands its originator and guarantee. Kant accepted this psychology of religion without proof and built upon it his main law of the religious consciousness, in accordance with which a synthetic judgment a priori is operative in religion (arising in the moral experience of freedom), which requires that the world be regarded as subject to the purposes of freedom. It is, however, extremely one-sided, to give religion its place just between the elements, and a rather violent translation of the religious constitution into reflection. The error of this psychology of religion had been discovered and corrected already by Schleiermacher. But Schleiermacher, for his part too, also failed to deny himself an altogether too sudden metaphysical interpretation of the religious a priori which he had demonstrated, since he not only described the a priori judgment of things, from the point of view of absolute dependence upon God, as a vague feeling, but raised this feeling, by reason of the supposed lack of difference, in it, between thought and will, reason and being, to a world-principle, and interpreted the idea of God contained in this feeling in the terms of his Spinozism, the lack of difference between God and Nature within the Absolute. A real theory of knowledge of religion must keep itself much more independent of all metaphysical presuppositions and inferences, and must admit that the essence of the religious a priori is extorted from a thoroughly impartial psychological analysis. And this is always the place where works, such as those of James, come into play. Religion as a special category or form of psychical constitution, the result of a more or less vague presence of the divine in the soul, the feeling of presence and reality with reference to the superhuman or infinite, that is without any doubt a much more correct point of departure for the analysis of the rational a priori of religion, and it remains to make this new psychology fruitful for the theory of knowledge of religion. That will be one of the chief tasks of the future.
The third change relates to the distinction of the empirical and intelligible Ego, which Kant connected closely, almost indissolubly with his main epistemological thought of the formal rationalisms immanent in experience. Kant rationalized the whole outer and inner experience, by means of a priori laws, into a totality, conforming to law, appearing in intuitive forms of space and time, causally and necessarily rigidly connected. The freedom autonomously determining itself out of the logical idea, and contrasting itself with the psychological stream, produces out of the confused psycholican reality this scientific formation of the true reality. The product of thought, however, swallows its own maker. For the same acts of freedom, which autonomously produced the formation of the reality of law, remain themselves in the temporal sequence of psychical events, and, therefore, themselves, with that formation, lapse into the sequence which is under mechanical law. The intelligible Ego creates the world of law, and finds itself therein, with its activity, as empirical Ego, that is, as product of the great world-mechanism and of its causal sequence. It is an intolerable, violent contradiction, and it is no solution of this contradiction to refer the empirical Ego to appearance, and the intelligible Ego to actuality existing in itself, if the operations of the intelligible Ego, also a constituent part of what takes place in the soul, occur in time and so relapse irrecoverably into phenomenality and its mechanism. All the ingenuity of modern interpretation of Kant has not succeeded in making this circle more tolerable, all shifting of one and the same thing to different points of view has only enriched scientific terminology with masterpieces of parenthetical caution, but not removed the objection that two different points of view do not, as a matter of fact, exist side by side, but conflict within the same object.
This circle is especially intolerable for the psychology of religion and its application to the theory of knowledge. The psychology of religion certainly shows us that the deeper feeling of all religion is not a product of the mechanical sequence, but an effect of the supersensuous itself as it is felt there; it believes that it arises in the intelligible Ego by way of some kind of connection with the supersensuous world. This, however, becomes completely impossible for the Kantian theory of the empirical Ego, and all distinctions of a double point of view in no wise change the fact that these points of view are mutually absolutely exclusive. Here we have the results of psychology which the expression of religious emotion confirms, in that religion can be causally reduced to nothing else, totally opposed to the consequences of such a theory of knowledge. Kant had himself often enough practically felt this, and spoke then of freedom as an experience of communion with the supersensuous as a possible but unprovable affair, while all that, in case of a strict adherence to the phenomenality of time and of the theory of the empirical Ego, which is a consequence of it, is completely impossible. Nothing can be of any assistance here except a decisive renunciation of those epistemological positions which contradict the results of psychology, and which are themselves only doctrinaire consequences from other positions. Nothing else is possible but the modification of the phenomenality of time, in such a way that by no means everything which belongs to time belongs also as a matter of course to phenomenality, but that the autonomous rational acts which occur in the time series of consciousness possess their own intelligible time-form. At the same time the concept of causality closely connected with the concept of time is to be modified so that there should be not only an immanent and phenomenal causal connection, but also a regular interaction between phenomenal and intelligible, psychological and rational, conscious reality. At the same time the conclusion is also given up, that the Ego submits unconditionally and directly to phenomenality and to causal necessity, while the same Ego, once more, in the same way, as a whole, from another point of view, is subordinate to freedom and autonomy, that is, self-constitutive through ideas. The two Egos must lie not side by side, but in and over one another. It must be possible that, within the phenomenal Ego by a creative act of the intelligible Ego in it, the personality should be formed and developed as a realization of the autonomous reason, so that the intelligible issues from the phenomenal, the rational from the psychological, the former elaborates and shapes the latter, and between both a relation of regular interaction, but not of causal constraint, takes place. This rather deep, incisive modification is, in its turn, an approach of the Kantian teaching to empiricism, but still at the same time, in the destruction and subordination of the phenomenal and intelligible world, in the emphasis upon the single personality issuing from the act of reason, an adherence to rationalism. But since the distinction and the interrelation between the rational and the empirical forms the point of departure for the critical system, and this point of departure requires at the same time the moulding and shaping of the empirical by the rational and the rejection of the psychological appearance; a mere parallelism is altogether impossible, but an interrelation is included, and a task set for the effort and labor which constantly makes the rational penetrate the empirical. At the very outset we have the exclusion of the parallelism and the assertion of the interrelation. The interrelation, by its very nature, asserts the interruption of the causal necessity and the penetration of autonomous reason in this sequence, without being itself produced by this sequence, although it can be stimulated and helped or inhibited and weakened by it. Thus, in such a case as this, the irrational is recognized by the side of and in the rational. In this case the irrational of the event without causal compulsion by some antecedent, or of the self-determination by the autonomous idea alone, is the irrational of freedom. It is the irrational of the creative procedure which constitutes the idea out of itself and produces the consequences of the reason out of the constituted idea. But this irrational plays everywhere in the whole life of the soul an essential part, and is not less than decisive in the case of religion, which must be quite different from what it is if it did not have the right to maintain that which it declares to be true of itself, namely, that it is an act of freedom and a gift of grace, an effect of the supersensuous permeating the natural phenomenal life of the soul and an act of free devotion the natural motivation.
The fourth problem arises, when we examine the rational law of the religious nature or of the having of religion which lies in the being and organization of the reason. The having of religion may be demonstrated as a law of the normal consciousness from the immanent feeling of necessity and obligation which properly belongs to religion, and from its organic place in the economy of consciousness, which receives its concentration and its relation to an objective world-reason only from religion. But precisely because religion is reduced to this, it is clear that this is only a reduction which abstracts from the empirical actuality just as the categories of pure reason do. This abstraction, then, should under no circumstances itself be regarded as the real religion. It is only the rational a priori of the psychical appearances, but not the replacement of appearances by the truth free from confusion. The psychical reality in which alone the truth is effective should never be forgotten out of regard for the truth. This is, however, the fact in the Kantian theory of religion in two directions.
It is always noticeable that the a priori of the practical reason is treated by Kant quite differently from the theoretical. In case of the latter the main idea of the synthesis, immanent in experience, of rationalism and empiricism, is retained, and the a priori of the pure forms of intuition and of the pure categories is nothing without the contents of concrete reality which become shaped in it. It may be very difficult actually to grasp the coöperation of the a priori and the empirical in the single case, and Kant's theory of the categories may have to be entirely reshaped and approximated to a priori hypotheses requiring verification, but the principle itself is always the disposition of the real and genuine problem of all knowledge. In case of the practical a priori Kant did, it is true, firmly emphasize the formal character of the ethical, æsthetical, and religious law, but, in doing this, does not lose quite out of sight the psychical reality. They appear not as empty forms which attain to their reality only when filled with the concrete ethical tasks, the artistic creations, and the religious states, but as abstract truths of reason, which have to take the place of the intricacies of usual consciousness. At this point one has always been right in feeling a relapse on the part of Kant into the abstract, analytical, conceptual, rationalism, and for this very reason Kant's statements about these things are of great sublimity and rigor of principle, but scanty in content. It is more important in case also of this a priori of the practical reason to keep in mind that it is a purely formal a priori and in reality must constantly be in relation with the psychical content, in order to give this content the firm core of the real and the principle of the critical regulation of self. So the a priori of morals is not to be represented abstractly merely by itself, but it is to be conceived in its relation to all the tasks which we feel as obligatory, and it extends itself from that point outwards over the total expanse of the activity of reason. Likewise the a priori of art is not to be denoted in the abstract idea of the unity of freedom and necessity, but to be shown in the whole expanse which is present to the soul as artistic form or conception. Thus, in especial degree, religion is not to be reduced to the belief of reason in a moral world-order, and simply contrasted with all supposed religion of any other kind, but the religious a priori should only serve in order to establish the essential in the empirical appearance, but without stripping off this appearance altogether, and from this point of the essential to correct the intricacies and narrowness, the errors and false combinations of the psychical situation. Kant, by his original thought of the a priori, was urged in different ways to such a view, and construed epistemologically the empirical psychological religion as imaginary illustrations of the a priori. But that is occasional only and does not dominate Kant's real view of religion. This is and still remains only a translation of the usual moral and theological rationalism from the formula of Locke and Wolff into the formula of the critical philosophy.
The same revision occurs in quite a different direction. If religion is an a priori of reason, it is, once for all, established together with reason, and all religion is everywhere and always religious in the same proposition as it is in any way realized. Schleiermacher expressly stated this in his development of the Kantian theory, and, in so far as the practical reason is always penetrated with freedom, and consequently religion itself is established with the act of moral freedom, this was also asserted by Kant himself. Such an assertion, however, contradicts every psychological observation whatsoever. It is true such observation can prove that religious emotions adjust themselves easily to all activities of reason, but it must sharply distinguish what is nothing more than the religiousness of vague feeling of supersensual regulations, which usually are joined with art and morals, from real and characteristic religiousness, in which, each single time, a purely personal relation of presence to the supersensuous takes place. But this whole problem signifies nothing else than the actualizing of the religious a priori, which actualizing always occurs in quite specific and, in spite of all difference, essentially similar psychical experiences and states. This problem of the actualizing of the religious a priori and of its connection with concrete individual psychical phenomena, Kant completely overlooked in his abstract concept of religion, or rather, deliberately ignored, because, as he wrote to Jacobi, he saw all the dangers of mysticism lurking in it. This fear was justified; for, as a matter of fact, all the specific occurrences of mysticism, from conversion, prayer, and contemplation to enthusiasm, vision, and ecstasy, do lurk in it. But without this mysticism there is no real religion, and the psychology of religion shows most clearly how the real pulse of religion beats in the mystical experiences. A religion without it is only a preliminary step, or a reverberation of real and actual religion. Moreover, the states are easily conceived in a theory of knowledge, if one sees in them the actualizing of the religious a priori, the production of actual religion in the fusion of the rational law with the concrete individual psychical fact. The mysticism recognized as essential by the psychology of religion must find its place in the theory of knowledge, and it finds it as the psychological actualizing of the religious a priori, in which alone that interlacing of the necessary, the rational, the conformable to law, and the factual occurs, which characterizes real religion. The dangers of such a mysticism, which are recognized a thousandfold in experience, cannot be dispelled altogether by the displacement of mysticism, for that would mean to displace religion itself. It would be the same, if one should try to avoid the dangers of illusion and error, by keeping to the pure categories alone, and ceasing to employ them in the actual thinking of experience. Rather, they can be dispelled only in that the actualizing of the rational a priori is recognized in the mystical occurrences, and thus the intricacies and one-sidedness of the mere psychological stream of religiousness be avoided. The psychological reality of religion must always remember the rational substance of religion, and always bring religion as central in the system of consciousness into fruitful and adjusted contact with the total life of the reason. Thus the psychological reality corrects and purifies itself out of its own a priori, without, however, destroying itself; or rather, the actual religion in the psychical category of the mystical occurrences will subside to a more or less degree. Thus we have the irrational prevailing here in its third form, which like the two others was contained in the very outset of the critical system, in the form of the once-occurring, factual, and individual, which, of course, has a rational basis or a rational element in itself, but is besides a pure fact and reality. Just this is the excellence of the rationalism immanent in experience (the critical system), that it makes room for this feature beside the general and conceptual rationality. It did not make room for it to the extent really required, and it especially left no space for it in its abstract philosophy of religion. This space must again be opened by the theory of the actualizing of the religious a priori, and there again lies another improvement of the critical system under the influence of modern psychology.
If we summarize all this, we have a quantity of concessions by the formal epistemological rationalism to the irrationality of the psychological facts and a repeated breaking down of the over-rigorous Kantian rationalism. Contrariwise, however, the pure psychological investigation is also compelled to withdraw from the unlimited quantity and the absolute irrationality of the multifarious (and of the confusion of appearance and truth) to a rational criterium, which can be found in the rational a priori of the reason only, and in the organic position of this a priori in the system of consciousness in general. By this rationalism alone may the true validity of religion be founded, and by this alone the uncultivated psychical life may be critically regulated. Religion will be conceived in its concrete vitality and not mutilated; it will constantly be brought out of the jumble of its distortions, blendings, one-sidedness, narrowness, and exuberance back again to its original content, and to its organic relations to the totality of the life of reason, to the scientific moral and artistic accomplishments. That is everything that science can do for it, but is not this service great enough and indispensable enough to justify the work of such a science? We do not stop with nothing more than "varieties of religious experience" which is the result of James's method; but neither do we stop with nothing more than a rational idea of religion, which overpowers experience, as was still so in the case of Kant. But we must learn how intimately to combine the empirical and psychological with the critical and normative. The ideas of Hume and of Leibnitz must once more be brought into relation with the continuations of Kant's work, and the combination of the Anglo-Saxon sense for reality with the German spirit of speculation is still the task for the new century as well as for the century past.
A short paper was contributed to this Section by Professor Alexander T. Ormond, of Princeton University, on "Some Roots and Factors of Religion." The speaker said that religion, like everything else human, has its rise in man's experience. It has also doubtless had a history that will present the outlines of a development, if but the course of that development can be traced. "But in the case of religion our theory of development will be largely qualified by our judgment as to its origin; while, regarding origin itself, we have to depend on hypotheses constructed from our more or less imperfect acquaintance with the races, and especially the savage races, of the present. The primitive pre-religious man is a construction from present data, and will always remain more or less hypothetical. This will partially explain, and at the same time partially excuse, what we will agree is the unsatisfactory character of the anthropological theories as accounts of the origin of religion. But there are other reasons for this partial failure that are less excusable. One of these is the rather singular failure of the leading anthropologists, in dealing with the origin of religion, to distinguish between fundamental and merely tributary causes. For instance, if we suppose that man has in some way come into possession of a germ of religiousness, many things will become genuine tributaries to its development that when urged as explanations of the germ itself would be obviously futile. There must be a cause for the pretty general failure to note this distinction which is vital to religious theory, and I am convinced that the principal cause is a certain lack of psychological insight and of philosophical grasp in dealing with the problem of the first data and primary roots of religion in man's nature.
"In the first place, it is needful in dealing with the religion of the hypothetical man that we should have some idea of what constitutes religion in the actual man. Now, back of all the outward manifestations of religion, will stand the religious consciousness of the man and the community, and it will be this that will determine the idea of religion in its most essential form. The developed idea of religion, therefore, arising out of this germinal impression, would take the form of a sense (we may now call it concept) of relatedness to some being akin to man himself, and yet transcending him in some real though undetermined respects. Anything short of this would, I think, leave religion in some respects unaccounted for; while anything more would perhaps exclude some genuine manifestations of religion.