The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

The difference in natural “fact” which most of us would assign as the first difference which the existence of a God ought to make would, I imagine, be personal immortality. Religion, in fact, for the great majority of our own race means immortality, and nothing else. God is the producer of immortality; and whoever has doubts of immortality is written down as an atheist without farther trial. I have said nothing in my lectures about immortality or the belief therein, for to me it seems a secondary point. If our ideals are only cared for in “eternity,” I do not see why we might not be willing to resign their care to other hands than ours. Yet I sympathize with the urgent impulse to be present ourselves, and in the conflict of impulses, both of them so vague yet both of them noble, I know not how to decide. It seems to me that it is eminently a case for facts to testify. Facts, I think, are yet lacking to prove “spirit-return,” though I have the highest respect for the patient labors of Messrs. Myers, Hodgson, and Hyslop, and am somewhat impressed by their favorable conclusions. I consequently leave the matter open, with this brief word to save the reader from a possible perplexity as to why immortality got no mention in the body of this book.

The ideal power with which we feel ourselves in connection, the “God” of ordinary men, is, both by ordinary men and by philosophers, endowed with certain of those metaphysical attributes which in the lecture on philosophy I treated with such disrespect. He is assumed as a matter of course to be “one and only” and to be “infinite”; and the notion of many finite gods is one which hardly any one thinks it worth while to consider, and still less to uphold. Nevertheless, in the interests of intellectual clearness, I feel bound to say that religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace. Philosophy, with its passion for unity, and mysticism with its monoideistic bent, both “pass to the limit” and identify the something with a unique God who is the all-inclusive soul of the world. Popular opinion, respectful to their authority, follows the example which they set.

Meanwhile the practical needs and experiences of religion seem to me sufficiently met by the belief that beyond each man and in a fashion continuous with him there exists a larger power which is friendly to him and to his ideals. All that the facts require is that the power should be both other and larger than our conscious selves. Anything larger will do, if only it be large enough to trust for the next step. It need not be infinite, it need not be solitary. It might conceivably even be only a larger and more godlike self, of which the present self would then be but the mutilated expression, and the universe might conceivably be a collection of such selves, of different degrees of inclusiveness, with no absolute unity realized in it at all.362 Thus would a sort of polytheism return upon us—a polytheism which I do not on this occasion defend, for my only aim at present is to keep the testimony of religious experience clearly within its proper bounds. [Compare p. 132 above.]

Upholders of the monistic view will say to such a polytheism (which, by the way, has always been the real religion of common people, and is so still to-day) that unless there be one all-inclusive God, our guarantee of security is left imperfect. In the Absolute, and in the Absolute only, all is saved. If there be different gods, each caring for his part, some portion of some of us might not be covered with divine protection, and our religious consolation would thus fail to be complete. It goes back to what was said on pages 131-133, about the possibility of there being portions of the universe that may irretrievably be lost. Common sense is less sweeping in its demands than philosophy or mysticism have been wont to be, and can suffer the notion of this world being partly saved and partly lost. The ordinary moralistic state of mind makes the salvation of the world conditional upon the success with which each unit does its part. Partial and conditional salvation is in fact a most familiar notion when taken in the abstract, the only difficulty being to determine the details. Some men are even disinterested enough to be willing to be in the unsaved remnant as far as their persons go, if only they can be persuaded that their cause will prevail—all of us are willing, whenever our activity-excitement rises sufficiently high. I think, in fact, that a final philosophy of religion will have to consider the pluralistic hypothesis more seriously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it. For practical life at any rate, the chance of salvation is enough. No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance. The existence of the chance makes the difference, as Edmund Gurney says, between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope.363 But all these statements are unsatisfactory from their brevity, and I can only say that I hope to return to the same questions in another book.

Index

Absolute, oneness with the, 419.

Abstractness of religious objects, 53.

Achilles, 86.

Ackermann, Madame, 63.

Adaptation to environment, of things, 438;

of saints, 374-377.

Æsthetic elements in religions, 460.

Alacoque, 310, 344, 413.

Alcohol, 387.

Al-Ghazzali, 402.

Ali, 341.

Alleine, 228.

Alline, 159, 217.

Alternations of personality, 193.

Alvarez de Paz, 116.

Amiel, 394.

Anæsthesia, 288.

Anæsthetic revelation, 387-393.

Angelus Silesius, 417.

Anger, 181, 264.

“Anhedonia,” 145.

Aristocratic type, 371.

Aristotle, 495.

Ars, le Curé d', 302.

Asceticism, 273, 296-310, 360-365.

Aseity, God's, 439, 445.

Atman, 400.

Attributes of God, 440;

their æsthetic use, 458.

Augustine, Saint, 171, 361, 496.

Aurelius, see Marcus.

Automatic writing, 62, 478.

Automatisms, 234, 250, 478-483.

Baldwin, 347, 503.

Bashkirtseff, 83.

Beecher, 256.

Behmen, see Boehme.

Belief, due to non-rationalistic impulses, 73.

Besant, Mrs., 23, 168.

Bhagavad-Gita, 361.

Blavatsky, Madam, 421.

Blood, 389.

Blumhardt, 113.

Boehme, 410, 417, 418.

Booth, 203.

Bougaud, 344.

Bourget, 263.

Bourignon, 321.

Bowne, 502.

Brainerd, 212, 253.

Bray, 249, 256, 290.

Brooks, 512.

Brownell, 515.

Bucke, 398.

Buddhism, 31, 34, 522.

Buddhist mysticism, 401.

Bullen, 287.

Bunyan, 157, 160.

Butterworth, 411.

Caird, Edward, 106.

Caird, J., on feeling in religion, 434;

on absolute self, 450;

he does not prove, but reaffirms, religion's dicta, 453.

Call, 289.

Carlyle, 41, 300.

Carpenter, 319.

Catharine, Saint, of Genoa, 289.

Catholicism and Protestantism compared, 114, 227, 336, 461.

Causality of God, 517, 522.

Cause, 502.

Cennick, 301.

Centres of personal energy, 196, 267, 523.

Cerebration, unconscious, 207.

Chance, 526.

Channing, 300, 488.

Chapman, 324.

Character, cause of its alterations, 193;

scheme of its differences of type, 197, 214.

Causes of its diversity, 261;

balance of, 340.

Charity, 274, 278, 310, 355.

Chastity, 310.

Chiefs of tribes, 371.

Christian Science, 106.

Christ's atonement, 129, 245.

Churches, 335, 460.

Clark, 389.

Clissold, 481.

Coe, 240.

Conduct, perfect, 355.

Confession, 462.

Consciousness, fields of, 231;

subliminal, 233.

Consistency, 296.

Conversion, to avarice, 178.

Conversion, Fletcher's, 181;

Tolstoy's, 184;

Bunyan's, 186;

in general, Lectures IX and X, passim;

Bradley's, 189;

compared with natural moral growth, 199;

Hadley's, 201;

two types of, 205 ff.;

Brainerd's, 212;

Alline's, 217;

Oxford graduate's, 221;

Ratisbonne's, 223;

instantaneous, 227;

is it a natural phenomenon? 230;

subliminal action involved, in sudden cases, 236, 240;

fruits of, 237;

its momentousness, 239;

may be supernatural, 242;

its concomitants:

sense of higher control, 244,

happiness, 248,

automatisms, 250,

luminous phenomena, 251;

its degree of permanence, 256.

Cosmic consciousness, 398.

Counter-conversion, 176.

Courage, 265, 287.

Crankiness, see Psychopathy.

Crichton-Browne, 384, 386.

Criminal character, 263.

Criteria of value of spiritual affections, 18.

Crump, 239.

Cure of bad habits, 270.

Daudet, 167.

Death, 139, 364.

Derham, 493.

Design, argument from, 438, 492 ff.

Devoutness, 340.

Dionysius Areopagiticus, 416.

Disease, 99, 113.

Disorder in contents of world, 438.

Divided Self, Lecture VIII, passim;

Cases of:

Saint Augustine, 172,

H. Alline, 173.

Divine, the, 31.

Dog, 281.

Dogmatism, 326, 333.

Dowie, 113.

Dresser, H. W., 96, 99, 289, 516.

Drink, 268.

Drummer, 476.

Drummond, 262.

Drunkenness, 387, 403, 488.

“Dryness,” 204.

Dumas, 279.

Dyes, on clothing, 294.

Earnestness, 264.

Ecclesiastical spirit, the, 335, 338.

Eckhart, 417.

Eddy, 106.

Edwards, Jonathan, 20, 114, 200, 229, 238, 239, 248, 330.

Edwards, Mrs. J., 276, 280.

Effects of religious states, 21.

Effeminacy, 365.

Ego of Apperception, 449.

Ellis, Havelock, 418.

Elwood, 292.

Emerson, 32, 56, 167, 205, 239, 330.

Emotion, as alterer of life's value, 150;

of the character, 195, 261 ff., 279.

Empirical method, 18, 327 ff., 443.

Enemies, love your, 278, 283.

Energy, personal, 196;

mystical states increase it, 414.

Environment, 356, 374.

Epictetus, 474.

Epicureans, 143.

Equanimity, 284.

Ether, mystical effects of, 392.

Evil, ignored by healthy-mindedness, 88, 106, 131;

due to things or to the Self, 134;

its reality, 163.

Evolutionist optimism, 91.

Excesses of piety, 340.

Excitement, its effects, 195, 266, 279, 325.

Experience, religious, the essence of, 508.

Extravagances of piety, 339, 486.

Extreme cases, why we take them, 486.

Failure, 139.

Faith, 246, 506.

Faith-state, 505.

Fanaticism, 338 ff.

Fear, 98, 159, 161, 263, 275.

Feeling deeper than intellect in religion, 431.

Fielding, 436.

Finney, 207, 215.

Fletcher, 98, 181.

Flournoy, 67, 514.

Flower, 476.

Foster, 178, 383.

Fox, George, 7, 291, 335, 411.

Francis, Saint, d'Assisi, 319.

Francis, Saint, de Sales, 11.

Fraser, 454.

Fruits, of conversion, 237;

of religion, 327;

of Saintliness, 357.

Fuller, 41.

Gamond, 288.

Gardiner, 269.

Genius and insanity, 16.

Geniuses, see Religious leaders.

Gentleman, character of the, 317, 371.

Gertrude, Saint, 345.

“Gifts,” 151.

Glory of God, 342.

God, 31;

sense of his presence, 66-72, 272, 275 ff.;

historic changes in idea of him, 74, 328 ff., 493;

mind-curer's idea of him, 101;

his honor, 342;

described by negatives, 417;

his attributes, scholastic proof of, 439;

the metaphysical ones are for us meaningless, 445;

the moral ones are ill-deduced, 447;

he is not a mere inference, 502;

is used, not known, 506;

his existence must make a difference among phenomena, 517, 522;

his relation to the subconscious region, 242, 515;

his tasks, 519;

may be finite and plural, 525.

Goddard, 96.

Goerres, 407.

Goethe, 137.

Gough, 203.

Gourdon, 171.

“Grace,” the operation of, 226;

the state of, 260.

Gratry, 146, 476, 506.

Greeks, their pessimism, 86, 142.

Guidance, 472.

Gurney, 527.

Guyon, 276, 286.

Hadley, 201, 268.

Hale, 82.

Hamon, 367.

Happiness, 47-49, 79, 248, 279.

Harnack, 100.

Healthy-mindedness, Lectures IV and V, passim;

its philosophy of evil, 131;

compared with morbid-mindedness, 162, 488.

Heart, softening of, 267.

Hegel, 389, 449, 454.

Helmont, Van, 497.

Heroism, 364, 488, note.

Heterogeneous personality, 169, 193.

Higher criticism, 4.

Hilty, 79, 275, 472.

Hodgson, R., 524.

Homer, 86.

Hugo, 171.

Hypocrisy, 338.

Hypothesis, what make a useful one, 517.

Hyslop, 524.

Ignatius Loyola, 313, 406, 410.

Illness, 113.

“Imitation of Christ,” the, 44.

Immortality, 524.

Impulses, 261.

Individuality, 501.

Inhibitions, 261 ff.

Insane melancholy and religion, 144.

Insanity and genius, 16;

and happiness, 279.

Institutional religion, 335.

Intellect a secondary force in religion, 431, 514.

Intellectual weakness of some saints, 370.

Intolerance, 342.

Irascibility, 264.

Jesus, Harnack on, 100.

Job, 76, 448.

John, Saint, of the Cross, 304, 407, 413.

Johnston, 258.

Jonquil, 476.

Jordan, 347.

Jouffroy, 176, 198.

Judgments, existential and spiritual, 4.

Kant, 54, 448.

Karma, 522.

Kellner, 401.

Kindliness, see Charity.

Kingsley, 385.

Lagneau, 285.

Leaders, see Religious leaders.

Leaders, of tribes, 371.

Lejeune, 113, 312.

Lessing, 318.

Leuba, 201, 203, 220, 246, 506.

Life, its significance, 151.

Life, the subconscious, 207, 209.

Locker-Lampson, 39.

Logic, Hegelian, 449.

Louis, Saint, of Gonzaga, 350.

Love, see Charity.

Love, cases of falling out of, 179.

Love of God, 276.

Love your enemies, 278, 283.

Lowell, 65.

Loyalty, to God, 342.

Lutfullah, 164.

Luther, 128, 137, 244, 330, 348, 382.

Lutheran self-despair, 108, 211.

Luxury, 365.

Lycaon, 86.

Lyre, 267.

Mahomet, 171.

See Mohammed.

Marcus Aurelius, 42, 44, 474.

Margaret Mary, see Alacoque.

Margin of consciousness, 232.

Marshall, 503.

Martineau, 475.

Mather, 303.

Maudsley, 19.

Meaning of life, 151.

Medical criticism of religion, 413.

Medical materialism, 10 ff.

Melancholy, 145, 279;

Lectures V and VI, passim;

cases of, 148, 149, 157, 159, 198.

Melting moods, 267.

Method of judging value of religion, 18, 327.

Methodism, 227, 237.

Meysenbug, 395.

Militarism, 365-367.

Military type of character, 371.

Mill, 204.

Mind-cure, its sources and history, 94-97;

its opinion of fear, 98;

cases of, 102-105, 120, 123;

its message, 108;

its methods, 112-123;

it uses verification, 120-124;

its philosophy of evil, 131.

Miraculous character of conversion, 227.

Mohammed, 341, 481.

Molinos, 130.

Moltke, Von, 264, 367.

Monasteries, 296.

Monism, 416.

Morbidness compared with healthy-mindedness, 488.

See, also, Melancholy.

Mormon revelations, 482.

Mortification, see Asceticism.

Muir, 482.

Mulford, 497.

Müller, 468.

Murisier, 349.

Myers, 233, 234, 466, 511, 524.

Mystic states, their effects, 21, 414.

Mystical experiences, 66.

Mysticism, Lectures XVI and XVII, passim;

its marks, 380;

its theoretic results, 416, 422, 428;

it cannot warrant truth, 422;

its results, 425;

its relation to the sense of union, 509.

Mystical region of experience, 515.

Natural theology, 492.

Naturalism, 141, 167.

Nature, scientific view of, 491.

Negative accounts of deity, 417.

Nelson, 208, 423.

Nettleton, 215.

Newman, F. W., 80.

Newman, J. H., on dogmatic theology, 434, 442;

his type of imagination, 459.

Nietzsche, 371, 372.

Nitrous oxide, its mystical effects, 387.

No-function, 261-263, 299, 387, 416.

Non-resistance, 281, 358, 376.

Obedience, 310.

Obermann, 476.

O'Connell, 257.

Omit, 296.

“Once-born” type, 80, 166, 363, 488.

Oneness with God, see Union.

Optimism, systematic, 88;

and evolutionism, 91;

it may be shallow, 364.

Orderliness of world, 438.

Organism determines all mental states whatsoever, 14.

Origin of mental states no criterion of their value, 14 ff.

Orison, 406.

Over-beliefs, 513;

the author's, 515.

Over-soul, 516.

Oxford, graduate of, 220, 268.

Pagan feeling, 86.

Pantheism, 131, 416.

Parker, 83.

Pascal, 286.

Paton, 359.

Paul, Saint, 171, 357.

Peek, 253.

Peirce, 444.

Penny, 323.

Perreyve, 505.

Persecutions, 338, 342.

Personality, explained away by science, 119, 491;

heterogeneous, 169;

alterations of, 193, 210 ff.;

is reality, 499. See Character.

Peter, Saint, of Alcantara, 360.

Philo, 481.

Philosophy, Lecture XVIII, passim;

must coerce assent, 433;

scholastic, 439;

idealistic, 448;

unable to give a theoretic warrant to faith, 455;

its true office in religion, 455.

Photisms, 251.

Piety, 339 ff.

Pluralism, 131.

Polytheism, 131, 526.

Poverty, 315, 367.

“Pragmatism,” 444, 519, 522-524.

Prayer, 463;

its definition, 464;

its essence, 465;

petitional, 467;

its effects, 474-477, 523.

“Presence,” sense of, 58-63.

Presence of God, 66-72, 272, 275 ff., 396, 418.

Presence of God, the practice of, 116.

Primitive human thought, 495.

Pringle-Pattison, 454.

Prophets, the Hebrew, 479.

Protestant theology, 244.

Protestantism and Catholicism, 114, 227, 330, 461.

Providential leading, 472.

Psychopathy and religion, 22 ff.

Puffer, 394.

Purity, 274, 290, 348.

Quakers, 7, 291.

Ramakrishna, 361, 365.

Rationalism, 73, 74;

its authority overthrown by mysticism, 428.

Ratisbonne, 223, 257.

Reality of unseen objects, Lecture III, passim.

Récéjac, 407, 509.

“Recollection,” 116, 289.

Redemption, 157.

Reformation of character, 320.

Regeneration, see Conversion;

by relaxation, 111.

Reid, 446.

Relaxation, salvation by, 110.

See Surrender.

Religion, to be tested by fruits, not by origin, 10 ff., 331;

its definition, 26, 31;

is solemn, 37;

compared with Stoicism, 41;

its unique function, 51;

abstractness of its objects, 54;

differs according to temperament, 75, 135, 333,

and ought to differ, 487;

considered to be a “survival,” 118, 490, 498;

its relations to melancholy, 145;

worldly passions may combine with it, 337;

its essential characters, 369, 485;

its relation to prayer, 463-466;

asserts a fact, not a theory, 489;

its truth, 377;

more than science, it holds by concrete reality, 500;

attempts to evaporate it into philosophy, 502;

it is concerned with personal destinies, 491, 503;

with feeling and conduct, 504;

is a sthenic affection, 505;

is for life, not for knowledge, 506;

its essential contents, 508;

it postulates issues of fact, 518.

Religious emotion, 279.

Religious leaders, often nervously unstable, 6 ff., 30;

their loneliness, 335.

“Religious sentiment,” 27.

Renan, 37.

Renunciations, 349.

Repentance, 127.

Resignation, 286.

Revelation, the anæsthetic, 387-393.

Revelations, see Automatisms.

Revelations, in Mormon Church, 482.

Revivalism, 228.

Ribet, 407.

Ribot, 145, 502.

Rodriguez, 313, 314, 317.

Royce, 454.

Rutherford, Mark, 76.

Sabatier, A., 464.

Sacrifice, 303, 462.

Saint-Pierre, 83.

Sainte-Beuve, 260, 315.

Saintliness, Sainte-Beuve on, 260;

its characteristics, 272, 370;

criticism of, 326 ff.

Saintly conduct, 356-377.

Saints, dislike of natural man for, 371.

Salvation, 526.

Sandays, 480.

Satan, in picture, 50.

Scheffler, 417.

Scholastic arguments for God, 437.

Science, ignores personality and teleology, 491;

her “facts,” 500, 501.

“Science of Religions,” 433, 455, 456, 488-490.

Scientific conceptions, their late adoption, 496.

Second-birth, 157, 165, 166.

Seeley, 77.

Self of the world, 449.

Self-despair, 110, 129, 208.

Self-surrender, 110, 208.

Sénancour, 476.

Seth, 454.

Sexual temptation, 269.

Sexuality as cause of religion, 10, 11.

“Shrew,” 347.

Sickness, 113.

Sick souls, Lectures V and VI, passim.

Sighele, 263.

Sin, 209.

Sinners, Christ died for, 129.

Skepticism, 332 ff.

Skobeleff, 265.

Smith, Joseph, 482.

Softening of the heart, 267.

Solemnity, 37, 48.

Soul, 195.

Soul, strength of, 273.

Spencer, 355, 374.

Spinoza, 9, 127.

Spiritism, 514.

Spirit-return, 524.

Spiritual judgments, 4.

Spiritual states, tests of their value, 18.

Starbuck, 198, 199, 204, 206, 208-210, 249, 253, 258, 268, 276, 323, 353, 394.

Stevenson, 138, 296.

Stoicism, 42-45, 143.

Strange appearance of world, 151.

Strength of soul, 273.

Subconscious action in conversion, 236, 242.

Subconscious life, 115, 207, 209, 233, 236, 270, 483.

Subconscious Self, as intermediary between the Self and God, 511.

Subliminal, see Subconscious.

Sufis, 402, 420.

Suggestion, 112, 234.

Suicide, 147.

Supernaturalism its two kinds, 520;

criticism of universalistic, 521.

Supernatural world, 518.

Surrender, salvation by, 110, 208, 211.

Survival-theory of religion, 490, 498, 500.

Suso, 306, 349.

Swinburne, 421.

Symonds, 385, 390.

Sympathetic magic, 496.

Sympathy, see Charity.

Systems, philosophic, 433.

Taine, 9.

Taylor, 246.

Tenderness, see Charity.

Tennyson, 383, 384.

Teresa, Saint, 20, 346, 360, 408, 411, 412, 414.

Theologia Germanica, 43.

Theologians, systematic, 446.

“Theopathy,” 343.

Thoreau, 275.

Threshold, 135.

Tiger, 164, 262.

Tobacco, 270, 290.

Tolstoy, 149, 178, 184.

Towianski, 281.

Tragedy of life, 363.

Tranquillity, 285.

Transcendentalism criticised, 522.

Transcendentalists, 516.

Trevor, 396.

Trine, 101, 394.

Truth of religion, how to be tested, 377;

what it is, 509;

mystical perception of, 380, 410.

“Twice-born,” type, 166, 363, 488.

Tyndall, 299.

“Unconscious cerebration,” 207.

Unification of Self, 183, 349.

“Union morale,” 272.

Union with God, 408, 418, 425, 451, 509 ff.

See lectures on Conversion, passim.

Unity of universe, 131.

Unreality, sense of, 63.

Unseen realities, Lecture III, passim.

Upanishads, 419.

Upham, 289.

Utopias, 360.

Vacherot, 502.

Value of spiritual affections, how tested, 18.

Vambéry, 341.

Vedantism, 400, 419, 513, 522.

Veracity, 7, 291 ff.

Vivekananda, 513.

Voltaire, 38.

Voysey, 275.

War, 365-367.

Wealth-worship, 365.

Weaver, 281.

Wesley, 227.

Wesleyan self-despair, 108, 211.

Whitefield, 318.

Whitman, 84, 395, 396, 506.

Wolff, 492, 493.

Wood, Henry, 96, 99, 117.

World, soul of the, 449.

Worry, 98, 181.

Yes-function, 261-263, 299, 387.

Yoga, 400.

Young, 256.

1

As with many ideas that float in the air of one's time, this notion shrinks from dogmatic general statement and expresses itself only partially and by innuendo. It seems to me that few conceptions are less instructive than this re-interpretation of religion as perverted sexuality. It reminds one, so crudely is it often employed, of the famous Catholic taunt, that the Reformation may be best understood by remembering that its fons et origo was Luther's wish to marry a nun:—the effects are infinitely wider than the alleged causes, and for the most part opposite in nature. It is true that in the vast collection of religious phenomena, some are undisguisedly amatory—e.g., sex-deities and obscene rites in polytheism, and ecstatic feelings of union with the Saviour in a few Christian mystics. But then why not equally call religion an aberration of the digestive function, and prove one's point by the worship of Bacchus and Ceres, or by the ecstatic feelings of some other saints about the Eucharist? Religious language clothes itself in such poor symbols as our life affords, and the whole organism gives overtones of comment whenever the mind is strongly stirred to expression. Language drawn from eating and drinking is probably as common in religious literature as is language drawn from the sexual life. We “hunger and thirst” after righteousness; we “find the Lord a sweet savor;” we “taste and see that he is good.” “Spiritual milk for American babes, drawn from the breasts of both testaments,” is a sub-title of the once famous New England Primer, and Christian devotional literature indeed quite floats in milk, thought of from the point of view, not of the mother, but of the greedy babe.