The conception of the Source of Psychic Energy, without the belief in which no Religion can exist, has undergone very interesting transformations in the course of historical development. The human or animal form ascribed to the gods in the earlier Religions became less and less definite. At the same time the number of gods decreased. The culmination of this double process was Monotheism, in which the One, Eternal, Creator and Sustainer of life was no longer necessarily framed in the shape of man or beast: though still anthropopathic, he might be formless. Sympathy, love, and justice were among his attributes. In a second phase, this formless, but personal, God was gradually shorn of all the qualities and defects which make individuality. He became the passionless Absolute in which all things move and have their being. Thus, the personifying work of centuries is undone, and humanity, after having, as it were, lived throughout its infancy and youth under the controlling eye and with the active assistance of personal divinities, on reaching maturity, finds itself bereft of these sources of life. The present religious crisis marks the difficulty in the way of an adaptation to the new situation. As belief in a God seems no longer possible, man seeks an impersonal, efficient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty to science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he knows from experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also in 'spiritual faith.' It is this problem which the Comtists, the Immanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists are all trying to solve. Any solution will have the right to the name Religion that provides for the preservation and the perfectioning of life by means of faith in a superhuman psychic Power. Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh University Press FOOTNOTES: [1] _The Non-Religion of the Future_, p. 2. [2] _The Golden Bough_, 2nd edition, i. p. 63. [3] _Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion_, p. 27. [4] _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, pp. 53, 38, abbreviated and rearranged. [5] Wündt's _Ethics_, English tr., iii. p. 6. [6] H. B. Davis has this to say on the power of generalisation of the raccoon, a very intelligent animal: 'When an animal [raccoon] is forced to approach a new fastening from a new direction, it is often as much bothered by it as by a new fastening. Nevertheless, in course of time the animals seem to reach a sort of generalised manner of procedure which enables them to deal more promptly with any new fastening (not too different from others of their experience).' 'The Raccoon: A Study in Animal Intelligence,' _Amer. Jr. of Psy._, Oct. 1907, p. 486. [7] _Meditationes_, ii. p. 10, Amsterdam, 1678. [8] C. Lloyd Morgan, _Introduction to Comparative Psychology_ (The Contemporary Science Series, 1894), p. 89.