Synthesized answer
In James's view, "Man's Religious Appetites" are descriptive of man's religious constitution [1]. He suggests that the first course of his lectures could be a descriptive one on this topic, with the second focusing on their satisfaction through philosophy [1].
The passages indicate that religion involves an element or quality not found elsewhere, and this quality is most prominent in intense religious experiences [2]. This character is distinct from philosophical or moral attitudes and represents the practically important differentia of religion [2]. Religion is described as a joyous expansion or aspiration of the whole soul, a hunger for the infinite [3]. It adds an enchantment to life that is not rationally deducible, providing a new sphere of power and redeeming an interior world when the external world is unfavorable [5]. Religious happiness is also linked to the satisfaction derived from a religious belief [4].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
[Title Page] To C. P. G. IN FILIAL GRATITUDE AND LOVE PREFACE. This book would never have been written had I not been honored with an appointment as Gifford Lecturer on Natural Religion at the University of Edinburgh. In casting about me for subjects of the two courses of ten lectures each for which I thus became responsible, it seemed to me that the first course might well be a descriptive one on “Man’s Religious Appetites,” and the second a metaphysical one on “Their Satisfaction through Philosophy.” But the unexpected growth of the psychological matter as I…
t one of its functions which no other organ can possibly exert. Surely the same maxim holds good in our present quest. The essence of religious experiences, the thing by which we finally must judge them, must be that element or quality in them which we can meet nowhere else. And such a quality will be of course most prominent and easy to notice in those religious experiences which are most one‐ sided, exaggerated, and intense. Now when we compare these intenser experiences with the experiences of tamer minds, so cool and reasonable that we are tempted to call them philosophical rather…
ar contraction of strenuous manhood, but a joyous expansion or aspiration of the whole soul—there is religion. It is the infinite for which we hunger, and we ride gladly on every little wave that promises to bear us towards it.”(20) But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more commonplace happinesses which we get are “reliefs,” occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic embodiments,…
ligious life than in the moral life, happiness and unhappiness seem to be the poles round which the interest revolves. We need not go so far as to say with the author whom I lately quoted that any persistent enthusiasm is, as such, religion, nor need we call mere laughter a religious exercise; but we must admit that any persistent enjoyment may _produce_ the sort of religion which consists in a grateful admiration of the gift of so happy an existence; and we must also acknowledge that the more complex ways of experiencing religion are new manners of producing happiness, wonderful…
gerness and impulse, it adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. This enchantment, coming as a gift when it does come,—a gift of our organism, the physiologists will tell us, a gift of God’s grace, the theologians say,—is either there or not there for us, and there are persons who can no more become possessed by it than they can fall in love with a given woman by mere word of command. Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subject’s range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When the outward battle is lost,…