{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_31875/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_31875","id":"gutenberg_31875","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31875","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Religion"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE HARTFORD-LAMSON LECTURES ON\n  THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD\n\n\n\nAN INTRODUCTION\n\nTO THE STUDY OF\n\nCOMPARATIVE RELIGION\n\n\nBY\n\nFRANK BYRON JEVONS\n\n\nPRINCIPAL OF BISHOP HATFIELD'S HALL, DURHAM\n  UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, ENGLAND\n\n\n\n\nNew York\n\nTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n1920\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1908,\n\nBy THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.\n\n\nSet up and electrotyped.  Published October, 1908.\n\n\n\n\n  Norwood Press\n  J. S. Cushing--Berwick & Smith Co.\n  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n{v}\n\nNOTE\n\nThe Hartford-Lamson Lectures on \"The Religions of the World\" are\ndelivered at Hartford Theological Seminary in connection with the\nLamson Fund, which was established by a group of friends in honor of\nthe late Charles M. Lamson, D.D., sometime President of the American\nBoard of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to assist in preparing\nstudents for the foreign missionary field.  The Lectures are designed\nprimarily to give to such students a good knowledge of the religious\nhistory, beliefs, and customs of the peoples among whom they expect to\nlabor.  As they are delivered by scholars of the first rank, who are\nauthorities in their respective fields, it is expected that in\npublished form they will prove to be of value to students generally.\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                             PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1\n  IMMORTALITY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   34\n  MAGIC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   70\n  FETICHISM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  105\n  PRAYER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  138\n  SACRIFICE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  175\n  MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  211\n  CHRISTIANITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  239\n  APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  267\n  BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  271\n  INDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  275\n\n\n\n\n{ix}\n\nANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe use of any science lies in its application to practical purposes.\nFor Christianity, the use of the science of religion consists in\napplying it to show that Christianity is the highest manifestation of\nthe religious spirit.  To make this use of the science of religion, we\nmust fully and frankly accept the facts it furnishes, and must\nrecognise that others are at liberty to use them for any opposite\npurpose.  But we must also insist that the science of religion is\nlimited to the establishment of facts and is excluded from passing\njudgment on the religious value of those facts.  The science of\nreligion as a historical science is concerned with the chronological\norder, and not with the religious value, of its facts; and the order of\nthose facts does not determine their value any more in the case of\nreligion than in the case of literature or art.  But if their value is\na question on which the science refuses to enter, it does not follow\nthat the question is one which does not admit of a truthful answer:\nscience has no monopoly of truth.  The value of anything always implies\na reference to the future: to be of value a thing must be of use for\nsome purpose, and what is purposed is in the future.  Things have\nvalue, or have not, according as they are useful or not for our\npurposes.  The conviction that we can attain our purposes and ideals,\nthe conviction without which we should not even attempt to attain them\nis faith; and it is in faith and by faith that the man of religion\nproposes to {x} conquer the world.  It is by faith in Christianity that\nthe missionary undertakes to convert men to Christianity.  The\ncomparative value of different religions can only be ascertained by\ncomparison of those religions; and the missionary, of all men, ought to\nknow what is to be learnt from such comparison.  It is sometimes\nsupposed (wrongly) that to admit that all religions are comparable is\nto admit that all are identical; but, in truth, it is only because they\ndiffer that it is possible to compare them.  For the purpose of\ncomparison both the differences and the resemblances must be assumed to\nexist; and even for the purposes of the science of religion there is\nnothing to compel us to postulate a period in which either the\ndifferences or the resemblances were non-existent.  But though there is\nnothing to compel us to assume that the lowest form in which religion\nis found was necessarily the earliest to exist, it is convenient for us\nto start from the lowest forms.  For the practical purposes of the\nmissionary it is desirable where possible to discover any points of\nresemblance or traits of connection between the lower form with which\nhis hearers are familiar and the higher form to which he proposes to\nlead them.  It is therefore proper for him and reasonable in itself to\nlook upon the long history of religion as man's search for God, and to\nregard it as the function of the missionary to keep others in that\nsearch . . . 1-33\n\n\nIMMORTALITY\n\nThe belief in immortality is more prominent, though less intimately\nbound up with religion, amongst uncivilised than it is amongst\ncivilised peoples.  In early times the fancy luxuriates, unchecked, on\nthis as on other matters.  It is late in the history of religion that\nthe immortality of the soul is found to be postulated alike by morality\nand religion.  The belief that the soul exists after death doubtless\nmanifested itself first in the {xi} fact that men dream of those who\nhave died.  But, were there no desire to believe, it may be doubted\nwhether the belief would survive, or even originate.  The belief\noriginates in desire, in longing for one loved and lost; and dreams are\nnot the cause of that desire, though they are one region in which it\nmanifests itself, or rather one mode of its manifestation.  The desire\nis for continued communion; and its gratification is found in a\nspiritual communion.  Such communion also is believed to unite\nworshippers both with one another and with their God.  Where death is\nregarded as a disruption of communion between the living and the\ndeparted, death is regarded as unnatural, as a violation of the\noriginal design of things, which calls for explanation; and the\nexplanation is provided in myths which account for it by showing that\nthe origin of death was due to accident or mistake.  At first, it is\nfelt that the mistake cannot be one without remedy: the deceased is\ninvited \"to come to us again.\"  If he does not return in his old body,\nthen he is believed to reappear in some new-born child.  Or the\ndoctrine of rebirth may be satisfied by the belief that the soul is\nreincarnated in animal form.  This belief is specially likely to grow\nup where totem ancestors are believed to manifest themselves in the\nshape of some animal.  Belief in such animal reincarnation has, in its\norigin, however, no connection with any theory that transmigration from\na human to an animal form is a punishment.  Up to this point in the\nevolution of the belief in immortality, the belief in another world\nthan this does not show itself.  Even when ancestor-worship begins to\ngrow up, the ancestors' field of operations is in this world, rather\nthan in the next.  But the fact that their aid and protection can be\ninvoked by the community tends to elevate them to the level of the god\nor gods of the community.  This tendency, however, may be defeated, as\nit was in Judaea, where the religious sentiment will not permit the\ndifference between God and man to be blurred.  {xii} Where the fact\nthat the dead do not return establishes itself as incontrovertible, the\nbelief grows up that as the dead continue to exist, it is in another\nworld that their existence must continue.  At first they are conceived\nto continue to be as they are remembered to have been in this life.\nLater the idea grows up that they are punished or rewarded there,\naccording as they have been bad or good here; according as they have or\nhave not in this life sought communion with the true God.  This belief\nthus differs entirely from the earlier belief, _e.g._ as it is found\namongst the Eskimo, that it is in this world the spirits of the\ndeparted reappear, and that their continued existence is unaffected by\nconsiderations of morality or religion.  It is, however, not merely the\nbelief in the next world that may come to be sanctified by religion and\nmoralised.  The belief in reincarnation in animal form may come to be\nemployed in the service of religion and morality, as it is in Buddhism.\nThere, however, what was originally the transmigration of souls was\ntransformed by Gotama into the transmigration of character; and the\nvery existence of the individual soul, whether before death or after,\nwas held to be an illusion and a deception.  This tenet pushes the\ndoctrine of self-sacrifice, which is essential both to religion and to\nmorality, to an extreme which is fatal in logic to morality and\nreligion alike: communion between man and God--the indispensable\npresupposition of both religion and morals--is impossible, if the very\nexistence of man is illusory.  The message of the missionary will be\nthat by Christianity self-sacrifice is shown to be the condition of\nmorality, the essence of communion with God and the way to life eternal\n. . . 34-69\n\n\nMAGIC\n\nA view sometime held was that magic is religion, and religion magic.\nWith equal reason, or want of reason, it might be held that magic was\nscience, and science magic.  {xiii} Even if we correct the definition,\nand say that to us magic appears, in one aspect, as a spurious system\nof science; and, in another, as a spurious system of religion; we still\nhave to note that, for those who believed in it, it could not have been\na spurious system, whether of science or religion.  Primitive man acts\non the assumption that he can produce like by means of like; and about\nthat assumption there is no \"magic\" of any kind.  It is only when an\neffect thus produced is a thing not commonly done and not generally\napproved of, that it is regarded as magic; and it is magic, because not\nevery one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power to do it,\nor not every one cares to do it.  About this belief, so long as every\none entertains it, there is nothing spurious.  When however it begins\nto be suspected that the magician has not the power to do what he\nprofesses, his profession tends to become fraudulent and his belief\nspurious.  On the other hand, a thing commonly done and generally\napproved of is not regarded as magical merely because the effect\nresembles the cause, and like is in this instance produced by like.\nMagic is a term of evil connotation; and the practice of using like to\nproduce like is condemned when and because it is employed for\nanti-social purposes.  Such practices are resented by the society,\namongst whom and on whom they are employed; and they are offensive to\nthe God who looks after the interests of the community.  In fine, the\nobject and purpose of the practice determines the attitude of the\ncommunity towards the practice: if the object is anti-social, the\npractice is nefarious; and the witch, if \"smelled out,\" is killed.  The\nperson who is willing to undertake such nefarious proceedings comes to\nbe credited with a nefarious personality, that is to say, with both the\npower and the will to do what ordinary, decent members of the community\ncould not and would not do: personal power comes to be the most\nimportant, because the most mysterious, characteristic of the man\nbelieved to {xiv} be a magician.  If we turn to things, such as\nrain-making, which are socially beneficial, we find a similar growth in\nthe belief that some men have extraordinary power to work wonders on\nbehalf of the tribe.  A further stage of development is reached when\nthe man who uses his personal power for nefarious purposes undertakes\nby means of it to control spirits: magic then tends to pass into\nfetichism.  Similarly, when rain and other social benefits come to be\nregarded as gifts of the gods, the power of the rainmaker comes to be\nregarded as a power to procure from the gods the gifts that they have\nto bestow: magic is displaced by religion.  The opposition of principle\nbetween magic and religion thus makes itself manifest.  It makes itself\nmanifest in that the one promotes social and the other anti-social\npurposes: the spirit worshipped by any community as its god is a spirit\nwho has the interests of the community at heart, and who _ex officio_\ncondemns and punishes those who by magic or otherwise work injury to\nthe members of the community.  Finally, the decline of the belief in\nmagic is largely due to the discovery that it does not produce the\neffects it professes to bring about.  But the missionary will also\ndwell on the fact that his hearers feel it to be anti-social and to be\ncondemned alike by their moral sentiments and their religious feeling .\n. . 70-104\n\n\nFETICHISM\n\nFetichism is regarded by some as a stage of religious development, or\nas the form of religion found amongst men at the lowest stage of\ndevelopment known to us.  From this the conclusion is sometimes drawn\nthat fetichism is the source of all religion and of all religious\nvalues; and, therefore, that (as fetichism has no value) religion\n(which is an evolved form of fetichism) has no value either.  This\nconclusion is then believed to be proved by the science of religion.\nIn fact, however, students of the science of religion disclaim this\nconclusion and rightly {xv} assert that the science does not undertake\nto prove anything as to the truth or the value of religion.\n\nMuch confusion prevails as to what fetichism is; and the confusion is\nprimarily due to Bosman.  He confuses, while the science of religion\ndistinguishes between, animal gods and fetiches.  He asserts what we\nnow know to be false, viz., that a fetich is an inanimate object and\nnothing more; and that the native rejects, or \"breaks,\" one of these\ngods, knowing it to be a god.\n\nAny small object which happens to arrest the attention of a negro, when\nhe has a desire to gratify, may impress him as being a fetich, _i.e._\nas having power to help him to gratify his desire.  Here, Hoeffding\nsays, is the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas: here\nis presented religion under the guise of desire.  Let it be granted,\nthen, that the object attracts attention and is involuntarily\nassociated with the possibility of attaining the desired end.  It\nfollows that, as in the period of animism, all objects are believed to\nbe animated by spirits, fetich objects are distinguished from other\nobjects by the fact--not that they are animated by spirits but--that it\nis believed they will aid in the accomplishment of the desired end.\nThe picking up of a fetich object, however, is not always followed by\nthe desired result; and the negro then explains \"that it has lost its\nspirit.\"  The spirit goes out of it, indeed, but may perchance be\ninduced or even compelled to return into some other object; and then\nfetiches may be purposely made as well as accidentally found, and are\nliable to coercion as well as open to conciliation.\n\nBut, throughout this process, there is no religion.  Religion is the\nworship of the gods of a community by the community for the good of the\ncommunity.  The cult of a fetich is conducted by an individual for his\nprivate ends; and the most important function of a fetich is to work\nevil against those members of the community who have incurred the\nfetich owner's resentment.  Thus religion {xvi} and fetich-worship are\ndirected to ends not merely different but antagonistic.  From the very\noutset religion in social fetichism is anti-social.  To seek the origin\nof religion in fetichism is vain.  Condemned, wherever it exists, by\nthe religious and moral feelings of the community, fetichism cannot\nhave been the primitive religion of mankind.  The spirits of fetichism,\naccording to Hoeffding, become eventually the gods of polytheism: such a\nspirit, so long as it is a fetich, is \"the god of a moment,\" and must\ncome to be permanent if it is to attain to the ranks of the\npolytheistic gods.  But fetiches, even when their function becomes\npermanent, remain fetiches and do not become gods.  They do not even\nbecome \"departmental gods,\" for their powers are to further a man's\ndesires generally.  On the other hand, they have personality, even if\nthey have not personal names.  Finally, if, as Hoeffding believes, the\nword \"god\" originally meant \"he who is worshipped,\" and gods are\nworshipped by the community, then fetiches, as they are nowhere\nworshipped by the community, are in no case gods.\n\nThe function of the fetich is anti-social; of the gods, to promote the\nwell-being of the community.  To maintain that a god is evolved out of\na fetich is to maintain that practices destructive of society have only\nto be pushed far enough and they will prove the salvation of society .\n. . 105-137\n\n\nPRAYER\n\nPrayer is a phenomenon in the history of religion to which the science\nof religion has devoted but little attention--the reason alleged being\nthat it is so simple and familiar as not to demand detailed study.  It\nmay, however, be that the phenomenon is indeed familiar yet not simple.\nSimple or not, it is a matter on which different views may be held.\nThus though it may be agreed that in the lower forms of religion it is\nthe accomplishment of desire that is asked for, a divergence of opinion\nemerges {xvii} the moment the question is put, Whose desire? that of\nthe individual or of the community?  And instances may be cited to show\nthat it is not for his own personal, selfish advantage alone that the\nsavage always or even usually prays.  It is the desires of the\ncommunity that the god of the community is concerned to grant: the\npetition of an individual is offered and harkened to only so far as it\nis not prejudicial to the interests of the community.  The statement\nthat savage prayer is unethical may be correct in the sense that pardon\nfor moral sin is not sought; it is incorrect, if understood to mean\nthat the savage does not pray to do the things which his morality makes\nit incumbent on him to do, _e.g._ to fight successfully.  The desires\nwhich the god is prayed to grant are ordinarily desires which, being\nfelt by each and every member of the community, are the desires of the\ncommunity, as such, and not of any one member exclusively.\n\nCharms, it has been suggested, in some cases are prayers that by vain\nrepetition have lost their religious significance and become mere\nspells.  And similarly it has been suggested that out of mere spells\nprayer may have been evolved.  But, on the hypothesis that a spell is\nsomething in which no religion is, it is clear that out of it no\nreligion can come; while if prayer, _i.e._ religion, has been evolved\nout of spells, then there have never been spells wholly wanting in\nevery religious element.  Whether a given formula then is prayer or\nspell may be difficult to decide, when it has some features which seem\nto be magical and others which seem to be religious.  The magical\nelement may have been original and be in process of disappearing before\nthe dawn of the religious spirit.  Now, the formula uttered is usually\naccompanied by gestures performed.  If the words are uttered to explain\nthe gesture or rite, the explanation is offered to some one, the words\nare of the nature of a prayer to some one to grant the desire which the\ngesture manifests.  {xviii} On the other hand, if the gestures are\nperformed to make the words more intelligible, then the action\nperformed is, again, not magical, but is intended to make the\nwords--the prayer--more emphatic.  In neither case, then, is the\ngesture or rite magical in intent.  Dr. Frazer's suggestion that it\nrequired long ages for man to discover that he could not always\nsucceed--even by the aid of magic--in getting what he wanted; and that\nonly when he made this discovery did he take to religion and prayer, is\na suggestion which cannot be maintained in view of the fact that savage\nman is much more at the mercy of accidents than is civilised man.  The\nsuggestion, in fact, tells rather against than in favour of the view\nthat magic preceded religion, and that spells preceded prayer.\n\nThe Australian black fellows might have been expected to present us\nwith the spectacle of a people unacquainted with prayer.  But in point\nof fact we find amongst them both prayers to Byamee and formulae which,\nthough now unintelligible even to the natives, may originally have been\nprayers.  And generally speaking the presumption is that races, who\ndistinctly admit the existence of spirits, pray to those spirits, even\nthough their prayers be concealed from the white man's observation.\nGods are there for the purpose of being prayed to.  Prayer is the\nessence of religion, as is shown by the fact that gods, when they cease\nto be prayed to, are ignored rather than worshipped.  Such gods--as in\nAfrica and elsewhere--become little more than memories, when they no\nlonger have a circle of worshippers to offer prayer and sacrifice to\nthem.\n\nThe highest point reached in the evolution of pre-Christian prayer is\nwhen the gods, as knowing best what is good, are petitioned simply for\nthings good.  Our Lord's prayer is a revelation which the theory of\nevolution cannot account for or explain.  Nor does Hoeffding's \"antinomy\nof religious feeling\" present itself to the Christian soul as an\nantinomy . . . 138-174\n\n\n{xix}\n\nSACRIFICE\n\nPrayer and sacrifice historically go together, and logically are\nindissoluble.  Sacrifice, whether realised in an offering dedicated or\nin a sacrificial meal, is prompted by the worshippers' desire to feel\nthat they are at one with the spirit worshipped.  That desire manifests\nitself specially on certain regularly occurring occasions (harvest,\nseed time, initiation) and also in times of crisis.  At harvest time\nthe sacrifices or offerings are thank-offerings, as is shown by the\nfact that a formula of thanksgiving is employed.  Primitive prayer does\nnot consist solely in petitions for favours to come; it includes\nthanksgiving for blessings received.  Such thanksgivings cannot by any\npossibility be twisted into magic.\n\nAnalogous to these thanksgivings at harvest time is the solemn eating\nof first-fruits amongst the Australian black fellows.  If this solemn\neating is not in Australia a survival of a sacramental meal, in which\nthe god and his worshippers were partakers, it must be merely a\nceremony whereby the food, which until it is eaten is taboo, is\n\"desacralised.\"  But, as a matter of fact, such food is not taboo to\nthe tribe generally; and the object of the solemn eating cannot be to\nremove the taboo and desacralise the food for the tribe.\n\nIf the harvest rites or first-fruit ceremonials are sacrificial in\nnature, then the presumption is that so, too, are the ceremonies\nperformed at seed time or the analogous period.\n\nAt initiation ceremonies or mysteries, even amongst the Australian\nblack fellows, there is evidence to show that prayer is offered; and\ngenerally speaking we may say that the boy initiated is admitted to the\nworship of the tribal gods.\n\nThe spring and harvest customs are closely allied to one another and\nmay be arranged in four groups: (1) In Mexico they plainly consist of\nthe worship of a god--by means of sacrifice and prayer--and of\ncommunion.  {xx} (2) In some other cases, though the god has no proper\nor personal name, and no image is made of him, \"the new corn,\" Dr.\nFrazer says, \"is itself eaten sacramentally, that is, as the body of\nthe corn spirit\"; and it is by this sacramental meal that communion is\neffected or maintained.  (3) In the harvest customs of northern Europe,\nbread and dumplings are made and eaten sacramentally, \"as a substitute\nfor the real flesh of the divine being\"; or an animal is slain and its\nflesh and blood are partaken of.  (4) Amongst the Australian tribes\nthere is a sacramental eating of the totem animal or plant.  Now, these\nfour groups of customs may be all religious (and Dr. Frazer speaks of\nthem all as sacramental) or all magical; or it may be admitted that the\nfirst three are religious, and maintained that the fourth is strictly\nmagical.  But such a separation of the Australian group from the rest\ndoes not commend itself as likely; further, it overlooks the fact that\nit is at the period analogous to harvest time that the headman eats\nsolemnly and sparingly of the plant or animal, and that at harvest time\nit is too late to work magic to cause the plant or animal to grow.  The\nprobability is, then, that both the Australian group and the others are\nsacrificial rites and are religious.\n\nSuch sacrificial rites, however, though felt to be the means whereby\ncommunion was effected and maintained between the god and his\nworshippers, may come to be interpreted as the making of gifts to the\ngod, as the means of purchasing his favour, or as a full discharge of\ntheir obligations.  When so interpreted they will be denounced by true\nreligion.  But though it be admitted that the sacrificial rite might be\nmade to bear this aspect, it does not follow, as is sometimes supposed,\nthat it was from the outset incapable of bearing any other.  On the\ncontrary, it was, from the beginning, not only the rite of making\nofferings to the god but, also, the rite whereby communion was\nattained, whereby the society of worshippers was brought into the\npresence of the god they {xxi} worshipped, even though the chief\nbenefits which the worshippers conceived themselves to receive were\nearthly blessings.  It is because the rite had from the beginning this\npotentiality in it that it was possible for it to become the means\nwhereby, through Christ, all men might be brought to God . . . 175-210\n\n\nMORALITY\n\nThe question whether morality is based on religion, or religion on\nmorality, is one which calls for discussion, inasmuch as it is apt to\nproceed on a mistaken view of facts in the history of religion.  It is\nmaintained that as a matter of history morality came first and religion\nafterwards; and that as a matter of philosophy religion presupposes\nmorality.  Reality, that is to say, is in the making; the spirit of man\nis self-realising; being is in process of becoming rationalised and\nmoralised; religion in process of disappearing.\n\nEarly religion, it is said, is unethical: it has to do with spirits,\nwhich, as such, are not concerned with morality; with gods which are\nnot ethical or ideal, and are not objects of worship in our sense of\nthe term.\n\nNow, the spirits which, in the period of animism, are believed to\nanimate things, are not, it is true, concerned with morality; but then,\nneither are they gods.  To be a god a spirit must have a community of\nworshippers; and it is as the protector of that community that he is\nworshipped.  He protects the community against any individual member\nwho violates the custom of the community.  The custom of the community\nconstitutes the morality of the society.  Offences against that custom\nare offences against the god of the community.  A god starts as an\nethical power, and as an object of worship.\n\nStill, it may be argued, before gods were, before religion was evolved,\nmorality was; and this may be shown by the origin and nature of\njustice, which throughout is entirely independent of religion and\nreligious {xxii} considerations.  On this theory, the origin of justice\nis to be found in the resentment of the individual.  But, first, the\nindividual, apart from society, is an abstraction and an impossibility:\nthe individual never exists apart from but always as a member of some\nsociety.  Next, justice is not the resentment of any individual, but\nthe sentiment of the community, expressing itself in the action not of\nany individual but of the community as such.  The responsibility both\nfor the wrong done and for righting it rests with the community.  The\nearliest offences against which public action is taken are said to be\nwitchcraft and breaches of the marriage laws.  The latter are not\ninjuries resented by any individual: they are offences against the gods\nand are punished to avert the misfortunes which otherwise would visit\nthe tribe.  Witchcraft is especially offensive to the god of the\ncommunity.\n\nIn almost, if not quite, the lowest stages of human development,\ndisease and famine are regarded as punishments which fall on the\ncommunity as a whole, because the community, in the person of one of\nits members, has offended some supernatural power.  In quite the lowest\nstage the guilt of the offending member is also regarded as capable of\ninfecting the whole community; and he is, accordingly, avoided by the\nwhole community and tabooed.  Taboo is due to the collective action,\nand expresses the collective feeling of the community as a whole.  It\nis from such collective action and feeling that justice has been\nevolved and not from individual resentment, which is still and always\nwas something different from justice.  The offences punished by the\ncommunity have always been considered, so far as they are offences\nagainst morality, to be offences against the gods of the community.\nThe fact that in course of time such offences come to be punished\nalways as militating against the good of society testifies merely to\nthe general assumption that the good of man is the will of God: men do\nnot believe that murder, adultery, etc., are merely offences {xxiii}\nagainst man's laws.  It is only by ignoring this patent fact that it\nbecomes possible to maintain that religion is built upon morality, and\nthat we are discovering religion to be a superfluous superstructure.\n\nIt may be argued that the assumption that murder, adultery, etc., are\noffences against God's will is a mere assumption, and that in making\nthe assumption we are fleeing \"to the bosom of faith.\"  The reply is\nthat we are content not merely to flee but to rest there . . . 211-238\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY\n\nIf we are to understand the place of Christianity in the evolution of\nreligion, we must consider the place of religion in the evolution of\nhumanity; and I must explain the point of view from which I propose to\napproach the three ideas of (1) evolution, (2) the evolution of\nhumanity, (3) the evolution of religion.\n\nI wish to approach the idea of evolution from the proposition that the\nindividual is both a means by which society attains its end, and an end\nfor the sake of which society exists.  Utilitarianism has familiarised\nus with the view that society exists for the sake of the individual and\nfor the purpose of realising the happiness and good of every\nindividual: no man is to be treated merely as a chattel, existing\nsolely as a means whereby his owner, or the governing class, may\nbenefit.  But this aspect of the facts is entirely ignored by the\nscientific theory of evolution: according to that theory, the\nindividual exists only as a factor in the process of evolution, as one\nof the means by which, and not as in any sense the end for which, the\nprocess is carried on.\n\nNext, this aspect of the facts is ignored not only by the scientific\ntheory of evolution, but also by the theory which humanitarianism holds\nas to the evolution of humanity, viz. that it is a process moving\nthrough the three stages of custom, religion, and humanitarianism.\nThat process is still, as it has long been in the past, far from\ncomplete: {xxiv} the end is not yet.  It is an end in which, whenever\nand if ever realised on earth, we who are now living shall not live to\npartake: we are--on this theory of the evolution of humanity--means,\nand solely means, to an end which, when realised, we shall not partake\nin.  Being an end in which we cannot participate, it is not an end\nwhich can be rationally set up for us to strive to attain.  Nor will\nthe generation, which is ultimately to enjoy it, find much satisfaction\nin reflecting that their enjoyment has been purchased at the cost of\nothers.  To treat a minority of individuals as the end for which\nhumanity is evolved, and the majority as merely means, is a strange\npass for humanitarianism to come to.\n\nApproaching the evolution of religion from the point of view that the\nindividual must always be regarded both as an end and as a means, we\nfind that Buddhism denies the individual to be either the one or the\nother, for his very existence is an illusion, and an illusion which\nmust be dispelled, in order that he may cease from an existence which\nit is an illusion to imagine that he possesses.  If, however, we turn\nto other religions less highly developed than Buddhism, we find that,\nin all, the existence of the individual as well as of the god of the\ncommunity is assumed; that the interests of the community are the will\nof the community's god; that the interests of the community are higher\nthan the interests of the individual, when they appear to differ; and\nthat the man who prefers the interests of the community to his own is\nregarded as the higher type of man.  In fine, the individual, from this\npoint of view, acts voluntarily as the means whereby the end of society\nmay be realised.  And, in so acting, he testifies to his conviction\nthat he will thereby realise his own end.\n\nThroughout the history of religion these two facts are implied: first,\nthe existence of the individual as a member of society seeking\ncommunion with God; next, the existence of society as a means of which\nthe individual is {xxv} the end.  Hence two consequences with regard to\nevolution: first, evolution may have helped to make us, but we are\nhelping to make it; next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside\nany one of us, but in part is realised in us.  And it is just because\nthe end is both within us and without us that we are bound up with our\nfellow-man and God.\n\nWhether the process of evolution is moving to any end whatever, is a\nquestion which science declines--formally refuses--to consider.\nWhether the end at which religion aims is possible or not, has in any\ndegree been achieved or not, is a question which the science of\nreligion formally declines to consider.  If, however, we recognise that\nthe end of religion, viz. communion with God, is an end at which we\nought to aim, then the process whereby the end tends to be attained is\nno longer evolution in the scientific sense.  It is a process in which\nprogress may or may not be made.  As a fact, the missionary everywhere\nsees arrested development, imperfect communion with God; for the\ndifferent forms of religion realise the end of religion in different\ndegrees.  Christianity claims to be \"final,\" not in the chronological\nsense, but in that it alone finds the true basis and the only end of\nsociety in the love of God.  The Christian theory of society again\ndiffers from all other theories in that it not only regards the\nindividuals composing it as continuing to exist after death, but\nteaches that the society of which the individual is truly a member,\nthough it manifests itself in this world, is realised in the next.\n\nThe history of religion is the history of man's search for God.  That\nsearch depends for its success, in part, upon man's will.  Christianity\ncannot be stationary: the extent to which we push our missionary\noutposts forward gives us the measure of our vitality.  And in that\nrespect, as in others, the vitality of the United States is great . . .\n239-265\n\n\nAPPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 _ad fin._\n\n\n\n\n{1}\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nOf the many things that fill a visitor from the old country with\nadmiration, on his first visit to the United States, that which arrests\nhis attention most frequently, is the extent and success with which\nscience is applied to practical purposes.  And it is beginning to dawn\nupon me that in the United States it is not only pure science which is\nthus practically applied,--the pure sciences of mechanics, physics,\nmathematics,--but that the historic sciences also are expected to\njustify themselves by their practical application; and that amongst the\nhistoric sciences not even the science of religion is exempted from the\ncommon lot.  It also may be useful; and had better be so,--if any one\nis to have any use for it.  It must make itself useful to the man who\nhas practical need of its results and wishes to apply them--the\nmissionary.  He it is who, for the practical purposes of the work to\nwhich he is called, requires an applied science of religion; and\nHartford {2} Theological Seminary may, I believe, justly claim to be\nthe first institution in the world which has deliberately and\nconsciously set to work to create by the courses of lectures, of which\nthis series is the very humble beginning, an applied science of\nreligion.\n\nHow, then, will the applied science differ from the pure science of\nreligion?  In one way it will not differ: an applied science does not\nsit in judgment upon the pure science on which it is based; it accepts\nthe truths which the pure science presents to all the world, and bases\nitself upon them.  The business of pure science is to discover facts;\nthat of the applied science is to use them.  The business of the\nscience of religion is to discover all the facts necessary if we are to\nunderstand the growth and history of religion.  The business of the\napplied science is, in our case, to use the discovered facts as a means\nof showing that Christianity is the highest manifestation of the\nreligious spirit.\n\nIn dealing with the applied science, then, we recover a liberty which\nthe pure science does not enjoy.  The science of religion is a historic\nscience.  Its student looks back upon the past; {3} and looks back upon\nit with a single purpose, that of discovering what, as a matter of\nfact, did happen, what was the order in which the events occurred.  In\nso looking back he may, and does, see many things which he could wish\nhad not occurred; but he has no power to alter them; he has no choice\nbut to record them; and his duty, his single duty, is to ascertain the\nhistoric facts and to establish the historic truth.  With the applied\nscience the case is very different.  There the student sets his face to\nthe future, no longer to the past.  The truths of pure science are the\nweapons placed in his hand with which he is to conquer the world.  It\nis in the faith that the armour provided him by science is sure and\nwill not fail him that he addresses himself to his chosen work.  The\nimplements are set in his hands.  The liberty is his to employ them for\nwhat end he will.  That liberty is a consequence of the fact that the\nstudent's object no longer is to ascertain the past, but to make the\nfuture.\n\nThe business of the pure science is to ascertain the facts and state\nthe truth.  To what use the facts and truth are afterwards put, is a\nquestion with which the pure science has nothing to do.  {4} The same\nfacts may be put to very different uses: from the same facts very\ndifferent conclusions may be drawn.  The facts which the science of\nreligion establishes may be used and are used for different and for\ncontradictory purposes.  The man who is agnostic or atheist uses them\nto support his atheism or agnosticism; or even, if he is so unwise, to\nprove it.  The man who has religion is equally at liberty to use them\nin his support; and if he rarely does that, at any rate he still more\nrarely commits the mistake of imagining that the science of religion\nproves the truth of his particular views on the subject of religion.\nIndeed, his tendency is rather in the opposite direction: he is\nunreasonably uneasy and apt to have a disquieting alarm lest the\nscience of religion may really be a danger to religion.  This alarm may\nvery naturally arise when he discovers that to the scientific student\none religion is as another, and the question is indifferent whether\nthere is any truth in any form.  It is very easy to jump from these\nfacts to the erroneous conclusion that science of religion is wholly\nincompatible with religious belief.  And of course it is quite human\nand perfectly intelligible that that conclusion should be proclaimed\naloud as correct {5} and inevitable by the man who, being an atheist,\nfights for what he feels to be the truth.\n\nWe must, therefore, once more insist upon the simple fact that science\nof religion abstains necessarily from assuming either that religion is\ntrue or is not true.  What it does assume is what no one will deny,\nviz. that religion is a fact.  Religious beliefs may be right or they\nmay be wrong: but they exist.  Therefore they can be studied,\ndescribed, classified, placed in order of development, and treated as a\nbranch of sociology and as one department of the evolution of the\nworld.  And all this can be done without once asking the question\nwhether religious belief is true and right and good, or not.  Whether\nit is pronounced true or false by you or me, will not in the least\nshake the fact that it has existed for thousands of years, that it has\nhad a history during that period, and that that history may be written.\nWe may have doubts whether the institution of private property is a\ngood thing, or whether barter and exchange are desirable proceedings.\nBut we shall not doubt that private property exists or that it may be\nexchanged.  And we shall not imagine that the science of political\neconomy, which deals, among other {6} things with the production and\nexchange of wealth which is private property, makes any pronouncement\nwhatever on the question whether private property is or is not an\ninstitution which we ought to support and believe in.  The conclusions\nestablished by the science of political economy are set forth before\nthe whole world; and men may use them for what purpose they will.  They\nmay and do draw very different inferences from them, even contradictory\ninferences.  But if they do, it is because they use them for different\nends or contradictory purposes.  And the fact that the communist or\nsocialist uses political economy to support his views no more proves\nthat socialism is the logical consequence of political economy than the\nfact that the atheist uses or misuses, for his own purposes, the\nconclusions of the science of religion proves his inferences to be the\nlogical outcome of the science.\n\nThe science of religion deals essentially with the one fact that\nreligion has existed and does exist.  It is from that fact that the\nmissionary will start; and it is with men who do not question the fact\nthat he will have to do.  The science of religion seeks to trace the\nhistoric growth, the evolution of religion; to establish what actually\nwas, not to {7} judge what ought to have been,--science knows no\n\"ought,\" in that sense or rather in that tense, the past tense.  Its\nwork is done, its last word has been said, when it has demonstrated\nwhat was.  It is the heart which sighs to think what might have been,\nand which puts on it a higher value than it does on what actually came\nto pass.  There is then another order in which facts may be ranged\nbesides the chronological order in which historically they occurred;\nand that is the order of their value.  It is an order in which we do\nrange facts, whenever we criticise them.  It is the order in which we\nrange them, whenever we pass judgment on them.  Or, rather, passing\njudgment on them is placing them in the order of their value.  And the\nchronological order of their occurrence is quite a different thing from\nthe order in which we rank them when we judge them according to their\nvalue and importance.  It is, or rather it would be, quite absurd to\nsay, in the case of literature, or art, for instance, that the two\norders are identical.  There it is obvious and universally admitted\nthat one period may reach a higher level than another which in point of\ntime is later.  The classical period is followed by a post-classical\nperiod; culmination is followed by decline.  {8} Now, this difference\nin point of the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real\nand as fundamental as the time order or chronological relation of the\ntwo periods.  It would be patently ridiculous for any ardent maintainer\nof the importance of distinguishing between good literature and bad,\ngood art and bad art, to say that the one period, being good, must have\nbeen chronologically prior to the other, because, from the point of\nart, it was better than that other.  Every one can see that.  The\nchronological order, the historic order, is one thing; the order of\nliterary value or artistic importance is another.  But if this is\ngranted, and every one will grant it, then it is also, and thereby,\ngranted that the historic order of events is not the same thing as the\norder of their value, and is no guide to it.  Thus far I have\nillustrated these remarks by reference to literary and artistic values.\nBut I need hardly say that I have been thinking really all the time of\nreligious values.  If the student of literature or of art surveys the\nhistory of art and literature with the purpose of judging the value of\nthe works produced, the student of religion may and must survey the\nhistory of religion with the same purpose.  If the one student is\nentitled, as he {9} justly is entitled, to say that the difference\nbetween the literary or artistic value of two periods is as real and as\nfundamental as is their difference in the order of time, then the\nstudent of religion is claiming no exceptional or suspicious privilege\nfor himself.  He is claiming no privilege at all; he is but exercising\nthe common rights of all students like himself, when he points out that\ndifferences in religious values are just as real and just as\nfundamental as the historic or chronological order itself.\n\nThe assignment of values, then,--be it the assignment of the value of\nworks of art, literature, or religion,--is a proceeding which is not\nonly possible (as will be somewhat contemptuously admitted by those who\nbelieve that evolution is progress, and that there is no order of value\ndistinct from the order of history and chronological succession); the\nassignment of value is not only permissible (as may be admitted by\nthose who believe, or for want of thought fancy they believe, that the\nhistoric order of events is the only order which can really exist), it\nis absolutely inevitable.  It is the concomitant or rather an integral\npart of every act of perception.  Everything that we perceive is either\ndismissed from attention because it is judged at the moment to have\n{10} no value, or, if it has value, attention is concentrated upon it.\n\nFrom this point of view, then, it should be clear that there is some\ndeficiency in such a science as the science of religion, which, by the\nvery conditions that determine its existence, is precluded from ever\nraising the question of the value of any of the religions with which it\ndeals.  Why does it voluntarily, deliberately, and of its own accord,\nrigidly exclude the question whether religions have any value--whether\nreligion itself has any value?  One answer there is to that question\nwhich once would have been accepted as conclusive, viz. that the object\nof science is truth.  That answer delicately implies that whether\nreligion has any value is an enquiry to which no truthful answer can be\ngiven.  The object of science is truth; therefore science alone, with\nall modesty be it said, can attain truth.  Science will not ask the\nquestion--or, when it is merciful, abstains from asking the\nquestion--whether religion is true.  So the reasonable and truthful man\nmust, on that point, necessarily be agnostic: whether religion is true,\nhe does not know.\n\nThis train of inferences follows--so far as it is permitted illogical\ninferences to follow at all--from {11} the premise that the object of\nscience is truth.  Or, rather, it follows from that premise as we\nshould now understand it, viz. that the object of historic science is\nhistoric truth.  That is the object of the science of religion--to be\ntrue to the historic facts, to discover and to state them accurately.\nOn the principle of the division of labour, or on the principle of\ntaking one thing at a time, it is obviously wise that when we are\nendeavouring to discover the historic sequence of events, we should\nconfine ourselves to that task and not suffer ourselves to be\ndistracted and diverted by other and totally different considerations.\nThe science of religion, therefore, is justified, in the opinion of all\nwho are entitled to express an opinion, in steadfastly declining to\nconsider any other point than the historic order of the facts with\nwhich it deals.  But in so declining to go beyond its self-appointed\ntask of reconstituting the historic order of events and tracing the\nevolution of religion, it does not, thereby, imply that it is\nimpossible to place them, or correctly place them, in their order of\nvalue.  To say that they have no value would be just as absurd as to\nsay that works of literature or art have no literary or artistic value.\nTo say that it is difficult to assign their value may be {12} true, but\nis no argument against, it is rather a stimulus in favour of, making\nthe attempt.  And it is just the order value, the relative value, of\nforms of religion which is of absorbing interest to missionaries.  It\nis a valuation which is essential to what I have already designated as\nthe applied science of religion.  Thus far in speaking of the\ndistinction between the historic order in which the various forms of\nart, literature, and religion have occurred, and the order of value in\nwhich the soul of every man who is sensible either to art or to\nliterature or to religion instinctively attempts to place them, I have\nnecessarily assumed the position of one who looks backward over the\npast.  It was impossible to compare and contrast the order value with\nthe historic order, save by doing so.  It was necessary to point out\nthat the very same facts which can be arranged chronologically and in\nthe order of their evolution can also be--and, as a matter of fact, by\nevery man are--arranged more or less roughly, more or less correctly,\nor incorrectly, in the order of their value.  It is now necessary for\nus to set our faces towards the future.  I say \"necessary\" for the\nsimple reason that the idea of \"value\" carries with it a reference to\nthe future.  If a thing has value, it is because we {13} judge that it\nmay produce some effect and serve some purpose which we foresee, or at\nleast surmise.  If, on looking back upon past history, we pronounce\nthat an event had value, we do so because we see that it served, or\nmight have served, some end of which we approve.  Its value is relative\nin our eyes to some end or purpose which was relatively future to it.\nThe objects which we aim at, the ends after which we strive, are in the\nfuture.  Those things have value which may subserve our ends and help\nus to attain our purposes.  And our purposes, our ends, and objects are\nin the future.  There, there is hope and freedom, room to work, the\nchance of remedying the errors of the past, the opportunity to make\nsome forward strides and to help others on.\n\nIt is the end we aim at, the object we strive for, the ideal we set\nbefore us, that gives value to what we do, and to what has been done by\nus and others.  Now our ends, our objects, and our ideals are matters\nof the will, on which the will is set, and not merely matters of which\nwe have intellectual apprehension.  They are not past events but future\npossibilities.  The conviction that we can attain them or attain toward\nthem is not, when stated as a proposition, a proposition that can be\nproved, as a statement {14} referring to the past may be proved: but it\nis a conviction which we hold, or a conviction which holds us, just as\nstrongly as any conviction that we have about any past event of\nhistory.  The whole action of mankind, every action that every man\nperforms, is based upon that conviction.  It is the basis of all that\nwe do, of everything that is and has been done by us and others.  And\nit is Faith.  In that sign alone can the world be conquered.\n\nWhen, then, the man of religion proposes by faith to conquer the world,\nhe is simply doing, wittingly and in full consciousness of what he is\ndoing, that which every man does in his every action, even though he\nmay not know it.  To make it a sneer or a reproach that religion is a\nmere matter of faith; to imagine that there is any better, or indeed\nthat there is any other, ground of action,--is demonstrably\nunreasonable.  The basis of such notions is, of course, the false idea\nthat the man of sense acts upon knowledge, and that the man who acts on\nfaith is not a sensible man.  The error of such notions may be exposed\nin a sentence.  What knowledge have we of the future?  We have none.\nAbsolutely none.  We expect that nature will prove uniform, that causes\nwill produce their effects.  We believe {15} the future will resemble,\nto some extent, the past.  But we have no knowledge of the future; and\nsuch belief as we have about it, like all other belief,--whether it be\nbelief in religion or in science,--is simply faith.  When, then, the\nman of science consults the records of the past or the experiments of\nthe present for guidance as to what will or may be, he is exhibiting\nhis faith not in science, but in some reality, in some real being, in\nwhich is no shadow of turning.  When the practical man uses the results\nof pure science for some practical end, he is taking them on faith and\nuses them in the further faith that the end he aims at can be realised,\nand shall by him be realised, if not in one way, then in another.  The\nmissionary, then, who uses the results of the science of religion, who\nseeks to benefit by an applied science of religion, is but following in\nthe footsteps of the practical man, and using business methods toward\nthe end he is going to realise.\n\nThe end he is going to realise is to convert men to Christianity.  The\nfaith in which he acts is that Christianity is the highest form which\nreligion can take, the final form it shall take.  As works of art or\nliterature may be classed either according to order of history or order\nof value, so the works of the {16} religious spirit may be classed, not\nonly in chronological order, but also in order of religious value.  I\nam not aware that any proof can be given to show that any given period\nof art or literature is better than any other.  The merits of\nShakespeare or of Homer may be pointed out; and they may, or they may\nnot, when pointed out, be felt.  If they are felt, no proof is needed;\nif they are not, no proof is possible.  But they can be pointed out--by\none who feels them.  And they can be contrasted with the work of other\npoets in which they are less conspicuous.  And the contrast may reveal\nthe truth in a way in which otherwise it could never have been made\nplain.\n\nI know no other way in which the relative values of different forms of\nreligion can become known or be made known.  You may have been tempted\nto reflect, whilst I have been speaking, that, on the principle I have\nlaid down, there is no reason why there should not be five hundred\napplied sciences, or applications of the science, of religion, instead\nof one; for every one of the many forms of religion may claim to apply\nthe science of religion to its own ends.  To that I may reply first,\nthat _a priori_ you would expect that every nation would set up {17}\nits own literature as the highest; but, as a matter of fact, you find\nShakespeare generally placed highest amongst dramatists, Homer amongst\nepic poets.  You do not find the conception of literary merit varying\nfrom nation to nation in such a way that there are as many standards of\nvalue as there are persons to apply them.  You find that there tends to\nbe one standard.  Next, since the different forms of religion must be\ncompared if their relative values are to be ascertained, the method of\nthe applied science of religion must be the method of comparison.\nWhatever the outcome that is anticipated from the employment of the\napplied science, it is by the method of comparison that it must act.\nAnd one indication of genuine faith is readiness to employ that method,\nand assured confidence in the result of its employment.  The\nmissionary's life is the best, because the most concrete example of the\npractical working of the method of comparison; and the outcome of the\ncomparison which is made by those amongst whom and for whom he works\nmakes itself felt in their hearts, their lives, and sometimes in their\nconversion.  It is the best example, because the value of a religion to\nbe known must be felt.  But though it is the best because it is the\n{18} simplest, the most direct, and the most convincing it is not that\nwhich addresses itself primarily to the reason, and it is not one which\nis produced by the applied science of religion.  It is not one which\ncan be produced by any science, pure or applied.  The object of the\napplied science of religion is to enable the missionary himself to\ncompare forms of religion, incidentally in order that he may know what\nby faith he feels, and without faith he could not feel, viz. that\nChristianity is the highest form; but still more in order that he may\nteach others, and may have at his command the facts afforded by the\nscience of religion, wherewith to appeal, when necessary, to the reason\nand intelligence as well as to the hearts and feelings of those for\nwhose salvation he is labouring.\n\nThe time has happily gone by when the mere idea of comparing\nChristianity with any other religion would have been rejected with\nhorror as treasonous and treacherous.  The fact that that time has now\ngone by is in itself evidence of a stronger faith in Christianity.\nWhat, if it was not fear, at any rate presented the appearance of fear,\nhas been banished; and we can and do, in the greater faith that has\nbeen vouchsafed to us, look with {19} confidence on the proposal to\ncompare Christianity with other religions.  The truth cannot but gain\nthereby, and we rest on Him who is the way and the truth.  We recognise\nfully and freely that comparison implies similarity, points of\nresemblance, ay! and even features of identity.  And of that admission\nmuch has been made--and more than can be maintained.  It has been\npressed to mean that all forms of religion, from the lowest to the\nhighest, are identical; that therefore there is nothing more or other\nin the highest than in the lowest; and that in the lowest you see how\nbarbarous is religion and how unworthy of civilised man.  Now, that\ncourse of argument is open to one obvious objection which would be\nfatal to it, even if it were the only objection, which it is not.  That\nobjection is that whether we are using the method of comparison for the\npurpose of estimating the relative values of different forms of\nreligion; or whether we are using the comparative method of science,\nwith the object of discovering and establishing facts, quite apart from\nthe value they may have for any purpose they may be put to when they\nhave been established; in either case, comparison is only applied, and\ncan only be applied to things which, {20} though they resemble one\nanother, also differ from one another.  It is because they differ, at\nfirst sight, that the discovery of their resemblance is important.  And\nit is on that aspect of the truth that the comparative method of\nscience dwells.  Comparative philology, for instance, devotes itself to\nestablishing resemblances between, say, the Indo-European languages,\nwhich for long were not suspected to bear any likeness to one another\nor to have any connection with each other.  Those resemblances are\nexamined more and more closely, are stated with more and more\nprecision, until they are stated as laws of comparative philology, and\nrecognised as laws of science to which there are no exceptions.  Yet\nwhen the resemblances have been worked out to the furthest detail, no\none imagines that Greek and Sanskrit are the same language, or that the\ndifferences between them are negligible.  It is then surprising that\nany student of comparative religion should imagine that the discovery\nor the recognition of points of likeness between the religions compared\nwill ever result in proving that the differences between them are\nnegligible or non-existent.  Such an inference is unscientific, and it\nhas only to be stated to show that the student {21} of comparative\nreligion is but exercising a right common to all students of all\nsciences, when he claims that points of difference cannot be overlooked\nor thrust aside.\n\nIf, then, the student of the science of religion directs his attention\nprimarily to the discovery of resemblances between religions which at\nfirst sight bear no more resemblance to one another than Greek did to\nthe Celtic tongues; if the comparative method of science dwells upon\nthe fact that things which differ from one another may also resemble\none another, and that their resemblances may be stated in the form of\nscientific laws,--there is still another aspect of the truth, and it is\nthat between things which resemble one another there are also\ndifferences.  And the jury of the world will ultimately demand to know\nthe truth and the whole truth.\n\nNow, to get not only at the truth, but at the whole of the truth, is\nprecisely the business of the applied science of religion, and is the\nvery object of that which, in order to distinguish it from the\ncomparative method of science, I have called the method of comparison.\nFor the purposes of fair comparison not only must the resemblances,\nwhich the {22} comparative method of science dwells on, be taken into\naccount, but the differences, also, must be weighed.  And it is the\nbusiness of the method of comparison, the object of the applied science\nof religion, to do both things.  Neither of the two can be dispensed\nwith; neither is more important than the other; but for the practical\npurposes of the missionary it is important to begin with the\nresemblances; and on grounds of logic and of theory, the resemblances\nmust be first established, if the importance, nay! the decisive value,\nof the differences is to go home to the hearts and minds of the\nmissionary's hearers.  The resemblances are there and are to be studied\nultimately in order to bring out the differences and make them stand\nforth so plainly as to make choice between the higher form of religion\nand the lower easy, simply because the difference is so manifest.  Now,\nthe missionary's hearer could not know, much less appreciate, the\ndifference, the superiority of Christianity, as long as Christianity\nwas unknown to him.  And it is equally manifest, though it has never\nbeen officially recognised until now and by the Hartford Theological\nSeminary, that neither can the missionary adequately set forth the\nsuperiority of Christianity to {23} the lower forms of religion, unless\nhe knows something about them and about the points in which their\ninferiority consists.  Hitherto he has had to learn that for himself,\nas he went on, and, as it were, by rule of thumb.  But, on business\nprinciples, economy of labour and efficiency in work will be better\nsecured if he is taught before he goes out, and is taught on scientific\nmethods.  What he has to learn is the resemblances between the various\nforms of religion, the differences between them, and the relative\nvalues of those differences.\n\nIt may perhaps be asked, Why should those differences exist?  And if\nthe question should be put, I am inclined to say that to give the\nanswer is beyond the scope of the applied science of religion.  The\nmethod of comparison assumes that the differences do exist, and it\ncannot begin to be employed unless and until they exist.  They are and\nmust be taken for granted, at any rate by the applied science of\nreligion, and if the method of comparison is to be set to work.\nIndeed, if we may take the principle of evolution to be the\ndifferentiation of the homogeneous, we may go further and say that the\nwhole theory of evolution, and not merely a particular historic\nscience, such as the science of religion, {24} postulates\ndifferentiation and the principle of difference, and does not explain\nit,--evolution cannot start, the homogeneous cannot be other than\nhomogeneous, until the principle of difference and the power of\ndifferentiation is assumed.\n\nThat the science of religion at the end leaves untouched those\ndifferences between religions which it recognised at the beginning, is\na point on which I insisted, as against those who unwarrantably\nproclaim the science to have demonstrated that all religions alike are\nbarbarisms or survivals of barbarism.  It is well, therefore, to bear\nthat fact in mind when attempts are made to explain the existence of\nthe differences by postulating a period when they were non-existent.\nThat postulate may take form in the supposition that originally the\ntrue religion alone existed, and that the differences arose later.\nThat is a supposition which has been made by more than one people, and\nin more ages than one.  It carries with it the consequence that the\nhistory--it would be difficult to call it the evolution and impossible\nto call it the progress--of religion has been one of degradation\ngenerally.  Owing, however, to the far-reaching and deep-penetrating\ninfluence of the theory of evolution, it has of late grown {25}\ncustomary to assume that the movement, the course of religious history,\nhas been in the opposite direction; and that it has moved upwards from\nthe lowest forms of religion known to us, or from some form analogous\nto the lowest known forms, through the higher to the highest.  This\nsecond theory, however different in its arrangement of the facts from\nthe Golden Age theory first alluded to, is still fundamentally in\nagreement with it, inasmuch as it also assumes that the differences\nexhibited later in the history of religion at first were non-existent.\nBoth theories assume the existence of the originally homogeneous, but\nthey disagree as to the nature of the differences which supervened, and\nalso as to the nature of the originally homogeneous.\n\nI wish therefore to call attention to the simple truth that the facts\nat the disposal of the science of religion neither enable nor warrant\nus to decide between these two views.  If we were to come to a decision\non the point, we should have to travel far beyond the confines of the\nscience of religion, or the widest bounds of the theory of evolution,\nand enquire why there should be error as well as truth--or, to put the\nmatter very differently, why there should be truth at all.  But if we\nstarted travelling {26} on that enquiry, we should not get back in time\nfor this course of lectures.  Fortunately it is not necessary to take a\nticket for that journey--perhaps not possible to secure a return\nticket.  We have only to recognise that the science of religion\nconfines itself to constating and tracing the differences, and does not\nattempt to explain why they should exist; while the applied science of\nreligion is concerned with the practical business of bringing home the\ndifference between Christianity and other forms of religion to the\nhearts of those whose salvation may turn on whether the missionary has\nbeen properly equipped for his task.\n\nIf, now, I announce that for the student of the applied science it is\nadvisable that he should turn his attention in the first place to the\nlowest forms of religion, the announcement need not be taken to mean\nthat a man cannot become a student of the science of religion, whether\npure or applied, unless he assumes that the lowest is the most\nprimitive form.  The science of religion, as it pushes its enquiries,\nmay possibly come across--may even already have come across--the lowest\nform to which it is possible for man to descend.  But whether that form\nis the most primitive as well as {27} the lowest,--still more, whether\nit is the most primitive because it is the lowest,--will be questions\nwhich will not admit of being settled offhand.  And in the meantime we\nare not called upon to answer them in the affirmative as a _sine qua\nnon_ of being admitted students of the science.\n\nThe reason for beginning with the lowest forms is--as is proper in a\npractical science--a practical one.  As I have already said, if the\nmissionary is to succeed in his work, he must know and teach the\ndifference and the value of the difference between Christianity and\nother religions.  But difference implies similarity: we cannot specify\nthe points of difference between two things without presupposing some\nsimilarity between them,--at any rate sufficient similarity to make a\ncomparison of them profitable.  Now, the similarity between the higher\nforms of religion is such that there is no need to demonstrate it, in\norder to justify our proceeding to dwell upon the differences.  But the\nsimilarity between the higher and the lower forms is far from being\nthus obvious.  Indeed, in some cases, for example in the case of some\nAustralian tribes, there is alleged, by some students of the science of\nreligion, to be such a total absence of similarity that we are entitled\nor {28} compelled to recognise that however liberally, or loosely, we\nrelax our definition of religion, we must pronounce those tribes to be\nwithout religion.  The allegation thus made, the question thus raised,\nevidently is of practical importance for the practical purposes of the\nmissionary.  Where some resemblances exist between the higher and the\nlower forms of religion, those resemblances may be made, and should be\nmade, the ground from which the missionary should proceed to point out\nby contrast the differences, and so to set forth the higher value of\nChristianity.  But if no such resemblances should exist, they cannot be\nmade a basis for the missionary's work.  Without proceeding in this\nintroductory lecture to discuss the question whether there are any\ntribes whatever that are without religion, I may point out that\nreligion, in all its forms, is, in one of its aspects, a yearning and\naspiration after God, a search after Him, peradventure we may find Him.\nAnd if it be alleged that in some cases there is no search after\nHim,--that amongst civilised men, amongst our own acquaintances, there\nis in some cases no search and no aspiration, and that therefore among\nthe more backward peoples of the earth there may also be tribes to whom\nthe very idea of {29} such a search is unknown,--then we must bear in\nmind that a search, after any object whatever, may be dropped, may even\nbe totally abandoned; and yet the heart may yearn after that which it\nis persuaded--or, it may be, is deluded into thinking--it can never\nfind.  Perhaps, however, that way of putting it may be objected to, on\nthe ground that it is a _petitio principii_ and assumes the very fact\nit is necessary to prove, viz. that the lowest tribes that are or can\nbe known to us have made the search and given it up, whereas the\ncontention is that they have never made the search.  That contention, I\nwill remark in passing, is one which never can be proved.  But to those\nwho consider that it is probable in itself, and that it is a necessary\nstage in the evolution of belief, I would point out that every search\nis made in hope--or, it may be, in fear--that search presupposes hope\nand fear.  Vague, of course, the hope may be; scarce conscious, if\nconscious at all, of what is hoped.  But without hope, until there are\nsome dim stirrings, however vague, search is unconceivable, and it is\nin and by the process of search that the hope becomes stronger and the\nobject sought more definite to view.  Now, inasmuch as it is doubtful\nwhether any tribe of {30} people is without religion, it may reasonably\nbe held that the vast majority, at any rate, of the peoples of the\nearth have proceeded from hope to aspiration and to search; and if\nthere should be found a tribe which had not yet entered consciously on\nthe search, the reasonable conclusion would be not that it is exempted\nfrom the laws which we see exemplified in all other peoples, but that\nit is tending to obey the same laws and is starting from the same point\nas they,--that hope which is the desire of all nations and has been\nmade manifest in the Son of Man.\n\nWhatever be the earliest history of that hope, whatever was its nature\nand course in prehistoric times, it has been worked out in history in\nmany directions, under the influence of many errors, into many forms of\nreligion.  But in them all we feel that there is the same striving, the\nsame yearning; and we see it with the same pity and distress as we may\nobserve the distorted motions of the man who, though partially\nparalysed, yet strives to walk, and move to the place where he would\nbe.  It is with these attempts to walk, in the hope of giving help to\nthem who need it, that we who are here to-day are concerned.  We must\nstudy them, if we are to {31} understand them and to remedy them.  And\nthere is no understanding them, unless we recognise that in them all\nthere is the striving and yearning after God, which may be cruelly\ndistorted, but is always there.\n\nIt so happens that there has been great readiness on the part of\nstudents of the science of religion to recognise that belief in the\ncontinued existence of the soul after the death of the body has\ncomparative universality amongst the lower races of mankind.  Their\nyearning after continued existence developes into hope of a future\nlife; and the hope, or fear, takes many forms: the continued existence\nmay or may not be on this earth; it may or may not take the shape of a\nbelief in the transmigration of souls; it sometimes does, and sometimes\ndoes not, lead to belief in the judgment of the dead and future\npunishments and rewards; it may or may not postulate the immortality of\nthe soul; it may shrink to comparative, if not absolute, unimportance;\nor it may be dreaded and denounced by philosophy and even by religion.\nBut whether dreaded or delighted in, whether developed by religion or\ndenounced, the tendency to the belief is there--universal among mankind\nand ineradicable.\n\n{32}\n\nThe parallel, then, between this belief and the belief or tendency to\nbelieve in God is close and instructive; and I shall devote my next\nlecture therefore to the belief in a future life among the primitive\nraces of mankind.  That belief manifests itself, as I shall hope to\nshow, from the beginning, in a yearning hope for the continued\nexistence of the beloved ones who have been taken from us by death, as\nwell as in dread of the ghosts of those who during their life were\nfeared.  But in either case what it postulates and points to is man\nliving in community with man.  It implies society; and there again is\nparallel to religion.  It is with the hopes and fears of the community\nas such that religion has to do: and it is from that point of view that\nI shall start when I come to deal with the subject of magic, and its\nresemblance to and difference from religion.  Its resemblance is not\naccidental and the difference is not arbitrary: the difference is that\nbetween social and anti-social purposes.  That difference, if borne in\nmind, may give us the clue to the real nature of fetichism,--a subject\nwhich will require a lecture to itself.  I shall then proceed to a\ntopic which has been ignored to a surprising extent by the science of\nreligion; that is, the subject of {33} prayer: and the light which is\nto be derived thence will, I trust, give fresh illumination to the\nmeaning of sacrifice.  The relation of religion to morality will then\nfall to be considered; and my final lecture will deal with the place of\nChristianity in the evolution of religion.\n\n\n\n\n{34}\n\nIMMORTALITY\n\nThe missionary, like any other practical man, requires to know what\nscience can teach him about the material on which he has to work.  So\nfar as is possible, he should know what materials are sound and can be\nused with safety in his constructive work, and what must be thrown\naside, what must be destroyed, if his work is to escape dry-rot and to\nstand as a permanent edifice.  He should be able to feel confidence,\nfor instance, not merely that magic and fetichism are the negation of\nreligion, but that in teaching that fact he has to support him the\nevidence collected by the science of religion; and he should have that\nevidence placed at his disposal for effective use, if need be.\n\nIt may be also that amongst much unsound material he will find some\nthat is sound, that may be used, and that he cannot afford to cast\naway.  He has to work upon our common humanity, upon the humanity\ncommon to him and his hearers.  He has to remember that no man and no\ncommunity of {35} men ever is or has been or ever can be excluded from\nthe search after God.  And his duty, his chosen duty, is to help them\nin that search, and as far as may be to make the way clear for them,\nand to guide their feet in the right path.  He will find that they have\nattempted to make paths for themselves; and it is not impossible that\nhe will find that some of those paths for some distance do go in the\nright direction; that some of their beliefs have in them an element of\ntruth, or a groping after truth which, rightly understood, may be made\nto lead to Christianity.  It is with one of those beliefs--the belief\nin immortality--that I shall deal in this lecture.\n\nIt is a fact worthy of notice that the belief in immortality fills, I\nwill not say a more important, but a more prominent, place in the\nhearts and hopes of uncivilised than of civilised man; and it is also a\nfact worthy of notice that among primitive men the belief in\nimmortality is much less intimately bound up with religion than it\ncomes to be at a later period of evolution.  The two facts are probably\nnot wholly without relation to one another.  So long as the belief in\nimmortality luxuriates and grows wild, so to speak, untrained and\nunrestrained by religion, it {36} developes as the fancy wills, and\nlives by flattering the fancy.  When, however, the relations of a\nfuture life to morality and religion come to be realised, when the\nconception of the next world comes to be moralised, then it becomes the\nsubject of fear as well as of hope; and the fancy loses much of the\nfreedom with which it tricked out the pictures that once it drew,\npurely according to its own sweet liking, of a future state.  On the\none hand, the guilty mind prefers not to dwell upon the day of\nreckoning, so long as it can stave off the idea; and it may succeed\nmore or less in putting it on one side until the proximity of death\nmakes the idea insistent.  Thus the mind more or less deliberately\ndismisses the future life from attention.  On the other hand, religion\nitself insists persistently on the fact that you have your duty here\nand now in this world to perform, and that the rest, the future\nconsequences, you must leave to God.  Thus, once more, and this time\nnot from unworthy motives, attention is directed to this life rather\nthan to the next; and it is this point that is critical for the fate\nboth of the belief in immortality and of religion itself.  At this\npoint, religion may, as in the case of Buddhism it actually has done,\nformally give up and disavow {37} belief in immortality.  And in that\ncase it sows the seed of its own destruction.  Or it may recognise that\nthe immortality of the soul is postulated by and essential to morality\nand religion alike.  And in that case, even in that case alone, is\nreligion in a position to provide a logical basis for morality and to\nplace the natural desire for a future life on a firmer basis than the\nuntutored fancy of primitive man could find for it.\n\nIt is then with primitive man or with the lower races that we will\nbegin, and with \"the comparative universality of their belief in the\ncontinued existence of the soul after the death of the body\" (Tylor,\n_Primitive Culture_, II, i).  Now, the classical theory of this belief\nis that set forth by Professor Tylor in his _Primitive Culture_.\nWhence does primitive man get his idea that the soul continues to exist\nafter the death of the body? the answer given is, in the first place,\nfrom the fact that man dreams.  He dreams of distant scenes that he\nvisits in his sleep; it is clear, from the evidence of those who saw\nhis sleeping body, that his body certainly did not travel; therefore he\nor his soul must be separable from the body and must have travelled\nwhilst his body lay unmoving and unmoved.  But he also dreams of {38}\nthose who are now dead, and whose bodies he knows, it may be, to have\nbeen incinerated.  The explanation then is obvious that they, too, or\ntheir souls, are separable from their bodies; and the fact that they\nsurvive death and the destruction of the body is demonstrated by their\nappearance in his dreams.  About the reality of their appearance in his\ndreams he has no more doubt than he has about the reality of what he\nhimself does and suffers in his dreams.  If, however, the dead appeared\nonly in his dreams, their existence after death might seem to be\nlimited to the dream-time.  But as a matter of fact they appear to him\nin his waking moments also: ghosts are at least as familiar to the\nsavage as to the civilised man; and thus the evidence of his dreams,\nwhich first suggested his belief, is confirmed by the evidence of his\nsenses.\n\nThus the belief in the continued existence of the soul after the death\nof the body is traced back to the action of dreams and waking\nhallucinations.  Now, it is inevitable that the inference should be\ndrawn that the belief in immortality has thus been tracked to its\nbasis.  And it is inevitable that those who start with an inclination\nto regard the belief as palpably absurd should welcome this exhibition\nof {39} its evolution as proof conclusive that the belief could only\nhave originated in and can only impose upon immature minds.  To that\ndoubtless it is a perfectly sound reply to say that the origin of a\nbelief is one thing and its validity quite another.  The way in which\nwe came to hold the belief is a matter of historical investigation, and\nundoubtedly may form a very fascinating enquiry.  But the question\nwhether the belief is true is a question which has to be considered, no\nmatter how I got it, just as the question whether I am committing a\ntrespass or not in being on a piece of ground cannot be settled by any\namount of explaining how I got there.  Or, to put it in another way,\nthe very risky path by which I have scrambled up a cliff does not make\nthe top any the less safe when I have got there.\n\nBut though it is perfectly logical to insist on the distinction between\nthe origin and the validity of any belief, and to refuse to question or\ndoubt the validity of the belief in immortality merely because of the\norigin ascribed to it by authorities on primitive culture,--that is no\nreason why we should not examine the origin suggested for it, to see\nwhether it is a satisfactory origin.  And that is what I propose now to\ndo.  I wish to suggest first that belief in the appearance of {40} the\ndead, whether to the dreamer or the ghost-seer, is an intellectual\nbelief as to what occurs as a matter of fact; and next that thereby it\nis distinguished from the desire for immortality which manifests itself\nwith comparative universality amongst the lower races.\n\nNow, that the appearance of the dead, whether to the waking or the\nsleeping eye, is sufficient to start the intellectual belief will be\nadmitted alike by those who do and those who do not hold that it is\nsufficient logically to warrant the belief.  But to say that it starts\nthe desire to see him or her whom we have lost, would be ridiculous.\nOn the contrary, it would be much nearer the truth to say that it is\nthe longing and the desire to see, once again, the loved one, that sets\nthe mind a-dreaming, and first gives to the heart hope.  The fact that,\nwere there no desire for the continuance of life after the death of the\nbody, the belief would never have caught on--that it either would never\nhave arisen or would have soon ceased to exist--is shown by the simple\nconsideration that only where the desire for the continuance of life\nafter death dies down does the belief in immortality tend to wane.  If\nany further evidence of that is required it may be found in the\nteaching of those {41} forms of philosophy and religion which endeavour\nto dispense with the belief in immortality, for they all recognise and\nindeed proclaim that they are based on the denial of the desire and the\nwill to live.  If, and only if--as, and only as--the desire to live,\nhere and hereafter, can be suppressed, can the belief in immortality be\neradicated.  The basis of the belief is the desire for continued\nexistence; and that is why the attempt to trace the origin of the\nbelief in immortality back to the belief in dreams and apparitions is\none which is not perfectly satisfactory; it leaves out of account the\ndesire without which the belief would not be and is not operative.\n\nBut though it leaves out an element which is at least as important as\nany element it includes, it would be an error to take no account of\nwhat it does contribute.  It would be an error of this kind if we\nclosed our eyes to the fact that what first arrests the attention of\nman, in the lower stages of his evolution, is the survival of others\nthan himself.  That is the belief which first manifests itself in his\nheart and mind; and what first reveals it to him is the appearance of\nthe dead to his sleeping or his waking eye.  He does not first hope or\nbelieve that he himself will survive the death of the body and then go\n{42} on to infer that therefore others also will similarly survive.  On\nthe contrary, it is the appearance of others in his sleeping or waking\nmoments that first gives him the idea; and it is only later and on\nreflection that it occurs to him that he also will have, or be, a ghost.\n\nBut though we must recognise the intellectual element in the belief and\nthe intellectual processes which are involved in the belief, we must\nalso take into account the emotional element, the element of desire.\nAnd first we should notice that the desire is not a selfish or\nself-regarding desire; it is the longing for one loved and lost, of the\nmother for her child, or of the child for its mother.  It is desire of\nthat kind which gives to dreams and apparitions their emotional value,\nwithout which they would have little significance and no spiritual\nimportance.  That is the direction in which we must look for the reason\nwhy, on the one hand, belief in the continuation of existence after\ndeath seems at first to have no connection with religion, while, on the\nother hand, the connection is ultimately shown by the evolution of\nbelief to be so intimate that neither can attain its proper development\nwithout the other.\n\nDreams are occasions on which the longing for {43} one loved and lost\nmanifests itself, but they are not the cause or the origin of the\naffection and the longing.  But dreams are not exclusively, specially,\nor even usually the domain in which religion plays a part.  Hence the\nvisions of the night, in which the memory of the departed and the\ncraving for reunion with them are manifested, bear no necessary\nreference to religion; and it is therefore possible, and _prima facie_\nplausible, to maintain that the belief in the immortality of the soul\nhas its origin in a centre quite distinct from the sphere of religion,\nand that it is only very slowly, if at all, that the belief in\nimmortality comes to be incorporated with religion.  On the other hand,\nthe very craving for reunion or continued communion with those who are\nfelt not to be lost but gone before, is itself the feeling which is,\nnot the base, but at the base, of religion.  In the lowest forms to\nwhich religion can be reduced, or in which it manifests itself,\nreligion is a bond of community; it manifests itself externally in\njoint acts of worship, internally in the feeling that the worshippers\nare bound together by it and united with the object of their worship.\nThis feeling of communion is not a mere article of intellectual belief,\nnor is it imposed upon the members; it is what they themselves desire.\n{44} Hoeffding states the truth when he says that in its most\nrudimentary form we encounter \"religion under the guise of desire\"; but\nin saying so he omits the essence of the truth, that essence without\nwhich the truth that he partially enunciates may become wholly\nmisleading,--he omits to say, and I think he fails to see, that the\ndesire which alone can claim to be considered as religious is the\ndesire of the community, not of the individual as such, and the desire\nof the community as united in common worship.  The idea of religion as\na bond of spiritual communion is implicit from the first, even though a\nlong process of evolution be necessary to disentangle it and set it\nforth self-consciously.  Now, it is precisely this spiritual communion\nof which man becomes conscious in his craving after reunion or\ncontinued communion with those who have departed this life.  And it is\nwith the history of his attempts to harmonise this desire with what he\nknows and demands of the universe otherwise, that we are here and now\nconcerned.\n\nSo strong is that desire, so inconceivable is the idea that death ends\nall, and divorces from us forever those we have loved and lost awhile,\nthat the lower races of mankind have been pretty generally driven {45}\nto the conclusion that death is a mistake or due to a mistake.  It is\nwidely held that there is no such thing as a natural death.  Men do of\ncourse die, they may be killed; but it is not an ordinance of nature\nthat a man must be killed; and, if he is killed, his death is not\nnatural.  So strong is this feeling that when a man dies and his death\nis not obviously a case of murder, the inference which the savage\nprefers to draw is that the death is really a case of murder, but that\nthe murder has been worked by witchcraft or magic.  Amongst the\nAustralian black fellows, as we are told by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,\n\"no such thing as natural death is realised by the native; a man who\ndies has of necessity been killed by some other man or perhaps even by\na woman, and sooner or later that man or woman will be attacked;\"\nconsequently, \"in very many cases there takes place what the white man,\nnot seeing beneath the surface, not unnaturally describes as secret\nmurder; but in reality ... every case of such secret murder, when one\nor more men stealthily stalk their prey with the object of killing him,\nis in reality the exacting of a life for a life, the accused person\nbeing indicated by the so-called medicine man as one who has brought\nabout the death of another man by magic, and whose {46} life must\ntherefore be forfeited\" (_Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 48).\n\nWhat underlies this idea that by man alone is death brought into the\nworld is that death is unnatural and is no part of the original design\nof things.  When the fact comes to be recognised undeniably that deaths\nnot caused by human agency do take place, then the fact requires\nexplanation; and the explanation on which primitive races, quite\nindependently of each other, hit is that as death was no part of the\noriginal design of things, its introduction was due to accident or\nmistake.  Either men were originally exempt from death, or they were\nintended to be exempt.  If they were intended to be exempt, then the\ninference drawn is that the intention was frustrated by the\ncarelessness of the agent intrusted with the duty of making men\ndeathless.  If they were originally exempt from death, then the loss of\nthe exemption has to be accounted for.  And in either case the\nexplanation takes the form of a narrative which relates how the mistake\ntook place or what event it was that caused the loss of the exemption.\nI need not quote examples of either class of narrative.  What I wish to\ndo is to emphasise the fact that by primitive man death is felt to be\ninconsistent with the {47} scheme of things.  First, therefore, he\ndenies that it can come in the course of nature, though he admits that\nit may be procured by the wicked man in the way of murder or magic.\nAnd it is at this stage that his hope of reunion with those loved and\nlost scarcely stretches beyond the prospect of their return to this\nworld.  Evidence of this stage is found partly in tales such as those\ntold of the mother who returns to revisit her child, or of persons\nrestored to life.  Stories of this latter kind come from Tasmania,\nAustralia, and Samoa, amongst other places, and are found amongst the\nEskimo and American Indians, as well as amongst the Fjorts (J. A.\nMacCullough, _The Childhood of Fiction_, ch. IV).  Even more direct\nevidence of the emotion which prompts these stories is afforded by the\nHo dirge, quoted by Professor Tylor (_P. C._, II, 32, 33):--\n\n    \"We never scolded you; never wronged you;\n        Come to us back!\n  We ever loved and cherished you; and have lived long together\n        Under the same roof;\n        Desert it not now!\n  The rainy nights and the cold blowing days are coming on;\n        Do not wander here!\n  Do not stand by the burnt ashes; come to us again!\n  You cannot find shelter under the peepul, when the rain comes down.\n\n{48}\n\n  The saul will not shield you from the cold bitter wind.\n        Come to your home!\n  It is swept for you and clean; and we are there who loved you ever;\n  And there is rice put for you and water;\n        Come home, come home, come to us again!\"\n\n\nIn these verses it is evident that the death of the body is recognised\nas a fact.  It is even more manifest that the death of the body is put\naside as weighing for naught against the absolute conviction that the\nloved one still exists.  But reunion is sought in this world; another\nworld is not yet thought of.  The next world has not yet been called\ninto existence to redress the sorrows and the sufferings of this life.\nWhere the discovery of that solution has not been made, the human mind\nseeks such consolation as may be found elsewhere.  If the aspiration,\n\"come to us, come to us again,\" can find no other realisation, it\nwelcomes the reappearance of the lost one in another form.  In\nAustralia, amongst the Euahlayi tribe, the mother who has lost her baby\nor her young child may yet believe that it is restored to her and born\nagain in the form of another child.  In West Africa, according to Miss\nKingsley, \"the new babies as they arrived in the family were shown a\nselection of small articles belonging to deceased members whose souls\n{49} were still absent,--the thing the child caught hold of identified\nhim.  'Why, he's Uncle John; see! he knows his own pipe;' or 'That's\nCousin Emma; see! she knows her market calabash;' and so on.\"  But it\nis not only amongst Australian black fellows or West African negroes\nthat the attempt is made to extract consolation for death from the\nspeculation that we die only to be reborn in this world.  The theory of\nrebirth is put forward by a distinguished student of Hegel--Dr.\nMcTaggart--in a work entitled _Some Dogmas of Religion_.  It is\nadmitted by Dr. McTaggart to be true that we have no memory whatever of\nour previous stages of existence; but he declares, \"we may say that, in\nspite of the loss of memory, it is the same person who lives in the\nsuccessive lives\" (p. 130); and he appears to find the same consolation\nas his remote forefathers did in looking forward to a future stage of\nexistence in which he will have no more memory of his present\nexistence, and no more reason to believe in it, than he now has memory\nof, or reason to believe in, his preexistence.  \"It is certain,\" he\nsays, \"that in this life we remember no previous lives,\" and he accepts\nthe position that it is equally certain we shall have in our next life\nabsolutely no memory of our {50} present existence.  That, of course,\ndistinguishes Dr. McTaggart from the West African Uncle John who, when\nhe is reborn, at any rate \"knows his own pipe.\"\n\nThe human mind, as I have said, seeks such consolation as it may find\nin the doctrine of rebirth.  It finds evidence of rebirth either in the\nbehaviour of the new-born child or in its resemblance to deceased\nrelations.  But it also comes to the conclusion that the reincarnation\nmay be in animal form.  Whether that conclusion is suggested by the\nstrangely human expression in the eyes of some animals, or whether it\nis based upon the belief in the power of transformation, need not be\ndiscussed.  It is beyond doubt that transformation is believed in: the\nCherokee Indian sings a verse to the effect that he becomes a real\nwolf; and \"after stating that he has become a real wolf, the songster\nutters a prolonged howl, and paws the ground like a wolf with his feet\"\n(Frazer, _Kingship_, p. 71).  Indeed, identity may be attained or\nmanifested without any process of transformation; in Australia, amongst\nthe Dieri tribe, the head man of a totem consisting of a particular\nsort of a seed is spoken of by his people as being the plant itself\nwhich yields the seed (_ib._, p. 109).  {51} Where such beliefs are\nprevalent, the doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul in animal form\nwill obviously arise at the stage of evolution which we are now\ndiscussing, that is to say when the soul is not yet supposed to depart\nto another world, and must therefore manifest itself in this world in\none way or another, if not in human shape, then in animal form.  In the\nform of what animal the deceased will be reincarnated is a question\nwhich will be answered in different ways.  Purely fortuitous\ncircumstances may lead to particular animals being considered to be the\nreincarnation of the deceased.  Or the fact that the deceased has a\nparticular animal for totem may lead the survivors to expect his\nreappearance in the form of that particular animal.  The one fact of\nimportance for our present purpose is that at its origin the belief in\nanimal reincarnation had no necessary connection with the theory of\nfuture punishments and rewards.  At the stage of evolution in which the\nbelief in transmigration arose many animals were the object of genuine\nrespect because of the virtues of courage, etc., which were manifested\nby them; or because of the position they occupied as totems.\nConsequently no loss of status was involved when the soul transmigrated\nfrom a {52} human to an animal form.  No notion of punishment was\ninvolved in the belief.\n\nThe doctrines of reincarnation and transmigration belong to a stage in\nthe evolution of belief, or to a system of thought, in which the\nconviction that the death of the body does not entail the destruction\nof the soul is undoubted, but from which the conception, indeed the\nvery idea, of another world than this is excluded.  That conception\nbegins to manifest itself where ancestor worship establishes itself;\nbut the manifestation is incomplete.  Deceased chieftains and heroes,\nwho have been benefactors to the tribe, are remembered; and the good\nthey did is remembered also.  They are themselves remembered as the\ndoers of good; and their spirits are naturally conceived as continuing\nto be benevolent, or ready to confer benefits when properly approached.\nBut thus envisaged, they are seen rather in their relation to the\nliving than in their relation to each other.  It is their assistance in\nthis world that is sought; their condition in the next world is of less\npractical importance and therefore provokes less of speculation, in the\nfirst instance.  But when speculation is provoked, it proves ultimately\nfatal to ancestor worship.\n\n{53}\n\nFirst, it may lead to the question of the relation of the spirits of\nthe deceased benefactors to the god or gods of the community.  There\nwill be a tendency to blur the distinction between the god and his\nworshippers, if any of the worshippers come to be regarded as being\nafter death spirits from whom aid may be invoked and to whom offerings\nmust be made.  And if the distinction ceases after death, it is\ndifficult and sometimes impossible to maintain it during life; an\nemperor who is to be deified after death may find his deification\nbeginning before his death.  Belief in such deification may be accepted\nby some members of the community.  Others will regard it as proof that\nreligion is naught; and yet others will be driven to seek for a form of\nreligion which affords no place for such deifications, but maintains\nexplicitly that distinction between a god and his worshippers which is\npresent in the most rudimentary forms of religion.\n\nBut though the tendency of ancestor worship is to run this course and\nto pass in this way out of the evolution of religion, it may be\narrested at the very outset, if the religious spirit is, as it has been\nin one case at least, strong enough to stand against it at the\nbeginning.  Thus, amongst the Jews there {54} was a tendency to\nancestor worship, as is shown by the fact of its prohibition.  But it\nwas stamped out; and it was stamped out so effectually that belief in\nthe continued existence of the soul after death ceased for long to have\nany practical influence.  \"Generally speaking, the Hebrews regarded the\ngrave as the final end of all sentient and intelligent existence, 'the\nland where all things are forgotten'\" (Smith's _Dictionary of the\nBible_, _s.v._ Sheol).  \"In death,\" the Psalmist says to the Lord,\n\"there is no remembrance of thee: in Sheol who shall give thee thanks?\"\n\"Shall they that are deceased arise and praise thee?  Shall thy\nloving-kindness be declared in the grave?\" or \"thy righteousness in the\nland of forgetfulness?\"  Thus the Sheol of the Old Testament remains to\ntestify to the view taken of the state of the dead by a people amongst\nwhom the worship of ancestors was arrested at the outset.  Amongst such\na people the dead are supposed simply to continue in the next world as\nthey left this: \"in Sheol the kings of the nations have their thrones,\nand the mighty their weapons of war,\" just as in Virgil the ghost of\nDeiphobus still shows the ghastly wounds by which he perished (Jevons,\n_History of Religion_, p. 301).\n\n{55}\n\nThis continuation theory, the view that the dead continue in the next\nworld as they left this, means that, to the people who entertain it,\nthe dead are merely a memory.  It is forbidden to think of them as\ndoing anything, as affecting the living in any way.  They are conceived\nas powerless to gratify the wishes of the living, or to thwart them.\nWhere the Lord God is a jealous God, religion cannot tolerate the idea\nthat any other spirit should be conceived as usurping His functions,\nstill less that such spirits should receive the offerings and the\nprayers which are the due of Him alone.  But though the dead are thus\nreduced to a mere memory, the memory itself does not and cannot die.\nAccordingly the dead, or rather those whose bodies are dead, continue\nto live.  But, as they exercise no action in, or control over, the\nworld of the living, their place of abode comes to be regarded as\nanother world, to which they are confined.  Speculation, therefore,\nwhere speculation is made, as to the case of the inhabitants of this\nother world, must take the direction of enquiring as to their fate.\nWhere speculation is not made, the dead are conceived merely to\ncontinue to be as they are remembered to have been in this life.  But,\nif there is to be room for any speculation {56} at all, there must be\nassumed to be some diversity in their fate, and therefore some reason,\nintelligible to man, for that diversity.  That is a conclusion to which\ntribes attain who have apparently gone through no period of ancestor\nworship,--indeed, ancestor worship only impedes or defers the\nattainment of that conclusion.  The diversity of fate could only\nconsist in the difference between being where you would be and being\nwhere you would not.  But the reasons for that diversity may be very\ndifferent amongst different peoples.  First, where religion is at its\nlowest or is in its least developed form, the gods are not the cause of\nthe diversity nor do they seem concerned in it.  Such diversity as\nthere is seems in its simplest form merely to be a continuance of the\nsocial distinctions which prevail among the living: the high chieftains\nrest in a calm, plenteous, sunny land in the sky; while \"all Indians of\nlow degree go deep down under the earth to the land of Chay-her, with\nits poor houses and no salmon and no deer, and blankets so small and\nthin, that when the dead are buried the friends often bury blankets\nwith them\" (Tylor, _P. C._, II, 85).  Elsewhere, it is not social\ndistinctions, but moral, that make the difference: \"the rude Tupinambas\nof Brazil think {57} the souls of such as had lived virtuously, that is\nto say who have well avenged themselves and eaten many of their\nenemies,\" (_ib._) rejoin the souls of their fathers in the happy land,\nwhile the cowards go to the other place.  Thus, though the distinctions\nin the next world do not seem originally to have sprung from or to have\nbeen connected with morality, and still less with religion, they are,\nor may be at a very early period, seized upon by the moral\nconsciousness as containing truth or implying it, when rightly\nunderstood.  Truth indeed of the highest import for morality is implied\nin the distinctions thus essayed to be drawn.  But before the truth\nimplicit could be made explicit, it was necessary that the distinctions\nshould be recognised to have their basis in religion.  And that was\nimpossible where religion was at its lowest or in its least developed\nform.\n\nFrom the fact that on the one hand the conception of a future life in\nanother world, when it arose amongst people in a low stage of religious\ndevelopment, bore but little moral and no religious fruit; and on the\nother, where it did yield fruit, there had been a previous period when\nreligion closed its eyes as far as possible to the condition of the\ndead {58} in Hades or in Sheol,--we may draw the inference that the\nconception of the future state formed by such people, as \"the rude\nTupinambas of Brazil\" had to be sterilised, so to speak,--to be\npurified from associations dangerous both to morality and religion.  We\nmay fairly say that as a matter of fact that was the consequence which\nactually happened, and that both in Greece and Judaea the prospect of a\nfuture life at one time became practically a _tabula rasa_ on which\nmight be written a fairer message of hope than had ever been given\nbefore.  In Greece the message was written, indeed, and was received\nwith hope by the thousands who joined in the celebration of the\nmysteries.  But the characters in which it was written faded soon.  The\nmessage was found to reveal nothing.  It revealed nothing because it\ndemanded nothing.  It demanded neither a higher life nor a higher\nconception of the deity.  It did not set forth a new and nobler\nmorality; and it accommodated itself to the existing polytheism.  What\nit did do was to familiarise the Hellenic world with the conviction\nthat there was a life hereafter, better than this life; and that the\ncondition of its attainment was communion with the true God,\nperadventure He could be found.  It was by this {59} conviction and\nthis expectation that the ground was prepared, wherever Hellenism\nexisted, for the message that was to come from Israel.\n\nFrom the beginning, or let us say in the lowest forms in which religion\nmanifests itself, religion is the bond in which the worshippers are\nunited with one another and with their God.  The community which is\nthus united is at first the earliest form of society, whatever that\nform may have been, in which men dwell together for their common\npurposes.  It is the fact that its members have common purposes and\ncommon interests which constitute them a community; and amongst the\ncommon interests without which there could be no community is that of\ncommon worship: knowledge of the sacra, being confined to the members\nof the community, is the test by which members are known, outsiders\nexcluded, and the existence of the community as a community secured.\nAt this stage, in a large number of societies--negro,\nMalayo-Polynesian, North American Indians, Eskimo, Australians--the\nbelief in reincarnation takes a form in which the presence of souls of\nthe departed is recognised as necessary to the very conception of the\ncommunity.  Thus in Alaska, among the Unalits of St. Michael's {60}\nBay, a festival of the dead is observed, the equivalent of which\nappears to be found amongst all the Eskimo.  M. Mauss (_L'Annee\nSociologique_, IX, 99) thus describes it: \"It comprises two essential\nparts.  It begins with praying the souls of the dead graciously to\nconsent to reincarnate themselves for the moment in the namesake which\neach deceased person has; for the custom is that in each station the\nchild last born always takes the name of the last person who has died.\nThen these living representatives of the deceased receive presents, and\nhaving received them the souls are dismissed from the abodes of the\nliving to return to the land of the dead.  Thus at this festival not\nonly does the group regain its unity, but the rite reconstitutes the\nideal group which consists of all the generations which have succeeded\none another from the earliest times.  Mythical and historic ancestors\nas well as later ones thus mingle with the living, and communion\nbetween them is conducted by means of the exchange of presents.\"\nAmongst people other than the Eskimo, a new-born child not only takes\nthe name of the last member of the family or clan who has died, but is\nregarded as the reincarnation of the deceased.  \"Thus the number of\nindividuals, {61} of names, of souls, of social functions in the clan\nis limited; and the life of the clan consists in the death and rebirth\nof individuals who are always identically the same\" (_l.c._ 267).\n\nThe line of evolution thus followed by the belief in reincarnation\nresults in the total separation of the belief from morality and from\nreligion, and results in rendering it infertile alike for morality,\nreligion, and progress in civilisation generally.  Where the belief in\nreincarnation takes the form of belief in the transmigration of the\nsoul into some animal form, it may be utilised for moral purposes,\nprovided that the people amongst whom the belief obtains have otherwise\nadvanced so far as to see that the punishments and rewards which are\nessential to the development of morality are by no means always\nrealised in this life.  When that conviction has established itself,\nthe reincarnation theory will provide machinery by which the belief in\nfuture punishments and rewards can be conceived as operative: rebirth\nin animal form, if the belief in it already exists, may be held out as\na deterrent to wrongdoing.  That is, as a matter of fact, the use to\nwhich the belief has been put by Buddhism.  The form and station in\nwhich the deceased will be {62} reborn is no longer, as amongst the\npeoples just mentioned, conceived to be determined automatically, so to\nspeak, but is supposed to depend on the moral qualities exhibited\nduring life.  If this view of the future life has struck deeper root\nand has spread over a greater surface than the doctrine taught in the\nGreek mysteries ever did, the reason may probably be found in the fact\nthat the Greek mysteries had no higher morality to teach than was\nalready recognised, whilst the moral teaching of the Buddha was far\nmore exalted and far more profoundly true than anything that had been\npreached in India before.  If a moral system by itself, on its own\nmerits, were capable of affording a sure foundation for religion,\nBuddhism would be built upon a rock.  To the spiritual community by\nwhich man may be united to his fellow-man and to his God, morality is\nessential and indispensable.  But the moral life derives its value\nsolely from the fact that on it depends, and by means of it is\nrealised, that communion of man with God after which man has from the\nbeginning striven.  If then that communion and the very possibility of\nthat communion is denied, the denial must prove fatal alike to religion\nand to morality.  Now, that is the denial which Buddhism {63} makes.\nBut the fact of the denial is obscured to those who believe, and to\nthose who would like to believe, in Buddhism, by the way in which it is\nmade.  It is made in such a way that it appears and is believed to be\nan affirmation instead of a denial.  Communion with God is declared to\nbe the final end to which the transmigration of souls conducts.  But\nthe communion to which it leads is so intimate that the human soul, the\nindividual, ceases to be.  Obviously, therefore, if it ceases to be,\nthe communion also must cease; there is no real communion subsisting\nbetween two spirits, the human and the divine, for two spirits do not\nexist, but only one.  If this way of stating the case be looked upon\nwith suspicion as possibly not doing justice to the teaching of\nBuddhism, or as pressing unduly far the union between the human and the\ndivine which is the ultimate goal of the transmigration of souls, the\nreply is that in truth the case against Buddhism is stronger than\nappears from this mode of stating it.  To say that from the Buddhist\npoint of view the human soul, the individual, eventually ceases to be,\nis indeed an incorrect way of putting the matter.  It implies that the\nhuman soul, the individual, now is; and hereafter ceases to be.  But so\nfar from {64} admitting that the individual now is, the Buddhist\ndoctrine is that the existence of the soul, now, is mere illusion,\n_maya_.  It is therefore logical enough, and at any rate\nself-consistent, to say that hereafter, when the series of\ntransmigrations is complete, the individual will not indeed cease to\nbe, for he never was, but the illusion that he existed will be\ndissipated.  Logically again, it follows from this that if the\nexistence of the individual soul is an illusion from the beginning,\nthen there can strictly speaking be no transmigration of souls, for\nthere is no soul to transmigrate.  But with perfect self-consistency\nBuddhism accepts this position: what is transmitted from one being to\nthe next in the chain of existences is not the individuality or the\nsoul, but the character.  Professor Rhys Davids says (_Hibbert\nLectures_, pp. 91, 92): \"I have no hesitation in maintaining that\nGotama did not teach the transmigration of souls.  What he did teach\nwould be better summarized, if we wish to retain the word\ntransmigration, as the transmigration of character.  But it would be\nmore accurate to drop the word transmigration altogether when speaking\nof Buddhism, and to call its doctrine the doctrine of karma.  Gotama\nheld that after the death of any being, {65} whether human or not,\nthere survived nothing at all but that being's 'karma,' the result,\nthat is, of its mental and bodily actions.\"  \"He discarded the theory\nof the presence, within each human body, of a soul which could have a\nseparate and eternal existence.  He therefore established a new\nidentity between the individuals in the chain of existence, which he,\nlike his forerunners, acknowledged, by the new assertion that that\nwhich made two beings to be the same being was--not soul, but--karma\"\n(_ib._, pp. 93, 94).  Thus once more it appears that there can be no\neventual communion between the human soul, at the end of its chain of\nexistence, and the divine, for the reason, not that the human soul\nultimately ceases to be, but that it never is or was, and therefore\nneither transmigrates from one body to another, nor is eventually\nabsorbed in the _atman_.\n\nLogically consistent though this train of argument be, it leaves\nunanswered the simple question, How can the result of my actions have\nany interest for me--not hereafter, but at the present moment--if I not\nonly shall not exist hereafter but do not exist at the present moment?\nIt is not impossible for a man who believes that his existence will\nabsolutely {66} cease at death to take some interest in and labour for\nthe good of others who will come after him; but it is impossible for a\nman who does not exist now to believe in anything whatever.  And it is\non that fundamental absurdity that Buddhism is built: it is directed to\nthe conversion of those who do not exist to be converted, and it is\ndirected to the object of relieving from existence those who have no\nexistence from which to be relieved.\n\nWhere then lies the strength of Buddhism, if as a logical structure it\nis rent from top to bottom by glaring inconsistency?  It lies in its\nappeal to the spirit of self-sacrifice.  What it denounces, from\nbeginning to end, is the will to live.  The reason why it denounces the\nwill to live is that that will manifests itself exclusively in the\ndesires of the individual; and it is to the desires of man that all the\nmisery in the world are directly due.  Destroy those desires by\nannihilating the will to live--and in no other way can they be\ndestroyed--and the misery of the world will cease.  The only\ntermination to the misery of the world which Buddhism can imagine is\nthe voluntary cessation of life which will ultimately ensue on the\ncessation of the will to live.  And the means by which that is to be\nbrought about is {67} the uprooting and destruction of the\nself-regarding desires by means of the higher morality of\nself-sacrifice.  What the Buddhist overlooks is that the uprooting and\ndestruction of the self-regarding desires results, not in the\nannihilation, but in the purification and enhanced vitality, of the\nself that uproots them.  The outcome of the unselfish and\nself-sacrificing life is not the destruction of individuality, but its\nhighest realisation.  Now, it is only in society and by living for\nothers that this unselfishness and self-sacrifice can be carried out;\nman can only exist and unselfishness can only operate in society, and\nsociety means the communion of man with his fellows.  It is true that\nonly in society can selfishness exist; but it is recognized from the\nbeginning as that which is destructive of society, and it is therefore\ncondemned alike by the morality and the religion of the society.  The\ncommunion of man with his fellows and his God is hindered, impeded, and\nblocked wholly and solely by his self-regarding desires; it is\nfurthered and realised solely by his unselfish desires.  But his\nunselfish desires involve and imply his existence--I was going to say,\njust as much, I mean--far more than his selfish desires, for they\nimply, and are only possible on, the assumption of {68} the existence\nof his fellow-man, and of his communion with him.  Nay! more, by the\ntestimony of Buddhism itself as well as of the religious experience of\nmankind at large, the unselfish desires, the spirit of self-sacrifice,\nrequire both for their logical and their emotional justification, still\nmore for their practical operation, the faith that by means of them the\nwill of God is carried out, and that in them man shows likest God.  It\nis in them and by them that the communion of man with his fellow-man\nand with his God is realised.  It is the faith that such communion,\nthough it may be interrupted, can never be entirely broken which\nmanifests itself in the belief in immortality.  That belief may take\nshape in the idea that the souls of the departed revisit this earth\ntemporarily in ghostly form, or more permanently as reincarnated in the\nnew-born members of the tribe; it may body forth another world of bliss\nor woe, and if it is to subserve the purposes of morality, it must so\ndo; nay! more, if it is to subserve the purposes of morality, it is\ninto the presence of the Lord that the soul must go.  But in any and\nwhatever shape the belief takes, the soul is conceived or implied to be\nin communion with other spirits.  There is no other way in which it is\n{69} possible to conceive the existence of a soul; just as any particle\nof matter, to be comprehended in its full reality, implies not only\nevery other particle of matter but the universe which comprehends them,\nso the existence of any spirit logically implies not only the existence\nof every other but also of Him without whom no one of them could be.\n\nIt is in this belief in the communion of spirits wherever he may find\nit--and where will he not?--that the missionary may obtain a leverage\nfor his work.  It is a sure basis for his operations because the desire\nfor communion is universal; and Christianity alone, of the religions of\nthe world, teaches that self-sacrifice is the way to life eternal.\n\n\n\n\n{70}\n\nMAGIC\n\nOf all the topics which present themselves to the student of the\nscience of religion for investigation and explanation there is none\nwhich has caused more diversity of opinion, none which has produced\nmore confusion of thought, than magic.  The fact is that the belief in\nmagic is condemned alike by science and religion,--by the one as\nessentially irrational, and by the other as essentially irreligious.\nBut though it is thus condemned, it flourishes, where it does flourish,\nas being science, though of a more secret kind than that usually\nrecognised, or as being a more potent application of the rites and\nceremonies of religion.  It is indeed neither science nor religion; it\nlives by mimicking one or other or both.  In the natural history of\nbelief it owes its survival, so long as it does survive, to its\n\"protective colouring\" and its power of mimicry.  It is, always and\neverywhere, an error,--whether tried by the canons of science or\nreligion; {71} but it lives, as error can only live, by posing and\npassing itself off as truth.\n\nIf now the only persons deceived by it were the persons who believed in\nit, students of the science of religion would have been saved from much\nfruitless controversy.  But so subtly protective is its colouring that\nsome scientific enquirers have confidently and unhesitatingly\nidentified it with religion, and have declared that magic is religion,\nand religion is magic.  The tyranny of that error, however, is now\nwell-nigh overpast.  It is erroneous, and we may suppose is seen to be\nerroneous, in exactly the same way as it would be to say that science\nis magic, and magic science.  The truth is that magic in one aspect is\na colourable imitation of science: \"in short,\" as Dr. Frazer says\n(_Early History of the Kingship_, p. 38), \"magic is a spurious system\nof natural law.\"  That is, we must note, it is a system which is\nspurious in our eyes, but which, to those who believed in it, was \"a\nstatement of the rules which determine the sequence of events\nthroughout the world--a set of precepts which human beings observe in\norder to compare their ends\" (_ib._, p. 39).\n\nThe point, then, from which I wish to start is that {72} magic, as it\nis now viewed by students of the science of religion, on the one hand\nis a spurious system of natural law or science, and on the other a\nspurious system of religion.\n\nOur next point is that magic could not be spurious for those who\nbelieved in it: they held that they knew some things and could do\nthings which ordinary people did not know and could not do; and,\nwhether their knowledge was of the secrets of nature or of the spirit\nworld, it was not in their eyes spurious.\n\nOur third point is more difficult to explain, though it will appear not\nmerely obvious, but self-evident, if I succeed in explaining it.  It\nwill facilitate the work of explanation, if you will for the moment\nsuppose--without considering whether the supposition is true or\nnot--that there was a time when no one had heard that there was such a\nthing as magic.  Let us further suppose that at that time man had\nobserved such facts as that heat produces warmth, that the young of\nanimals and man resemble their parents: in a word, that he had attained\nmore or less consciously to the idea, as a matter of observation, that\nlike produces like, and as a matter of practice that like may be\nproduced by like.  Having attained to that practical idea, he will of\n{73} course work it not only for all that it is worth, but for more.\nThat is indeed the only way he has of finding out how much it is good\nfor; and it is only repeated failure which will convince him that here\nat length he has reached the limit, that in this particular point\nthings do not realise his expectations, that in this instance his\nanticipation of nature has been \"too previous.\"  Until that fact has\nbeen hammered into him, he will go on expecting and believing that in\nthis instance also like will produce like, when he sets it to work; and\nhe will be perfectly convinced that he is employing the natural and\nreasonable means for attaining his end.  As a matter of fact, however,\nas we with our superior knowledge can see, in the first place those\nmeans never can produce the desired effect; and next, the idea that\nthey can, as it withers and before it finally falls to the ground, will\nchange its colour and assume the hue of magic.  Thus the idea that by\nwhistling you can produce a wind is at first as natural and as purely\nrational as the idea that you can produce warmth by means of fire.\nThere is nothing magical in either.  Both are matter-of-fact\napplications of the practical maxim that like produces like.\n\n{74}\n\nThat, then, is the point which I have been wishing to make, the third\nof the three points from which I wish to start.  There are three ways\nof looking at identically the same thing, _e.g._ whistling to produce a\nwind.  First, we may regard it, and I suggest that it was in the\nbeginning regarded, as an application, having nothing to distinguish it\nfrom any other application, of the general maxim that like produces\nlike.  The idea that eating the flesh of deer makes a man timid, or\nthat if you wish to be strong and bold you should eat tiger, is, in\nthis stage of thought, no more magical than is the idea of drinking\nwater because you are dry.\n\nNext, the idea of whistling to produce a wind, or of sticking splinters\nof bone into a man's footprints in order to injure his feet, may be an\nidea not generally known, a thing not commonly done, a proceeding not\ngenerally approved of.  It is thus marked off from the commonplace\nactions of drinking water to moisten your parched throat or sitting by\na fire to get warm.  When it is thus marked off, it is regarded as\nmagic: not every one knows how to do it, or not every one has the power\nto do it, or not every one cares to do it.  That is the second stage,\nthe heyday of magic.\n\n{75}\n\nThe third and final stage is that in which no educated person believes\nin it, when, if a man thinks to get a wind by whistling he may whistle\nfor it.  These three ways of looking at identically the same thing may\nand do coexist.  The idea of whistling for a wind is for you and me\nsimply a mistaken idea; but possibly at this moment there are sailors\nacting upon the idea and to some of them it appears a perfectly natural\nthing to do, while to others there is a flavour of the magical about\nit.  But though the three ways may and do coexist, it is obvious that\nour way of looking at it is and must be the latest of the three, for\nthe simple reason that an error must exist before it can be exploded.\nI say that our way of looking at it must be the latest, but in saying\nso I do not mean to imply that this way of looking at it originates\nonly at a late stage in the history of mankind.  On the contrary, it is\npresent in a rudimentary form from very early times; and the proof is\nthe fact generally recognised that magicians amongst the lowest races,\nthough they may believe to a certain extent in their own magical\npowers, do practise a good deal of magic which they themselves know to\nbe fraudulent.  Progress takes place when other people also, and a {76}\nsteadily increasing number of people, come to see that it is fraudulent.\n\nIn the next place, just as amongst very primitive peoples we see that\nsome magic is known by some people, viz. the magicians themselves, to\nbe fraudulent, though other people believe in it; so, amongst very\nprimitive peoples, we find beliefs and practices existing which have\nnot yet come to be regarded as magical, though they are such as might\ncome, and do elsewhere come, to be considered pure magic.  Thus, for\ninstance, when Cherokee Indians who suffer from rheumatism abstain from\neating the flesh of the common grey squirrel \"because the squirrel eats\nin a cramped position, which would clearly aggravate the pangs of the\nrheumatic patient\" (Frazer, _History of the Kingship_, p. 70), or when\n\"they will not wear the feathers of the bald-headed buzzard for fear of\nthemselves becoming bald\" (_ib._), they are simply following the best\nmedical advice of their day,--they certainly do not imagine they are\npractising magic, any more than you or I do when we are following the\nprescriptions of our medical adviser.  On the contrary, it is quite as\nobvious, then, that the feathers of the bald-headed buzzard are\ninfectious as it is now that the clothes {77} of a fever patient are\ninfectious.  Neither proposition, to be accepted as true, requires us\nto believe in magic: either might spring up where magic had never been\nheard of.  And, if that is the case, it simply complicates things\nunnecessarily to talk of magic in such cases.  The tendency to believe\nthat like produces like is not a consequence of or a deduction from a\nbelief in magic: on the contrary, magic has its root or one of its\nroots in that tendency of the human mind.  But though that tendency\nhelps to produce magic amongst other things, magic is not the only\nthing which it produces: it produces beliefs such as those of the\nCherokees just quoted, which are no more magical than the belief that\nfire produces warmth, or that _causa aequat effectum_, that an effect\nis, when analysed, indistinguishable from the conditions which\nconstitute it.\n\nTo attempt to define magic is a risky thing; and, instead of doing so\nat once, I will try to mark off proceedings which are not magical; and\nI would venture to say that things which it is believed any one can do,\nand felt that any one may do, are not magical in the eyes of those who\nhave that belief and that feeling.  You may abstain from eating {78}\nsquirrel or wearing fine feathers because of the consequences; and\nevery one will think you are showing your common sense.  You may hang\nup the bones of animals you have killed, in order to attract more\nanimals of the like kind; and you are simply practising a dodge which\nyou think will be useful.  Wives whose husbands are absent on hunting\nor fighting expeditions may do or abstain from doing things which, on\nthe principle that like produces like, will affect their husbands'\nsuccess; and this application of the principle may be as\nirrational--and as perfectly natural--as the behaviour of the beginner\nat billiards whose body writhes, when he has made his stroke, in excess\nof sympathy with the ball which just won't make the cannon.  In both\ncases the principle acted on,--deliberately in the one case, less\nvoluntarily in the other,--the instinctive feeling is that like\nproduces like, not as a matter of magic but as a matter of fact.  If\nthe behaviour of the billiard player is due to an impulse which is in\nitself natural and in his case is not magical, we may fairly take the\nsame view of the hunter's wife who abstains from spinning for fear the\ngame should turn and wind like the spindle and the hunter be unable to\nhit it (Frazer, {79} p. 55).  The principle in both cases is that like\nproduces like.  Some applications of that principle are correct; some\nare not.  The incorrectness of the latter is not at once discovered:\nthe belief in their case is erroneous, but is not known to be\nerroneous.  And unless we are prepared to take up the position that\nmagic is the only form of erroneous belief which is to be found amongst\nprimitive men, we must endeavour to draw a line between those erroneous\nbeliefs which are magical and those erroneous beliefs which are not.\nThe line will not be a hard and fast line, because a belief which\noriginally had nothing magical about it may come to be regarded as\nmagical.  Indeed, on the assumption that belief in magic is an error,\nwe have to enquire how men come to fall into the error.  If there is no\nsuch thing as magic, how did man come to believe that there was?  My\nsuggestion is that the rise of the belief is not due to the\nintroduction of a novel practice, but to a new way of looking at an\nexisting practice.  It is due in the first instance to the fact that\nthe practice is regarded with disapproval as far as its consequences\nare concerned and without regard to the means employed to produce them.\nInjury to a member of the community, {80} especially injury which\ncauses death, is viewed by the community with indignant disapproval.\nWhether the death is produced by actual blows or \"by drawing the figure\nof a person and then stabbing it or doing it any other injury\" (Frazer,\np. 41), it is visited with the condemnation of the community.  And\nconsequently all such attempts \"to injure or destroy an enemy by\ninjuring or destroying an effigy of him\" (_ib._), whenever they are\nmade, whether they come off or not, are resented and disapproved by\nsociety.  On the other hand, sympathetic or hom[oe]opathic magic of\nthis kind, when used by the hunter or the fisherman to secure food,\nmeets with no condemnation.  Both assassin and hunter use substantially\nthe same means to effect their object; but the disapproval with which\nthe community views the object of the assassin is extended also to the\nmeans which he employs.  In fine, the practice of using like to produce\nlike comes to be looked on with loathing and with dread when it is\nemployed for antisocial purposes.  Any one can injure or destroy his\nprivate enemy by injuring an effigy of him, just as any one can injure\nor destroy his enemy by assaulting and wounding him.  But though any\none may do this, it is felt {81} that no one ought to do it.  Such\npractices are condemned by public opinion.  Further, as they are\ncondemned by the community, they are _ipso facto_ offensive to the god\nof the community.  To him only those prayers can be offered, and by him\nonly those practices can be approved, which are not injurious to the\ncommunity or are not felt by the community to be injurious.  That is\nthe reason why such practices are condemned by the religious as well as\nby the moral feeling of the community.  And they are condemned by\nreligion and morality long before their futility is exposed by science\nor recognised by common sense.  When they are felt to be futile, there\nis no call upon religion or morality especially to condemn the\npractices--though the intention and the will to injure our fellow-man\nremains offensive both to morality and religion.  With the means\nadopted for realising the will and carrying out the intention, morality\nand religion have no concern.  If the same or similar means can be used\nfor purposes consistent with the common weal, they do not, so far as\nthey are used for such purposes, come under the ban of either morality\nor religion.  Therein we have, I suggest, the reason of a certain\nconfusion of thought {82} in the minds of students of the science of\nreligion.  We of the present day look at the means employed.  We see\nthe same means employed for ends that are, and for ends that are not,\nantisocial; and, inasmuch as the means are the same and are alike\nirrational, we group them all together under the head of magic.  The\ngrouping is perfectly correct, inasmuch as the proceedings grouped\ntogether have the common attribute of being proceedings which cannot\npossibly produce the effects which those who employ them believe that\nthey will and do produce.  But this grouping becomes perfectly\nmisleading, if we go on to infer, as is sometimes inferred, that\nprimitive man adopted it.  First, it is based on the fact that the\nproceedings are uniformly irrational--a fact of which man is at first\nwholly unaware; and which, when it begins to dawn upon him, presents\nitself in the form of the further error that while some of these\nproceedings are absurd, others are not.  In neither case does he adopt\nthe modern, scientific position that all are irrational, impossible,\nabsurd.  Next, the modern position deals only with the proceedings as\nmeans,--declaring them all absurd,--and overlooks entirely what is to\nprimitive man the point of fundamental importance, viz. the object {83}\nand purpose with which they are used.  Yet it is the object and purpose\nwhich determine the social value of these proceedings.  For him, or in\nhis eyes, to class together the things which he approves of and the\nthings of which he disapproves would be monstrous: the means employed\nin the two cases may be the same, but that is of no importance in face\nof the fact that the ends aimed at in the two cases are not merely\ndifferent but contradictory.  In the one case the object promotes the\ncommon weal, or is supposed by him to promote it.  In the other it is\ndestructive of the common weal.\n\nIf, therefore, we wish to avoid confusion of thought, we must in\ndiscussing magic constantly bear in mind that we group together--and\ntherefore are in danger of confusing--things which to the savage differ\n_toto caelo_ from one another.  A step towards avoiding this confusion\nis taken by Dr. Frazer, when he distinguishes (_History of the\nKingship_, p. 89) between private magic and public magic.  The\ndistinction is made still more emphatic by Dr. Haddon (_Magic and\nFetichism_, p. 20) when he speaks of \"nefarious magic.\"  The very same\nmeans when employed against the good of the community are regarded, by\nmorality and religion {84} alike, as nefarious, which when employed for\nthe good of the community are regarded with approval.  The very same\nillegitimate application,--I mean logically illegitimate in our\neyes,--the very same application of the principle that like produces\nlike will be condemned by the public opinion of the community when it\nis employed for purposes of murder and praised by public opinion when\nit is employed to produce the rain which the community desires.  The\ndistinction drawn by primitive man between the two cases is that,\nthough any one can use the means to do either, no one ought to do the\none which the community condemns.  That is condemned as nefarious; and\nbecause it is nefarious, the \"witch\" may be \"smelled out\" by the\n\"witch-doctor\" and destroyed by, or with the approval of, the community.\n\nBut though that is, I suggest, the first stage in the process by which\nthe belief in magic is evolved, it is by no means the whole of the\nprocess.  Indeed, it may fairly be urged that practices which any one\ncan perform, though no one ought to perform, may be nefarious (as\nsimple, straightforward murder is), but so far there is nothing magical\nabout them.  And I am prepared to accept that view.  Indeed, {85} it is\nan essential part of my argument, for I seek to show that the belief in\nmagic had a beginning and was evolved out of something that was not a\nbelief in magic, though it gave rise to it.  The belief that like\nproduces like can be entertained where magic has not so much as been\nheard of.  And, though it may ultimately be worked out into the\nscientific position that the sum of conditions necessary to produce an\neffect is indistinguishable from the effect, it may also be worked out\non other lines into a belief in magic; and the first step in that\nevolution is taken when the belief that like produces like is used for\npurposes pronounced by public opinion to be nefarious.\n\nThe next step is taken when it comes to be believed not only that the\nthing is nefarious but that not every one can do it.  The reason why\nonly a certain person can do it may be that he alone knows how to do\nit--or he and the person from whom he learnt it.  The lore of such\npersons when examined by folk-lore students is found generally to come\nunder one or other of the two classes known as sympathetic and mimetic\nmagic, or hom[oe]opathic and contagious magic.  In these cases it is\nobvious that the _modus operandi_ is the same as it {86} was in what I\nhave called the first stage in the evolution of magic and have already\ndescribed at great length.  What differentiates this second stage from\nthe first is that whereas in the first stage these applications of the\nprinciple that like produces like are known to every one, though not\npractised by every one, in the second stage these applications are not\nknown to every one, but only to the dealers in magic.  Some of those\napplications of the principle may be applications which have descended\nto the dealer and have passed out of the general memory; and others may\nsimply be extensions of the principle which have been invented by the\ndealer or his teacher.  Again, the public disapproval of nefarious arts\nwill tend first to segregate the followers of such arts from the rest\nof the community; and next to foster the notion that the arts thus\nsegregated, and thereby made more or less mysterious, include not only\nthings which the ordinary decent member of society would not do if he\ncould, but also things which he could not do if he would.  The mere\nbelief in the possibility of such arts creates an atmosphere of\nsuspicion in which things are believed because they are impossible.\nWhen this stage has been reached, when he who {87} practises nefarious\narts is reported and believed to do things which ordinary decent people\ncould not do if they would, his personality inevitably comes to be\nconsidered as a factor in the results that he produces; he is credited\nwith a power to produce them which other people, that is to say\nordinary people, do not possess.  And it is that personal power which\neventually comes to be the most important, because the most mysterious,\narticle in his equipment.  It is in virtue of that personal power that\nhe is commonly believed to be able to do things which are impossible\nfor the ordinary member of the tribe.\n\nThus far I have been tracing the steps of the process by which the\nworker of nefarious arts starts by employing for nefarious purposes\nmeans which any one could use if he would, and ends by being credited\nwith a power peculiar to himself of working impossibilities.  I now\nwish to point out that a process exactly parallel is simultaneously\ncarried on by which arts beneficent to society are supposed to be\nevolved.  Rain-making may be taken as an art socially beneficial.  The\n_modus operandi_ of rain-making appears in all cases to be based on the\nprinciple that like produces like; and to be in its {88} nature a\nprocess which any one can carry out and which requires no mysterious\nart to effect and no mysterious personal power to produce.  At the same\ntime, as it is a proceeding which is beneficial to the tribe as a\nwhole, it is one in which the whole tribe, and no one tribesman in\nparticular, is interested.  It must be carried out in the interest of\nthe tribe and by some one who in carrying it out acts for the tribe.\nThe natural representative of the tribe is the head-man of the tribe;\nand, though any one might perform the simple actions necessary, and\ncould perform them just as well as the head-man, they tend to fall into\nthe hands of the head-man; and in any case the person who performs them\nperforms them as the representative of the tribe.  The natural\ninference comes in course of time to be drawn that he who alone\nperforms them is the man who alone can perform them; and when that\ninference is drawn it becomes obvious that his personality, or the\npower peculiar to him personally, is necessary if rain is to be made,\nand that the acts and ceremonies through which he goes and through\nwhich any one could go would not be efficacious, or not as efficacious,\nwithout his personal agency and mysterious power.  Hence the man who\nworks {89} wonders for his tribe or in the interests of his tribe, in\nvirtue of his personal power, does things which are impossible for the\nordinary member of the tribe.\n\nUp to this point, in tracing the evolution of magic, we have not found\nit once necessary to bring in or even to refer to any belief in the\nexistence of spiritual beings of any kind.  So far as the necessities\nof the argument are concerned, the belief in magic might have\noriginated in the way I have described and might have developed on the\nlines suggested, in a tribe which had never so much as heard of\nspirits.  Of course, as a matter of fact, every tribe in which the\nbelief in magic is found does also believe in the existence of spirits;\nanimism is a stage of belief lower than which or back of which science\ndoes not profess to go.  But it is only in an advanced stage of its\nevolution that the belief in magic becomes involved with the belief in\nspirits.  Originally, eating tiger to make you bold, or eating saffron\nto cure jaundice, was just as matter of fact a proceeding as drinking\nwater to moisten your throat or sitting by a fire to get warm; like\nproduces like, and beyond that obvious fact it was not necessary to\ngo--there was no more need to imagine that the action of the saffron\nwas due to a spirit than to imagine {90} that it was a water spirit\nwhich slakes your thirst.  The fact seems to be that animism is a\nsavage philosophy which is competent to explain everything when called\nupon, but that the savage does not spend every moment of his waking\nlife in invoking it: until there is some need to fall back upon it, he\ngoes on treating inanimate things as things which he can utilise for\nhis own purposes without reference to spirits.  That is the attitude\nalso of the man who in virtue of his lore or his personal power can\nproduce effects which the ordinary man cannot or will not: he performs\nhis ceremony and the effect follows--or will follow--because he knows\nhow to do it or has mysterious personal power to produce the effect.\nBut he consults no spirits--at any rate in the first instance.\nEventually he may do so; and then magic enters on a further stage in\nits evolution.  (See Appendix.)\n\nIf the man who has the lore or the personal power, and who uses it for\nnefarious purposes, proposes to employ it on obtaining the same control\nover spirits as he has over things, his magic reaches a stage of\nevolution in which it is difficult and practically unnecessary to\ndistinguish it from the stage of fetichism in which the owner of a\nfetich {91} applies coercion to make the fetich spirit do what he\nwishes.  With fetichism I deal in another lecture.  If, on the other\nhand, the man who has the lore or the personal power and uses it for\nsocial or \"communal\" purposes (Haddon, p. 41) comes to believe that,\nfor the effects which he has hitherto sought to produce by means of his\nsuperior knowledge or superior power, it is necessary to invoke the aid\nof spirits, he will naturally address himself to the spirit or god who\nis worshipped by the community because he has at heart the general\ninterests of the community; or it may be that the spirit who produces\nsuch a benefit for the community at large, as rain for example, will\ntake his place among the gods of the community as the rain-god, in\nvirtue of the benefit which he confers upon the community generally.\nIn either case, the attitude of the priest or person who approaches him\non behalf of the community will be that which befits a supplicant\ninvoking a favour from a power that has shown favour in the past to the\ncommunity.  And it will not surprise us if we find that the ceremonies\nwhich were used for the purpose of rain-making, before rain was\nrecognised as the gift of the gods, continue for a time to be practised\nas the proper rites with {92} which to approach the god of the\ncommunity or the rain-god in particular.  Such survivals are then in\ndanger of being misinterpreted by students of the science of religion,\nfor they may be regarded as evidence that religion was evolved out of\nmagic, when in truth they show that religion tends to drive out magic.\nThus Dr. Frazer, in his _Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_\n(pp. 73-75), describes the practice of the New Caledonians who, to\npromote the growth of taro, \"bury in the field certain stones\nresembling taros, praying to their ancestors at the same time,\" and he\ngoes on to say: \"In these practices of the New Caledonians the magical\nefficacy of the stones appears to be deemed insufficient of itself to\naccomplish the end in view; it has to be reinforced by the spirits of\nthe dead, whose help is sought by prayer and sacrifice.  Thus in New\nCaledonia sorcery is blent with the worship of the dead; in other\nwords, magic is combined with religion.  If the stones ceased to be\nemployed, and the prayers and sacrifices to the ancestors remained, the\ntransition from magic to religion would be complete.\"  Thus it seems to\nbe suggested in these words of Dr. Frazer's that religion may be\nevolved out of magic.  If that is what is suggested, {93} then there is\nlittle doubt that the suggestion is not borne out by the instance\ngiven.  Let us concede for the moment what some of us would be inclined\nto doubt, viz. that prayers and sacrifice offered to a human being,\nalive or dead, is religion; and let us enquire whether this form of\nreligion is evolved out of magic.  The magic here is quite clear:\nstones resembling taros are buried in the taro field to promote the\ngrowth of taros.  That is an application of the principle that like\nproduces like which might be employed by men who had never heard of\nancestor worship or of any kind of religion, and who had never uttered\nprayers or offered sacrifices of any kind.  Next, the religious\nelement, according to Dr. Frazer, is also quite clear: it consists in\noffering sacrifices to the dead with the prayer or the words, \"Here are\nyour offerings, in order that the crop of yams may be good.\"  Now, it\nis not suggested, even by Dr. Frazer, that this religious element is a\nform of magic or is in any way developed out of or evolved from magic.\nOn the contrary, if this element is religious--indeed, whether it be\nreally religious or not--it is obviously entirely distinct and\ndifferent from sympathetic or hom[oe]opathic magic.  The mere fact that\nthe magical {94} rite of burying in the taro fields stones which\nresemble taros has to be supplemented by rites which are, on Dr.\nFrazer's own showing, non-magical, shows that the primitive belief in\nthis application of the principle that like produces like was already\ndying out, and was in process of becoming a mere survival.  Suppose\nthat it died out entirely and the rite of burying stones became an\nunintelligible survival, or was dropped altogether, and suppose that\nthe prayers and sacrifices remained in possession of the field, which\nwould be the more correct way of stating the facts, to say that the\nmagic had died out and its place had been taken by something totally\ndifferent, viz. religion; or that what was magic had become religion,\nthat magic and religion are but two manifestations, two stages, in the\nevolution of the same principle?  The latter statement was formally\nrejected by Dr. Frazer in the second edition of his _Golden Bough_,\nwhen he declared that he had come to recognise \"a fundamental\ndistinction and even opposition of principle between magic and\nreligion\" (Preface, xvi).  His words, therefore, justify us in assuming\nthat when he speaks, in his _Lectures on the Early History of the\nKingship_, of the \"transition from magic to religion,\" he cannot {95}\nmean that magic becomes religion, or that religion is evolved out of\nmagic, for the \"distinction and even opposition of principle\" between\nthe two is \"fundamental.\"  He can, therefore, only mean that magic is\nfollowed and may be driven out by something which is fundamentally\nopposed to it, viz. religion.\n\nWhat then is the fundamental opposition between magic and religion? and\nis it such as to require us to believe with Dr. Frazer that magic\npreceded religion, and that of two opposite ideas the mind can conceive\nthe one without conceiving--and rejecting--the other?\n\nThe fundamental opposition between magic and religion I take to be that\nreligion is supposed to promote the interests of the community, and\nthat magic, so far forth as it is nefarious, is condemned by the moral\nand by the religious feeling of the community.  It is the ends for\nwhich nefarious magic is used that are condemned, and not the means.\nThe means may be and, as we see, are silly and futile; and, for\nintellectual progress, their silliness and futility must be recognised\nby the intellect.  But, it is only when they are used for purposes\ninimical to the public good that they are {96} condemned by religion\nand morality as nefarious.  If therefore we talk of a fundamental\nopposition between magic and religion, we must understand that the\nfundamental opposition is that between nefarious magic and religion;\nneither religion nor morality condemns the desire to increase the food\nsupply or to promote any other interest of the community.  Whether a\nman uses skill that he has acquired, or personal power, or force of\nwill, matters not, provided he uses it for the general good.  The\nquestion whether, as a cold matter of fact, the means he uses are\nefficacious is not one which moral fervour or religious ardour is\ncompetent by itself to settle: the cool atmosphere and dry light of\nreason have rather that function to perform; and they have to perform\nit in the case both of means that are used for the general good and of\nthose used against it.\n\nI take it therefore that what religion is fundamentally opposed to is\nmagic--or anything else--that is used for nefarious purposes.\n\nThe question then arises whether we have any reason to believe that\nmagic used for nefarious purposes must have existed before religion.\nNow by nefarious purposes I mean purposes inconsistent with or\ndestructive of the common good.  {97} There can be no such purposes,\nhowever, unless and until there is a community, however small, having\ncommon interests and a common good.  As soon as there exists such a\ncommunity, there will be a distinction between actions which promote\nand actions which are destructive of the common good.  The one class\nwill be approved, the other disapproved, of by public opinion.  Magic\nwill be approved and disapproved of according as it is or is not used\nin a way inconsistent with the public good.  If there is a spirit or a\ngod who is worshipped by the community because he is believed to be\nconcerned with the good of the community, then he will disapprove of\nnefarious proceedings whether magical or not.  But Dr. Frazer's\nposition I take to be that no such spirit or god can come to be\nbelieved in, unless there has been previously a belief in magic.  Now,\nthat argument either is or is not based on the assumption that magic\nand religion are but two manifestations, two stages, in the evolution\nof the same principle.  If that is the basis, then what manifested\nitself at first as magic subsequently manifests itself as religion; and\n\"the transition from magic to religion\" implies the priority of magic\nto religion.  But, as we have seen, Dr. Frazer {98} formally\npostulates, not an identity, but an \"opposition of principle\" between\nthe two.  We must therefore reject the assumption of an identity of\nprinciple; and accept the \"opposition of principle.\"  But if so, then\nthere must be two principles which are opposed to one another, religion\nand magic; and we might urge that line of argument consistently enough\nto show that there can be no magic save where there is religion to be\nopposed to it.\n\nNow, there is an opposition of principle between magic used for\nnefarious purposes and religion; and the opposition is that the one\npromotes social and the other anti-social purposes.  Nefarious\npurposes, whether worked by magic or by other means, are condemned by\nreligion and are nefarious especially because offensive to the god who\nhas the interests of the community at heart.  That from the moment\nsociety existed anti-social tendencies also manifested themselves will\nnot be doubted; and neither need we doubt that the principle that like\nproduces like was employed from the beginning for social as well as for\nanti-social purposes.  The question is whether, in the stage of\nanimism, the earliest and the lowest stage which science recognises in\nthe evolution of man, there is ever found a society {99} of human\nbeings which has not appropriated some one or more of the spirits by\nwhich all things, on the animistic principle, are worked, to the\npurposes of the community.  No such society has yet been proved to\nexist; still less has any _a priori_ proof been produced to show that\nsuch a society must have existed.  The presumption indeed is rather the\nother way.  Children go through a period of helpless infancy longer\nthan the young of any other creatures; and could not reach the age of\nself-help, if the family did not hold together for some years at least.\nBut where there is a family there is a society, even if it be confined\nto members of the family.  There also, therefore, there are social and\nanti-social tendencies and purposes; and, in the animistic stage, the\nspirits, by which man conceives himself to be surrounded, are either\nhostile or not hostile to the society, and are accordingly either\nworshipped or not worshipped by it.  Doubtless, even in those early\ntimes, the father and the husband conceived himself to be the whole\nfamily; and if that view had its unamiable side--and it still has--it\nalso on occasion had the inestimable advantage of sinking self, of\nself-sacrifice, in defence of the family.\n\n{100}\n\nThus far I have been concerned to show how, starting from a principle\nsuch as that like produces like, about which there is nothing magical\nin the eyes either of those who believe in magic or of those who have\nleft the belief behind, man might evolve the conception of magic as\nbeing the lore or the personal power which enables a man to do what\nordinary people cannot do.  A few words are necessary as to the decline\nof the belief.  The first is that the belief is rotten before it is\nripe.  Those applications of the principle that like produces like\nwhich are magical are generally precisely those which are false.  The\nfact that they are false has not prevented them from surviving in\ncountless numbers to the present day.  But some suspicion of their\nfalsity in some cases does arise; and the person who has the most\nfrequent opportunities of discovering their falsity, the person on\nwhose notice the discovery of their falsity is thrust most pointedly,\nis the person who deals habitually and professionally in magic.  Hence,\nthough it is his profession to work wonders, he takes care as far as\nmay be not to attempt impossibilities.  Thus Dr. Haddon (_l.c._, p. 62)\nfound that the men of Murray Island, Torres Straits, who made a \"big\nwind\" by magic, only made it in the {101} season of the southeast trade\nwind.  \"On my asking,\" he says, \"whether the ceremony was done in the\nnorth monsoon, my informant said emphatically, 'Can't do it in\nnorthwest.'  That is, the charm is performed only at that season of the\nyear when the required result is possible--indeed when it is of normal\noccurrence.  In this, as in other cases, I found that the impossible\nwas never attempted.  A rain charm would not be made when there was no\nexpectation of rain coming, or a southeast wind be raised during the\nwrong season.\"  The instance thus given to us by Dr. Haddon shows how\nthe belief in magic begins to give way before the scientific\nobservation of fact.  The collapse of magic becomes complete when every\none sees that the southeast trade wind blows at its appointed time,\nwhether the magic rites are performed or not.  In fine, what kills\nmagic regarded as a means for producing effects is the discovery that\nit is superfluous, when for instance the desired wind or rain is\ncoming, and futile when it is not.  And whereas morality and religion\nonly condemn the end aimed at by magic, and only condemn it when it is\nanti-social, science slowly shows that magic as a means to any end is\nsuperfluous and silly.\n\n{102}\n\nScience, however, shows this but slowly; and if we wish to understand\nhow it is that the belief in the magician's power has survived for\nthousands of years down to the present moment amongst numerous peoples,\nwe must remember that his equipment and apparatus are not limited to\npurely nonsensical notions.  On the contrary, in his stock of\nknowledge, carefully handed down, are many truths and facts not\ngenerally known; and they are the most efficacious articles of his\nstock in trade.  Dr. Frazer may not go farther than his argument\nrequires, but he certainly goes farther than the facts will support\nhim, when he says (_l.c._, p. 83) \"for it must always be remembered\nthat every single profession and claim put forward by the magician as\nsuch is false; not one of them can be maintained without deception,\nconscious or unconscious.\"\n\nIf now, in conclusion, we look once more at the subject of magic and\nlook at it from the practical point of view of the missionary, we shall\nsee that there are several conclusions which may be of use to him.  In\nthe first place, his attitude to magic will be hostile, and in his\nhostility to it he will find the best starting-point for his campaign\nagainst it to be in the fact that everywhere magic is felt, to a\ngreater {103} or less extent, to be anti-social, and is condemned both\nby the moral sentiments and the religious feeling of the community.  It\nis felt to be essentially wicked; and in warring against it the\nmissionary will be championing the cause of those who know it to be\nwrong but who simply dare not defy it.  The fact that defiance is not\nventured on is essential to the continuance of the tyranny; and what is\nnecessary, if it is to be defied, is an actual concrete example of the\nfact that when defied it is futile.\n\nNext, where magic is practised for social purposes, where it mimics\nscience or religion and survives in virtue of its power of \"protective\ncolouring,\" it is in fact superfluous and silly; and where the natives\nthemselves are beginning to recognise that the magic which is supposed,\nfor instance, to raise the southeast trade wind won't act at the wrong\nseason, it should not be difficult to get them to see that it is\nunnecessary at the right season.  The natural process which tends thus\nto get rid of magic may be accelerated by the sensible missionary; and\nsome knowledge of science will be found in this, as in other matters,\nan indispensable part of his training.\n\nFinally, the missionary may rest assured in the conviction that his\nflank will not be turned by the {104} science of religion.  The idea\nthat religion was preceded by and evolved out of magic may have been\nentertained by some students of the science of religion in the past,\nand may not yet have been thrown off by all.  But it holds no place now\nin the science of religion.  To derive either science or religion from\nthe magic which exists only by mimicking one or the other is just as\nabsurd as to imagine that the insect which imitates the colour of the\nleaf whereon it lives precedes and creates the tree which is to support\nit.\n\n\n\n\n{105}\n\nFETICHISM\n\nThe line of action taken by the missionary at work will, like that of\nany other practical man, be conditioned, not only by the object which\nhe wishes to attain, but also by the nature of the material on which\nand with which he has to work.  He requires therefore all the\ninformation which the science of religion can place at his disposal\nabout the beliefs and practices of those amongst whom his work is cast;\nand, if he is to make practical use of that information, he must know\nnot only that certain beliefs and practices do as a matter of fact\nobtain, he must know also what is their value for his special\npurpose--what, if any, are the points about them which have religious\nvalue, and can be utilized by him; and what are those points about them\nwhich are obstructive to his purpose, and how best they may be removed\nand counteracted.  To supply him with this information, to give him\nthis estimate of values, to guide him as to the attitude he should\nassume and the way in which he may utilise or must {106} attack native\npractices and beliefs, is the object with which the applied science of\nreligion, when it has been constituted by the action of Hartford\nTheological Seminary, will address itself.\n\nNow, it may seem from the practical point of view of the missionary\nthat with regard to fetichism there can be no question as to what its\nvalue is or as to what his attitude should be towards it.  But, even if\nwe should ultimately find that fetichism is obstructive to religion, we\nshall still want to know what hints we can extract from the science of\nreligion as to the best way of cutting at the roots of fetichism; and\ntherefore it will be necessary to consider what exactly fetichism is.\nAnd, as a matter of fact, there is a tendency manifesting itself\namongst students of the science of religion to say, as Dr. Haddon says\n(_Magic and Fetichism_, p. 91), that \"fetichism is a stage of religious\ndevelopment\"; and amongst writers on the philosophy of religion to take\nfetichism and treat it, provisionally at any rate, if not as the\nprimitive religion of mankind, then as that form of religion which \"we\nfind amongst men at the lowest stage of development known to us\"\n(Hoeffding, _Philosophy of Religion_, E. T., Secs. 45, 46).  If, then,\nfetichism is the primitive religion of {107} mankind or a stage of\nreligious development, \"a basis from which many other modes of\nreligious thought have been developed\" (Haddon, p. 91), it will have a\nvalue which the missionary must recognise.  And in any case he must\nknow what value, if any, it has.\n\nNow, if we are, I will not say to do justice to the view that fetichism\nis the primitive religion of mankind or a stage from which other modes\nof religious thought have been developed, but if we are simply to\nunderstand it, we must clearly distinguish it from the view--somewhat\nparadoxical to say the least--that fetichism has no religious value,\nand yet is the source of all religious values.  The inference which may\nlegitimately be drawn from this second view is that all forms of\nreligious thought, having been evolved from this primitive religion of\nmankind, have precisely the same value as it has; they do but make\nexplicit what it really was; the history of religion does but write\nlarge and set out at length what was contained in it from the first; in\nfetichism we see what from the first religion was, and what at the last\nreligion is.  On this view, the source from which all religious values\nspring is fetichism; fetichism has no value of any kind, and therefore\nthe {108} evolved forms of fetichism which we call forms of religion\nhave no value either of any kind.  Thus, science--the science of\nreligion--is supposed to demonstrate by scientific methods the real\nnature and the essential character of all religion.\n\nNow, the error in this reasoning proceeds partly on a false conception\nof the object and method of science--a false conception which is slowly\nbut surely disappearing.  The object of all science, whether it be\nphysical science or other, whether it be historic science or other, is\nto establish facts.  The object of the historic science of religion is\nto record the facts of the history of religion in such a way that the\naccuracy of the record as a record will be disputed by no one qualified\nto judge the fact.  For that purpose, it abstains deliberately and\nconsistently from asking or considering the religious value of any of\nthe facts with which it deals.  It has not to consider, and does not\nconsider, what would have been, still less what ought to have been, the\ncourse of history, but simply what it was.  In this it is following\nmerely the dictates of common sense; before we can profitably express\nan opinion on any occurrence, we must know what exactly it was that\noccurred; and to learn what occurred we must {109} divest our minds of\npreconceptions.  It is the business of the science of religion to set\naside preconceptions as to whether religion has or has not any value;\nand if it does set them aside, that is to say so far as it is\nscientific, it will end as it began without touching on the question of\nthe value of religion.  In fine, it is, and would I think now be\ngenerally admitted to be, a misconception of the function of the\nscience of religion to imagine that it does, or can, prove anything as\nto the truth of religion, one way or the other.\n\nThere is, however, another error in the reasoning which is directed to\nshow that in fetichism we see what religion was and essentially is.\nThat error consists not only in a false conception of what religion\nis,--the man who has himself no religion may be excused if he fails to\nunderstand fully what it is,--it is based on a misunderstanding of what\nfetichism is.  And so confusion is doubly confounded.  The source of\nthat misunderstanding is to be found in Bosman (Pinkerton, _Voyages and\nTravels_, London, 1814, XVI, 493), who says: \"I once asked a negro with\nwhom I could talk very freely ... how they celebrated their divine\nworship, and what number of gods they had; he, laughing, answered that\nI had {110} puzzled him; and assured me that nobody in the whole\ncountry could give me an exact account of it.  'For, as for my own\npart, I have a very large number of gods, and doubt not but that others\nhave as many.  For any of us being resolved to undertake anything of\nimportance, we first of all search out a god to prosper our designed\nundertaking; and going out of doors with the design, take the first\ncreature that presents itself to our eyes, whether dog, cat, or the\nmost contemptible creature in the world for our god; or, perhaps,\ninstead of that, any inanimate that falls in our way, whether a stone,\na piece of wood, or anything else of the same nature.  This new-chosen\ngod is immediately presented with an offering, which is accompanied by\na solemn vow, that if it pleaseth him to prosper our undertakings, for\nthe future we will always worship and esteem him as a god.  If our\ndesign prove successful, we have discovered a new and assisting god,\nwhich is daily presented with a fresh offering; but if the contrary\nhappen, the new god is rejected as a useless tool, and consequently\nreturns to his primitive estate.  We make and break our gods daily, and\nconsequently are the masters and inventors of what we sacrifice to.'\"\nNow, all this was said by the {111} negro, as Bosman himself observed,\nto \"ridicule his own country gods.\"  And it is not surprising that it\nshould have been, or should be, accepted as a trustworthy description\nof the earliest form of religion by those who in the highest form can\nfind no more than this negro found in fetichism when he wished to\nridicule it.\n\nLet us hold over for the moment the question whether fetichism is or is\nnot a form of religion; and let us enquire how far the account given by\nBosman's negro accords with the facts.  First, though there is no doubt\nthat animals are worshipped as gods, and though there is no doubt that\nthe guardian spirits of individuals are chosen, or are supposed to\nmanifest themselves, for example, amongst the North American Indians,\nin animal form, and that \"the first creature that presents itself\" to\nthe man seeking the manifestation of his guardian spirit may be taken\nto be his god, even though it be \"the most contemptible creature in the\nworld \"; still students of the science of religion are fairly satisfied\nthat such gods or guardian spirits are not to be confused with\nfetiches.  A fetich is an inanimate or lifeless object, even if it is\nthe feather, claw, bone, eyeball, or any other part of an animal or\neven of a man.  It is as {112} Bosman's negro said, \"any inanimate that\nfalls in our way.\"  When he goes on to say that it \"is immediately\npresented with an offering,\" and, so long as its owner believes in it,\n\"is daily presented with a fresh offering,\" he is stating a fact that\nis beyond dispute, and which is fully recognised by all students.  A\ntypical instance is given by Professor Tylor (_Primitive Culture_, II,\n158) of the owner of a stone which had been taken as a fetich: \"He was\nonce going out on important business, but crossing the threshold he\ntrod on this stone and hurt himself.  Ha! ha! thought he, art thou\nthere?  So he took the stone, and it helped him through his undertaking\nfor days.\"  When Bosman's negro further goes on to state that if the\nfetich is discovered by its owner not to prosper his undertakings, as\nhe expected it to do, \"it is rejected as a useless tool,\" he makes a\nstatement which is admitted to be true and which, in its truth, may be\nunderstood to mean that when the owner finds that the object is not a\nfetich, he casts it aside as being nothing but the \"inanimate\" which it\nis.  Bosman's negro, however, says not that the inanimate but that \"the\nnew god is rejected as a useless tool.\"  That we must take as being but\na carelessness of expression; the evidence of Colonel {113} Ellis, an\nobserver whose competence is undoubted, is: \"Every native with whom I\nhave conversed on the subject has laughed at the possibility of it\nbeing supposed that he could worship or offer sacrifice to some such\nobject as a stone, which of itself would be perfectly obvious to his\nsenses was a stone only and nothing more\" (_The Tshi-speaking Peoples_,\np. 192).  From these words it follows that the object worshipped as a\nfetich is a stone (or whatever it is) and something more, and that the\nobject \"rejected as a useless tool\" is a stone (or whatever it is) and\nnothing more.  When, then, Bosman's negro goes on to say, \"we make and\nbreak our gods daily,\" he is not describing accurately the processes as\nthey are conceived by those who perform them.  The fetich worshipper\nbelieves that the object which arrests his attention has already the\npowers which he ascribes to it; and it is in consequence of that belief\nthat he takes it as his fetich.  And it is only when he is convinced\nthat it is not a fetich that he rejects it as a useless tool.  But what\nBosman's negro suggests, and apparently intended to suggest, is that\nthe fetich worshipper makes, say, a stone his god, knowing that it is a\nstone and nothing more; and that he breaks his fetich believing it to\nbe a god.  {114} Thus the worshipper knows that the object is no god\nwhen he is worshipping it; but believes it to be a god when he rejects\nit as a useless tool.  Now that is, consciously or unconsciously,\ndeliberately or not, a misrepresentation of fetichism; and it is\nprecisely on that misconception of what fetichism is that they base\nthemselves who identify religion with fetichism, and then argue that,\nas fetichism has no value, religious or reasonable, neither has\nreligion itself.\n\nReturning now to the question what fetichism is--a question which must\nbe answered before we can enquire what religious value it possesses,\nand whether it can be of any use for the practical purposes of the\nmissionary in his work--we have now seen that a fetich is not merely an\n\"inanimate,\" but something more; and that an object to become regarded\nas a fetich must attract the attention of the man who is to adopt it,\nand must attract the attention of the man when he has business on hand,\nthat is to say when he has some end in view which he desires to attain,\nor generally when he is in a state of expectancy.  The process of\nchoice is one of \"natural selection.\"  Professor Hoeffding sees in it\n\"the simplest conceivable construction of religious ideas.  The choice\nis entirely elementary {115} and involuntary, as elementary and\ninvoluntary as the exclamation which is the simplest form of a judgment\nof worth.  The object chosen must be something or other which is\nclosely bound up with whatever engrosses the mind.  It perhaps awakens\nmemories of earlier events in which it was present or cooperative, or\nelse it presents a certain--perhaps a very distant--similarity to\nobjects which helped in previous times of need.  Or it may be merely\nthe first object which presents itself in a moment of strained\nexpectation.  It attracts attention, and is therefore involuntarily\nassociated with what is about to happen, with the possibility of\nattaining the desired end\" (_Philosophy of Religion_, E. T., p. 139).\nAnd then Professor Hoeffding goes on to say, \"In such phenomena as these\nwe encounter religion under the guise of desire.\"  Now, without denying\nthat there are such things as religious desires--and holding as we do\nthat religion is the search after God and the yearning of the human\nheart after Him, \"the desire of all nations,\" we shall have no\ntemptation to deny that there are such things as religious desires--yet\nwe must for the moment reserve our decision on the question whether it\nis in such phenomena {116} as these that we encounter religious\ndesires, and we must bear in mind that there are desires which are not\nreligious, and that we want to know whether it is in the phenomena of\nfetichism that we encounter religious desires.\n\nThat in the phenomena of fetichism we encounter desires other than\nreligious is beyond dispute: the use of a fetich is, as Dr. Nassau\nsays, \"to aid the possessor in the accomplishment of some specific\nwish\" (_Fetichism in West Africa_, p. 82); that is, of any specific\nwish.  Now, a fetich is, as we have seen, an inanimate object and\nsomething more.  What more?  In actual truth, nothing more than the\nfact that it is \"involuntarily associated with what is about to happen,\nwith the possibility of attaining the desired end.\"  But to the\npossessor the something more, it may be said, is the fact that it is\nnot merely an \"inanimate\" but also a spirit, or the habitation of a\nspiritual being.  When, however, we reflect that fetichism goes back to\nthe animistic stage of human thought, in which all the things that we\nterm inanimate are believed to be animated by spirits, it is obvious\nthat we require some differentia to mark off those things (animated by\nspirits) which are fetiches from those things (animated by spirits)\n{117} which are not.  And the differentia is, of course, that fetiches\nare spirits, or objects animated by spirits, which will aid the\npossessor in the accomplishment of some specific wish, and are thought\nto be willing so to aid, owing to the fact that by an involuntary\nassociation of ideas they become connected in the worshipper's mind\nwith the possibility of attaining the end he has in view at the moment.\nTo recognise fetichism, then, in its simplest if not in its most\nprimitive form, all we need postulate is animism--the belief that all\nthings are animated by spirits--and the process of very natural\nselection which has already been described.  At this stage in the\nhistory of fetichism it is especially difficult to judge whether the\nfetich is the spirit or the object animated by the spirit.  As Dr.\nHaddon says (p. 83), \"Just as the human body and soul form one\nindividual, so the material object and its occupying spirit or power\nform one individual, more vague, perhaps, but still with many\nattributes distinctively human.  It possesses personality and will ...\nit possesses most of the human passions,--anger, revenge, also\ngenerosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence and may be\nbenevolent, hence to be deprecated and placated, and its aid enlisted.\"\n\n{118}\n\nA more advanced stage in the history of fetichism is that which is\nreached by reflection on the fact that a fetich not unfrequently ceases\nto prosper the undertakings of its possessor in the way he expected it\nto do.  On the principles of animism, everything that is--whether\nanimate, or inanimate according to our notions--is made up of spirit,\nor soul, and body.  In the case of man, when he dies, the spirit leaves\nthe body.  When, therefore, a fetich ceases to act, the explanation by\nanalogy is that the spirit has left the body, the inanimate, with which\nit was originally associated; and when that is the case, then, as we\nlearn from Miss Kingsley (_Travels in West Africa_, pp. 304-305), \"the\nlittle thing you kept the spirit in is no more use now, and only fit to\nsell to a white man as 'a big curio.'\"  The fact that, in native\nbelief, what we call an inanimate thing may lose its soul and become\nreally dead is shown by Miss Kingsley in a passage quoted by Dr.\nHaddon: \"Everything that he,\" the native, \"knows by means of his senses\nhe regards as a twofold entity--part spirit, part not spirit, or, as we\nshould say, matter; the connection of a certain spirit with a certain\nmass of matter, he holds, is not permanent.  He will point out to you a\nlightning-struck tree, and tell {119} you its spirit has been broken;\nhe will tell you when the cooking-pot has been broken, that it has lost\nits spirit\" (_Folk-Lore_, VIII, 141).  We might safely infer then that\nas any object may lose its spirit, so too may an object which has been\nchosen as a fetich; even if we had not, as we have, direct testimony to\nthe belief.\n\nNext, when it is believed that an object may lose its spirit and become\ndead indeed, there is room and opportunity for the belief to grow that\nits spirit may pass into some other object: that there may be a\ntransmigration of spirits.  And when this belief arises, a fresh stage\nin the history of fetichism is evolved.  And the fresh stage is evolved\nin accordance with the law that governs the whole evolution of\nfetichism.  That law is that a fetich is an object believed to aid its\npossessor in attaining the end he desires.  In the earliest stage of\nits history anything which happens to arrest a man's attention when he\nis in a state of expectancy \"is involuntarily associated with what is\nabout to happen,\" and so becomes a fetich.  In the most developed stage\nof fetichism, men are not content to wait until they stumble across a\nfetich, and when they do so to say, \"Ha! ha! art thou there?\"  Their\nmental attitude becomes {120} interrogative: \"Ha! ha! where art thou?\"\nThey no longer wait to stumble across a fetich, they proceed to make\none; and for that procedure a belief in the transmigration of spirits\nis essential.  An object, a habitation for the spirit, is prepared; and\nhe is invited, conjured, or conjured, into it.  If he is conjured into\nit, the attitude of the man who invites him is submissive; if conjured,\nthe mental attitude of the performer is one of superiority.  Colonel\nEllis throughout all his careful enquiries found that \"so great is the\nfear of giving possible offence to any superhuman agent\" that (in the\nregion of his observation) we may well believe that even the makers of\nfetiches did not assume to command the spirits.  But elsewhere, in\nother regions, it is impossible to doubt but that the owners of\nfetiches not only conjure the spirits into the objects, but also apply\ncoercion to them when they fail to aid their possessor in the\naccomplishment of his wishes.  That, I take it, is the ultimate stage\nin the evolution, the fine flower, of fetichism.  And it is not\nreligion, it has no value as religion, or rather its value is\nanti-religious.  Even if we were to accept as a definition of religion\nthat it is the conciliation of beings conceived to be superior, we\nshould be compelled by {121} the definition to say that fetichism in\nits eventual outcome is not religion, for the attitude of the owner\ntowards his fetich is then one of superiority, and his method is, when\nconciliation fails, to apply coercion.\n\nBut it may perhaps be argued that fetichism, except in what I have\ntermed its ultimate evolution, is religion and has religious value; or,\nto put it otherwise, that what I have represented as the eventual\noutcome is really a perversion or the decline of fetichism.  Then, in\nthe fetichism which is or represents the primitive religion of mankind\nwe meet, according to Professor Hoeffding, \"religion under the guise of\ndesire.\"  Now, not all desires are religious; and the question, which\nis purely a question of fact, arises whether the desires which\nfetichism subserves are religious.  And in using the word \"religious\" I\nwill not here place any extravagant meaning on the word; I will take it\nin the meaning which would be understood by the community in which the\nowner of a fetich dwells himself.  In the tribes described by Colonel\nEllis, for instance, there are worshipped personal gods having proper\nnames; and the worship is served by duly appointed priests; and the\nworshippers consist of a body of {122} persons whose welfare the god\nhas at heart.  Such are some of the salient features of what all\nstudents of the science of religion would include under the head of the\nreligion of those tribes.  Now amongst those same tribes the fetich, or\n_suhman_, as it is termed by them, is found; and there are several\nfeatures which make a fetich quite distinguishable from any of the gods\nwhich are worshipped there.  Thus, the fetich has no body of\nworshippers: it is the private property, of its owner, who alone makes\nofferings to it.  Its _raison d'etre_, its special and only function,\nis to subserve the private wishes of its owner.  In so far as he makes\nofferings to it he may be called its priest; but he is not, as in the\ncase of the priests of the gods who are worshipped there, the\nrepresentative of the community or congregation, for a fetich has no\nplurality of worshippers; and none of the priests of the gods will have\nanything to do with it.  Next, \"though offerings are made to the\n_suhman_ by its owner, they are made in private\" (Jevons, _History of\nReligion_, p. 165)--there is no public worship--and \"public opinion\ndoes not approve of them.\"  The interests and the desires which the\nfetich exists to promote are not those of the community: they are\nantisocial, for, as Colonel Ellis {123} tells us, \"one of the special\nattributes of a _suhman_ is to procure the death of any person whom its\nworshipper may wish to have removed\"--indeed \"the most important\nfunction of the _suhman_ appears to be to work evil against those who\nhave injured or offended its worshipper.\"\n\nThus, a very clear distinction exists between the worship of a fetich\nand the worship of the gods.  It is not merely that the fetich is\ninvoked occasionally in aid of antisocial desires: nothing can prevent\nthe worshipper of a god, if the worshipper be bad enough, from praying\nfor that which he ought not to pray for.  It is that the gods of the\ncommunity are there to sanction and further all desires which are for\nthe good of the community, and that the fetich is there to further\ndesires which are not for the good of the community,--hence it is that\n\"public opinion does not approve of them.\"  At another stage of\nreligious evolution, it becomes apparent and is openly pronounced that\nneither does the god of the community approve of them; and then\nfetichism, like the sin of witchcraft, is stamped out more or less.\nBut amongst the tribes who have only reached the point of religious\nprogress attained by the natives of West Africa, public opinion has\n{124} only gone so far as to express disapproval, not to declare war.\n\nIf, then, we are to hold to the view of Professor Hoeffding and of Dr.\nHaddon, that fetichism is in its essence, or was at the beginning,\nreligious in its nature, though it may be perverted into something\nnon-religious or anti-religious, we must at any rate admit that it has\nbecome non-religious not only in the case of those fetichists who\nassume an attitude of superiority and command to their fetiches, but\nalso in the earlier stage of evolution when the fetichist preserves an\nattitude of submission and conciliation towards his fetich, but assumes\nthe attitude only for the purpose of realising desires which are\nanti-social and recognised to be anti-religious.\n\nBut, if we take--as I think we must take--that line of argument, the\nconclusion to which it will bring us is fairly clear and is not far\noff.  The differentia or rather that differentia which\ncharacteristically marks off the fetich from the god is the nature of\nthe desires which each exists to promote; the function which each\nexists to fulfil, the end which is there for each to subserve.  But the\nends are different.  Not only are they different, they are\nantagonistic.  And the process of evolution does {125} but bring out\nthe antagonism, it does not create it.  It was there from the\nbeginning.  From the moment there was society, there were desires which\ncould only be realised at the cost and to the loss of society, as well\nas desires in the realisation of which the good of society was\nrealised.  The assistance of powers other than human might be sought;\nand the nature of the power which was sought was determined by the end\nor purpose for which its aid was employed or invoked--if for the good\nof society, it was approved by society; if not, not.  Its function, the\nend it subserved, determined its value for society--determined whether\npublic opinion should approve or disapprove of it, whether it was a god\nof the community or the fetich of an individual.  Society can only\nexist where there is a certain community of purpose among its members;\nand can only continue to exist where anti-social tendencies are to some\nextent suppressed or checked by force of public opinion.\n\nFetichism, then, in its tendency and in its purpose, in the function\nwhich it performs and the end at which it aims is not only\ndistinguishable from religion, it is antagonistic to it, from the\nearliest period of its history to the latest.  Religion is social, an\n{126} affair of the community; fetichism is anti-social, condemned by\nthe community.  Public opinion, expressing the moral sentiments of the\ncommunity as well as its religious feeling, pronounces both moral and\nreligious disapproval of the man who uses a _suhman_ for its special\npurpose of causing death--committing murder.  Fetichism is offensive to\nthe morality as well as to the religion even of the native.  To seek\nthe origin of religion in fetichism is as vain as to seek the origin of\nmorality in the selfish and self-seeking tendencies of man.  There is\nno need to enquire whether fetichism is historically prior to religion,\nor whether religion is historically prior to fetichism.  Man, as long\nas he has lived in societies, must have had desires which were\nincompatible with the welfare of the community as well as desires which\npromoted its welfare.  The powers which are supposed to care whether\nthe community fares well are the gods of the community; and their\nworship is the religion of the community.  The powers which have no\nsuch care are not gods, nor is their worship--if coercion or cajolery\ncan be called worship--religion.  The essence of fetichism on its\nexternal side is that the owner of the fetich alone has access {127} to\nit, alone can pray to it, alone can offer sacrifices to it.  It is\ntherefore in its inward essence directly destructive of the unity of\ninterests and purposes that society demands and religion promotes.\nPerhaps it would be going too far to say that the practice of making\nprayers and offerings to a fetich is borrowed from religious worship:\nthey are the natural and instinctive method of approaching any power\nwhich is capable of granting or refusing what we desire.  It is the\nquarter to which they are addressed, and the end for which they are\nemployed, that makes the difference between them.  It is the fact that\nin the one case they are, and in the other are not, addressed to the\nquarter to which they ought to be addressed, and employed for the end\nfor which they ought to be employed, that makes the difference in\nreligious value between them.\n\nIf we bear in mind the simple fact that fetichism is condemned by the\nreligious and moral feelings of the communities in which it exists, we\nshall not fall into the mistake of regarding fetichism either as the\nprimitive religion of mankind or as a stage of religious development or\nas \"a basis from which many other modes of religious thought have been\ndeveloped.\"\n\n{128}\n\nProfessor Hoeffding, holding that fetichism is the primitive religion,\nout of which polytheism was developed, adopts Usener's theory as to the\nmode of its evolution.  \"The fetich,\" Professor Hoeffding says (p. 140),\n\"is only the provisional and momentary dwelling-place of a spirit.  As\nHermann Usener has strikingly called it, it is 'the god of a moment.'\"\nBut though Professor Hoeffding adopts this definition of a fetich, it is\nobvious that the course of his argument requires us to understand it as\nsubject to a certain limitation.  His argument in effect is that\nfetichism is not polytheism, but something different, something out of\nwhich polytheism was evolved.  And the difference is that polytheism\nmeans a plurality of gods, whereas fetichism knows no gods, but only\nspirits.  Inasmuch then as, on the theory--whether it is held by\nHoeffding or by anybody else--that the spirits of fetichism become the\ngods of polytheism, there must be differences between the spirits of\nthe one and the gods of the other, let us enquire what the differences\nare supposed to be.\n\nFirst, there is the statement that a fetich is the \"god of a moment,\"\nby which must be meant that the spirits which, so long as they are\nmomentary and {129} temporary, are fetiches, must come to be permanent\nif they are to attain to the rank of gods.\n\nBut on this point Dr. Haddon differs.  He is quite clear that a fetich\nmay be worshipped permanently without ceasing to be a fetich.  And it\nis indeed abundantly clear that an object only ceases to be worshipped\nwhen its owner is convinced that it is not really a fetich; as long as\nhe is satisfied that it is a fetich, he continues its cult--and he\ncontinues it because it is his personal property, because he, and not\nthe rest of the community, has access to it.\n\nNext, Hoeffding argues that it is from these momentary fetiches that\nspecial or specialised deities--\"departmental gods,\" as Mr. Andrew Lang\nhas termed them--arise.  And these \"specialised divinities constitute\nan advance on gods of the moment\" (p. 142).  Now, what is implied in\nthis argument, what is postulated but not expressed, is that a fetich\nhas only one particular thing which it can do.  A departmental god can\nonly do one particular sort of thing, has one specialised function.  A\ndepartmental god is but a fetich advanced one stage in the hierarchy of\ndivine beings.  Therefore the function of the fetich in the first\ninstance was specialised {130} and limited.  But there it is that the\n_a priori_ argument comes into collision with the actual facts.  A\nfetich, when it presents itself to a man, assists him in the particular\nbusiness on which he is at the moment engaged.  But it only continues\nto act as a fetich, provided that it assists him afterwards and in\nother matters also.  The desires of the owner are not limited, and\nconsequently neither are his expectations; the business of the fetich\nis to procure him general prosperity (Haddon, p. 83).  As far as\nfetiches are concerned, it is simply reversing the facts to suppose\nthat it is because one fetich can only do one thing, that many fetiches\nare picked up.  Many objects are picked up on the chance of their\nproving fetiches, because if the object turns out really to be a fetich\nit will bring its owner good luck and prosperity generally--there is no\nknowing what it may do.  But it is only to its owner that it brings\nprosperity--not to other people, not to the community, for the\ncommunity is debarred access to it.\n\nThe next difference between fetichism and polytheism, according to\nHoeffding, is that the gods of polytheism have developed that\npersonality which is not indeed absolutely wanting in the spirits of\nfetichism but can hardly be said to be properly {131} there.  \"The\ntransition,\" he says, \"from momentary and special gods to gods which\ncan properly be called personal is one of the most important\ntransitions in the history of religion.  It denotes the transition from\nanimism to polytheism\" (p. 145).  And one of the outward signs that the\ntransition has been effected is, as Usener points out with special\nemphasis, \"that only at a certain stage of evolution, _i.e._, on the\nappearance of polytheism, do the gods acquire proper names\" (_ib._ 147).\n\nNow, this argument, I suggest, seeks to make, or to make much of, a\ndifference between fetichism and polytheism which scarcely exists, and\nso far as it does exist is not the real difference between them.  It\nseeks to minimise, if not to deny, the personality of the fetich, in\norder to exalt that of the gods of polytheism.  And then this\ndifference in degree of personality, this transition from the one\ndegree to the other, is exhibited as \"one of the most important\ntransitions in the history of religion.\"  The question therefore is\nfirst whether the difference is so great, and next whether it is the\nreal difference between fetichism and religion in the polytheistic\nstage.\n\nThe difference in point of personality between the spirits of fetichism\nand the gods of polytheism is not {132} absolute.  The fetich,\naccording to Dr. Haddon, \"_possesses personality_ and will, it has also\nmany human characters.  It possesses most of the human passions, anger,\nrevenge, also generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence\nand may be benevolent, is hence to be deprecated and placated, and its\naid to be enlisted\" (p. 83); \"the fetich is worshipped, prayed to,\nsacrificed to, and talked with\" (p. 89).\n\nBut, perhaps it may be said that, though the fetich does \"possess\npersonality,\" it is only when it has acquired sufficient personality to\nenjoy a proper name that it becomes a god, or fetichism passes into\npolytheism.  To this the reply is that polytheism does not wait thus\ndeferentially on the evolution of proper names.  There was a period in\nthe evolution of the human race when men neither had proper names of\ntheir own nor knew their fellows by proper names; and yet they doubted\nnot their personality.  The simple fact is that he who is to receive a\nname--whether he be a human being or a spiritual being--must be there\nin order to be named.  When he is there he may receive a name which has\nlost all meaning, as proper names at the present day have generally\ndone; or one which has a meaning.  {133} A mother may address her child\nas \"John\" or as \"boy,\" but, whichever form of address she uses, she has\nno doubt that the child has a personality.  The fact that a fetich has\nnot acquired a proper name is not a proof that it has acquired no\npersonality; if it can, as Dr. Haddon says it can, be \"petted or\nill-treated with regard to its past or future behaviour\" (p. 90), its\npersonality is undeniable.  If it can be \"worshipped, prayed to,\nsacrificed to, talked with,\" it is as personal as any deity in a\npantheon.  If it has no proper name, neither at one time had men\nthemselves.  And Hoeffding himself seems disinclined to follow Usener on\nthis point: \"no important period,\" he says (p. 147), \"in the history of\nreligion can begin with an empty word.  The word can neither be the\nbeginning nor exist at the beginning.\"  Finally Hoeffding, to enforce\nthe conclusion that polytheism is evolved from fetichism, says: \"The\ninfluence exerted by worship on the life of religious ideas can find no\nmore striking exemplification than in the word 'god' itself: when we\nstudy those etymologies of this word which, from the philological point\nof view, appear most likely to be correct, we find the word really\nmeans 'he to whom sacrifice is made,' or 'he who is worshipped'\" (p.\n148).  {134} Professor Wilhelm Thomsen considers the first explanation\nthe more probable: \"In that case there would be a relationship between\nthe root of the word '_gott_' and '_giessen_' (to pour), as also\nbetween the Greek _cheein_, whose root _chu_ = the Sanskrit _hu_, from\nwhich comes _huta_, which means 'sacrificed,' as well as 'he to whom\nsacrifices are made'\" (p. 396).  Now, if \"god\" means either \"he to whom\nsacrifice is made\" or \"he who is worshipped,\" we have only to enquire\nby whom the sacrifice is made or the worship paid, according to\nProfessor Hoeffding, in order to see the value of this philological\nargument.  A leading difference between a fetich and a god is that\nsacrifice is made and worship paid to the fetich by its owner, to the\ngod by the community.  Now this philological derivation of \"god\" throws\nno light whatever on the question by whom the \"god\" is worshipped; but\nthe content of the passage which I have quoted shows that Professor\nHoeffding himself here understands the worship of a god to be the\nworship paid by the community.  If that is so, and if the function or a\nfunction of the being worshipped is to grant the desires of his\nworshippers, then the function of the being worshipped by the community\nis to grant the desires of the community.  {135} And if that is the\ndistinguishing mark or a distinguishing mark of a god, then the worship\nof a god differs _toto caelo_ from the worship paid to a fetich, whose\ndistinguishing mark is that it is subservient to the anti-social wishes\nof its owner, and is not worshipped by the community.  And it is just\nas impossible to maintain that a god is evolved out of a fetich as it\nwould be to argue--indeed it is arguing--that practices destructive of\nsociety or social welfare have only to be pushed far enough and they\nwill prove the salvation of society.\n\nIf in the animistic stage, when everything that is is worked by\nspirits, it is possible and desirable for the individual to gain his\nindividual ends by the cooperation of some spirit, it is equally\npossible and more desirable for the community to gain the aid of a\nspirit which will further the ends for the sake of which the community\nexists.  But those ends are not transient or momentary, neither\ntherefore can the spirit who promotes them be a \"momentary\" god.  And\nif we accept Hoeffding's description of the simplest and earliest\nmanifestation of the religious spirit as being belief \"in a power which\ncares whether he [man] has or has not experiences which he values,\" we\nmust be careful to make it clear that the {136} power worshipped by a\ncommunity is worshipped because he is believed to care that the\ncommunity should have the experiences which the community values.\nHaving made that stipulation, we may accept Hoeffding's further\nstatement (p. 147) that \"even the momentary and special gods implied\nthe existence of a personifying tendency and faculty\"; for, although\nfrom our point of view a momentary god is a self-contradictory notion,\nwe are quite willing to agree that this tendency to personification may\nbe taken as primary and primitive: religion from the beginning has been\nthe search after a power essentially personal.  But that way of\nconceiving spiritual powers is not in itself distinctive of or confined\nto religion: it is an intellectual conception; it is the essence of\nanimism, and animism is not religion.  To say that an emotional element\nalso must be present is true; but neither will that serve to mark off\nfetichism from religion.  Fetichism also is emotional in tone: it is in\nhope that the savage picks up the thing that may prove to have the\nfetich power; and it is with fear that he recognises his neighbour's\n_suhman_.  A god is not merely a power conceived of intellectually and\nfelt emotionally to be a personal power from whom things may {137} be\nhoped or feared; he must indeed be a personal power and be regarded\nwith hope and fear, but it is by a community that he must be so\nregarded.  And the community, in turning to such a power, worships him\nwith sacrifice: a god is indeed he to whom sacrifice is made and\nworship paid by the community, with whose interests and whose\nmorality--with whose good, in a word, he is from the beginning\nidentified.  \"In the absence of experience of good as one of the\nrealities of life, no one,\" Hoeffding says, \"would ever have believed in\nthe goodness of the gods\"; and, we may add, it is as interested in and\ncaring for the good of the community that the god of the community is\nworshipped.  It is in the conviction that he does so care, that\nreligious feeling is rooted; or, as Hoeffding puts it (p. 162), it is\nrooted in \"the need to collect and concentrate ourselves, to resign\nourselves, to feel ourselves supported and carried by a power raised\nabove all struggle and opposition and beyond all change.\"  There we\nhave, implicit from the beginning, that communion with god, or striving\nthereafter, which is essential to worship.  It is faith.  It is rest.\nIt is the heart's desire.  And it is not fetichism, nor is fetichism it.\n\n\n\n\n{138}\n\nPRAYER\n\nThe physician, if he is to do his work, must know both a healthy and a\ndiseased body, or organ, when he sees it.  He must know the difference\nbetween the two and the symptoms both of health and disease.  Otherwise\nhe is in danger of trying to cure an organ which is healthy already--in\nwhich case his remedies will simply aggravate the disease.  That is\nobviously true of the physician who seeks to heal the body, and it is\nequally, if not so obviously, true of the physician who seeks to\nminister to a mind, or a soul, diseased.  Now, the missionary will find\nthat the heathen, to whom he is to minister, have the habit of prayer;\nand the question arises, What is to be his attitude towards it?  He\ncannot take up the position that prayer is in itself a habit to be\ncondemned; he is not there to eradicate the habit, or to uproot the\ntendency.  Neither is he there to create the habit; it already exists,\nand the wise missionary will acknowledge its existence with\nthankfulness.  His business is not to teach his flock to {139} pray,\nbut how to pray, that is to say, for what and to whom.  But even if he\nthus wisely recognises that prayer is a habit not to be created, but to\nbe trained by him, it is still possible for him to assume rashly that\nit is simply impossible for a heathen ever to pray for anything that is\nright, and therefore, that it is a missionary's duty first to insist\nthat everything for which a savage or barbarian prays must be condemned\nas essentially irreligious and wicked.  In that case, what will such a\nmissionary, if sent to the Khonds of Orissa, say, when he finds them\npraying thus: \"We are ignorant of what it is good to ask for.  You know\nwhat is good for us.  Give it to us!\"?  Can he possibly say to his\nflock, \"All your prayers, all the things that you pray for now, are\nwicked; and your only hope of salvation lies in ceasing to pray for\nthem\"?  If not, then he must recognise the fact that it is possible for\nthe heathen to pray, and to pray for some things that it is right to\npray for.  And he must not only recognise the fact, but he must utilise\nit.  Nay! more, he must not only recognise the fact if it chances to\nforce itself upon him, he must go out of his way with the deliberate\npurpose of finding out what things are prayed for.  He will then find\nhimself in {140} more intimate contact with the soul of the man than he\ncan ever attain to in any other way; and he may then find that there\nare other things for which petitions are put up which could not be\nprayed for save by a man who had a defective or erroneous conception of\nHim who alone can answer prayer.\n\nBut it is a blundering, unbusinesslike way of managing things if the\nmissionary has to go out to his work unprepared in this essential\nmatter, and has to find out these things for himself--and perhaps not\nfind them out at all.  The applied science of religion should equip him\nin this respect; it should be able to take the facts and truths\nestablished by the science of religion and apply them to the purposes\nof the missionary.  But it is a striking example of the youth and\nimmaturity of the science of religion that no attempt has yet been made\nby it to collect the facts, much less to coordinate and state them\nscientifically.  If a thing is clear, when we come to think of it, in\nthe history of religion, it is that the gods are there to be prayed to:\nman worships them because it is on their knees that all things lie.  It\nis from them that man hopes all things; it is in prayer that man\nexpresses his hopes and desires.  It is from his prayers that we should\nbe able to find out {141} what the gods really are to whom man prays.\nWhat is said about them in mythology--or even in theology--is the\nproduct of reflection, and is in many cases demonstrably different from\nwhat is given in consciousness at the moment when man is striving after\ncommunion with the Highest.  Yet it is from mythology, or from the\nstill more reflective and deliberative expression of ritual, of rites\nand ceremonies, that the science of religion has sought to infer the\nnature of the gods man worships.  The whole apparatus of religion,\nrites and ceremonies, sacrifice and altars, nature-worship and\npolytheism, has been investigated; the one thing overlooked has been\nthe one thing for the sake of which all the others exist, the prayer in\nwhich man's soul rises, or seeks to rise, to God.\n\nThe reason given by Professor Tylor (_Primitive Culture_, II, 364) for\nthis is not that the subject is unimportant, but that it is so simple;\n\"so simple and familiar,\" he says, \"is the nature of prayer that its\nstudy does not demand that detail of fact and argument which must be\ngiven to rites in comparison practically insignificant.\"  Now, it is\nindeed the case that things which are familiar may appear to be simple;\nbut it is also the case that sometimes things {142} are considered\nsimple merely because they are familiar, and not because they are\nsimple.  The fact that they are not so simple as every one has assumed\ncomes to be suspected when it is discovered that people take slightly\ndifferent views of them.  Such slightly different views may be detected\nin this case.\n\nProfessor Hoeffding holds that, in the lowest form in which religion\nmanifests itself, \"religion appears under the guise of desire,\" thus\nranging himself on the side of an opinion mentioned by Professor Tylor\n(_op. cit._, II, 464) that, as regards the religion of the lower\nculture, in prayer \"the accomplishment of desire is asked for, but\ndesire is as yet limited to personal advantage.\"  Now, starting from\nthis position that prayer is the expression of desire, we have only to\nask, whose desire? that of the individual or that of the community? and\nwe shall see that under the simple and familiar phrase of \"the\naccomplishment of desire\" there lurks a difference of view which may\npossibly widen out into a very wide difference of opinion.  If we\nappeal to the facts, we may take as an instance a prayer uttered \"in\nloud uncouth voice of plaintive, piteous tone\" by one of the Osages to\nWohkonda, {143} the Master of Life: \"Wohkonda, pity me, I am very poor;\ngive me what I need; give me success against mine enemies, that I may\navenge the death of my friends.  May I be able to take scalps, to take\nhorses!\" etc.  (Tylor, II, 365).  So on the Gold Coast a negro in the\nmorning will pray, \"Heaven! grant that I may have something to eat this\nday\" (_ib._, 368), not \"give us this day our daily bread\"; or, raising\nhis eyes to heaven, he will thus address the god of heaven: \"God, give\nme to-day rice and yams, gold and agries, give me slaves, riches and\nhealth, and that I may be brisk and swift!\" (_ib._).  On the other\nhand, John Tanner (_Narrative_, p. 46) relates that when Algonquin\nIndians were setting out in a fleet of frail bark canoes across Lake\nSuperior, the chief addressed a prayer to the Great Spirit: \"You have\nmade this lake; and you have made us, your children; you can now cause\nthat the water shall remain smooth while we pass over in safety.\"  The\nchief, it will be observed, did not expressly call the Great Spirit\n\"our Father,\" but he did speak of himself and his men as \"your\nchildren.\"  If we cross over to Africa, again, we find the Masai women\npraying thus; and be it observed that though the first person singular\nis used, {144} it is used by the chorus of women, and is plural in\neffect:--\n\n  I\n\n  \"My God, to thee alone I pray\n  That offspring may to me be given.\n  Thee only I invoke each day,\n  O morning star in highest heaven.\n  God of the thunder and the rain,\n  Give ear unto my suppliant strain.\n  Lord of the powers of the air,\n  To thee I raise my daily prayer.\n\n  II\n\n  \"My God, to thee alone I pray,\n  Whose savour is as passing sweet\n  As only choicest herbs display,\n  Thy blessing daily I entreat.\n  Thou hearest when I pray to thee,\n  And listenest in thy clemency.\n  Lord of the powers of the air,\n  To thee I raise my daily prayer.\"\n        --HOLLIS, _The Masai_, p. 346.\n\n\nWhen Professor Tylor says that by the savage \"the accomplishment of\ndesire is asked for, but desire is as yet limited to personal\nadvantage,\" we must be careful not to infer that the only advantage a\nsavage is capable of praying for is his own selfish advantage.\nProfessor Tylor himself quotes (II, {145} 366) the following prayer\nfrom the war-song of a Delaware:--\n\n  \"O Great Spirit there above,\n  Have pity on my children\n  And my wife!\n  Prevent that they shall mourn for me!\n  Let me succeed in this undertaking,\n  That I may slay my enemy\n  And bring home the tokens of victory\n  To my dear family and my friends\n  That we may rejoice together....\n  Have pity on me and protect my life,\n  And I will bring thee an offering.\"\n\nNor is it exclusively for their own personal advantage that the Masai\nwomen are concerned when they pray for the safe return of their sons\nfrom the wars:--\n\n  \"O thou who gavest, thou to whom we pray\n  For offspring, take not now thy gift away.\n  O morning star, that shinest from afar,\n  Bring back our sons in safety from the war.\"\n        --HOLLIS, p. 351.\n\nNor is it in a purely selfish spirit that the Masai women pray that\ntheir warriors may have the advantage over all their enemies:--\n\n  I\n\n  \"O God of battles, break\n  The power of the foe.\n\n{146}\n\n  Their cattle may we take,\n  Their mightiest lay low.\n\n  II\n\n  \"Sing, O ye maidens fair,\n  For triumph o'er the foe.\n  This is the time for prayer\n  Success our arms may know.\n\n  III\n\n  \"Morning and evening stars\n  That in the heavens glow,\n  Break, as in other wars,\n  The power of the foe.\n\n  IV\n\n  \"O dweller, where on high\n  Flushes at dawn the snow,\n  O Cloud God, break, we cry,\n  The power of the foe.\"\n        --_Ib._, p.  352.\n\nAgain, the rain that is prayed for by the Manganja of Lake Nyassa is an\nadvantage indeed, but one enjoyed by the community and prayed for by\nthe community.  They made offerings to the Supreme Deity that he might\ngive them rain, and \"the priestess dropped the meal handful by handful\non the ground, each time calling in a high-pitched voice, {147} 'Hear\nthou, O God, and send rain!' and the assembled people responded,\nclapping their hands softly and intoning (they always intone their\nprayers), 'Hear thou, O God'\" (Tylor, p. 368).\n\nThe appeal then to facts shows that it is with the desires of the\ncommunity that the god of the community is concerned, and that it is by\na representative of the community that those desires are offered up in\nprayer, and that the community may join in.  The appeal to facts shows,\nalso, that an individual may put up individual petitions, as when a\nYebu will pray: \"God in heaven protect me from sickness and death.  God\ngive me happiness and wisdom.\"  But we may safely infer that the only\nprayers that the god of the community is expected to harken to are\nprayers that are consistent with the interests and welfare of the\ncommunity.\n\nFrom that point of view we must refuse to give more than a guarded\nassent to the \"opinion that prayer appeared in the religion of the\nlower culture, but that in this its earlier stage it was unethical\"\n(Tylor, 364).  Prayer obviously does appear in the religion of the\nlower culture, but to say that it there is unethical is to make a\nstatement which requires defining.  The statement means what {148}\nProfessor Tylor expresses later on in the words: \"It scarcely appears\nas though any savage prayer, authentically native in its origin, were\never directed to obtain moral goodness or to ask pardon for moral sin\"\n(p. 373).  But it might be misunderstood to mean that among savages it\nwas customary or possible to pray for things recognised by the savage\nhimself as wrong, and condemned by the community at large.  In the\nfirst place, however, the god of the community simply as being the god\nof the community would not tolerate such prayers.  Next, the range and\nextent of savage morality is less extensive than it is--or at any rate\nthan it ought to be--in our day; and though we must recognise and at\nthe right time insist upon the difference, that ought not to make us\nclose our eyes to the fact that the savage does pray to do the things\nwhich savage morality holds it incumbent on him to do, for instance to\nfight bravely for the good of his wife, his children, and his tribe, to\ncarry out the duty of avenging murder.  And if he prays for wealth he\nalso prays for wisdom; if he prays that his god may deliver him from\nsickness, that shows he is human rather than that he is a low type of\nhumanity.\n\nIt would seem, then, that though in religions of low {149} culture we\nmeet religion under the guise of desire, we also find that religion\nmakes a distinction between desires; there are desires which may be\nexpressed to the god of the community, and desires which may not.\nFurther, though it is in the heart of a person and an individual that\ndesire must originate, it does not follow that prayer originates in\nindividual desire.  To say so, we must assume that the same desire\ncannot possibly originate simultaneously in different persons.  But\nthat is a patently erroneous assumption: in time of war, the desire for\nvictory will spring up simultaneously in the hearts of all the tribe;\nin time of drought, the prayer for rain will ascend from the hearts of\nall the people; at the time of the sowing of seed a prayer for \"the\nkindly fruits of the earth\" may be uttered by every member of the\ncommunity.  Now it is precisely these desires, which being desires must\noriginate in individual souls, yet being desires of every individual in\nthe community are the desires of the community, that are the desires\nwhich take the form of prayer offered by the community or its\nrepresentative to the god of the community.  Anti-social desires cannot\nbe expressed by the community or sanctioned by religion.  Prayer is the\nessential {150} expression of true socialism; and the spirit which\nprompts it is and has always been the moving spirit of social progress.\n\nProfessor Tylor, noticing the \"extreme development of mechanical\nreligion, the prayer-mill of the Tibetan Buddhists,\" suggests that it\n\"may perhaps lead us to form an opinion of large application in the\nstudy of religion and superstition; namely, that the theory of prayers\nmay explain the origin of charms.  Charm-formulae,\" he says, \"are in\nvery many cases actual prayers, and as such are intelligible.  Where\nthey are mere verbal forms, producing their effect on nature and man by\nsome unexplained process, may not they or the types they have been\nmodelled on have been originally prayers, since dwindled into mystic\nsentences?\" (_P. C._ II, 372-373).  Now, if this suggestion of\nProfessor Tylor's be correct, it will follow that as charms and spells\nare degraded survivals of prayer, so magic generally--of which charms\nand spells are but one department--is a degradation of religion.  That\nin many cases charms and spells are survivals of prayer--formulae from\nwhich all spirit of religion has entirely evaporated--all students of\nthe science of religion would now admit.  That prayers may {151}\nstiffen into traditional formulae, and then become vain repetitions\nwhich may actually be unintelligible to those who utter them, and so be\nconceived to have a force which is purely magical and a \"nature\npractically assimilated more or less to that of charms\" (_l.c._), is a\nfact which cannot be denied.  But when once the truth has been admitted\nthat prayers may pass into spells, the possibility is suggested that it\nis out of spells that prayer has originated.  Mercury raised to a high\ntemperature becomes red precipitate; and red precipitate exposed to a\nstill greater heat becomes mercury again.  Spells may be the origin of\nprayers, if prayers show a tendency to relapse into spells.  That\npossibility fits in either with the theory that magic preceded religion\nor still more exactly with the theory that religion simply is magic\nraised, so to speak, to a higher moral temperature.  We have therefore\nto consider the possibility that the process of evolution has been from\nspell to prayer (R. R. Marett, _Folk-Lore_ XV, 2, pp. 132-166); and let\nus begin the consideration by observing that the reverse passage--from\nprayer to spell--is only possible on the condition that religion\nevaporates entirely in the process.  The prayer does not become a charm\nuntil the {152} religion has disappeared entirely from it: a charm\ntherefore is that in which no religion is, and out of which\nconsequently no religion can be extracted.  If then, _per impossibile_,\nit could be demonstrated that there was a period in the history of\nmankind, when charms and magic existed, and religion was utterly\nunknown; if it be argued that the spirit of religion, when at length it\nbreathed upon mankind, transformed spells into prayers--still all that\nwould then be maintained is that spoken formulae which were spells were\nfollowed by other formulae which are the very opposite of spells.  Must\nwe not, however, go one step further and admit that one and the same\nform of words may be prayer and religion when breathed in one spirit,\nand vain repetition and mere magic when uttered in another?  Let us\nadmit that the difference between prayer and spell lies in the\ndifference of the spirit inspiring them; and then we shall see that the\ndifference is essential, fundamental, as little to be ignored as it is\nimpossible to bridge.\n\nThe formula used by the person employing it to express his desire may\nor may not in itself suffice to show whether it is religious in intent\nand value.  Thus in West Africa the women of Framin dance {153} and\nsing, \"Our husbands have gone to Ashantee land; may they sweep their\nenemies off the face of the earth\" (Frazer, _Golden Bough_,^2 I, 34).\nWe may compare the song sung in time of war by the Masai women: \"O God,\nto whom I pray for offspring, may our children return hither\" (Hollis,\np. 351); and there seems no reason why, since the Masai song is\nreligious, the Framin song may not be regarded as religious also.  But\nwe have to remember that both prayers and spells have a setting of\ntheir own: the desires which they express manifest themselves not only\nin what is said but in what is done; and, when we enquire what the\nFramin women do whilst they sing the words quoted above, we find that\nthey dance with brushes in their hands.  The brushes are quite as\nessential as the words.  It is therefore suggested that the whole\nceremony is magical, that the sweeping is sympathetic magic and the\nsong is a spell.  The words explain what the action is intended to\neffect, just as in New Caledonia when a man has kindled a smoky fire\nand has performed certain acts, he \"invokes his ancestors and says,\n'Sun!  I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds\nin the sky'\" (Frazer, _ib._, 116).  Again, amongst the Masai in time of\n{154} drought a charm called ol-kora is thrown into a fire; the old men\nencircle the fire and sing:--\n\n  \"God of the rain-cloud, slake our thirst,\n  We know thy far-extending powers,\n  As herdsmen lead their kine to drink,\n  Refresh us with thy cooling showers.\"\n        --HOLLIS, p. 348.\n\nIf the ol-kora which is thrown into the fire makes it rise in clouds of\nsmoke, resembling the rain-clouds which are desired, then here too the\nceremony taken as a whole presents the appearance of a magical rite\naccompanied by a spoken spell.  It is true that in this case the\nceremony is reenforced by an appeal to a god, just as in the New\nCaledonian case it is reenforced by an appeal to ancestor worship.  But\nthis may be explained as showing that here we have magic and charms\nbeing gradually superseded by religion and prayer; the old formula and\nthe old rite are in process of being suffused by a new spirit, the\nspirit of religion, which is the very negation and ultimately the\ndestruction of the old spirit of magic.  Before accepting this\ninterpretation, however, which is intended to show the priority of\nmagic to religion, we may notice that it is not the only interpretation\nof which the facts are susceptible.  It is {155} based on the\nassumption that the words uttered are intended as an explanation of the\nmeaning of the acts performed.  If that assumption is correct, then the\nperformer of the ceremony is explaining its meaning and intention to\nsomebody.  To whom?  In the case of the New Caledonian ceremony, to the\nancestral spirits; in the case of the Masai old men, to the god.  Thus,\nthe religious aspect of the ceremony appears after all to be an\nessential part of the ceremony, and not a new element in an old rite.\nAnd, then, we may consistently argue that the Framin women who sing,\n\"Our husbands have gone to Ashantee land; may they sweep their enemies\noff the face of the earth,\" are either still conscious that they are\naddressing a prayer to their native god; or that, if they are no longer\nconscious of the fact, they once were, and what was originally prayer\nhas become by vain repetition a mere spell.  All this is on the\nassumption that in these ceremonies, the words are intended to explain\nthe meaning of the acts performed, and therefore to explain it to\nsomebody, peradventure he will understand and grant the performer of\nthe ceremony his heart's desire.  But, as the consequences of the\nassumption do not favour the theory that prayer must be {156} preceded\nby spell, let us discard the assumption that the words explain the\nmeaning of the acts performed.  Let us consider the possibility that\nperhaps the actions which are gone through are meant to explain the\nwords and make them more forcible.  It is undeniable that in moments of\nemotion we express ourselves by gesture and the play of our features as\nwell as by our words; indeed, in reading a play we are apt to miss the\nfull meaning of the words simply because they are not assisted and\ninterpreted by the actor's gestures and features.  If we take up this\nposition, that the things done are explanatory of the words uttered and\nreenforce them, then the sweeping which is acted by the Framin women\nagain is not magical; it simply emphasises the words, \"may they sweep\ntheir enemies off the face of the earth,\" and shows to the power\nappealed to what it is that is desired.  The smoke sent up by the New\nCaledonian ancestor worshipper or the Masai old men is a way of\nindicating the clouds which they wish to attract or avert respectively.\nAn equally clear case comes from the Kei Islands: \"When the warriors\nhave departed, the women return indoors and bring out certain baskets\ncontaining fruits and stones.  These fruits and stones they anoint and\nplace on a board, {157} murmuring as they do so, 'O lord sun, moon, let\nthe bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and other\nrelations, just as raindrops rebound from these objects which are\nsmeared with oil'\" (Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 33).  It is, I think,\nperfectly reasonable to regard the act performed as explanatory of the\nwords uttered and of the thing desired; the women themselves explain to\ntheir lords, the sun and moon,--with the precision natural to women\nwhen explaining what they want,--exactly how they want the bullets to\nbounce off, just like raindrops.  Dr. Frazer, however, from whom I have\nquoted this illustration, not having perhaps considered the possibility\nthat the acts performed may be explanatory of the words, is compelled\nto explain the action as magical: \"in this custom the ceremony of\nanointing stones in order that the bullets may recoil from the men like\nraindrops from the stones is a piece of pure sympathetic or imitative\nmagic.\"  He is therefore compelled to suggest that the prayer to the\nsun is a prayer that he will give effect to the charm, and is perhaps a\nlater addition.  But independently of the possibility that the actions\nperformed are explanatory of the words, or rather that words and\nactions both are intended to make clear to the sun precisely {158} what\nthe petition is, what tells against Dr. Frazer's suggestion is that the\nwomen want the bullets to bounce off, and it is the power of the god to\nwhich they appeal and on which they rely for the fulfilment of their\nprayer.\n\nThere is, however, a further consideration which we should perhaps take\ninto account.  Man, when he has a desire which he wishes to\nrealise,--and the whole of our life is spent in trying to realise what\nwe wish,--takes all the steps which experience shows to be necessary or\nreason suggests; and, when he has done everything that he can do, he\nmay still feel that nothing is certain in this life, and the thing may\nnot come off.  Under those circumstances he may, and often does, pray\nthat success may attend his efforts.  Now Dr. Frazer, in the second\nedition of his _Golden Bough_, wishing to show that the period of\nreligion was preceded by a non-religious period in the history of\nmankind, suggests that at first man had no idea that his attempts to\nrealise his desires could fail, and that it was his \"tardy recognition\"\nof the fact that led him to religion.  This tardy recognition, he says,\nprobably \"proceeded very slowly, and required long ages for its more or\nless perfect accomplishment.  For the recognition of man's\npowerlessness to influence the course of {159} nature on a grand scale\nmust have been gradual\" (I, 78).  I would suggest, however, that it\ncannot have taken \"long ages\" for savage man to discover that his\nwishes and his plans did not always come off.  It is, I think, going\ntoo far to imagine that for long ages man had no idea that his attempts\nto realise his desires could fail.  If religion arises, as Dr. Frazer\nsuggests, when man recognises his own weakness and his own\npowerlessness, often, to effect what he most desires, then man in his\nmost primitive and most helpless condition must have been most ready to\nrecognise that there were powers other than himself, and to desire,\nthat is to pray for, their assistance.  Doubtless it would be at the\ngreater crises, times of pestilence, drought, famine and war, that his\nprayers would be most insistent; but it is in the period of savagery\nthat famine is most frequent and drought most to be feared.  Against\nthem he takes all the measures known to him, all the practical steps\nwhich natural science, as understood by him, can suggest.  Now his\ntheory and practice include many things which, though they are in later\ndays regarded as uncanny and magical, are to him the ordinary natural\nmeans of producing the effects which he desires.  But when he has taken\nall {160} the steps which practical reason suggests, and experience of\nthe past approves, savage man, harassed by the dread of approaching\ndrought or famine, may still breathe out the Manganja prayer, \"Hear\nthou, O God, and send rain.\"  When, however, he does so, it is, I\nsuggest, doubly erroneous to infer that this prayer takes the place of\na spell or that apart from the prayer the acts performed are, and\noriginally were, magical.  These acts may be based on the principle\nthat like produces like and may be performed as the ordinary, natural\nmeans for producing the effect, which have nothing magical about them.\nAnd they are accompanied by a prayer which is not a mere explanation or\nstatement of the purpose with which the acts are performed, but is the\nexpression of the heart's desire.\n\nNo _a priori_ proofs of any cogency, therefore, have been adduced by\nDr. Frazer, and none therefore are likely to be produced by any one\nelse, to show that there was ever a period in the history of man when\nprayers and religion were unknown to him.  The question remains whether\nany actual instances are known to the science of religion.\nUnfortunately, as I pointed out at the beginning of this lecture, so\nneglected by the science of religion has been the subject of prayer\nthat even now we are scarcely {161} able to go beyond the statement\nmade more than a quarter of a century ago by Professor Tylor that, \"at\nlow levels of civilisation there are many races who distinctly admit\nthe existence of spirits, but are not certainly known to pray to them\neven in thought\" (_P. C._ II, 364).  Professor Tylor's statement is\nproperly guarded: there are races not certainly known to pray.  The\npossibility that they may yet be discovered to make prayers is not\nexcluded.\n\nNow, if we turn to one of the lowest levels of culture, that of the\nAustralian black fellows, we shall find that there is much doubt\namongst students whether the \"aborigines have consciously any form of\nreligion whatever\" (Howitt, _Native Tribes of S. E. Australia_), and in\nsoutheast Australia Mr. Howitt thinks it cannot be alleged that they\nhave, though their beliefs are such that they might easily have\ndeveloped into an actual religion (p. 507).  Now one of the tribes of\nsoutheast Australia is that of the Dieri.  With them rain is very\nimportant, for periods of drought are frequent; and \"rain-making\nceremonies are considered of much consequence\" (p. 394).  The\nceremonies are symbolic: there is \"blood to symbolise the rain\" and two\nlarge stones \"representing gathering {162} clouds presaging rain,\" just\nas the New Caledonian sends up clouds of smoke to symbolise\nrain-clouds, and the Masai, we have conjectured, throw ol-kora into the\nfire for the same purpose.  But the New Caledonian not only performs\nthe actions prescribed for the rite, he also invokes the spirits of his\nancestors; and the Masai not only go through the proper dance, but call\nupon the god of the rain-cloud.  The Dieri, however, ought to be\ncontent with their symbolic or sympathetic magic and not offer up any\nprayer.  But, being unaware of this fact, they do pray: they call \"upon\nthe rain-making _Mura-muras_ to give them power to make a heavy\nrainfall, crying out in loud voices the impoverished state of the\ncountry, and the half-starved condition of the tribe, in consequence of\nthe difficulty in procuring food in sufficient quantity to preserve\nlife\" (p. 394).  The _Mura-muras_ seem to be ancestral spirits, like\nthose invoked by the New Caledonian.  If we turn to the Euahlayi tribe\nof northwestern New South Wales, we find that at the Boorah rites a\nprayer is offered to Byamee, \"asking him to let the blacks live long,\nfor they have been faithful to his charge as shown by the observance of\nthe Boorah ceremony\" (L. Parker, _The Euahlayi {163} Tribe_, p. 79).\nThat is the prayer of the community to Byamee, and is in conformity\nwith what we have noted before, viz. that it is with the desires of the\ncommunity that the god of the community is concerned.  Another prayer,\nthe nature of which is not stated by Mrs. Parker, by whom the\ninformation is given us, is put up at funerals, presumably to Byamee by\nthe community or its representative.  Mrs. Parker adds: \"Though we say\nthat actually these people have but two attempts at prayers, one at the\ngrave and one at the inner Boorah ring, I think perhaps we are wrong.\nWhen a man invokes aid on the eve of battle, or in his hour of danger\nand need; when a woman croons over her baby an incantation to keep him\nhonest and true, and that he shall be spared in danger,--surely these\ncroonings are of the nature of prayers born of the same elementary\nframe of mind as our more elaborate litanies.\"  As an instance of the\ncroonings Mrs. Parker gives the mother's song over her baby as soon as\nit begins to crawl:---\n\n  \"Kind be,\n  Do not steal,\n  Do not touch what to another belongs,\n  Leave all such alone,\n  Kind be.\"\n\n{164}\n\nThese instances may suffice to show that it would not have been safe to\ninfer, a year or two ago, from the fact that the Australians were not\nknown to pray, that therefore prayer was unknown to them.  Indeed, we\nmay safely go farther and surmise that other instances besides those\nnoted really exist, though they have not been observed or if observed\nhave not been understood.  Among the northern tribes of central\nAustralia rites are performed to secure food, just as they are\nperformed by the Dieri to avert drought.  The Dieri rites are\naccompanied by a prayer, as we have seen.  The Kaitish rites to promote\nthe growth of grass are accompanied by the singing of words, which\n\"have no meaning known to the natives of the present day\" (Spencer and\nGillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 292).  Amongst the Mara tribe the\nrain-making rite consists simply in \"singing\" the water, drinking it\nand spitting it out in all directions.  In the Anula tribe \"dugongs are\na favourite article of food,\" and if the natives desire to bring them\nout from the rocks, they \"can do so by 'singing' and throwing sticks at\nthe rocks\" (_ib._, pp. 313, 314).  It is reasonable to suppose that in\nall these cases the \"singing\" is now merely a charm.  But if we\nremember that prayers, when {165} their meaning is forgotten, pass by\nvain repetitions into mere charms, we may also reasonably suppose that\nthese Australian charms are degraded prayers; and we shall be confirmed\nin this supposition to some extent by the fact that in the Kaitish\ntribes the words sung \"have no meaning known to the natives of the\npresent day.\"  If the meaning has evaporated, the religion may have\nevaporated with it.  That the rites, of which the \"singing\" is an\nessential part, have now become magical and are used and understood to\nbe practised purely to promote the supply of dugongs and other articles\nof food, may be freely admitted; but it is unsafe to infer that the\npurpose with which the rites continue to be practised is the whole of\nthe purpose with which they were originally performed.  If the meaning\nof the \"singing\" has passed entirely away, the meaning of the rites may\nhave suffered a change.  At the present day the rite is understood to\nincrease the supply of dugongs or other articles of food.  But it may\nhave been used originally for other purposes.  Presumably rites of a\nsimilar kind, certainly of some kind, are practised by the Australians\nwho have for their totem the blow-fly, the water-beetle, or the evening\nstar.  But they do not {166} eat flies or beetles.  Their original\npurpose in choosing the evening star cannot have been to increase its\nnumber.  Nor can that have been the object of choosing the mosquito for\na totem.  But if the object of the rites is not to increase the number\nof mosquitoes, flies, and beetles, it need not in the first instance\nhave been the object with which the rites were celebrated in the case\nof other totems.\n\nLet us now return to Professor Tylor's statement that \"at low levels of\ncivilisation there are many races who distinctly admit the existence of\nspirits, but are not certainly known to pray to them even in thought.\"\nThe number of those races who are not known to pray is being reduced,\nas we have seen.  And I think we may go even farther than that and say\nthat where the existence of spirits is not merely believed in, but is\nutilised for the purpose of establishing permanent relations between a\ncommunity and a spirit, we may safely infer that the community offers\nprayer to the spirit, even though the fact may have escaped the notice\nof travellers.  The reason why we may infer it is that at the lower\nlevels of civilisation we meet with religion, in Hoeffding's words, \"in\nthe guise of desire.\"  We may put the same truth in other words and say\nthat religion is {167} from the beginning practical.  Such prayers as\nare known to us to be put up by the lowest races are always practical:\nthey may be definite petitions for definite goods such as harvest or\nrain or victory in time of war; or they may be general petitions such\nas that of the Khonds: \"We are ignorant of what it is good for us to\nask for.  You know what is good for us.  Give it us.\"  But in any case\nwhat the god of a community is there for is to promote the good of the\ncommunity.  It is because the savage has petitions to put up that he\nbelieves there are powers who can grant his petitions.  Prayer is the\nvery root of religion.  When the savage has taken every measure he\nknows of to produce the result he desires, he then goes on to pray for\nthe rainfall he desires, crying out in a loud voice \"the impoverished\nstate of the country and the half-starved condition of the tribe.\"  It\nis true that it is in moments of stress particularly, if not solely,\nthat the savage turns to his god--and the same may be said of many of\nus--but it is with confidence and hope that he turns to him.  If he had\nno confidence and no hope, he would offer no prayers.  But he has hope,\nhe has faith; and every time he prays his heart says, if his words do\nnot, \"in Thee, Lord, do we put our trust.\"\n\n{168}\n\nThat prayer is the essence, the very breath, of religion, without which\nit dies, is shown by the fact that amongst the very lowest races of\nmankind we find frequent traditions of the existence of a high god or\nsupreme being, the creator of the world and the father of mankind.  The\nnumerous traces of this dying tradition have been collected by the\nuntiring energy and the unrivalled knowledge of Mr. Andrew Lang in his\nbook, _The Making of Religion_.  In West Africa Dr. Nassau (_Fetichism\nin West Africa_, pp. 36 ff.) \"hundreds of times\" (p. 37) has found that\n\"they know of a Being superior to themselves, of whom they themselves,\"\nhe says, \"inform me that he is the Maker and the Father.\"  What is\ncharacteristic of the belief of the savages in this god is that, in Dr.\nNassau's words, \"it is an accepted belief, but it does not often\ninfluence their life.  'God is not in all their thought.'  In practice\nthey give Him no worship.\"  The belief is in fact a dying tradition;\nand it is dying because prayer is not offered to this remote and\ntraditional god.  I say that the belief is a dying tradition, and I say\nso because its elements, which are all found present and active where a\ncommunity believes in, prays to, and worships the god of the community,\n{169} are found partially, but only partially, present where the belief\nsurvives but as a tradition.  Thus, for instance, where the belief is\nfully operative, the god of the community sanctions the morality of the\ncommunity; but sometimes where the belief has become merely\ntraditional, this traditional god is supposed to take no interest in\nthe community and exercises no ethical influence over the community.\nThus, in West Africa, Nyankupon is \"ignored rather than worshipped.\"\nIn the Andaman Islands, on the other hand, where the god Puluga is\nstill angered by sin or wrong-doing, he is pitiful to those in pain or\ndistress and \"sometimes deigns to afford relief\" (Lang p. 212 quoting\n_Man_, _J. A._ I., XII, 158).  Again, where the belief in the god of\nthe community is fully operative, the occasions on which the prayers of\nthe community are offered are also the occasions on which sacrifice is\nmade.  Where sacrifice and prayers are not offered, the belief may\nstill for a time survive, at it does among the Fuegians.  They make no\nsacrifice and, as far as is known, offer no prayers; but to kill a man\nbrings down the wrath of their god, the big man in the woods: \"Rain\ncome down, snow come down, hail come down, wind blow, blow, very much\nblow.  {170} Very bad to kill man.  Big man in woods no like it, he\nvery angry\" (Lang, p. 188, quoting Fitzroy, II, 180).  But when\nsacrifice and prayer cease, the ultimate outcome is that which is found\namongst the West African natives, who, as Dr. Nassau tells us (p. 38),\nsay with regard to Anzam, whom they admit to be their Creator and\nFather, \"Why should we care for him?  He does not help nor harm us.  It\nis the spirits who can harm us whom we fear and worship, and for whom\nwe care.\"  Who the spirits are Dr. Nassau does not say, but they must\nbe either the other gods of the place or the fetich spirits.  And the\nreason why Anzam is no longer believed to help or harm the natives is\nobviously that, from some cause or other, there is now no longer any\nestablished form of worship of him.  The community of which he was\noriginally the god may have broken up, or more probably may have been\nbroken up, with the result that the congregation which met to offer\nprayer and sacrifice to Anzam was scattered; and the memory of him\nalone survives.  Nothing would be more natural, then, than that the\nnatives, when asked by Dr. Nassau, \"Why do you not worship him?\" (p.\n38), should invent a reason, viz. that it is no use worshipping {171}\nhim now--the truth being that the form of worship has perished for\nreasons now no longer present to the natives' mind.  In any case, when\nprayers cease to be offered--whether because the community is broken up\nor because some new quarter is discovered to which prayers can be\noffered with greater hope of success--when prayers, for any reason, do\ncease to be offered to a god, the worship of him begins to cease also,\nfor the breath of life has departed from it.\n\nIn this lecture, as my subject is primitive religion, I have made no\nattempt to trace the history of prayer farther than the highest point\nwhich it reaches in the lower levels of religion.  That is the point\nreached by the Khond prayer: \"We are ignorant of what it is good to ask\nfor.  You know what is good for us.  Give it us.\"  That is also the\nhighest point reached by the most religious mind amongst the ancient\nGreeks: Socrates prayed the gods simply for things good, because the\ngods knew best what is good (Xen., _Mem._, I, iii, 2).  The general\nimpression left on one's mind by the prayers offered in this stage of\nreligious development is that man is here and the gods are--there.  But\n\"there\" is such a long way off.  And yet, far off as it is, man {172}\nnever came to think it was so far off that the gods could not hear.\nThe possibility of man's entering into some sort of communication with\nthem was always present.  Nay! more, a community of interests between\nhim and them was postulated: the gods were to promote the interests of\nthe community, and man was to serve the gods.  On occasions when\nsacrifice was made and prayer was offered, the worshippers entered into\nthe presence of God, and communion with Him was sought; but stress was\nlaid rather on the sacrifice offered than on the prayers sent up.  The\ncommunion at which animal sacrifice aimed may have been gross at times,\nand at others mystic; but it was the sacrifice rather than the prayer\nwhich accompanied it that was regarded as essential to the communion\ndesired, as the means of bridging the gap between man here and the gods\nthere.  If, however, the gap was to be bridged, a new revelation was\nnecessary, one revealing the real nature of the sacrifice required by\nGod, and of the communion desired by man.  And that revelation is made\nin Our Lord's Prayer.  With the most earnest and unfeigned desire to\nuse the theory of evolution as a means of ordering the facts of the\nhistory of religion and of enabling {173} us--so far as it can enable\nus--to understand them, one is bound to notice as a fact that the\ntheory of evolution is unable to account for or explain the revelation,\nmade in Our Lord's Prayer, of the spirit which is both human and\ndivine.  It is the beam of light which, when turned on the darkness of\nthe past, enables us to see whither man with his prayers and his\nsacrifices had been blindly striving, the place where he fain would be.\nIt is the surest beacon the missionary can hold out to those who are\nstill in darkness and who show by the fact that they pray--if only for\nrain, for harvest, and victory over all their enemies--that they are\nbattling with the darkness and that they have not turned entirely away\nfrom the light of His countenance who is never at any time far from any\none of us.  Their heart within them is ready to bear witness.  Religion\nis present in them, if only under \"the guise of desire\"; but it is \"the\ndesire of all nations\" for which they yearn.\n\nThere are, Hoeffding says, \"two tendencies in the nature of religious\nfeeling: on the one hand there is the need to collect and concentrate\nourselves, to resign ourselves, to feel ourselves supported and carried\nby a power raised above all {174} struggle and opposition and beyond\nall change.  But within the religious consciousness another need makes\nitself felt, the need of feeling that in the midst of the struggle we\nhave a fellow-struggler at our side, a fellow-struggler who knows from\nhis own experience what it is to suffer and meet resistance\" (_The\nPhilosophy of Religion_, Sec. 54).  Between these two tendencies Hoeffding\ndiscovers an opposition or contradiction, an \"antinomy of religious\nfeeling.\"  But it is precisely because Christianity alone of all\nreligions recognises both needs that it transcends the antinomy.  The\nantinomy is indeed purely intellectual.  Hoeffding himself says, \"only\nwhen recollection, collation, and comparison are possible do we\ndiscover the opposition or the contradiction between the two\ntendencies.\"  And in saying that, inasmuch as recollection, collation,\nand comparison are intellectual processes, he admits that the antinomy\nis intellectual.  That it is not an antinomy of religious feeling is\nshown by the fact that the two needs exist, that is to say, are both\nfelt.  To say _a priori_ that both cannot be satisfied is useless in\nface of the fact that those who feel them find that Christianity\nsatisfies them.\n\n\n\n\n{175}\n\nSACRIFICE\n\nIn my last lecture I called attention to the fact that the subject of\nprayer has been strangely neglected by the science of religion.\nReligion, in whatever form it manifests itself, is essentially\npractical; man desires to enter into communication or into communion\nwith his god, and in so doing he has a practical purpose in view.  That\npurpose may be to secure a material blessing of a particular kind, such\nas victory in war or the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth in their\ndue season, or the purpose may be to offer thanks for a harvest and to\npray for a continuance of prosperity generally.  Or the purpose of\nprayer may be to ask for deliverance from material evils, such as\nfamine or plague.  Or it may be to ask for deliverance from moral evils\nand for power to do God's will.  In a word, if man had no prayer to\nmake, the most powerful, if not the only, motive inciting him to seek\ncommunion would be wanting.  Now, to some of us it may seem _a priori_\nthat there is no reason why the communion thus sought in {176} prayer\nshould require any external rite to sanction or condition it.  If that\nis our _a priori_ view, we shall be the more surprised to find that in\nactual fact an external rite has always been felt to be essential; and\nthat rite has always been and still is sacrifice, in one or other of\nits forms.  Or, to put the same fact in another way, public worship has\nbeen from the beginning the condition without which private worship\ncould not begin and without which private worship cannot continue.  To\nany form of religion, whatever it be, it is essential, if it is to be\nreligion, that there shall be a community of worshippers and a god\nworshipped.  The bond which unites the worshippers with one another and\nwith their god is religion.  From the beginning the public worship in\nwhich the worshippers have united has expressed itself in rites--rites\nof sacrifice--and in the prayers of the community.  To the end, the\nprayers offered are prayers to \"Our Father\"; and if the worshipper is\nspatially separated from, he is spiritually united to, his\nfellow-worshippers even in private prayer.\n\nWe may then recognise that prayer logically and ultimately implies\nsacrifice in one or other of its senses; and that sacrifice as a rite\nis meaningless and impossible without prayer.  But if we recognise\n{177} that sacrifice wherever it occurs implies prayer, then the fact\nthat the observers of savage or barbarous rites have described the\nritual acts of sacrifice, but have not observed or have neglected to\nreport the prayers implied, will not lead us into the error of\nimagining that sacrifice is a rite which can exist--that it can have a\nreligious existence--without prayer.  We may attend to either, the\nsacrifice or to the prayer, as we may attend either to the concavity or\nthe convexity of a curve, but we may not deny the existence and\npresence of the one because our attention happens to be concentrated on\nthe other.  The relation in primitive religion of the one to the other\nwe may express by saying that prayer states the motive with which the\nsacrifice is made, and that sacrifice is essential to the prayer, which\nwould not be efficacious without the sacrifice.  The reason why a\ncommunity can address the god which it worships is that the god is felt\nto be identified in some way with the community and to have its\ninterests in his charge and care.  And the rite of sacrifice is felt to\nmake the identification more real.  Prayer, again, is possible only to\nthe god to whom the community is known; with whom it is identified,\nmore or less; and with whom, when his help is required, the {178}\ncommunity seeks to identify itself more effectually.  The means of that\nidentification without which the prayers of the community would be\nineffectual is sacrifice.  The earliest form of sacrifice may probably\nbe taken to be the sacrifice of an animal, followed by a sacrificial\nmeal.  Later, when the god has a stated place in which he is believed\nto manifest himself,--tree or temple,--then the identification may be\neffected by attaching offerings to the tree or temple.  But in either\ncase what is sought by the offering dedicated or the meal of sacrifice\nis in a word \"incorporation.\"  The worshippers desire to feel that they\nare at one with the spirit whom they worship.  And the desire to\nexperience this sense of union is particularly strong when plague or\nfamine makes it evident that some estrangement has taken place between\nthe god and the community which is normally in his care and under his\nprotection.  The sacrifices and prayers that are offered in such a case\nobviously do not open up communication for the first time between the\ngod and his tribe: they revive and reenforce a communion which is felt\nto exist already, even though temporal misfortunes, such as drought or\nfamine, testify that it has been allowed by the tribe to become less\nclose than it ought to be, or that {179} it has been strained by\ntransgressions on the part of individual members of the community.  But\nit is not only in times of public distress that the community\napproaches its god with sacrifice and prayer.  It so happens that the\nprayers offered for victory in war or for rain or for deliverance from\nfamine are instances of prayer of so marked a character that they have\nforced themselves on the notice of travellers in all parts of the\nworld, from the Eskimo to the Australian black fellows or the negroes\nof Africa.  And it was to this class of prayers that I called your\nattention principally in the last lecture.  But they are, when we come\nto think of it, essentially occasional prayers, prayers that are\noffered at the great crises of tribal life, when the very existence of\nthe tribe is at stake.  Such crises, however, by their very nature are\nnot regular or normal; and it would be an error to suppose that it is\nonly on these occasions that prayers are made by savage or barbarous\npeoples.  If we wish to discover the earliest form of regularly\nrecurring public worship, we must look for some regularly recurring\noccasion for it.  One such regularly recurring occasion is harvest\ntime, another is seed time, another is the annual ceremonial at which\nthe boys who {180} attain in the course of the year to the age of\nmanhood are initiated into the secrets or \"mysteries\" of the tribe.\nThese are the chief and perhaps the only regularly recurring occasions\nof public worship as distinguished from the irregular crises of war,\npestilence, drought, and famine which affect the community as a whole,\nand from the irregular occasions when the individual member of the\ncommunity prays for offspring or for delivery from sickness or for\nsuccess in the private undertaking in which he happens to be engaged.\n\nOf the regularly recurring occasions of public worship I will select,\nto begin with, the rites which are associated with harvest time.  And I\nwill do so partly because the science of religion provides us with very\ndefinite particulars both as to the sacrifices and as to the prayers\nwhich are usually made on these occasions; and partly because the\nprayers that are made are of a special kind and throw a fresh light on\nthe nature of the communion that the tribe seeks to effect by means of\nthe sacrificial offering.\n\nAt Saa, in the Solomon Islands, yams are offered, and the person\noffering them cries in a loud voice, \"This is yours to eat\" (Frazer,\n_G. B._^2, II, 465).  In {181} the Society Islands the formula is,\n\"Here, Tari, I have brought you something to eat\" (_ib._, 469).  In\nIndo-China, the invitation is the same: \"Taste, O goddess, these\nfirst-fruits which have just been reaped\" (_ib._, 325).  There are no\nactually expressed words of thanks in these instances; but we may\nsafely conjecture that the offerings are thank-offerings and that the\nfeeling with which the offerings are made is one of gratitude and\nthankfulness.  Thus in Ceram we are told that first-fruits are offered\n\"as a token of gratitude\" (_ib._, 463).  On the Niger the Onitsha\nformula is explicit: \"I thank God for being permitted to eat the new\nyam\" (_ib._, 325).  At Tjumba in the East Indies, \"vessels filled with\nrice are presented as a thank-offering to the gods\" (_ib._, 462).  The\npeople of Nias on these occasions offer thanks for the blessings\nbestowed on them (_ib._, 463).  By a very natural transition of thought\nand feeling, thankfulness for past favours leads to prayer for the\ncontinuance of favour in the future.  Thus in Tana, in the New\nHebrides, the formula is: \"Compassionate father! here is some food for\nyou; eat it; be kind to us on account of it\" (_ib._, 464); while the\nBasutos say: \"Thank you, gods; give us bread to-morrow also\" (_ib._,\n459); and in Tonga the prayers {182} made at the offering of\nfirst-fruits implore the protection of the gods, and beseech them for\nwelfare generally, though in especial for the fruits of the earth\n(_ib._, 466).\n\nThe prayers of primitive man which I quoted in my last lecture were in\nthe nature of petitions or requests, as was natural and indeed\ninevitable in view of the fact that they were preferred on occasions\nwhen the tribe was in exceptional distress and required the aid of the\ngods on whose protection the community relied.  But the prayers which I\nhave just quoted are not in their essence petitions or requests, even\nthough in some cases they tend to become so.  They are essentially\nprayers of thanksgiving and the offerings made are thank-offerings.\nThus our conception of primitive prayer must be extended to include\nboth mental attitudes--that of thankfulness for past or present\nblessings as well as the hope of blessings yet to come.  And inasmuch\nas sacrifice is the concomitant of prayer, we must recognise that\nsacrificial offerings also serve as the expression of both mental\nattitudes.  And we must note that in the regularly recurring form of\npublic or tribal worship with which we are now dealing the dominant\nfeeling to which expression is given is {183} that of thankfulness.\nThe tribe seeks for communion with its god for the purpose of\nexpressing its thanks.  Even the savage who simply says, \"Here, Tari, I\nhave brought you something to eat,\" or, still more curtly, \"This is\nyours to eat,\" is expressing thanks, albeit in savage fashion.  And the\nmeans which the savage adopts for securing that communion which he\nseeks to renew regularly with the tribal god is a sacrificial meal, of\nwhich the god and his worshippers partake.  Throughout the whole\nceremony, whether we regard the spoken words or the acts performed,\nthere is no suggestion of magic and no possibility of twisting the\nceremony into a piece of magic intended to produce some desired result\nor to exercise any constraint over the powers to which the ceremony is\naddressed.  The mental attitude is that of thankfulness.\n\nNow, it is, I venture to suggest, impossible to dissociate from the\nfirst-fruits ceremonials which I have described the ceremonies observed\nby Australian black fellows on similar occasions.  And it is also\nimpossible to overlook the differences between the ceremony in\nAustralia and the ceremony elsewhere.  In Australia, as elsewhere, when\nthe time of year arrives at which the food becomes fit for eating,\n{184} a ceremony has to be performed before custom permits the food to\nbe eaten freely.  In Australia, as elsewhere, a ceremonial eating, a\nsacramental meal, has to take place.  But whereas elsewhere the god of\nthe community is expressly invited to partake of the sacramental meal,\neven though he be not mentioned by name and though the invitation take\nthe curt form of \"This is yours to eat,\" in Australia no words whatever\nare spoken; the person who performs the ceremony performs it indeed\nwith every indication of reverential feeling, he eats solemnly and\nsparingly, that is to say formally and because the eating is a matter\nof ritual, but no reference is made by him so far as we know, to any\ngod.  How then are we to explain the absence of any such reference?\nThere seems to me to be only one explanation which is reasonably\npossible.  It is that in the Australian ceremony, which would be\nperfectly intelligible and perfectly in line with the ceremony as it\noccurs everywhere else, the reference to the god who is or was invited\nto partake of the first-fruits has in the process of time and, we must\nadd, in the course of religious decay, gradually dropped out.  The\ninvitation may never have been more ample than the curt form, \"This is\nyours to eat.\"  Even in the {185} absence of any verbal invitation\nwhatever, a gesture may long have sufficed to indicate what was in the\nmind and was implied by the act of the savage performing the ceremony.\nWords may not have been felt necessary to explain what every person\npresent at the ceremony knew to be the purpose of the rite.  But in the\nabsence of any verbal formula whatever the purpose and meaning of the\nrite would be apt to pass out of mind, to evaporate, even though custom\nmaintained, as it does in Australia to this day maintain, the punctual\nand punctilious performance of the outward ceremony.  I suggest,\ntherefore, that in Australia, as elsewhere, the solemn eating of the\nfirst-fruits has been a sacramental meal of which both the god and his\nworshippers were partakers.  The alternative is to my mind much less\nprobable: it is to use the Australian ceremony as it now exists to\nexplain the origin of the ceremony as we find it elsewhere.  In\nAustralia it is not now apparently associated with the worship of any\ngod; therefore it may be argued in other countries also it was not\noriginally part of the worship of any god either.  If, then, it was not\nan act of public worship originally, how are we to understand it?  The\nsuggestion is that the fruits of the earth or the animals which become\nthe food of {186} man are, until they become fit for eating, regarded\nas sacred or taboo, and therefore may not be eaten.  That suggestion\nderives some support from the fact that in Australia anything that is\neaten may be a totem and being a totem is taboo.  But if it is thus\nsacred, then in order to be eaten it must be \"desacralised,\" the taboo\nmust be taken off.  And it is suggested that that precisely is what is\neffected by the ceremonial eating of the totem by the headman of the\ntotem clan: the totem is desacralised by the mere fact that it is\nformally and ceremonially eaten by the headman, after which it may be\nconsumed by others as an ordinary article of food.  But this\nexplanation of the first-fruits ceremony is based upon an assumption\nwhich is contrary to the facts of the case as it occurs in Australia.\nIt assumes that the plant or the animal until desacralised is taboo to\nall members of the tribe, and that none of them can eat it until it has\nbeen desacralised by the ceremonial eating.  But the assumption is\nfalse; the plant or animal is sacred and taboo only to members of the\nclan whose totem it is.  It is not sacred to the vast majority of the\ntribe, for they have totems of their own; to them it is not sacred or\ntaboo, they may kill it--and they do--without breaking any taboo.  The\nceremonial {187} eating of the first-fruits raises no taboo as far as\nthe tribe generally is concerned, for the plant or animal is not taboo\nto them.  As far as the tribe generally is concerned, no process of\ndesacralisation takes place and none is effected by the ceremonial\neating.  It is the particular totem group alone which is affected by\nthe ceremony; and the inference which it seems to me preferable to draw\nis that the ceremonial eating of the first-fruits is, or rather has\nbeen, in Australia what it is elsewhere, viz. an instance of prayer and\nsacrifice in which the worshippers of a god are brought into\nperiodic--in this case annual--communion with their god.  The\ndifference between the Australian case and others seems to be that in\nthe other cases the god who partakes of the first-fruits is the god of\nthe whole community, while in Australia he is the god of the particular\ntotem group and is analogous to the family gods who are worshipped\nelsewhere, even where there is a tribal or national god to be\nworshipped as well.\n\nWe are then inclined, for these and other reasons, to explain the\nceremonial eating of the totem plant or animal in Australia by the\nanalogy of the ceremonial eating of first-fruits elsewhere, and to\nregard the ceremony as being in all cases an act of worship, {188} in\nwhich at harvest time the worshippers of a god seek communion with him\nby means of sacrifice and prayers of thanksgiving.  But if we take this\nview of the sacrifice and prayers offered at harvest time, we shall be\ninclined to regard the rites which are performed at seed time, or the\nperiod analogous to it, as being also possibly, in part, of a religious\ncharacter.  In the case of agricultural peoples it is beyond doubt that\nsome of the ceremonies are religious in character: where the food plant\nis itself regarded as a deity or the mode in which a deity is\nmanifested, not only may there be at harvest time a sacramental meal in\nwhich, as amongst the Aztecs, the deity is formally \"communicated\" to\nhis worshippers, but at seed time sacrifice and prayer may be made to\nthe deity.  Such a religious ceremony, whatever be the degree of\ncivilisation or semicivilisation which has been reached by those who\nobserve the ceremony, does not of course take the place of the\nagricultural operations which are necessary if the fruits are to be\nproduced in due season.  And the combination of the religious rites and\nthe agricultural operations does not convert the agricultural\noperations into magical operations, or prove that the religious rites\nare merely pieces of magic {189} intended to constrain the superior\npower of the deity concerned.  Indeed, if among the operations\nperformed at seed time we find some that from the point of view of\nmodern science are perfectly ineffectual, as vain as eating tiger to\nmake you bold, we shall be justified in regarding them as pieces of\nprimitive science, eventually discarded indeed in the progress of\nadvancing knowledge, but originally practised (on the principle that\nlike produces like) as the natural means of producing the effect\ndesired.  If we so regard them, we shall escape the error of\nconsidering them to be magical; and we shall have no difficulty in\ndistinguishing them from the religious rites which may be combined with\nthem.  Further, where harvest time is marked by the offering of\nsacrifice and prayers of thanksgiving, we may not unreasonably take it\nthat the religious rites observed at seed time or the period analogous\nto it are in the nature of sacrifice and prayers addressed to the\nappropriate deity to beseech him to favour the growth of the plant or\nanimal in question.  In a word, the practice of giving thanks to a god\nat harvest time for the harvest creates a reasonable presumption that\nprayer is offered to him at seed time; and if thanks are given at a\nperiod analogous to {190} harvest time by a people like the Australian\nblack fellows, who have no domesticated plants or animals, prayers of\nthe nature of petitions may be offered by them at the period analogous\nto seed time.\n\nThe deity to whom prayers are offered at the one period and\nthanksgiving is made at the other may be, as in the case of the Aztec\nXilonen, or the Hindoo Maize-mother, the spirit of the plant envisaged\nas a deity; or may be, not a \"departmental\" deity of this kind, but a\nsupreme deity having power over all things.  But when we turn from the\nregularly recurring acts of public worship connected with seed time and\nharvest to the regularly recurring ceremonies at which the boys of a\ntribe are initiated into the duties and rights of manhood, it is\nobvious that the deity concerned in them, even if we assume (as is by\nno means necessary) that he was originally \"departmental\" and at first\nconnected merely with the growth of a plant or animal, must be regarded\nat the initiation ceremonies as a god having in his care all the\ninterests of that tribe of which the boys to be initiated are about to\nbecome full members.  Unmistakable traces of such a deity are found\namongst the Australian black fellows in the \"father of all,\" \"the\nall-father\" described by Mr. Howitt.  The {191} worship of the\n\"all-father\" is indeed now of a fragmentary kind; but it fortunately\nhappens that in the case of one tribe, the Euahlayi, we have evidence,\nrescued by Mrs. Langloh Parker, to show that prayer is offered to\nByamee; the Euahlayi pray to him for long life, because they have kept\nhis law.  The nature of Byamee's law may safely be inferred from the\nfact that at this festival, both amongst the Euahlayi and other\nAustralians, the boys who are being initiated are taught the moral laws\nor the customary morality of the tribe.  But though prayers are still\noffered by the Euahlayi and may have at one time been offered by all\nthe Australian tribes, there is no evidence at present to show that the\nprayer is accompanied by a sacrifice, as is customary amongst tribes\nwhose worship has not disintegrated so much as is the case amongst the\nAustralians.\n\nThe ceremonies by which boys are admitted to the status of manhood are,\nprobably amongst all the peoples of the earth who observe them, of a\nreligious character, for the simple reason that the community to which\nthe boy is admitted when he attains the age of manhood is a community,\nunited together by religious bonds as a community worshipping the same\ngod or gods; and it is to the {192} worship and the service of these\ngods that he is admitted.  But the ceremonies themselves vary too much\nto allow of our drawing from them any valuable or important conclusion\nas to the nature and import of sacrifice as a religious institution.\nOn the other hand, the ceremonies observed at harvest time, or the\nanalogous period, have, wherever they occur, such marked similarity\namong themselves, and the institution of prayer and sacrifice is such a\nprominent feature in them, that the evidence they afford must be\ndecisive for us in attempting to form a theory of sacrifice.  Nor can\nwe dissociate the ceremonies observed in spring from the harvest\nceremonies; as Dr. Frazer remarks (_G. B._, II, 190), \"Plainly these\nspring and harvest customs are based on the same ancient modes of\nthought and form parts of the same primitive heathendom.\"  What, then,\nare these \"ancient modes of thought\" and what the primitive customs\nbased upon them?  We may, I think, classify them in four groups.  If we\nare to take first those instances in which the \"ancient mode of\nthought\" is most clearly expressed--whether because they are the most\nfully developed or because they retain the ancient mode most faithfully\nand with the least disintegration--we must {193} turn to ancient Mexico\nand Peru.  In Mexico a paste idol or dough image of the god was made;\nthe priest hurled a dart into its breast; and this was called the\nkilling of the god, \"so that his body might be eaten.\"  The dough image\nwas broken and the pieces were given in the manner of a communion to\nthe people, \"who received it with such tears, fear, and reverence, as\nit was an admirable thing,\" says Father Acosta, \"saying that they did\neat the flesh and bones of God.\"  Or, again, an image of the goddess\nChicomecoatl was made of dough and exhibited by the priest, saying,\n\"This is your god.\"  All kinds of maize, beans, etc., were offered to\nit and then were eaten in the temple \"in a general scramble, take who\ncould.\"  In Peru ears of maize were dressed in rich garments and\nworshipped as the Mother of the Maize; or little loaves of maize\nmingled with the blood of sheep were made; the priest gave to each of\nthe people a morsel of these loaves, \"and all did receive and eat these\npieces,\" and prayed that the god \"would show them favour, granting them\nchildren and happy years and abundance and all that they required.\"  In\nthis, the first group of instances, it is plain beyond all possibility\nof gainsaying that the spring and harvest customs consist {194} of the\nworship of a god, of sacrifice and prayers to him, and of a communion\nwhich bound the worshippers to one another and to him.\n\nOur second group of instances consists of cases in which the corn or\ndough or paste is not indeed made into the form or image of a god, but,\nas Dr. Frazer says (_G. B._ II, 318), \"the new corn is itself eaten\nsacramentally, that is, as the body of the corn spirit.\"  The spirit\nthus worshipped may not yet have acquired a proper name; the only\ndesignation used may have been such a one as the Hindoo Bhogaldai,\nmeaning simply Cotton-mother.  Indeed, even amongst the Peruvians, the\ngoddess had not yet acquired a proper name, but was known only as the\nMother of the Maize.  But precisely because the stage illustrated in\nour second group of instances is not so highly developed as in Mexico\nor Peru it is much more widely spread.  It is found in the East Indian\nisland of Euro, amongst the Alfoors of Minahassa, in the Celebes, in\nthe Neilgherry Hills of South India, in the Hindoo Koosh, in\nIndo-China, on the Niger, amongst the Zulus and the Pondos, and amongst\nthe Creek, Seminole, and Natchez Indians (_ib._ 321-342).  In this, the\nsecond group of instances, then, though the god {195} may have no\nspecial, proper, name, and though no image of him is made out of the\ndough or paste, still \"the new corn is itself eaten sacramentally, that\nis as the body of the corn spirit\"; by means of the sacramental eating,\nof sacrifice and prayer, communion between the god and his worshippers\nis renewed and maintained.\n\nThe third group of instances consists of the harvest customs of\nnorthern Europe--the harvest supper and the rites of the Corn-mother or\nthe Corn-maiden or the Kern Baby.  It can scarcely be contended that\nthese rites and customs, so far as they survive at the present day,\nretain, if they ever had, any religious value; they are performed as a\nmatter of tradition and custom and not because any one knows why they\nare performed.  But that they originally had a meaning--even though now\nit has evaporated--cannot be doubted.  Nor can it be doubted that the\nmeaning, if it is to be recovered, must be recovered by means of the\ncomparative method.  And, if the comparative method is to be applied,\nthe Corn-mother of northern Europe cannot be dissociated from the\nMaize-mother of ancient Peru.  But if we go thus far, then we must,\nwith Dr. Frazer (_ib._ 288), recognise \"clearly the {196} sacramental\ncharacter of the harvest-supper,\" in which, \"as a substitute for the\nreal flesh of the divine being, bread and dumplings are made and eaten\nsacramentally.\"  Thus, once more, harvest customs testify in northern\nEurope, as elsewhere, to the fact that there was once a stated, annual,\nperiod at which communion between the god and his worshipper was sought\nby prayer and sacrifice.\n\nThe North-European harvest customs are further interesting and\nimportant because, if they are clearly connected on the one hand with\nthe groups of instances already given, they are also connected on the\nother with the group to which we have yet to call attention.  Thus far\nthe wheat or maize, if not eaten in the form of little loaves or cakes,\nhas been made into a dough image, or else the ears of maize have been\ndressed in rich garments to indicate that they represent the Mother of\nthe Maize; and in Europe also both forms of symbolism are found.  But\nin northern Europe, the corn spirit is also believed to be manifested,\nDr. Frazer says, in \"the animal which is present in the corn and is\ncaught or killed in the last sheaf.\"  The animal may be a wolf, dog,\ncock, hare, cat, goat, bull, cow, horse, or pig.  \"The animal is slain\nand its flesh and blood are partaken {197} of by the harvesters,\" and,\nDr. Frazer says, \"these customs bring out clearly the sacramental\ncharacter of the harvest supper.\"  Now, this manifestation of the corn\nspirit in animal form is not confined to Europe; it occurs for instance\nin Guinea and in all the provinces and districts of China.  And it is\nimportant as forming a link between the agricultural and the\npre-agricultural periods; in Dr. Frazer's words, \"hunting and pastoral\ntribes, as well as agricultural peoples, have been in the habit of\nkilling their gods\" (_ib._ 366).  In the pastoral period, as well as in\nagricultural times, the god who is worshipped by the tribe and with\nwhom the tribe seeks communion by means of prayer and sacrifice, may\nmanifest himself in animal form, and \"the animal is slain and its flesh\nand blood are partaken of.\"\n\nWe now come to the fourth and the last of our groups of instances.  It\nconsists of the rites observed by Australian tribes.  Amongst these\ntribes too there is what Dr. Frazer terms \"a sacramental eating\" of the\ntotem plant or animal.  Thus Central Australian black men of the\nkangaroo totem eat a little kangaroo flesh, as a sacrament (Spencer and\nGillen, p. 204 ff.).  Now, it is impossible, I think, to {198}\ndissociate the Australian rite, to separate this fourth group, from the\nthree groups already described.  In Australia, as in the other cases,\nthe customs are observed in spring and harvest time, and in harvest\ntime, in Australia as well as elsewhere, there is a solemn and sparing\neating of the plant or animal; and, in Dr. Frazer's words, \"plainly\nthese spring and harvest customs are based on the same ancient modes of\nthought, and form part of the same primitive heathendom.\"  What, then,\nis this ancient and primitive mode of thought?  In all the cases except\nthe Australian, the thought manifestly implied and expressed is that by\nthe solemn eating of the plant or the animal, or the dough image or\npaste idol, or the little loaves, the community enters into communion\nwith its god, or renews communion with him.  On this occasion the\nPeruvians prayed for children, happy years and abundance.  On this\noccasion, even among the Australians, the Euahlayi tribe pray for long\nlife, because they have kept Byamee's law.  It would not, therefore, be\nunreasonable to interpret the Australian custom by the same ancient\nmode of thought which explains the custom wherever else--and that is\nall over the world--it is found.  But perhaps, if we can find some\nother interpretation {199} of the Australian custom, we should do\nbetter to reverse the process and explain the spring and harvest\ncustoms which are found elsewhere by means of, and in accordance with,\nthe Australian custom.  Now another interpretation of the Australian\ncustom has been put forward by Dr. Frazer.  He treats the Australian\nceremony as being a piece of pure magic, the purpose of which is to\npromote the growth and increase of the plants and animals which provide\nthe black fellows with food.  But if we start from this point of view,\nwe must go further and say that amongst other peoples than the\nAustralian the killing of the representative animal of the spirit of\nvegetation is, in Dr. Frazer's words, \"a magical rite intended to\nassure the revival of nature in spring.\"  And if that is the nature of\nthe rite which appears in northern Europe as the harvest supper, it\nwill also be the nature of the rite as it appears both in our second\ngroup of instances, where the corn is eaten \"as the body of the\ncorn-spirit,\" and in the first group, where the dough image or paste\nidol was eaten in Mexico as the flesh and bones of the god.  That this\nline of thought runs through Dr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_, in its second\nedition, is indicated by the fact that the rite is spoken of throughout\nas a {200} sacrament.  That the Mexican rite as described in our first\ngroup is sacramental, is clear.  Of the rites which form our second\ngroup of instances, Dr. Frazer says that the corn-spirit, or god, \"is\nkilled in the person of his representative and eaten sacramentally,\"\nand that \"the new corn is itself eaten sacramentally; that is, as the\nbody of the corn-spirit\" (p. 318).  Of the North European rites, again,\nhe says, \"the animal is slain and its flesh and blood are partaken of\nby the harvesters\"--\"these customs bring out clearly the sacramental\ncharacter of the harvest supper\"--\"as a substitute for the real flesh\nof the divine being, bread or dumplings are made in his image and eaten\nsacramentally.\"  Finally, even when speaking of the Australians as men\nwho have no gods to worship, and with whom the rite is pure and\nunadulterated magic, he yet describes the rite as a sacrament.\n\nNow if, on the one hand, from its beginning amongst the Australians to\nthe form which it finally took amongst the Mexicans the rite is, as Dr.\nFrazer systematically calls it, a sacrament; and if, on the other, it\nis, in Dr. Frazer's words, \"a magical rite intended to assure the\nrevival of nature in spring,\" then the conclusion which the reader\ncannot help {201} drawing is that a sacrament, or this sacrament at\nleast, is in its origin, and in its nature throughout, a piece of\nmagic.  Religion is but magic written in different characters; and for\nthose who can interpret them it spells the same thing.  But though this\nis the conclusion to which Dr. Frazer's argument leads, and to which in\nthe first edition of his _Golden Bough_ it clearly seemed to point; in\nthe preface to the second edition he formally disavows it.  He\nrecognises that religion does not spring from magic, but is\nfundamentally opposed to it.  A sacrament, therefore, we may infer,\ncannot be a piece of magic.  The Australian sacrament, therefore, as\nDr. Frazer calls it, cannot, we should be inclined to say, be a piece\nof magic.  But Dr. Frazer still holds that the Australian rite or\nsacrament is pure magic--religious it cannot be, for in Dr. Frazer's\nview the Australians know no religion and have no gods.\n\nNow if the rite as it occurs in Australia is pure magic, and if\nreligion is not a variety of magic but fundamentally different from it,\nthen the rite which, as it occurs everywhere else, is religious, cannot\nbe derived from, or a variety of, the Australian piece of magic; and\nthe spring and harvest customs which are found in Australia cannot be\n\"based on the {202} same ancient modes of thought or form part of the\nsame primitive heathendom\" as the sacramental rites which are found\neverywhere else in the world.  The solemn annual eating of the totem\nplant or animal in Australia must have a totally different basis from\nthat on which the sacrament and communion stands in every other part of\nthe globe: in Australia it is based on magic, elsewhere on that which\nis, according to Dr. Frazer, fundamentally different and opposed to\nmagic, viz. religion.  Before, however, we commit ourselves to this\nconclusion, we may be allowed to ask, What is it that compels us thus\nto sever the Australian from the other forms of the rite?  The reply\nwould seem to be that, whereas the other forms are admittedly\nreligious, the Australian is \"a magical rite intended to assure the\nrevival of nature in spring.\"  Now, if that were really the nature of\nthe Australian rite, we might have to accept the conclusion to which we\nhesitate to commit ourselves.  But, as a matter of fact, the Australian\nrite is not intended to assure the revival of nature in spring, and has\nnothing magical about it.  It is perfectly true that in spring in\nAustralia certain proceedings are performed which are based upon the\nprinciple that like produces like; and {203} that these proceedings\nare, by students of the science of religion, termed--perhaps\nincorrectly--magical.  But these spring customs are quite different\nfrom the harvest customs; and it is the harvest customs which\nconstitute the link between the rite in Australia and the rite in the\nrest of the world.  The crucial question, therefore, is whether the\nAustralian harvest rite is magical, or is even based on the principle\nthat like produces like.  And the answer is that it is plainly not.\nThe harvest rite in Australia consists, as we know it now, simply in\nthe fact that at the appointed time a little of the totem plant or\nanimal is solemnly and sparingly eaten by the headman of the totem.\nThe solemnity with which the rite is performed is unmistakable, and may\nwell be termed religious.  And no attempt even, so far as I am aware,\nhas been made to show that this solemn eating is regarded as magic by\nthe performers of the rite, or how it can be so regarded by students of\nthe science of religion.  Until the attempt is made and made\nsuccessfully, we are more than justified in refusing to regard the rite\nas magical; we are bound to refuse to regard it as such.  But if the\nrite is not magical--and _a fortiori_ if it is, as Dr. Frazer terms it,\nsacramental--then it is {204} religious; and the ancient mode of\nthought, forming part of primitive heathendom, which is at the base of\nthe rite, is the conviction that manifests itself wherever the rite\ncontinues to live, viz. that by prayer and sacrifice the worshippers in\nany community are brought into communion with the god they worship.\nThe rite is, in truth, what Dr. Frazer terms it as it occurs in\nAustralia--a sacrament.  But not even in Australia is a sacrament a\npiece of magic.\n\nIn the animistic stage of the evolution of humanity, the only causes\nman can conceive of are animated things; and, in the presence of any\noccurrence sufficiently striking to arrest his attention, the questions\nwhich present themselves to his mind are, Who did this thing, and why?\nOccurrences which arrest the attention of the community are occurrences\nwhich affect the community; and in a low stage of evolution, when the\nmost pressing of all practical questions is how to live, the\noccurrences which most effectually arrest attention are those which\naffect the food supply of the community.  If, then, the food supply\nfails, the occurrence is due to some of the personal, or\nquasi-personal, powers by whom the community is surrounded; and the\nreason why such power so acted is found in the wrath which {205} must\nhave actuated him.  The situation is abnormal, for famine is abnormal;\nand it indicates anger and wrath on the part of the power who brought\nit about.  But it also implies that when things go on in the normal\nway,--when the relations between the spirit and the community are\nnormal,--the attitude of the spirit to the community is peaceable and\nfriendly.  Not only, however, does the community desire to renew\npeaceable and friendly relations, where pestilence or famine show that\nthey have been disturbed: the community also desires to benefit by them\nwhen they are in their normal condition.  The spirits that can disturb\nthe normal conditions by sending pestilence or famine can also assist\nthe community in undertakings, the success of which is indispensable if\nthe community is to maintain its existence; for instance, those\nundertakings on which the food supply of the community depends.  Hence\nthe petitions which are put up at seed time, or, in the\npre-agricultural period, at seasons analogous to seed time.  Hence,\nalso, the rites at harvest time or the analogous season, rites which\nare instituted and developed for the purpose of maintaining friendly\nrelation and communion between the community, and the spirit whose\nfavour {206} is sought and whose anger is dreaded by the community.\nSuch sacrificial rites may indeed be interpreted as the making of gifts\nto the gods; and they do, as a matter of fact, often come so to be\nregarded by those who perform them.  From this undeniable fact the\ninference may then be drawn, and by many students of the science of\nreligion it is inferred, that from the beginning there was in such\nsacrificial rites no other intention than to bribe the god or to\npurchase his favour and the good things he had to give.  But the\ninference, which, when properly limited, has some truth in it, becomes\nmisleading when put forward as being the whole truth.  Unless there\nwere some truth in it, the rite of sacrifice could never have developed\ninto the form which was denounced by the Hebrew prophets and\nmercilessly exposed by Plato.  But had that been the whole truth, the\nrite would have been incapable of discharging the really religious\nfunction which it has in its history fulfilled.  That function has been\nto place and maintain the society which practises it in communion with\nits god.  Doubtless in the earliest stages of the history of the rite,\nthe communion thus felt to be established was prized and was mainly\nsought for the external blessings which were believed {207} to follow\nfrom it, or, as a means to avert the public disasters which a breach of\ncommunion entailed.  Doubtless it was only by degrees, and by slow\ndegrees, that the communion thus established came to be regarded as\nbeing in itself the end which the rite of sacrifice was truly intended\nto attain.  But the communion of the worshippers with their god was not\na purpose originally foreign to the rite, and which, when introduced,\ntransformed the rite from what it at first was into something radically\ndifferent.  On the contrary, it was present, even though not prominent\nor predominant, from the beginning; and the rite, as a religious\ninstitution, followed different lines of evolution, according as the\none aspect or the other was developed.  Where the aspect under which\nthe sacrificial rite was regarded was that the offering was a gift made\nto the deity in order to secure some specified temporal advantage, the\nreligious value of the rite diminished to the vanishing point in the\neyes both of those who, like Plato, could see the intrinsic absurdity\nof pretending to make gifts to Him from whom alone all good things\ncome, and of those who felt that the sacrificial rite so conceived did\nnot afford the spiritual communion for which they yearned.  Where even\nthe {208} sacrificial rite was regarded as a means whereby communion\nbetween the worshipper and his god was attained or maintained, the\nemphasis might be thrown on the rite and its due performance rather\nthan on the spiritual communion of which it was the condition.  That is\nto say, with the growth of formalism attention was concentrated on the\nritual and correspondingly withdrawn from the prayer which, from the\nbeginning, had been of the essence of the rite.  By the rite of\nsacrifice the community had always been brought into the presence of\nthe god it worshipped; and, in the prayers then offered on behalf of\nthe society, the society had been brought into communion with its god.\nFrom that communion it was possible to fall away, even though the\nperformance of the rite was maintained.  The very object of that\ncommunion might be misinterpreted and mistaken to be a means merely to\ntemporal blessings for the community, or even to personal advantages\nfor the individual.  Or the punctilious performance of each and every\ndetail of the rite might tend to become an end in itself and displace\nthe spiritual communion, the attainment of which had been from the\nbeginning the highest, even if not the only or the most prominent,\n{209} end which the rite might subserve.  The difference between the\npossibilities which the rite might have realised and the actual\npurposes for which it had come to be used before the birth of Christ is\na difference patent to the most casual observer of the facts.  The\ndissatisfaction felt alike by Plato and the Hebrew prophets with the\nrite as it had come to be practised may be regarded, if we choose so to\nregard it, as the necessary consequence of pre-existing facts, and as\nnecessarily entailing the rejection or the reconstitution of the rite.\nAs a matter of history, the rite was reconstituted and not rejected;\nand as reconstituted it became the central fact of the Christian\nreligion.  It became the means whereby, through Christ, all men might\nbe brought to God.  We may say, if we will, that a new meaning was put\ninto the rite, or that its true meaning was now made manifest.  The\nfacts themselves clearly indicate that from the beginning the rite was\nthe means whereby a society sought or might seek communion with its\ngod.  They also indicate that the rite of animal sacrifice came to be\nfound insufficient as a means.  It was through our Lord that mankind\nlearned what sacrifice was needed--learned to \"offer and present unto\nthee, O Lord, ourselves, our {210} souls and bodies, to be a\nreasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto thee.\"  That is the\nsacrifice Christ showed us the example of; that is the example which\nthe missionary devotes himself to follow and to teach.\n\n\n\n\n{211}\n\nMORALITY\n\nIn this lecture I propose to consider the question whether morality is\nbased on religion or religion on morality.  It is a question which may\nbe approached from the point of view either of philosophy or of\nhistory.  Quite recently it has been treated from the former point of\nview by Professor Hoeffding in _The Philosophy of Religion_ (translated\ninto English, 1906); and from the point of view of the history of\nmorality by Mr. Hobhouse in his _Morals in Evolution_ (1906).  It may,\nof course, also be quite properly approached from the point of view of\nthe history of religion; and from whatever standpoint it is treated,\nthe question is one of importance for the missionary, both because of\nits intrinsic interest for the philosophy of religion, and because its\ndiscussion is apt to proceed on a mistaken view of facts in the history\nof religion.  About those facts and their meaning, the missionary, who\nis to be properly equipped for his work, should be in no doubt: a right\nview and a proper estimate of the facts are essential both for {212}\nhis practical work and for the theoretical justification of his\nposition.\n\nOne answer to the question before us is that morality is the basal\nfact--the bottom fact: if we regard the question historically, we shall\nfind that morality came first and religion afterwards; and, even if\nthat were not so, we should find that as a matter of logic and\nphilosophy religion presupposes morality--religion may, for a time, be\nthe lever that moves the world, but it would be powerless if it had not\na fulcrum, and that fulcrum is morality.  So long and so far as\nreligion operates beneficially on the world, it does so simply because\nit supports and reenforces morality.  But the time is not far distant,\nand may even now be come, when morality no longer requires any support\nfrom religion--and then religion becomes useless, nay! an encumbrance\nwhich must either fall off or be lopped off.  If, therefore, morality\ncan stand by itself, and all along has not merely stood by itself, but\nhas really upheld religion, in what is morality rooted?  The answer is\nthat morality has its roots, not in the command that thou shalt love\nthe Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul, but in human\nsolidarity, in humanity regarded as a spiritual whole.  To {213} this\nconclusion, it is said, the history of recent philosophy has steadily\nbeen moving.  If the movement had taken place in only one school of\nphilosophic thought, it might have been a movement running into a\nside-track.  But it is the direction taken by schools so different in\ntheir presuppositions and their methods as that of Hegel and that of\nComte; and it is the undesigned coincidence of their tendency, which at\nfirst could never have been surmised, that carries with it a conviction\nof its correctness.  Human solidarity, humanity regarded as a spiritual\nwhole, may be called, as Hegel calls it, self-conscious spirit; or you\nmay call it, as Comte calls it, the Mind of Humanity--it is but the\ncollective wisdom \"of a common humanity with a common aim\"; and, that\nbeing so, morality is rooted, not in the will and the love of a\nbeneficent and omnipotent Providence, but in the self-realising spirit\nin man setting up its \"common aim\" at morality.  The very conception of\na beneficent and omnipotent God--having now done its work as an aid to\nmorality--must now be put aside, because it stands in the way of our\nrecognising what is the real spiritual whole, besides which there is\nnone other spirit, viz. the self-realising spirit in man.  That spirit\nis only realising; it is not yet {214} realised.  It is in process of\nrealisation; and the conception of it, as in process of realisation,\nenables it to be brought into harmony, or rather reveals its inner\nharmony, with the notion of evolution.  There is nothing outside\nevolution, no being to whom evolution is presented as a spectacle or by\nwhom, as a process, it is directed.  \"Being itself,\" as Hoeffding says\n(_Problems of Philosophy_, p. 136), \"is to be conceived as in process\nof becoming, of evolution.\"  The spirit in man, as we have just said,\nis the real spiritual whole, and it is self-realising; it is evolving\nand progressing both morally and rationally.  In Hoeffding's words\n\"Being itself becomes more rational than before\" (_ib._, p. 137).\n\"Being itself is not ready-made but still incomplete, and rather to be\nconceived as a continual becoming, like the individual personality and\nlike knowledge\" (_ib._, p. 120).  We may say, then, that being is\nbecoming rationalised and moralised as and because the spirit in man\nrealises itself.  For a time the process of moralisation and\nself-realisation was worked by and through the conception of a\nbeneficent and omnipotent god.  That conception was, it would seem, a\nhypothesis, valuable as long it was a working hypothesis, but to be\ncast aside now that humanitarianism is found {215} more adequate to the\nfacts and more in harmony with the consistent application of the theory\nof evolution.  We have, then, to consider whether it is adequate to the\nfacts, whether, when we regard the facts of the history of religion, we\ndo find that morality comes first and religion later.\n\n\"What,\" Mr. Hobhouse enquires in his _Morals in Evolution_ (II, 74),\n\"What is the ethical character of early religion?\" and his reply is\nthat \"in the first stage we find that spirits, as such, are not\nconcerned with morality.\"  That was also the answer which had\npreviously been given by Professor Hoeffding, who says in his\n_Philosophy of Religion_: \"in the lowest forms of it ... religion\ncannot be said to have any ethical significance\" (p. 323).  Originally,\nthe gods were \"purely natural forces which could be defied or evaded,\"\nthough eventually they \"became ethical powers whom men neither could\nnor wished to defy\" (p. 324).  This first stage of early religion seems\non the terms of the hypothesis to be supposed to be found in the period\nof animism and fetichism; and \"the primitive conception of spirit\" is,\nMr. Hobhouse says (II, 16), of something \"feeling and thinking like a\nrather stupid man, and open like him to supplication, exhortation, or\nintimidation.\"  If {216} that is so, then Professor Hoeffding may be\njustified in saying that in the lowest forms of religion \"the gods\nappear as powers on which man is dependent, but not as patterns of\nconduct or administrators of an ethical world order\" (p. 324).  Now, in\nthe period termed animistic because inanimate things are supposed to be\nanimated and actuated by spirits, it may be that many or most of such\nspirits are supposed to feel and think like a rather stupid man, and\ntherefore to be capable of being cajoled, deluded, intimidated, and\ncastigated by the human being who desires to make use of them.  But it\nis not all such spirits that are worshipped then.  Indeed, it is\nimpossible, Mr. Hobhouse says (II, 15), that any such spirit could be\n\"an object of worship in our sense of the term.\"  Worship implies the\nsuperiority of the object worshipped to the person worshipping.  But,\nthough not an object of worship in our sense of the term, the spirit\nthat could be deluded, intimidated, and castigated was, according to\nMr. Hobhouse, \"the object of a religious cult\" on the part of the man\nwho believed that he could and did intimidate and castigate the spirit.\nProbably, however, most students of the science of religion would agree\nthat a cult which included or {217} allowed intimidation and\ncastigation of the object of the cult was as little entitled to be\ntermed religious as it is to be called worship.  In the period of\nanimism, then, either there was no religious cult, no worship in our\nsense of the term; or, if there was religion, then the spirit\nworshipped was worshipped as a being higher than man.  Whether man has\nat any time been without religion is a question on which there is here\nno need to enter.  The allegation we are now considering is that\nwhenever religion does appear, then in its first and earliest stage it\nis not concerned with morality; and the ground for that allegation is\nthat the spirits of the animistic period have nothing to do with\nmorality or conduct.  Now, it may be that these spirits which animate\ninanimate things are not concerned with morality; but then neither are\nthey worshipped, nor is the relation between them and man religious.\nReligion implies a god; and a spirit to be a god must have worshippers,\na community of worshippers--whether that community be a nation, a\ntribe, or a family.  Further, it is as the protector of the interests\nof that community--however small--that the god is worshipped by the\ncommunity.  The indispensable condition of religion is the existence of\na community; {218} and from the beginning man must have lived in some\nsort of community,--whether a family or a horde,--for the period of\nhelpless infancy is so long in the case of human beings that without\nsome sort of permanent community the race could not be perpetuated.\nThe indispensable condition of religion, therefore, has always existed\nfrom the time when man was man.  Further, whatever the form of\ncommunity in which man originally dwelt, it was only in the community\nand by means of the community that the individual could exist--that is\nto say, if the interest of any one individual conflicted or was\nsupposed to conflict with the interests of the community, then the\ninterests of the community must prevail, if the community was to exist.\nHere, then, from the beginning we have the second condition\nindispensable for the existence of religion, viz. the possibility that\nthe conduct of some member of the community might not be the conduct\nrequired by the interests or supposed interests of the community, and\nprescribed by the custom of the community.  In the case of such\ndivergence of interests and conduct, the being worshipped by the\ncommunity was necessarily, as being the god of the community, and\nreceiving the worship of the community, on the side {219} of the\ncommunity and against the member who violated the custom of the\ncommunity.  But, at this period in the history of humanity, the\nmorality of the community was the custom of the community; and the god\nof the community from the first necessarily upheld the custom, that is,\nthe morality of the community.  Spirits \"as such,\" that is to say,\nspirits which animated inanimate things but which were not the\nprotectors of any human community, were, for the very reason that they\nwere not the gods of any community, \"not concerned with morality.\"\nSpirits, however, which were the protectors of a community necessarily\nupheld the customs and therefore the morality of the community; they\nwere not \"without ethical significance.\"  It was an essential part of\nthe very conception of such spirits--of spirits standing in this\nrelation to the community--that they were \"ethical powers.\"  Hoeffding's\ndictum that \"the gods appear as powers on which man is dependent, but\nnot as patterns of conduct or administrators of an ethical world order\"\n(p. 323), overlooks the fact that in the earliest times not only are\ngods powers on which man is dependent, but powers which enforce the\nconduct required by the custom of the community and sanction the\nethical order as {220} far as it has then been revealed.  The fact that\n\"the worship of the family, of the clan, or of the nation is shared in\nby all,\" not merely \"helps to nourish a feeling of solidarity which may\nacquire ethical significance,\" as Hoeffding says (p. 325), it creates a\nsolidarity which otherwise would not exist.  If there were no worship\nshared in by all, there would be no religious solidarity; and, judging\nfrom the very general, if not universal, occurrence of religion in the\nlowest races as well as the highest, we may conjecture that without\nreligious solidarity a tribe found it hard or impossible to survive in\nthe struggle for existence.  That religious solidarity however is not,\nas Hoeffding suggests, something which may eventually \"acquire ethical\nsignificance\"; it is in its essence and from the beginning the worship\nof a god who punishes the community for the ethical transgression of\nits members, because they are not merely violations of the custom of\nthe community, but offences against him.  When Hoeffding says (p. 328)\n\"religious faith ... assumes an independent human ethic, which has, as\na matter of fact, developed historically under the practical influence\nof the ethical feeling of man,\" he seems to overlook the fact that as a\nmatter of history human {221} ethics have always been based--rightly or\nwrongly--on religious faith, that moral transgressions have always been\nregarded as not merely wrongs done to a man's neighbour, but also as\noffences against the god or gods of the community, that the person\nsuffering from foul wrong for which he can get no human redress has\nalways appealed from man to God, and that the remorse of the wrong-doer\nwho has evaded human punishment has always taken shape in the fear of\nwhat God may yet do.\n\nThose who desire to prove that at the present day morality can exist\napart from religion, and that in the future it will do so, finding its\nbasis in humanitarianism and not in religion, are moved to show that as\na matter of historic fact religion and morality have been things apart.\nWe have examined the assertion that religion in its lowest forms is not\nconcerned with morality; and we have attempted to show that the god of\na community, or the spirit worshipped by a community, is necessarily a\nbeing conceived as concerned with the interests of the community and as\nhostile to those who violate the customs--which is to transgress the\nmorality--of the community.  But even if this be admitted, it may still\nbe said that it does not in the least disprove the assertion that {222}\nmorality existed before religion did.  The theory we are examining\nfreely admits that religion is supposed, in certain stages of the\nhistory of humanity, to reenforce morality and to be necessary in the\ninterest of morals, though eventually it is found that morality needs\nno such support; and not only needs now no such support but never did\nneed it; and the fact that it did not need it is shown by demonstrating\nthe existence of morality before religion existed.  If, then, it be\nadmitted that religion from the moment it first appeared reenforced\nmorality, and did not pass through a non-moral period first, still\nmorality may have existed before religion was evolved, and must have so\nexisted if morality and religion are things essentially apart.  What\nevidence then is there on the point?  We find Mr. Hobhouse saying (I,\n80) that \"at almost, if not quite, the lowest stages\" of human\ndevelopment there are \"certain actions which are resented as involving\nthe community as a whole in misfortune and danger.  These include,\nbesides actual treason, conduct which brings upon the people the wrath\nof God, or of certain spirits, or which violates some mighty and\nmysterious taboo.  The actions most frequently regarded in this light\nare certain breaches of the marriage law and witchcraft.\" {223} These\noffences, we are told (_ib._, 82), endanger the community itself, and\nthe punishment is \"prompted by the sense of a danger to the whole\ncommunity.\"  Here, then, from the beginning we find that offences\nagainst the common good are punished, not simply as such, but as\nmisconduct bringing on the community, and not merely on the offender,\nthe wrath of gods or spirits.  In other words--Mr. Hobhouse's words, p.\n119--\"in the evolution of public justice, we find that at the outset\nthe community interferes mainly on what we may call supernatural\ngrounds only with actions which are regarded as endangering its own\nexistence.\"  We may then fairly say that if the community inflicts\npunishments mainly on supernatural grounds from the time when the\nevolution of public justice first begins, then morality from its very\nbeginning was reenforced--indeed prompted--by religion.  The morality\nwas indeed only the custom of the community; but violation of the\ncustom was from the beginning regarded as a religious offence and was\npunished on supernatural grounds.\n\nThe view that morality and religion are essentially distinct, that\nmorality not only can stand alone, without support from religion, but\nhas in reality always stood without such support--however much {224}\nthe fact has been obscured by religious prepossessions--this view\nreceives striking confirmation from the current and generally accepted\ntheory of the origin and nature of justice.  That theory traces the\norigin of justice back to the feeling of resentment experienced by the\nindividual against the particular cause of his pain (Westermarck,\n_Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, I, 22).  Resentment leads\nto retaliation and takes the form of revenge.  Vengeance, at first\nexecuted by the person injured (or by his kin, if he be killed), comes\neventually, if slowly, to be taken out of the hands of the person\ninjured or his avengers, and to be exercised by the State in the\ninterests of the community and in furtherance, not of revenge, but of\njustice and the good of society.  Thus not only the origin of justice,\nbut the whole course of its growth and development, is entirely\nindependent of religion and religious considerations.  Throughout, the\nindividual and society are the only parties involved; the gods do not\nappear--or, if they do appear, they are intrusive and superfluous.  If\nthis be the true view of the history and nature of justice, it may--and\nprobably must--be the truth about the whole of morality and not only\nabout justice.  We have but {225} to follow Dr. Westermarck (_ib._, p.\n21) in grouping the moral emotions under the two heads of emotions of\napproval and emotions of disapproval, we have but to note with him that\nboth groups belong to the class of retributive emotions, and we see\nthat the origin and history of justice are typical of the origin and\nhistory of morals: morality in general, just as much as justice in\nparticular, both originates independently of religion and\ndevelopes--where moral progress is made--independently of religion.\n\nLet us now proceed to examine this view of the relation of religion and\nmorality and to consider whether their absolute independence of each\nother is historic fact.  It traces back justice to the feeling of\nresentment experienced by the individual; but if the individual ever\nexisted by himself and apart from society, there could neither then be\njustice nor anything analogous to justice, for justice implies, not\nmerely a plurality of individuals, but a society; it is a social\nvirtue.  The individual existing by himself and apart from society is\nnot a historic fact but an impossible abstraction--a conception\nessentially false because it expresses something which neither exists\nnor has existed nor could possibly {226} exist.  The origin of\njustice--or of any virtue--cannot be found in the impossible and\nself-contradictory conception of the individual existing apart from\nsociety; it cannot be found in a mere plurality of such individuals: it\ncan only be found in a society--whether that society have the\norganisation of a family, a tribe, or a nation.  Justice in particular\nand morality in general, like religion, imply the existence of a\nsociety; neither is a merely individual affair.  Justice is, as Mr.\nHobhouse states, \"public action taken for the sake of public safety\"\n(I, 83): it is, from the outset of its history, public action; and back\nof that we cannot go, for the individual did not, as a matter of\nhistory, exist before society, and could not so have existed.\n\nIn the next place, justice is not the resentment of any individual, it\nis the sentiment of the community expressing itself in public action,\ntaken not for the sake of any individual, but for the sake of public\nsafety.  Its object from the beginning is not the gratification of\nindividual resentment, but the safety and welfare of the community\nwhich takes common action.  Proof of this, if proof were needed, would\nbe found in the fact that the existence of the individual, as such, is\nnot recognised.  Not only does {227} the community which has suffered\nin the wrong done to any of its members take action as a community; it\nproceeds, not against the individual who has inflicted the wrong, but\nagainst the community to which he belongs.  \"The wrong done,\" is, as\nMr. Hobhouse says (I, 91), \"the act of the family or clan and may be\navenged on any member of that family or clan.\"  There is collective\nresponsibility for the wrong done, just as there is collective\nresponsibility for righting it.\n\nIf, now, we enquire, What are the earliest offences against which\npublic action is taken? and why? we may remember that Mr. Hobhouse has\nstated them to be witchcraft and breaches of the marriage law; and that\nthe punishment of those offences corresponds, as he has said, \"roughly\nto our own administration of justice\" (I, 81).  Now, in the case of\nbreaches of the marriage laws--mating with a cousin on the mother's\nside instead of with a cousin on the father's side, marrying into a\nforbidden class--it is obvious that there is no individual who has\nsuffered injury and that there is no individual to experience\nresentment.  It is the community that suffers or is expected to suffer;\nand it expects to suffer, because it, in the person of one of its {228}\nmembers, has offended.  Collectively it is responsible for the misdeeds\nof its members.  Whom, then, has it offended?  To whom is it\nresponsible?  Who will visit it with punishment, unless it makes haste\nto set itself right?  The answer given by a certain tribe of the Sea\nDyaks makes the matter clear: they, Mr. St. John tells us in his _Life\nin the Forests of the Far East_ (I, 63, quoted by Westermarck, I, 49),\n\"are of opinion that an unmarried girl proving with child must be\noffensive to the superior powers, who, instead of always chastising the\nindividual, punish the tribe by misfortunes happening to its members.\nThey therefore on the discovery of the pregnancy fine the lovers, and\nsacrifice a pig to propitiate offended heaven, and to avert that\nsickness or those misfortunes that might otherwise follow.\"  That is,\nof course, only one instance.  But we may safely say that the marriage\nlaw is generally ascribed to the ordinance of the gods, even in the\nlowest tribes, and that breaches of it are offences against heaven.  It\nis unnecessary to prove, it need only be mentioned, that witchcraft is\nconspicuously offensive to the religious sentiment, and is punished as\nan offence against the god or gods.  When, then, we consider the origin\nand nature of justice, not from {229} an abstract and _a priori_ point\nof view, but in the light of historic fact, so far from finding that it\noriginates and operates in complete independence of religion, we\ndiscover that from the beginning the offences with which the justice of\nthe primitive community deals are offences, not against the community,\nbut against heaven.  \"In the evolution of public justice,\" as Mr.\nHobhouse says, \"at the outset the community interferes mainly on what\nwe may call supernatural grounds.\"  From the beginning misdeeds are\npunished, not merely as wrongs done to society, but as wrong done to\nthe gods and as wrong-doing for which the community collectively is\nresponsible to the gods.  Justice from the beginning is not individual\nresentment, but \"public action taken for the public safety.\"  It is\nnot, as Mr. Hobhouse calls it, \"revenge guided and limited by custom.\"\nIt is the customary action of the community taken to avert divine\nvengeance.  The action taken assumes in extreme cases the form of the\ndeath penalty; but its usual form of action is that of taboo.\n\nIf the origin of justice is to be sought in something that is not\njustice, if justice in particular and morality in general are to be\ntreated as having been evolved out of something which was in a way\ndifferent {230} from them and yet in a way must have contained them,\ninasmuch as they came forth from it, we shall do well to look for that\nsomething, not in the unhistorical, unreal abstraction of an imaginary\nindividual, apart from society, but in society itself when it is as yet\nnot clearly conscious of the justice and morality at work within it.\nSuch a stage in the development of society is, I think, to be discerned.\n\nWe have seen that, \"at almost, if not quite, the lowest stages\" of\nhuman development, there is something which, according to Mr. Hobhouse,\ncorresponds \"roughly to our own administration of justice\" (I, 81).\nBut this rough justice implies conscious, deliberate action on the part\nof the community.  It implies that the community as such makes some\nsort of enquiry into what can be the cause of the misfortunes which are\nbefalling it; and that, having found out the person responsible, it\ndeliberately takes the steps it deems necessary for putting itself\nright with the supernatural power that has sent the sickness or famine.\nNow, such conscious, purposive, deliberate action may and probably does\ntake place at almost the lowest stage of development of society; but\nnot, we may surmise, at quite the lowest.  What eventually is done\n{231} consciously and deliberately is probably done in the first place\nmuch more summarily and automatically.  And--in quite the lowest stage\nof social development--it is by means of the action of taboo that\nsummary and automatic punishment for breaches of the custom of the\ncommunity is inflicted.  Its action is automatic and immediate: merely\nto come in contact with the forbidden thing is to become tabooed\nyourself; and so great is the horror and dread of such contact, even if\nmade unwittingly, that it is capable of causing, when discovered,\ndeath.  Like the justice, however, of which it is the forerunner, it\ndoes not result always in death, nor does it produce that effect in\nmost cases.  But what it does do is to make the offender himself taboo\nand as infectious as the thing that rendered him taboo.  Here, too, the\naction of taboo, in excommunicating the offender, anticipates, or\nrather foreshadows, the action of justice when it excludes the guilty\nperson from the community and makes of him an outlaw.  Again, in the\nrough justice found at almost, though not quite, the lowest stages, the\nearliest offences of which official notice, so to speak, is taken, are\noffences for which the punishment--disease or famine, etc.--falls on\nthe community as a whole, because the {232} community, in the person of\none of its members, has offended as a whole against heaven.  In the\nearlier stage of feeling, also, which survives where taboo prevails, it\nis the community as a whole which may be infected, and which must\nsuffer if the offender is allowed to spread the infection; it is the\ncommunity, as a whole, which is concerned to thrust out the guilty\nperson--every one shuns him because he is taboo.  Thus, in this the\nearliest stage, the offender against the custom of the community is\noutlawed just as effectively as in later stages of social development.\nBut no formal sentence is pronounced; no meeting of the men or the\nelders of the community is held to try the offender; no reason is given\nor sought why the offence should thus be punished.  The operation of\ntaboo is like that of the laws of nature: the man who eats poisonous\nfood dies with no reason given.  A reason may eventually be found by\nscience, and is eventually discovered, though the process of discovery\nis slow, and many mistakes are made, and many false reasons are given\nbefore the true reason is found.  So, too, the true reason for the\nprohibition of many of the things, which the community feels to be\nforbidden and pronounced to be taboo, is found, with the progress of\nsociety--when it does {233} progress, which is not always--to be that\nthey are immoral and irreligious, though here, too, many mistakes are\nmade before true morality and true religion are found.  But at the\noutset no reason is given: the things are simply offensive to the\ncommunity and are tabooed as such.  We, looking back at that stage in\nthe evolution of society, can see that amongst the things thus\noffensive and tabooed are some which, in later stages, are equally\noffensive, but are now forbidden for a reason that can be formulated\nand given, viz. that they are offences against the law of morality and\nthe law of God.  That reason, at the outset of society, may scarcely\nhave been consciously present to the mind of man: progress, in part at\nleast, has consisted in the discovery of the reasons of things.  But\nthat man did from the beginning avoid some of the things which are\nforbidden by morality and religion, and that those things were taboo to\nhim, is beyond the possibility of doubt.  Nor can it be doubted that in\nthe prohibition and punishment of them there was inchoate justice and\ninchoate religion.  Such prohibition was due to the collective action\nand expressed the collective feeling of the community as a whole.  And\nit is from such social action and feeling that {234} justice, I\nsuggest, has been evolved--not from the feeling of resentment\nexperienced by the individual as an individual.  Personal resentment\nand personal revenge may have stimulated justice to action.  But, by\nthe hypothesis we have been examining, they were not justice.  Neither\nhave they been transformed into justice: they still exist as something\ndistinct from justice and capable of perverting it.\n\nThe form which justice takes in the period which is almost, but not\nquite, the lowest stage of human evolution is the sense of the\ncollective responsibility of the community for all its actions, that is\nto say, for the acts of all its members.  And that responsibility in\nits earliest shape is felt to be a responsibility to heaven, to the\nsupernatural powers that send disease and famine upon the community.\nIn those days no man sins to himself alone, just as, in still earlier\ndays, no man could break a taboo without becoming a source of danger to\nthe whole community.  The wrong-doer has offended against the\nsupernatural powers and has brought down calamity upon the community.\nHe is therefore punished, directly as an offender against the god of\nthe community, and indirectly for having involved the {235} community\nin suffering.  In Dr. Westermarck's words (I, 194), there is \"genuine\nindignation against the offender, both because he rebels against God,\nand because he thereby exposes the whole community to supernatural\ndangers.\"  But though society for many long centuries continues to\npunish rebellion against God, still in the long run it ceases, or tends\nto cease, doing so.  Its reason for so ceasing is interpreted\ndifferently by different schools of thought.  On the one hand, it is\nsaid in derision, let the gods punish offences against the gods--the\nimplication being that there are no such offences to punish, because\nthere is no god.  On the other hand, it is said, \"I will repay, saith\nthe Lord\"--the implication being that man may not assume to be the\nminister of divine vengeance.  If, then, we bear in mind that the fact\nmay be interpreted in either of these different ways, we shall not fall\ninto the fallacy of imagining that the mere existence of the fact\nsuffices to prove either interpretation to be true.  Yet this fallacy\nplays its part in lending fictitious support to the doctrine that\nmorality is in no wise dependent upon religion.  The offences now\npunished by law, it is argued, are no longer punished as offences\nagainst religion, but solely as offences {236} against the good of the\ncommunity.  To this argument the reply is that men believe the good of\nthe community to be the will of God, and do not believe murder, theft,\nadultery, etc., to be merely offences against man's laws.  Overlooking\nthis fact, which is fatal to the doctrine that morality is in no wise\ndependent on religion, the argument we are discussing proceeds to\nmaintain that the basis for the enforcement of morality by the law is\nrecognised by every one who knows anything of the philosophy of law to\nbe what is good for the community and its members: fraud and violence\nare punished as such, and not because they are offences against this or\nthat religion.  The fact that the law no longer punishes them as\noffences against God suffices to show that it is only as offences\nagainst humanity that there is any sense, or ever was any sense, in\npunishing them.  Religion may have reenforced morality very usefully at\none time, by making out that moral misdeeds were offences against God,\nbut such arguments are not now required.  The good and the well-being\nof humanity is in itself sufficient argument.  Humanitarianism is\ntaking the place of religion, and by so doing is demonstrating that\nmorality is, as it always has been, {237} independent of religion; and\nthat in truth religion has built upon it, not it upon religion.  As\nHoeffding puts it (p. 328): \"Religious faith ... assumes an independent\nhuman ethic developed historically under the practical influence of the\nethical feeling of man.\"  That is to say, morality is in Hoeffding's\nview independent of religion, and prior to religion, both as a matter\nof logic and of history.  As a matter of history--of the history of\nreligion--this seems to me, for the reasons already given, to be\ncontrary to the facts as they are known.  The real reason for\nmaintaining that morality is and must be--and must have\nbeen--independent of religion, seems to me to be a philosophical\nreason.  I may give it in Hoeffding's own words: \"What other aims and\nqualities,\" he asks (p. 324), \"could man attribute to his gods or\nconceive as divine, but those which he has learnt from his own\nexperience to recognise as the highest?\"  The answer expected to the\nquestion plainly is not merely that it is from experience that man\nlearns, but that man has no experience of God from which he could\nlearn.  The answer given by Mr. Hobhouse, in the concluding words of\nhis _Morals in Evolution_ is that \"the collective wisdom\" of man \"is\nall that we directly know of the Divine.\" {238} Here, too, no direct\naccess to God is allowed to be possible to man.  It is from his\nexperience of other men--perhaps even of himself and his own\ndoings--that man learns all he knows of God: but he has himself no\nexperience of God.  Obviously, then, from this humanitarian point of\nview, what a man goes through in his religious moments is not\nexperience, and we are mistaken if we imagine that it was experience;\nit is only a misinterpretation of experience.  It is on the supposition\nthat we are mistaken, on the assumption that we make a\nmisinterpretation, that the argument is built to prove that morality is\nand must be independent of religion.  Argument to show, or proof to\ndemonstrate, that we had not the experience, or, that we mistook\nsomething else for it, is, of course, not forthcoming.  But if we hold\nfast to our conviction, we are told that we are fleeing \"to the bosom\nof faith.\"\n\nUntil some better argument is produced, we may be well content not\nmerely to flee but to rest there.\n\n\n\n\n{239}\n\nCHRISTIANITY\n\nThe subject dealt with in this lecture will be the place of\nChristianity in the evolution of religion; and I shall approach it by\nconsidering the place of religion in the evolution of humanity.  It\nwill be therefore advisable, indeed necessary, for me to consider what\nis meant by evolution; and I wish to begin by explaining the point of\nview from which I propose to approach the three ideas of evolution, of\nthe evolution of humanity and the evolution of religion.\n\nThe individual exists, and can only exist, in society.  Society cannot\nexist without individuals as members thereof; and the individual cannot\nexist save in society.  From this it follows that from one point of\nview the individual may be regarded as a means--a means by which\nsociety attains its end or purpose: every one of us has his place or\nfunction in society; and society thrives according as each member\nperforms his function and discharges his duty.  From another point of\nview {240} the individual may be regarded as an end.  If man is a\nsocial animal, if men live in society, it is because so alone can a man\ndo what is best for himself: it is by means of society that he realises\nhis end.  It is then from this proposition, viz. that the individual is\nboth a means and an end, that I wish to approach the idea of evolution.\n\nI will begin by calling attention to the fact that that proposition is\ntrue both statically, that is to say, is true of the individual's\nposition in a community, and is also true dynamically, that is to say,\nis true of his place in the process of evolution.  On the former point,\nthat the proposition is true statically, of the position of the\nindividual in the community, I need say but little.  In moral\nphilosophy it is the utilitarian school which has particularly insisted\nupon this truth.  That school has steadily argued that, in the\ndistribution of happiness or of the good, every man is to count as one,\nand nobody to count as more than one--that is to say, in the community\nthe individual is to be regarded as the end.  The object to be aimed at\nis not happiness in general and no one's happiness in particular, but\nthe happiness of each and every individual.  It is the individual and\nhis happiness which is the {241} end, for the sake of which society\nexists and to which it is the means; otherwise the individual might\nderive no benefit from society.  But if the truth that the individual\nis an end as well as a means is recognised by moral philosophy, that\ntruth has also played at least an equally important part in political\nphilosophy.  It is the very breath of the cry for liberty, equality,\nand fraternity,--a cry wrung out from the heart of man by the system of\noppression which denied that the ordinary citizen had a right to be\nanything but a means for procuring enjoyment to the members of the\nruling class.  The truth that any one man--whatever his place in\nsociety, whatever the colour of his skin--has as much right as any\nother to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the\nenjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for\nthe emancipation of slaves.  It is still the magna charta for the\nfreedom of every member of the human race.  No man is or can be a\nchattel--a thing existing for no other purpose than to subserve the\ninterests of its owner and to be a means to his ends.  But though from\nthe truth that the individual is in himself an end as well as a means,\nit follows that all men have the right to {242} freedom, it does not\nfollow as a logical inference that all men are equal as means--as means\nto the material happiness or to the moral improvement of society.\n\nI need not further dwell upon the fact that statically as regards the\nrelations of men to one another in society at any moment, the truth is\nfully recognised that the individual is not merely a means to the\nhappiness or well-being of others, but is also in himself an end.  But\nwhen we consider the proposition dynamically, when we wish to find out\nthe part it has played as one of the forces at work in evolution, we\nfind that its truth has been far from fully recognised--partly perhaps\nbecause utilitarianism dates from a time when evolution, or the bearing\nof it, was not understood.  But the truth is at least of as great\nimportance dynamically as it is statically.  And on one side, its truth\nand the importance of its truth has been fully developed: that the\nindividual is a means to an end beyond him; and that, dynamically, he\nhas been and is a factor in evolution, and as a factor merely a means\nand nothing else--all this has been worked out fully, if not to excess.\nThe other side of the truth, the fact that the individual is always an\nend, has, however, {243} been as much neglected by the scientific\nevolutionist as it was by the slave-driver: he has been liable to\nregard men as chattels, as instruments by which the work of evolution\nis carried on.  The work has got to be done (by men amongst other\nanimals and things), things have to be evolved, evolution must go on.\nBut, why? and for whom? with what purpose and for whose benefit? with\nwhat end? are questions which science leaves to be answered by those\npeople who are foolish enough to ask them.  Science is concerned simply\nwith the individual as a means, as one of the means, whereby evolution\nis carried on; and doubtless science is justified--if only on the\nprinciple of the division of labour--in confining itself to the\ndepartment of enquiry which it takes in hand and in refusing to travel\nbeyond it.  Any theory of man, therefore, or of the evolution of\nhumanity, which professes to base itself strictly on scientific fact\nand to exclude other considerations as unscientific and therefore as\nunsafe material to build on, will naturally, and perhaps necessarily,\nbe dominated by the notion that the individual exists as a factor in\nevolution, as one of the means by which, and not as in any sense the\nend for which, evolution is carried on.\n\n{244}\n\nSuch seems to be the case with the theory of humanitarianism.  It bases\nitself upon science, upon experience, and rules out communion with God\nas not being a scientific fact or a fact of experience at all.  Based\nupon science, it is a theory which seeks amongst other things to assign\nto religion its place in the evolution of humanity.  According to the\ntheory, the day of religion is over, its part played out, its function\nin the evolution of humanity discharged.  According to this theory,\nthree stages may be discerned in the evolution of humanity when we\nregard man as a moral being, as an ethical consciousness.  Those three\nstages may be characterised first as custom, next religion, and finally\nhumanitarianism.\n\nBy the theory, in the first stage--that of custom--the spirits to whom\ncult is paid are vindictive.  In the second stage--that of\nreligion--man, having attained to a higher morality, credits his gods\nwith that higher morality.  In the third stage--that of\nhumanitarianism--he finds that the gods are but lay figures on which\nthe robes of righteousness have been displayed that man alone can\nwear--when he is perfect.  He is not yet perfect.  If he were, the\nevolution of humanity {245} would be attained--whereas at present it is\nas yet in process.  The end of evolution is not yet attained: it is to\nestablish, in some future generation, a perfect humanity.  For that end\nwe must work; to it we may know that, as a matter of scientific\nevolution, we are working.  On it, we may be satisfied, man will not\nenter in our generation.\n\nNow this theory of the evolution of humanity, and of the place religion\ntakes in that evolution, is in essential harmony with the scientific\ntreatment of the evolution theory, inasmuch as it treats of the\nindividual solely as an instrument to something other than himself, as\na means of producing a state of humanity to which he will not belong.\nBut if the assumption that the individual is always a means and never\nan end in himself be false, then a theory of the evolution of man (as\nan ethical consciousness) which is based on that wrong assumption will\nitself be wrong.  If each individual is an end, as valuable and as\nimportant as any other individual; if each counts for one and not less\nthan any one other,--then his end and his good cannot lie in the\nperfection of some future generation.  In that case, his end would be\none that _ex hypothesi_ he could never enjoy, a rest into which he\ncould never enter; {246} and consequently it would be an irrational\nend, and could not serve as a basis for a rationalist theory of ethics.\nMan's object (to be a rational object) must have reference to a society\nof which he may be a member.  The realisation of his object, therefore,\ncannot be referred to a stage of society yet to come, on earth, after\nhe is dead,--a society of which he, whether dead or annihilated, could\nnot be a member.  If, then, the individual's object is to be a rational\nobject, as the humanitarian or rationalist assumes, then that end must\nbe one in which he can share; and therefore cannot be in this world.\nNor can that end be attained by doing man's will--for man's will may be\nevil, and regress as well as progress is a fact in the evolution of\nhumanity; its attainment, therefore, must be effected by doing God's\nwill.\n\nThe truth that the individual is an end as well as a means is, I\nsuggest, valuable in considering the dynamics as well as the statics of\nsociety.  At least, it saves one from the self-complacency of imagining\nthat one's ancestors existed with no other end and for no higher\npurpose than to produce--me; and if the golden days anticipated by the\ntheory of humanitarianism ever arrive, it is to be supposed that the\n{247} men of that time will find it just as intolerable and revolting\nas we do now, to believe that past generations toiled and suffered for\nno other reason, for no other end, and to no other purpose than that\ntheir successors should enter into the fruits of their labour.  In a\nword, the theory that in the evolution of man as an ethical\nconsciousness, as a moral being, religion is to be superseded by\nhumanitarianism, is only possible so long as we deny or ignore the fact\nthat the individual is an end and not merely a means.  We will\ntherefore now go on to consider the evolution of religion from the\npoint of view that the individual is in himself an end as well as a\nmeans.  If, of the world religions, we take that which is the greatest,\nas measured by the number of its adherents, viz. Buddhism, we shall see\nthat, tried by this test, it is at once found wanting.  The object at\nwhich Buddhism proclaims that man should aim is not the development,\nthe perfection, and the realisation of the individual to the fullest\nextent: it is, on the contrary, the utter and complete effacement of\nthe individual, so that he is not merely absorbed, but absolutely wiped\nout, in _nirvana_.  In the _atman_, with which it is the duty of man to\nseek to identify himself, the individuality of man does not survive:\n{248} it simply ceases to be.  Now this obliteration of his existence\nmay seem to a man in a certain mood desirable; and that mood may be\ncultivated, as indeed Buddhism seeks to cultivate it, systematically.\nBut here it is that the inner inconsistency, the self-contradictoriness\nof Buddhism, becomes patent.  The individual, to do anything, must\nexist.  If he is to desire nothing save to cease to exist, he must\nexist to do that.  But the teaching of Buddhism is that this world and\nthis life is illusion--and further, that the existence of the\nindividual self is precisely the most mischievous illusion, that\nillusion above all others from which it is incumbent on us to free\nourselves.  We are here for no other end than to free ourselves from\nthat illusion.  Thus, then, by the teaching of Buddhism there is an\nend, it may be said, for the individual to aim at.  Yes! but by the\nsame teaching there is no individual to aim at it--individual existence\nis the most pernicious of all illusions.  And further, by the teaching,\nthe final end and object of religion is to get rid of an individual\nexistence, which does not exist to be got rid of, and which it is an\nillusion to believe in.  In fine, Buddhism denies that the individual\nis either an end or a means, for it denies {249} the existence of the\nindividual, and contradicts itself in that denial.  The individual is\nnot an end--the happiness or immortality, the continued existence, of\nthe individual is not to be aimed at.  Neither is he a means, for his\nvery existence is an illusion, and as such is an obstacle or impediment\nwhich has to be removed, in order that he who is not may cease to do\nwhat he has never begun to do, viz. to exist.\n\nIn Buddhism we have a developed religion--a religion which has been\ndeveloped by a system of philosophy, but scarcely, as religion,\nimproved by it.  If, now, we turn to other religions less highly\ndeveloped, even if we turn to religions the development of which has\nbeen early arrested, which have never got beyond the stage of infantile\ndevelopment, we shall find that all proceed on the assumption that\ncommunion between man and God is possible and does occur.  In all, the\nexistence of the individual as well as of the god is assumed, even\nthough time and development may be required to realise, even\ninadequately, what is contained in the assumption.  In all, and from\nthe beginning, religion has been a social fact: the god has been the\ngod of the community; and, as such, has {250} represented the interests\nof the community.  Those interests have been regarded not merely as\nother, but as higher, than the interests of the individual, when the\ntwo have been at variance, for the simple reason (when the time came\nfor a reason to be sought and given) that the interests of the\ncommunity were the will of the community's god.  Hence at all times the\nman who has postponed his own interests to those under the sanction of\nthe god and the community--the man who has respected and upheld the\ncustom of the community--has been regarded as the higher type of man,\nas the better man from the religious as well as from the moral point of\nview; while the man who has sacrificed the higher interests to the\nlower, has been punished--whether by the automatic action of taboo, or\nthe deliberate sentence of outlawry--as one who, by breaking custom,\nhas offended against the god and so brought suffering on the community.\n\nNow, if the interests, whether of the individual or the community, are\nregarded as purely earthly, the divergence between them must be utter\nand irreconcileable; and to expect the individual to forego his own\ninterests must be eventually discovered to be, as it fundamentally is,\nunreasonable.  {251} If, on the other hand, for the individual to\nforego them is (as, in a cool moment, we all recognise it to be)\nreasonable, then the interests under the sanction of the god and the\ncommunity--the higher interests--cannot be other than, they must be\nidentical with, the real interests of the individual.  It is only in\nand through society that the individual can attain his highest\ninterests, and only by doing the will of the god that he can so attain\nthem.  Doubtless--despite of logic and feeling--in all communities all\nindividuals in a greater or less degree have deliberately preferred the\nlower to the higher, and in so doing have been actuated neither by love\nof God nor by love of their fellow-man.  But, in so doing, they have at\nall times, in the latest as well as the earliest stages of society,\nbeen felt to be breaching the very basis of social solidarity, the\nmaintenance of which is the will of the God worshipped by society.\n\nFrom that point of view the individual is regarded as a means.  But he\nis also in himself an end, intrinsically as valuable as any other\nmember of the community, and therefore an end which society exists to\nfurther and promote.  It is impossible, therefore, that the end, viewed\nas that which society {252} as well as the individual aims at, and\nwhich society must realise, as far as it can realise it, through the\nindividual, should be one which can only be attained by some future\nstate of society in which he does not exist.  \"The kingdom of Heaven is\nwithin you\" and not something to which you cannot attain.  God is not\nfar from us at any time.  That truth was implicit at all stages in the\nevolution of religion--consciously recognised, perhaps more, perhaps\nless, but whether more or less consciously recognised, it was there.\nThat is the conviction implied in the fact that man everywhere seeks\nGod.  If he seeks Him in plants, in animals, in stocks or stones, that\nonly shows that man has tried in many wrong directions--not that there\nis not a right direction.  It is the general law of evolution: of a\nthousand seeds thrown out, perhaps one alone falls into good soil.  But\nthe failure of the 999 avails nothing against the fact that the one\nbears fruit abundantly.  What sanctifies the failures is that they were\nattempts.  We indeed may, if we are so selfish and blind, regard the\nattempts as made in order that we might succeed.  Certainly we profit\nby the work of our ancestors,--or rather we may profit, if we will.\nBut our savage ancestors were themselves ends, and {253} not merely\nmeans to our benefit.  It is monstrous to imagine that our salvation is\nbought at the cost of their condemnation.  No man can do more than turn\nto such light as there may be to guide him.  \"To him that hath, shall\nbe given,\" it is true--but every man at every time had something; never\nwas there one to whom nothing was given.  To us at this day, in this\ndispensation, much has been given.  But ten talents as well as one may\nbe wrapped up: one as well as ten may be put to profit.  It is\nmonstrous to say that one could not be, cannot have been, used\nproperly.  It was for not using the one talent he had that the\nunfaithful servant was condemned--not for not having ten to use.\n\nThroughout the history of religion, then, two facts have been implied,\nwhich, if implicit at the beginning, have been rendered explicit in the\ncourse of its history or evolution.  They are, first, the existence of\nthe individual as a member of society, in communion or seeking\ncommunion with God; and, next, that while the individual is a means to\nsocial ends, society is also a means of which the individual is the\nend.  Neither end--neither that of society nor that of the\nindividual--can be forwarded at {254} the cost of the other; the\nrealisation of each is to be attained only by the realisation of the\nother.  Two consequences then follow with regard to evolution: first,\nit depends on us; evolution may have helped to make us, but we are\nhelping to make it.  Next, the end of evolution is not wholly outside\nany one of us, but in part is realised in us, or may be, if we so will.\nThat is to say, the true end may be realised by every one of us; for\neach of us, as being himself an end, is an object of care to God--and\nnot merely those who are to live on earth at the final stage of\nevolution.  If the end is outside us, it is in love of neighbour; if\nbeyond us, it is in God's love.  It is just because the end is (or may\nbe) both within us and without us that we are bound up with our\nfellow-man and God.  It is precisely because we are individuals that we\nare not the be-all and the end-all--that the end is without us.  And it\nis because we are members of a community, that the end is not wholly\noutside us.\n\nIn his _Problems of Philosophy_ (p. 163) Hoeffding says: \"The test of\nthe perfection of a human society is: to what degree is every person so\nplaced and treated that he is not only a mere means, but also always at\nthe same time an end?\" and he points {255} out that \"this is Kant's\nfamous dictum, with another motive than that given to it by him.\"  But\nif it is reasonable to apply this test to society, regarded from the\npoint of view of statics, it is also reasonable to apply it to society\nregarded dynamically.  If it is the proper test for ascertaining what\ndegree of perfection society at any given moment has attained, it is\nalso the proper test for ascertaining what advance, if any, towards\nperfection has been made by society between any two periods of its\ngrowth, any two stages in its evolution.  But the moment we admit the\npossibility of applying a test to the process of evolution and of\ndiscovering to what end the process is moving, we are abandoning\nscience and the scientific theory of evolution.  Science formally\nrefuses to consider whether there be any end to which the process of\nevolution is working: \"end\" is a category which science declines to\napply to its subject-matter.  In the interests of knowledge it declines\nto be influenced by any consideration of what the end aimed at by\nevolution may be, or whether there be any end aimed at at all.  It\nsimply notes what does take place, what is, what has been, and to some\nextent what may be, the sequence of events--not their object or\npurpose.  And the {256} science of religion, being a science, restricts\nitself in the same way.  As therefore science declines to use the\ncategory, \"end,\" progress is an idea impossible for science--for\nprogress is movement towards an end, the realisation of a purpose and\nobject.  And science declines to consider whether progress is so much\nas possible.  But, so far as the subject-matter of the science of\nreligion is concerned, it is positive (that is to say, it is mere fact\nof observation) that in religion an end is aimed at, for man everywhere\nseeks God and communion with Him.  What the science of religion\ndeclines to do is to pronounce or even to consider whether that end is\npossible or not, whether it is in any degree achieved or not, whether\nprogress is made or not.\n\nBut if we do not, as science does, merely constate the fact that in\nreligion an end is aimed at, viz. that communion with God which issues\nin doing His will from love of Him and therefore of our fellow-man; if\nwe recognise that end as the end that ought to be aimed at,--then our\nattitude towards the whole process of evolution is changed: it is now a\nprocess with an end--and that end the same for the individual and for\nsociety.  But at the same time it is no longer a process determined by\nmechanical {257} causes worked by the iron hand of necessity--and\ntherefore it is no longer evolution in the scientific sense; it is no\nlonger evolution as understood by science.  It is now a process in\nwhich there may or may not be progress made; and in which, therefore,\nit is necessary to have a test of progress--a test which is to be found\nin the fact that the individual is not merely a means, but an end.\nWhether progress is made depends in part on whether there is the will\nin man to move towards the end proposed; and that will is not uniformly\nexercised, as is shown by the fact that deterioration as well as\nadvance takes place--regress occurs as well as progress; whole nations,\nand those not small ones, may be arrested in their religious\ndevelopment.  If we look with the eye of the missionary over the globe,\neverywhere we see arrested development, imperfect communion with God.\nIt may be that in such cases of imperfect communion there is an\nunconscious or hardly conscious recognition that the form of religion\nthere and then prevalent does not suffice to afford the communion\ndesired.  Or, worse still, and much more general, there is the belief\nthat such communion as does exist is all that can exist--that advance\nand improvement are impossible.  From {258} this state it has been the\nwork of the religious spirit to wake us, to reveal to us God's will, to\nmake us understand that it is within us, and that it may, if we will,\nwork within us.  It is as such a revelation of the will of God and the\nlove of God, and as the manifestation of the personality of God, that\nour Lord appeared on earth.\n\nThat appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of\nhistoric events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to\nwhat followed and is yet to follow.  In relation to what preceded,\nChristianity claims \"to be the fulfilment of all that is true in\nprevious religion\" (Illingworth, _Personality: Human and Divine_, p.\n75).  The making of that claim assumes that there was some truth in\nprevious religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they\nwere true--a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the\nmissionary.  The truth and the good inherent in all forms of religion\nis that, in all, man seeks after God.  The finality of Christianity\nlies in the fact that it reveals the God for whom man seeks.  What was\ntrue in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion\nwith God, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the\nindividual man attain {259} to that communion.  What is offered by\nChristianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained\nand a society in which the individual may attain it.  Christianity\noffers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be\nrealised.  Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its\nchronological relation to other religions.  It is not final because, or\nin the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous\nreligions, or that it fulfilled only their truth.  Other religions\nhave, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow\nit hereafter.  But their chronological order is irrelevant to the\nquestion: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all\nits forms, aims?  And it is the answer to that question which must\ndetermine the finality of any form of religion.  No one would consider\nthe fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof\nof its superiority to Christianity.  And the lapse of time, however\nmuch greater, would constitute no greater proof.\n\nThat different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in\ndifferent degrees is a point on which there is general agreement.\nMonotheism is pronounced higher than polytheism, ethical religions\n{260} higher than non-ethical.  What differentiates Christianity from\nother ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in\nthem religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties\nand rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality.  In them, at\ntheir highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for\nhimself.  Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true basis and\nthe only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the\nend in which it seeks its realisation.  Therein the Christian theory of\nsociety differs from all others.  Not merely does it hold that man\ncannot make himself better without making society better, that\ndevelopment of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding\ndevelopment of society.  But it holds that such moral development and\nimprovement of the individual and of society can find no rational basis\nand has no rational end, save in the love of God.\n\nIn another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others.\nLike all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is\nfound in worship.  Unlike others it recognises that the individual is\nrestricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a\ncommon worship.  The {261} adequate realisation of the potentialities\nof the individual postulates the realisation of a perfect society, just\nas a perfect society is possible only provided that the potentialities\nof the individual are realised to the full.  Such perfection, to which\nboth society and the individual are means, is neither attained nor\npossible on earth, even where communion with God is recognised to be\nboth the true end of society and the individual, and the only means by\nwhich that end can be attained.  Still less is such perfection a\npossible end, if morality is set above religion, and the love of man be\nsubstituted for the love of God.  In that case the life of the\nindividual upon earth is pronounced to be the only life of which he is,\nor can be, conscious; and the end to which he is a means is the good of\nhumanity as a whole.  Now human society, from the beginning of its\nevolution to its end, may be regarded as a whole, just as the society\nexisting at any given moment of its evolution may be regarded as a\nwhole.  But if we are to consider human society from the former point\nof view and to see in it, so regarded, the end to which the individual\nis a means, then it is clear that, until perfection is attained in some\nremote and very improbable future, the individual members of the {262}\nhuman race will have laboured and not earned their reward, will have\nworked for an end which they have not attained, and for an end which\nwhen, if ever, it is attained, society as a whole will not enjoy.  Such\nan end is an irrational and impossible object of pursuit.  Perfection,\nif it is to be attained by the individual or by society, is not to be\nattained on earth, nor in man's communion with man.  Religion from its\noutset has been the quest of man for God.  It has been the quest of\nman, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of society.  But\nif that quest is to be realised, it is not to be realised either by\nsociety or the individual, regarded as having a mere earthly existence.\nA new conception of the real nature of both is requisite.  Not only\nmust the individual be regarded as continuing to exist after death, but\nthe society of which he is truly a member must be regarded as one\nwhich, if it manifests or begins to manifest itself on this earth,\nrequires for its realisation--that is, for perfect communion with\nGod--the postulate that though it manifests itself in this world, it is\nrealised in the next.  This new conception of the real nature of\nsociety and the individual, involving belief in the communion of the\nsaints, and in the kingdom of Heaven as that {263} which may be in each\nindividual, and therefore must extend beyond each and include all\nwhether in this world or the next--this conception is one which\nChristianity alone, of all religions, offers to the world.\n\nReligion is the quest of man for God.  Man everywhere has been in\nsearch of God, peradventure he might find Him; and the history of\nreligion is the history of his search.  But the moment we regard the\nhistory--the evolution--of religion as a search, we abandon the\nmechanical idea of evolution: the cause at work is not material or\nmechanical, but final.  The cause is no longer a necessary cause which\ncan only have one result and which, when it operates, must produce that\nresult.  Progress is no longer something which must take place, which\nis the inevitable result of antecedent causes.  It is something which\nmay or may not take place and which cannot take place unless effort is\nmade.  In a word, it is dependent in part upon man's will--without the\naction of which neither search can be made nor progress in the search.\nBut though in part dependent upon man's will, progress can only be made\nso far as man's will is to do God's will.  And that is not always, and\nhas not been always, {264} man's will.  Hence evolution has not always\nbeen progress.  Nor is it so now.  There have been lapses in\ncivilisation, dark ages, periods when man's love for man has waned\n_pari passu_ with the waning of his love for God.  Such lapses there\nmay be yet again.  The fall of man may be greater, in the spiritual\nsense, than it ever yet has been, for man's will is free.  But God's\nlove is great, and our faith is in it.  If Christianity should cease to\ngrow where it now grows, and cease to spread where it as yet is not,\nthere would be the greater fall.  And on us would rest some, at least,\nof the responsibility.  Christianity cannot be stationary: if it\nstands, let it beware; it is in danger of falling.  Between religions,\nas well as other organisations, there is a struggle for existence.  In\nthat struggle we have to fight--for a religion to decline to fight is\nfor that religion to die.  The missionary is not engaged in a work of\nsupererogation, something with which we at home have no concern.  We\nspeak of him as in the forefront of the battle.  We do not usually or\nconstantly realise that it is our battle he is fighting--that his\ndefeat, if he were defeated, would be the beginning of the end for us;\nthat on his success our fate depends.  The metaphor of the missionary\nas an {265} outpost sounds rather picturesque when heard in a\nsermon,--or did so sound the first time it was used, I suppose,--but it\nis not a mere picture; it is the barest truth.  The extent to which we\npush our outposts forward is the measure of our vitality, of how much\nwe have in us to do for the world.  Six out of seven of Christendom's\nmissionaries come from the United States of America.  Until I heard\nthat from the pulpit of Durham Cathedral, I had rather a horror of big\nthings and a certain apprehension about going to a land where bigness,\nrather than the golden mean, seemed to be taken as the standard of\nmerit.  But from that sermon I learnt something, viz. not only that\nthere are big things to be done in the world, but that America does\nthem, and that America does more of them than she talks about.\n\n\n\n\n{267}\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nSince the chapter on Magic was written, the publication of Wilhelm\nWundt's _Voelkerpsychologie_, Vol. II, Part II, has led me to believe\nthat I ought to have laid more stress on the power of the magician,\nwhich I mention on pages 74, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, and less on the\nsavage's recognition of the principle that like produces like.  In the\nstage of human evolution known as Animism, every event which calls for\nexplanation is explained as the doing of some person or conscious\nagent.  When a savage falls ill, his sickness is regarded as the work\nof some ill-disposed person, whose power cannot be doubted--for it is\nmanifest in the sickness it has caused--and whose power is as\nmysterious as it is indubitable.  That power is what a savage means by\nmagic; and the persons believed to possess it are magicians.  It is the\nbusiness of the sick savage's friends to find out who is causing his\nsickness.  Their suspicion may fall on any one whose appearance or\nbehaviour is suspicious or mysterious; and the person {268} suspected\ncomes to be regarded as a witch or magician, from the very fact that he\nis suspected.  Such persons have the power of witchcraft or magic,\nbecause they are believed to have the power: _possunt quia posse\nvidentur_.  Not only are they believed to possess the power; they come\nto believe, themselves, that they possess it.  They believe that,\npossessing it, they have but to exercise it.  The Australian magician\nhas but to \"point\" his stick, and, in the belief both of himself and of\nevery one concerned, the victim will fall.  All over the world the\nwitch has but to stab the image she has drawn or made, and the person\nportrayed will feel the wound.  In this proceeding, the image is like\nthe person, and the blow delivered is like the blow which the victim is\nto feel.  It is open to us, therefore, to say that, in this typical\ncase of \"imitative\" or \"mimetic\" magic, like is believed to produce\nlike.  And on pages 75-77, and elsewhere, above, I have taken that\nposition.  But I would now add two qualifications.  The first is, as\nalready intimated, that, though stabbing an effigy is like stabbing the\nvictim, it is only a magician or witch that has the power thus to\ninflict wounds, sickness, or death: the services of the magician or\nwitch are employed for no other reason than that {269} the ordinary\nperson has not the power, even by the aid of the rite, to cause the\neffect.  The second qualification is that, whereas we distinguish\nbetween the categories of likeness and identity, the savage makes but\nlittle distinction.  To us it is evident that stabbing the image is\nonly like stabbing the victim; but to the believer in magic, stabbing\nthe image is the same thing as stabbing the victim; and in his belief,\nas the waxen image melts, so the victim withers away.\n\nIt would, therefore, be more precise and more correct to say (page 74,\nabove) that eating tiger to make you bold points rather to a confusion,\nin the savage's mind, of the categories of likeness and identity, than\nto a conscious recognition of the principle that like produces like: as\nyou eat tiger's flesh, so you become bold with the tiger's boldness.\nThe spirit of the tiger enters you.  But no magic is necessary to\nenable you to make the meal: any one can eat tiger.  The belief that so\nthe tiger's spirit will enter you is a piece of Animism; but it is not\ntherefore a piece of magic.\n\n\n\n\n{271}\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nABT, A.  Die Apologie des Apuleius von Madaura und die antike Zauberei.\nGiessen.  1908.\n\nALVIELLA, G.  Origin and Growth of the Conception of God.  London.\n1892.\n\nBASTIAN, A.  Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde.  Berlin.  1888.\n\nBOUSSET, W.  What is Religion?  (E. T.).  London.  1907.\n\nDAVIES, T. W.  Magic, Divination, and Demonology.  Leipzig.  1898.\n\nELLIS, A. B.  The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast.  London.\n1890.  The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast.  London.  1887.\nThe Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast.  London.  1894.\n\nFAHZ, L.  De poetarum Romanorum doctrina magica.  Giessen.  1904.\n\nFARNELL, L. R.  The Place of the Sonder-Goetter in Greek Polytheism, in\nAnthropological Essays.  Oxford.  1907.\n\nFRAZER, J. G.  Adonis, Attis, Osiris.  London.  1905.  The Golden\nBough.  London.  1900.  Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship.\nLondon.  1905.\n\nGRANGER, F.  The Worship of the Romans.  London.  1895.\n\nHADDON, H. C.  Magic and Fetishism.  London.  1906.\n\nHARRISON, J. E.  Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.\nCambridge.  1903.\n\nHARTLAND, E. S.  The Legend of Perseus.  London.  1895.\n\nHOBHOUSE, L. T.  Morals in Evolution.  London.  1906.\n\nHOeFFDING, H.  Philosophy of Religion (E. T.).  London.  1906.\n\n{272}\n\nHOLLIS.  The Masai.  Oxford.  1905.\n\nHOWITT, A. W.  The Native Tribes of South East Australia.  London.\n1904.\n\nHUBERT, H.  Magia.  In Daremberg Saglio's Dictionnaire des Antiquites.\nParis.  1904.\n\nHUBERT, H. & MAUSS, M.  Theorie generale de la magie.  L'Annee\nSociologique.  Paris.  1904.  La Nature et la fonction du sacrifice.\nL'Annee Sociologique.  Paris.  1899.\n\nHUVELIN, P.  Magie et droit individual.  L'Annee Sociologique.  Paris.\n1907.\n\nILLINGWORTH, J. R.  Personality: Human and Divine.  London.  1894.\n\nJEVONS, F. B.  The Definition of Magic.  Sociological Review for April,\n1908.  London.  The Evolution of the Religious Consciousness.  In\nPan-Anglican Papers.  London.  1908.  Introduction to the History of\nReligion.  London.  1896.  Magic.  In Proceedings of the International\nCongress for the History of Religions.  1908.\n\nLANG, A.  Custom and Myth.  London.  1893.  Magic and Religion.\nLondon.  1901.  The Making of Religion.  London.  1898.  Modern\nMythology.  London.  1897.  Myth, Ritual, and Religion.  London.  1887.\n\nLENORMANT, F.  Chaldean Magic (E. T.).  London.  1877.\n\nMACCULLOUGH, J. A.  Comparative Theology.  London.  1902.\n\nMARETT, R. R.  Is Taboo a Negative Magic?  In Anthropological Essays.\nOxford.  1907.\n\nMAUSS, M.  Des Societes Eskimos.  L'Annee Sociologique.  Paris.  1906.\n\nMUeLLER, J. G.  Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen.  Basel.\n1855.\n\nNASSAU, R. H.  Fetichism in West Africa.  London.  1904.\n\n{273}\n\nPARKER, K. L.  The Euahlayi Tribe.  London.  1905.\n\nPAYNE, E. J.  History of the New World called America.  Oxford.  1892.\n\nREINACH, S.  Cultes, Mythes, et Religions.  Paris.  1905.  Reports of\nthe Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits.  Cambridge\n(England).  1908.\n\nRHYS DAVIDS, T. W.  Origin and Growth of Religion.  London.  1891.\n\nRUHL, L.  De Mortuorum indicio.  Giessen.  1903.\n\nSCHMIDT, H.  Veteres Philosophi quomodo indicaverint de precibus.\nGiessen.  1907.\n\nSCHRADER, O.  Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumer.  Strassburg.\n1901.\n\nSKEAT, W. W.  Malay Magic.  London.  1900.\n\nSMITH, W. R.  Religion of the Semites.  London.  1894.\n\nSPENCE, L.  The Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru.  London.  1907.\n\nSPENCER & GILLEN.  The Native Tribes of Central Australia.  London.\n1899.  The Northern Tribes of Central Australia.  London.  1904.\n\nTYLOR, E. B.  Primitive Culture.  London.  1873.\n\nWAITZ, T.  Anthropologie der Naturvoelker.  Leipzig.  1864.\n\nWEBSTER, H.  Primitive Secret Societies.  London.  1908.\n\nWESTERMARCK, E.  The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas.\nLondon.  1906.\n\nWUNDT, W.  Voelkerpsychologie.  Leipzig.  1904-1907.\n\n\n\n\n{275}\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAcosta, Father, 193.\n\nAgnostic, 4, 6.\n\nAgries, 143.\n\nAlfoors, 194.\n\nAlgonquins, 143.\n\nAll-father, 190.\n\nAncestors, 162.\n\nAncestor worship, 52, 53; may be arrested by religion, 53, 54, 55.\n\nAndaman Islands, 169.\n\nAnimal sacrifice, 209; animal meal, 178.\n\nAnimals, worshipped, 111.\n\nAnimism, 204, 215, 216, 217; and magic, 89, 90, 98; and fetichism, 116,\n117, 118; polytheism, 131; not religion, 136.\n\nAnticipation, of nature, 73.\n\nAntinomy, the, of religious feeling, 174.\n\nAnzam, 170.\n\nApplied science of religion, 2 ff.; looks to the future, 3; is used by\nthe missionary as a practical man, 15, 16; its object, 18, 21.\n\nAshantee Land, 153, 155.\n\nAtheist, 4, 6.\n\nAtman, 247.\n\nAt-one-ment, 178.\n\nAttention, 9, 10.\n\nAustralia, 183 ff.\n\nAustralian tribes, religion of, 27, 28.\n\nAztecs, 188, 190.\n\n\nBasutos, 181.\n\nBecoming, 214.\n\nBeing, is in process of evolution, 214; still incomplete, 214.\n\nBelief, and desire, 39, 40; in immortality and God, 31, 32; erroneous,\nand magic, 79; in magic, 85; religious, 137.\n\nBhogaldai, 194.\n\nBilliards, 78.\n\nBlood, and rain, 161.\n\nBones, of animals, hung up, 78.\n\nBoorah, 162 ff.\n\nBosman, 109 ff., 112, 113.\n\nBread, prayer for daily, 181.\n\nBuddhism, 247 ff.; and immortality, 36, 37, 61, 62, 63; its fundamental\nillogicality, 66; its strength, 66.\n\nBuro, 194.\n\nBuzzard, 76.\n\nByamee, 162 ff., 191, 198.\n\n\nCause, and conditions, 77, 85.\n\nCelebes, 194.\n\nCeram, 181.\n\nCeremonies, for rain, 161.\n\nChain of existence, 65.\n\nCharms, and prayers, 150, 115, 152.\n\nChattels, 241, 243.\n\nCherokee Indian, 50, 76, 77.\n\nChicomecoatl, 193.\n\nChildhood, 98.\n\nChina, 194, 197.\n\nChristianity, 239 ff., 258, 259, 260; the highest form of religion, 15,\n18, 22, 23; and other forms of religion, 26, 27, 28, 35; alone teaches\nself-sacrifice as the way to life eternal, 69; and sacrifice, 209.\n\nClouds, 153; of smoke and rain, 161, 162.\n\nCommunal purposes, and magic, 91.\n\nCommunion, 175; not so much an intellectual belief as an object of\ndesire, 43, 44; of man with God the basis of morality, 62; logically\nincompatible with Buddhism, 63; involves personal existence, 67; with\nGod, 137; sought in prayer, 172; and sacrifice, 172; in Mexico, 193;\nmaintained by sacramental eating, 195; annually, 196; renewed, 198; the\ntrue end of sacrifice, 207, 208; between man and God, 249; imperfect,\n257.\n\nCommunity, 254; and magic, 81, 97; and its God, 91.\n\nCommunity, the, and fetiches, 122; and its gods, 135; and prayer, 146,\n147, 148, 166; and the individual, 218, 239.\n\nComparative method, 20, 21.\n\nComparative Philology, 20.\n\nComparison, method of, 17; implies similarity in the religions\ncompared, 19; and implies difference also, 20; contrasted with\ncomparative method, 21; deals with differences, 22.\n\nComte, 213.\n\nConciliation, and coercion, of spirits, 121.\n\nCongregations, 170.\n\nContagious magic, 85.\n\nContinuation theory, 55, 56.\n\nCorn, eaten sacramentally, 194, 195.\n\nCorn-maiden, 195.\n\nCorn-mother, 195.\n\nCorn-spirit, 196, 199, 200.\n\nCotton-mother, 194.\n\nCreator, 170.\n\nCreek Indians, 194.\n\nCustom, 244; protected by the god of the community, 219.\n\n\nDances, 162; and prayer, 153.\n\nDead, the, 38; return, 47; spirits of the, 92.\n\nDeath, a mistake according to the primitive view, 44, 45; or else due\nto magic, 45, 46, 80.\n\nDeer, 74.\n\nDegradation of religion, 24.\n\nDeification, 53.\n\nDeiphobus, 54.\n\nDelaware prayer, 145.\n\nDepartmental deities, 190.\n\nDesacralisation, 186.\n\nDesire for immortality, is the origin of the belief in immortality, 40,\n41; is not a selfish desire, 42; the root of all evils, 66; religious,\n115, 116, 121; and prayer, 142, 149; and the worship of the gods, 135;\nand religion, 158, 166; of the community, 163.\n\nDesire of all nations, 115, 173.\n\nDieri, 50, 161, 164.\n\nDifference, implies similarity, 27.\n\nDifferences, to be taken into account by method of comparison, 22;\ntheir value, 23, 24; postulated by science, 24.\n\nDifferentiation of the homogeneous, 23, 24, 25.\n\nDomesticated plants and animals, 190.\n\nDreams, and the soul, 37; their emotional value, 42.\n\nDrought, 164.\n\nDugongs, 164, 165.\n\nDynamics, of society, 246, 255.\n\n\nEast Indies, 181.\n\nEating of the god, 193.\n\nEating tiger, 74, 89.\n\nEllis, Colonel, 113, 120, 121, 122.\n\nEmotional element, in fetichism and religion, 136.\n\nEnd, the, gives value to what we do, 13; and is a matter of will, 13;\nof society, 251, 253; a category unknown to science, 255.\n\nEnds, anti-social, 81.\n\nError, 25.\n\nEuahlayi, 48, 162, 191, 198.\n\nEvolution, 214; of religion, 6, 239, 247, 253; and progress, 9, 12, 24,\n264; theory of, 23; and the history of religion, 172, 173; of humanity,\n239, 244, 246; law of, 252; end of, 254, 256.\n\n\nFaith, 137, 238; the conviction that we can attain our ends, 14; shared\nby the religious man with all practical men, 14, 15; exhibited in\nadopting method of comparison in religion, 17; in Christianity, 18;\nbanishes fear of comparisons, 18, 19; in the communion of man with God\nmanifests itself in the desire for immortality, 68.\n\nFamily, and society, 98.\n\nFamine, 205.\n\nFather, 98.\n\nFeeling, religious, 137; moral and religious, 81.\n\nFetich, defined, 111, 112; offerings made to it, 112; not merely an\n\"inanimate,\" 113, 116; but a spirit, 116, 117; possesses personality\nand will, 117; aids in the accomplishment of desire, 117, 119; may be\nmade, 120; is feared, 120; has no religious value, 120, 121; distinct\nfrom a god, 122; subservient to its owner, 122; has no plurality of\nworshippers, 122; its principal object to work evil, 123; serves its\nowner only, 127; permanence of its worship, 129; has no specialised\nfunction, 129, 130; is prayed to and talked with, 132; worshipped by an\nindividual, 134; and not by the community, 135, 170.\n\nFetichism, 105 ff., 215; as the lowest form of religion, 106, 107; as\nthe source of religious values, 107, 108; and magic, 90; and religion,\n114, 120, 136; the law of its evolution, 119, 120; condemned by public\nopinion, 122, 123; offensive to the morality of the native, 126; and at\nvariance with his religion, 126, 127; not the basis of religion, 127;\nand polytheism, 128, 131, 132, 133; and fear, 136.\n\nFinality of Christianity, 258, 259.\n\nFirst-fruit ceremonials, 183, 184; and the gods, 185, 187; an act of\nworship, 187, 188.\n\nFirst-fruits, 181.\n\nFlesh of the divine being, 196.\n\nFly-totem, 165, 166.\n\nFolk-lore, 85.\n\nFood supply, 205.\n\nFootprints, 74.\n\nForms of religion, 19.\n\nFramin women, 152, 153, 155, 156.\n\nFrazer, J. G., 50, 76, 78, 79, 83, 92, 94, 102, 153, 157, 158, 160,\n180, 192, 194-200, 202, 205.\n\nFuegians, 169.\n\nFunerals, and prayer, 163.\n\nFuture, knowledge of the, 14, 15.\n\nFuture life, its relation to morality and religion, 36, 37, 57.\n\nFuture punishments, and rewards, 51, 61.\n\nFuture world, 52 ff.\n\n\nGhosts, 38, 42.\n\nGift-theory of sacrifice, 206.\n\nGod, worshipped by community, 91, 98; a supreme being, 168; etymology\nof the word, 133, 134; a personal power, 136, 137; correlative to a\ncommunity, 137.\n\nGods and worshippers, 53; and fetichism, 110; made and broken, 110;\npersonal, 121; \"departmental,\" 129; their personality, 130, 131; and\nthe good of the community, 123; and fetiches, 124; are the powers that\ncare for the welfare of the community, 126, 172; and spirits, 128; \"of\na moment,\" 128, 136; their proper names, 131; worshipped by a\ncommunity, 134; and the desires of their worshippers, 134; not evolved\nfrom fetiches, 135; promote the community's good, 135, 137, 167; and\nprayer, 140, 147, 148; and morality, 169; of a community identified\nwith the community, 177; as ethical powers, 215; punish transgression,\n220.\n\nGold Coast, prayer, 143.\n\nGolden Age, 25.\n\nGood, the, 140; and the gods, 137.\n\nGotama, 64.\n\n_Gott_, and _giessen_, 134.\n\nGrace, 259.\n\nGratitude, 181.\n\nGreat Spirit, the, 143.\n\nGuardian spirits, 111.\n\nGuinea, 197.\n\n\nHaddon, Dr., 83, 91, 100, 101, 106, 107, 117, 118, 124, 129, 130, 132,\n133.\n\nHades, 58.\n\nHallucinations, 38.\n\nHappiness, 240.\n\nHartford Theological Seminary, 1, 22, 106.\n\nHarvest, prayers and sacrifice, 180 ff.\n\nHarvest communion, 188, 189.\n\nHarvest customs, 192, 198, 203.\n\nHarvest supper, 195 ff., 200; its sacramental character, 197.\n\nHealth, and disease, 138.\n\nHeaven, kingdom of, 252, 262.\n\nHebrew prophets, 207, 209.\n\nHebrews, 54.\n\nHegel, 213.\n\nHindoo Koosh, 194.\n\nHistoric science, has the historic order for its object, 11; but does\nnot therefore deny that its facts may have value other than truth\nvalue, 11.\n\nHistory, of art and literature, 8; of religion, 253, 263.\n\nHo dirge, 47.\n\nHobhouse, L. T., 211, 214-216, 222, 223, 226-229, 230, 237.\n\nHoeffding, H., 44, 166, 173, 254; on fetichism, 106, 114, 115, 121, 124,\n128-130, 133-137; on antinomy of religious feeling, 174; and morality,\n211, 214-216, 219, 220, 237.\n\nHollis, Mr., 143 ff.\n\nHomer, 16, 17.\n\nHom[oe]opathic magic, 80, 85, 93.\n\nHomogeneous, the, 23, 24.\n\nHowitt, Mr., 190.\n\n_Hu, huta_, 134,\n\nHumanitarianism, 214, 215, 236, 244, 246, 247; and morality, 221.\n\nHumanity, 213; its evolution, 244.\n\nHusband, 98.\n\n\nIdeals, a matter of the will, 13.\n\nIdols, 193.\n\nIllingworth, J. R., 258.\n\nIllusion, 64, 248.\n\nImages, of dough, 193, 196.\n\nImitative magic, 157.\n\nImmortality, 34 ff.\n\nIncorporation, 178.\n\nIndividual, and the community, 218, 239; cannot exist save in society,\n225; both a means and an end for society, 240 ff., 246, 247; existence\nof, 248; interests of, 250, 251; end of, 253.\n\nIndividuality, not destroyed but strengthened by uprooting selfish\ndesires, 67.\n\nIndo-China, 181, 194.\n\nIndo-European languages, 20.\n\nInfancy, helpless, 98.\n\nInitiation ceremonies, 190, 191; admit to the worship of the gods, 192;\nimportant for theory of sacrifice, 192.\n\nInterests, of the community, 250; and the individual, 250.\n\nIntoning, of prayer, 147.\n\nIsrael, 59.\n\n\nJaundice, 89.\n\nJews, 53, 54.\n\nJudgments, of value, 115.\n\nJustice, public, 223, 224 ff.\n\n\nKaitish rites, 164, 165.\n\nKangaroo totem, 197.\n\nKant, 255.\n\nKarma, 64, 65.\n\nKei Islands, 156.\n\nKern Baby, 195.\n\nKhonds of Orissa, and prayer, 139, 167, 171.\n\nKilling of the god, 197.\n\nKingsley, Miss, 48, 49, 116.\n\n\nLake Nyassa, 146.\n\nLake Superior, 143.\n\nLang, Andrew, 129, 168, 169, 170.\n\n_L'Annee Sociologique_, 60.\n\nLike produces like, 72, 73, 74, 76, 79, 80, 84, 85, 86, 89, 98, 100,\n160, 189.\n\nLitanies, 163.\n\nLove of neighbours, 254.\n\n\nMacCullough, J. A., 47.\n\nMcTaggart, Dr., 49, 50.\n\nMagic, 32, 70 ff.; and murder, 45, 47; a colourable imitation of\nscience, 71; a spurious system, 71, 72; fraudulent, 75, 76; origin of\nbelief in, 79; regarded with disapproval, 79; sympathetic or\nhom[oe]opathic, 80; offensive to the god of the community, 81; not\nprior to religion, 97; condemned when inconsistent with the public\ngood, 97; and anti-social purposes, 98; decline of, 100; and the\nimpossible, 101; private and public, 83; nefarious, 83; beneficent, 87,\n88; does not imply spirits, 89; and religion, 92 ff.; fundamentally\ndifferent, 95, 158, 160; mimics science and religion, 103; and the\ndegradation of religion, 150, 151, 152; and prayer, 153, 154; priority\nof, to religion, 154, 157; and sacramental eating, 199-204.  _See_\nAppendix.\n\nMagician, his personality, 87.\n\nMahommedanism, 259.\n\nMaize-mother, 190, 193, 194, 195, 196.\n\nMaker, the, 168.\n\nManganja, 146, 160.\n\nMara tribe, 164.\n\nMarett, R. R., 151.\n\nMarriage law, 222, 227.\n\nMasai, and prayer, 143, 144, 145, 153-156, 162.\n\nMaster of Life, 143.\n\nMauss, M., 60.\n\nMaya, 64.\n\nMedical advice, 76.\n\nMexico, 193, 194, 199, 200.\n\nMimetic magic, 85.\n\nMinahassa, 194.\n\nMind of Humanity, 213.\n\nMissionary, 6, 140, 210, 211, 257, 265; interested in the value rather\nthan the chronological order of religions, 12; being practical, uses\napplied science, 15; and method of comparison, 17; and notes\nresemblances, 22; requires scientific knowledge of the material he has\nto work on, 34; may use as a lever the belief in man's communion with\nspirits, 69; and magic, 102, 103, 104; and fetichism, 105; and heathen\nprayer, 138, 173.\n\nMomentary gods, 128, 136.\n\nMorality, 81, 83, 84, 95, 211 ff., 260, 261; and communion with God,\n62; and the mysteries, 191; and prayer, 148.\n\nMoral transgression, and sin, 221.\n\nMosquito-totem, 166.\n\nMura-muras, 162.\n\nMysteries, the Greek, 58, 62; and prayer, 180.\n\n\nNames, and gods, 121.\n\nNames, of gods, 121, 131, 132; of men, 132; and personality, 133.\n\nNassau, Dr., 116, 168, 170.\n\nNatchez Indians, 194.\n\nNatural law, 72.\n\nNature, uniformity of, 14, 15.\n\nNefarious magic, 83-87, 95.\n\nNeilgherry Hills, 194.\n\nNew Caledonia, 92, 153, 154, 155, 156, 162.\n\nNew Hebrides, 181.\n\nNew South Wales, 162.\n\nNias, 181.\n\nNiger, 181.\n\nNirvana, 247.\n\nNorth American Indians, 111.\n\nNyankupon, 169.\n\n\nOfferings, 178; and their object, 180; made to fetiches, 112, 122.\n\nOld Testament, 54.\n\nOl-kora, 154, 162.\n\nOnitsha, 181.\n\nOrder of value, 7; distinct from chronological order, 7, 9, 15, 16;\nhistoric, 8.\n\nOrigin, and validity, 38, 39.\n\nOsages, 143.\n\n\nParker, Mrs. L., 162 ff., 191.\n\nPerception, 9.\n\nPersonality, of magician, 87; of gods and fetiches, 130, 131, 132; of\nGod, 258; and proper names, 133.\n\nPersonification, 136.\n\nPeru, 193, 194, 198.\n\nPestilence, 205.\n\nPinkerton, 109.\n\nPlato, 206, 207, 209.\n\nPolitical economy, 5, 6.\n\nPolitical philosophy, 241.\n\nPolytheism and fetichism, 128, 130, 131, 132, 133.\n\nPondos, 194.\n\nPower, personal, 87, 88, 100.\n\nPrayer, 92, 93, 94, 138 ff.; among the heathen, 138; to fetiches, 127;\nand desire, 142; and personal advantage, 144; and the community, 146;\nof individuals, 147; unethical, 148, 149; and magic, 154; and spells,\n155, 157, 160; and famine, 158; for rain, 160; the expression of the\nheart's desire, 160; never unknown to man, 160, 161; in exceptional\ndistress, 182; of thanksgiving, 182; occasional and recurring, 179 ff.;\nand communion, 180; its purpose, 175; and external rites, 176; implies\nsacrifice, 176; not always reported by observers, 177; and sacrifice go\ntogether, 169; no worship without, 170; of Socrates, 171; and\nsacrifice, 172; Our Lord's, 172, 173; practical, 167; the root of\nreligion, 167, 168; and its objects, 163; a mother's prayer, 163;\n\"singing,\" 164; and charms, 150, 165; at seed time, 205.\n\nPrayer-mill, 150.\n\nPriests, 91, 193; and gods, 121; and fetiches, 122.\n\nPrimitive man, believes in immortality, 37.\n\nPrivate property, 5, 6.\n\nProgress, 9, 246, 256, 257, 263; and evolution, 24.\n\nProtective colouring, 70, 103.\n\nPsalmist, 54.\n\nPuluga, 169.\n\nPure science of religion, is a historic science, 2; its facts may be\nused for different and contradictory purposes, 4.\n\n\nRain, prayed for, 146, 160, 161.\n\nRain-clouds, 154, 156, 161, 162.\n\nRain-god, 91, 92.\n\nRain-making, 84, 87, 88, 91, 161, 164.\n\nRebirth, 48, 49, 50.\n\nRegress, 246, 257.\n\nReincarnation, 59; in animal form, 50, 51, 52; in new-born children,\n48-50; in namesakes, 50; its relation to morality and religion, 61.\n\nReligion, is a fact, 5; never unknown to man, 160, 161; essentially\npractical, 160, 175; its evolution, 239; as a survival of barbarism,\n24; lowest forms to be studied first, 26, 27; is a yearning after and\nsearch for God, 28, 115, 136; a bond of community from the first, 43,\n59, 176; implies gods and their worship, 121, 122, 177, 217; implies\nrites and prayers, 176; \"under the guise of desire,\" 44, 115, 149, 158,\n166, 173; but it is the desire of the community, 44; and morality, 37,\n81, 83, 84, 211, 215; and animism, 136; and fetichism, 106-109, 115,\n131, 132, 136; and magic, 70, 71, 72, 92-95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 150, 151,\n152, 154; mechanical, 150; applied science of, 105; and its value, 109.\n\nReligious values, 9, 16.\n\nResemblances, not more important than differences, for the method of\ncomparison, 22; their value, 23, 24.\n\nResentment and justice, 224.\n\nResponsibility, collective, 227, 228, 234.\n\nRevelation, 172, 255; and evolution, 173.\n\nRevenge and justice, 229.\n\nRheumatism, 76.\n\nRhys Davids, 64.\n\n\nSaa, 180.\n\nSacrament, in Central Australia, 197, 200.\n\nSacramental meals, 183 ff., 197, 199, 200, 201, 203.\n\nSacrifice, 92, 93, 94, 175 ff.; to fetiches, 113; and worship, 137,\n177; and prayer, 172, 177; and the gift theory, 206; and communion,\n207, 208; its ultimate form, 209, 210; and the etymology of \"god,\" 133\nff., 137.\n\nSaffron, 89.\n\nScience, has truth, not assignment of value, for its object, 10, 11,\n108; and history, 108; does not deal with ends, 255; and evolution,\n257; and magic, 70, 71, 72, 101; of the savage, 159, 189.\n\nScience of religion, 256; pure and applied, 2 ff.; supposed to be\nincompatible with religious belief, 4; really has nothing to do with\nthe truth or value of religion, 5, 10; and prayer, 140, 141; and the\nmissionary, 105.\n\nSea Dyaks, 228.\n\nSearch for God, the, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 252, 258, 262.\n\nSeed time, 188, 205.\n\nSelf-realising spirit, 213, 214.\n\nSeminole Indians, 194.\n\nShakespeare, 16, 17.\n\nSheol, 54, 58.\n\nSimilarity, between higher and lower forms of religion, 27; the basis\nfor the missionary's work, 28.\n\n\"Singing,\" 164, 165.\n\nSlavery, 241, 243.\n\n\"Smelling out,\" 84.\n\nSocial purpose, and magic, 91.\n\nSociety, a means, 253; as an end, 261; perfection of, 254, 261; and the\nfamily, 98.\n\nSociety Islands, 181.\n\nSolidarity, 212, 213, 251; religious, 220.\n\nSolomon Islands, 180.\n\nSoul, the, 37; separable from the body, 37; its continued existence, 38.\n\nSpells, and prayers, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157, 160, 164.\n\nSpencer and Gillen, 45, 46, 164, 197.\n\nSpinning, 78, 79.\n\nSpirits, 162, 170; not essential to magic, 89, 90, 91; and fetiches,\n118, 119; of fetichism and gods of polytheism, 128; guardian, 111;\n\"momentary,\" and gods, 135; and prayer, 166; and morality, 215, 217,\n219; not worshipped, 216.\n\nSpring customs, 192, 198, 203.\n\nSquirrel, 76, 78.\n\nState, the, and justice, 224.\n\nSt. John, Mr., 228.\n\nStones, 92, 93, 94.\n\nStruggle for existence, 264.\n\n_Suhman_, 122, 123, 126, 136.\n\nSun, 153, 157.\n\nSuperstition, 150.\n\nSympathetic magic, 80, 85, 93, 153, 157, 162.\n\n\nTaboo, 186 ff., 222, 229, 231-234, 250.\n\nTalents, 253.\n\nTana, 181.\n\nTanner, John, 143.\n\nTari, 181, 183.\n\nTaro, 92, 93, 94.\n\nTemples, 178.\n\nTest, of perfection in society, 255.\n\nThanks, do not need words, 181, 185.\n\nThank-offerings, 181.\n\nThomsen, Professor, 134.\n\nTibetan Buddhists, 150.\n\nTiger, 74, 89.\n\nTjumba, 181.\n\nTonga, 181.\n\nTotems, 51, 165, 166, 197, 203; eating of, 186.\n\nTrade wind, 101.\n\nTransmigration, 51, 61, 119, 120; of character, 64.\n\nTruth, 25; and value, 10.\n\nTupinambas, 56, 58.\n\nTylor, Professor, 37, 47, 56, 112, 141-144, 147, 148, 150, 161, 166.\n\n\nUnalits, 59, 60.\n\nUncle John, knows his own pipe, 49, 50.\n\nUniformity of nature, 14; matter of faith, not of knowledge, 15.\n\nUnselfishness, developes and does not weaken individuality, 67.\n\nUsener, Professor, 128, 131, 133.\n\nUtilitarianism, 240, 242.\n\n\nValue, 7; literary and artistic, 8, 9; religious, 8, 9, 10, 107, 108,\n109; carries a reference to the future, 12; relative to a purpose or\nend, 13, 15; of literature and art, felt, not proved, 16, 17; of\nfetichism, 114, 115, 120; of fetichism and religion for society, 125;\nreligious, and fetichism, 127.\n\nVirgil, 54.\n\n\nWest Africa, 152, 153.\n\nWestermarck, E., 224, 225, 228, 235.\n\nWhistling, to produce a wind, 73, 74, 75.\n\nWill, the, 13.\n\nWill to injure, 81.\n\nWill to live, the, 41; involves the desire for immortality, 41;\ndenounced by Buddhism, 66.\n\nWind, 100, 101.\n\nWisdom, collective, of man, 237.\n\nWitch, and witch-doctor, 84.\n\nWitchcraft, 222, 227.\n\nWives, of hunters and warriors, 78.\n\nWohkonda, 143.\n\nWorship, 121, 122, 177, 180, 260; and the etymology of \"god,\" 133 ff.,\n137; of gods and of fetiches, 123, 134, 135; of the community, given to\nthe powers that protect it, 126; may break up, 170.\n\n\nXenophon, 171.\n\nXilonen, 190.\n\n\nYams, 93, 143, 180, 181.\n\nYebu, 147.\n\n\nZulus, 194.\n\n\n\n\nPrinted in the United States of America.","title":"An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":68356}