Society in its progress has ever waited for the signal to be given by some prophet from the deserts, or some seer who has brought from the mount of vision the pattern of a better social order. Those who see in social service the essence of religion are faced with the paradox that the wisest and most beneficent social influences have flowed from those experiences in which the individual turned his back on society and flaunted its ideals. A declaration of independence of society seems needed before there can be the most effective social service. By an unsocial act Abraham left his country and his kindred and his father's house, and yet in him all the families of the earth have been blessed; through Paul's unsocial act in deserting the traditions of his fathers, the course of Western civilization has been profoundly influenced; George Fox's unsocial act in depriving his town of the services of a useful tradesman, and making for himself a suit of leather, has been called by an acute observer, Carlyle, doubtless by an over-emphasis, the greatest event of modern history. Religion, in fact, first asserts itself as something over and above all social relations before its social mission can be performed. 4. The interpretation of religious experience by the psychologists has not always been favourable to theistic or Christian belief, but the failure of other explanations, if established, will lead us to seek a more adequate one by referring to a Reality transcending human experience and social relationships. The study of religious psychology has, in fact, furnished a broad basis from which a metaphysical or theistic inference can be drawn. Such an inference, cumulative in its effect, may be drawn from the universality of religious belief, from the imperativeness of social obligations implying a supersocial sanction, and from the regenerative effects of religion to an adequate cause. "God is real since He produces real effects."[140] But the study of religious experience has not only strengthened the older theistic arguments, but has in effect formulated two new arguments, the pragmatic and the mystical. 140: "Varieties," p. 517.