spirit; wrongly do some speak of art as a manifestation of religion.

If it were said that art and religion were twin manifestations of
something that, for convenience sake, may be called "the religious
spirit," I should make no serious complaint. But I should insist on the
distinction between "religion," in the ordinary acceptation of the word,
and "the religious spirit" being stated beyond all possibility of cavil.
I should insist that if we are to say that art is a manifestation of the
religious spirit, we must say the same of every respectable religion
that ever has existed or ever can exist. Above all, I should insist that
whoever said it should bear in mind, whenever he said it, that
"manifestation" is at least as different from "expression" as Monmouth
is from Macedon.

The religious spirit is born of a conviction that some things matter
more than others. To those possessed by it there is a sharp distinction
between that which is unconditioned and universal and that which is
limited and local. It is a consciousness of the unconditioned and
universal that makes people religious; and it is this consciousness or,
at least, a conviction that some things are unconditioned and universal,
that makes their attitude towards the conditioned and local sometimes a
little unsympathetic. It is this consciousness that makes them set
justice above law, passion above principle, sensibility above culture,
intelligence above knowledge, intuition above experience, the ideal
above the tolerable. It is this consciousness that makes them the
enemies of convention, compromise, and common-sense. In fact, the
essence of religion is a conviction that because some things are of
infinite value most are profoundly unimportant, that since the
gingerbread is there one need not feel too strongly about the gilt.