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diff --git a/39511-h/39511-h.htm b/39511-h/39511-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b666e77 --- /dev/null +++ b/39511-h/39511-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2563 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion, by James H. Leuba—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .dent {padding-left: 1em;} + + .giant {font-size: 200%} + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .title {text-align: center; font-size: 150%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + .verts {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psychological Origin and the Nature of +Religion, by James H. Leuba + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion + +Author: James H. Leuba + +Release Date: April 22, 2012 [EBook #39511] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, NATURE OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><span class="smcap">Religions Ancient and Modern</span></span></p> + +<h1><small>THE<br /> +PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN<br /> +AND THE NATURE OF<br /> +RELIGION</small></h1> + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="verts"> +<p class="title">RELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN</p> + +<p><b>Animism.</b> By <span class="smcap">Edward Clodd</span>, author of <i>The Story of Creation</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Pantheism.</b> By <span class="smcap">James Allanson Picton</span>, author of <i>The Religion of the +Universe</i>.</p> + +<p><b>The Religions of Ancient China.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Giles</span>, LL.D., Professor of +Chinese in the University of Cambridge.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Ancient Greece.</b> By <span class="smcap">Jane Harrison</span>, Lecturer at Newnham +College, Cambridge, author of <i>Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Islam.</b> By the Rt. Hon. <span class="smcap">Ameer Ali Syed</span>, of the Judicial Committee of His +Majesty’s Privy Council, author of <i>The Spirit of Islam</i> and <i>Ethics of +Islam</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Magic and Fetishism.</b> By Dr. <span class="smcap">A. C. Haddon</span>, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at +Cambridge University.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Ancient Egypt.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">W. M. Flinders Petrie</span>, F.R.S.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.</b> By <span class="smcap">Theophilus G. Pinches</span>, late of +the British Museum.</p> + +<p><b>Early Buddhism.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Rhys Davids</span>, LL.D., late Secretary of The +Royal Asiatic Society.</p> + +<p><b>Hinduism.</b> By Dr. <span class="smcap">L. D. Barnett</span>, of the Department of Oriental Printed +Books and MSS., British Museum.</p> + +<p><b>Scandinavian Religion.</b> By <span class="smcap">William A. Craigie</span>, Joint Editor of the <i>Oxford +English Dictionary</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Celtic Religion.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Anwyl</span>, Professor of Welsh at University +College, Aberystwyth.</p> + +<p><b>The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland.</b> By <span class="smcap">Charles Squire</span>, author of +<i>The Mythology of the British Islands</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Judaism.</b> By <span class="smcap">Israel Abrahams</span>, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge +University, author of <i>Jewish Life in the Middle Ages</i>.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Ancient Rome.</b> By <span class="smcap">Cyril Bailey</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p><b>Shinto, The Ancient Religion of Japan.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. G. Aston</span>, C. M. G.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Ancient Mexico and Peru.</b> By <span class="smcap">Lewis Spence</span>, M.A.</p> + +<p><b>Early Christianity.</b> By <span class="smcap">S. B. Black</span>, Professor at M’Gill University.</p> + +<p><b>The Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">J. H. Leuba</span>.</p> + +<p><b>The Religion of Ancient Palestine.</b> By <span class="smcap">Stanley A. Cook</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Mithraism.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. J. Phythian-Adams</span>.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="title">PHILOSOPHIES</p> + +<p><b>Early Greek Philosophy.</b> By <span class="smcap">A. W. Benn</span>, author of <i>The Philosophy of +Greece, Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Stoicism.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">St. George Stock</span>, author of <i>Deductive Logic</i>, +editor of the <i>Apology of Plato</i>, etc.</p> + +<p><b>Plato.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">A. E. Taylor</span>, St. Andrews University, author of <i>The +Problem of Conduct</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Scholasticism.</b> By Father <span class="smcap">Rickaby</span>, S.J.</p> + +<p><b>Hobbes.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">A. E. Taylor</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Locke.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Alexander</span>, of Owens College.</p> + +<p><b>Comte and Mill.</b> By <span class="smcap">T. Whittaker</span>, author of <i>The Neoplatonists Apollonius +of Tyana and other Essays</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Herbert Spencer.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. H. Hudson</span>, author of <i>An Introduction to Spencer’s +Philosophy</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Schopenhauer.</b> By <span class="smcap">T. Whittaker</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Berkeley.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">Campbell Fraser</span>, D.C.L., LL.D.</p> + +<p><b>Swedenborg.</b> By Dr. <span class="smcap">Sewall</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Nietzsche: His Life and Works.</b> By <span class="smcap">Anthony M. Ludovich</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Bergson.</b> By <span class="smcap">Joseph Solomon</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Rationalism.</b> By <span class="smcap">J. M. Robertson</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Pragmatism.</b> By <span class="smcap">D. L. Murray</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Rudolf Eucken.</b> By <span class="smcap">W. Tudor-Jones</span>.</p> + +<p><b>Epicurus.</b> By Professor <span class="smcap">A. E. Taylor</span>.</p> + +<p><b>William James.</b> By <span class="smcap">Howard V. Knox</span>.</p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">THE<br /> +PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN<br /> +AND THE NATURE OF<br /> +RELIGION</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">By<br /> +<span class="large">JAMES H. LEUBA</span><br /> +BRYN MAWR COLLEGE, U.S.A.</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">LONDON<br /> +CONSTABLE & COMPANY <span class="smcap">Ltd</span><br /> +10 <small>AND</small> 12 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE W.C.2<br /> +1921</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>This little book, the last of a series of similar volumes each containing +an exposition by a recognised authority of one of the many Religions the +world has known, might have been put with as much propriety at the head of +the series, there to show how Religion originated in the mind of man, what +mental powers it presupposes, what is its nature and what its relation to +the non-religious life. But one is, no doubt, better able to take up +profitably these problems after having familiarised oneself with the +several aspects of religious life. Therefore <i>The Psychological Origin and +the Nature of Religion</i> was placed at the end, where it fulfils the +additional purpose of linking the concluded series of Histories of +Religions with a cognate one, now being prepared by the same publishers, +on Ancient and Modern Systems of Philosophy.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p class="title">CONTENTS</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><small>CHAP.</small></td> + <td> </td> + <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Fundamental Nature of Religion</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">Three Types of Behaviour Differentiated</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">Origin of the Ideas of Ghosts, Nature-Beings, and Gods</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">Magic and Religion</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td class="dent">Magic classified,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td class="dent">Two Theses maintained: (1) the probable priority of Magic;<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(2) the independence of Religion from Magic,</span></td> + <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td class="dent">Magic and Religion combine, but never fuse,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td class="dent">What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion?</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> + <td class="dent">Magic and the Origin of Science,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">The Original Emotion of Primitive Religious Life</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td> + <td><span class="smcap">Concluding Remarks on the Nature and the Function of Religion</span>,</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND<br />THE NATURE OF RELIGION</span></p> +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p class="title">THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION</p> + + +<p>The opinions advanced in this essay and the arguments with which they are +supported will be more readily appreciated if the fundamental nature of +Religion is set forth in a few introductory pages.</p> + +<p>The students of Religion have usually been content to describe it either +in intellectual or in affective terms. ‘This particular idea or belief,’ +or ‘this particular feeling or emotion,’ is, they have said, ‘the essence’ +or the ‘vital element’ of Religion. So that most of the hundreds of +definitions which have been proposed fall into two classes. We have, on +the one hand, the definitions of Spencer, Max Müller, Romanes, Goblet +d’Alviella, and others, for whom Religion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> is ‘the recognition of a +mystery pressing for interpretation,’ or ‘a department of thought,’ or ‘a +belief in superhuman beings’; and, on the other, the formulas of +Schleiermacher, the Ritschlian theologians, Tiele, etc., who hold that +Religion is ‘a feeling of absolute dependence upon God,’ or ‘that pure and +reverential disposition or frame of mind we call piety.’ According to +Tiele, ‘the essence of piety, and, therefore, the essence of Religion, is +adoration.’</p> + +<p>The recent advance of psychological science and the increasingly careful +and minute work of ethnographists have tended to discredit these one-sided +conceptions. To-day it has become customary to admit that ‘in Religion all +sides of the personality participate. Will, feeling, and intelligence are +necessary and inseparable constituents of Religion.’ But statements such +as this one do not necessarily imply a correct understanding of the +functional relation of the three aspects of psychic life. One may be +acquainted with the three branches of government—legislative, executive, +and judicial—and nevertheless grossly misunderstand their respective +functions. Pfleiderer, for instance, hastens to add to the sentences last +quoted, ‘Of course we must recognise that knowing and willing are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> here +[in religion] not ends in themselves, as in science and in morality, but +rather subordinate to feeling as the real centre of religious +consciousness.’ Thus feeling reappears as <i>the real centre</i> of religious +consciousness. What the author may well have meant here by ‘centre,’ <i>I</i> +do not know. A similar criticism is applicable to Max Müller and to Guyau. +The latter begins promisingly with a criticism of the one-sided formulas +of Schleiermacher and of Feuerbach, and declares that they should be +combined. ‘The religious sentiment,’ says he, is ‘primarily no doubt a +feeling of dependence. But this feeling of dependence really to give birth +to Religion must provoke in one a reaction—a desire for deliverance.’ +Very good, indeed! But, on proceeding, the reader discovers that the +opinion the book defends is that ‘Religion is the outcome of an effort to +explain all things—physical, metaphysical, and moral—by analogies drawn +from human society, imaginatively and symbolically considered. In short, +it is a universal, sociological hypothesis, mythical in form.’<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a> What is +this but once more the intellectualistic position? Religion arising from +an effort to <i>explain</i>; Religion an <i>hypothesis</i>! It is Herbert<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> Spencer +over again with an additional statement concerning the way in which man +attempts to explain ‘the mystery pressing for interpretation.’</p> + +<p>It must be admitted, however, that several of the more recent definitions +have completely broken with this bad psychology. Among these are those of +J. G. Frazer, of A. Sabatier, and of William James. The first understands +by Religion ‘propitiation, or conciliation of powers superior to man, +which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human +life.’<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a> For A. Sabatier, Religion ‘is a commerce, a conscious and willed +relation into which the soul in distress enters with the mysterious power +on which it feels that it and its destiny depend.’<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a> William James +expresses his mind thus: ‘In broadest and most general terms possible, one +might say that religious life consists in the belief that there is an +unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting +ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious +attitude of the soul. In the ordinary sense of the word, however, no +attitude is accounted religious unless it be grave and serious; the +trifling, sneering attitude of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> Voltaire must be thrown out if we would +not strain the ordinary use of language. Moreover, there must be something +solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate +Religion. If glad, it must not grin or snigger; if sad, it must not scream +or curse. The sallies of a Schopenhauer and a Nietzsche lack the +purgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth. And finally we must +exclude also the chilling reflections of Marcus Aurelius on the eternal +reason, as well as the passionate outcry of Job.’<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a></p> + +<p>But the battle against intellectualistic and affectivistic conceptions of +Religion is not yet won. The recent definitions of Tiele and of Kaftan +show only too clearly how strong the tendency remains to identify Religion +with some feeling or emotion.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>As the amazing discrepancies and contradictions offered by authorised +definitions of Religion arise, in my opinion, primarily from a faulty +psychology, a moment may profitably be devoted to an untechnical statement +of the present teaching of that science upon the relation existing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +between the three acknowledged modes of consciousness—willing, feeling, +and thinking.</p> + +<p>Aristotle characterised man as <i>thinking-desire</i>. In swinging back from +Intellectualism to Voluntarism, modern psychology has accepted the +fundamental truth excellently expressed by the Greek philosopher. ‘Will is +not merely a function which sometimes accrues to consciousness, and is +sometimes lacking; it is an integral property of consciousness.’<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a> Will +without intelligence may be possible; but intelligence without will is +not, not even in the case of so-called disinterested, theoretical +thinking. There is, there can be, no thinking without desire, intention, +or purpose. ‘The one thing that stands out,’ says, for instance, Professor +Dewey, ‘is that thinking is inquiry, and that knowledge as science is the +outcome of systematically directed inquiry.’ Thought absolutely undirected +would be not even a dream—mere meaningless, chaotic atoms of thought. It +is <i>the intention</i>, <i>the purpose</i>, which makes thought what it is; that is +to say, significant. We think because we will. Thought does not exist for +itself; it is the instrument of desire. To discover ways and means of +gratifying proximate or distant desires, needs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> cravings, is the function +of intelligence. The psychologist speaks, therefore, of the <i>instrumental</i> +character of thought, and considers cognition to be a function of conduct. +The mastery of desire over thought is abundantly illustrated in the +history of belief, and nowhere so strikingly as in Religion.</p> + +<p>With regard to the relation of feeling to the will and to the intellect, +it is to be observed that where there is desire for an object, there +liking is present; and, conversely, where there is liking, there actual or +potential desire is felt. As to sentiments and emotions, they involve +ideas and conative elements in addition to sensations and feelings. An +emotion is a reaction, the response of an organism to a situation. It is a +form of action. Aristotle’s characterisation of man is thus seen to be +adequate; it does not leave out the feelings, as it might seem at first. +Thinking-desire includes the affection since it is included in desire. +Every pulse of consciousness is psychically compounded of will, feeling, +and thought. Successive moments can differ one from the other neither in +the absence of one or two of these three constituents, nor in the +essential relation they bear to one another—that is fixed and +unchangeable—but only in the intensity and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> vividness of their respective +components. This, then, is the double teaching of psychology in this +matter:—(1) Will, feeling, and thought enter in some degree into every +moment of consciousness which can be looked upon as an actuality, and not +merely as an abstraction; they are necessary constituents of +consciousness. The unit of conscious life is neither thought, nor feeling, +nor will, but all three in movement towards an object. (2) The will is +primal; or, in other words, conscious life is always oriented towards +something to be secured or avoided immediately or ultimately.</p> + +<p>If, with this conception in mind, we turn to Religion, we shall understand +it to be compounded of will, thought, and feeling, bearing to each other +the relation which belongs to them in every department of life. And it +will, moreover, be clear that a purpose or an ideal, <i>i.e.</i> something to +be attained or maintained, must always be at the root of it. The outcome +of the application of current psychological teaching to religious life is, +then, to lead us to regard Religion as a particular kind of activity, as a +mode or type of behaviour, and to make it as impossible for us to identify +it with a particular emotion or with a particular belief, as it would be +to identify, let us say, family life with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> affection, or to define trade +as ‘belief in the productivity of exchange’; or commerce as ‘greed touched +with a feeling of dependence upon society.’ And yet this last definition +is no less informing and adequate than the far-famed formula of Matthew +Arnold, which I forbear to repeat. We shall, however, have to remember +that Religion is multiform, and that certain ideas, emotions, and purposes +appear in it prominently at certain moments, and other ideas, emotions, +and purposes at other times. But neither prominence nor predominance is +synonymous with ‘essence’ or with ‘vital element.’</p> + +<p>I do not intend, at this stage of our inquiry, to offer a complete +definition of Religion. But I must guard against a possible +misinterpretation. In speaking of Religion as an activity, or as a type of +behaviour, I would not be understood to exclude from it whatever does not +express itself in overt acts, in rites of propitiation, submission, or +adoration. For, just as man’s relations with his fellow-men are not all +directly expressed, or expressible, in actions, so his relations with +gods, or their impersonal substitutes, may not have any visible form; they +may remain purely subjective and none the less exercise a definite guiding +and inspiring influence over his life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>The adjectives <i>passive</i> and <i>active</i> might be used to separate amorphous +from organised Religion, <i>i.e.</i> the feeling-attitude from the behaviour. +‘Passive,’ used in this connection, would mean simply that the person does +not actively seek those advantages the gods might procure, but is content +to be acted upon by them.</p> + +<p><i>Unorganised religiosity</i> must be, it seems, the necessary precursor of +organised Religion; it is its larval stage. But it does not by any means +disappear from society when a system of definite relations with gods, or +with impersonal sources of religious inspiration, has been developed. In +all societies there is always a large number of people who live in the +limbo of organised Religion. They are open to the influence of religious +agents, in which they believe more or less cold-heartedly, without ever +entering into definite and fixed relations with them.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p class="title">THREE TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR DIFFERENTIATED</p> + + +<p>In his dealings with the different kinds of objects or forces with which +he is, or thinks himself, in relation, man has developed three distinct +types of behaviour. A concrete illustration will bring them before us more +forcibly than an abstract characterisation. A stoker in the hold of a +ship, throwing coal into the furnace, represents one of them. His purpose +is to produce propelling energy. The amount of coal he shovels in, +together with the air-draught, the condition of the boiler and other +factors of the same sort, determine, as he understands the matter, the +velocity of the ship. The same man, playing cards of an evening, and +having lost uninterruptedly for a long time, might get up and walk round +the table backwards in order to change his luck. He would then illustrate +a second mode of behaviour. If a storm threatens to sink the ship, our +stoker might be seen falling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> on his knees, lifting his hands to heaven, +and addressing in passionate words an invisible being. These are the three +differentiated kinds of responses he has learned to make, the three ways +by which he endeavours to make use of the forces about him in his struggle +for the preservation and the enrichment of life. We may designate them +as—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. The mechanical behaviour.</p> + +<p>2. The coercitive behaviour, or Magic.</p> + +<p>3. The anthropopathic behaviour, which includes Religion.</p></div> + +<p>The mechanical behaviour differs from the anthropopathic by the absence of +any reference to personal beings. In the sphere in which it obtains, +threats and presents are equally ineffective. It implies instead the +practical—not the theoretical—recognition of a fairly definite and +constant quantitative relation between cause and effect. If science is to +be provided with an ancestor, and only with one, it should be this first +type of behaviour rather than Magic. For, the moment the existence of the +fixed quantitative relations, implicitly acknowledged in the first type of +behaviour, is explicitly recognised, science is born. Magic separates +itself, on the one hand, from the mechanical behaviour by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> absence of +implied quantitative relations, and, on the other hand, from +anthropopathic behaviour by the failure to use means of personal +influence; punishment and reward are just as foreign to Magic as to +mechanical behaviour. As to the anthropopathic type of activity, it +includes the ordinary relations of men with men as well as those with +gods. One’s frame of mind and behaviour when dealing with a human person, +especially if exalted far above us, resembles Religion so closely that it +is proper to place them in the same class.</p> + +<p>Mechanical behaviour and Religion are, obviously, by far the most common +and important modes of activity among civilised peoples, whereas in +primitive culture the coercitive behaviour (Magic) is everywhere in +evidence and Religion may be practically unknown. As one ascends from the +lowest stages of culture, Magic gradually loses official recognition. +Among us, though it leads only a surreptitious existence, it has by no +means lost all influence. The list of magical superstitions that have +retained a hold among us would be found tediously long. A numerous class +of them includes the gambler’s methods of securing luck. So-called +‘religious’ practices may really be magical. The cross, the rosary,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +relics, and other accessories of Religion, acquire in the mind of many +Christians a power of the coercitive type; that is, for instance, the case +when the sign of the cross, of itself, without the mediation of God or +Saint, is felt to have power; or when ‘saying one’s beads’ is held to +possess a curative virtue of the kind ascribed to sacred relics by the +superstitious. Even when the symbolism of the sign of the cross, and the +meaning of the <i>Ave Maria</i> are realised, it happens not infrequently that +signing oneself and saying one’s beads are regarded as acting upon the +Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, or God, in the manner of an incantation <i>i.e.</i> +magically.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>It has been the habit of most students of the origin of Religion to +concern themselves exclusively with the origin of the god-idea, as if +belief in the existence of gods was identical with Religion. They have +ignored its other essential components: the motives or desires and the +feelings, as well as the means by which, in Religion, the gratification of +desire is sought. But the limitation of the problem of origin to that of +the god-idea is not entirely amiss. For there are neither specifically +religious motives, nor specifically religious feelings. Any and every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +human need and longing may, at some stage or other, become a spring of +Religion, and conversely the feelings and emotions met with in any form of +Religion appear also in non-religious experience. As to the practical +means of securing the favour of the gods, it is agreed that they were at +the beginning essentially the same as those men were already in the habit +of using in their relations with their fellow-men. It is the Agent or the +Power with which man thinks himself in relation, and through whom he +endeavours to secure the gratification of his desires, which alone is +distinctive of religious life. And so the origin of the idea of gods, +though not identical with the origin of Religion, is at any rate its +central problem.</p> + +<p>In the preceding remarks, as also in practically all writings on the +origin of Religion, it is assumed that the god-concept precedes, in the +mind of man, the establishment of Religion. This opinion is, as we shall +see, the correct one. But it cannot be taken as a matter of course. +Actions may become established in other ways. Our first problem is to +discover how Religion arose, and what psychological capacities and +conceptions it implies.</p> + +<p>A comparative study of the three modes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> behaviour is, after all, the +shortest way of gaining a satisfactory understanding of the origin of +Religion.</p> + +<p><i>What are the abstract conceptions necessary to the establishment of the +three modes of behaviour?</i>—There is usually little difficulty in +determining what end any particular action is intended to secure. It is +quite otherwise if one wishes to ascertain the nature of the power from +which the desired effect is supposed to proceed. The philosopher, +suffering from the illusion to which his class is subject, is in danger of +imagining the presence of highly abstract notions where much simpler +mental processes actually take place. A comparatively easy way of getting +oneself disentangled from these high-flown interpretations and of +ascertaining what is the intellectual minimum really involved in these +types of behaviour, is to examine them in the least developed men known to +us, or, better still—if they are to be found there—among animals. Let us +accordingly turn for a moment to animal behaviour with the intention of +determining what ideas of power, or of agency, are involved in their modes +of action, and thus take a preliminary step towards the solution of our +problem.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>Apes, dogs, beavers, in fact all the higher animals, show by their +behaviour a ‘working understanding’ of the more common physical forces. +They estimate weight, resistance, heat, distance, etc., and adapt their +actions more or less exactly to these factors when climbing, swinging at +the end of boughs, breaking, carrying, etc. I remember observing a +chimpanzee trying to recover a stick which had fallen through the bars of +his cage and rolled beyond the reach of his arm. He looked around, walked +deliberately to the corner of the cage, picked up a piece of burlap, and +threw the end of it over the stick. Then, pulling gently, he made the +stick roll until near enough for him to get hold of it with his hand. This +ape dealt successfully with physical forces. Towards animals and men, +animal behaviour is quite different. A dog will beg from a man; he will +not beg from a ham suspended out of his reach. Towards animals and men, +animal behaviour is similar to that of men when dealing with invisible +anthropopathic beings.</p> + +<p>One may well believe that the inner experiences of animals differ in these +modes of behaviour as much as their external movements. The feelings and +emotions which appear in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> dog’s intercourse with his master are of the +same species, if not of the same variety, as those felt by man when he +deals with his fellow-men and with superhuman beings. Certain highly +gifted animals feel blame and approbation, independently of physical +punishment or reward, and attach themselves to their masters with a +devoted affection possessing all the marks of altruism. The higher animals +do, then, without any doubt, practise both the mechanical and the +anthropopathic types of behaviour, but they exercise the latter only +towards <i>actually present</i> persons or animals. We shall have to consider +subsequently the significant psychological difference to which this fact +points.</p> + +<p>But, is there no trace in animal life of the coercitive behaviour? I know +of none, though some perplexity might be caused by certain reactions +animals learn under the tuition of man. What shall be said, for instance, +of a dog who has learned to raise its forepaws when he wishes to be +liberated from confinement under circumstances making the person causing +the door to open invisible to him? Is this magical behaviour? There is +certainly no quantitative nor any qualitative relation between lifting up +the forepaws and the opening of a door, neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> is there any visible +continuity between cause and effect. That the dog’s action is not +determined, in this instance, in the same way as that of a magician, +appears when it is observed that whereas the latter would perform the same +magical rite in a great variety of external circumstances, the dog will +seek liberation by lifting its paws only when in the particular cage in +which he has learned the trick, or in one very much like it.<a name='fna_6' id='fna_6' href='#f_6'><small>[6]</small></a> But more +about this presently. It is not to be overlooked that without the +interference of man, the dog would never have learned to perform this +quasi-magical trick. This illustration serves, if no other purpose, at +least to indicate how apparently slight is the impediment which prevents +the higher animals from setting up a magical art.</p> + +<p>It may be a matter for astonishment that two complicated and effective +modes of reaction are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> arrived at by animals in the absence of abstract +ideas about forces. Yet so it is; before any speculation on power, before +any induction or deduction, before any abstract notion of the nature of +spirit and matter, animals have learned to deal quite well with what we +call physical and personal forces. How did they do it? The study under +experimental conditions of the establishment of new reactions in animals +reveals the process very clearly. Imagine a cat shut up in a cage, the +door of which can be opened by pressing down a latch. When weary of +confinement the cat begins to claw, pull, and bite, here, there, and +everywhere. After half an hour, or an hour of this purposive, but +unreasoned, activity, he chances to put his paw upon the latch and +escapes. If again put into the cage, he does not seem to know any better +than before how to proceed. Yet something has been gained by the first +experience. For now he directs his clawing, pulling, and biting more +frequently towards the part of the cage occupied by the latch. Because of +this improvement he finds himself released sooner than the first time. The +repetition of the experiment shows the cat learning to bring his movements +to bear more and more exclusively upon the door or its immediate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +surroundings. Ultimately he will have learned to make just the necessary +movement and no other. In this gradual exclusion of useless movements, the +cat is guided entirely by results. The psycho-physiological endowment +required for acquisitions of this kind involves no abstract ideas but only +(1) the desire to escape; (2) the impulse and ability to perform the +various movements we have named; (3) an indefinite remembrance of the +position occupied when success was achieved, combined with a tendency to +repeat the same movements when in the same situation.</p> + +<p>The method illustrated above by which animals learn to deal with forces in +the midst of which they live has a much wider range of application in +human existence than is generally supposed. Man’s fundamental mode of +learning is also the unreflective, experimental, one in which frequent +blind attempts and chance successes slowly lead to the elimination of +ineffective movements. Would you convince yourself of the vastly +exaggerated rôle ascribed to abstract ideas and to logical processes in +ordinary human behaviour, inquire how ‘power’ is conceived of by those who +use it. What is in the mind of the stoker when he thinks of the power of +coal? What in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> mind of the gambler when he tries to coerce fate? What +in the mind of the necromancer when he summons the shades of spirits? +Nothing definite beyond a knowledge of what is to be done in order to +secure the desired results and the anticipation of these results them +selves. The stoker thinks of what he sees and feels: the coal, in burning, +gives heat; the heat makes the water boil; the steam pushes the +piston-rod, and so forth. Each one of the successive links in the chain is +vaguely thought of by him as striving to bring about the following one. +That is how he understands the coal-power. And what does the ordinary +person know, for instance, about electricity? Simply what is to be done in +order to start the dynamo, light the lamp, switch the current, and what +the effect will be in each case, nothing more. The superstitious person, +whether belonging to a primitive tribe or to the Anglo-Saxon civilisation +of the twentieth century, understands in no other than this practical way +the forces he deals with. I remember the delight shown by an elderly lady +when a brood of swallows fell down our sitting-room chimney. ‘It will +bring luck to the household,’ said she. I did my best, patiently and in +several ways, to ascertain the sort of notion the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> lady had regarding the +nature of the power that was to bring about the fortunate events +predicted, and also to discover her idea of the connection existing +between the fall of the swallows and the exertion of the ‘power’ in our +behalf. I had to come to the conclusion that there was no idea whatsoever +in her mind beyond those expressed by ‘swallows-down-the-chimney’ and +‘happy-events-coming.’ These two ideas were in her mind directly +associated. When I declared my inability to see the causal connection +between the two, she complained of my abnormal critical sense! Nothing +more than the immediate association of an antecedent with its consequent +need be looked for in the mind of most civilised, superstitious persons, +and, of course, nothing more in the mind of a savage. That is sufficient +for practical purposes.</p> + +<p>The words ‘matter’ and ‘spirit’ wield a very considerable influence among +us; what do they mean to most of those who use them? Physical science +ascribes either extension alone, or extension and weight, to physical +substances. Non-material forces are, then, according to science, both +spaceless and weightless. I will venture to affirm that not one educated +person in a thousand is acquainted with this distinction.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Most of the few +who have known it have forgotten it. So that the words ‘matter’ and +‘spirit’ mean different things to the philosopher and to the layman. In +the popular mind, if spirits are not perceptible it is because the senses +are not sufficiently acute. Spirits are here or there, diffused over wide +areas or concentrated in narrow spaces. The average Christian, whatever he +may say to the contrary, is, theoretically speaking, a materialist, and, I +might add, a polytheist. Whatever matter and spirit mean to him, and they +certainly have a substantial meaning, the distinction made by the +philosopher is for him non-existent. The following facts may be of some +interest in this connection. A few years ago, in a conversation with a +shop-clerk, I happened to mention a lead coffin made hermetic with solder. +He was shocked, and objected to a dead body being shut up in a coffin of +that description because it prevented the escape of the soul. This man had +had an ordinary grammar-school education. Here are two quotations taken +from answers of American College students to questions requesting a +description of their idea of God. It should be added that the questions +were given only to classes which had not yet taken up, or were just +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>beginning the study of philosophy. ‘God, to me, is a being of flesh and +blood, for without this form he would seem unnatural and unsympathetic as +our leader.’ (Female, twenty years old.)—‘I think of God as real, actual +flesh and blood and bones, something we shall all see with our eyes some +day.’ (Male, twenty-one years old.) Together with these, and from the same +classes of students, came a great number of very different answers; for +instance this, ‘God is an impersonal being.... I think of him as the +embodiment of natural laws.’ Descartes’ conception may serve as a point of +comparison: ‘What the soul itself was, I either did not stay to consider, +or, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtle, +like wind or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts.’<a name='fna_7' id='fna_7' href='#f_7'><small>[7]</small></a></p> + +<p>If the philosophical distinction between matter and spirit is not +ordinarily made, these terms express none the less a very definite +practical meaning of prime importance: they mark the difference between +forces that are not responsive to psychic influences (desire and emotion, +ethical and æsthetic considerations) and those that are.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>The trial-and-error method which serves to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> establish the efficient modes +of behaviour observed in animals is so far reaching in its possibilities +that one might be tempted to regard it as accounting for the existence of +Magic and of Religion. Were this theory tenable, the origin of the three +modes of human behaviour would have been brought back to one method of +learning, the unreasoning, trial-and-error method. But even a superficial +consideration discovers insuperable obstacles in the way of this +enticingly simple explanation, and compels the admission that magical art +and Religion involve the operation of mental powers not required for the +establishment of the mechanical, and of the non-religious anthropopathic +behaviours.</p> + +<p>The first of the two differences I intend to bring out, is that if a +particular action is to be learned by an animal, the gratification of the +actuating desire must follow immediately, or nearly so, upon the +performance of the successful act, and be frequently repeated at short +intervals; whereas in man, as far as Magic and Religion are concerned, the +results may follow quite irregularly upon the performance, often only long +after, and, not infrequently, not at all. Had not the door opened every +time the cat pressed the latch, but, let us say, only once every ten +times, or, if every time,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> one week after the movement, he would never +have learned to make his escape. No more would he have acquired the trick, +had he not been placed in the cage repeatedly and at short intervals. An +interesting instance of the gradual undoing of a habit in consequence of +the absence of the sensory results for the sake and under the guidance of +which the action had been learned, is reported by Lloyd Morgan.<a name='fna_8' id='fna_8' href='#f_8'><small>[8]</small></a> He had +brought up in his study a brood of ducks. They had had a bath every +morning in a tin tray. After a while, the tray was placed empty in its +accustomed place. The ducks got into it and went through all their +ordinary ablutions. The next day, they again enjoyed the missing water, +but not as long as on the first day. On the third day they gave up the +useless practice of bathing in an empty tray.</p> + +<p>In three days ducklings eliminate a habit which has become useless, +whereas generations after generations of men have gone through +innumerable, time-wasting, often costly and painful ceremonies for results +rarely secured, and, as we think, never directly secured by the magical or +the religious ceremonies themselves. There is here a curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> point of +psychology: animals establish habits under the guidance of immediate +results while man develops the magical art and Religion <i>despite</i> the +usual absence of the results sought after. The very possibility of +deceiving himself reveals the superiority of man over animals, for +self-deception requires a degree of independence from sense-observation, a +capacity of constructive imagination, a susceptibility to auto-suggestion, +not to be found in animals. That the first glimmer of these capacities +should have plunged man in the darkness of primitive Magic and Religion, +and made him the ridiculous fool he appears to be by the side of the +matter-of-fact, intelligent animal is, however, a very striking and +singular fact.</p> + +<p>If the constant and immediate appearance of the desired results does not +seem necessary to the establishment of Magic and Religion, it should not +be thought, however, that these arts are altogether useless. On the +contrary, they are, even independently of the results at which they aim, +of a most substantial value to the cause of individual and social +development. Let it be said first, concerning the expected results, that +they happen more frequently, perhaps, than I may have seemed to imply. +When, for instance, the rain ceremonies are performed during a spell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> of +dry weather, success, more or less distant, always crowns the efforts of +the magicians: the rain does come and the earth does bring forth its +fruits. The ceremonies for the healing of disease are often followed by +the recovery of the patient, however absurd the treatment may have been. +One should not forget, in this connection, the considerable effect of +suggestion upon the credulous savage. Many cures are, no doubt, performed +in this manner by the medicine-man. Davenport, speaking of tribes of Puget +Sound, says: ‘Their cure for disease consists in the members of the cult +shaking in a circle about a sick person, dressed in ceremonial costume. +The religious practitioner waves a cloth in front of the patient, with a +gentle fanning motion, and, blowing at the same time, proceeds to drive +the disease out of the body, beginning at the feet and working upward. The +assistant stands ready to seize the disease with his cloth when it is +driven out of the head! And they are able to boast of many real cures.’<a name='fna_9' id='fna_9' href='#f_9'><small>[9]</small></a> +A psychologist is not inclined to doubt the report of Curr, that among the +aborigines of Victoria persons who knew themselves to have been devoted to +destruction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> with magical ceremonies have pined away and died,<a name='fna_10' id='fna_10' href='#f_10'><small>[10]</small></a> nor +that of Howitt, who, alluding to the habit of the medicine-men of certain +tribes to knock a man insensible in order to remove the kidney fat for +magical purposes, writes, ‘In the Kurnai tribe men have died believing +themselves to have been deprived of their fat.’<a name='fna_11' id='fna_11' href='#f_11'><small>[11]</small></a></p> + +<p>But the intended results form only a part, and that perhaps not the most +important, of the gains to be credited to the practice of Magic and of +Religion. The most noteworthy of these unsought by-products are:—(1) The +gratification of the lust for power. The Magician and the Priest are +mediators between superior, mysterious powers and their fellow-men. The +sense of mastery over, or communion with, these powers, and the respect +and fear with which Magicians and Priests are regarded, are, of +themselves, almost sufficient to keep up these practices.(2) Both these +modes of behaviour, but especially Magic, appeal to the gambling instinct. +All men crave excitement; the savage is no exception. In the daring game +in which the rain-maker or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> disease-healer engages, the high tension +of the gambling-table is, to a certain extent, present. (3) Less obvious, +perhaps, than the preceding advantages, but not less valuable, is the +general mental stimulation induced by Magic and Religion. Magic is the +great social play of the savage. If animal plays serve a highly valuable +purpose in affording practice in sense-observation and +motor-co-ordination, Magic makes its chief call upon the imagination; in +this consists one of its most far-reaching values. It becomes a training +for the achievement of those higher mental syntheses requiring the +momentary disregard of the actual sense-impressions, from which it is so +difficult to liberate oneself, in behalf of the accumulated experience of +a whole life.</p> + +<p>The second objection to the assumption that the trial-and-error method +could have led to the establishment of magical and religious habits arises +from the inability of animals to act towards unperceived objects as if +they were actually present. A dog never welcomes by gambols or licks the +hand of an absent friend, while Religion, and at times Magic, show +primitive man in more or less systematic relations with powers he has +never sensed. When the Shaman draws lines upon the sand, describes +various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> curves with his arms, utters sundry incantations, he does not +address a power he perceives, nor even one he has really seen, although he +may believe that he, or some one else, has seen it. That animals are moved +to action by memories of past perceptions, is, of course, not open to +doubt. Their whole life is a long testimony to that ability. Any one will +recall instances of chains of concerted actions indicating clearly, on the +part of some one of the higher animals, domesticated or wild, the +anticipation of a particular person, object, or event. What they never do, +is to behave as if the remembered object was really present, though not +sensed. H. Spencer, discussing adversely A. Comte’s opinion that +fetichistic conceptions are formed by the higher animals, relates the +following observation concerning a retriever who had learned for herself +to perform an ‘act of propitiation.’ She had associated the fetching of +game with the pleasure of the person to whom she brought it, and so, +‘after wagging her tail and grinning, she would perform this act of +propitiation as nearly as practicable in the absence of a dead bird. +Seeking about, she would pick up a dead leaf, a bit of paper, a twig, or +other small object, and would bring it with renewed manifestations of +friendliness. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> kindred state of mind it is which, I believe, prompts +the savage to certain fetichistic observances.’<a name='fna_12' id='fna_12' href='#f_12'><small>[12]</small></a> So far the dog could +go, but she could not have imagined the presence of an unseen being and +behaved towards him in the same manner. Another significant point is that +the absent objects towards which animals may direct their actions are +always, so far as one may judge, identical with those actually sensed by +them at some time, <i>i.e.</i> their behaviour never shows that they have +transformed, imaginatively, objects with which their senses have made them +familiar. Whereas man can not only believe in the presence of unseen +objects, but he can also imagine beings never actually sensed by him, and +behave towards them according to the traits and capacities with which he +has endowed them.</p> + +<p>There are observations on record which compel the qualification of the +assertion, I may have seemed to make in the preceding paragraph, of a +clean break between man and animals. Certain dogs are thrown into +paroxysms of fear by peals of thunder, and run into hiding. Darwin relates +how his dog, ‘full grown and very sensible,’ growled fiercely and barked +whenever an open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> parasol standing at some distance was moved by a slight +breeze. He is of the opinion that the dog ‘must have reasoned to himself, +in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent +cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no +stranger had a right to be on his territory.’<a name='fna_13' id='fna_13' href='#f_13'><small>[13]</small></a> Romanes, in a short and +interesting paper entitled ‘Fetichism in Animals,’<a name='fna_14' id='fna_14' href='#f_14'><small>[14]</small></a> after reporting the +preceding illustration, relates this observation touching a remarkably +‘intelligent,’ ‘pugnacious,’ and ‘courageous’ dog. ‘The terrier [Skye] in +question, like many other dogs, used to play with dry bones, by tossing +them in the air, throwing them to a distance, and generally giving them +the appearance of animation, in order to give himself the ideal pleasure +of worrying them. On one occasion, therefore, I tied a long and fine +thread to a dry bone, and gave him the latter to play with. After he had +tossed it about for a short time, I took an opportunity, when it had +fallen at a distance from him, and while he was following it up, of gently +drawing it away from him by means of the long and invisible thread. +Instantly his whole demeanour changed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> The bone which he had previously +pretended to be alive, now began to look as if it really were alive, and +his astonishment knew no bounds. He first approached it with nervous +caution as Mr. Spencer describes, but as the slow receding motion +continued, and he became quite certain that the movement could not be +accounted for by any residuum of the force which he had himself +communicated, his astonishment developed into dread, and he ran to conceal +himself under some articles of furniture, there to behold at a distance +the uncanny spectacle of a dry bone coming to life.’ Certain instances of +instinctive fear of harmless things may help to interpret the preceding +observations. G. Stanley Hall mentions a little girl who would scream when +she saw feathers floating through the air. To keep another child in a +room, it was sufficient to place a feather in the keyhole.<a name='fna_15' id='fna_15' href='#f_15'><small>[15]</small></a></p> + +<p>Shall we hold that these animals interpreted the unusual experiences + +reported above as the work of hidden beings of the kind known to them, or +shall we agree rather with Lloyd Morgan, Romanes, Spencer, and others, in +thinking that their behaviour indicated merely surprise, astonishment, and +fear at the unexpected movements of familiar objects? That explanation is +probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> sufficient. The failure of an object to fit in with the +psycho-physiological attitude of expectation which past experience has +taught us to assume brings about the sudden disturbance called surprise, +astonishment, or fear. It is in substance what would happen to any person +if, on opening his bed in the dark, his hands came in contact with some +object concealed in it. Personalisation of the unexpected object is not +necessary to cause fright. And yet, who shall say that in none of these +instances is there anything corresponding to the anthropomorphic +interpretation of natural event so common among men of low culture? Does +not the growling of Darwin’s dog indicate as much? It would seem to me an +unjustifiably dogmatic assertion to affirm that no animal can think of +thunder as caused by a being like those with which his senses have made +him familiar. Were he to do so, he would do as the savage who projects his +ordinary notion of animated beings behind inanimate phenomena. Creative +imagination is not any more required for such an interpretation than for +the belief in survival after death when it is suggested by apparitions in +dreams or trances. It is quite in point, at any rate, to affirm that man +and beasts are much nearer to each other, regarding the possibility of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +interpreting animistically certain striking natural events, than most +people are willing to admit.</p> + +<p>The most significant difference between men and animals is not found in +the fact that animals may be unable to interpret animistically certain +striking natural phenomena—an opinion open to question—but in their +inability to <i>fix</i> by means of communicable signs any fleeting animistic +interpretation which might chance to cross their mind. Without the +advantage conferred by speech, upon even the lowest savages, to hold, +clarify, keep alive, and bring to fruition impressions of this evanescent +nature, I do not see how a stable belief in animism could have been +established. The decisive rôle played by language appears forcibly when +one considers the part it takes in introducing dream experiences into +waking life. The baffling evanescence of dreams caught sight of on +awakening is familiar to every one. Unless one succeeds in putting them in +linguistic form they are soon completely lost; verbal expression makes +them part and parcel of our mental possessions.</p> + +<p>The mental differences between man and the higher animals to which the +presence of Magic and Religion is to be referred, are not in themselves +startling, however considerable their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>consequences may have been. +Psychological analysis leaves absolutely no standing ground to those who +insist upon interpreting the advent of Religion as the manifestation of +essentially new kinds of powers, of the birth of a ‘spiritual life,’ for +instance. We hope to have made clear that the use of this term in this +connection constitutes a misrepresentation of the facts.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p class="title">ORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF GHOSTS, NATURE-BEINGS AND GODS</p> + + +<p>Every savage tribe known to us has already passed beyond the naturistic +stage of development. The living savages believe in ghosts, in spirits, +and all of them, perhaps, also in particular spirits elevated to the +dignity of gods. Whence these ideas of unseen personal beings? They may be +traced to four independent sources.</p> + +<p>(1) <i>States of temporary loss of consciousness—trances, swoons, sleep, +etc.</i>—seem in themselves sufficient to suggest to ignorant observers the +existence of ‘doubles,’ <i>i.e.</i> of beings dwelling within the body, +animating it, and able to absent themselves from it for a time or +permanently. These alleged beings have been called ‘ghosts’ or ‘souls.’ +The belief in a second life of the dead would also spring easily enough +from these observations.</p> + +<p>(2) <i>Apparitions in sleep, in the hallucinations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> of fever, of insanity, +etc.</i>, of persons still living or dead, seem also sufficient to lead to a +belief in ghosts and in survival after death.</p> + +<p>These two distinct classes of facts have no doubt co-operated in the +production of the belief in ghosts, so that I shall refer to them in the +sequel as the double origin of the ghost-belief. Echos, and reflections in +water and in polished surfaces may have played a subsidiary rôle in +establishing, or confirming, the belief in ghosts and in spirits.</p> + +<p>(3) When discussing animal behaviour, we saw reasons to admit that a +fleeting personification of objects moving in an unusual way might be +within the mental possibilities of the higher animals. The third +independent source of belief in unseen personal agents is <i>the spontaneous +personification of striking natural phenomena, storms, tornadoes, thunder, +sudden spring-vegetation, etc.</i> The report of Tanner<a name='fna_16' id='fna_16' href='#f_16'><small>[16]</small></a> that one night +Picheto (a North American Chief), becoming much alarmed at the violence of +a storm, got up, offered some tobacco to the thunder and entreated it to +stop, should not excite surprise even though it should refer to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> the +lowest savage. There is, of course, a long way between the sudden, +temporary, and isolated personification of a natural phenomenon and the +stable and generalised belief in the existence of personal agents behind +visible nature. What we mean to assert here is merely that the +systematised belief can have arisen out of the impulsive and occasional +personification of awe-striking and frightening spectacles.</p> + +<p>(4) Many persons have observed with surprise the apparition in young +children of the problem of creation. A child notices a curiously-shaped +stone, and asks who made it. He is told that it was formed in the stream +by the water. Then, suddenly, he throws out, in quick succession, +questions that are as much exclamations of astonishment as queries, ‘Who +made the stream, who the mountain, who the earth?’ <i>The necessity of a +Maker is, no doubt, borne in upon the savage at a very early time</i>, not +upon every member of a tribe, but upon some peculiarly gifted individual, +who imparts to his fellows the awe-striking idea of a mysterious, +all-powerful Creator. The form under which the Creator is imagined is, of +course, derived from the beings with which his senses have made the savage +familiar.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>In what chronological order did the three kinds of unseen beings appear? +Which was first: ghosts, nature-beings, or creator? Our present knowledge +does not provide an answer to this query. But this one may venture to +affirm: they need not have appeared in the same order everywhere. It is +conceivable that among certain groups of men the idea of a creator first +attained clearness and influence, while elsewhere the idea of ghosts +implanted itself before the others.</p> + +<p>A question of greater importance to the student of the origin of Religion +is that of the lineage of the first god or gods, <i>i.e.</i> of the first +unseen, personal agents with whom men entered into relations definite and +influential enough to deserve the name Religion. Are they descended from +ghosts, or are they nature-beings, or creators? I say, ‘descended’ from +ghosts, for ghosts have not, originally, all the qualities required of a +divinity. They are at first hardly greater than men, though somewhat +different. They must be magnified and differentiated from human beings if +they are to generate the religious attitude. A comparison of the +double-source of the ghost-belief with the source of the belief in +nature-beings suggests the following remarks.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Phenomena belonging to +classes one and two necessarily lead to a belief in unseen <i>man-like</i> +beings. The familiar relation of ghosts with the tribe, and also the great +number of them, offer a definite resistance to the process of deification. +It is otherwise with the personified nature-powers, for they are not +necessarily, like ghosts, mere dead men in another life. In conceiving of +an agent animating nature, the imagination is not limited to the thought +of a particular human being, not even of a human being at all. The thunder +might be the voice of some monstrous animal. The surpassing variety, the +magnitude and magnificence of nature, stimulate the imagination into more +original activity than the apparitions of men and women in dreams or in +trances. For these reasons, if the choice was between ghosts and +nature-beings, it would be advisable to favour the hypothesis that the +first gods were derived from the spontaneous personification of striking +natural events. But the idea of a creator must take precedence of ghosts +and nature-beings in the making of Religion, for a world-creator possesses +from the first the greatness necessary to the object of a cult, and the +creature who recognises a creator can hardly fail to feel his relationship +to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> A Maker cannot, moreover, be an enemy to those who issue from +him, but must, it seems, appear as the Great Ancestor, benevolently +inclined towards his offspring. Incomparable greatness, creative power, +benevolence, are as many attributes favourable to the appearance of a +Religion in the high sense which, as we shall see, W. Robertson Smith +gives to the word.</p> + +<p>The order in which appeared the three kinds of unseen agents is of +considerable importance, for if, for instance, the ghost-belief was first, +it seems unavoidable that ghosts should have been projected into natural +objects and used to explain natural phenomena. It is a task for the +historian of Religion to trace the rise of the idea of God in its several +possible sources, and to indicate in each particular case the contribution +of each source to the making of the earliest gods.</p> + +<p><i>Belief in the existence of unseen, anthropopathic beings is not +Religion.</i> It is only when man enters into relation with them that +Religion comes into existence. The passage from the animistic +interpretation of nature, or from the mere belief in ghosts, or in a +creator, to Active Religion is not to be taken as a matter of course, for +it may require on the one hand, as we have said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> a transformation of the +man-like or animal-like unseen beings, such as will make entering into +relation with them possible and worth while, and, on the other, the +invention of ways and means to that end, or, at least, the adaptation of +old habits of behaviour to the requirements of the new relation. The +slowness with which our modern ritual has been envolved should be +sufficient to undeceive any one inclined to think that the establishment +of the initial religious rites presented no difficulty.</p> + +<p>That a belief in ghosts may coincide with only a pre-religious stage of +culture is not a mere supposition. There are tribes in South-East +Australia among which it is customary to make fires in the graves, and to +place in them water, food, and weapons. Yet we are told that these people +have no system of propitiation or of worship. It appears probable that in +certain instances of this sort, the only motive of action is benevolence. +They wish the ghost to be able to warm himself, eat, drink, and defend +himself against enemies. At times, however, the promptings of fear are +discernible, as, for instance, when the legs of the corpse are broken in +order that he may not roam at night. It seems that originally ghosts are +not endowed with sufficient mischievous or benevolent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> power to cause the +appearance and the organisation of propitiatory reactions. But even when +some particular ghost or spirit has been fabled into awe-striking +magnitude, systematic worship is not necessarily present. How far the +deification process can go without bringing with it active relations, is +well shown in the case of the ‘Father’ of the tribes of South-East +Australia. Different tribes call him by different names, <i>Daramulun</i>, +<i>Baiame</i>, etc. Howitt tells us that Daramulun is an anthropomorphic, +supernatural being who used to dwell upon the earth, but now lives in a +land beyond the sky. He can make himself visible, and then appears in the +form of an old man of the Australian race. ‘He is imagined as the ideal of +those qualities which are, according to their standard, virtues worthy of +being imitated. Such would be a man who is skilful in the use of weapons +of offence and defence, all-powerful in magic, but generous and liberal to +his people; who does no injury nor violence to any one, yet treats with +severity any breaches of custom or of morality. Such is, according to my +knowledge of the Australian tribes, their ideal of the Head-man, and +naturally it is that of the Biamban, the master of the sky-country.’ Now, +despite their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> belief in this definite, powerful, and benevolent Father, +‘there is not any worship of him’; but ‘the dances round the figure of +clay and the invocating of his name by the medicine-men, certainly might +have led up to it.’<a name='fna_17' id='fna_17' href='#f_17'><small>[17]</small></a> For my part, I see here an instance of what I have +called <i>Passive Religion</i>. The point of special interest to us is that +nothing more than these simplest of rites co-exists with the belief in a +being so definite and elevated so high above ordinary spirits and above +man as is this All-Father of the Australians.</p> + +<p>It seems highly probable that for generations the relations maintained +with ghosts, nature-beings, and creators, by primitive man were too +occasional and unofficial to permit of our regarding them as anything more +than steps preliminary to the formation of Positive Religion.</p> + +<p>Rites and ceremonies serve, in addition to their ostensible purpose, to +complete the work of fixation begun by language. It is only when a belief +has become embodied in a system of actions that it has attained the full +measure of reality and durability of which it is capable.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p class="title">MAGIC AND RELIGION</p> + + +<p>In the preceding section, I have compared animal with human behaviour in +an attempt to single out the psychological traits whose presence in man +accounts for his possession of Religion and of Magic. I must now complete +the characterisation and the account of the origin of these two higher +types of behaviour.</p> + +<p>The relation obtaining between Magic and Religion has been variously +understood. Most authorities hold that Magic preceded Religion, and that +they are in some way genetically related. In the following pages we shall +argue in support of two opinions: (1) the primary forms of Magic probably +antedated Religion; (2) whether Magic antedated Religion or not, Religion +arose independently of Magic; they are different in principle and +independent in origin.</p> + +<p>But the word Magic includes an almost endless number of practices so far +quite inadequately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> classified. We cannot go on without first marking out +at least its more prominent groups. And since the common bond of these +practices is neither a common purpose (Magic serves to gratify every kind +of desire), nor a common method (the magician’s methods are literally +numberless), but the non-personal nature of the power pressed into +service, we shall make use of this last element as a means of +classification. Three groups are thus obtained.</p> + +<p><b>Magic classified.</b>—<i>Class 1</i> is characterised by the absence of any idea +of a power belonging to the operator or his instrument and passing from +either one of them to the object of the magical art. To this class belong +many instances of so-called sympathetic Magic;<a name='fna_18' id='fna_18' href='#f_18'><small>[18]</small></a> a good many of the +taboo customs; most charms; the casting of lots, when a spirit or god is +not supposed to guide the cast; most modern superstitions, those, for +instance, regarding Friday, the number thirteen, horse-shoes, planting +when the tide is coming in. In these instances the effect is thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +as following upon the alleged cause, without the mediation of a force +conceived as passing, let us say, from the warm arrow to the wound and +irritating it. The idea of power is reduced here to its least possible +complexity.</p> + +<p><i>Class 2.</i> A power, not itself personal, is supposed to belong to the +magician, to his instrument, or to particular substances, and to pass +into, or act upon, the object. Howitt relates how some native Australians +begged him not to carry in a bag containing quartz crystals a tooth, +extracted at an initiation ceremony. They thought that if he did so, the +evil power of the crystals would enter the tooth and so injure the body to +which it had belonged.<a name='fna_19' id='fna_19' href='#f_19'><small>[19]</small></a> The potency of many charms is of this nature, +while others have a fetichistic significance, <i>i.e.</i> they involve the +action of spirits, and so do not belong to this class. Rubbing oneself +with, or eating the fat, or another portion, of a brave and strong man in +order to make oneself courageous and powerful, belongs also to this second +class, together with most instances of contagion-magic. So does, usually, +the power defined in the following passage and the similar powers believed +in and used in other than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Melanesian populations: ‘That invisible power +which is believed by the natives to cause all such effects as transcend +their conception of the regular course of nature, and to reside in +spiritual beings, whether in the spiritual part of living men or in the +ghosts of the dead, being imparted to them, to their names and to various +things that belong to them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of +all sorts, is that generally known as <i>mana</i>.... No man, however, has this +power of his own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings, +ghosts or spirits; he cannot be said, as a spirit can, to be <i>mana</i> +himself ... he can be said to have mana.’<a name='fna_20' id='fna_20' href='#f_20'><small>[20]</small></a></p> + +<p><i>Class 3.</i> Perhaps a special class should be made of the cases in which +the magician feels as if his will-effort was the efficient factor. This is +often true of spells, of incantations, and of solemn curses. A man +addressing the magical spear, saying, ‘Go straight, go straight and kill +him,’ feels no doubt that, somehow, by the words in which quivers his +whole soul he directs the spear on its errand of death.</p> + +<p>Though Magic does not make an anthropopathic appeal it may, and frequently +does, bring to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> bear its peculiar coercitive virtue upon anthropopathic +beings. It aims then at compelling souls, spirits or gods, into doing the +operator’s will, or in preventing them from doing their own. In +necromancy, spirits are summoned by means of spells and incantations. In +old Egypt the art of dealing coercitively with spirits and gods reached a +high development. Maspero, speaking of a strange belief regarding names, +says, ‘when the god in a moment of forgetfulness or of kindness had taught +them what they wanted [the sacred names], there was nothing left for him +but to obey them.’<a name='fna_21' id='fna_21' href='#f_21'><small>[21]</small></a> At Eleusis, it was not the name but the intonation +of the voice of the magician which produced the mysterious results.<a name='fna_22' id='fna_22' href='#f_22'><small>[22]</small></a> +But whether Magic acts upon personal or impersonal objects, its effective +power is ever impersonal.</p> + +<p>I would not give the impression in this attempt at classification, that +the conceptions of the savage are clear and definite. I hold them to be, +on the contrary, hazy and fluid. What appears to him impersonal one moment +may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> suddenly assume the characteristics of a spirit. <i>Mana</i>, for +instance, although usually an impersonal force stored into plants, stones, +animals or men, assumes at times truly personal traits; it becomes the god +himself. One should not be surprised to meet with cases that fall between +rather than in the classes, for the sharp lines of demarcation it suits us +to draw are not often found in nature.</p> + +<p>And now we return to our two theses.</p> + +<p><b>1. The Probable Priority of Magic.</b>—Certain historical facts might be held +to support the pre-religious origin of Magic. As one descends from the +higher to the lower social levels, Religion dwindles and Magic grows. In +the lowest societies of which we have extensive and accurate knowledge, +the Central Australian tribes, Religion is represented by mere rudiments, +whereas Magic is everywhere and always in evidence. I have had occasion in +a preceding section to quote Howitt with regard to the slight rôle played +by Religion among the South-East Australians. The presence of Religion in +the lives of the tribes inhabiting the central portions of Australia is +still less obvious. Frazer reflects the views of Spencer and Gillen, of +Howitt, and probably of every recent first-hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> student of that country, +when he writes: ‘Among the aborigines of Australia, the rudest savages as +to whom we possess accurate information, Magic is universally practised, +whereas Religion, in the sense of a propitiation or conciliation of the +higher powers, seems to be nearly unknown. Roughly speaking, all men in +Australia are magicians, but not one is a priest; everybody fancies he can +influence his fellows or the course of nature by sympathetic magic, but +nobody dreams of propitiating gods by prayer and sacrifice.’<a name='fna_23' id='fna_23' href='#f_23'><small>[23]</small></a> If we may +trust our knowledge of other savages, the general fact thus affirmed of +the native Australians holds good with regard to every other uncivilised +tribe.</p> + +<p>But as the least civilised of existing tribes are far from being +‘primitive’ in the true sense of the word, it could be argued that Magic +is, after all, the outcome of the corruption of a primitive Religion, of +which almost nothing remains in the savage tribes of the present day. And +so we shall have to rest our case not upon historical evidences, but upon +considerations regarding the psychological nature of Magic and Religion, +and upon analogies we may discover between them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> and certain facts +observed in children and in adults of uncivilised races.</p> + +<p>In his attempt to support the belief in the priority of Magic, Frazer, who +has put every student of Religion in his debt by his monumental work, +affirms its greater simplicity when compared with Religion. The opinion +itself is tenable, but the defence of it, made as it is from the +standpoint of the old English associationism, is unfortunately worthless. +‘Magic,’ he tells us, ‘is nothing but a mistaken application of the very +simplest and most elementary process of the mind, namely, the association +of ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity,’ while ‘Religion assumes +the operation of conscious or personal agents, superior to man, behind the +visible screen of nature. Obviously the concept of personal agent is more +complex than a simple recognition of the similarity or contiguity of +ideas.... The very beasts associate the ideas of things that are like each +other or that have been found together in their experience.... But who +attributes to the animals a belief that the phenomena are worked by a +multitude of invisible animals or by one enormous and prodigiously strong +animal behind the scenes?’<a name='fna_24' id='fna_24' href='#f_24'><small>[24]</small></a> It is undoubtedly true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> that the mind of +man tends to pass from an object to others like it, or experienced at the +same time, but this psychological fact does not in itself account for +Magic. The mind of animals is regulated in a similar manner. In +spring-time the sight of a feather makes the bird think of nest-building, +and the smell and sight of his master’s coat brings the master to the +dog’s mind. Yet animals do not practise the magical art. This fact should +be sufficient to make one realise the insufficiency of ‘a simple +[mistaken] recognition of the similarity and contiguity of ideas’ as an +explanation of the origin of Magic. An animal might observe the +colour-likeness between carrots and jaundice (not, however, unless +practical dealings with them had attracted his attention to the colour), +and ‘coat’ and ‘master’ might follow each other in a dog’s mind. But in +order to treat the coat as he would the master, and in order to eat +carrots or give them to be eaten for the cure of jaundice, there is +required, in addition to the association, the belief that whatever is done +to the coat will be suffered by the master, and that the eating of carrots +will cure the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> disease. It is the existence of these ideas with their +motor and affective values and of their dynamic connection which makes +Magic possible in beings subject to the laws of association. This +fundamental difference between mere association of ideas and the essential +mental processes involved in Magic, Frazer has completely overlooked. The +difference may be further illustrated by the instance of a dog biting in a +rage the stick with which he is being beaten. He is indeed doing to the +stick what he would like to do to the man. But in attacking the stick he +does not conceive that, although the stick is not the man, the injury done +to it will hurt the man. His action is blindly impulsive, while the form +of Magic in question involves generalisations and other mental processes +not expressed by the laws of association.<a name='fna_25' id='fna_25' href='#f_25'><small>[25]</small></a></p> + +<p>If magical actions cannot be deduced from the principle of association, +they can at least be classified according to the kind of association they +illustrate. For, although the various ideas brought together in Magic, in +a relation of cause and effect, are frequently said to have come together +by ‘chance,’ some of the conditions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> under which they have in fact become +connected are expressed in the universal laws of association, namely, +association by similarity or contrast, by contiguity or spatial +opposition, and by emotional congruity or disparity. Whenever magical acts +have been classified, it has been according to the principle of +association.<a name='fna_26' id='fna_26' href='#f_26'><small>[26]</small></a> But every kind of activity involving mental operations +falls in some of its relations under the laws of association, hence the +relative unfruitfulness of these classifications, hence also our attempt +at grouping magical practices according to a factor of greater +significance, namely, the nature of the power they involve.</p> + +<p><b>2. The Independence of Religion from Magic.</b>—The following psychological +arguments appear to me to go a long way towards proving that <i>magical +behaviour has had an origin independent of the animistic</i><a name='fna_27' id='fna_27' href='#f_27'><small>[27]</small></a> <i>belief</i>, and +that some of its forms, at least, antedated it, and therefore also +Religion:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>(<i>a</i>) The absorbing interest found by young children in the <i>use</i> of +things, and their complete indifference at first to the <i>modus operandi</i>, +point, it would seem, to a stage in human development at which the +explanation of things is not yet desired. It is well known that long +before a child asks ‘how?’ he wearies his guardians with the question, +‘what for?’<a name='fna_28' id='fna_28' href='#f_28'><small>[28]</small></a> He wants to know what things are good for, and, in +particular, what <i>he</i> can do with them before he cares for an +understanding of their origin, and of their mechanism. This keen interest +in the production of results, this curiosity about the practical meaning +of things, is apparently quite independent of any abstract idea of power. +Since the child passes through a pre-interpretative stage, may we not +admit a corresponding period in racial development during which no +explanatory soul-theory, no animistic philosophy, is entertained? A mental +attitude such as this would make Religion impossible, while it would +provide the essential condition for a Magic of our first class.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) Children—and adult savages resemble children in many respects—like +to amuse <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>themselves by setting up prohibitions and backing them up with +threats of punishment. ‘If you do this,’ they will say, ‘that will happen +to you.’ The ‘this’ and the ‘that’ have usually no logical connection with +each other, neither is there in the mind of the child any thought of a +particular kind of power, or agent, meting out the punishment. This kind +of play is strikingly similar to a large number of magical practices. Can +it not be regarded as the prototype of most taboo customs? In taboo there +is usually no logical and no qualitative relation between the prohibition +and the punishment. Neither is there, ordinarily, any notion of a +particular agent carrying out the threat. It involves, it seems, nothing +more than the assumption of a causal connection between two facts brought +together by ‘chance’ association under the pressure of a desire for food +or success at war, or for the enforcement of a rule of conduct.<a name='fna_29' id='fna_29' href='#f_29'><small>[29]</small></a> The +punishment announced is anything on the efficacy of which one may choose +to rely. In Madagascar conjugal fidelity is enforced by the threat that +the betrayed husband will be killed or wounded in the war;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> among the +indigenous tribes of Sarawak, the belief is that the camphor obtained by +the men in the jungle will evaporate if the women are unfaithful during +the absence of their husbands, while in East Africa, the husband would, in +the same eventuality, be killed or hurt by the elephant he is hunting.<a name='fna_30' id='fna_30' href='#f_30'><small>[30]</small></a> +The high sanction which the requirements of social life give to beliefs of +this sort is readily understood.</p> + +<p>(<i>c</i>) It is a fact of common observation that in passionate moments, men +of every degree of culture act, in the absence of the object of their +passion, more or less as if it was present. A man grinds his teeth, shakes +his fist, growls at the absent enemy; a mother presses to her breast and +talks fondly to the departed babe. The pent-up motor tendencies must find +an outlet. To restrain every external sign of one’s desires or intentions +when under great emotional excitement is unendurable pain. By the sick-bed +of one beloved, one must do something, however useless to him. Who shall +say that we do not have in this natural tendency the origin of the large +class of magical acts represented by sticking pins into, or burning, an +effigy? The less a person is under the control of reason, the more likely +is he, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> only to yield to promptings of this order, but also to be +seduced by his wish into a belief in their efficacy.</p> + +<p>If any one finds it difficult to admit that the savage can so easily be +deceived, I would direct his attention to the well-known instances of +children’s self-deceptions. Most of them behave, at a certain age, as if +their dolls were alive and, to all appearances, there are some moments +when they think so. What they think at other moments is another matter. We +need not suppose that the savage cannot take, at times, a critical +attitude and perhaps undeceive himself. It is sufficient that at other +moments, when under the pressure of needs or in the excitement +accompanying ceremonies of considerable social significance or of much +personal importance, he should be able to assume the attitude of the +believer. The behaviour of certain mentally deranged persons throws some +light on this point. Such a person may believe that his hands are always +dirty and be constantly washing them. If reasoned with, he may perhaps be +convinced that they cannot be dirty. Yet a few seconds later he will +exclaim, ‘But I feel they are dirty,’ and return to the wash-basin. The +savage is under the control of his impulses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> and feelings to a degree +approaching that of the person instanced. In this connection, the effect +of repetition, and of the tribal sanction obtained by magical customs, +should not be overlooked. They tend to make doubt and criticism next to +impossible.</p> + +<p>What need is there in cases of this kind to introduce a middle term +between the actions of the magician and their expected effect? None +whatsoever. The thought of an efficient agent or power passing out of the +magician or of his instrument to work upon the victim is no necessary part +of this type of Magic.</p> + +<p>(<i>d</i>) The belief at the root of a great variety of magical practices, that +‘like’ produces ‘like,’ may have arisen in still other ways than the one +just indicated. Nothing is more common than the invisible passage of +things, be they heat, cold, light, thunderbolt, odours, diseases, etc., +from one person or object to another, either by contact or through space. +The frequent instances of diseases spreading by infection among men, +animals, and vegetables, seem in themselves sufficient to suggest the +belief that ‘like’ produces ‘like.’ The idea of contagion must have +appeared very early indeed. Now, as the savage is quite unable to +distinguish between the different agencies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> involved in the variety of +experiences of this sort, he cannot draw the line between the ‘likes’ that +really produce ‘likes’ and those that do not; hence his very strange +expectations. This class of Magic also is independent of the conception of +an agent effecting the connection between the objects related as cause and +effect.</p> + +<p>Since Tylor wrote his memorable work, the doctrine of animism has become +classical. This passage from <i>Primitive Culture</i>,<a name='fna_31' id='fna_31' href='#f_31'><small>[31]</small></a> ‘What men’s eyes +behold is but the instrument to be used, or the material to be shaped, +while behind it there stands some prodigious but half-human creature, who +grasps it with his hands or blows it with his breath,’ expresses, no +doubt, fairly correctly, a very early philosophy of life. I would not +object even to its being termed the earliest philosophy, provided it be +granted that the progress of the human race was already well under way +when it appeared. But when it is assumed, as it is by many, that the +animistic conception of nature is necessary to, and antedates, the +establishment of Magic, I must dissent and affirm that a very large number +of magical practices neither presuppose, nor in any way involve, a belief +in animism, and that there are good reasons for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> considering them +original, <i>i.e.</i> not corruptions of practices primitively implying that +belief. So much I trust to have shown in the preceding pages.<a name='fna_32' id='fna_32' href='#f_32'><small>[32]</small></a></p> + +<p>I do not in the least deny that some of the magical practices in existence +are derived from actions of a different character. Many of the +‘superstitions’ of civilised countries have had a long history. Several of +the marriage customs; for instance, the cutting of the cake by the bride, +and the lifting of the bride over the threshold, are vestiges of actions +once necessary or useful.<a name='fna_33' id='fna_33' href='#f_33'><small>[33]</small></a> But it would be absurd to conclude from the +existence of derived magical practices that Magic, as a whole, is to be +accounted for on a theory of ‘lapsed intelligence.’</p> + +<p><b>Magic and Religion combine but never fuse.</b>—When ghosts and nature-beings +have become mental possessions of the savage, one may expect the sphere of +Magic to extend so as to include these unseen, mysterious beings. Why +should not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the magical power take effect upon ghosts and gods as well as +upon men? The savage, like everybody else, is anxious to use every +available means to secure his preservation and his advancement. Why then +should he not use both Magic and the offering of food? From the moment +Religion appears, until the efficiency of Magic is totally discredited, we +may expect to find these two modes of behaviour associated in men’s +dealings with gods, except, however, where the god is clearly thought of +as a world-creator. For the savage could hardly have the presumption of +attempting to control a power he recognises as the maker of the human race +and of the world. Here are two instances of the combination of Magic with +Religion. ‘In the Babar Archipelago, when a woman desires to have a child, +she invites a man, who is himself the father of a large family, to pray on +her behalf to Upulero, the spirit of the sun. A doll is made of red +cotton, which the woman clasps in her arms, as if she would suckle it. +Then the father of many children takes a fowl and holds it by the legs to +the woman’s head, saying, “O Upulero, make use of the fowl; let fall, let +descend a child, I beseech you, I entreat you, let a child fall into my +hands and on my lap.” Then he asks the woman, “Has the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> child come?” and +she answers, “Yes, it is sucking already.”... Lastly, the bird is killed, +and laid, together with some betel, on the domestic plate of +sacrifice....’<a name='fna_34' id='fna_34' href='#f_34'><small>[34]</small></a> In this ceremony prayer and sacrifice to a god are +associated with magical practices of a mimetic and sympathetic character. +In a large number of ceremonies, the god is dealt with religiously in +order to secure from him ‘power,’ and then Magic is added to make the +power effective. In old Egypt one of the formulas according to which the +help of gods was secured began with an appeal to them under their popular +names. It was a prayer which they were free to heed or to neglect. Then +followed, in order to compel them to act, an adjuration introducing the +mystical names, ‘those written at birth in their heart by their father and +mother.’<a name='fna_35' id='fna_35' href='#f_35'><small>[35]</small></a> The magician not only claimed the power to force the gods to +do his bidding, but also, in case of disobedience, to punish them, even by +destruction. Remnants of magical dealings with gods are found even in the +Christian Religion, if we are to believe the authors quoted by Frazer.<a name='fna_36' id='fna_36' href='#f_36'><small>[36]</small></a> +Magic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> and Religion are so closely interwoven in the life of peoples of +low culture that some authors have affirmed the impossibility of +separating them. Their affirmation need not be contradicted unless it be +intended to mean that originally they were one and the same thing. However +closely interwoven they may be, Magic and Religion remain distinct, as in +the above instances. One might say, borrowing the language of the chemist, +that they do not form compounds, but only mixtures.</p> + +<p><b>What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion? Frazer’s Theory.</b>—Our +conclusions are, so far, that Magic has had an independent origin, that it +very probably antedated Religion, and that they associate for common +purposes without ever fusing, for they are referable to different +principles. Are we, then, driven to the opinion that even though Magic +should have antedated Religion and been often combined with it in common +undertakings, it has, nevertheless, contributed in no way to the +establishment of Religion? That conclusion is not unavoidable. Frazer’s +conception presents an alternative which, however, we cannot accept. As he +recognises not only a fundamental distinction, but even an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> opposition of +principle between Magic and Religion, he cannot think of allowing the +former a positive influence in the establishment of Religion. Yet he +admits a genetic relation between them: it is, according to him, the +recognition of the failure of Magic that is the cause of the worship of +gods. ‘I would suggest,’ writes Frazer, ‘that a tardy recognition of the +inherent falsehood and barrenness of Magic set the more thoughtful part of +mankind to cast about for a truer theory of nature and a more fruitful +method of turning her resources to account.’ When man saw that his magical +actions were not the real cause of the activity of nature, it occurred to +him that, ‘if the great world went on its way without the help of him or +his fellows, it must surely be because there were other beings, like +himself, but far stronger, who, unseen themselves, directed its course and +brought about all the various series of events which he had hitherto +believed to be dependent on his own Magic.... To these mighty beings, +whose handiwork he traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of +nature, man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his dependence on +their invisible power, and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him +with all good things.... In this, or some such way as this,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> the deeper +minds may be conceived to have made the transition from Magic to +Religion.’<a name='fna_37' id='fna_37' href='#f_37'><small>[37]</small></a> Several obvious objections may be raised against this view. +I would remark first of all that Frazer does not discredit the sources of +the belief in ghosts and in nature-beings mentioned in the preceding +section: sleep and trances; apparitions; the impulse to personify great +and startling natural phenomena; the idea of creation. His hypothesis of +the origin of Religion is, therefore, superfluous, unless he could show +that the transition from Magic to Religion took place in the manner he +suggests before the experiences and reflections we have named had given +rise to the idea of god.</p> + +<p>The assumption on which Frazer’s hypothesis rests, namely, that sagacious +men of wild races persuaded themselves and their fellows of the +inefficiency of Magic, seems clearly contradicted by the history of the +relation of Magic to Religion, and also by the psychology of belief. On +the latter ground, he may justly be accused of attributing neither enough +influence to the will to believe nor to the support it receives from the +many apparent or real successes of Magic. These successes, with the help +of the several ways of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> accounting for failures without giving up the +belief,<a name='fna_38' id='fna_38' href='#f_38'><small>[38]</small></a> were in my opinion sufficient to support a belief in the +efficiency of Magic until long after the birth of Religion. Is not that +the conclusion we must draw from the recent spread of the spiritualistic +movement, not only among the untutored, but even among representatives of +our higher culture? The late gains of spiritism have been made despite +numberless failures, the repeated discovery of deception, and the +satisfactory scientific explanation of a large proportion of the alleged +spiritistic facts, and thanks merely to a desire to believe, and to a few +questionable facts not readily explained by accepted hypotheses. To +suppose that before ghosts and nature-beings had been thought of and made +great enough to exercise a practical influence upon men’s conduct, there +had existed, in the barbarous circumstances implied in the supposition, +persons so keenly observant, so capable of scientific generalisation, and +so free from the obscuring influences of passion as to be able to reject +the many instances of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> apparent success of Magic, is to posit a miracle +where a satisfactory natural explanation already exists.</p> + +<p>In <i>Magic and Religion</i>, Andrew Lang directs a vigorous and successful +attack upon Frazer’s hypothesis.<a name='fna_39' id='fna_39' href='#f_39'><small>[39]</small></a> A part of his argument, based on +generally accepted historical data, is summarised in this passage: ‘If we +find that the most backward race known to us believes in a power, yet +propitiates him neither by prayer nor sacrifice, and if we find, as we do, +that in many more advanced races in Africa and America, it is precisely +the highest power which is left unpropitiated, then we really cannot argue +that gods were first invented as power who could give good things, on +receipt of other good things, sacrifice and prayer.’<a name='fna_40' id='fna_40' href='#f_40'><small>[40]</small></a> He remarks, in +addition, that although one would not expect people who had recognised the +uselessness of Magic and turned to gods, to continue the development of +the magical art, yet, in order to find the highest Magic one has to go to +no less a civilisation than that of Japan, where gods are plentiful.</p> + +<p>Although the hypothesis that gods and Religion are the consequence of the +recognition of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> failure of Magic, must be rejected, it does not follow +that two modes of activity in the service of common purposes, as are Magic +and early Religion, do not act upon each other in many ways. If Magic was +first in the field, we may believe that the satisfaction it gave to man by +its results, apparent and real, and in providing him with a means of +expressing his desires, tended to retard the establishment of any other +method of securing the same ends. The habit of doing a thing in a +particular manner always stands more or less in the way of the discovery +of other ways of doing the same thing. So that Magic was, in these +respects, a hindrance to the making of Religion. There is, however, a +grain of truth in Frazer’s hypothesis. Had Magic completely satisfied +man’s multifarious desires, he would, in all probability, have paid but +scant attention to the gods, for it is in times of trial that man turns to +them. It was thus greatly advantageous to the making of Religion that the +inadequacy of Magic should have been felt. Moreover, Magic exercised, in +ways mentioned before, a very considerable influence on the general mental +growth of savage populations; in this sense also it may be said to have +helped Religion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>In a penetrating comparison of Magic with Religion, Marett<a name='fna_41' id='fna_41' href='#f_41'><small>[41]</small></a> points out +how easily our third class of Magic—Spell-Magic—assumes ‘the garb of an +affair between persons,’ and thus approaches very close to Religion. But +even when Magic involves the ‘projection of an imperative will,’ the +fundamental difference between the two modes of behaviour remains quite +distinct. In ancient Peru, when a war expedition was contemplated, they +were wont to starve certain black sheep for some days and then slay them, +uttering the incantation, ‘As the hearts of these beasts are weakened, so +let our enemies be weakened.’ If this utterance is to be regarded as +expressing an attempt to project the operator’s ‘will’ upon the enemies, +we are clearly in the realm of pure Magic. But if it is to be understood +as addressed to a personal being, it is a prayer, and then we deal with an +instance of the combination of Magic with Religion.</p> + +<p><b>Magic and the Origin of Science.</b>—A common opinion has it that Magic and +not the mechanical type of behaviour is the precursor of science. Before +bringing this chapter to a close, we shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> try and determine in what +sense this statement is to be understood.</p> + +<p>The reader will remember that after discriminating roughly, in the +introduction, the three modes of behaviour observable in man, I added that +the anthropopathic behaviour becomes Religion when it is directed to gods, +and the mechanical becomes science when the principle of quantitative +proportion it implies is definitively recognised. Frazer, who sets forth +in his great book the magical origin of science, may stand as the +representative of that theory. ‘Magic,’ he tells us, ‘is next of kin to +science,’ for science ‘assumes that in nature one event follows another +necessarily and invariably without the intervention of any special +spiritual or personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception is identical +with that of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith, +implicit, but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature ... his +power [the magician’s], great as he believes it to be, is by no means +arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly +conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the laws of +nature as conceived by him.... Thus the analogy between the magical and +the scientific conception of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> world is close. In both of them the +succession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being determined by +immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated +precisely.’<a name='fna_42' id='fna_42' href='#f_42'><small>[42]</small></a> Upon this I observe, first, that the acknowledgment of a +fixed relation between actions or beliefs and their results is not +peculiar to Magic; it is implied also in Religion and, more perfectly, in +mechanical behaviour. Salvation is by the right practice, or by the right +faith, or both. The gods cannot be approached and conciliated in <i>any</i> +way; worshipper, no less than magician, has to conform to a definite +ritual. In certain not entirely barbarous communities salvation or +damnation is held to follow, respectively, belief or disbelief in no less +than thirty-nine articles! So that ‘definite and certain succession of +events,’ their determination ‘by immutable laws’ to the elimination of +caprice, chance, or accident, are expressions which apply, on the whole, +as well to Religion as to Magic. These phrases do not denote a kinship of +Magic to Science, which could not be claimed also by Religion.</p> + +<p>Turning to another side of the matter, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> observe that Frazer finds it +convenient to minimise, in this connection, the considerable share of the +personal, <i>i.e.</i> of the capricious, the incalculable, in Magic. The +personality of the magician introduces an indeterminate and undeterminable +factor about which enough has been said in preceding sections. Nothing +could be in more direct antagonism to the scientific attitude than these +two factors: the influence accorded to the personality of the magician and +the belief in occult powers belonging to particular objects and events. So +that it is truer to the facts to say that the fundamental conception of +science, so far from being identical with that of Magic, is absent from +it. For the essential presupposition of science—the one that +differentiates it alike from Magic and from Religion—is the +acknowledgment of definite and constant <i>quantitative</i> relations between +causes and effects, relations which completely exclude the personal +element and the occult. If that scientific presupposition is absent from +Magic and from Religion, it is implicitly present in mechanical behaviour. +The savage is nearer the scientific spirit and its method when he +constructs a weapon to fit a particular purpose, or when he adjusts his +bow and his arrow to the direction and the strength of the wind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> than +when he burns an enemy in effigy, abstains from sexual intercourse to +promote success in the hunt, or exorcises diseases.</p> + +<p>What magic shares with science is not the belief in the fundamental +principle we have named, but the desire to gain the mastery over the +powers of nature and the practice of the experimental method. The +experimentation of Magic is, however, so limited and so unconscious that +it can hardly be assimilated to the modern scientific method. If any one +were to turn to history for an argument in support of the thesis defended +by Frazer, and point out that the alchemist is the lineal ancestor of the +scientist, the sufficient answer would be—(1) Historical succession does +not imply continuity of principle. Although Magic, Alchemy, and Science +form an historical sequence, the fundamental principle of the last is not +to be found in the others. (2) The clear recognition of the principle of +fixed quantitative relations is, whenever and wherever it appears, the +birth of Science and the death of both Magic and Alchemy. This last fact +demonstrates clearly the fundamental enmity of these arts to the +scientific principle.</p> + +<p>The discovery of the scientific principle was probably almost as much +hindered by the false notions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> and the pernicious habits of mind +encouraged by Magic, as furthered by the gain in general mental activity +and knowledge which it brought about. Magic, no more than Religion, +encourages the exact observation of external facts, but rather +self-deception with regard to them.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p class="title">THE ORIGINAL EMOTION OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS LIFE</p> + + +<p>The failure to recognise in Religion three functionally related +constituents—conation, feeling, and thought—is responsible for a +confusing use of the term ‘origin.’ Some have said that Religion began +with the belief in superhuman, mysterious beings; others that it had its +origin in the emotional life, and these usually specify fear; while a +third group have declared that its genesis is to be found in the +will-to-live. At this stage of our inquiry the reader realises no doubt +that these three utterances are incomplete, inasmuch as each one of them +expresses either the origin, or the original form, of only one of the +constituents of Religion.</p> + +<p>I have in the preceding sections dealt with the establishment of the +religious attitude or behaviour and, afterwards, more specifically, with +the origin of the god-idea. The space at my disposal does not allow me to +say anything regarding the rise of the methods by which man entered in +relation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> with the divine beings in whom he believes. For the same reason, +I shall have to be very brief in dealing with the original emotional form +of Religion.</p> + +<p>Two opposed opinions divide the field. The more widely held is that fear +is the beginning of Religion; the other, accepted by a small but weighty +minority, that it has its origin in a ‘loving reverence for known gods.’ +We shall have little difficulty in arriving at an understanding of the +matter in which these two views, instead of opposing, supplement each +other. The origin of the two emotions mentioned, fear and love, fall, of +course, outside the limits of this essay, since they both existed before +Religion.</p> + +<p>‘Fear begets gods,’ said Lucretius. Hume concluded that ‘the first ideas +of religion arose ... from a concern with regard to the events of life and +fears which actuate the human mind.’ A similar opinion is maintained by +most of our contemporaries. Among psychologists, Ribot, for instance, +affirms that ‘the religious sentiment is composed first of all of the +emotion of fear in its different degrees, from profound terror to vague +uneasiness, due to faith in an unknown, mysterious, impalpable Power.’<a name='fna_43' id='fna_43' href='#f_43'><small>[43]</small></a> +The fear-theory is well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> supported by two classes of interdependent facts +observed, we are told, in every uncivilised people: (1) Evil spirits are +the first to attain a certain degree of definiteness; (2) man enters into +definite relations first with these evil spirits. If the reader will refer +to <i>The Origin of Civilisation</i> by Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), 3rd +ed., pp. 212-215, he will see there how widely true is the opinion +expressed by Scheinfurth:—‘Among the Bongos of central Africa good +spirits are quite unrecognised, and, according to the general negro idea, +no benefit can ever come from a spirit.’ In many other tribes the good +spirits are known, but the savage always ‘pays more attention to +deprecating the wrath of the evil than securing the favour of the good +beings.’ The tendency is to let alone the good spirits, because, being +good, they will do us good of themselves, just as evil spirits do us harm +unsolicited.</p> + +<p>Shall we, then, admit the fear-origin of Religion? Yes, provided it be +understood that fear represents only one of the three constituents of +Religion, that it is not in virtue of a particular quality or property +that fear is the primitive emotional form of Religion, and that this +admission is not intended to imply the impossibility of Religion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> having +ever anywhere begun with aggressive or tender emotions. Regarding the +second reservation, it should be understood that the making of Religion +requires nothing found in fear that is not also present in other emotions. +If aggressive emotions are not conspicuous at the dawn of Religion, it is +only because it so happens that the circumstances in which the least +cultured peoples known to us live are such as to keep fear in the +foreground of consciousness. Fear was the first of the well-organised +emotional reactions. It antedated the human species, and appears to this +day first in the young animal, as well as in the infant. No doubt, before +the protective fear-reaction could have been established, the lust of life +had worked itself out into aggressive habits, those for the securing of +food, for instance. But these desires did not, as early as in the case of +fear, give rise to any emotional reaction possessing the constancy, +definiteness, and poignancy of fear. The place of fear in primitive +Religion is, then, due not to its intrinsic qualities, but simply to +circumstances which made it appear first as a well-organised emotion +vitally connected with the maintenance of life. It is for exactly the same +reason that the dominant emotion in the relations of uncivilised men with +each other, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> still more evidently so, of wild animals with each other, +is usually that of fear.</p> + +<p>When I said that fear need not have been the original religious emotion, I +had in mind the possibility of groups of primitive men having lived in +circumstances so favourable to peace and safety that fear was not very +often present with them. This is not a preposterous supposition. Wild men +need not, any more than wild animals, have found themselves so situated as +to be kept in a constant state of fright. If the African antelope runs for +its life on an average twice a day, as Francis Galton supposes, the wild +horse on the South American plains, before the hunter appeared on his +pastures, ran chiefly for his pleasure. Travellers have borne testimony to +the absence of fear in birds inhabiting certain regions. But, it may be +asked, would Religion have come into existence under these peaceful +circumstances? A life of relative ease, comfort, and security is not +precisely conducive to the establishment of practical relations with gods. +Why should happy and self-sufficient men look to unseen, mysterious beings +for an assistance not really required? Under these circumstances the +unmixed type of fear-Religion would never have come into existence. +Religion would have appeared later, and from the first in a nobler form.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +In such peoples a feeling of dependence upon benevolent gods, regarded +probably as Creators and All-Fathers, eliciting admiration rather than +fear or selfish desire, would have characterised its beginnings. This +possibility should not be rejected <i>a priori</i>.</p> + +<p>The other theory is well represented by W. Robertson Smith. He denies that +the attempt to appease evil beings is the foundation of Religion. I quote: +‘From the earliest times religion, as distinct from magic or sorcery, +addresses itself to kindred and friendly beings, who may indeed be angry +with their people for a time, but are always placable except to the +enemies of their worshippers or to renegade members of the community. It +is not with a vague fear of unknown powers but with a loving reverence for +known gods who are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship, +that religion, in the only sense of the word, begins.’<a name='fna_44' id='fna_44' href='#f_44'><small>[44]</small></a> One may agree +with Robertson Smith without denying that certain practices intended to +avert impending evils preceded the establishment of affectionate relations +with benevolent powers. As a matter of fact, our author admits this fully. +What he denies is that the attempt to propitiate, in dread, evil spirits, +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Religion. It cannot be doubted that the inner experience as well as +the outer attitude and behaviour of a person are substantially different +when he seeks to conciliate a radically evil being and when he communes +with a fundamentally benevolent one. Yet in both cases an anthropopathic +relation with a personal being is established. In this respect, both stand +opposed to magical behaviour. This common element is so fundamental that +it seems to us advisable to make the name Religion include both types of +relation. And since they differ, nevertheless, in important respects, the +phrases <i>Negative</i> Religion may be used to designate man’s dealings with +radically bad spirits, and <i>Positive</i> Religion his relations with +fundamentally benevolent ones.</p> + +<p>Positive Religion is at first not at all free from fear. The benevolent +gods are prompt to wrath, and cruelly avenge their broken laws. The more +striking development of religious life is the gradual substitution of love +for fear in worship.<a name='fna_45' id='fna_45' href='#f_45'><small>[45]</small></a> This is one more reason for not completely +dissociating the propitiation of evil spirits from the worship of kindly +gods.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p class="title">CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE NATURE AND THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION</p> + + +<p>The organised, historical Religions are sufficiently described, in their +objective aspect, as systems of practical relations with unseen, +hyperhuman, and personal Beings. The experiences in which this type of +Religion consists, when subjectively considered, are the states of +consciousness correlated with the aforesaid relations. Judged according to +this definition, several savage tribes and a very large number of persons +among civilised peoples would have to be accounted non-religious. Most of +them may, however, lay claim to what we have called Passive Religiosity. +In these concluding pages we propose to give increased precision and +coherence to the conception of Religion presented in this essay. We shall +do so under two heads, (1) Passive and (2) Godless Religions.</p> + +<p>1. Andrew Lang’s polemic against Frazer’s definition of Religion will +serve as a convenient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> text for the introduction of what we wish to say +under the first head. According to the habit of anthropologists, Frazer +has put forward as the mark of Religion the <i>propitiation or the +conciliation</i> of personal beings superior to man and believed to direct +and control the course of nature and of human life. Lang objects, and very +properly, that this definition is too narrow. ‘I mean by Religion,’ says +he, ‘what Mr. Frazer means and more. The conciliation of higher powers by +prayer and sacrifice is Religion, but it need not be the whole of +Religion. The belief in a higher power who sanctions conduct and is a +father and a loving one to mankind is also Religion,’<a name='fna_46' id='fna_46' href='#f_46'><small>[46]</small></a> although it +should not be accompanied by request for benefits. The presence in the +higher societies and even at the dawn of civilisation of persons strangers +to any religious rite, yet influenced by a belief in divine beings cannot +be denied. With regard to the most barbarous of the Australian savages +Howitt writes: ‘If Religion is defined as being the formulated worship of +a divinity, then these savages have no Religion; but I venture to assert +that it can be no longer maintained that they have no belief which can be +called Religion, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and +individual morality under a supernatural sanction.’<a name='fna_47' id='fna_47' href='#f_47'><small>[47]</small></a> The reader will +remember that we included under the term Religion the amorphous relations +to which Howitt alludes. But the difference, objective and subjective, +between the organised Religions, let us say that of Saint Ignatius, and +the guiding and restraining influence exercised upon an African savage or +a Parisian deist by the apprehension of a Great Ruler, justifies the use +of the differentiating appellations, Passive and Active Religion.</p> + +<p>We take this opportunity of remarking how difficult it is even for +particularly clear-headed persons to keep Religion distinct from +philosophy. Lang was ill-advised enough to write in the same place, ‘If +men believe in a potent being who originally made or manufactured ... +things, that is an idea so far religious that it satisfies, by the figment +of a supernatural agent, the speculative faculty.’ What has ‘the +speculative faculty’ to do with Religion? As little as the gratification +of the æsthetic or of any other ‘faculty,’ <i>i.e.</i> nothing at all. The +outcome of speculative thinking is <i>philosophy</i>, of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Religion may +make use, but that is not a reason for confusing it with philosophy. The +religious experience consists not in seeking to understand God, but in +fearing Him, in feeding upon Him, in finding strength and joy in Him. If +believers in Ruling Powers may be called religious, it is not because they +possess <i>an idea</i> of these powers, but in virtue of the guiding and +inspiring influence these powers exert upon them.</p> + +<p>2. <i>The Godless Religions.</i>—We have found it convenient up to this point +to speak as if Power had to be personal in order to become the centre of a +Religion. That view would exclude original Buddhism, the Religion of +Humanity, and several other varieties of mental attitudes generally +regarded as religious. The significant fact that until recently every +existing historical Religion was a worship of a personal Divinity, is not +a sufficient reason for refusing to recognise other types. The affinity +between the worship of a God and certain relations maintained with +non-personal sources of power is substantial enough to be recognised by +the use of a name common to both.</p> + +<p>What are the Religions that dispense with a God? Original Buddhism, and +the Religion of Humanity formulated by A. Comte, are the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> ones +possessing a somewhat definite form and organisation. The Buddha Gautama +discovered and offered to man a way of salvation in which the efficient +power was not an external, personal power, but an indwelling, psychic +principle. But the disciples speedily deified the Master who had enjoined +them to adore no one, and substituted for his teaching the worship of the +God Gautama. So that, almost as soon as born, Buddhism ceased to exist as +a Godless Religion.</p> + +<p>‘Humanity’ is qualified to become the centre of a Religion because its +service accomplishes for man in essence and by similar methods precisely +what the acknowledged Religions do for their disciples.<a name='fna_48' id='fna_48' href='#f_48'><small>[48]</small></a> I quote from +A. Comte: ‘Around this Real, Great Being, immediate instigator of each +individual and collective existence, our feelings and desires centre as +spontaneously as do our ideas and actions.... More readily accessible to +our feelings as well as to our thinking [than the chimerical beings of the +existing Religions], because of an identity of nature which does not +preclude its superiority over all its servants, a Supreme Being such as +this excites deeply an activity destined to preserve and to improve it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +[the Supreme Being].’<a name='fna_49' id='fna_49' href='#f_49'><small>[49]</small></a> The claim of original Buddhism and of Comtism to +be called Religions is, in our opinion, legitimate, because they each +provide an inclusive, non-material source of power and a method of drawing +upon it.</p> + +<p>But the term Religion is used by some in a still wider sense. Professor J. +R. Seeley, for instance, bestows that valued name upon ‘any habitual and +permanent admiration.’<a name='fna_50' id='fna_50' href='#f_50'><small>[50]</small></a> Should we concur in this extension, it would be +difficult to stop anywhere. We should have to admit almost anything which +any one may have a fancy for designating by that much-abused word, even to +‘the sense of eternity in connection with our higher experiences,’ and +‘the feeling of reality and permanence of all we most value.’ But since +the function of words is to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of +language by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all +precision and unity of meaning. We would therefore throw out of our +definition anything which did not include:—(1) A belief in a great and +superior psychic power—whether personal or not. (2) A dynamic +relation—formal and organised or otherwise—between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> man and that Higher +Power tending to the preservation, the increase, and the ennobling of +life. This conception is broad enough to include even the uncrystallised +form of Religion conditioned, in the words of Professor James, by ‘an +assurance that this natural order is not ultimate, but a mere sign or +vision, the external staging of a many-storied universe, in which +spiritual forces have the last word and are eternal.’</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>Active Religion may properly be looked upon as that portion of the +struggle for life, in which use is made of the Power we have roughly +characterised as psychic and superhuman, and for which other adjectives, +‘spiritual,’ ‘divine,’ for instance, are commonly used. In this biological +view of Religion, its necessary and natural spring is the same as that of +non-religious life, <i>i.e.</i> the ‘will to live’ in its multiform +appearances, while the ground of differentiation between the religious and +the secular is neither specific feelings nor emotions, nor yet distinctive +impulses, desires, or purposes, but the nature of the force which it is +attempted to press into service. The current terms, ‘religious feeling,’ +‘religious desire,’ ‘religious purpose,’ are deceptive if they are +supposed to designate affective experiences,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> desires and purposes met +with only in religious life.</p> + +<p>The conception of the Source of Psychic Energy, without the belief in +which no Religion can exist, has undergone very interesting +transformations in the course of historical development. The human or +animal form ascribed to the gods in the earlier Religions became less and +less definite. At the same time the number of gods decreased. The +culmination of this double process was Monotheism, in which the One, +Eternal, Creator and Sustainer of life was no longer necessarily framed in +the shape of man or beast: though still anthropopathic, he might be +formless. Sympathy, love, and justice were among his attributes. In a +second phase, this formless, but personal, God was gradually shorn of all +the qualities and defects which make individuality. He became the +passionless Absolute in which all things move and have their being. Thus, +the personifying work of centuries is undone, and humanity, after having, +as it were, lived throughout its infancy and youth under the controlling +eye and with the active assistance of personal divinities, on reaching +maturity, finds itself bereft of these sources of life. The present +religious crisis marks the difficulty in the way of an adaptation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> to the +new situation. As belief in a God seems no longer possible, man seeks an +impersonal, efficient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty +to science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he knows +from experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also +in ‘spiritual faith.’ It is this problem which the Comtists, the +Immanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists are all trying +to solve. Any solution will have the right to the name Religion that +provides for the preservation and the perfectioning of life by means of +faith in a superhuman psychic Power.</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">Printed in Great Britain by T. and <span class="smcap">A. Constable Ltd.</span><br /> +at the Edinburgh University Press</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> <i>The Non-Religion of the Future</i>, p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> <i>The Golden Bough</i>, 2nd edition, i. p. 63.</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> <i>Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion</i>, p. 27.</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> <i>The Varieties of Religious Experience</i>, pp. 53, 38, abbreviated and +rearranged.</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> Wündt’s <i>Ethics</i>, English tr., iii. p. 6.</p> + +<p><a name='f_6' id='f_6' href='#fna_6'>[6]</a> H. B. Davis has this to say on the power of generalisation of the +raccoon, a very intelligent animal: ‘When an animal [raccoon] is forced to +approach a new fastening from a new direction, it is often as much +bothered by it as by a new fastening. Nevertheless, in course of time the +animals seem to reach a sort of generalised manner of procedure which +enables them to deal more promptly with any new fastening (not too +different from others of their experience).’ ‘The Raccoon: A Study in +Animal Intelligence,’ <i>Amer. Jr. of Psy.</i>, Oct. 1907, p. 486.</p> + +<p><a name='f_7' id='f_7' href='#fna_7'>[7]</a> <i>Meditationes</i>, ii. p. 10, Amsterdam, 1678.</p> + +<p><a name='f_8' id='f_8' href='#fna_8'>[8]</a> C. Lloyd Morgan, <i>Introduction to Comparative Psychology</i> (The +Contemporary Science Series, 1894), p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name='f_9' id='f_9' href='#fna_9'>[9]</a> F. M. Davenport, <i>Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals</i>, Macmillan +(1905), p. 36; quoted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the [Amer.] +Bureau of Ethnology, p. 761.</p> + +<p><a name='f_10' id='f_10' href='#fna_10'>[10]</a> E. M. Curr, <i>The Australian Race</i>, iii. p. 547, as quoted by Frazer, +<i>The Golden Bough</i>, 2nd ed., i. p. 13.</p> + +<p><a name='f_11' id='f_11' href='#fna_11'>[11]</a> A. W. Howitt, <i>The Native Races of South-East Australia</i> (1904), p. +373.</p> + +<p><a name='f_12' id='f_12' href='#fna_12'>[12]</a> <i>Principles of Sociology</i> (3rd edition, 1885), i. Appendix A, p. 788.</p> + +<p><a name='f_13' id='f_13' href='#fna_13'>[13]</a> <i>The Descent of Man</i>, 2nd ed., i. p. 145.</p> + +<p><a name='f_14' id='f_14' href='#fna_14'>[14]</a> <i>Nature</i>, xvii. (1877-78), pp. 168-169. Comp. Lloyd Morgan, <i>Introd. +to Comparative Psychology</i>, p. 92 ff.</p> + +<p><a name='f_15' id='f_15' href='#fna_15'>[15]</a> A Study in Fears, <i>Am. Jour. of Psy.</i> (1897), viii. p. 166.</p> + +<p><a name='f_16' id='f_16' href='#fna_16'>[16]</a> Lord Avebury, <i>On the Origin of Civilisation</i> (3rd edition, 1875), p. +212.</p> + +<p><a name='f_17' id='f_17' href='#fna_17'>[17]</a> <i>The Native Tribes of South-East Australia</i>, pp. 500, 506-508.</p> + +<p><a name='f_18' id='f_18' href='#fna_18'>[18]</a> Hang a root of vervain around the neck in order to cause the +disappearance of a tumour: as the plant dries up, so will the tumour. If +the fish do not appear in due season, make one of wood and put it into the +water. Keep the arrow that has wounded a friend in a cool place that the +wound may not become inflamed.</p> + +<p><a name='f_19' id='f_19' href='#fna_19'>[19]</a> <i>Journal of the Anthropological Institute</i>, xiii. (1884), p. 456, +quoted by Frazer.</p> + +<p><a name='f_20' id='f_20' href='#fna_20'>[20]</a> Dr. R. H. Codrington, <i>The Melanesians</i> (Clarendon Press, 1891), p. +191.</p> + +<p><a name='f_21' id='f_21' href='#fna_21'>[21]</a> ‘Études de mythologie et d’archéologie égyptiennes’ (Paris, 1903), +<i>Bibliothèque Égyptologique</i>, ii. p. 298.</p> + +<p><a name='f_22' id='f_22' href='#fna_22'>[22]</a> Foucart, ‘Recherches sur la Nature des Mystères d’Eleusis,’ <i>Mémoires +de l’Institut</i>, xxxv. 2nd part, pp. 31-32. Comp. Maspero, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 303.</p> + +<p><a name='f_23' id='f_23' href='#fna_23'>[23]</a> ‘The Beginnings of Religion,’ <i>Fortn. Rev.</i>, lxxxiv. (1905), p. 162. +Comp. <i>The Golden Bough</i>, 2nd ed., i. pp. 71-73.</p> + +<p><a name='f_24' id='f_24' href='#fna_24'>[24]</a> <i>The Golden Bough</i>, 2nd ed., i. p. 70. Oldenburg (<i>Die Religion des +Veda</i>, Berlin, 1894) was first, I believe, in holding to a pre-religious +magical stage of culture. But it is Frazer who first made a clear +separation, not only between Magic and Religion, but also between Magic +and belief in spirit-agents.</p> + +<p><a name='f_25' id='f_25' href='#fna_25'>[25]</a> Comp. R. R. Marett, ‘From Spell to Prayer,’ <i>Folk-Lore</i>, xv. (1904), +pp. 136-141.</p> + +<p><a name='f_26' id='f_26' href='#fna_26'>[26]</a> The latest classification is probably that of Frazer in <i>Lectures on +the Early History of the Kingship</i> (Macmillan, 1905), p. 54. A. van +Gennep, in a review of that book in the <i>Revue de l’Histoire des +Religions</i>, liii. pp. 396-401, offers a somewhat different classification.</p> + +<p><a name='f_27' id='f_27' href='#fna_27'>[27]</a> I use ‘animism’ in the sense which Tylor gave it, <i>i.e.</i> a belief in +the animation of all things by beings similar to the ‘souls’ or ‘ghosts’ +revealed to the savage by dreams and other natural experiences.</p> + +<p><a name='f_28' id='f_28' href='#fna_28'>[28]</a> The interested reader will find a summary of observations on this +topic in Alex. F. Chamberlain’s <i>The Child</i> (The Contemporary <i>Science +Series</i>, 1900), pp. 147-148. See also Sully, <i>Studies of Childhood</i>, p. +82.</p> + +<p><a name='f_29' id='f_29' href='#fna_29'>[29]</a> See, for instance, many of the prohibitions included in the +initiation ceremonies of the Australians in Spencer and Gillen, <i>loc. +cit.</i>, chapters vii-ix.</p> + +<p><a name='f_30' id='f_30' href='#fna_30'>[30]</a> Frazer, <i>The Golden Bough</i>, 2nd ed., <span class="smcaplc">I.</span> pp. 29-31.</p> + +<p><a name='f_31' id='f_31' href='#fna_31'>[31]</a> Fourth ed. (1903), i. p. 285.</p> + +<p><a name='f_32' id='f_32' href='#fna_32'>[32]</a> The word <i>naturism</i> should be adopted as a name for the pre-animistic +and pre-religious stage of culture, a stage corresponding to the one +through which a child passes before he inquires into hidden causes and +mechanisms. See on this an excellent little book published in this series, +<i>Animism</i>, by Edward Clodd, pp. 22-25.</p> + +<p><a name='f_33' id='f_33' href='#fna_33'>[33]</a> Lord Avebury, <i>On the Origin of Civilisation</i> (3rd ed., 1875), pp. +113-114.</p> + +<p><a name='f_34' id='f_34' href='#fna_34'>[34]</a> <i>The Golden Bough</i>, i. p. 19.</p> + +<p><a name='f_35' id='f_35' href='#fna_35'>[35]</a> Maspero, <i>loc. cit.</i>, pp. 298-299.</p> + +<p><a name='f_36' id='f_36' href='#fna_36'>[36]</a> Amélie Bosquet, <i>La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse</i> (Paris et +Rouen, 1845), p. 308.</p> + +<p><a name='f_37' id='f_37' href='#fna_37'>[37]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i> i., pp. 75-78.</p> + +<p><a name='f_38' id='f_38' href='#fna_38'>[38]</a> A widespread opinion ascribes the failures of the magician to a rival +or to the counter-influence of some evil spirit.</p> + +<p>‘If a man died in spite of the medicine-man, they [the Chepara of +South-East Africa] said it was Wulle, an evil being, that killed +him.’—Howitt, <i>loc. cit.</i>, p. 385.</p> + +<p><a name='f_39' id='f_39' href='#fna_39'>[39]</a> Chap. iii.</p> + +<p><a name='f_40' id='f_40' href='#fna_40'>[40]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 59.</p> + +<p><a name='f_41' id='f_41' href='#fna_41'>[41]</a> R. R. Marett, ‘From Spell to Prayer,’ <i>Folk-Lore</i>, xv. (1904), pp. +132-165.</p> + +<p><a name='f_42' id='f_42' href='#fna_42'>[42]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i>, pp. 61-62. In the third volume (pp. 458-461), a change +seems to have taken place in the author’s opinion. What it amounts to, I +cannot exactly make out.</p> + +<p><a name='f_43' id='f_43' href='#fna_43'>[43]</a> <i>The Psychology of the Emotions</i>, p. 309.</p> + +<p><a name='f_44' id='f_44' href='#fna_44'>[44]</a> <i>The Religion of the Semites</i>, p. 55.</p> + +<p><a name='f_45' id='f_45' href='#fna_45'>[45]</a> See, on this development, my article, ‘Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in +Religion,’ <i>American Jr. of Religious Psy. and Educ.</i>, ii. p. 1.</p> + +<p><a name='f_46' id='f_46' href='#fna_46'>[46]</a> <i>Magic and Religion</i>, pp. 48-49, 69.</p> + +<p><a name='f_47' id='f_47' href='#fna_47'>[47]</a> ‘On some Australian Customs of Initiation,’ <i>Jr. of the Anthrop. +Inst.</i>, xiii. (1883-1884), p. 459.</p> + +<p><a name='f_48' id='f_48' href='#fna_48'>[48]</a> F. Harrison, <i>Moral and Religious Socialism</i>, New Year’s Address, +1891.</p> + +<p><a name='f_49' id='f_49' href='#fna_49'>[49]</a> A. Comte, <i>Catéchisme Positiviste</i>, ed. Apostolique (1891), pp. 53, +55.</p> + +<p><a name='f_50' id='f_50' href='#fna_50'>[50]</a> <i>Natural Religion</i>, Macmillan (1882), p. 74.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psychological Origin and the +Nature of Religion, by James H. 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