“ The divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions. ”
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). copy citation
| Author | William James |
|---|---|
| Source | The Varieties of Religious Experience |
| Topic | quality mission |
| Date | 1902 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/621/621-h/621-h.html |
Context
“one must yield a point, another must stand firm,—in order the better to defend the position assigned him. If an Emerson were forced to be a Wesley, or a Moody forced to be a Whitman, the total human consciousness of the divine would suffer. The divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions. Each attitude being a syllable in human nature's total message, it takes the whole of us to spell the meaning out completely. So a “god of battles” must be allowed to be the god for one kind of person, a god of peace and heaven and home, the god for another.”
source
