has been devised so as to prevent action under suggestion. Individual inhibitions are not avoided or suppressed, but invited, spread out for inspection, often acted upon separately by dividing the question or by voting upon proposed amendments. Moreover, provision is made for several alternatives besides yes and no, as reference to a committee, laying on the table, and making a special order for a future meeting. The degree and rapidity of variation are indeed restricted in most such bodies by constitutions and by-laws. Yet these also come into being through deliberation, and they contain provisions for amendments—that is, they invite individual initiative with a view to reorganization of the group.1

Here, then, we have a group that achieves unity by means of the very thing that might be expected to prevent united action, namely, the free variation of thought and desire among its members. The unity of a crowd depends upon preventing its members from acting as individuals; the unity of a sacerdotal group depends upon prescribing in advance how the individual shall act; the unity of the deliberative group is achieved by the heightening and the freeing of individuality.

This structural principle appears in religion itself. The Edinburgh Missionary Conference, for example, which was regarded by the participants as a profound religious experience, achieved its great religiousness precisely by frank recognition of the variant elements present. The range of deliberation, which was here

One ecclesiastical constitution known to me has an article on amendments that excepts from amendment a certain section of another article. But this section could be amended by first amending the article on amendments so as to remove the restriction,

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restricted by common consent, is theoretically unlimited in various religious meetings and bodies, both local and general, that choose their ends and their methods by vote of the members. These are religious groups; their enterprises are religious, and their proceedings constitute social religious experience.1

The structure of such groups may be summarily described as involving two principles: First, through pauses, incitements to reflection, and the pitting of desires against one another, the individual is stimulated to self-discovery-the discovery of what it is that he really prefers. Here is organization of a self, not suppression or mere manipulation. Secondly, by the same means the individual is stimulated to use the desires of others as data for determining his own preferences. He is listened to, but he also listens. In one and the same process he gets acquainted with others and with himself, and he forms a social will that is yet his own discriminative will.

2. Functions of the deliberative group. Whereas in groups of the other two types ends are imposed either by instinct or by suggestion, in the deliberative group the membership as a whole freely chooses and defines its own functions. The ends actually chosen may and do include much that is derived from sacerdotal traditions. Instinctive satisfactions, too-as of the social instincts are always a factor. Yet in the ethical group a fresh type of satisfaction secures an organ-the satisfaction of freely weighing and criticizing satisfactions.

1 It involves no stretching of terms to say that listening to a statistical report from a church society is a religious act. For surely the point of view, the motive, and the meaning of the act determine its proper classification.

Since this weighing is a social act that looks toward the determination of social ends, it follows that the distinctive function of the ethical group is the criticism and reconstruction of society itself through the free acts of its members. Crowd action may assist social reconstruction, but only accidentally. Sacerdotal authority also may assist, but with equal right (which it fails not to exercise) it may close the doors of social criticism. But in the deliberative group we have a structure that arises and maintains itself precisely by inviting criticism and proposals for reconstruction.

The adoption of this reconstructive attitude, however gradually it may occur, and with whatever compromises with tradition, gives a new meaning to ideals and to faith. Under sacerdotalism an ideal is a pattern to be copied; the idealizing process consists in making the pattern vivid, and faith is acceptance of the authority that imposes the pattern. In the deliberative group, on the other hand, patterns are themselves judged, and there is provision for change that implies, if it does not assert, creative evolution in the social sphere. Here an ideal is not a set pattern, but a direction of movement, and faith is not conformity, but the will to idealize and to control the actual by means of the ideal.

Common worship, under such social standards, tends to acquire a character of its own. It stimulates the worshiper to reflect, that is, to have his own thoughts, to know his own mind, and to realize differences. Hence, in denominations that most approximate the deliberative type of government, there is avoidance of foreign tongues, of intonation, and of the spectacular. A larger proportion of words is used after the ordinary manner

of communication rather than as symbols of something that they do not say. The minister in his prayer endeavors to represent the aspirations of the group. Finally, the sermon plays a larger part. The tendency of all this is to make the worshiper realize himself as an individual.

Conversely, the divine being who is conceived as the head of the group tends to be less and less a chief or king even though a condescending one. Something more intimate seems to be required, some closer participation with men. Such participation is found in the special sort of ideals that the deliberative group commits itself to. The divine being, instead of merely giving commands, inspires the idealizing that judges all commands. He is the inner pressure that causes the questioning of standards. Therefore he is the chief worker in the group rather than a mere master of those who work.

In the deliberative society religious education also tends to acquire a quality of its own. Mere instruction and mere drill no longer suffice, for the end is not static. Mere drill, resulting in habit only, provides of itself for nothing but repetition of the past. Instruction, too, as long as it aims merely to transmit an existing body of ideas, lacks the forward impulse. Hence it is that religious bodies that tend most toward the deliberative type have insisted most upon personal assimilation, or upon a decision, or an experience of one's very own. Exact dogmatic formulae, accordingly, are less emphasized, and content, meaning, historical setting, and exegesis are more prominent. These groups accept, too, with less reserve, the educational doctrines of interest, initiative, and freedom.

CHAPTER IX

RELIGION AS INDIVIDUAL CONDUCT

The three types of religious group conduct that have just occupied our attention present to us the individual also in three typical religious attitudes.

First, we have the impulsive individual, who is saved from anarchy of desire by crowd integration. Neither instinct alone, nor yet external compulsion, guides and restrains him, but a new experience which by virtue of the presence of others brings fresh satisfaction.

Next we have, in the sacerdotal group, the regulated individual. Rules of conduct and of belief now serve as a constant corrective or restraint of impulse. One stops to consider what will happen if one acts in this way or in that. Foresight of rewards and punishments produces present satisfactions and discomforts, so that habits are formed with reference to what is remote as well as to what is near, and the individual attains a larger internal organization.

Finally, in the deliberative group we come upon the self-emancipating individual. He emancipates himself, not by destroying social control and organization of his acts, but by overcoming the former separation between conduct and the ends of conduct that characterizes the sacerdotal group. Deliberation is the search for adequate ends, so that conduct may be controlled wholly from within itself; and "adequate ends" are those that have social validity.