Defintion

Religion, as a term, owing to repeated misuse, is in dis-
repute with many who otherwise might give it real meaning.

Among ordinary men religion appears to be whatever they
happen to associate with religious terms. It is, perhaps, the
sum of the kinds of behavior which they happen to take to be
of a religious character. These modes of behavior vary and
include: Sunday-go-to-meeting gestures, flagellant exertions,
rites, ceremonies, persecutions, wars, living without work,
evangelizing, creedal and theological formulations, scriptual
commentaries, and feelings aroused by beliefs in a force or
power or being which is superior to man. Whatever the mode may
be, if one labels it religious, then it enters into that sum
which is called religion.

I think, however, that there is in man a genuine function,
or set of genuine functions, to which this term refers. In
some men this function is absent; in others, it is atrophied
or degenerate; and in others it is more or less what by nature
it should be. It its true state it is, perhaps, the need of,
and urge towards, perfection. And, it is the source of the
feeling that existence is sacred, that all the forms of life
are sacred presences.

It is the kind of effort towards perfection which has the
quality of devotion. If it manifests primarily in the intellect,
we call its outward product science or philosophy. If it mani-
fests mainly in the emotions, we call its outward product

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art or religion. Some men are devoted to the proper exercise
of the functions which produce these results. We have few or
no words adequate to tell of the inward resultants, which are
the main concern of religion. But the outward products, at
their best, are the by-products, and sometimes the direct
conscious instruments, of unending efforts to be what we
should be. They may serve to mark the stages of an ever
increasing and ever greater participation in a scale of
cosmoses, beginning with oneself.

Religion is the movement one makes up Jacob's ladder. It is
the name we give, or may give, to the sum of our genuine
devotional efforts, whatever the mode of manifestation,
towards the forming of pure reason and the realization of
perfect being.

Jean Toomer

A Teacher is Necessary

Religion is an instrument, a method of being-perfecting. But no man, unaided by a teacher, can make use of it. No man, unaided, can live the religious life; though any person may tell himself that he is living religiously, just as he may tell himself he is living scientifically, or artistically, or practically. No man can read the scriptures and thereby become religious, just as no one can read the texts of science and thereby become scientific. Science is a special method, a special way of proceeding. A scientist is one who lives according to this special way. Peligion likewise is a special method, a special way of proceeding. A religious man is one who lives according to this special way. General experience does not make a scientist. It does not make an artist. General experience does not make a religious man. If it did, then we all would be scientists, artists, and religious people. We all have general experience. General experience does not teach, else we all would be wise. Unaided experience does not enable us to make use of the instrument religion. In order that we may use religion as an instrument of being-perfecting a teacher is necessary.

Jean Toomer

Faith and Doubt

Faith and doubt may be said to be related to man's possi-
bility of normal development. If an individual has true faith
he feels certain that man can develop normally, that there can
be established conditions of life favorable to the actualization
of this normal potentiality. If an individual doubts, he feels
certain that man cannot develop normally, that there cannot be
established conditions favorable to the actualization of
normal potentialities.

This kind of faith should be distinguished from the vain
and false so-called faiths, beliefs, and what not, which arise
in us owing to the errors of education and experience, and
which attach themselves to all manner of fancies and delusions.

Faith of this kind is, in a sense, organic. It is part of our
essence. It is associated with true senses of reality. It
is attached to real possibilities. It is, then, creative faith.

Doubt should be distinguished from skepticism. For skepti-
cism is an active critical examination of the given real or
unreal data or phenomena. Thus, it is a function of under-
standing. Doubt, on the contrary, is a blanket denial, a blanket
rejection. It is a form of inertia, or worse, and is neither
critical nor inquiring. It is so much lead, so much poison,
in the human psyche.

True faith is rare. For when most so-called faiths are
examined they turn out to be either forms of credulity, of
fancy, or forms of hypocrisy. True skepticism is rare. For

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when so-called skeptical people are questioned, it is seen
that frequently they merely doubt.

We have doubt in abundance. Doubt is ingrained, deep-rooted,
and widespread. Judged by our behavior, the majority of us
doubt that man has normal potentialities which are capable
of being actualized by favorable conditions. Most of us doubt
that favorable conditions of life can be established. At any
rate, few of us are willing to make effort to give tangible
evidence that we have faith.

Jean Toomer

Optimism and Pessimism

Optimism and pessimism, basically, are attitudes towards
and feelings about the just mentioned potentialities and
actualizations. Optimism says that man has the potentiality
of becoming a normal being, and that it is possible to provide
conditions favorable for this kind of actualization. Pessimism
says that man has only the potentiality of becoming an
abnormal being, and that it is impossible to have any conditions
save those which actualize abnormality.

Most adults, the world over, are consciously or unconsciously
pessimistic. At base they are pessimistic - though there may
be a still deeper unmanifested source of optimism. Their
usual avowed optimism, if they avow it, is superficial. They
are also pessimistic because their views have been formed by the
prevalent actualization of abnormalities, and because they
have lost all or most sense of normal potentialities.

We Americans are supposed to be an optimistic people. Our
optimism is a mere posture. Our actions, the way we conduct
our affairs, show that at base we view man as an abnormal
 creature actualized by abnormal conditions. If we have a
 still deeper source of optimism we seldom give evidence of it.

Jean Toomer

Vivid True Sense

Since man is made of actualities and potentialities, we
should have a strong and vivid true sense of actuality, and
an equally strong and vivid true sense of potentiality. That
is, we should be able to sense what we are, what our present
condition, situation, and state of being are; and we should be
able to sense what we can become, what are our possible
conditions and states of being.

Also, we should have a strong vivid true sense of ourselves
as wholes, made of both actualities and potentialities. I
would call this sense the sense of oneself.

It seems that we lack these senses, and therefore exist
in a sort of limbo, sensing neither the actual, the potential,
nor the real.

Modern man, in so far as he is affected by science and its
effects, seems to be forming a sense of actuality. We are gett-
ing some sense of our actual organic and psychological make-up.
We are getting some sense of ourselves in relation to
Nature and to the physical universe.

But, as the same time, we seem to be losing whatever sense
of potentiality we may have had. We are forming norms based on
an acceptance of what is now present to our awareness in and
round about us. We are aiming to adjust comfortably to these
standards. We are attempting to rule out or dull or dope what-
ever tends to make us discontent with the easy average. A

One Hopeful Thing

One of the hopeful things about man is that he has enough
intelligence to recognize his present hopelessness.

The kind of intelligence I refer to has nothing in common
with the kind which indulges in theorizing and rationalizing,
and which, therefore, lacks all sense of reality. The kind of
hopelessness I refer to has nothing in common with moods of
hopelessness, with emotional states induced by faulty diges-
tion, bad news, unfortunate love affairs, financial worries,
or hurt pride.

The intelligence and the hopelessness I mean are founded on
senses of reality. They have much in common with the under-
standings and realizations recorded in various formulae and
symbols, as, for example, in the symbol of the maze.

The hope consists in this: intelligence feeds upon and is
increased by perceptions of reality. It is possible that an
intensive feeding on reality, of which hopelessness is one
form, would result in an increase of intelligence sufficient to
transform the nature of our existence. I, together with a
number of my fellow men, place my faith in intelligence and
in the possibility of its effective increase.

Jean Toomer

A Sense of Decency

We still retain a snse of decency. It is to this sense
that the most intelligent and sincere appeals of our day
are being made. We no longer appeal either to love, or faith,
or hope. We appeal very little to the virtues which animate
the good, the true, the beautiful. Seldom do we appeal to the
sense of potentialities. Seldom do we appeal to the wish for
free happiness, or to the sense of divine justice. We know,
consciously or unconsciously, that these great attributes
no longer exist as mainsprings to human conduct. We appeal to
common decency.

But even the sense of decency is weakening. Each day it is
attacked and deteriorated by organized cheating, lying,
and cut-throat practices, by hypocrisy, dope, and by the
general conditions of life from which meaning is vanishing.
How to prevent it from passing out? How to strengthen it? How
to increase and intensify it until it becomes dynamic conscience?

Conscience is the heart of the human world. It still beats
feebly in the snse of decency.

Jean Toomer.