fatigue effect produced when these exercises are greatly prolonged is the tendency of rhythm, as of other repetitions, to bring wandering attention back to one and the same point. Here we get light upon the usual tactics of the song-leader in revival meetings and also upon the rhythmical character of revival melodies.1

But, secondly, only a part of the work of reorganization is done thus suddenly. Another part, which is more gradual, precedes the climax. Suggestion, the mere narrowing of attention for a few minutes, does not profoundly reverse one's likes and dislikes unless a preparatory process has taken place. The convert himself may not be able to give any account of such a process; his experience may seem to him like an explosion. Yet we know that new points of view do mature, new attitudes do take root, before their presence is clearly recognized. One may see an object, and even react to it, or reverse an opinion, or change one's attitude toward a person without being able to recall the steps involvedone wakes up to find that the deed is already done. This is the sort of fact that necessitates some such term as the subconscious. Reserving to a later chapter a general exposition of the subconscious in religion, we note merely that a maturing of this type underlies the conversion phenomenon. It is what makes possible

1 Conversely, we get light upon the rhythmical utterance or singsong that characterizes many persons when they speak under what they regard as inspiration. A Quaker preacher who in his preaching commonly felt himself controlled by the Spirit confided to me that his high sing-song seemed to come upon him; it even embarrassed and humiliated him. Here the lack of variety is strictly parallel with the loss of facial expression and the reduction of vocal emphasis when one is approaching hypnosis.

depth of response to the suggestion that precipitates the crisis.1

To immediate suggestion plus the subconscious we must add, finally, a third law, that of habit-formation. At the Water Street Mission in New York, for example, it is not assumed that a down-and-out is really on his feet as soon as a conversion climax has occurred. No; his surroundings are looked after; he is helped to get work; friends accompany him to and from work so that he may be sure not to yield to the old saloon habit; he is brought to the mission every night and made happy there; he is set promptly at the task of helping other down-and-outs. In short, he is given the experience of a new external as well as internal world, and he is drilled in definite social acts with pleasurable associations until good conduct becomes habitual. Thus he continues to build his new self and his new world after the climax, just as it was partly built before. Wherever converts "stick" it will be found that habit-formation, particularly through a new social fellowship, follows the conversion crisis. Yet popular thought commonly attributes the results of this habit-formation to the crisis itself.

There remain for analysis the functions of the conversion experience. The convert experiences the change as the attainment of "new," "true," or "real" life. What does this mean? Before answering, let us make sure what the question is. It is not, Do we ourselves regard the new life as higher than the old? Functional psychology neither approves nor disapproves the satisfactions that it investigates. It seeks rather to discover

IS. H. Hadley is said to have remarked that the down-and-outs converted at the Water Street Mission in New York are men who were formerly under the influence of religion in their childhood homes.

what it is in any situation that makes it satisfying to the man who finds it so. To do this we must attend to the points of view that men occupy in their likes and dislikes. The existence of such points of view, which is obvious enough, implies (a) satisfactions, (b) discrimination between satisfactions, (c) preference for certain satisfactions as against others, and (d) at least a potential scale of preferences. Our present concern is with these scales of preferences or since our definition of a value is “a discriminated satisfaction taken as a mark of an object" -with scales of values. Let it be repeated that our question is not, Which scale is the best? but, What scales are actually used?

To say of a man that something is good from his point of view is to say that he is acting, or tends to act, as an integer. In human experience, as a matter of fact, satisfactions are not merely accumulated. A man may be dissatisfied because he enjoys something that he does not approve. He may seek to acquire new capacities for enjoyment, as when he trains himself in the appreciation of poetry or of music. The peculiarly human way of dealing with satisfactions is to relate them both to objects and to the self, and to judge both. It follows that, when scales of values are concerned, we must see a person's preferences through his own eyes or we shall not see them at all.

If we assume in advance that the convert's satisfactions conform to the scale that we ourselves prefer, or that they conform to types, biological or other, that take no account of the conversion experience itself, we proceed by an a priori rather than empirical method. In order to be objective and empirical, we must let

converts tell us what values they experience; we must inquire whether there is a consensus of testimony, and if there is a consensus we must, in the absence of positive disproof, accept this consensus as representing an actual part of the order of nature.1

The doctrine that nature has no preferences is not empirically founded. It is either (a) a principle of method, in which case the doctrine exists because it is itself preferred, or (b) a bit of a priori speculation. There is good reason for ignoring preferences in certain parts of research, but there is also the best of reason for recognizing them in other parts. Whoever says that nature has no preferences, or that if they exist science should ignore them, exhibits in his own person a case of preference that has scientific interest. For scientific method itself is an expression of preferential functions—the functions of multiplying objects of experience, of unifying them, and of communication. It involves recognition of individuals by one another, each of whom agrees (so to say), in consideration of the mutual benefits to be received, to look through the others' eyes as well as his own. Nothing is a fact for science until several persons, each from his own point of view, have perceived it. The organic law of science might be formulated somewhat as follows: "We the undersigned mutually agree that in the assemblies and the publications of this society we will postpone all our other likes and dislikes in order that we may indulge together our liking for analysis; and in order that the judgments of each of us may attain to objectivity, each of us agrees to listen respectfully to what every other member has to say." We do not depart from scientific method, then, if we go on to ask what are these postponed likes and dislikes, and also what is the kind of value that each scientific man attributes to every other scientific man. Let it be noted, too, that communication of points of view from person to person is fundamental in every science.

The "psychologist's fallacy," which consists in attributing the ways of one's own mind to the mind that one is studying, appears in a peculiar form in some discussions of functions. For the assumption is made that the biologist's or psychologist's point of view in the analysis of a given satisfying situation is the point of view of the situation itself, as if what all men are really after, all the things that they can enjoy, are those that fit into the chosen scheme of the investigator. It is often said that the researcher must interrogate his facts. It would seem to be a rather happy circumstance that some facts are able, in articulate language, to answer questions about themselves!

Postponing for a moment the points at which the testimony of converts has been proved to be untrustworthy, let us see whether we can formulate any reasonably certain functions of the conversion experience.

1. Conversion certainly involves, not merely new satisfactions measured upon an old scale, but also and rather the adoption of a more satisfactory scale. There are, then, various scales to which different degrees of satisfaction attach, at least in these cases. Here a large problem opens out, namely, whether these cases are representative of any general law of satisfactions. Some light on this question will appear in the next paragraphs.

2. Conversion is a step in the creation of a self—the actual coming-to-be of a self. The language of the parable of the Prodigal Son, "he came to himself," is scientifically accurate. In conversion the pronoun "my" acquires meaning that it did not have before; mere drifting, mere impulse, are checked; my conduct and attitudes attach to me more consciously; I stand out in a new way, judging myself and my world, and giving the loyalty of articulate purpose to the cause with which I identify myself. This achievement of a fresh selfrealization is generally a permanent gain, not merely a momentary ebullition. From the testimony of Starbuck's respondents it appears "that the effect of conversion is to bring with it a changed attitude toward life which is fairly constant and permanent, although the feelings fluctuate."

3. Conversion is generally, perhaps always, a step in the creation of society. The heightened realization of the self involves the refusal of desires merely as mine. IP. 361.