divine retribution may arouse it; religious awe is the same
organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a
mountain gorge; only this time it comes over us at the thought of
our supernatural relations; and similarly of all the various
sentiments which may be called into play in the lives of
religious persons. As concrete states of mind, made up of a
feeling PLUS a specific sort of object, religious emotions of
course are psychic entities distinguishable from other concrete
emotions; but there is no ground for assuming a simple abstract
"religious emotion" to exist as a distinct elementary mental
affection by itself, present in every religious experience
without exception.

As there thus seems to be no one elementary religious emotion,
but only a common storehouse of emotions upon which religious
objects may draw, so there might conceivably also prove to he no
one specific and essential kind of religious object, and no one
specific and essential kind of religious act.

The field of religion being as wide as this, it is manifestly
impossible that I should pretend to cover it. My lectures must
be limited to a fraction of the subject. And, although it would
indeed be foolish to set up an abstract definition of religion's
essence, and then proceed to defend that definition against all
comers, yet this need not prevent me from taking my own narrow
view of what religion shall consist in FOR THE PURPOSE OF THESE
LECTURES, or, out of the many meanings of the word, from choosing
the one meaning in which I wish to interest you particularly, and
proclaiming arbitrarily that when I say "religion" I mean THAT.
This, in fact, is what I must do, and I will now preliminarily