So far, in considering what psychology had to tell us about the
conditions in which our spiritual life can develop, and the mental
machinery it can use, we have been, deliberately, looking at men one by
one. We have left on one side all those questions which relate to the
corporate aspect of the spiritual life, and its expression in religious
institutions; that is to say, in churches and cults. We have looked upon
it as a personal growth and response; a personal reception of, and
self-orientation to, Reality. But we cannot get away from the fact that
this regenerate life does most frequently appear in history associated
with, or creating for itself, a special kind of institution. Although it
is impossible to look upon it as the appearance of a favourable
variation within the species, it is also just as possible to look upon
it as the formation of a new herd or tribe. Where the variation appears,
and in its sense of newness, youth and vigour breaks away from the
institution within which it has arisen, it generally becomes the nucleus
about which a new group is formed. So that individualism and
gregariousness are both represented in the full life of the Spirit; and
however personal its achievement may seem to us, it has also a
definitely corporate and institutional aspect.

I now propose to take up this side of the subject, and try to suggest
one or two lines of thought which may help us to discover the meaning
and worth of such societies and institutions. For after all, some
explanation is needed of these often strange symbolic systems, and often
rigid mechanizations, imposed on the free responses to Eternal Reality
which we found to constitute the essence of religious experience. Any
one who has known even such direct communion with the Spirit as is
possible to normal human nature must, if he thinks out the implications
of his own experience, feel it to be inconsistent that this most
universal of all acts should be associated by men with the most