Orthodox Rationalism [pp. 294-312]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIR IV.
New England schools of philosophy and theology. The current
method is, or perhaps we should say has been, too analytic and
individualistic-an atomistic rather than an organic science of
mind. The revolution which has taken place during this century
in the science of chemistry affords some profitable suggestions
for the work needing to be done in the science of man. The
older methods of chemical analysis gave us a knowledge of the
elements and atomic weights; but the present science of chemis-try is largely synthetic, and is increasing our knowledge of the
unities of force and life. Nothing is studied and weighed as an
isolated phenomenon, as an individual thing; but everything is
viewed in its relations and co-ordination-the world to present
science is a unity of forces. But the psychology which our theology seems most inclined to employ is too largely analytic and
atomistic. Man is divided into three grand departments-intellect, sensibilities, and will-each one of which can be shut off
from and considered apart from the others: one compartment
may be damaged while the others are left intact, as some theologians judge that sin is only a corruption of the sensibilities,
while others insist that the will also is ruined. So far as such
analysis may serve clearness of thought and be used as one
means of investigating mental phenomena, no objection need be
made to it; but the danger lies in losing sight of the fact that
man is a spiritual unity, one living whole, to be known and
understood in relation to the totality of his environment. If we
put asunder in thought what God has joined together in the living reality of consciousness, we may endanger the very integrity
and soundness of all our natural faiths. It will hardly be safe
to require some single faculty, some isolated activity of man, as
his understanding or reason, to bear the whole weight of those
great faiths which come to us through the harmonious exercise
of all our powers; which rest broadly and securely upon the
whole experience of life. This analytic psychology, however
correct it may be as an anatomy of mind, is not true to the life;
for we are ourselves in every faculty and function: in reasoning
we do not use the understanding merely;' in willing we are also
thinking; and in feeling we begin also both to think and to
wvill-our self-conscious life is one continuous living synthesis,
and as such it should be studied and understood in any philoso
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