{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39511/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39511","id":"gutenberg_39511","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39511","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Magic","Psychology, Religious"],"text":"Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN\n\n  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN\n  AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n\n\n\nRELIGIONS: ANCIENT AND MODERN\n\nAnimism. By EDWARD CLODD, author of _The Story of Creation_.\n\nPantheism. By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON, author of _The Religion of the\nUniverse_.\n\nThe Religions of Ancient China. By Professor GILES, LL.D., Professor of\nChinese in the University of Cambridge.\n\nThe Religion of Ancient Greece. By JANE HARRISON, Lecturer at Newnham\nCollege, Cambridge, author of _Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion_.\n\nIslam. By the Rt. Hon. AMEER ALI SYED, of the Judicial Committee of His\nMajesty's Privy Council, author of _The Spirit of Islam_ and _Ethics of\nIslam_.\n\nMagic and Fetishism. By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S., Lecturer on Ethnology at\nCambridge University.\n\nThe Religion of Ancient Egypt. By Professor W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S.\n\nThe Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. By THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, late of\nthe British Museum.\n\nEarly Buddhism. By Professor RHYS DAVIDS, LL.D., late Secretary of The\nRoyal Asiatic Society.\n\nHinduism. By Dr. L. D. BARNETT, of the Department of Oriental Printed\nBooks and MSS., British Museum.\n\nScandinavian Religion. By WILLIAM A. CRAIGIE, Joint Editor of the _Oxford\nEnglish Dictionary_.\n\nCeltic Religion. By Professor ANWYL, Professor of Welsh at University\nCollege, Aberystwyth.\n\nThe Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland. By CHARLES SQUIRE, author of\n_The Mythology of the British Islands_.\n\nJudaism. By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, Lecturer in Talmudic Literature in Cambridge\nUniversity, author of _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_.\n\nThe Religion of Ancient Rome. By CYRIL BAILEY, M.A.\n\nShinto, The Ancient Religion of Japan. By W. G. ASTON, C. M. G.\n\nThe Religion of Ancient Mexico and Peru. By LEWIS SPENCE, M.A.\n\nEarly Christianity. By S. B. BLACK, Professor at M'Gill University.\n\nThe Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion. By Professor J. H. LEUBA.\n\nThe Religion of Ancient Palestine. By STANLEY A. COOK.\n\nMithraism. By W. J. PHYTHIAN-ADAMS.\n\n\nPHILOSOPHIES\n\nEarly Greek Philosophy. By A. W. BENN, author of _The Philosophy of\nGreece, Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century_.\n\nStoicism. By Professor ST. GEORGE STOCK, author of _Deductive Logic_,\neditor of the _Apology of Plato_, etc.\n\nPlato. By Professor A. E. TAYLOR, St. Andrews University, author of _The\nProblem of Conduct_.\n\nScholasticism. By Father RICKABY, S.J.\n\nHobbes. By Professor A. E. TAYLOR.\n\nLocke. By Professor ALEXANDER, of Owens College.\n\nComte and Mill. By T. WHITTAKER, author of _The Neoplatonists Apollonius\nof Tyana and other Essays_.\n\nHerbert Spencer. By W. H. HUDSON, author of _An Introduction to Spencer's\nPhilosophy_.\n\nSchopenhauer. By T. WHITTAKER.\n\nBerkeley. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER, D.C.L., LL.D.\n\nSwedenborg. By Dr. SEWALL.\n\nNietzsche: His Life and Works. By ANTHONY M. LUDOVICH.\n\nBergson. By JOSEPH SOLOMON.\n\nRationalism. By J. M. ROBERTSON.\n\nPragmatism. By D. L. MURRAY.\n\nRudolf Eucken. By W. TUDOR-JONES.\n\nEpicurus. By Professor A. E. TAYLOR.\n\nWilliam James. By HOWARD V. KNOX.\n\n\n\n\n  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN\n  AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n\n  By JAMES H. LEUBA\n  BRYN MAWR COLLEGE, U.S.A.\n\n\n  LONDON\n  CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD\n  10 AND 12 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE W.C.2\n  1921\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis little book, the last of a series of similar volumes each containing\nan exposition by a recognised authority of one of the many Religions the\nworld has known, might have been put with as much propriety at the head of\nthe series, there to show how Religion originated in the mind of man, what\nmental powers it presupposes, what is its nature and what its relation to\nthe non-religious life. But one is, no doubt, better able to take up\nprofitably these problems after having familiarised oneself with the\nseveral aspects of religious life. Therefore _The Psychological Origin and\nthe Nature of Religion_ was placed at the end, where it fulfils the\nadditional purpose of linking the concluded series of Histories of\nReligions with a cognate one, now being prepared by the same publishers,\non Ancient and Modern Systems of Philosophy.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAP.                                                             PAGE\n\n    I. THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION,                             1\n\n   II. THREE TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR DIFFERENTIATED,                       11\n\n  III. ORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF GHOSTS, NATURE-BEINGS, AND GODS,        39\n\n   IV. MAGIC AND RELIGION,                                            48\n\n       Magic classified,                                              49\n\n       Two Theses maintained: (1) the probable priority of Magic;\n       (2) the independence of Religion from Magic,                   53\n\n       Magic and Religion combine, but never fuse,                    65\n\n       What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion?           68\n\n       Magic and the Origin of Science,                               74\n\n    V. THE ORIGINAL EMOTION OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS LIFE,              80\n\n   VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE NATURE AND THE FUNCTION OF\n       RELIGION,                                                      87\n\n\n\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n\nThe opinions advanced in this essay and the arguments with which they are\nsupported will be more readily appreciated if the fundamental nature of\nReligion is set forth in a few introductory pages.\n\nThe students of Religion have usually been content to describe it either\nin intellectual or in affective terms. 'This particular idea or belief,'\nor 'this particular feeling or emotion,' is, they have said, 'the essence'\nor the 'vital element' of Religion. So that most of the hundreds of\ndefinitions which have been proposed fall into two classes. We have, on\nthe one hand, the definitions of Spencer, Max Mueller, Romanes, Goblet\nd'Alviella, and others, for whom Religion is 'the recognition of a\nmystery pressing for interpretation,' or 'a department of thought,' or 'a\nbelief in superhuman beings'; and, on the other, the formulas of\nSchleiermacher, the Ritschlian theologians, Tiele, etc., who hold that\nReligion is 'a feeling of absolute dependence upon God,' or 'that pure and\nreverential disposition or frame of mind we call piety.' According to\nTiele, 'the essence of piety, and, therefore, the essence of Religion, is\nadoration.'\n\nThe recent advance of psychological science and the increasingly careful\nand minute work of ethnographists have tended to discredit these one-sided\nconceptions. To-day it has become customary to admit that 'in Religion all\nsides of the personality participate. Will, feeling, and intelligence are\nnecessary and inseparable constituents of Religion.' But statements such\nas this one do not necessarily imply a correct understanding of the\nfunctional relation of the three aspects of psychic life. One may be\nacquainted with the three branches of government--legislative, executive,\nand judicial--and nevertheless grossly misunderstand their respective\nfunctions. Pfleiderer, for instance, hastens to add to the sentences last\nquoted, 'Of course we must recognise that knowing and willing are here\n[in religion] not ends in themselves, as in science and in morality, but\nrather subordinate to feeling as the real centre of religious\nconsciousness.' Thus feeling reappears as _the real centre_ of religious\nconsciousness. What the author may well have meant here by 'centre,' _I_\ndo not know. A similar criticism is applicable to Max Mueller and to Guyau.\nThe latter begins promisingly with a criticism of the one-sided formulas\nof Schleiermacher and of Feuerbach, and declares that they should be\ncombined. 'The religious sentiment,' says he, is 'primarily no doubt a\nfeeling of dependence. But this feeling of dependence really to give birth\nto Religion must provoke in one a reaction--a desire for deliverance.'\nVery good, indeed! But, on proceeding, the reader discovers that the\nopinion the book defends is that 'Religion is the outcome of an effort to\nexplain all things--physical, metaphysical, and moral--by analogies drawn\nfrom human society, imaginatively and symbolically considered. In short,\nit is a universal, sociological hypothesis, mythical in form.'[1] What is\nthis but once more the intellectualistic position? Religion arising from\nan effort to _explain_; Religion an _hypothesis_! It is Herbert Spencer\nover again with an additional statement concerning the way in which man\nattempts to explain 'the mystery pressing for interpretation.'\n\nIt must be admitted, however, that several of the more recent definitions\nhave completely broken with this bad psychology. Among these are those of\nJ. G. Frazer, of A. Sabatier, and of William James. The first understands\nby Religion 'propitiation, or conciliation of powers superior to man,\nwhich are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human\nlife.'[2] For A. Sabatier, Religion 'is a commerce, a conscious and willed\nrelation into which the soul in distress enters with the mysterious power\non which it feels that it and its destiny depend.'[3] William James\nexpresses his mind thus: 'In broadest and most general terms possible, one\nmight say that religious life consists in the belief that there is an\nunseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting\nourselves thereto. This belief and this adjustment are the religious\nattitude of the soul. In the ordinary sense of the word, however, no\nattitude is accounted religious unless it be grave and serious; the\ntrifling, sneering attitude of a Voltaire must be thrown out if we would\nnot strain the ordinary use of language. Moreover, there must be something\nsolemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate\nReligion. If glad, it must not grin or snigger; if sad, it must not scream\nor curse. The sallies of a Schopenhauer and a Nietzsche lack the\npurgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth. And finally we must\nexclude also the chilling reflections of Marcus Aurelius on the eternal\nreason, as well as the passionate outcry of Job.'[4]\n\nBut the battle against intellectualistic and affectivistic conceptions of\nReligion is not yet won. The recent definitions of Tiele and of Kaftan\nshow only too clearly how strong the tendency remains to identify Religion\nwith some feeling or emotion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the amazing discrepancies and contradictions offered by authorised\ndefinitions of Religion arise, in my opinion, primarily from a faulty\npsychology, a moment may profitably be devoted to an untechnical statement\nof the present teaching of that science upon the relation existing\nbetween the three acknowledged modes of consciousness--willing, feeling,\nand thinking.\n\nAristotle characterised man as _thinking-desire_. In swinging back from\nIntellectualism to Voluntarism, modern psychology has accepted the\nfundamental truth excellently expressed by the Greek philosopher. 'Will is\nnot merely a function which sometimes accrues to consciousness, and is\nsometimes lacking; it is an integral property of consciousness.'[5] Will\nwithout intelligence may be possible; but intelligence without will is\nnot, not even in the case of so-called disinterested, theoretical\nthinking. There is, there can be, no thinking without desire, intention,\nor purpose. 'The one thing that stands out,' says, for instance, Professor\nDewey, 'is that thinking is inquiry, and that knowledge as science is the\noutcome of systematically directed inquiry.' Thought absolutely undirected\nwould be not even a dream--mere meaningless, chaotic atoms of thought. It\nis _the intention_, _the purpose_, which makes thought what it is; that is\nto say, significant. We think because we will. Thought does not exist for\nitself; it is the instrument of desire. To discover ways and means of\ngratifying proximate or distant desires, needs, cravings, is the function\nof intelligence. The psychologist speaks, therefore, of the _instrumental_\ncharacter of thought, and considers cognition to be a function of conduct.\nThe mastery of desire over thought is abundantly illustrated in the\nhistory of belief, and nowhere so strikingly as in Religion.\n\nWith regard to the relation of feeling to the will and to the intellect,\nit is to be observed that where there is desire for an object, there\nliking is present; and, conversely, where there is liking, there actual or\npotential desire is felt. As to sentiments and emotions, they involve\nideas and conative elements in addition to sensations and feelings. An\nemotion is a reaction, the response of an organism to a situation. It is a\nform of action. Aristotle's characterisation of man is thus seen to be\nadequate; it does not leave out the feelings, as it might seem at first.\nThinking-desire includes the affection since it is included in desire.\nEvery pulse of consciousness is psychically compounded of will, feeling,\nand thought. Successive moments can differ one from the other neither in\nthe absence of one or two of these three constituents, nor in the\nessential relation they bear to one another--that is fixed and\nunchangeable--but only in the intensity and vividness of their respective\ncomponents. This, then, is the double teaching of psychology in this\nmatter:--(1) Will, feeling, and thought enter in some degree into every\nmoment of consciousness which can be looked upon as an actuality, and not\nmerely as an abstraction; they are necessary constituents of\nconsciousness. The unit of conscious life is neither thought, nor feeling,\nnor will, but all three in movement towards an object. (2) The will is\nprimal; or, in other words, conscious life is always oriented towards\nsomething to be secured or avoided immediately or ultimately.\n\nIf, with this conception in mind, we turn to Religion, we shall understand\nit to be compounded of will, thought, and feeling, bearing to each other\nthe relation which belongs to them in every department of life. And it\nwill, moreover, be clear that a purpose or an ideal, _i.e._ something to\nbe attained or maintained, must always be at the root of it. The outcome\nof the application of current psychological teaching to religious life is,\nthen, to lead us to regard Religion as a particular kind of activity, as a\nmode or type of behaviour, and to make it as impossible for us to identify\nit with a particular emotion or with a particular belief, as it would be\nto identify, let us say, family life with affection, or to define trade\nas 'belief in the productivity of exchange'; or commerce as 'greed touched\nwith a feeling of dependence upon society.' And yet this last definition\nis no less informing and adequate than the far-famed formula of Matthew\nArnold, which I forbear to repeat. We shall, however, have to remember\nthat Religion is multiform, and that certain ideas, emotions, and purposes\nappear in it prominently at certain moments, and other ideas, emotions,\nand purposes at other times. But neither prominence nor predominance is\nsynonymous with 'essence' or with 'vital element.'\n\nI do not intend, at this stage of our inquiry, to offer a complete\ndefinition of Religion. But I must guard against a possible\nmisinterpretation. In speaking of Religion as an activity, or as a type of\nbehaviour, I would not be understood to exclude from it whatever does not\nexpress itself in overt acts, in rites of propitiation, submission, or\nadoration. For, just as man's relations with his fellow-men are not all\ndirectly expressed, or expressible, in actions, so his relations with\ngods, or their impersonal substitutes, may not have any visible form; they\nmay remain purely subjective and none the less exercise a definite guiding\nand inspiring influence over his life.\n\nThe adjectives _passive_ and _active_ might be used to separate amorphous\nfrom organised Religion, _i.e._ the feeling-attitude from the behaviour.\n'Passive,' used in this connection, would mean simply that the person does\nnot actively seek those advantages the gods might procure, but is content\nto be acted upon by them.\n\n_Unorganised religiosity_ must be, it seems, the necessary precursor of\norganised Religion; it is its larval stage. But it does not by any means\ndisappear from society when a system of definite relations with gods, or\nwith impersonal sources of religious inspiration, has been developed. In\nall societies there is always a large number of people who live in the\nlimbo of organised Religion. They are open to the influence of religious\nagents, in which they believe more or less cold-heartedly, without ever\nentering into definite and fixed relations with them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHREE TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR DIFFERENTIATED\n\n\nIn his dealings with the different kinds of objects or forces with which\nhe is, or thinks himself, in relation, man has developed three distinct\ntypes of behaviour. A concrete illustration will bring them before us more\nforcibly than an abstract characterisation. A stoker in the hold of a\nship, throwing coal into the furnace, represents one of them. His purpose\nis to produce propelling energy. The amount of coal he shovels in,\ntogether with the air-draught, the condition of the boiler and other\nfactors of the same sort, determine, as he understands the matter, the\nvelocity of the ship. The same man, playing cards of an evening, and\nhaving lost uninterruptedly for a long time, might get up and walk round\nthe table backwards in order to change his luck. He would then illustrate\na second mode of behaviour. If a storm threatens to sink the ship, our\nstoker might be seen falling on his knees, lifting his hands to heaven,\nand addressing in passionate words an invisible being. These are the three\ndifferentiated kinds of responses he has learned to make, the three ways\nby which he endeavours to make use of the forces about him in his struggle\nfor the preservation and the enrichment of life. We may designate them\nas--\n\n    1. The mechanical behaviour.\n\n    2. The coercitive behaviour, or Magic.\n\n    3. The anthropopathic behaviour, which includes Religion.\n\nThe mechanical behaviour differs from the anthropopathic by the absence of\nany reference to personal beings. In the sphere in which it obtains,\nthreats and presents are equally ineffective. It implies instead the\npractical--not the theoretical--recognition of a fairly definite and\nconstant quantitative relation between cause and effect. If science is to\nbe provided with an ancestor, and only with one, it should be this first\ntype of behaviour rather than Magic. For, the moment the existence of the\nfixed quantitative relations, implicitly acknowledged in the first type of\nbehaviour, is explicitly recognised, science is born. Magic separates\nitself, on the one hand, from the mechanical behaviour by the absence of\nimplied quantitative relations, and, on the other hand, from\nanthropopathic behaviour by the failure to use means of personal\ninfluence; punishment and reward are just as foreign to Magic as to\nmechanical behaviour. As to the anthropopathic type of activity, it\nincludes the ordinary relations of men with men as well as those with\ngods. One's frame of mind and behaviour when dealing with a human person,\nespecially if exalted far above us, resembles Religion so closely that it\nis proper to place them in the same class.\n\nMechanical behaviour and Religion are, obviously, by far the most common\nand important modes of activity among civilised peoples, whereas in\nprimitive culture the coercitive behaviour (Magic) is everywhere in\nevidence and Religion may be practically unknown. As one ascends from the\nlowest stages of culture, Magic gradually loses official recognition.\nAmong us, though it leads only a surreptitious existence, it has by no\nmeans lost all influence. The list of magical superstitions that have\nretained a hold among us would be found tediously long. A numerous class\nof them includes the gambler's methods of securing luck. So-called\n'religious' practices may really be magical. The cross, the rosary,\nrelics, and other accessories of Religion, acquire in the mind of many\nChristians a power of the coercitive type; that is, for instance, the case\nwhen the sign of the cross, of itself, without the mediation of God or\nSaint, is felt to have power; or when 'saying one's beads' is held to\npossess a curative virtue of the kind ascribed to sacred relics by the\nsuperstitious. Even when the symbolism of the sign of the cross, and the\nmeaning of the _Ave Maria_ are realised, it happens not infrequently that\nsigning oneself and saying one's beads are regarded as acting upon the\nVirgin Mary, Jesus Christ, or God, in the manner of an incantation _i.e._\nmagically.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt has been the habit of most students of the origin of Religion to\nconcern themselves exclusively with the origin of the god-idea, as if\nbelief in the existence of gods was identical with Religion. They have\nignored its other essential components: the motives or desires and the\nfeelings, as well as the means by which, in Religion, the gratification of\ndesire is sought. But the limitation of the problem of origin to that of\nthe god-idea is not entirely amiss. For there are neither specifically\nreligious motives, nor specifically religious feelings. Any and every\nhuman need and longing may, at some stage or other, become a spring of\nReligion, and conversely the feelings and emotions met with in any form of\nReligion appear also in non-religious experience. As to the practical\nmeans of securing the favour of the gods, it is agreed that they were at\nthe beginning essentially the same as those men were already in the habit\nof using in their relations with their fellow-men. It is the Agent or the\nPower with which man thinks himself in relation, and through whom he\nendeavours to secure the gratification of his desires, which alone is\ndistinctive of religious life. And so the origin of the idea of gods,\nthough not identical with the origin of Religion, is at any rate its\ncentral problem.\n\nIn the preceding remarks, as also in practically all writings on the\norigin of Religion, it is assumed that the god-concept precedes, in the\nmind of man, the establishment of Religion. This opinion is, as we shall\nsee, the correct one. But it cannot be taken as a matter of course.\nActions may become established in other ways. Our first problem is to\ndiscover how Religion arose, and what psychological capacities and\nconceptions it implies.\n\nA comparative study of the three modes of behaviour is, after all, the\nshortest way of gaining a satisfactory understanding of the origin of\nReligion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_What are the abstract conceptions necessary to the establishment of the\nthree modes of behaviour?_--There is usually little difficulty in\ndetermining what end any particular action is intended to secure. It is\nquite otherwise if one wishes to ascertain the nature of the power from\nwhich the desired effect is supposed to proceed. The philosopher,\nsuffering from the illusion to which his class is subject, is in danger of\nimagining the presence of highly abstract notions where much simpler\nmental processes actually take place. A comparatively easy way of getting\noneself disentangled from these high-flown interpretations and of\nascertaining what is the intellectual minimum really involved in these\ntypes of behaviour, is to examine them in the least developed men known to\nus, or, better still--if they are to be found there--among animals. Let us\naccordingly turn for a moment to animal behaviour with the intention of\ndetermining what ideas of power, or of agency, are involved in their modes\nof action, and thus take a preliminary step towards the solution of our\nproblem.\n\nApes, dogs, beavers, in fact all the higher animals, show by their\nbehaviour a 'working understanding' of the more common physical forces.\nThey estimate weight, resistance, heat, distance, etc., and adapt their\nactions more or less exactly to these factors when climbing, swinging at\nthe end of boughs, breaking, carrying, etc. I remember observing a\nchimpanzee trying to recover a stick which had fallen through the bars of\nhis cage and rolled beyond the reach of his arm. He looked around, walked\ndeliberately to the corner of the cage, picked up a piece of burlap, and\nthrew the end of it over the stick. Then, pulling gently, he made the\nstick roll until near enough for him to get hold of it with his hand. This\nape dealt successfully with physical forces. Towards animals and men,\nanimal behaviour is quite different. A dog will beg from a man; he will\nnot beg from a ham suspended out of his reach. Towards animals and men,\nanimal behaviour is similar to that of men when dealing with invisible\nanthropopathic beings.\n\nOne may well believe that the inner experiences of animals differ in these\nmodes of behaviour as much as their external movements. The feelings and\nemotions which appear in a dog's intercourse with his master are of the\nsame species, if not of the same variety, as those felt by man when he\ndeals with his fellow-men and with superhuman beings. Certain highly\ngifted animals feel blame and approbation, independently of physical\npunishment or reward, and attach themselves to their masters with a\ndevoted affection possessing all the marks of altruism. The higher animals\ndo, then, without any doubt, practise both the mechanical and the\nanthropopathic types of behaviour, but they exercise the latter only\ntowards _actually present_ persons or animals. We shall have to consider\nsubsequently the significant psychological difference to which this fact\npoints.\n\nBut, is there no trace in animal life of the coercitive behaviour? I know\nof none, though some perplexity might be caused by certain reactions\nanimals learn under the tuition of man. What shall be said, for instance,\nof a dog who has learned to raise its forepaws when he wishes to be\nliberated from confinement under circumstances making the person causing\nthe door to open invisible to him? Is this magical behaviour? There is\ncertainly no quantitative nor any qualitative relation between lifting up\nthe forepaws and the opening of a door, neither is there any visible\ncontinuity between cause and effect. That the dog's action is not\ndetermined, in this instance, in the same way as that of a magician,\nappears when it is observed that whereas the latter would perform the same\nmagical rite in a great variety of external circumstances, the dog will\nseek liberation by lifting its paws only when in the particular cage in\nwhich he has learned the trick, or in one very much like it.[6] But more\nabout this presently. It is not to be overlooked that without the\ninterference of man, the dog would never have learned to perform this\nquasi-magical trick. This illustration serves, if no other purpose, at\nleast to indicate how apparently slight is the impediment which prevents\nthe higher animals from setting up a magical art.\n\nIt may be a matter for astonishment that two complicated and effective\nmodes of reaction are arrived at by animals in the absence of abstract\nideas about forces. Yet so it is; before any speculation on power, before\nany induction or deduction, before any abstract notion of the nature of\nspirit and matter, animals have learned to deal quite well with what we\ncall physical and personal forces. How did they do it? The study under\nexperimental conditions of the establishment of new reactions in animals\nreveals the process very clearly. Imagine a cat shut up in a cage, the\ndoor of which can be opened by pressing down a latch. When weary of\nconfinement the cat begins to claw, pull, and bite, here, there, and\neverywhere. After half an hour, or an hour of this purposive, but\nunreasoned, activity, he chances to put his paw upon the latch and\nescapes. If again put into the cage, he does not seem to know any better\nthan before how to proceed. Yet something has been gained by the first\nexperience. For now he directs his clawing, pulling, and biting more\nfrequently towards the part of the cage occupied by the latch. Because of\nthis improvement he finds himself released sooner than the first time. The\nrepetition of the experiment shows the cat learning to bring his movements\nto bear more and more exclusively upon the door or its immediate\nsurroundings. Ultimately he will have learned to make just the necessary\nmovement and no other. In this gradual exclusion of useless movements, the\ncat is guided entirely by results. The psycho-physiological endowment\nrequired for acquisitions of this kind involves no abstract ideas but only\n(1) the desire to escape; (2) the impulse and ability to perform the\nvarious movements we have named; (3) an indefinite remembrance of the\nposition occupied when success was achieved, combined with a tendency to\nrepeat the same movements when in the same situation.\n\nThe method illustrated above by which animals learn to deal with forces in\nthe midst of which they live has a much wider range of application in\nhuman existence than is generally supposed. Man's fundamental mode of\nlearning is also the unreflective, experimental, one in which frequent\nblind attempts and chance successes slowly lead to the elimination of\nineffective movements. Would you convince yourself of the vastly\nexaggerated role ascribed to abstract ideas and to logical processes in\nordinary human behaviour, inquire how 'power' is conceived of by those who\nuse it. What is in the mind of the stoker when he thinks of the power of\ncoal? What in the mind of the gambler when he tries to coerce fate? What\nin the mind of the necromancer when he summons the shades of spirits?\nNothing definite beyond a knowledge of what is to be done in order to\nsecure the desired results and the anticipation of these results them\nselves. The stoker thinks of what he sees and feels: the coal, in burning,\ngives heat; the heat makes the water boil; the steam pushes the\npiston-rod, and so forth. Each one of the successive links in the chain is\nvaguely thought of by him as striving to bring about the following one.\nThat is how he understands the coal-power. And what does the ordinary\nperson know, for instance, about electricity? Simply what is to be done in\norder to start the dynamo, light the lamp, switch the current, and what\nthe effect will be in each case, nothing more. The superstitious person,\nwhether belonging to a primitive tribe or to the Anglo-Saxon civilisation\nof the twentieth century, understands in no other than this practical way\nthe forces he deals with. I remember the delight shown by an elderly lady\nwhen a brood of swallows fell down our sitting-room chimney. 'It will\nbring luck to the household,' said she. I did my best, patiently and in\nseveral ways, to ascertain the sort of notion the lady had regarding the\nnature of the power that was to bring about the fortunate events\npredicted, and also to discover her idea of the connection existing\nbetween the fall of the swallows and the exertion of the 'power' in our\nbehalf. I had to come to the conclusion that there was no idea whatsoever\nin her mind beyond those expressed by 'swallows-down-the-chimney' and\n'happy-events-coming.' These two ideas were in her mind directly\nassociated. When I declared my inability to see the causal connection\nbetween the two, she complained of my abnormal critical sense! Nothing\nmore than the immediate association of an antecedent with its consequent\nneed be looked for in the mind of most civilised, superstitious persons,\nand, of course, nothing more in the mind of a savage. That is sufficient\nfor practical purposes.\n\nThe words 'matter' and 'spirit' wield a very considerable influence among\nus; what do they mean to most of those who use them? Physical science\nascribes either extension alone, or extension and weight, to physical\nsubstances. Non-material forces are, then, according to science, both\nspaceless and weightless. I will venture to affirm that not one educated\nperson in a thousand is acquainted with this distinction. Most of the few\nwho have known it have forgotten it. So that the words 'matter' and\n'spirit' mean different things to the philosopher and to the layman. In\nthe popular mind, if spirits are not perceptible it is because the senses\nare not sufficiently acute. Spirits are here or there, diffused over wide\nareas or concentrated in narrow spaces. The average Christian, whatever he\nmay say to the contrary, is, theoretically speaking, a materialist, and, I\nmight add, a polytheist. Whatever matter and spirit mean to him, and they\ncertainly have a substantial meaning, the distinction made by the\nphilosopher is for him non-existent. The following facts may be of some\ninterest in this connection. A few years ago, in a conversation with a\nshop-clerk, I happened to mention a lead coffin made hermetic with solder.\nHe was shocked, and objected to a dead body being shut up in a coffin of\nthat description because it prevented the escape of the soul. This man had\nhad an ordinary grammar-school education. Here are two quotations taken\nfrom answers of American College students to questions requesting a\ndescription of their idea of God. It should be added that the questions\nwere given only to classes which had not yet taken up, or were just\nbeginning the study of philosophy. 'God, to me, is a being of flesh and\nblood, for without this form he would seem unnatural and unsympathetic as\nour leader.' (Female, twenty years old.)--'I think of God as real, actual\nflesh and blood and bones, something we shall all see with our eyes some\nday.' (Male, twenty-one years old.) Together with these, and from the same\nclasses of students, came a great number of very different answers; for\ninstance this, 'God is an impersonal being.... I think of him as the\nembodiment of natural laws.' Descartes' conception may serve as a point of\ncomparison: 'What the soul itself was, I either did not stay to consider,\nor, if I did, I imagined that it was something extremely rare and subtle,\nlike wind or flame, or ether, spread through my grosser parts.'[7]\n\nIf the philosophical distinction between matter and spirit is not\nordinarily made, these terms express none the less a very definite\npractical meaning of prime importance: they mark the difference between\nforces that are not responsive to psychic influences (desire and emotion,\nethical and aesthetic considerations) and those that are.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe trial-and-error method which serves to establish the efficient modes\nof behaviour observed in animals is so far reaching in its possibilities\nthat one might be tempted to regard it as accounting for the existence of\nMagic and of Religion. Were this theory tenable, the origin of the three\nmodes of human behaviour would have been brought back to one method of\nlearning, the unreasoning, trial-and-error method. But even a superficial\nconsideration discovers insuperable obstacles in the way of this\nenticingly simple explanation, and compels the admission that magical art\nand Religion involve the operation of mental powers not required for the\nestablishment of the mechanical, and of the non-religious anthropopathic\nbehaviours.\n\nThe first of the two differences I intend to bring out, is that if a\nparticular action is to be learned by an animal, the gratification of the\nactuating desire must follow immediately, or nearly so, upon the\nperformance of the successful act, and be frequently repeated at short\nintervals; whereas in man, as far as Magic and Religion are concerned, the\nresults may follow quite irregularly upon the performance, often only long\nafter, and, not infrequently, not at all. Had not the door opened every\ntime the cat pressed the latch, but, let us say, only once every ten\ntimes, or, if every time, one week after the movement, he would never\nhave learned to make his escape. No more would he have acquired the trick,\nhad he not been placed in the cage repeatedly and at short intervals. An\ninteresting instance of the gradual undoing of a habit in consequence of\nthe absence of the sensory results for the sake and under the guidance of\nwhich the action had been learned, is reported by Lloyd Morgan.[8] He had\nbrought up in his study a brood of ducks. They had had a bath every\nmorning in a tin tray. After a while, the tray was placed empty in its\naccustomed place. The ducks got into it and went through all their\nordinary ablutions. The next day, they again enjoyed the missing water,\nbut not as long as on the first day. On the third day they gave up the\nuseless practice of bathing in an empty tray.\n\nIn three days ducklings eliminate a habit which has become useless,\nwhereas generations after generations of men have gone through\ninnumerable, time-wasting, often costly and painful ceremonies for results\nrarely secured, and, as we think, never directly secured by the magical or\nthe religious ceremonies themselves. There is here a curious point of\npsychology: animals establish habits under the guidance of immediate\nresults while man develops the magical art and Religion _despite_ the\nusual absence of the results sought after. The very possibility of\ndeceiving himself reveals the superiority of man over animals, for\nself-deception requires a degree of independence from sense-observation, a\ncapacity of constructive imagination, a susceptibility to auto-suggestion,\nnot to be found in animals. That the first glimmer of these capacities\nshould have plunged man in the darkness of primitive Magic and Religion,\nand made him the ridiculous fool he appears to be by the side of the\nmatter-of-fact, intelligent animal is, however, a very striking and\nsingular fact.\n\nIf the constant and immediate appearance of the desired results does not\nseem necessary to the establishment of Magic and Religion, it should not\nbe thought, however, that these arts are altogether useless. On the\ncontrary, they are, even independently of the results at which they aim,\nof a most substantial value to the cause of individual and social\ndevelopment. Let it be said first, concerning the expected results, that\nthey happen more frequently, perhaps, than I may have seemed to imply.\nWhen, for instance, the rain ceremonies are performed during a spell of\ndry weather, success, more or less distant, always crowns the efforts of\nthe magicians: the rain does come and the earth does bring forth its\nfruits. The ceremonies for the healing of disease are often followed by\nthe recovery of the patient, however absurd the treatment may have been.\nOne should not forget, in this connection, the considerable effect of\nsuggestion upon the credulous savage. Many cures are, no doubt, performed\nin this manner by the medicine-man. Davenport, speaking of tribes of Puget\nSound, says: 'Their cure for disease consists in the members of the cult\nshaking in a circle about a sick person, dressed in ceremonial costume.\nThe religious practitioner waves a cloth in front of the patient, with a\ngentle fanning motion, and, blowing at the same time, proceeds to drive\nthe disease out of the body, beginning at the feet and working upward. The\nassistant stands ready to seize the disease with his cloth when it is\ndriven out of the head! And they are able to boast of many real cures.'[9]\nA psychologist is not inclined to doubt the report of Curr, that among the\naborigines of Victoria persons who knew themselves to have been devoted to\ndestruction with magical ceremonies have pined away and died,[10] nor\nthat of Howitt, who, alluding to the habit of the medicine-men of certain\ntribes to knock a man insensible in order to remove the kidney fat for\nmagical purposes, writes, 'In the Kurnai tribe men have died believing\nthemselves to have been deprived of their fat.'[11]\n\nBut the intended results form only a part, and that perhaps not the most\nimportant, of the gains to be credited to the practice of Magic and of\nReligion. The most noteworthy of these unsought by-products are:--(1) The\ngratification of the lust for power. The Magician and the Priest are\nmediators between superior, mysterious powers and their fellow-men. The\nsense of mastery over, or communion with, these powers, and the respect\nand fear with which Magicians and Priests are regarded, are, of\nthemselves, almost sufficient to keep up these practices.(2) Both these\nmodes of behaviour, but especially Magic, appeal to the gambling instinct.\nAll men crave excitement; the savage is no exception. In the daring game\nin which the rain-maker or the disease-healer engages, the high tension\nof the gambling-table is, to a certain extent, present. (3) Less obvious,\nperhaps, than the preceding advantages, but not less valuable, is the\ngeneral mental stimulation induced by Magic and Religion. Magic is the\ngreat social play of the savage. If animal plays serve a highly valuable\npurpose in affording practice in sense-observation and motor-co-ordination,\nMagic makes its chief call upon the imagination; in this consists one of\nits most far-reaching values. It becomes a training for the achievement of\nthose higher mental syntheses requiring the momentary disregard of the\nactual sense-impressions, from which it is so difficult to liberate\noneself, in behalf of the accumulated experience of a whole life.\n\nThe second objection to the assumption that the trial-and-error method\ncould have led to the establishment of magical and religious habits arises\nfrom the inability of animals to act towards unperceived objects as if\nthey were actually present. A dog never welcomes by gambols or licks the\nhand of an absent friend, while Religion, and at times Magic, show\nprimitive man in more or less systematic relations with powers he has\nnever sensed. When the Shaman draws lines upon the sand, describes\nvarious curves with his arms, utters sundry incantations, he does not\naddress a power he perceives, nor even one he has really seen, although he\nmay believe that he, or some one else, has seen it. That animals are moved\nto action by memories of past perceptions, is, of course, not open to\ndoubt. Their whole life is a long testimony to that ability. Any one will\nrecall instances of chains of concerted actions indicating clearly, on the\npart of some one of the higher animals, domesticated or wild, the\nanticipation of a particular person, object, or event. What they never do,\nis to behave as if the remembered object was really present, though not\nsensed. H. Spencer, discussing adversely A. Comte's opinion that\nfetichistic conceptions are formed by the higher animals, relates the\nfollowing observation concerning a retriever who had learned for herself\nto perform an 'act of propitiation.' She had associated the fetching of\ngame with the pleasure of the person to whom she brought it, and so,\n'after wagging her tail and grinning, she would perform this act of\npropitiation as nearly as practicable in the absence of a dead bird.\nSeeking about, she would pick up a dead leaf, a bit of paper, a twig, or\nother small object, and would bring it with renewed manifestations of\nfriendliness. Some kindred state of mind it is which, I believe, prompts\nthe savage to certain fetichistic observances.'[12] So far the dog could\ngo, but she could not have imagined the presence of an unseen being and\nbehaved towards him in the same manner. Another significant point is that\nthe absent objects towards which animals may direct their actions are\nalways, so far as one may judge, identical with those actually sensed by\nthem at some time, _i.e._ their behaviour never shows that they have\ntransformed, imaginatively, objects with which their senses have made them\nfamiliar. Whereas man can not only believe in the presence of unseen\nobjects, but he can also imagine beings never actually sensed by him, and\nbehave towards them according to the traits and capacities with which he\nhas endowed them.\n\nThere are observations on record which compel the qualification of the\nassertion, I may have seemed to make in the preceding paragraph, of a\nclean break between man and animals. Certain dogs are thrown into\nparoxysms of fear by peals of thunder, and run into hiding. Darwin relates\nhow his dog, 'full grown and very sensible,' growled fiercely and barked\nwhenever an open parasol standing at some distance was moved by a slight\nbreeze. He is of the opinion that the dog 'must have reasoned to himself,\nin a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent\ncause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no\nstranger had a right to be on his territory.'[13] Romanes, in a short and\ninteresting paper entitled 'Fetichism in Animals,'[14] after reporting the\npreceding illustration, relates this observation touching a remarkably\n'intelligent,' 'pugnacious,' and 'courageous' dog. 'The terrier [Skye] in\nquestion, like many other dogs, used to play with dry bones, by tossing\nthem in the air, throwing them to a distance, and generally giving them\nthe appearance of animation, in order to give himself the ideal pleasure\nof worrying them. On one occasion, therefore, I tied a long and fine\nthread to a dry bone, and gave him the latter to play with. After he had\ntossed it about for a short time, I took an opportunity, when it had\nfallen at a distance from him, and while he was following it up, of gently\ndrawing it away from him by means of the long and invisible thread.\nInstantly his whole demeanour changed. The bone which he had previously\npretended to be alive, now began to look as if it really were alive, and\nhis astonishment knew no bounds. He first approached it with nervous\ncaution as Mr. Spencer describes, but as the slow receding motion\ncontinued, and he became quite certain that the movement could not be\naccounted for by any residuum of the force which he had himself\ncommunicated, his astonishment developed into dread, and he ran to conceal\nhimself under some articles of furniture, there to behold at a distance\nthe uncanny spectacle of a dry bone coming to life.' Certain instances of\ninstinctive fear of harmless things may help to interpret the preceding\nobservations. G. Stanley Hall mentions a little girl who would scream when\nshe saw feathers floating through the air. To keep another child in a\nroom, it was sufficient to place a feather in the keyhole.[15]\n\nShall we hold that these animals interpreted the unusual experiences\nreported above as the work of hidden beings of the kind known to them, or\nshall we agree rather with Lloyd Morgan, Romanes, Spencer, and others, in\nthinking that their behaviour indicated merely surprise, astonishment, and\nfear at the unexpected movements of familiar objects? That explanation is\nprobably sufficient. The failure of an object to fit in with the\npsycho-physiological attitude of expectation which past experience has\ntaught us to assume brings about the sudden disturbance called surprise,\nastonishment, or fear. It is in substance what would happen to any person\nif, on opening his bed in the dark, his hands came in contact with some\nobject concealed in it. Personalisation of the unexpected object is not\nnecessary to cause fright. And yet, who shall say that in none of these\ninstances is there anything corresponding to the anthropomorphic\ninterpretation of natural event so common among men of low culture? Does\nnot the growling of Darwin's dog indicate as much? It would seem to me an\nunjustifiably dogmatic assertion to affirm that no animal can think of\nthunder as caused by a being like those with which his senses have made\nhim familiar. Were he to do so, he would do as the savage who projects his\nordinary notion of animated beings behind inanimate phenomena. Creative\nimagination is not any more required for such an interpretation than for\nthe belief in survival after death when it is suggested by apparitions in\ndreams or trances. It is quite in point, at any rate, to affirm that man\nand beasts are much nearer to each other, regarding the possibility of\ninterpreting animistically certain striking natural events, than most\npeople are willing to admit.\n\nThe most significant difference between men and animals is not found in\nthe fact that animals may be unable to interpret animistically certain\nstriking natural phenomena--an opinion open to question--but in their\ninability to _fix_ by means of communicable signs any fleeting animistic\ninterpretation which might chance to cross their mind. Without the\nadvantage conferred by speech, upon even the lowest savages, to hold,\nclarify, keep alive, and bring to fruition impressions of this evanescent\nnature, I do not see how a stable belief in animism could have been\nestablished. The decisive role played by language appears forcibly when\none considers the part it takes in introducing dream experiences into\nwaking life. The baffling evanescence of dreams caught sight of on\nawakening is familiar to every one. Unless one succeeds in putting them in\nlinguistic form they are soon completely lost; verbal expression makes\nthem part and parcel of our mental possessions.\n\nThe mental differences between man and the higher animals to which the\npresence of Magic and Religion is to be referred, are not in themselves\nstartling, however considerable their consequences may have been.\nPsychological analysis leaves absolutely no standing ground to those who\ninsist upon interpreting the advent of Religion as the manifestation of\nessentially new kinds of powers, of the birth of a 'spiritual life,' for\ninstance. We hope to have made clear that the use of this term in this\nconnection constitutes a misrepresentation of the facts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF GHOSTS, NATURE-BEINGS AND GODS\n\n\nEvery savage tribe known to us has already passed beyond the naturistic\nstage of development. The living savages believe in ghosts, in spirits,\nand all of them, perhaps, also in particular spirits elevated to the\ndignity of gods. Whence these ideas of unseen personal beings? They may be\ntraced to four independent sources.\n\n(1) _States of temporary loss of consciousness--trances, swoons, sleep,\netc._--seem in themselves sufficient to suggest to ignorant observers the\nexistence of 'doubles,' _i.e._ of beings dwelling within the body,\nanimating it, and able to absent themselves from it for a time or\npermanently. These alleged beings have been called 'ghosts' or 'souls.'\nThe belief in a second life of the dead would also spring easily enough\nfrom these observations.\n\n(2) _Apparitions in sleep, in the hallucinations of fever, of insanity,\netc._, of persons still living or dead, seem also sufficient to lead to a\nbelief in ghosts and in survival after death.\n\nThese two distinct classes of facts have no doubt co-operated in the\nproduction of the belief in ghosts, so that I shall refer to them in the\nsequel as the double origin of the ghost-belief. Echos, and reflections in\nwater and in polished surfaces may have played a subsidiary role in\nestablishing, or confirming, the belief in ghosts and in spirits.\n\n(3) When discussing animal behaviour, we saw reasons to admit that a\nfleeting personification of objects moving in an unusual way might be\nwithin the mental possibilities of the higher animals. The third\nindependent source of belief in unseen personal agents is _the spontaneous\npersonification of striking natural phenomena, storms, tornadoes, thunder,\nsudden spring-vegetation, etc._ The report of Tanner[16] that one night\nPicheto (a North American Chief), becoming much alarmed at the violence of\na storm, got up, offered some tobacco to the thunder and entreated it to\nstop, should not excite surprise even though it should refer to the\nlowest savage. There is, of course, a long way between the sudden,\ntemporary, and isolated personification of a natural phenomenon and the\nstable and generalised belief in the existence of personal agents behind\nvisible nature. What we mean to assert here is merely that the\nsystematised belief can have arisen out of the impulsive and occasional\npersonification of awe-striking and frightening spectacles.\n\n(4) Many persons have observed with surprise the apparition in young\nchildren of the problem of creation. A child notices a curiously-shaped\nstone, and asks who made it. He is told that it was formed in the stream\nby the water. Then, suddenly, he throws out, in quick succession,\nquestions that are as much exclamations of astonishment as queries, 'Who\nmade the stream, who the mountain, who the earth?' _The necessity of a\nMaker is, no doubt, borne in upon the savage at a very early time_, not\nupon every member of a tribe, but upon some peculiarly gifted individual,\nwho imparts to his fellows the awe-striking idea of a mysterious,\nall-powerful Creator. The form under which the Creator is imagined is, of\ncourse, derived from the beings with which his senses have made the savage\nfamiliar.\n\nIn what chronological order did the three kinds of unseen beings appear?\nWhich was first: ghosts, nature-beings, or creator? Our present knowledge\ndoes not provide an answer to this query. But this one may venture to\naffirm: they need not have appeared in the same order everywhere. It is\nconceivable that among certain groups of men the idea of a creator first\nattained clearness and influence, while elsewhere the idea of ghosts\nimplanted itself before the others.\n\nA question of greater importance to the student of the origin of Religion\nis that of the lineage of the first god or gods, _i.e._ of the first\nunseen, personal agents with whom men entered into relations definite and\ninfluential enough to deserve the name Religion. Are they descended from\nghosts, or are they nature-beings, or creators? I say, 'descended' from\nghosts, for ghosts have not, originally, all the qualities required of a\ndivinity. They are at first hardly greater than men, though somewhat\ndifferent. They must be magnified and differentiated from human beings if\nthey are to generate the religious attitude. A comparison of the\ndouble-source of the ghost-belief with the source of the belief in\nnature-beings suggests the following remarks. Phenomena belonging to\nclasses one and two necessarily lead to a belief in unseen _man-like_\nbeings. The familiar relation of ghosts with the tribe, and also the great\nnumber of them, offer a definite resistance to the process of deification.\nIt is otherwise with the personified nature-powers, for they are not\nnecessarily, like ghosts, mere dead men in another life. In conceiving of\nan agent animating nature, the imagination is not limited to the thought\nof a particular human being, not even of a human being at all. The thunder\nmight be the voice of some monstrous animal. The surpassing variety, the\nmagnitude and magnificence of nature, stimulate the imagination into more\noriginal activity than the apparitions of men and women in dreams or in\ntrances. For these reasons, if the choice was between ghosts and\nnature-beings, it would be advisable to favour the hypothesis that the\nfirst gods were derived from the spontaneous personification of striking\nnatural events. But the idea of a creator must take precedence of ghosts\nand nature-beings in the making of Religion, for a world-creator possesses\nfrom the first the greatness necessary to the object of a cult, and the\ncreature who recognises a creator can hardly fail to feel his relationship\nto him. A Maker cannot, moreover, be an enemy to those who issue from\nhim, but must, it seems, appear as the Great Ancestor, benevolently\ninclined towards his offspring. Incomparable greatness, creative power,\nbenevolence, are as many attributes favourable to the appearance of a\nReligion in the high sense which, as we shall see, W. Robertson Smith\ngives to the word.\n\nThe order in which appeared the three kinds of unseen agents is of\nconsiderable importance, for if, for instance, the ghost-belief was first,\nit seems unavoidable that ghosts should have been projected into natural\nobjects and used to explain natural phenomena. It is a task for the\nhistorian of Religion to trace the rise of the idea of God in its several\npossible sources, and to indicate in each particular case the contribution\nof each source to the making of the earliest gods.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Belief in the existence of unseen, anthropopathic beings is not\nReligion._ It is only when man enters into relation with them that\nReligion comes into existence. The passage from the animistic\ninterpretation of nature, or from the mere belief in ghosts, or in a\ncreator, to Active Religion is not to be taken as a matter of course, for\nit may require on the one hand, as we have said, a transformation of the\nman-like or animal-like unseen beings, such as will make entering into\nrelation with them possible and worth while, and, on the other, the\ninvention of ways and means to that end, or, at least, the adaptation of\nold habits of behaviour to the requirements of the new relation. The\nslowness with which our modern ritual has been envolved should be\nsufficient to undeceive any one inclined to think that the establishment\nof the initial religious rites presented no difficulty.\n\nThat a belief in ghosts may coincide with only a pre-religious stage of\nculture is not a mere supposition. There are tribes in South-East\nAustralia among which it is customary to make fires in the graves, and to\nplace in them water, food, and weapons. Yet we are told that these people\nhave no system of propitiation or of worship. It appears probable that in\ncertain instances of this sort, the only motive of action is benevolence.\nThey wish the ghost to be able to warm himself, eat, drink, and defend\nhimself against enemies. At times, however, the promptings of fear are\ndiscernible, as, for instance, when the legs of the corpse are broken in\norder that he may not roam at night. It seems that originally ghosts are\nnot endowed with sufficient mischievous or benevolent power to cause the\nappearance and the organisation of propitiatory reactions. But even when\nsome particular ghost or spirit has been fabled into awe-striking\nmagnitude, systematic worship is not necessarily present. How far the\ndeification process can go without bringing with it active relations, is\nwell shown in the case of the 'Father' of the tribes of South-East\nAustralia. Different tribes call him by different names, _Daramulun_,\n_Baiame_, etc. Howitt tells us that Daramulun is an anthropomorphic,\nsupernatural being who used to dwell upon the earth, but now lives in a\nland beyond the sky. He can make himself visible, and then appears in the\nform of an old man of the Australian race. 'He is imagined as the ideal of\nthose qualities which are, according to their standard, virtues worthy of\nbeing imitated. Such would be a man who is skilful in the use of weapons\nof offence and defence, all-powerful in magic, but generous and liberal to\nhis people; who does no injury nor violence to any one, yet treats with\nseverity any breaches of custom or of morality. Such is, according to my\nknowledge of the Australian tribes, their ideal of the Head-man, and\nnaturally it is that of the Biamban, the master of the sky-country.' Now,\ndespite their belief in this definite, powerful, and benevolent Father,\n'there is not any worship of him'; but 'the dances round the figure of\nclay and the invocating of his name by the medicine-men, certainly might\nhave led up to it.'[17] For my part, I see here an instance of what I have\ncalled _Passive Religion_. The point of special interest to us is that\nnothing more than these simplest of rites co-exists with the belief in a\nbeing so definite and elevated so high above ordinary spirits and above\nman as is this All-Father of the Australians.\n\nIt seems highly probable that for generations the relations maintained\nwith ghosts, nature-beings, and creators, by primitive man were too\noccasional and unofficial to permit of our regarding them as anything more\nthan steps preliminary to the formation of Positive Religion.\n\nRites and ceremonies serve, in addition to their ostensible purpose, to\ncomplete the work of fixation begun by language. It is only when a belief\nhas become embodied in a system of actions that it has attained the full\nmeasure of reality and durability of which it is capable.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nMAGIC AND RELIGION\n\n\nIn the preceding section, I have compared animal with human behaviour in\nan attempt to single out the psychological traits whose presence in man\naccounts for his possession of Religion and of Magic. I must now complete\nthe characterisation and the account of the origin of these two higher\ntypes of behaviour.\n\nThe relation obtaining between Magic and Religion has been variously\nunderstood. Most authorities hold that Magic preceded Religion, and that\nthey are in some way genetically related. In the following pages we shall\nargue in support of two opinions: (1) the primary forms of Magic probably\nantedated Religion; (2) whether Magic antedated Religion or not, Religion\narose independently of Magic; they are different in principle and\nindependent in origin.\n\nBut the word Magic includes an almost endless number of practices so far\nquite inadequately classified. We cannot go on without first marking out\nat least its more prominent groups. And since the common bond of these\npractices is neither a common purpose (Magic serves to gratify every kind\nof desire), nor a common method (the magician's methods are literally\nnumberless), but the non-personal nature of the power pressed into\nservice, we shall make use of this last element as a means of\nclassification. Three groups are thus obtained.\n\n=Magic classified.=--_Class 1_ is characterised by the absence of any idea\nof a power belonging to the operator or his instrument and passing from\neither one of them to the object of the magical art. To this class belong\nmany instances of so-called sympathetic Magic;[18] a good many of the\ntaboo customs; most charms; the casting of lots, when a spirit or god is\nnot supposed to guide the cast; most modern superstitions, those, for\ninstance, regarding Friday, the number thirteen, horse-shoes, planting\nwhen the tide is coming in. In these instances the effect is thought of\nas following upon the alleged cause, without the mediation of a force\nconceived as passing, let us say, from the warm arrow to the wound and\nirritating it. The idea of power is reduced here to its least possible\ncomplexity.\n\n_Class 2._ A power, not itself personal, is supposed to belong to the\nmagician, to his instrument, or to particular substances, and to pass\ninto, or act upon, the object. Howitt relates how some native Australians\nbegged him not to carry in a bag containing quartz crystals a tooth,\nextracted at an initiation ceremony. They thought that if he did so, the\nevil power of the crystals would enter the tooth and so injure the body to\nwhich it had belonged.[19] The potency of many charms is of this nature,\nwhile others have a fetichistic significance, _i.e._ they involve the\naction of spirits, and so do not belong to this class. Rubbing oneself\nwith, or eating the fat, or another portion, of a brave and strong man in\norder to make oneself courageous and powerful, belongs also to this second\nclass, together with most instances of contagion-magic. So does, usually,\nthe power defined in the following passage and the similar powers believed\nin and used in other than Melanesian populations: 'That invisible power\nwhich is believed by the natives to cause all such effects as transcend\ntheir conception of the regular course of nature, and to reside in\nspiritual beings, whether in the spiritual part of living men or in the\nghosts of the dead, being imparted to them, to their names and to various\nthings that belong to them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of\nall sorts, is that generally known as _mana_.... No man, however, has this\npower of his own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings,\nghosts or spirits; he cannot be said, as a spirit can, to be _mana_\nhimself ... he can be said to have mana.'[20]\n\n_Class 3._ Perhaps a special class should be made of the cases in which\nthe magician feels as if his will-effort was the efficient factor. This is\noften true of spells, of incantations, and of solemn curses. A man\naddressing the magical spear, saying, 'Go straight, go straight and kill\nhim,' feels no doubt that, somehow, by the words in which quivers his\nwhole soul he directs the spear on its errand of death.\n\nThough Magic does not make an anthropopathic appeal it may, and frequently\ndoes, bring to bear its peculiar coercitive virtue upon anthropopathic\nbeings. It aims then at compelling souls, spirits or gods, into doing the\noperator's will, or in preventing them from doing their own. In\nnecromancy, spirits are summoned by means of spells and incantations. In\nold Egypt the art of dealing coercitively with spirits and gods reached a\nhigh development. Maspero, speaking of a strange belief regarding names,\nsays, 'when the god in a moment of forgetfulness or of kindness had taught\nthem what they wanted [the sacred names], there was nothing left for him\nbut to obey them.'[21] At Eleusis, it was not the name but the intonation\nof the voice of the magician which produced the mysterious results.[22]\nBut whether Magic acts upon personal or impersonal objects, its effective\npower is ever impersonal.\n\nI would not give the impression in this attempt at classification, that\nthe conceptions of the savage are clear and definite. I hold them to be,\non the contrary, hazy and fluid. What appears to him impersonal one moment\nmay suddenly assume the characteristics of a spirit. _Mana_, for\ninstance, although usually an impersonal force stored into plants, stones,\nanimals or men, assumes at times truly personal traits; it becomes the god\nhimself. One should not be surprised to meet with cases that fall between\nrather than in the classes, for the sharp lines of demarcation it suits us\nto draw are not often found in nature.\n\nAnd now we return to our two theses.\n\n=1. The Probable Priority of Magic.=--Certain historical facts might be\nheld to support the pre-religious origin of Magic. As one descends from\nthe higher to the lower social levels, Religion dwindles and Magic grows.\nIn the lowest societies of which we have extensive and accurate knowledge,\nthe Central Australian tribes, Religion is represented by mere rudiments,\nwhereas Magic is everywhere and always in evidence. I have had occasion in\na preceding section to quote Howitt with regard to the slight role played\nby Religion among the South-East Australians. The presence of Religion in\nthe lives of the tribes inhabiting the central portions of Australia is\nstill less obvious. Frazer reflects the views of Spencer and Gillen, of\nHowitt, and probably of every recent first-hand student of that country,\nwhen he writes: 'Among the aborigines of Australia, the rudest savages as\nto whom we possess accurate information, Magic is universally practised,\nwhereas Religion, in the sense of a propitiation or conciliation of the\nhigher powers, seems to be nearly unknown. Roughly speaking, all men in\nAustralia are magicians, but not one is a priest; everybody fancies he can\ninfluence his fellows or the course of nature by sympathetic magic, but\nnobody dreams of propitiating gods by prayer and sacrifice.'[23] If we may\ntrust our knowledge of other savages, the general fact thus affirmed of\nthe native Australians holds good with regard to every other uncivilised\ntribe.\n\nBut as the least civilised of existing tribes are far from being\n'primitive' in the true sense of the word, it could be argued that Magic\nis, after all, the outcome of the corruption of a primitive Religion, of\nwhich almost nothing remains in the savage tribes of the present day. And\nso we shall have to rest our case not upon historical evidences, but upon\nconsiderations regarding the psychological nature of Magic and Religion,\nand upon analogies we may discover between them and certain facts\nobserved in children and in adults of uncivilised races.\n\nIn his attempt to support the belief in the priority of Magic, Frazer, who\nhas put every student of Religion in his debt by his monumental work,\naffirms its greater simplicity when compared with Religion. The opinion\nitself is tenable, but the defence of it, made as it is from the\nstandpoint of the old English associationism, is unfortunately worthless.\n'Magic,' he tells us, 'is nothing but a mistaken application of the very\nsimplest and most elementary process of the mind, namely, the association\nof ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity,' while 'Religion assumes\nthe operation of conscious or personal agents, superior to man, behind the\nvisible screen of nature. Obviously the concept of personal agent is more\ncomplex than a simple recognition of the similarity or contiguity of\nideas.... The very beasts associate the ideas of things that are like each\nother or that have been found together in their experience.... But who\nattributes to the animals a belief that the phenomena are worked by a\nmultitude of invisible animals or by one enormous and prodigiously strong\nanimal behind the scenes?'[24] It is undoubtedly true that the mind of\nman tends to pass from an object to others like it, or experienced at the\nsame time, but this psychological fact does not in itself account for\nMagic. The mind of animals is regulated in a similar manner. In\nspring-time the sight of a feather makes the bird think of nest-building,\nand the smell and sight of his master's coat brings the master to the\ndog's mind. Yet animals do not practise the magical art. This fact should\nbe sufficient to make one realise the insufficiency of 'a simple\n[mistaken] recognition of the similarity and contiguity of ideas' as an\nexplanation of the origin of Magic. An animal might observe the\ncolour-likeness between carrots and jaundice (not, however, unless\npractical dealings with them had attracted his attention to the colour),\nand 'coat' and 'master' might follow each other in a dog's mind. But in\norder to treat the coat as he would the master, and in order to eat\ncarrots or give them to be eaten for the cure of jaundice, there is\nrequired, in addition to the association, the belief that whatever is done\nto the coat will be suffered by the master, and that the eating of carrots\nwill cure the disease. It is the existence of these ideas with their\nmotor and affective values and of their dynamic connection which makes\nMagic possible in beings subject to the laws of association. This\nfundamental difference between mere association of ideas and the essential\nmental processes involved in Magic, Frazer has completely overlooked. The\ndifference may be further illustrated by the instance of a dog biting in a\nrage the stick with which he is being beaten. He is indeed doing to the\nstick what he would like to do to the man. But in attacking the stick he\ndoes not conceive that, although the stick is not the man, the injury done\nto it will hurt the man. His action is blindly impulsive, while the form\nof Magic in question involves generalisations and other mental processes\nnot expressed by the laws of association.[25]\n\nIf magical actions cannot be deduced from the principle of association,\nthey can at least be classified according to the kind of association they\nillustrate. For, although the various ideas brought together in Magic, in\na relation of cause and effect, are frequently said to have come together\nby 'chance,' some of the conditions under which they have in fact become\nconnected are expressed in the universal laws of association, namely,\nassociation by similarity or contrast, by contiguity or spatial\nopposition, and by emotional congruity or disparity. Whenever magical acts\nhave been classified, it has been according to the principle of\nassociation.[26] But every kind of activity involving mental operations\nfalls in some of its relations under the laws of association, hence the\nrelative unfruitfulness of these classifications, hence also our attempt\nat grouping magical practices according to a factor of greater\nsignificance, namely, the nature of the power they involve.\n\n=2. The Independence of Religion from Magic.=--The following psychological\narguments appear to me to go a long way towards proving that _magical\nbehaviour has had an origin independent of the animistic[27] belief_, and\nthat some of its forms, at least, antedated it, and therefore also\nReligion:--\n\n(_a_) The absorbing interest found by young children in the _use_ of\nthings, and their complete indifference at first to the _modus operandi_,\npoint, it would seem, to a stage in human development at which the\nexplanation of things is not yet desired. It is well known that long\nbefore a child asks 'how?' he wearies his guardians with the question,\n'what for?'[28] He wants to know what things are good for, and, in\nparticular, what _he_ can do with them before he cares for an\nunderstanding of their origin, and of their mechanism. This keen interest\nin the production of results, this curiosity about the practical meaning\nof things, is apparently quite independent of any abstract idea of power.\nSince the child passes through a pre-interpretative stage, may we not\nadmit a corresponding period in racial development during which no\nexplanatory soul-theory, no animistic philosophy, is entertained? A mental\nattitude such as this would make Religion impossible, while it would\nprovide the essential condition for a Magic of our first class.\n\n(_b_) Children--and adult savages resemble children in many respects--like\nto amuse themselves by setting up prohibitions and backing them up with\nthreats of punishment. 'If you do this,' they will say, 'that will happen\nto you.' The 'this' and the 'that' have usually no logical connection with\neach other, neither is there in the mind of the child any thought of a\nparticular kind of power, or agent, meting out the punishment. This kind\nof play is strikingly similar to a large number of magical practices. Can\nit not be regarded as the prototype of most taboo customs? In taboo there\nis usually no logical and no qualitative relation between the prohibition\nand the punishment. Neither is there, ordinarily, any notion of a\nparticular agent carrying out the threat. It involves, it seems, nothing\nmore than the assumption of a causal connection between two facts brought\ntogether by 'chance' association under the pressure of a desire for food\nor success at war, or for the enforcement of a rule of conduct.[29] The\npunishment announced is anything on the efficacy of which one may choose\nto rely. In Madagascar conjugal fidelity is enforced by the threat that\nthe betrayed husband will be killed or wounded in the war; among the\nindigenous tribes of Sarawak, the belief is that the camphor obtained by\nthe men in the jungle will evaporate if the women are unfaithful during\nthe absence of their husbands, while in East Africa, the husband would, in\nthe same eventuality, be killed or hurt by the elephant he is hunting.[30]\nThe high sanction which the requirements of social life give to beliefs of\nthis sort is readily understood.\n\n(_c_) It is a fact of common observation that in passionate moments, men\nof every degree of culture act, in the absence of the object of their\npassion, more or less as if it was present. A man grinds his teeth, shakes\nhis fist, growls at the absent enemy; a mother presses to her breast and\ntalks fondly to the departed babe. The pent-up motor tendencies must find\nan outlet. To restrain every external sign of one's desires or intentions\nwhen under great emotional excitement is unendurable pain. By the sick-bed\nof one beloved, one must do something, however useless to him. Who shall\nsay that we do not have in this natural tendency the origin of the large\nclass of magical acts represented by sticking pins into, or burning, an\neffigy? The less a person is under the control of reason, the more likely\nis he, not only to yield to promptings of this order, but also to be\nseduced by his wish into a belief in their efficacy.\n\nIf any one finds it difficult to admit that the savage can so easily be\ndeceived, I would direct his attention to the well-known instances of\nchildren's self-deceptions. Most of them behave, at a certain age, as if\ntheir dolls were alive and, to all appearances, there are some moments\nwhen they think so. What they think at other moments is another matter. We\nneed not suppose that the savage cannot take, at times, a critical\nattitude and perhaps undeceive himself. It is sufficient that at other\nmoments, when under the pressure of needs or in the excitement\naccompanying ceremonies of considerable social significance or of much\npersonal importance, he should be able to assume the attitude of the\nbeliever. The behaviour of certain mentally deranged persons throws some\nlight on this point. Such a person may believe that his hands are always\ndirty and be constantly washing them. If reasoned with, he may perhaps be\nconvinced that they cannot be dirty. Yet a few seconds later he will\nexclaim, 'But I feel they are dirty,' and return to the wash-basin. The\nsavage is under the control of his impulses and feelings to a degree\napproaching that of the person instanced. In this connection, the effect\nof repetition, and of the tribal sanction obtained by magical customs,\nshould not be overlooked. They tend to make doubt and criticism next to\nimpossible.\n\nWhat need is there in cases of this kind to introduce a middle term\nbetween the actions of the magician and their expected effect? None\nwhatsoever. The thought of an efficient agent or power passing out of the\nmagician or of his instrument to work upon the victim is no necessary part\nof this type of Magic.\n\n(_d_) The belief at the root of a great variety of magical practices, that\n'like' produces 'like,' may have arisen in still other ways than the one\njust indicated. Nothing is more common than the invisible passage of\nthings, be they heat, cold, light, thunderbolt, odours, diseases, etc.,\nfrom one person or object to another, either by contact or through space.\nThe frequent instances of diseases spreading by infection among men,\nanimals, and vegetables, seem in themselves sufficient to suggest the\nbelief that 'like' produces 'like.' The idea of contagion must have\nappeared very early indeed. Now, as the savage is quite unable to\ndistinguish between the different agencies involved in the variety of\nexperiences of this sort, he cannot draw the line between the 'likes' that\nreally produce 'likes' and those that do not; hence his very strange\nexpectations. This class of Magic also is independent of the conception of\nan agent effecting the connection between the objects related as cause and\neffect.\n\nSince Tylor wrote his memorable work, the doctrine of animism has become\nclassical. This passage from _Primitive Culture_,[31] 'What men's eyes\nbehold is but the instrument to be used, or the material to be shaped,\nwhile behind it there stands some prodigious but half-human creature, who\ngrasps it with his hands or blows it with his breath,' expresses, no\ndoubt, fairly correctly, a very early philosophy of life. I would not\nobject even to its being termed the earliest philosophy, provided it be\ngranted that the progress of the human race was already well under way\nwhen it appeared. But when it is assumed, as it is by many, that the\nanimistic conception of nature is necessary to, and antedates, the\nestablishment of Magic, I must dissent and affirm that a very large number\nof magical practices neither presuppose, nor in any way involve, a belief\nin animism, and that there are good reasons for considering them\noriginal, _i.e._ not corruptions of practices primitively implying that\nbelief. So much I trust to have shown in the preceding pages.[32]\n\nI do not in the least deny that some of the magical practices in existence\nare derived from actions of a different character. Many of the\n'superstitions' of civilised countries have had a long history. Several of\nthe marriage customs; for instance, the cutting of the cake by the bride,\nand the lifting of the bride over the threshold, are vestiges of actions\nonce necessary or useful.[33] But it would be absurd to conclude from the\nexistence of derived magical practices that Magic, as a whole, is to be\naccounted for on a theory of 'lapsed intelligence.'\n\n=Magic and Religion combine but never fuse.=--When ghosts and\nnature-beings have become mental possessions of the savage, one may expect\nthe sphere of Magic to extend so as to include these unseen, mysterious\nbeings. Why should not the magical power take effect upon ghosts and gods\nas well as upon men? The savage, like everybody else, is anxious to use\nevery available means to secure his preservation and his advancement. Why\nthen should he not use both Magic and the offering of food? From the\nmoment Religion appears, until the efficiency of Magic is totally\ndiscredited, we may expect to find these two modes of behaviour associated\nin men's dealings with gods, except, however, where the god is clearly\nthought of as a world-creator. For the savage could hardly have the\npresumption of attempting to control a power he recognises as the maker of\nthe human race and of the world. Here are two instances of the combination\nof Magic with Religion. 'In the Babar Archipelago, when a woman desires to\nhave a child, she invites a man, who is himself the father of a large\nfamily, to pray on her behalf to Upulero, the spirit of the sun. A doll is\nmade of red cotton, which the woman clasps in her arms, as if she would\nsuckle it. Then the father of many children takes a fowl and holds it by\nthe legs to the woman's head, saying, \"O Upulero, make use of the fowl;\nlet fall, let descend a child, I beseech you, I entreat you, let a child\nfall into my hands and on my lap.\" Then he asks the woman, \"Has the child\ncome?\" and she answers, \"Yes, it is sucking already.\"... Lastly, the bird\nis killed, and laid, together with some betel, on the domestic plate of\nsacrifice....'[34] In this ceremony prayer and sacrifice to a god are\nassociated with magical practices of a mimetic and sympathetic character.\nIn a large number of ceremonies, the god is dealt with religiously in\norder to secure from him 'power,' and then Magic is added to make the\npower effective. In old Egypt one of the formulas according to which the\nhelp of gods was secured began with an appeal to them under their popular\nnames. It was a prayer which they were free to heed or to neglect. Then\nfollowed, in order to compel them to act, an adjuration introducing the\nmystical names, 'those written at birth in their heart by their father and\nmother.'[35] The magician not only claimed the power to force the gods to\ndo his bidding, but also, in case of disobedience, to punish them, even by\ndestruction. Remnants of magical dealings with gods are found even in the\nChristian Religion, if we are to believe the authors quoted by Frazer.[36]\nMagic and Religion are so closely interwoven in the life of peoples of\nlow culture that some authors have affirmed the impossibility of\nseparating them. Their affirmation need not be contradicted unless it be\nintended to mean that originally they were one and the same thing. However\nclosely interwoven they may be, Magic and Religion remain distinct, as in\nthe above instances. One might say, borrowing the language of the chemist,\nthat they do not form compounds, but only mixtures.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion? Frazer's\nTheory.=--Our conclusions are, so far, that Magic has had an independent\norigin, that it very probably antedated Religion, and that they associate\nfor common purposes without ever fusing, for they are referable to\ndifferent principles. Are we, then, driven to the opinion that even though\nMagic should have antedated Religion and been often combined with it in\ncommon undertakings, it has, nevertheless, contributed in no way to the\nestablishment of Religion? That conclusion is not unavoidable. Frazer's\nconception presents an alternative which, however, we cannot accept. As he\nrecognises not only a fundamental distinction, but even an opposition of\nprinciple between Magic and Religion, he cannot think of allowing the\nformer a positive influence in the establishment of Religion. Yet he\nadmits a genetic relation between them: it is, according to him, the\nrecognition of the failure of Magic that is the cause of the worship of\ngods. 'I would suggest,' writes Frazer, 'that a tardy recognition of the\ninherent falsehood and barrenness of Magic set the more thoughtful part of\nmankind to cast about for a truer theory of nature and a more fruitful\nmethod of turning her resources to account.' When man saw that his magical\nactions were not the real cause of the activity of nature, it occurred to\nhim that, 'if the great world went on its way without the help of him or\nhis fellows, it must surely be because there were other beings, like\nhimself, but far stronger, who, unseen themselves, directed its course and\nbrought about all the various series of events which he had hitherto\nbelieved to be dependent on his own Magic.... To these mighty beings,\nwhose handiwork he traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of\nnature, man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his dependence on\ntheir invisible power, and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him\nwith all good things.... In this, or some such way as this, the deeper\nminds may be conceived to have made the transition from Magic to\nReligion.'[37] Several obvious objections may be raised against this view.\nI would remark first of all that Frazer does not discredit the sources of\nthe belief in ghosts and in nature-beings mentioned in the preceding\nsection: sleep and trances; apparitions; the impulse to personify great\nand startling natural phenomena; the idea of creation. His hypothesis of\nthe origin of Religion is, therefore, superfluous, unless he could show\nthat the transition from Magic to Religion took place in the manner he\nsuggests before the experiences and reflections we have named had given\nrise to the idea of god.\n\nThe assumption on which Frazer's hypothesis rests, namely, that sagacious\nmen of wild races persuaded themselves and their fellows of the\ninefficiency of Magic, seems clearly contradicted by the history of the\nrelation of Magic to Religion, and also by the psychology of belief. On\nthe latter ground, he may justly be accused of attributing neither enough\ninfluence to the will to believe nor to the support it receives from the\nmany apparent or real successes of Magic. These successes, with the help\nof the several ways of accounting for failures without giving up the\nbelief,[38] were in my opinion sufficient to support a belief in the\nefficiency of Magic until long after the birth of Religion. Is not that\nthe conclusion we must draw from the recent spread of the spiritualistic\nmovement, not only among the untutored, but even among representatives of\nour higher culture? The late gains of spiritism have been made despite\nnumberless failures, the repeated discovery of deception, and the\nsatisfactory scientific explanation of a large proportion of the alleged\nspiritistic facts, and thanks merely to a desire to believe, and to a few\nquestionable facts not readily explained by accepted hypotheses. To\nsuppose that before ghosts and nature-beings had been thought of and made\ngreat enough to exercise a practical influence upon men's conduct, there\nhad existed, in the barbarous circumstances implied in the supposition,\npersons so keenly observant, so capable of scientific generalisation, and\nso free from the obscuring influences of passion as to be able to reject\nthe many instances of apparent success of Magic, is to posit a miracle\nwhere a satisfactory natural explanation already exists.\n\nIn _Magic and Religion_, Andrew Lang directs a vigorous and successful\nattack upon Frazer's hypothesis.[39] A part of his argument, based on\ngenerally accepted historical data, is summarised in this passage: 'If we\nfind that the most backward race known to us believes in a power, yet\npropitiates him neither by prayer nor sacrifice, and if we find, as we do,\nthat in many more advanced races in Africa and America, it is precisely\nthe highest power which is left unpropitiated, then we really cannot argue\nthat gods were first invented as power who could give good things, on\nreceipt of other good things, sacrifice and prayer.'[40] He remarks, in\naddition, that although one would not expect people who had recognised the\nuselessness of Magic and turned to gods, to continue the development of\nthe magical art, yet, in order to find the highest Magic one has to go to\nno less a civilisation than that of Japan, where gods are plentiful.\n\nAlthough the hypothesis that gods and Religion are the consequence of the\nrecognition of the failure of Magic, must be rejected, it does not follow\nthat two modes of activity in the service of common purposes, as are Magic\nand early Religion, do not act upon each other in many ways. If Magic was\nfirst in the field, we may believe that the satisfaction it gave to man by\nits results, apparent and real, and in providing him with a means of\nexpressing his desires, tended to retard the establishment of any other\nmethod of securing the same ends. The habit of doing a thing in a\nparticular manner always stands more or less in the way of the discovery\nof other ways of doing the same thing. So that Magic was, in these\nrespects, a hindrance to the making of Religion. There is, however, a\ngrain of truth in Frazer's hypothesis. Had Magic completely satisfied\nman's multifarious desires, he would, in all probability, have paid but\nscant attention to the gods, for it is in times of trial that man turns to\nthem. It was thus greatly advantageous to the making of Religion that the\ninadequacy of Magic should have been felt. Moreover, Magic exercised, in\nways mentioned before, a very considerable influence on the general mental\ngrowth of savage populations; in this sense also it may be said to have\nhelped Religion.\n\nIn a penetrating comparison of Magic with Religion, Marett[41] points out\nhow easily our third class of Magic--Spell-Magic--assumes 'the garb of an\naffair between persons,' and thus approaches very close to Religion. But\neven when Magic involves the 'projection of an imperative will,' the\nfundamental difference between the two modes of behaviour remains quite\ndistinct. In ancient Peru, when a war expedition was contemplated, they\nwere wont to starve certain black sheep for some days and then slay them,\nuttering the incantation, 'As the hearts of these beasts are weakened, so\nlet our enemies be weakened.' If this utterance is to be regarded as\nexpressing an attempt to project the operator's 'will' upon the enemies,\nwe are clearly in the realm of pure Magic. But if it is to be understood\nas addressed to a personal being, it is a prayer, and then we deal with an\ninstance of the combination of Magic with Religion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Magic and the Origin of Science.=--A common opinion has it that Magic and\nnot the mechanical type of behaviour is the precursor of science. Before\nbringing this chapter to a close, we shall try and determine in what\nsense this statement is to be understood.\n\nThe reader will remember that after discriminating roughly, in the\nintroduction, the three modes of behaviour observable in man, I added that\nthe anthropopathic behaviour becomes Religion when it is directed to gods,\nand the mechanical becomes science when the principle of quantitative\nproportion it implies is definitively recognised. Frazer, who sets forth\nin his great book the magical origin of science, may stand as the\nrepresentative of that theory. 'Magic,' he tells us, 'is next of kin to\nscience,' for science 'assumes that in nature one event follows another\nnecessarily and invariably without the intervention of any special\nspiritual or personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception is identical\nwith that of modern science; underlying the whole system is a faith,\nimplicit, but real and firm, in the order and uniformity of nature ... his\npower [the magician's], great as he believes it to be, is by no means\narbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly\nconforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the laws of\nnature as conceived by him.... Thus the analogy between the magical and\nthe scientific conception of the world is close. In both of them the\nsuccession of events is perfectly regular and certain, being determined by\nimmutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated\nprecisely.'[42] Upon this I observe, first, that the acknowledgment of a\nfixed relation between actions or beliefs and their results is not\npeculiar to Magic; it is implied also in Religion and, more perfectly, in\nmechanical behaviour. Salvation is by the right practice, or by the right\nfaith, or both. The gods cannot be approached and conciliated in _any_\nway; worshipper, no less than magician, has to conform to a definite\nritual. In certain not entirely barbarous communities salvation or\ndamnation is held to follow, respectively, belief or disbelief in no less\nthan thirty-nine articles! So that 'definite and certain succession of\nevents,' their determination 'by immutable laws' to the elimination of\ncaprice, chance, or accident, are expressions which apply, on the whole,\nas well to Religion as to Magic. These phrases do not denote a kinship of\nMagic to Science, which could not be claimed also by Religion.\n\nTurning to another side of the matter, we observe that Frazer finds it\nconvenient to minimise, in this connection, the considerable share of the\npersonal, _i.e._ of the capricious, the incalculable, in Magic. The\npersonality of the magician introduces an indeterminate and undeterminable\nfactor about which enough has been said in preceding sections. Nothing\ncould be in more direct antagonism to the scientific attitude than these\ntwo factors: the influence accorded to the personality of the magician and\nthe belief in occult powers belonging to particular objects and events. So\nthat it is truer to the facts to say that the fundamental conception of\nscience, so far from being identical with that of Magic, is absent from\nit. For the essential presupposition of science--the one that\ndifferentiates it alike from Magic and from Religion--is the\nacknowledgment of definite and constant _quantitative_ relations between\ncauses and effects, relations which completely exclude the personal\nelement and the occult. If that scientific presupposition is absent from\nMagic and from Religion, it is implicitly present in mechanical behaviour.\nThe savage is nearer the scientific spirit and its method when he\nconstructs a weapon to fit a particular purpose, or when he adjusts his\nbow and his arrow to the direction and the strength of the wind, than\nwhen he burns an enemy in effigy, abstains from sexual intercourse to\npromote success in the hunt, or exorcises diseases.\n\nWhat magic shares with science is not the belief in the fundamental\nprinciple we have named, but the desire to gain the mastery over the\npowers of nature and the practice of the experimental method. The\nexperimentation of Magic is, however, so limited and so unconscious that\nit can hardly be assimilated to the modern scientific method. If any one\nwere to turn to history for an argument in support of the thesis defended\nby Frazer, and point out that the alchemist is the lineal ancestor of the\nscientist, the sufficient answer would be--(1) Historical succession does\nnot imply continuity of principle. Although Magic, Alchemy, and Science\nform an historical sequence, the fundamental principle of the last is not\nto be found in the others. (2) The clear recognition of the principle of\nfixed quantitative relations is, whenever and wherever it appears, the\nbirth of Science and the death of both Magic and Alchemy. This last fact\ndemonstrates clearly the fundamental enmity of these arts to the\nscientific principle.\n\nThe discovery of the scientific principle was probably almost as much\nhindered by the false notions and the pernicious habits of mind\nencouraged by Magic, as furthered by the gain in general mental activity\nand knowledge which it brought about. Magic, no more than Religion,\nencourages the exact observation of external facts, but rather\nself-deception with regard to them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE ORIGINAL EMOTION OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS LIFE\n\n\nThe failure to recognise in Religion three functionally related\nconstituents--conation, feeling, and thought--is responsible for a\nconfusing use of the term 'origin.' Some have said that Religion began\nwith the belief in superhuman, mysterious beings; others that it had its\norigin in the emotional life, and these usually specify fear; while a\nthird group have declared that its genesis is to be found in the\nwill-to-live. At this stage of our inquiry the reader realises no doubt\nthat these three utterances are incomplete, inasmuch as each one of them\nexpresses either the origin, or the original form, of only one of the\nconstituents of Religion.\n\nI have in the preceding sections dealt with the establishment of the\nreligious attitude or behaviour and, afterwards, more specifically, with\nthe origin of the god-idea. The space at my disposal does not allow me to\nsay anything regarding the rise of the methods by which man entered in\nrelation with the divine beings in whom he believes. For the same reason,\nI shall have to be very brief in dealing with the original emotional form\nof Religion.\n\nTwo opposed opinions divide the field. The more widely held is that fear\nis the beginning of Religion; the other, accepted by a small but weighty\nminority, that it has its origin in a 'loving reverence for known gods.'\nWe shall have little difficulty in arriving at an understanding of the\nmatter in which these two views, instead of opposing, supplement each\nother. The origin of the two emotions mentioned, fear and love, fall, of\ncourse, outside the limits of this essay, since they both existed before\nReligion.\n\n'Fear begets gods,' said Lucretius. Hume concluded that 'the first ideas\nof religion arose ... from a concern with regard to the events of life and\nfears which actuate the human mind.' A similar opinion is maintained by\nmost of our contemporaries. Among psychologists, Ribot, for instance,\naffirms that 'the religious sentiment is composed first of all of the\nemotion of fear in its different degrees, from profound terror to vague\nuneasiness, due to faith in an unknown, mysterious, impalpable Power.'[43]\nThe fear-theory is well supported by two classes of interdependent facts\nobserved, we are told, in every uncivilised people: (1) Evil spirits are\nthe first to attain a certain degree of definiteness; (2) man enters into\ndefinite relations first with these evil spirits. If the reader will refer\nto _The Origin of Civilisation_ by Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), 3rd\ned., pp. 212-215, he will see there how widely true is the opinion\nexpressed by Scheinfurth:--'Among the Bongos of central Africa good\nspirits are quite unrecognised, and, according to the general negro idea,\nno benefit can ever come from a spirit.' In many other tribes the good\nspirits are known, but the savage always 'pays more attention to\ndeprecating the wrath of the evil than securing the favour of the good\nbeings.' The tendency is to let alone the good spirits, because, being\ngood, they will do us good of themselves, just as evil spirits do us harm\nunsolicited.\n\nShall we, then, admit the fear-origin of Religion? Yes, provided it be\nunderstood that fear represents only one of the three constituents of\nReligion, that it is not in virtue of a particular quality or property\nthat fear is the primitive emotional form of Religion, and that this\nadmission is not intended to imply the impossibility of Religion having\never anywhere begun with aggressive or tender emotions. Regarding the\nsecond reservation, it should be understood that the making of Religion\nrequires nothing found in fear that is not also present in other emotions.\nIf aggressive emotions are not conspicuous at the dawn of Religion, it is\nonly because it so happens that the circumstances in which the least\ncultured peoples known to us live are such as to keep fear in the\nforeground of consciousness. Fear was the first of the well-organised\nemotional reactions. It antedated the human species, and appears to this\nday first in the young animal, as well as in the infant. No doubt, before\nthe protective fear-reaction could have been established, the lust of life\nhad worked itself out into aggressive habits, those for the securing of\nfood, for instance. But these desires did not, as early as in the case of\nfear, give rise to any emotional reaction possessing the constancy,\ndefiniteness, and poignancy of fear. The place of fear in primitive\nReligion is, then, due not to its intrinsic qualities, but simply to\ncircumstances which made it appear first as a well-organised emotion\nvitally connected with the maintenance of life. It is for exactly the same\nreason that the dominant emotion in the relations of uncivilised men with\neach other, and still more evidently so, of wild animals with each other,\nis usually that of fear.\n\nWhen I said that fear need not have been the original religious emotion, I\nhad in mind the possibility of groups of primitive men having lived in\ncircumstances so favourable to peace and safety that fear was not very\noften present with them. This is not a preposterous supposition. Wild men\nneed not, any more than wild animals, have found themselves so situated as\nto be kept in a constant state of fright. If the African antelope runs for\nits life on an average twice a day, as Francis Galton supposes, the wild\nhorse on the South American plains, before the hunter appeared on his\npastures, ran chiefly for his pleasure. Travellers have borne testimony to\nthe absence of fear in birds inhabiting certain regions. But, it may be\nasked, would Religion have come into existence under these peaceful\ncircumstances? A life of relative ease, comfort, and security is not\nprecisely conducive to the establishment of practical relations with gods.\nWhy should happy and self-sufficient men look to unseen, mysterious beings\nfor an assistance not really required? Under these circumstances the\nunmixed type of fear-Religion would never have come into existence.\nReligion would have appeared later, and from the first in a nobler form.\nIn such peoples a feeling of dependence upon benevolent gods, regarded\nprobably as Creators and All-Fathers, eliciting admiration rather than\nfear or selfish desire, would have characterised its beginnings. This\npossibility should not be rejected _a priori_.\n\nThe other theory is well represented by W. Robertson Smith. He denies that\nthe attempt to appease evil beings is the foundation of Religion. I quote:\n'From the earliest times religion, as distinct from magic or sorcery,\naddresses itself to kindred and friendly beings, who may indeed be angry\nwith their people for a time, but are always placable except to the\nenemies of their worshippers or to renegade members of the community. It\nis not with a vague fear of unknown powers but with a loving reverence for\nknown gods who are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship,\nthat religion, in the only sense of the word, begins.'[44] One may agree\nwith Robertson Smith without denying that certain practices intended to\navert impending evils preceded the establishment of affectionate relations\nwith benevolent powers. As a matter of fact, our author admits this fully.\nWhat he denies is that the attempt to propitiate, in dread, evil spirits,\nis Religion. It cannot be doubted that the inner experience as well as\nthe outer attitude and behaviour of a person are substantially different\nwhen he seeks to conciliate a radically evil being and when he communes\nwith a fundamentally benevolent one. Yet in both cases an anthropopathic\nrelation with a personal being is established. In this respect, both stand\nopposed to magical behaviour. This common element is so fundamental that\nit seems to us advisable to make the name Religion include both types of\nrelation. And since they differ, nevertheless, in important respects, the\nphrases _Negative_ Religion may be used to designate man's dealings with\nradically bad spirits, and _Positive_ Religion his relations with\nfundamentally benevolent ones.\n\nPositive Religion is at first not at all free from fear. The benevolent\ngods are prompt to wrath, and cruelly avenge their broken laws. The more\nstriking development of religious life is the gradual substitution of love\nfor fear in worship.[45] This is one more reason for not completely\ndissociating the propitiation of evil spirits from the worship of kindly\ngods.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE NATURE AND THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION\n\n\nThe organised, historical Religions are sufficiently described, in their\nobjective aspect, as systems of practical relations with unseen,\nhyperhuman, and personal Beings. The experiences in which this type of\nReligion consists, when subjectively considered, are the states of\nconsciousness correlated with the aforesaid relations. Judged according to\nthis definition, several savage tribes and a very large number of persons\namong civilised peoples would have to be accounted non-religious. Most of\nthem may, however, lay claim to what we have called Passive Religiosity.\nIn these concluding pages we propose to give increased precision and\ncoherence to the conception of Religion presented in this essay. We shall\ndo so under two heads, (1) Passive and (2) Godless Religions.\n\n1. Andrew Lang's polemic against Frazer's definition of Religion will\nserve as a convenient text for the introduction of what we wish to say\nunder the first head. According to the habit of anthropologists, Frazer\nhas put forward as the mark of Religion the _propitiation or the\nconciliation_ of personal beings superior to man and believed to direct\nand control the course of nature and of human life. Lang objects, and very\nproperly, that this definition is too narrow. 'I mean by Religion,' says\nhe, 'what Mr. Frazer means and more. The conciliation of higher powers by\nprayer and sacrifice is Religion, but it need not be the whole of\nReligion. The belief in a higher power who sanctions conduct and is a\nfather and a loving one to mankind is also Religion,'[46] although it\nshould not be accompanied by request for benefits. The presence in the\nhigher societies and even at the dawn of civilisation of persons strangers\nto any religious rite, yet influenced by a belief in divine beings cannot\nbe denied. With regard to the most barbarous of the Australian savages\nHowitt writes: 'If Religion is defined as being the formulated worship of\na divinity, then these savages have no Religion; but I venture to assert\nthat it can be no longer maintained that they have no belief which can be\ncalled Religion, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and\nindividual morality under a supernatural sanction.'[47] The reader will\nremember that we included under the term Religion the amorphous relations\nto which Howitt alludes. But the difference, objective and subjective,\nbetween the organised Religions, let us say that of Saint Ignatius, and\nthe guiding and restraining influence exercised upon an African savage or\na Parisian deist by the apprehension of a Great Ruler, justifies the use\nof the differentiating appellations, Passive and Active Religion.\n\nWe take this opportunity of remarking how difficult it is even for\nparticularly clear-headed persons to keep Religion distinct from\nphilosophy. Lang was ill-advised enough to write in the same place, 'If\nmen believe in a potent being who originally made or manufactured ...\nthings, that is an idea so far religious that it satisfies, by the figment\nof a supernatural agent, the speculative faculty.' What has 'the\nspeculative faculty' to do with Religion? As little as the gratification\nof the aesthetic or of any other 'faculty,' _i.e._ nothing at all. The\noutcome of speculative thinking is _philosophy_, of which Religion may\nmake use, but that is not a reason for confusing it with philosophy. The\nreligious experience consists not in seeking to understand God, but in\nfearing Him, in feeding upon Him, in finding strength and joy in Him. If\nbelievers in Ruling Powers may be called religious, it is not because they\npossess _an idea_ of these powers, but in virtue of the guiding and\ninspiring influence these powers exert upon them.\n\n2. _The Godless Religions._--We have found it convenient up to this point\nto speak as if Power had to be personal in order to become the centre of a\nReligion. That view would exclude original Buddhism, the Religion of\nHumanity, and several other varieties of mental attitudes generally\nregarded as religious. The significant fact that until recently every\nexisting historical Religion was a worship of a personal Divinity, is not\na sufficient reason for refusing to recognise other types. The affinity\nbetween the worship of a God and certain relations maintained with\nnon-personal sources of power is substantial enough to be recognised by\nthe use of a name common to both.\n\nWhat are the Religions that dispense with a God? Original Buddhism, and\nthe Religion of Humanity formulated by A. Comte, are the only ones\npossessing a somewhat definite form and organisation. The Buddha Gautama\ndiscovered and offered to man a way of salvation in which the efficient\npower was not an external, personal power, but an indwelling, psychic\nprinciple. But the disciples speedily deified the Master who had enjoined\nthem to adore no one, and substituted for his teaching the worship of the\nGod Gautama. So that, almost as soon as born, Buddhism ceased to exist as\na Godless Religion.\n\n'Humanity' is qualified to become the centre of a Religion because its\nservice accomplishes for man in essence and by similar methods precisely\nwhat the acknowledged Religions do for their disciples.[48] I quote from\nA. Comte: 'Around this Real, Great Being, immediate instigator of each\nindividual and collective existence, our feelings and desires centre as\nspontaneously as do our ideas and actions.... More readily accessible to\nour feelings as well as to our thinking [than the chimerical beings of the\nexisting Religions], because of an identity of nature which does not\npreclude its superiority over all its servants, a Supreme Being such as\nthis excites deeply an activity destined to preserve and to improve it\n[the Supreme Being].'[49] The claim of original Buddhism and of Comtism to\nbe called Religions is, in our opinion, legitimate, because they each\nprovide an inclusive, non-material source of power and a method of drawing\nupon it.\n\nBut the term Religion is used by some in a still wider sense. Professor J.\nR. Seeley, for instance, bestows that valued name upon 'any habitual and\npermanent admiration.'[50] Should we concur in this extension, it would be\ndifficult to stop anywhere. We should have to admit almost anything which\nany one may have a fancy for designating by that much-abused word, even to\n'the sense of eternity in connection with our higher experiences,' and\n'the feeling of reality and permanence of all we most value.' But since\nthe function of words is to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of\nlanguage by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all\nprecision and unity of meaning. We would therefore throw out of our\ndefinition anything which did not include:--(1) A belief in a great and\nsuperior psychic power--whether personal or not. (2) A dynamic\nrelation--formal and organised or otherwise--between man and that Higher\nPower tending to the preservation, the increase, and the ennobling of\nlife. This conception is broad enough to include even the uncrystallised\nform of Religion conditioned, in the words of Professor James, by 'an\nassurance that this natural order is not ultimate, but a mere sign or\nvision, the external staging of a many-storied universe, in which\nspiritual forces have the last word and are eternal.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nActive Religion may properly be looked upon as that portion of the\nstruggle for life, in which use is made of the Power we have roughly\ncharacterised as psychic and superhuman, and for which other adjectives,\n'spiritual,' 'divine,' for instance, are commonly used. In this biological\nview of Religion, its necessary and natural spring is the same as that of\nnon-religious life, _i.e._ the 'will to live' in its multiform\nappearances, while the ground of differentiation between the religious and\nthe secular is neither specific feelings nor emotions, nor yet distinctive\nimpulses, desires, or purposes, but the nature of the force which it is\nattempted to press into service. The current terms, 'religious feeling,'\n'religious desire,' 'religious purpose,' are deceptive if they are\nsupposed to designate affective experiences, desires and purposes met\nwith only in religious life.\n\nThe conception of the Source of Psychic Energy, without the belief in\nwhich no Religion can exist, has undergone very interesting\ntransformations in the course of historical development. The human or\nanimal form ascribed to the gods in the earlier Religions became less and\nless definite. At the same time the number of gods decreased. The\nculmination of this double process was Monotheism, in which the One,\nEternal, Creator and Sustainer of life was no longer necessarily framed in\nthe shape of man or beast: though still anthropopathic, he might be\nformless. Sympathy, love, and justice were among his attributes. In a\nsecond phase, this formless, but personal, God was gradually shorn of all\nthe qualities and defects which make individuality. He became the\npassionless Absolute in which all things move and have their being. Thus,\nthe personifying work of centuries is undone, and humanity, after having,\nas it were, lived throughout its infancy and youth under the controlling\neye and with the active assistance of personal divinities, on reaching\nmaturity, finds itself bereft of these sources of life. The present\nreligious crisis marks the difficulty in the way of an adaptation to the\nnew situation. As belief in a God seems no longer possible, man seeks an\nimpersonal, efficient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty\nto science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he knows\nfrom experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also\nin 'spiritual faith.' It is this problem which the Comtists, the\nImmanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists are all trying\nto solve. Any solution will have the right to the name Religion that\nprovides for the preservation and the perfectioning of life by means of\nfaith in a superhuman psychic Power.\n\n\nPrinted in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh\nUniversity Press\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _The Non-Religion of the Future_, p. 2.\n\n[2] _The Golden Bough_, 2nd edition, i. p. 63.\n\n[3] _Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion_, p. 27.\n\n[4] _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, pp. 53, 38, abbreviated and\nrearranged.\n\n[5] Wuendt's _Ethics_, English tr., iii. p. 6.\n\n[6] H. B. Davis has this to say on the power of generalisation of the\nraccoon, a very intelligent animal: 'When an animal [raccoon] is forced to\napproach a new fastening from a new direction, it is often as much\nbothered by it as by a new fastening. Nevertheless, in course of time the\nanimals seem to reach a sort of generalised manner of procedure which\nenables them to deal more promptly with any new fastening (not too\ndifferent from others of their experience).' 'The Raccoon: A Study in\nAnimal Intelligence,' _Amer. Jr. of Psy._, Oct. 1907, p. 486.\n\n[7] _Meditationes_, ii. p. 10, Amsterdam, 1678.\n\n[8] C. Lloyd Morgan, _Introduction to Comparative Psychology_ (The\nContemporary Science Series, 1894), p. 89.\n\n[9] F. M. Davenport, _Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals_, Macmillan\n(1905), p. 36; quoted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the [Amer.]\nBureau of Ethnology, p. 761.\n\n[10] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, iii. p. 547, as quoted by Frazer,\n_The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. p. 13.\n\n[11] A. W. Howitt, _The Native Races of South-East Australia_ (1904), p.\n373.\n\n[12] _Principles of Sociology_ (3rd edition, 1885), i. Appendix A, p. 788.\n\n[13] _The Descent of Man_, 2nd ed., i. p. 145.\n\n[14] _Nature_, xvii. (1877-78), pp. 168-169. Comp. Lloyd Morgan, _Introd.\nto Comparative Psychology_, p. 92 ff.\n\n[15] A Study in Fears, _Am. Jour. of Psy._ (1897), viii. p. 166.\n\n[16] Lord Avebury, _On the Origin of Civilisation_ (3rd edition, 1875), p.\n212.\n\n[17] _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 500, 506-508.\n\n[18] Hang a root of vervain around the neck in order to cause the\ndisappearance of a tumour: as the plant dries up, so will the tumour. If\nthe fish do not appear in due season, make one of wood and put it into the\nwater. Keep the arrow that has wounded a friend in a cool place that the\nwound may not become inflamed.\n\n[19] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884), p. 456,\nquoted by Frazer.\n\n[20] Dr. R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Clarendon Press, 1891), p.\n191.\n\n[21] 'Etudes de mythologie et d'archeologie egyptiennes' (Paris, 1903),\n_Bibliotheque Egyptologique_, ii. p. 298.\n\n[22] Foucart, 'Recherches sur la Nature des Mysteres d'Eleusis,' _Memoires\nde l'Institut_, xxxv. 2nd part, pp. 31-32. Comp. Maspero, _ibid._, p. 303.\n\n[23] 'The Beginnings of Religion,' _Fortn. Rev._, lxxxiv. (1905), p. 162.\nComp. _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. pp. 71-73.\n\n[24] _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. p. 70. Oldenburg (_Die Religion des\nVeda_, Berlin, 1894) was first, I believe, in holding to a pre-religious\nmagical stage of culture. But it is Frazer who first made a clear\nseparation, not only between Magic and Religion, but also between Magic\nand belief in spirit-agents.\n\n[25] Comp. R. R. Marett, 'From Spell to Prayer,' _Folk-Lore_, xv. (1904),\npp. 136-141.\n\n[26] The latest classification is probably that of Frazer in _Lectures on\nthe Early History of the Kingship_ (Macmillan, 1905), p. 54. A. van\nGennep, in a review of that book in the _Revue de l'Histoire des\nReligions_, liii. pp. 396-401, offers a somewhat different classification.\n\n[27] I use 'animism' in the sense which Tylor gave it, _i.e._ a belief in\nthe animation of all things by beings similar to the 'souls' or 'ghosts'\nrevealed to the savage by dreams and other natural experiences.\n\n[28] The interested reader will find a summary of observations on this\ntopic in Alex. F. Chamberlain's _The Child_ (The Contemporary _Science\nSeries_, 1900), pp. 147-148. See also Sully, _Studies of Childhood_, p.\n82.\n\n[29] See, for instance, many of the prohibitions included in the\ninitiation ceremonies of the Australians in Spencer and Gillen, _loc.\ncit._, chapters vii-ix.\n\n[30] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., I. pp. 29-31.\n\n[31] Fourth ed. (1903), i. p. 285.\n\n[32] The word _naturism_ should be adopted as a name for the pre-animistic\nand pre-religious stage of culture, a stage corresponding to the one\nthrough which a child passes before he inquires into hidden causes and\nmechanisms. See on this an excellent little book published in this series,\n_Animism_, by Edward Clodd, pp. 22-25.\n\n[33] Lord Avebury, _On the Origin of Civilisation_ (3rd ed., 1875), pp.\n113-114.\n\n[34] _The Golden Bough_, i. p. 19.\n\n[35] Maspero, _loc. cit._, pp. 298-299.\n\n[36] Amelie Bosquet, _La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse_ (Paris et\nRouen, 1845), p. 308.\n\n[37] _Loc. cit._ i., pp. 75-78.\n\n[38] A widespread opinion ascribes the failures of the magician to a rival\nor to the counter-influence of some evil spirit.\n\n'If a man died in spite of the medicine-man, they [the Chepara of\nSouth-East Africa] said it was Wulle, an evil being, that killed\nhim.'--Howitt, _loc. cit._, p. 385.\n\n[39] Chap. iii.\n\n[40] _Ibid._, p. 59.\n\n[41] R. R. Marett, 'From Spell to Prayer,' _Folk-Lore_, xv. (1904), pp.\n132-165.\n\n[42] _Loc. cit._, pp. 61-62. In the third volume (pp. 458-461), a change\nseems to have taken place in the author's opinion. What it amounts to, I\ncannot exactly make out.\n\n[43] _The Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 309.\n\n[44] _The Religion of the Semites_, p. 55.\n\n[45] See, on this development, my article, 'Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in\nReligion,' _American Jr. of Religious Psy. and Educ._, ii. p. 1.\n\n[46] _Magic and Religion_, pp. 48-49, 69.\n\n[47] 'On some Australian Customs of Initiation,' _Jr. of the Anthrop.\nInst._, xiii. (1883-1884), p. 459.\n\n[48] F. Harrison, _Moral and Religious Socialism_, New Year's Address,\n1891.\n\n[49] A. Comte, _Catechisme Positiviste_, ed. Apostolique (1891), pp. 53,\n55.\n\n[50] _Natural Religion_, Macmillan (1882), p. 74.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPassages in italics are indicated by _italics_.\n\nPassages in bold are indicated by =bold=.","title":"The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":19959}