360 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
them with impersonal natural laws, which are as truly men tal constructions of ours as the spirits were of primitive men. It may well be asked whether, apart from the dis covery of the uniformities of nature, which the primitive man did not perceive, we have really made any advance in this matter. In the second place, our concepts of " will " and " freedom " must also undergo a careful revision. Along these lines it will probably be possible to bring about a consistent correlation of natural law with personal action. But such a philosophical solution of the difficulty, if effected, will modify popular modes of thought only after a long time; and it is the analysis of those popular modes of thought which now engages us. Certainly the scientific and growingly popular conception of natural processes and laws as wholly mechanical and non-moral, devoid of the impress of personal will and purpose, presents a serious problem for the preacher ; because it renders it very difficult to give a religious interpretation of the universe, which seems throughout to be the sphere of natural law.
(7) The fact that the foreground of the consciousness of the modern man is occupied for the most part with human relationships and a humanly controlled environment adds to the confusion and helps to remove God, so to speak, into the background of thought. The suggestions of God s pres ence are not so frequent or obvious, nor the sense of His presence so constant. The environment does not seem so manifestly to point one toward the superhuman. Religion is not eliminated. Those primal instincts which are organ ized into the very foundation of the personality and with which the religious consciousness is so closely connected can not be suppressed. Again and again occurrences happen in which a superhuman being seems to crash through the humanly organized environment and to advertise his pres ence in a most impressive and solemn way. But do not these occasions become less frequent, as man s control over nature extends ? At any rate, the religious interpretation of concrete experiences is less common and is felt by the
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