The psychology of religion : an empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness / by Edwin Diller Starbuck ; with a preface by William James.

  • Edwin Diller Starbuck
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of religion : an empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness / by Edwin Diller Starbuck ; with a preface by William James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/476 page 13
    be the most vital and essential elements of his experi- ence. Care was always taken to call out actual facts of experience, and not opinions about certain ideas or doctrines, on the ground that the interpretation of actual experiences would bring us nearer the operation of life- forces than a study of massed opinions. The attempt was made to have the material as representative as pos- sible in regard to sex, age, church connection and voca- tion. Of course, the questions were unavoidably selective in certain ways—for example, those responded more readily who were more favourably disposed towards the study of religion, and those also who had now, or at some time had had, an actively religious experience. In interpretating results, we are constantly to take into account the limits within which the inductions are valid. They are true of a specialised class, chiefly Pro- testant, American members of professedly Christian com- munities. They are not necessarily true for savages or statesmen or Catholics or persons living in a different historical epoch. We shall have constantly to correct our conclusions by studying separately more special classes in regard to church, vocation, etc., and to widen them by gathering data from new sources. It seemed best in mapping out a relatively unorganised field not to discriminate too closely the class of persons or nature of the experiences which were considered together. If we can get a few general bearings at first, it may guide us in future work. Since these studies were organised, the same methods have been carried out in several dif- ferent directions. 2. The next step was the analysis of the records to be used. Many hours, and sometimes several days, were devoted to studying a single record, for the purpose of seeing each part of it in all its possible bearings, and in what seemed to be its true context. In case of meanings too obscure, or accounts too im- perfect, the respondent was plyed with further questions. The source of error from biassed interpretations is, at best, very great, and can be reduced only by other
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3