§ 16. The profitableness of undertaking such a definition is another matter. It may well be that in so human and practical an affair as religion, definition is peculiarly inappropriate. But is there not a human and practical value in the very defining of religion? Is there not a demand for it in the peculiar relation that exists between religion and the progress of enlightenment? Religion associates itself with the habits of society. The progress of enlightenment means that more or less all the time, and very profoundly at certain critical times, society must change its habits. The consequence is that religion is likely to be abandoned with the old habits. The need of a new religion is therefore a chronic one. The reformer in religion, or the man who wishes to be both enlightened and religious, is chiefly occupied with the problem of disentangling religion pure and undefiled from definite discredited practices and opinions. And the solution of the problem turns upon some apprehension of the essence of religion. There is a large amount of necessary and unnecessary tragedy due to the extrinsic connection between ideas and certain modes of their expression. There can be no more serious and urgent duty than that of expressing as directly, and so as truly as possible, the great permanent human concerns. The men to whom educational reform has been largely due have been the men who have remembered for their fellows what this whole business of education is after all for. Comenius and Pestalozzi served society by stripping educational activity of its historical and institutional accessories, and laying bare the genuine human need that these are designed to satisfy. There is a similar virtue in the insistent attempt to distinguish between the essential and the accessory in religion. [Sidenote: The True Method of Defining Religion.] § 17. Although declining to be discouraged by the conspicuousness of past failures in this connection, one may well profit by them. The amazing complexity of religious phenomena must somehow be seen to be consistent with their common nature. The religious experience must not only be found, but must also be reconciled with "the varieties of religious experience." The inadequacy of the well-known definitions of religion may be attributed to several causes. The commonest fallacy is to define religion in terms of a religion. My definition of religion must include my brother's religion, even though he live on the other side of the globe, and my ancestor's religion, in spite of his prehistoric remoteness. Error may easily arise through the attempt to define religion in terms of my own religion, or what I conceive to be the true religion. Whatever the relation between ideal religion and actual religion, the field of religion contains by common consent cults that must on their own grounds condemn one another; religions that are bad religions, and yet religions.