SOURCE: "The Religious Bearings of a Secular Mind: George Herbert Mead," in The Journal of Religion, Vol. XII, No. 2, April, 1932, pp. 200-13.

In the following essay, Smith relates Mead's religious background to his philosophical ideas.

George Herbert Mead built upon secular foundations a mind and personality and philosophy so wholesomely virile as constantly to seem to exemplify and celebrate in daily living the finest human emotions. To religious men who are at the same time statesmen of the modern spirit he has therefore more to offer than a substantial reminder of what as thinkers and teachers they are up against. He has a formula of life prepotent to engender such emotions as he celebrated in theory and practice. Moreover, he has a doctrine to accompany his formula, a doctrine of altruistic potentiality not unlikely more intelligible to this generation than any yet presented in the name of religion...