Similarly, when one is sensitive to small
differences in any order of sensation, we say he has a low
"difference- threshold"--his mind easily steps over it into the
consciousness of the differences in question. And just so we
might speak of a "pain-threshold," a "fear-threshold," a
"misery-threshold," and find it quickly overpassed by the
consciousness of some individuals, but lying too high in others
to be often reached by their consciousness. The sanguine and
healthy-minded live habitually on the sunny side of their
misery-line, the depressed and melancholy live beyond it, in
darkness and apprehension. There are men who seem to have
started in life with a bottle or two of champagne inscribed to
their credit; whilst others seem to have been born close to the
pain-threshold, which the slightest irritants fatally send them
over.
Does it not appear as if one who lived more habitually on one
side of the pain-threshold might need a different sort of
religion from one who habitually lived on the other? This
question, of the relativity of different types of religion to
different types of need, arises naturally at this point, and will
became a serious problem ere we have done.
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