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William James would have enjoyed this book. It is much shorter than The varieties of religious experience, but it could equally well be sub-titled ‘a study in human nature’. The approach is naturalistic and analytical. The basic question is ‘what is religion?’ and an impressive attempt is made towards answering it, through studying ‘what the data of religious experiences themselves suggest’ (p. xi). Professor Goodenough quotes with approval the aphorism of Wald, the biologist: ‘We used to answer questions with answers. Now we answer them with questions’ (p. 176). The core of the book is a descriptive account of nine types of religious experience. It is completed with a sketch of ‘religion as search’—his own views.
The author sees religion as ‘the attitude of trust’ (p. 3), a necessary emotional corollary to anxiety in the presence of the unknown, rather than in terms of the object or person trusted. ‘Man is inherently an anxious animal’ (p. 6), with the additional power to anticipate future threats and the ultimate one, death. He calls these threats the ‘tremendum’, using the word as a noun, unlike Rudolf Otto who preferred it as an adjective with ‘mysterium’. Backed by his extensive knowledge of the humanities, Professor Good-enough