Coe, George Albert

The Spiritual Life, Studies in the Science of Religion

The studies here presented have been undertaken in response to a conviction that, in the interest of both science and religion, a new intellectual attitude is necessary with respect to the facts of the spiritual life. The religious processes taking place around us and within us must be observed with all the precision that modern psychological methods and tools render possible. For, whatever else religion may or may not be, it is at least a mass of ascertainable states of consciousness; and in the absence of information to the contrary we must presume that such states can be analyzed and described, and that their relations to one another and to the recognized laws of the mental and bodily life can be to some extent determined. What is needed is an examination of the facts as such, without reference to their possible bearing upon theology or philosophy. Until this work is done there will remain an important gap in the scientific knowledge of man.