Mary Whiton Calkins

“ One may admit without a quaver Ames’s account of taboo, of magic, even of prayer, and still hold that the religious consciousness arises out of purely human, social intercourse only when this collective “group consciousness” gains as its object a self conceived as superhuman. Against such a construction Ames would, of course, interpose the considerations by which he seeks to discredit intellectualistic conceptions of religion. The rationalistic view of religion is, he holds, untrue to history and to psychology alike. ”

“ It may therefore be freely admitted that neither savage nor philosopher ever attains a consciousness of self which is free from contradictions, and that the religious experience of most people, civilized as well as primitive, is impulsive and emotional rather than reflective, practical rather than speculative. ”

“ Ames concludes that because the sense of personality is dim, it plays no rôle in the religious consciousness, and that if it is gained late in racial and in individual experience, the religious consciousness, admitted to be primitive, can not be limited to a personal object. ”