^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ A Presented b^Vr-o-^. UVj rB.(^X-cS<2/V^e/ ^ZD.-^D. BL 53 .L48 1912 Leuba, James Henry, 1868- 1946. A psychological study of r. cit., PP- 33-34-) " A Catholic missionary observes that in New Guinea the fiepu or sorcerers are everywhere. . . . Nothing happens without the sorcerer's intervention : wars, marriages, diseases, deaths, expeditions, fishing, hunting, always and everywhere the sorcerers." (J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, P- 337-) According to Flinders Petrie, magic was a main part of the beliefs of the Egyptians of the early kingdom as long as the old religion lasted. (^Aspects of Egyptian Religion, Transactions of Third International Congress of the His- tory of Religions, Vol. I, p. 192.) RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 7 Such is, for instance, the case when the sign of the cross, of itself, without the mediation of God or Saint, is felt to be effective, or when " saying one's beads " is held to pos- sess a curative virtue of the kind ascribed to sacred relics by the superstitious. Even when the symbolism of the sign of the cross, and the meaning of the Ave Maria are realized, it happens not infrequently that signing oneself and saying one's beads are regarded as acting upon the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, or God in the manner of an incantation, i.e. coercitively, magically. It is commonly said that religion is characterized by specific impulses or by specific purposes, or yet by specific emotions, and that thus it differentiates itself from the rest of life. An analysis of religious life discloses the falsity of this opinion. Any impulse, any desire, may lead to re- ligious activity, and in it no type of emotion is to be found which is not represented also outside. The fear of death, the pain of hunger, the lust of the flesh, as well as the need of affection, of fellowship, of moral wholeness, and the self-sacrificing cravings, may, one and all, manifest them- selves either in relisrious or in secular behavior. That which makes life reHgious, in the historical sense of the term, is standing in relation with, or attempting to make use of, a particular kind of power. The will-to-live comes to expression as religion when an appeal is made to a class of powers which may be roughly characterized as psychic, superhuman, and usually, but not necessarily, personal. As religion develops, however, certain human needs tend to be excluded from it and to appear exclusively in the secular life, while other needs become at particular stages of civilization the ordinary and perhaps the only stimuli to religious life. In Christian countries, for in- 8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION stance, religious means would not be used to secure the gratification of desires recognized as bad. But the selection depends not upon a specifically "reUgious" quality be- longing to certain desires or needs, but upon quite other causes, such as the character attributed to the object of worship. It would, for instance, be absurd to expect from a god that of which he does not approve. And if he were supposed to govern the physical world by fixed laws, the logical tendency would be not to importune him concerning physical matters, but to seek in him only spiritual comforts. As a matter of fact, religion serves more and more exclu- sively in the attainment or preservation of that which is not otherwise easily securable and of that which it is found most successful in securing. If any one should be tempted to point to communion or union with God as a religious need per se, I would observe that communion with God is a way of dismissing the worry- ing complication of this world, of escaping a dreaded sense of isolation, of entering into a circle of solacing and elevat- ing thoughts and feelings, of forgetting and of surmount- ing evil. These needs are felt more or less intensely by all men, and their gratification is secured by non-religious as well as by religious means. So that it is not the needs which are distinctive of religion, but the method whereby they are gratified. It might also be objected that the Happy Hunting Grounds of the American Indian, the Paradise of the Christian, the Nirvana of the Buddhist, are specific religious ends. But here again what belong ex- clusively to rehgion are not the impulses, the desires, and yearnings to which these conceptions of a blessed future owe their existence, but merely the conceptions them- selves. A similar remark would be equally effective against " perfection," should it be considered a specific religious goal. RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 9 With regard to the emotions, it will be sufficient to re- mark here that neither fear, which was the dominant emotion in perhaps all "primitive" religions, nor the tender emotions, which have gradually displaced fear, nor yet awe, reverence, nor any other namable emotion belongs exclusively to the religious life. Religion has sometimes been labelled an instinct. But no one who, following contemporary psychology, under- stands by instinct an action performed without foresight of the end, can for a moment regard religion as an instinct. It is of course true that religion is rooted in instinctive im- pulses and in instincts, — in fear, acquisitiveness, pugnacity, curiosity, love, etc. The religious forms of behavior have been acquired in struggles, both blind and intelligent, for the gratification of instinctive needs and the fulfilment of social requirements. But the relation that instinct bears to religion is no other than that obtaining between instinct and commerce or any complex social activity. Instincts and instinctive tendencies are everywhere to be found as the springs of human action. In a subsequent chapter I shall try to show that the be- liefs in the existence of agents — ghosts, personified natural phenomena, creators — with whom man feels himself in practical relation are unavoidable beliefs, that they arise naturally from a normal use of ordinary mental powers,^ and that, in their crudest forms, they are but Httle beyond the capacity of the higher animal. The origin of religion is thus entirely within the powers of men, even of the crudest. If the terms " superhuman " and " supernatural " have any relevancy in religion, it is merely with reference to the gods 1 There are, no doubt, diseases of religion; but it would be as absurd to brand religion itself because of its anomalies as it would be to condemn the sexual life because of sexual perverts. ^1 lO A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION and their action on man, should they have an existence outside the mind of the believer. As to the word " sacred," it would continue to have validity even should the gods be no more than mental creations; but then only in the sense in which sacredness belongs to primordial instincts and to the loftier purposes which, little by little, appear as human nature unfolds its fairest aspects. The sacredness of reli- gion would in this alternative be derived solely from the sacredness of life : of generation, of birth and death, of hunger and thirst, of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, of good and evil. Where else could " sacredness " find more significant and potent roots .■• If I offer the alternative between the objective and the merely subjective existence of the gods, it is simply in order not to prejudge the question. I cannot persuade myself that divine personal beings, be they primitive gods or the Christian Father, have more than a subjective existence. There are, however, those who hold that no other proof of the truth of the " central " belief of religion is needed than its endurance in diverse forms throughout the history of mankind, and the abundance and beauty of its fruits. They say that the "naturalistic " theory of the origin of gods must be rejected because, among other defects, " it makes of religious beliefs a system of hallucinatory images," a "nightmare of untrained minds"; "an error, and espe- cially an organized system of errors, could not endure." The fact is that even though the gods should have a merely sub- jective existence, and that there should be, therefore, in religion, low and high, no interference of divine beings, nevertheless its origin, its continuance, and the high value ; attached to it would be easily explicable. Let us pass in review the benefits which would accrue to mankind from a belief in non-existent gods. They may be divided RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR ii into the effects expected by the worshipper and those not expected. I. The advantages sought or expected by the worshipper. (a) The control of pJiysical nature — making rain, ward- ing off thunder, guiding the arrow, etc. If the sum total of the value of religion to primitive man consisted in these external physical effects, the non-objective existence of his gods would involve the utter inefficiency of his religion. The proof of this inefficiency is, however, not easily ob- tained. Need the reader be reminded in this connection that prayers for rain are still offered in Christian churches .? As a matter of fact, the rain ceremonies are not infre- quently followed more or less closely by rain, and offer- ings for success in the hunt are often apparently rewarded according to expectation. {b) The action of gods and spirits upon human bodies and upon the mind. — It is here that abounds what must to the savage appear unquestionable proof of the effectiveness of religion. One need not at this point affirm that all these effects are subjectively caused. It is sufficient for the present purpose to note the confident declaration of science regarding, at least, most of them, that they are the outcome of the influence of the mind upon the body. " Suggestion " is a most effective agent upon the credulous and excitable savage. Many cures are, no doubt, per- formed in that manner by the medicine-men. Davenport, speaking of tribes of Puget Sound, says : " Their cure for disease consists in the members of the cult shaking in a circle about a sick person, dressed in ceremonial costume. The religious practitioner waves a cloth in front of the patient, with a gentle fanning motion, and, blowing at the same time, proceeds to drive the disease out of the body, beginning at the feet and working upward. The assistant stands ready to seize the disease with his cloth. 12 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION when it is driven out of the head ! And they are ready to boast of many real cures." ^ A psychologist is not in- clined to doubt the report of Curr, that among the aborig- ines of Victoria persons who knew themselves to have been destined to destruction with magical ceremonies have pined away and died ; ^ nor that of Howitt, who, referring to the habit of the medicine-men of certain tribes to knock a man insensible in order to remove the kidney fat for magical purposes, writes, " In the Kurnai tribe, men have died, believing themselves to have been deprived of their fat."^ Codrington relates the following: "A striking story was told me by Edwin Sakalraw of Arra of what he saw himself. A man in that islet was known to have pre- pared a tamatetiqa, and had declared his intention of shooting his enemy with it at an approaching feast ; but he would not tell who it was that he meant to kill, lest some friend of his should buy back the power of the charm from the wizard who had prepared it. To add force to the ghostly discharge, he fasted so many days before the feast began that when the day arrived he was too weak to walk. When the people had assembled, he had himself carried out and set down at the edge of the open space where the dancing would go on. All the men there knew that there was one of them he meant to shoot ; no one knew whether it was himself. There he sat as the dancers rapidly passed him circling round, a fearful object, black with dirt, and wasted to a skeleton with fasting, his tama- tetiqa within his closed fingers, stopped with his thumb, ^ Davenport, F. M., Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, Macmillan, (1905), p. 36; quoted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Amer. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 761. 2 Curr, E. M., The Australian Race, Vol. Ill, p. 547, as quoted by Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 13. 'Howitt, A. W., The Native Races of South-East Australia, London, Mac- millan, 1904, p. 373. RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 13 his trembling arms stretched out, and his bleared eyes watching for his enemy. Every man trembled inwardly as he danced by him, and the attention of the whole crowd was fixed on him. After a while, bewildered and dazed by his own weakness, the rapid movement of the dancers, and the noise, he mistook his man ; he raised his arm and lifted his thumb. The man he aimed at fell at once upon the ground, and the dancers stopped. Then he saw that he had failed and that the wrong man was hit, and his distress was great ; but the man who had fallen and was ready to expire, when he was made to understand that no harm was meant to him, took courage again to live, and presently revived. No doubt he would have died if the mistake had not been known." ^ When religious behavior seems at times to be effective upon inanimate nature, thanks to coincidences, and at other times is actually effective upon human bodies — sugges- tively, and not, as the savage thinks, through the action of spirits — can the non-civihzed man be expected to disabuse his mind of the belief in the objective existence of the gods he worships ? The twentieth-century school-trained indi- vidual is not expected to do so much. 2. The unsought results of religion. — The usefulness of religion illustrated in the preceding instances would per- haps of itself explain its continuance. But it is far from the whole of its value. The most noteworthy of the by- products to be taken into account are : — {a) The gratification of the htst for power and of the de- sire for social recognition. — The priest is the mediator be- tween mysterious, superior powers and his fellow-men. His sense of intimacy with these powers, and the fear, awe, and respect with which he is regarded by the people are not imaginary values, even though his gods should be 1 Codrington, R. H., op. cit., pp. 205-206. 14 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION unreal. His appreciation of these advantages would tend to make him disregard the disappointments of unrealized expectations and to render him blind to a natural explana- tion of his successes. {d) Less obvious, perhaps, but not less influential is f/ie general mental sthnulus provided by the ideas of ghosts^ hero-a?tcestors, spij'its, and gods, living zinseen in one's vicin- ity, intelligence as well as the feelings is quickened. The mere belief in the existence in a supraterrestrial world of a company of powerful, mysterious beings, good and bad, stirs the imagination, sets into activity the rational powers, and provides objects of attention able to sum- mon forth in the struggle for life the hidden potencies of the mind. And in so far as the gods are held to be benevolent, belief in them generates a feeling of confidence and optimism which is of high dynamic value. This dyna- mic value of religious belief must be reckoned among the mighty influences contributing to the development of the human race. It tends to keep religion alive, indirectly through the operation of natural selection, and directly through the attractiveness and stimulating effect of the invisible world. {c) From the very first, gods have exercised a regulative, moralizing influence, for they have been made the embodi- ment of the ideals of the community. Thus they have been, and still are, powerful factors in the work of social consolidation, whether objectively real or not. The unify- ing, socializing power of religion has, perhaps, nowhere been so strikingly illustrated as among the ancient Hebrews, and more recently during the Christian reorgan- ization of the ancient world. One may therefore affirm with confidence that the mere belief in gods may of itself produce results sufficient to make of religion a factor of the highest biological importance, if I RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 15 may be allowed to use this term in its broadest sense. Its unsought results make its continuance intelligible, even in the face of repeated failures to provide the things solicited by propitiation and prayer, and despite the intellectual doubts arising from other sources in the later phases of its development. The foregoing conception of religion may appear to some open to the accusation of gross utilitarianism. They will object that far from being a mere scheme of self-protection and self-aggrandizement, religion is the source of the noblest feelings, of the purest and loftiest aspirations of the human heart ; and they will mention reverence, resignation, and self-sacrifice as the very essence of piety. But why should any one understand the phrase I have used, " grati- fication of needs, of desires," to refer only to the lowest needs and desires ? Self-sacrifice as an ideal is not incom- patible with self-aggrandizement in the comprehensive sense in which I take the word. The terms indicate rather two aspects, one positive and the other negative, of one and the same life-process ; for, if certain impulses and desires are to be fostered, others must be suppressed. If the Buddhist wages war upon desire that he may be delivered from the miseries of sorrow, disease, old age, death, rebirth, it is in order to obtain the endless peace of Nirvana. If the Christian" renounces the flesh, it is in order that the spirit may live. In his barbarous self-renunciations, the ascetic manifests a greed unsurpassed in intensity by that of the most unrelenting money-lender. But the objects of their greed are of different orders : the one lusts after things of this world ; the other hungers after the " things of the spirit." Those who, like Tiele, look upon adoration as the essence of all religion, have to recognize that it includes "a desire to possess the adored object, to call it entirely 1 6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION one's own." The goal of the Christian is to be defined in terms both of self-sacrifice and of self -increase ; these terms represent respectively the social and the individualistic side of religion.^ Religion, then, like the rest of life, is concerned with the gratification of human needs, physical and spiritual ; indi- vidual and social ; selfish and altruistic. The three follow- ing prayers, different as they are from one another, belong with equal right to the religious life. " I wish to kill a Pawnee ! I desire to bring horses when I return, I long to pull down an enemy ! I promise you a calico shirt and robe. I will give you a blanket also, O Wakanda, if you allow me to return in safety after killing a Pawnee." ^ " If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God. And this stone which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house ; and of all that God shall give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." ' " Not my will but Thine be done."* The purpose of every true founder of religion is well expressed in the words attributed to Christ, " I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly." Since the end of religion is to maintain and perfect life, the biological point of view affords the larger and more fruitful outlook. From this point of vantage religion ap- 1" Every self-sacrifice is at the same time self-preservation, namely preserva- tion of the ideal self ; indeed, it is the proudest kind of self-assertion for me to sacrifice myself, for me to stake my life, in battling for a good which I esteem higher than my life." (Paulsen, A Systet?t of Ethics, p. 389.) 2 Dorsay, G. Owen, A Study of Siouan Cults, Eleventh Amer. Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-1890, p. 376. 8 Jacob bargaining for Yahve's assistance, Genesis xxviii, 20-22. ^John X. 10. RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 17 pears as a part of the struggle for life ; the part involving relations with superhuman, psychic powers, real or imag- inary. In its earlier stages, when the individual is still lost in the tribe, the gods are preeminently national gods, and the reUgious end is a national one. During that period the re- hgious effort aims at the preservation and increase of the community. At a later time, when the individual has gained a clearer sense of his personality, religion may pass through an individualistic phase. It is then concerned essentially with subjective, internal experiences. It strives towards the establishment of inward peace by the triumph of the superior impulses and tendencies. In persons keenly sensitive to ethical values this internal warfare claims a large share of attention. It may, even in particular cir- cumstances, determine momentous crises. This work of inner psychic adaptation, as I have called it elsewhere, is without any doubt of the utmost significance to the devel- opment of modern society. But whether in a communistic or in an individualistic phase, religion, when its end is defined as preservation and aggrandizement, includes the two directions which the life instincts necessarily assume in individuals living in society : regard for self and regard for others ; egoism and altruism. Religion should, therefore, be looked upon as a func- tional part of hfe, as that mode of behavior in the struggle for life in which use is made of powers characterized here as psychic, superhuman, and usually personal. In its ob- jective manifestations, reUgion appears as attitudes, rites, creeds, and institutions ; in its subjective expression, it consists of impulses, desires, purposes, feelings, emotions, and ideas connected with the religious actions and institu- tions. According to this biological view the necessary and natural spring of religious and non-religious life alike is the c i8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION " procreant urge " in all or some of its multiform appear- ances. The current terms " religious feelings," "religious desires," " religious purpose," are deceptive, if they are in- tended to designate specific affective experiences or dis- tinctive desires and purposes. It is the belief in several kinds of powers which has made possible the differentia- tion of types of behavior and in particular the division into secular and religious life. The objective existence of personal divinities or equivalent psychic powers is an as- sumption necessary to religion ; but the mere belief in their existence is quite sufficient to account for the important place it has occupied and still occupies among the factors of human development. The persistent effort to maintain life and realize its ideals through the assistance of religious sources of power has re- sulted in the introduction into religion of peculiar attitudes and modes of consciousness favorable to the achieve- ment of its end. Meditation, contemplation, the faith- state, trance, ecstasy, are as many different states of con- sciousness empirically tried, selected, and incorporated into the body of religious practices because of their efficacy, an efficacy due to the high degree of suggestibility they induce. Public religious practices are always mixed with non- religious activities. — Very few human activities proceed from a single motive, or involve but one means of secur- ing the end at which they aim. The original purpose of a horse show is to exhibit fine specimens of that noble animal and to increase its aesthetic and practical value. But a horse show serves several other purposes, chief among which is the gratification of social instincts. The death of a man calls for a memorial service, but it may be- RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 19 come the occasion, as in the historical case of M. Valerius Levinus, for long and wild festivities. Probably no activities are so overlaid with extraneous accretions as are the religious. This fact is of consider- able consequence ; because it tends not only to conceal the real nature of religion, but also to make it seem the cause of certain results due partly or wholly to its associates. Thus there arises an exaggerated idea of the value of re- ligion. This gathering of disparate activities around re- ligion I purpose to illustrate briefly. The attempt to gain one and the same end by two dif- ferent modes of behavior results among primitive peoples in the well-known association of magic with religion. They are so closely interwoven that many students of prim- itive religion have not been able to separate them, and so have formed wrong notions of both. Among the North American Indians, religious practices have become connected with elaborate, non-religious func- tions aiming at social and aesthetic pleasures. A good ex- ample is provided in the Navajo Great Mountain Chant.^ Its purpose of curing disease is obscured to a large extent by the addition of amusements. During a considerable part of the nine days, the curing of disease is forgotten, and the people enjoy themselves in different ways. Among the songs not connected with the religious and magical ceremonies proper may be cited the purely poetical effusion called The Twelfth Song of the TJiimdcr : — " The voice that beautifies the land ! The voice above, The voice of the thunder Within the dark cloud Again and again it sounds, The voice that beautifies the land ! ^ See especially the last night's entertainment described at length by Dr. Washington Matthews, Fifth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1883- 1884, pp. 431 ff. 20 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION " The voice that beautifies the land ! The voice below, The voice of the grasshopper Among the plants Again and again it sounds, The voice that beautifies the land." ^ " The ordinary type of Hebrew worship was essentially social, for in antiquity all religion was the affair of the community rather than of the individual. A sacrifice was a public ceremony of a township, or of a clan, and private householders were accustomed to reserve their offerings for the annual feasts, satisfying their religious feelings in the interval by vows to be discharged when the festal season came along. Then the crowds streamed into the sanctuary from all sides, dressed in their gayest attires, marching joyfully to the sound of music, and bearing with them, not only the victims appointed for the sacrifice, but stores of bread and wine to set forth the feast. The law of the feast was open-handed hospitality ; no sacrifice was complete without guests, and portions were freely distributed to rich and poor within the circle of a man's acquaintance. Universal hilarity prevailed, men ate, drank, and were merry together, rejoicing before their God. . . . Everywhere we find that a sacrifice ordinarily involves a feast. . . . The identity of religious occasions and festal seasons may indeed be taken as the determining characteristic of the type of ancient religion gener- ally. . . ."2 Everywhere rehgious ceremonies have served as the nu- cleus around which gathered attractions of the most va- ried kinds, — above all, those dependent upon a concourse ^ A Mountain Chant, Dr. W. Matthews, Fifth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1883-1884, pp. 379-467- '^ Smith, W. Robertson, The Religion of the Semites, pp. 236-237. RELIGION AS A TYPE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR 21 of people.^ From the hymns sung at the feasts of Dionysus arose comedy ; and tragedy, according to Aristotle,^ had a similar birth. What was true in ancient times remains true to-day. Comparing Protestantism with CathoUcism, WilHam James writes : " The latter offers a so much richer pasturage and shade to the fancy, has so many cells with so many different kinds of honey, is so indulgent in its multiform appeals to human nature that Protestantism will always show to Catholic eyes the almshouse physi- ognomy." 3 And yet even in Protestant worship aesthetic delight is with many a leading motive. One of my corre- spondents writes, for instance : " While I am not at all musical, sacred music affects me powerfully. It is physi- cal pain and sweetest rapture, causing extreme exhilaration or depression." The religious interest of Protestants can- not be correctly measured by church attendance. More than one thoughtful person has described the American churches as social clubs. Meanwhile the church-going public, and even outsiders, credit religion with all the good accomplished by the congregations ; and in consequence belief in church tenets is greatly strengthened. As long as religion exists, it will provide the best illus- tration of the synergism by which many interests manifest themselves together ; and therefore the majority of people will continue to be deceived regarding the value both of religion itself and of its tenets. The natural, naive tendency to combine diverse interests and pleasures has often been reenforced by a deliberate 1 See the festival of the month Quecholli among the ancient Mexicans, H. H. Bancroft, Amative Races, Vol. II, pp. 334 flF. Regarding ancient Greece, see A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen, 1S98, pp. 349 ff. ; P. Fou- cart, Le Culte de Dyonysos en Attique, Memoire de I'lnstitut National, Vol. XXXVII, Part 2, pp. 107, 113-121. 2 Aristotle, Poetics, Vol. IV. 3 James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 461. 22 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION purpose to use in the interest of religion any extraneous means available. One may grant this without going to the length of claiming with von Hartmann that " the ad- mission of art into religious services has never been any- thing else but a secular bait to entice the great mass of persons in whom the religious sentiment has not been strong enough by itself to support and prolong much de- votion and contemplation, without the aid of such external means of excitement." ^ ^ Hartmann, Eduard von. The Religion of the Future, p. 36. CHAPTER II CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM OF CURRENT CONCEP- TIONS OF RELIGION^ A FAVORITE custom among the more philosophically in- clined students of religion has been to condense the results of their labor into little formulae called definitions of re- ligion. An examination of several typical definitions will serve as a summary of past and present opinions, and thus provide an historical background for our study. The dis- covery of the causes of the obvious contradictions and in- adequacies of the definitions that have been given will pave the way for the acceptance of the more inclusive concept presented in the preceding chapter. It must be admitted that the lack of agreement among students of religion regarding fundamental points affords a rare opportunity to the scoffer bent on disparaging the value of their work, and perhaps, by implication, the value of religion itself. Martineau, for instance, affirms that religion is " a belief in an Ever-living God, that is, a Divine mind and will ruhng the universe and holding moral relation with mankind " ; and Romanes adds, " To speak of the religion of the unknowable, the religion of Cosmism, the religion of Humanity, and so forth, when the personal- ity of the First Cause is not recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to speak of the love of a triangle or the ration- ^This chapter is a revision and a development of a paper published in 1901 in the Monist, under the title Introduction to a Psychological Study of Religion. 23 24 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ality of the equator." ^ Brinton, however, flatly contradicts them both : " No mistake could be greater than to sup- pose that every creed must teach a behef in a God or Gods, in an immortal soul, and in the Divine government of the world. . . . The religion of to-day which counts the largest number of adherents, Buddhism, rejects every one of these items." ^ Science, anathematized by some theologians, is by others declared to be a twin sister to religion. "True science and true religion are twin sisters. . . . Science prospers exactly in proportion as it is religious." ^ " The discipline of science is superior to that of our ordinary education because of the religious culture it gives." * Some thinkers regard religion, even in its crudest begin- ning, as the admirable manifestation of God in man ; others do not hesitate to term it mere superstition, the product of an intellectual error, unavoidable in the infancy of mankind, but to be outgrown as soon as possible ; and a few go even so far as to declare religion a " pathological manifestation."^ Despite this confusion, a classification into three groups makes room for most of the more seriously established formulae.^ In the first group, a specific intellectual function or purpose is chosen as the essence or the distinguishing mark of religion ; in the second, specific feelings, senti- ments, or emotions are singled out as the religious differ- ^ Romanes, G. J., Thoughts on Religion. See also Appendix, p. 343. 2 Brinton, D. G., Religions of Primitive Peoples. See Appendix, p. 358. 2 Huxley, Thomas. * Spencer, Herbert, Education. ^ Sergi, G., Les Emotions, p. 404. ^ Several other classifications are, of course, possible. See, for instance, that of Wundt in Appendix, {Logic, I, chap. 2), into three groups: i. the autonomous theories (Schleiermacher) ; 2. the metaphysical theories (Spencer and Hegel); 3. the ethical theories (Kant). I give preference to the classi- fication in the text because it brings into relief the faulty psychology, which is responsible for so large a share in the lamentable confusion of ideas about religion. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 25 entiae; in the third, the will — this term being used in its wider meaning, to include desire, cravings, and impulses — is given the place occupied by the intellect or the feelings in the other groups. According to this last view, religion becomes an "instinct," or a particular mode of behavior, or an endeavor to realize a certain type of being. One or two definitions from each group may be considered here by way of illustration. There are, of course, definitions which do not fall completely within any one of these three divisions, — for instance, those centering around the notion of value. These I shall consider separately. First class. — This class represents what may be called the intellectual attitude. Martineau's definition quoted above illustrates this point of view. Romanes holds simi- larly that " religion is a department of thought having for its object a self-conscious and inteUigent Being." ^ Ac- coixling to Max Miillcr (see Appendix), religion "is a faculty or disposition, which independent of, nay in spite of, sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infi- nite under different names and under varying disguises." In his Thcosophy'^ we read that religion is a bridge between the visible and material world and the invisible and spirit- ual world. This bridge is described as establishing a rela- tion between the Infinite that man discovers in nature and the Infinite that he discovers in himself. These Infinites are such particular stuffs that a special faculty is needed for their apprehension : " There will be and can be no religion until we admit that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion but in all things — a power independent of sense and reason, but yet a very real power." There is 1 Romanes, G. J., Thoughts on Religion, 1895, P* 4^* 2 Miiller, Max, Theosophy, p. 360. See a fuller discussion in the Appendix, P- 339- 26 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION something in this passage which makes one think of the Cabala. Max Miiller's conception would make a chasm between religious and secular life ; but a definition of religion in terms so widely different as "a mental faculty," " a bridge between the visible and material world and the invisible and spiritual world," "an apprehension of the Infinite," "a perception of the Infinite," "a concomitant sentiment, or presentiment of the Infinite," can hardly be taken seri- ously. The use here made of the term "infinite " reminds one of Felix Holt's remarks concerning " those who have no particular talent for the finite, but a general sense that the infinite is the right thing for them. . . . They might just as well boast of nausea as a proof of a strong inside." Herbert Spencer may stand for us as the representative par exccllejice of intellectualism in religion. His prob- lem in First Principles is to find some fundamental idea which may serve as a basis for a reconciliation of religion and science. After passing in review the more important religious conceptions, he concludes that in every form of religion is found " an hypothesis which is supposed to render the Universe comprehensible. Nay, even that which is commonly regarded as the negation of all Religion — even positive Atheism — comes within the definition ; for it, too, in asserting the self-existence of space, matter, and motion, which it regards as adequate causes of every ap- pearance, propounds an a priori theory from which it holds the facts to be deducible. Now every theory tacitly asserts two things : first, that there is something to be explained ; secondly, that such and such is the explanation. Hence, however widely different speculators may disagree in the solutions they give of the same problem, yet by implica- tion they agree that there is a problem to be solved. Here, then, is an element which all creeds have in common. Re- CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 27 ligions, diametrically opposed in their overt dogmas, are yet perfectly at one in the tacit conviction that the existence of the world with all it contains and all which surrounds it is a mystery ever pressing for interpretation. On this point, if on no other, there is entire unanimity." " That this is the vital element in all religions is further proved by the fact that it is the element which not only survives every change, but grows more distinct the more highly the religion is developed." " Nor does the evidence end here. Not only is the omnipresence of something which passes comprehension, that most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which becomes the more distinct in proportion as they de- velop, and which remains after their discordant elements have been mutually cancelled ; but it is that belief which the most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable — or rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most inexorable logic ; but, on the contrary, is a belief which the most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true than any religion supposes. For every religion, setting out though it does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forthwith proceeds to give some solution of this mystery, and so asserts that it is not a mystery passing human comprehension. But an examination of the solu- tions they severally propound shows them to be uniformly invalid. The analysis of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no hypothesis is sufficient, but that no hy- pothesis is even thinkable. And thus the mystery, which all religions recognize, turns out to be a far more tran- scendent mystery than any of them suspect — not a rela- tive, but an absolute mystery. " Here, then, is an ultimate religious truth of the highest possible certainty." ^ 1 Spencer, Herbert, First Principles, pp. 43-46, abbreviated. See also Appendbc. 28 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The primary dependence of religion upon the recogni- tion of the great mystery is once more emphasized in the chapter on " The Reconciliation," in which he declares that what makes a religion become more religious is that it "rejects those definite and simple interpretations of nature previously given." "That which in religion is irreligious is, that, contradicting its deepest truth, it has all along professed to have some knowledge of that which transcends knowledge ; and has so contradicted its own teachings," its supreme verity. The criticism to be passed upon Spencer is that he does not treat of religion at all. The recognition of a mystery pressing for interpretation may be at the beginning of philosophical thinking, but the "insoluble mystery" is res- olutely set aside by the religious consciousness. Religion begins when the tnystery has been given some solution, naive or critical, making possible practical relations with the " ultimate." The fact that positive Atheism falls within Spencer's definition of religion shows sufficiently that he is concerned with philosophical conceptions or assumptions implied in religion, and not with religion itself. The value of religion to humanity has been, and is, in- comparably greater than the value assigned to it in these quotations. If me 71 have ^^ lived by religion^' it is not be- cause they have recognised the mystery, but rather bccatise they have, in their 1 merit ical purposive way, transcended the mystery, and have posited a solutioji of which they were able to make practical tise. Religion differentiated from pJiilosophy. — The confusion of pedagogical theories with education, or of aesthetic theories with art, seems impossible, yet just such an error, in the sphere of rehgion, is made by those who uphold conceptions of the intellectual class ; the philosophy of religion is confused by them with religion itself. This CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 29 error is the outcome of an illusion to which the philosopher is most susceptible : to the thinker, nothing is so real as the thought processes. It is unnecessary to review at this point the mischief wrought by intellectualism in religion ; but it may be noted in passing that to its influence is due the regrettable fact that the formulation of rational grounds for the belief in God and the determination of his attributes, a purely ontological question, has become for many the only religious problem. Where is to be drawn the line of demarcation between religion and philosophy } Professor Fraser in his Gifford Lectures ^ takes up a purely philosophical question — the philosophy of Theism — which he formulates thus: "Is the immeasurable reahty in which I find myself living, and moving, and having my being, rooted in Active, Moral Reason, and therefore absolutely worthy of faith ; or is it hollow and hopeless because at last without meaning ? " He states in this passage not only his problem, but also his motives for deaHng with it. The latter are even more clearly formulated in the following : " Reflecting men have been moved to the final inquiry because they wanted to find reasonable security that the commonly supposed Cosmos is not finally chaos, so that the world may be trusted in. , . ." And again elsewhere, " According to the an- swer practically given to this question, our surroundings and our future are viewed with an ineradicable expectation and hope, or with literally unutterable doubt and despair. It is this question which Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term has to determine." The motive for the metaphysical activity of this writer is thus clearly stated. He turns to the ultimate problem because he cannot live contented without the assurance that Moral Reason rules. Suppose, now, that at some point in his meditations he 1 Fraser, Alexander Campbell, Tie Philosophy of Theism, pp. 22, 23. 30 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION became impressed with the strength of his arguments, and suddenly felt, as men at times do feel, something which he thought to be the presence about him of the Great Spirit, and that for a moment he entered into dy- namic relation with it, was attuned to the universal har- monies, and that out of this experience proceeded a sense of peace, of confidence, of strength. An experience such as this is common with those who are religiously inclined; it is, in fact, the very essence of mystical communion. This attitude would, of course, be clearly and radically dif- ferent from that in which the book was thought out and written. The latter is characterized by the presence of a desire to solve a problem and the consequent starting of the mental machinery by which knowledge is gathered and dealt with according to logical canons. In the former, a solution is accepted, albeit temporarily, and is used to gratify the needs the author has declared to be the motive for his work. The religious experience consists, not in seeking to under- stand God, but in feeding upon Him, in finding strength and joy in Him. Now, it is a fact that not only the intel- lectually gifted, but also the commonplace person passes more or less frequently from the religious to the philosoph- ical attitude. Tom, Dick, and Harry may rise from their knees to become metaphysicians, and declare that they see plainly " the logical necessity of the more produc- ing the less; the capacity of the more to produce the less; and therefore the eternal preexistence of the Perfect, of the Omnipotent, of the Absolute, of God." ^ My conten- tion is for the recognition of the radical difference of these two attitudes and for the admission that we have in this difference the true ground of separation between philosophy and religion. Philosophy searches for explanations, for J Arreat, L., Le Sentiment Religieux en France, Appendix, Observation G. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 31 intellectual unification ; religion assumes knowledge and maintains dynamic relations with psychic powers greater than man. The distinction may be expressed thus : the^ religious consciousness seeks being ; the philosophical consciousness seeks knowledge. Considered from the intellectual side, religion postulates, philosophy inquires. Both are normal forms of consciousness. In the twinkling of an eye consciousness passes from one attitude to the other, now religious and now philosophical, in rapid alter- nation. In religion, God is felt and used. So long as He proves Himself sufficiently useful. His right to remain in the service of man is unquestioned. The religious consciousness asks for no more. Does God really exist.'' how does He exist.^ what is He .-' are questions held to be satisfactorily answered by the gratification of man's needs.^ The religious consciousness refuses to deal with intellectual problems. It will not make life wait upon logical solutions ; instead, it adopts working hypotheses. The fact that in both attitudes God may, in a sense, be the goal of one's desire and effort, and that one passes with ease and frequency from one attitude to the other, accounts for much of the difficulty experienced in separating the philosophy of religion from religion itself. In some per- sons, the two are so inextricably bound up with each other that it seems as if every momc .t of their existence were both religious and speculative. The desire for knowledge, however, is not excluded from the religious life ; all desires, all needs, may be springs of religious life, but under this condition, — that the gratification of these desires be sought through a 1 Ample substantiation of this statement will be given in the forthcoming studies. The interested reader can find some documents bearing on this point in the Monist, Vol. XI (1901), pp. 536-573, and in Studies in the Psy- chology of Religious Phenomena, Amer. Jr. of Psychology, Vol. VII, pp. 309-385. 32 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION psychic, superhuman power. Then, and only then, will the desire for knowledge make a part of a religious moment This condition is, of course, not realized by philos- ophers of the type of Professor Fraser, Maine de Biran, or William James. However ardently they may seek for a source of religious power, they do not expect to be put in possession of it by way of answer to prayer, or as the result of any form of mystical communion. The value of their work to religion is evidently not a legitimate ground for identifying their philosophical search after God with religion. Luther and Saint Augustine were too profoundly reli- gious to fall into the errors of intellectuaHsm. " How then do I seek Thee, O Lord .-* " exclaims the Bishop of Hippo, and he answers, " When I seek Thee, my God, I seek a happy life. I will seek Thee that my soul may live. For my body liveth by my soul ; and my soul by Thee." ^ In the following comment on the first commandment in the Longer Catechism, Luther carries one's thought forward to Feuerbach's radical belief that the gods are the children of man's thirst for happiness. " What is it to have a God, or what is God .■' A God denotes that something by means of which man shall be aware of all good things and wherein he shall have a refuge in every necessity." Second class. — In the second class of definition, a par- ticular emotion or sentiment, usually termed " feeling," is seized upon as the religious differentia. The affective experiences most frequently singled out for this purpose are fear, awe, reverence, adoration, piety, dependence, love, and "cosmic feeling." For Herbart, "sympathy with the universal dependence of man is the essential natural prin- ^ Augustine, Saint, Confessions, Bk. X, 29, p. 198 (Pusey's translation in the Library of the Fathers). CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 33 ciple of all religion." ^ Hoffding, although hardly to be classed here, gives predominance to feeling. The essence of religious experience is, according to him, the religious feeling, i.e. " a feeling determined by the fate of values in the struggle for existence." Dependence is conspicuous in many definitions ; in that of Tiele, for instance, who describes the essence of religion as " that pure and reveren- tial disposition or frame of mind which we call piety." " The essence of piety, and therefore the essence of religion itself, is adoration . . . adoration necessarily involves the elements of holy awe, humble reverence, grateful acknowl- edgment of every token of love, hopeful confidence, lowly self-abasement, a deep sense of one's own unworthiness and shortcomings, total self-abnegation, and unconditional con- secration of one's whole Hfe, of one's whole faculties. . . . But at the same time — therein consists its other phase — adoration includes a desire to possess the adored object, to call it entirely one's own." ^ Schleiermacher is the best-known representative of this class. In his celebrated Discourse on the Nature of Religion, ^ he attacks vigorously the intellectual conception : " Religion cannot and will not originate in the pure impulse to know. . . . What you may know or believe about the nature of things is far beneath the sphere of rehgion. . . . Any effort to penetrate into the nature or the substance of things is no longer religion, but seeks to be a science of some sort." The peculiar sphere of religion " is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feehng," — the feel- ing that arises in the contemplation of any particular 1 Herbart, J. F., Science 0/ Education, Heath, p. 171. 2 Tiele, C. P., Elements of the Science of Religion., Vol. II, pp. 1 98- 1 99. See also Appendix, p. 348. 3 Schleiermacher, F., The Nature of Religion, pp. 49, 57, etc. See also Appendix, p. 346. D 34 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION object, i.e. of any part of the Universe when it is received, felt, as a part of the whole. And again, speaking of the conception of God and of immortality, he writes : " Only what in either is feeling or immediate consciousness can belong to religion." Pure religion is pure feeling; that is, feeling disconnected from thought and from action : " What we feel and are conscious of in religious emotions is the operation of things upon us, not our reaction to the received impressions." " If you could imagine it implanted in man quite alone, it would produce neither these nor any other deed. The man . . . would not act, he would only feel." In a subsequent work. The Doctrine of Faith, he reaches the well-known formula, " The essence of religion consists in a feeling of absolute dependence upon God." This class of definition reminds one of Faust's exclama- tion : — « Nenn's Cluck ! Herz ! Liebe ! Gott ! Ich habe keinen Namen Dafiir, Gefiihl ist alles." How is one to account for conceptions apparently so utterly at variance as are those falling under the intel- lectual and the affective classes .-' It is, of course, true that in order to enter into relation with the divine power, one must have " thought " it ; and there can be no doubt that religion rests upon various conceptions regarding the world and man. But to identify that philosophical basis, or the search for it, with religion itself shows a misunderstanding of the facts. It is also true that there are present in reli- gious life feelings, emotions, and sentiments, commonly tenacious and intense ; but to use them as a means of dif- ferentiating religion from the rest of life is to give proof of ignorance as to the place of feeling in our life. A belief or a feeling can at best constitute a prominent or a domi- nant component of the total religious experience ; but prom- CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 35 inence or dominance is not synonymous with " essence " or with " vital element." The error of the definitions we have considered consists in identifying with religion itself mere aspects of religious life. One of the fundamental and best established generaliza- tions of psychology is that tlie unit of conscious life is neither thought nor feeling, but both of them in a synthe- sis, cooperating toward the attainment of an end. This fact contains in itself a sufficient condemnation of any definition which singles out one or the other of these com- ponents as constituting religion or the essence of religion. I shall reserve until later the development of, this funda- mental argument, and shall limit myself for the present to showing that not one of the " feehngs " used in the defi- nitions of the second class is really distinctive of religion. These feelings are all met with in the secular life as well. They cannot, therefore, be a means of unequivocal discrim- ination between the religious and non-rehgious experience. That this is true of fear, of awe, of reverence, cannot be denied. The feeling of dependence cannot serve any more effectively than fear as a distinctive characteristic of reli- gion. A feeling of dependence is the ever present back- ground of human and, I suppose, of higher animal life. No beings express a more pathetic sense of dependence than certain of our domestic animals. In all human rela- tions, business, social, or religious,' the consciousness of de- pendence lurks in the background, when it does not obtrude itself upon us. How then could religion be made to cover every experience dominated by a feeling of dependence } But the meaning of Schleiermacher, it may be urged, is that only one variety of the feeling of dependence constitutes religion, — the variety arising, as he puts it, when any part of the universe is experienced or felt as a part of the whole, 36 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION " not as limited and in opposition to other things, but as an exhibition of the infinite in our lives." ^ To hold that the larger power upon which one feels dependent is, in the case of religion, necessarily infinite is to misinterpret ordi- nary experience. In his religious moments, man is not, as we shall see in another section, usually conscious of dealing with the unlimited. His transactions take place between himself and a greater power, the degree of greatness of which he does not usually consider. He may be ready to admit, if not the inferiority of his deity, at least the exist- ence by his side of other deities, each omnipresent in his own sphere. But even if the object of the feeling of de- pendence were in rehgion always the Whole, the Infinite, it would still be futile to try to use the feeling of depend- ence arising out of that situation as a means of differentiat- ing religious from non-religious life. Between the feeling of dependence upon the Whole and the feeling of dependence upon the Larger, the Greater, there exists no introspective difference sufficient to make discrimination possible. If, as a matter of fact, we discriminate without hesitation, be- tween the feeling of dependence upon Wall Street, upon a father, upon Yahve, upon a mistress, or upon the Absolute, it is not because the feeling is in each case qualitatively dif- ferent, but because the objects are clearly distinguishable. Similarly, it is the difference in the object or in the deter- mining cause of fear and love that makes possible discrimi- nation between religious and secular fear and love. And when external perceptions are slighted, confusion is apt to take place. For instance, Madame Guyon in her relations with her confessor, Father LaCombe, came to the point where Father LaCombe and God fused together, as it were. She admits with some nalvet6 that " Ce n'etait plus qu'une entiere unite, cela de mani^re que je ne pouvais plus le dis- 1 Schleiermacher, op. cit., p. 49. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 37 tinguer de Dieu."^ The Christian mystics frequently use God and Christ interchangeably. Even the Virgin Mary may lose her identity and be assimilated to Christ and God. This vagary does not matter to these mystics, since what they want is the affective experience. I do not mean to affirm that the emotion or sentiment remains necessarily strictly the same when the object changes, but only that the affective experiences characteristic of our relations with religious objects are not, on affective grounds, usually intro- spectively separable from other affective experiences of the same sort, and cannot, therefore, provide the needed ground of differentiation. Concerning "adoration " as a means of differentiation, it must be said that the expression "feeling of adoration," as commonly used, designates not one specific emotion, but a sequence of complex emotions and sentiments. Awe, reverence, respect, admiration, dependence, love, etc., may all enter, combined and in sequence, into the affective ex- perience accompanying the act or attitude called adoration. It is somewhat surprising that the definitions I have cited, and others like them, have apparently been so fruit- ful a source of satisfaction and comfort. Who would not regard as ridiculous such definitions as these : trade is a belief in the productivity of exchange ; commerce is greed touched with a feeling of dependence on society ; morahty is a belief in virtue ; virtue is a feeling of absolute depen- dence upon truth .■' Absurd as these are, they are neither worse nor better than many a far-famed definition of religion. The truth of the matter is, then, that each and every human emotion and sentiment may appear in religion, and that no affective experience as such is distinctive of religious life. The temperament of the worshipper, his habits, the 1 Madame Guyon, Autobiography. 38 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION nature he attributes to his God, and the circumstances in which he finds himself, — all these determine the affective character of his religious experiences. It may be domi- nantly fear, or awe, or reverence, or love. In any case, a sense of dependence, more or less complete, is necessarily present, as in every kind of relation whatsoever. The differentiation is made possible, not by the affective ex- perience itself, but by the idea, or group of ideas, constitut- ing its object. The expression " religious feeling," when it is understood to designate affective experiences specific to religious life, is, therefore, misleading.^ Third class. — It must be admitted that many of the more recent definitions of religion are based upon a better psychology than are those I have criticised. Such are the definitions of Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, Comte, Sabatier, Reville, and those of most anthropologists. Religion is now rarely defined by means of one, and only one, aspect of mental life ; more inclusive terms are used. It is not in- frequently described as "the consciousness of our practical relation to an invisible spiritual order." Now practical re- lations necessarily include states of feeling as well as pur- poses ; they involve the whole man. The following illus- trations will show what room remains for divergences within the general conception. No one before Feuerbach had seen so clearly as he the creative role of desire in the making of gods and religions; or, at any rate, no one had attempted to explain so fully the Christian religion as entirely the product of man's "in- stinct for happiness." The following quotation illustrates ^ Comp. pp. I2I-I22, 125 ff., 341-342 of Professor Stratton's book, The Psychology of the Religious Life, London, George Allen & Co., 1911. This valuable book, written on the whole with a concern for problems other than those dealt with in the present volume, reached me when mine was already in the hands of the publisher. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 39 his position : " In short, religion has essentially a practical aim and foundation. The instinct from which reUgion arises is the instinct for happiness." ^ Again he says : " Man believes in God not only because he has imagination and feeling, but also because he has the instinct for happi- ness. He believes in a blessed being not only because he has a conception of blessedness, but because he himself would be blessed ; he believes in a perfect being because he himself wishes to be perfect; he believes in an immortal being because he himself desires immortality. . . . If man had no desires, then he would have, in spite of imagination and feeling, no religion, no God." ^ " God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self of a man."^ F. H. Bradley expresses himself thus : " We have found that the essence of religion is not knowledge, and this cer- tainly does not mean that the essence consists barely in feeling. Rehgion is rather the attempt to express the complete reality of goodness through every aspect of our being." ^ "In the widest possible sense," writes William James in T/w Varieties of Religious Experience, " man's religion might be identified with his attitude, whatever it might be, towards what he felt to be the primal truth. ... In the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that religious life consists of the belief that there is an un- seen order and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This belief and this adjust- ment are the religious attitude of the soul." In the ordi-' nary sense of the word, however, no attitude is accounted religious unless it is grave and serious ; the trifling, sneer- 1 Feuerbach, Ludwig, Werke, Bd. VIII, p. 258. ^ jf,id.^ p, 257. 8 Feuerbach, Ludwig, The Essence of Christianity, tr. by Marian Evans, 3d ed. (Vol. VII of Feuerbach's works), pp. 12-13. * Bradley, F. H., Appearance and Reality, ist ed., p. 453. \ 40 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ing attitude of a Voltaire must be thrown out if we would not strain too much the ordinary use of language. More- over, there must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we call religion. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse. The sallies of a Schopenhauer and of a Nietsche "lack the purgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth." And finally, we must exclude also the chilling reflections of Marcus Aurelius on the eternal reason, as well as the passionate outcry of Job. ^ For A. Sabatier, religion "is a commerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in distress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and its destiny depend." ^ Siebeck defines religion as "the understanding and the practical realization of the existence of God and of the trans- cendental world, and, in connection with this, of the pos- sibility of salvation. On the theoretical side, it is char- acterized by a world-view which denies the adequacy of the world of the senses and affirms the existence of a transcen- dental world, conceived both as highest existence and highest value. On the practical side, it consists in the passage from the things of this world to a conception and experience of the reaUty of the transcendental world, and thus to salvation from the world." ^ The views just exemplified should not, however, lead us to believe that feeling is no longer regarded as the essence, or the vital element, or the differentia of the rehgious life. The battle against the intellectual and affective conceptions of religion is not yet won. The recent definitions of Tiele 1 James, William, Varieties of Religious Experience.,Y^. 53, 38. See Ap- pendix, p. 352. 2 Sabatier, A., Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, p. 27. 8 Siebeck, Yl^xra3.vi\x, Lehrbuch der Religionsphilosophie, 1893, P-442. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 41 and of Kaftan show clearly how strong a tendency yet remains to identify religion with some emotion or senti- ment. It is, moreover, quite possible for one to declare that " in religion all sides of the personality participate. Will, feeling, and intelligence are necessary and inseparable constituents of religion; " and yet one may misunderstand the functional relation of these three aspects of psychic life ; just as one may be acquainted with the three branches of government — legislative, executive, and judicial — and nevertheless grossly misunderstand their respective func- tions. Pfleiderer, for instance, hastens to add to the sentences last quoted, " Of course we must recognize that knowing and willing are here (in religion) not ends in them- selves, as in science and in morality, but rather subordinate to feeling as the real centre of religious consciousness." Thus feeling reappears as the centre of religious life. A similar criticism is applicable to Max Miiller and to Guyau. The latter begins promisingly with a criti- cism of the one-sided formulae of Schleiermacher and of Feuerbach, and declares that these definitions should be combined. "The religious sentiment," says he, "is primarily no doubt a feeling of dependence. But this feeling of dependence, really to give birth to religion, must provoke in one a reaction — a desire for deliverance." So far, so good ; but on proceeding the reader discovers that the opinion which the book defends is that " Religion is the outcome of an effort to explain all things — physical, metaphysical, and moral — by analogies drawn from human society, imaginatively and symbolically considered. In short, it is a universal sociological hypothesis, mythical in form." 1 What is this but once more the intellectual posi- tion ? Religion arises from an effort to explain — religion is an hypothesis ! It is Herbert Spencer over again, with 1 Guyau, M, J., The Non-religion of the Future, p. 2. 42 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION an additional statement concerning the way in which man attempts to explain "the mystery " pressing for interpreta- tion. The place of thought and of feeling in conscious life. — There remains an interesting group of very recent defi- nitions, closely allied to those of the second class, yet suffi- ciently different from them to warrant separate considera- tion. I refer to those definitions which make use of the conception of value. Before discussing them, however, it will be advisable to direct attention to a most consequential change of point of view in contemporary psychology, — namely, the adoption of the evolutionary, dynamic concep- tion of mental life as opposed to the pre-Darwinian, static conception. This new point of view has given rise to a group of related principles of systemization variously called voluntarism, functionalism, instrumentalism, prag- matism. If religion is to be at all adequately under- stood, it must be in the new light that has come from this change. Almost all of the definitions that have been reviewed attempt to say what rehgion is. According to them, it may be almost anything one pleases: a belief, a feeling, an idea, an attitude, a relation, even a faculty. Definitions of this kind are completely out of harmony with the new point of view. The most significant and useful question concerning religion, or any other human activity, to one who realizes the pregnant meaning of development, is not what are the essential or dominant components of religion, but what is its function in human Hfe, and how is this function per- formed. The question of composition is subsidiary to these, and the significance of the study of origin is found in the light it throws upon function. Voluntarism conceives of life as an expression of will, — ■ CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 43 this word being used to cover impulses and tendencies, as well as volitions. Sensations and feelings exist only as a part of a conative act. They are never experienced in isola- tion ; they have no separate existence ; they are not functional units. It is, then, absurd to make them stand for the essence of religion, or to specify one of them as expressing its nature. *' Every act of will presupposes a feeHng with a definite and peculiar tone ; it is so closely bound up with this feeling that, apart from it, the act of will has no reality at all. . . . On the other hand, all feeling presupposes an act of will." 1 In swinging back from intellectualism to voluntarism, modern psychology has, after all, not made a new departure, but rather has returned to the fundamental cue provided by Aristotle in his characterization of man as thinking-desire.2 "Will is not merely a function which sometimes accrues to consciousness and is sometimes lack- ing ; it is an integral property of consciousness." ^ Will without inteUigence may be possible; but intelligence without will is not, not even in the case of so-called disin- terested, theoretical thinking. That is, there can be, no thinking without desire, intention, or purpose. " The one thing that stands out," says, for instance. Professor Dewey, " is that thinking is inquiry, and that knowledge as science is the outcome of systematically directed inquiry." Thought absolutely undirected would not even be a dream — it would be a meaningless, chaotic mass of intellectual atoms. It is the intention, the purpose, which makes thought significant. To discover ways and means of gratifying proximate or distant desires, needs, cravings, is the function of intelli- 1 Wundt, W., Ethics, tr. by M. F. Washburn, Vol. Ill, p. 6. 2 Since desire for an object includes liking, Aristotle's expression is com- plete; it does not leave out the affective element. 8 Wundt, op. cit,, p. 6. / 44 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION gence. The psychologist speaks, therefore, of the instni- viental character of thought, and considers cognition to be a function of conduct.^ Every pulse of consciousness is an expression of will in which feeling and thought appear as constituent parts. Successive moments can differ from each other neither in the absence of one of these constituents, nor in the essential relation which they bear to the total process, but only in their intensity and vividness. This, then, is the double teaching of psychology, in this matter: (i) feeling and thought enter in some degree into every moment of con- sciousness that can be looked upon as an actuality and not merely as an abstraction, and they are necessary constitu- ents of fully developed consciousness ; (2) the unit of con- scious life is neither thought nor feeling, but both in a movement toward an object, toward something to be se- cured or avoided, immediately or ultimately. If with this conception in mind we turn to religion, we shall understand it to have as its source, purposes and ideals ; that is, something to be attained or maintained. In other words, we shall see in religion an expression of the will to live and grow, in which thought and feeling are present and perform the function that characterizes them I whenever and wherever they appear. Feeling and iatellect have in rehgion no other place than the one belonging to them in the general economy of animal and of human existence. The application of current psychological teaching to re- 1 This conception receives material support from the organization of the nervous system, which makes clear the relation existing between sensation and its elaboration (thought), on the one hand, and conation and desire on the other. On this point I cannot here do more than refer to recent psychological work. For a semipopular exposition, see the address, The Reflex Arc and Theism, in William James's The Will to Believe and Other Essays, or Miinster- berg's Psychology and Life, pp. 91-99. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 45 ligious life leads us, then, to regard religion as a particular kind of activity, as a mode or type of behavior ; and makes it as impossible for us to identify it with any particular emotion or with any particular belief, as it would be to identify, let us say, family life with affection. We shall, however, have to remember that religion is multiform, and that at certain moments certain ideas, emotions, and purposes appear in it prominently, and at other times, other ideas, emotions, and purposes. In speaking of religion as an activity or as a type of be- havior, I do not mean to exclude from it whatever does not express itself in overt acts, in rites of propitiation, sub- mission, or adoration ; because, just as man's relations with his fellow-men are not all directly expressed or expressible in actions, so his relations with gods, or their impersonal substitutes, may not have any visible form. They may remain purely subjective and none the less exercise a defi- nite guiding and inspiring influence over his life. In a subsequent chapter these religious relations will be sepa- rated, under the name passive religiosity, from the active forms. The "feeling of value" or "the making sacred" as the specific characteristic of religion. — Very recently several attempts have been made to characterize religion by means of "feelings of value," and in particular by the value-feel- ing called sacredness. These definitions might have been placed in our second class ; but for various reasons it seems advisable to deal with them separately. These con- ceptions start from the self-evident and fundamental fact that the experiences making up our lives have a signifi- cance, an import, a value, for the person to whom they be- long. Every object of desire has for the one desiring it a value dependent upon the kind and the intensity of the de- 46 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION sire, and upon the kind and degree of gratification afforded by the object when secured. The distinguished Danish philosopher, Harold Hoffding, set forth in his Philosophy of Religion a doctrine which at- tracted immediate and widespread attention. In substance it is this. Existence is a battlefield in which contend values of all sorts. " The feeling which is determined by the fate of values in the struggle for existence is the religious feel- ing," ^ and "the fundamental axiom of religion, that which expresses the innermost tendency of all religions, is the axiom of the conservation of value." ^ Rehgion is thus at bottom not concerned with the understanding of existence, but with the valuation of it. The kernel of religion is " a belief in the persistency of value in the world {ein Glaiibe ail der ErJialtung des Wcrthes)." Religion thus defined in- volves an experience of limitation, of dependence upon a greater than man. For the concern of man in the fate of that to which he attributes worth, and in the triumph of the highest values, means that he is not complete master of the world of value; it implies the recognition of his depen- dence upon an order of things wider than the sphere of his own powers. The chief inadequacy of this definition appears to con- sist in the assignment to man of a purely passive function. He is represented as contemplating the fate of that to which he attributes value ; and the feelings arising in him under these conditions are considered to be the essential religious feelings.^ But man is not only a spectator in the struggle ; he is also an actor. An adequate definition of religion includes the pursuit of values and not only the 1 Hoffding, Harold, Philosophy of Religion, p. 107. 2 jn^^^ p. 215. 3 For a characterization of religious feeling, see Hoffding's Psychology, VI, C, 8 b, and his investigation of religious phenomena from the ethical stand- point in his Ethics, Chaps. XXXI-XXXIII. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 47 wish for their conservation and increase. Moreover, this pursuit must involve the assistance of powers of a specific kind — powers not yet adequately defined in these pages. In so far as this definition attempts to characterize re- ligion by means of a specific religious feeling,^ I would urge against it the arguments offered against the defini- tions of the second class. I must add, however, that I am under the impression that Professor Hoffding has in mind one aspect of religion, whereas I speak of religion in its entirety. In that case, my criticism would be irrelevant, and we should be in essential agreement. In The Tree of Life, Ernest Crawley is concerned chiefly with the origin of religion. He reaches the conclusion that " religion may arise and subsist wit hout any belief either in God or~the soul." " The source of religious feel- ings and their constant support is not the belief in spirits." " The primary function of religion is to affirm and to con- se crate life." " The religious emotion is no separate feel- ing, but that tone or quality of any feeling which results in making something sacred, . . . Consecration — the making sacred — of elemental facts is the normal result of the religious impulse and of this alone." But, what are the things possessing sacredness, and why have they that character ? The larger part of Craw- ley's book is an answer to these questions. That which primitive tribes regard as sacred are the elemental interests of life, — birth, puberty, marriage, death, burial, food, war. "Throughout primitive habit, it is the fundamental pro- 1 " Wesentlich ist religiose Erfahrung religioses Gefiihl. Ihr unmittelbares Objekt ist der innere Zustand des Gemiits wahrend des Laufes der inneren und ausseren Ereignisse." " Dieses durch das Schicksal der Werte im Kampfe urns Dasein bestimmte Gefiihl ist das religiose Gefiihl. Dasselbe ist also bes- timmt durch das Verhalten des Wertes zur Wirklichkeit." (Hoffding, Harold, Religionsphilosophie, pp. 95, 96.) 48 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION cesses of organic life that are invariably the subject first of secrecy and then of consecration." " Life, then, we may take it, is the key to our problem. The vital instinct, the feeling of life, the will to live, the instinct to preserve life, is the source of, or rather is identical with, the reli- gious impulse and is the origin of religion."^ With Crawley's vigorous and reiterated affirmation that the vital instinct is the source of religion, I am in hearty agreement. I have repeatedly made the same statement, but have added with equal emphasis that the love and lust of life is the source of all human conduct and not of reli- gion alone. Crawley's essential propositions — that Ql|;k- iQ& s acre d is the specific function of religion, and that the belief in gods is not necessary to its existence — reappear in a somewhat different form in a book by Irving King, a much more systematically and carefully thought out work, which I shall now consider. In King's conception of religion, ideas play a minimal r61e. He defines religion without reference to superhuman powers. Neither belief in them nor the use of them is held to be necessary to the existence of religion. The dis- tinguishing mark of religious hfe is, to use his favorite phrase, " a valuational attitude " of a particular kind. The word " attitude^^'lsHsedTTTake it, to make it clear that the religious differentia is not merely a matter of affective ex- perience, but that it includes a readiness to act in response to the situation calling forth the feehng. But what kind of valuational attitude does he mean .■' Crawley says that the values with which religion is concerned are those pos- sessing " sacredness." King uses preferably the adjectives highest, permanent, abiding, universal, ultimate, to charac- terize the religious value. It is evident, however, that the 1 Crawley, A. E., The Tree of Life (Hutchinson & Co., 1905), pp. 178, 185, 270, 209, 213, 214. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 49 experiences to which these words are applicable are gen- erally, if not always, those to which the term "sacred" also belongs. The primary concern of The Development of Religion is to determine the circumstances under which the religious attitude has been differentiated from those other conscious states which may also be described as valuational. The thesis which he defends with anthropological learning and psychological insight is this : ^ " The social group may be said to furnish the matrix from which are differentiated all permanent notions of value, and these are primarily con- scious attitudes aroused in connection with activities which mediate problems more or less important for the perpetua- tion of the social body," — as, for instance, the tribal rites and customs connected with birth, puberty, marriage, burial, the securing of food, war. The stronger the social bond, and the more highly organized the community, the higher, the more permanent and "universal" are the valua- tional attitudes developed; that is, the more religious, or the more nearly religious, they will be. King does not deny that values can be developed independently of the social group considered as a whole, but he urges that the atmosphere of the group is more favorable for the develop- ment of values than is that of the individual. It is in man's relations to the whole group that the highest values best develop, for the group stands, in a way, in the mind of the savage, for the absolute, for finality. But the problem of the origin and development of values is irrelevant to the immediate issue. The point under dis- cussion is the possibility of differentiating religion from the rest of life by means of particular values. King recognizes that valuational attitudes are of the essence of life itself ; *King, Irving, The Development of Religion, Macmillan & Co., 1910. See, in particular, pages 32, 84, 202-203, 227, 81. E 50 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION they are coextensive with it and do not belong to religion alone : " There are, of course, many values that are not re- ligious, and there are consequently many value-attitudes that have no religious significance." The particular values that differentiate religion are, according to him, those pos- sessing the greatest significance, the greatest permanence, the highest power. Now, all the recognized values can be arranged in a graded series, each term of which will better deserve the epithets permaHenf, of /n'^/i power, than the pre- ceding term. Where, then, is the line to be drawn between those that are to be called religious and those that are not .-' Wherever it may be drawn, it will mark only a difference of degree between religion and the rest of life. The ex- periences on one side of the line will be only of greater value, more permanent, more inclusive, than those on the other side. It turns out, then, that King has singled out a means of connecting together the whole of life, and not one that can be used to differentiate any particular portion of it. One is not surprised, therefore, to find him unsuccessful in his effort to separate religion from magic, and from aesthetic and other practical activities. In reference to religion and magic, he writes : " The point we have wished to make in this discussion is not that religion is essentially social and magic essentially individual " [although he believes this to be true], " but that the former develops more readily in the atmosphere of the group, and the latter is relatively an in- dividualistic affair. ... In a community of . . . loose or- ganization, magic might be so thoroughly taken up by the group as to be indistinguishable from religion." As a matter of fact, there is between magic and what is com- monly called religion not only a difference of degree as King's premises force him to conclude, but, as we have al- ready begun to see, a specific qualitative distinction. This CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 51 means of differentiation he deliberately rejects:^ "While deities are usually associated with religion, they are only one of the means through which the religious consciousness may find expression, and it is to that attitude itself one must turn if one is to gain a really adequate notion of the difference between the two. This religious attitude is, as we have pointed out, one in which appreciative and valuational ele- ments predominate, particularly such as are determined by social intercourse and by the social atmosphere generally. If religion is the distinctive product of such conditions, it is not strange that the conception of worth, the valuational attitudes thus socially determined, should be associated in some way with persons. . . . The primitive man, to be sure, thought of all these activities as conditioned in many ways by spiritual essences or powers, but that of itself made his acts no more religious than are ours when we treat live wires with caution." The word "religion" has, after all, a fairly well estab- lished meaning. It is not concerned only with objects of the highest, of ultimate, value to the individual or to soci- ety, but with the preservation and advancement of life in matters small and great.^ And this is also more or less ^ Crawley is in the same predicament ; he has discarded the only means of distinguishing magic from religion : " A large proportion of that early cere- monialism which is dismissed as magic ... is really the process of making a thing sacred. Magic is the means, but religion is the end.' (Crawley, ibid., p. 246.) 2 Among sociologists who regard sacredness as the distinguishing mark of religion should be mentioned Emile Durkheim. In the Revue Philosophique, Vol. LXVII, 1909, p. 17, he declares that the character of sacredness intro- duces a specific difference between objects. Only those possessing it can be religious objects. " Entre les uns et les autres, il n'y a pas de commune mesure." Professor Ames writes similarly : " The religious consciousness is just the consciousness of the greatest interests and purposes of life, in their most idealized and intensified forms." •' The ideal values of each age and of each 52 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the aim of every other part of life. It seems to me that King has given to the word "rehgion" a meaning at variance with common usage, and in so doing has deprived himself of the only natural and adequate means of differentiating religion from the rest of life. So much concerning our survey of the most important types of religious conceptions. Before passing on, in the next chapter, to the consideration of the origin of religion, and to the formulation of a more exact definition of the religious power than has so far been offered, I shall state again the theses for which I am contending. That which differentiates reHgion from other forms of conduct is the kind of power upon which dependence is felt and the kind of behavior elicited by the power. A natural line of cleavage between rehgious and non- religious behavior is made possible by the presence in man of ideas of forces of different character. Some of these forces are of the sort to which the name " physical " is applied ; others respond to intelligence and feeling, as if they themselves had mind and heart. Religion is that part of human experience in which man feels him- self in relation with powers of psychic nature, usually personal powers, and makes use of them. In its active forms, it is a mode of behavior, aiming, in common with all human activities, at the gratification of needs, desires, and yearnings. It is, therefore, a part of the struggle for Ufe. Nothing is less an abstraction than the religious life; it includes the whole man. A belief in psychic powers, personal or impersonal, is but one of the conditions of its t5rpe of social development tend to reach an intensity and volume and a symbolic expression which is religious." (E. S. Ames, Religion and the Psychic Life, Inter. Jr. of Ethics, October, 1909, "Vol. XX, pp. 49, 52.) CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION 53 existence. It cannot be adequately defined either in terms of feeling or of purpose. The current expressions, "re- ligious desire," " religious purpose," " religious emotion," are misleading, if they are intended to designate affective experiences, desires, and purposes, met with in religious life alone. In its objective aspect, active rchgion consists, then, of attitudes, practices, rites, ceremonies, institutions; in its subjective aspect, it consists of desires, emotions, and ideas, instigating and accompanying these objective manifesta- tions. The reason for the existence of religion is not the ob- jective truth of its conceptions, but its biological value. This value is to be estimated by its success in procuring not only the results expected by the worshipper, but also others, some of which are of great significance. The conception of religion here presented does not admit of that frequent excessively broad use of the term which includes anything that is of considerable value to man, — music, science, civilization, democracy, duty. I cannot, for instance, agree with those who say that " habitual and regulated admiration " is worthy to be called a religion, and that " art and science are not secular ... it is a fundamental error to call them so ; they have the nature of religion." 1 Neither do I find satisfaction in Professor Ames's affirmation that "to the psychologist it remains clear that the man is genuinely religious in so far as his symbols, ceremonials, institutions, and heroes enable him to share in a social life. It is also psychologically evident that the man who tries to maintain religious sentiment apart from social experience is to that extent irreligious, whatever he may claim for himself ; while the man who 1 Seeley, J. R., Natural Religion, Boston, 1882, pp. 122, 120. 54 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION enters thoroughly into the social movements of his time is to that extent genuinely religious, though he may charac- terize himself quite otherwise." ^ This is not putting new- wine into old bottles ; it is refusing to admit the existence of the bottle ! To bestow upon one the appellation rehg- ious because he enters thoroughly into the social movements of his time is to cause confusion by juggling with the word. But if the conception I defend excludes, on the one hand, those excessively broad interpretations destructive of all pre- cise meaning, it includes, on the other hand, the primitive religions in which low desires find gratification through grossly anthropomorphic beings, as well as the highest of the historical religions. It finds room even for the experi- ences of those who feel themselves in relation with an Impersonal Absolute, a mere " Principle of unity in a world of which we are not only spectators but parts." ^ These experiences I would, however, distinguish from those which have given rise to the historical religions by classifying them und&r passive religiosity. ^ Ames, E. S., Non-religious Persons, Amer. Jr. of Theol., Vol. XIII, p. 543; published later as a part of The Psychology of Religious Experience. ^ In a vigorously written little book. Marcel Hebert distinguishes between "the realistic" and " the idealistic form " of the religious feeling, and he provides instances of the latter. The experiences in which one's goal is characterized by the terms "perfect" and "ideal" is included in what I call religion, whenever these experiences involve relations with a spiritual power. (Marcel Hebert, La Forme Idealiste du Sentiment Peligieux, Paris, Emile Nourry, 1909.) PART II THE ORIGIN OF MAGIC AND OF RELIGION CHAPTER III THE MENTAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE APPEAR- ANCE OF MAGIC AND OF RELIGION' Since religion involves the whole man, its origin is manifold. We shall have to take up in successive chapters the primary forms and the origin of the ideas conditioning (religion the ideas of hyperhuman, unseen beings); the original rehgious emotions ; and, finally, the primary forms and the origins of rcUgious behavior. In this chapter I do not hesitate to take the reader for a while into the field of animal psychology ; for it seems to me that a comparison of animal and human behavior is the best means of gaining a knowledge of the mental pro- cesses which make possible magic and religion. I link together these two kinds of activity because they are so closely connected in primitive culture that a study of them side by side is of decided advantage to the understanding of each. The existence of both magic and religion depends upon traits which animals lack ; these traits I shall try to single out in this first chapter. Which of the three modes of behavior practised by man 1 In this and the following chapters of Part II, I have made use of con- siderable portions of my little book. The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion, published by Archibald Constable and Co., 1908, 95 pp., and sold in the United States by the Open Court Publishing Co. The reader will observe that among recent books three have been espe- cially useful to me in this Part : The Golden Bough, by J. G. Frazer; The De- velopment of Religion, hy Irving King; and The Threshold of Religion, by R. R. Marett. 57 58 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION are also practised by animals ? All the higher animals show by their behavior a "working understanding" of the more common physical forces. They adapt their actions more or less exactly to weight, resistance, and distance, when climbing, swinging at the end of boughs, breaking, carrying, etc. I remember observing a chimpanzee trying to recover a stick which had fallen through the bars of his cage and had rolled beyond the reach of his arm. He looked around, walked deliberately to the corner of the cage, picked up a piece of burlap, and threw the end of it over the stick. Then, pulling gently, he made the stick roll until it was near enough for him to seize it with his hand. This ape dealt successfully with certain physical forces; he practised what I have called mechanical be- havior. The behavior of animals towards one another and towards men is different from their behavior towards in- animate things. A dog may express love and hate in his relation with living beings, but these elemental, emotional reactions do not appear when he deals with ordinary physical objects. He will beg from a man ; he will not beg from a ham suspended beyond his reach ; nor will he waste any affection upon inanimate things, however well he may like them, and however strongly he may wish to possess them. It can hardly be denied that certain animals attach themselves to their masters with a devoted affection, and that they feel blame and approbation without regard to physical punishment and reward. Darwin relates of his own dog, which had never been beaten, that when caught stealing a chop from the table, he dropped the chop and crept under the sofa in a shamefaced manner.^ The higher animals, then, do undoubtedly practise both the mechanical and the anthropopathic types of behavior. 1 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, new ed., 1886, Vol. I, Chap. III. ]V1\GIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIMAL MIND 59 How do animals learn to react differently to impersonal and to personal forces ? The reactions characterizing the behavior of the highest animals, complex as they are, are established in the absence of abstract ideas about forces. Before they gain any general notion, animals learn to deal very well with physical and personal forces present to their senses.^ The study, under experimental conditions, of the establishment of new reactions in animals reveals clearly the nature of the learning process. Imagine a cat shut up in a box the door of which can be opened by pressing down a latch. When weary of confinement, the cat begins to claw, pull, and bite here, there, and everywhere. After half an hour or an hour of this purposive but unreasoned activity, it chances to put its paw upon the latch and es- capes. If put into the cage again, it does not know exactly how to proceed. Yet something has been gained by the first experience ; for now the clawing, pulling, and biting are directed more frequently towards the part of the cage occupied by the latch. Because of this improvement, it finds itself released sooner than the first time. The repetition of the experiment shows the cat learning to bring its movements to bear more and more exclusively upon the door or its immediate surroundings. The psycho- physiological endowment required for learning of this kind involves no abstract ideas, but only (i) the desire to es- cape; (2) the impulse and ability to perform the various movements we have named ; (3) a tendency to repeat suc- ^ H. B. Davis has this to say on the power of generalization of the raccoon, a very intelligent animal: " When an animal (raccoon) is forced to approach an old fastening from a new direction, it is often as much bothered by it as by a new fastening. Nevertheless, in course of time the animals seem to reach a sort of generalized manner of procedure which enables them to deal more promptly with any new fastening (not too different from others of their ex- perience)." {The Raccoon : A Study in Animal Intelligence, Amer Jr. of Psychology, October, 1907, p. 486.) 6o A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION cessful movements when the animal finds itself again in the situation in which success was achieved. Imitation does not play so extensive a role in animal life as is generally beheved. But, however that may be, the method of learning that I have just described — the trial- and-error method — is of itself sufficient to provide animals with the mechanical mode of behavior. Their reactions to feeUng beings — anthropopathic behavior — are also the result of the same learning process, either alone or in combination with imitation. In other words, anthropopa- thic reactions, like mechanical reactions, are independent of abstract ideas regarding the nature of their object or of the appropriateness of the means employed. We are, of course, not concerned here with the origin of whatever may be instinctive in the activities involved. The trial-and-error method, by which animals learn to deal with the forces in the midst of which they live, has a much wider range of application in human life than is generally supposed. The child's mode of learning is dominantly the unreflective, concrete method in which frequent chance successes slowly lead to the elimination of ineffective move- ments. In the adult this method is far from being entirely given up for more rational ones. It is in this way, on the whole, that one learns to ride a bicycle, to play tennis, or to perform any other act requiring motor skill. If at any time the learner realizes the rationale of his procedure, it is usually after it has been established by the method of trial- and-error. The role ascribed to abstract ideas and to clear reasoning in ordinary human behavior is vastly exagger- ated. What abstract notions are present, for instance, in the mind of the stoker when he thinks of the power of coal } What in the mind of the gambler when he tries to coerce fate .■' What in the mind of the necromancer when he summons the shades of spirits } Nothing need be pres- MAGIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIM.\L MIND 6i ent to consciousness, and probably in most cases nothing actually is present, beyond a knowledge of the concrete thing to be done in order to secure the desired results, and the anticipation of these particular results. The stoker thinks of what he sees and feels : the coal, in burning, gives heat ; the heat makes the water boil ; the steam pushes the piston-rod, and so forth. He thinks vaguely of each one of the successive links in the chain as striving to bring about the following one. This is how he under- stands the coal-power. And what does the average person know, for instance, about electricity ? He merely knows what is to be done in order to start the dynamo, to light the lamp, to switch the current, and what the effect will be in each case. The gambler and the superstitious person, whether they belong to an African tribe or to modern Anglo-Saxon civilization, understand in no other than this practical way their good and their ill luck.^ Animals learn, then, by the trial-and-error method, the mechanical and anthropopathic behaviors — the latter as far as it is called forth by an actually present person or animal. If trial-and-error were sufficient to account in addition ^ I remember the delight shown by an elderly lady when a brood of swal- lows fell down our sitting-room chimney. " It will bring luck to the house- hold," she said. I tried in several ways to find out the sort of notion this lady had regarding the nature of the power that was to bring about the fortunate events predicted, and also to discover her idea of the connection existing be- tween the fall of the swallows and the exertion of this "power" in our behalf. I had to conclude that there was no idea whatsoever in her mind beyond those expressed by " swallows-down-the-chimney " and " happy-events-coming." These two ideas were directly associated in her mind, ^^^len I declared my inability to see the causal connection between the two, she complained of my abnormal critical sense ! In the mind of the civilized superstitious person, as well as in the mind of the savage, nothing more need be looked for than the immediate association of an antecedent with its consequent. This is sufficient for most practical purposes. 62 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION for the coercitive behavior and the religious variety of the anthropopathic reaction, the origin of the three modes of human behavior would be brought back to one kind of learn- ing: the unreflective, concrete, trial-and-error method. But even a superficial consideration discloses serious difficulties in the way of this attractively simple theory, and compels the admission that magical art and religion involve mental powers not required for the establishment of the mechanical and the non-religious anthropopathic behavior observable in animals. In order to discover what these necessary powers are, let us analyze certain actions which are beyond animal capacity. Dancing, when it is mere play, is not, of course, altogether peculiar to man ; but special dances thought to influence the fate of war or of the hunt, found among many primitive peoples, do not exist among animals. These dances possess a magical or religious significance. Certain "religious " dances of the North American Indians are in part rehearsals of an approaching fight and of the brave deeds expected of the warriors ; or they are representations of the bringing into camp of the animals they hope to capture. Such dances combine amusement with the serious purpose of lending aid to the warriors and hunters. An- other common magical custom is to eat some part of a strong and courageous animal, such as the heart or liver, in order to acquire courage. Again, characteristic parts of a dangerous animal, — a tiger's tooth or claw — will be worn by way of protection. Still other practices involve the addressing of requests, supplications, and offerings to invisible beings. These magical and religious performances are important constituents of the life of uncivilized man ; they are conspicuously absent from the animal world. Why this absence .'' It points to a double mental difference be- tween men and animals. MAGIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIMAL MIND 63 (i) If a particular action is to be learned by an animal, the gratification of the actuating desire must follow immedi- ately upon the chance performance of the successful act, and must be repeated at short intervals. If the door had opened not every time the cat pressed the latch, but only every tenth time, or if it had opened an hour or even a few minutes after the movement, he would never have learned to make his escape. Nor would he have learned the trick if he had not been placed in the cage repeatedly and at short intervals. It is otherwise with the results of magic and religion ; they follow the act very irregularly, often after a long interval, and sometimes there is no result at all. This close dependence of animals upon actual ex- perience does not proceed from their inability to retain impressions. Their mental retentiveness is ineffective be- cause they cannot relate experiences which do not occur in quick succession. The connection of experiences sep- arated by a time interval, or of those involving recogni- tion of relations other than contiguity — such as likeness and difference — does not seem to lie within their powers. Codrington tells of the Melanesians that the friends of a wounded man get possession of the arrow that wounded him and put it in a cool place so that inflammation may be slight. The passing, in this instance, from the heat of an angry wound to the cooling of the cause of the wound, and, further, the connecting of the two in a relation of cause and effect is possible only to man. On being hit with an arrow, an animal will learn to dread and avoid it. This involves simply the connection of two simultaneous or con- tiguous events, — the pain and the sight of the arrow, — while the magical practice of the Melanesians involves the thought of the cool arrow when it is not experienced as cool, and the idea of a causal relation between the cool arrow and the subsidence of the inflammation, which is also 64 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION not actually experienced. These mental processes are of a higher type than those which suffice to account for the behavior of animals ; they involve the presence of free ideas, i.e., ideas appearing in the mind in the absence of the objects to which they owe their origin or to which they refer. To go back into the past, to single out some particu- lar occurrence, and to think of it, in its absentee, as the cause either of an actual or of an anticipated experience is the prerogative of man only. An interesting example of the gradual undoing of a habit in consequence of the absence of the sensory results that had led to the establishment of the action is reported by Lloyd Morgan.^ He had brought up in his study a brood of ducks. They had had a bath every morning in a tin tray. After a while, the tray was placed empty in its accustomed place. The ducks got into it and went through all their ordinary ablutions. The next day they again en- joyed the missing water, but not so long as on the first day. On the third day they gave up the useless practice of bath- ing in an empty tray. In three days ducklings give up a habit which has become useless, while generation after generation of men goes through innumerable time-wasting ceremonies, often costly and painful, for the sake of results secured rarely and, as we think, never directly by the magical or the religious ceremonies themselves. There is here a curious psychological fact : animals establish habits under the guidance of immediate results, while man de- velops the magical art and religion in spite of the usual absence of the results desired. This very possibility of man's deceiving himself reveals a superiority of man over animals ; for self-deception requires a degree of independ- ence from sense-observation, a capacity for constructive 1 Morgan, C. Lloyd, Introduction to Comparative Psychology (The Con- temporary Science Series, 1894), p. 89. MAGIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIMAL MIND 65 imagination, a susceptibility to auto-suggestion, not to be found in animals. That the first glimmer of these capaci- ties should have plunged man into the darkness of primitive magic and religion, and should have made him the ridicu- lous lunatic that he frequently appears to be by the side of the matter-of-fact, intelligent animal, is, however, a very singular fact. In the preceding paragraph I have written, "in spite of the usual absence of the results desired." I must remind the reader, in this connection, that the expected results of religion and magic are but a part, and usually the lesser part, of their usefulness. This fact modifies considerably the significance of the foregoing statement. (2) Animals never act toward unperceived objects as if they were present ; a dog never welcomes by gambols an absent friend. Whereas primitive man appears in religion and at times in magic in more or less systematic relations with invisible powers. When the Shaman draws lines upon the sand, describes various curves with his arms, and utters sundry incantations, he does not address a power he actually perceives, or even one he has really seen, although he may believe that he or some one else has seen it. This difference between man and animal is again due to the absence in the latter of free ideas, or to the inability of the free ideas to lead to action. The overcoming of these two deficiencies marked an era in the history of conscious beings. Before this advance, the universe was made up for them simply of what they actually sensed. Afterward the world assumed new pro- portions ; it included the world of imagined things, the limitless, mysterious realm of the invisible. That this fundamental difference between men and animals was en- tirely missed by Auguste Comte and partly by Herbert Spencer is shown in the latter's discussion of the opinion of Comte that " fetichistic" F 66 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION conceptions are formed by the higher animals. Spencer cannot fully agree with this view, yet he relates the following observation concerning a retriever who had learned for herself to perform '*an act of propitia- tion." The dog had associated the fetching of game with the pleasure of the person to whom she brought it. and so ''after wagging her tail and grinning, she would perform this act of propitiation as nearly as practi- cable in the absence of the dead bird. Seeking about, she would pick up a dead leaf, a bit of paper, a twig or other small object, and would bring it with renewed manifestations of friendliness." Spencer adds, " Some kindred state of mind is, I believe, what prompts the savage to fetichistic observances." ^ The truth of the matter is that the dog had merely learned to substitute for the game various other objects ; she had not learned to bring these to an unperceived master in the hope of ex- periencing the effect of his pleasure. I know of nothing in animal be- havior that could properly be termed magic, although certain tricks learned under the tuition of man resemble it somewhat. I have in mind, for instance, a dog's raising his forepaws, even though no one is present, when he wishes to be liberated from a cage. There is here no quantitative or qualitative relation between the lifting of the forepaws and the opening of the door, and yet it is not magic. The dog's action is not determined in the same way as that of a magician ; for the latter would perform the same magical rite in a great variety of external cir- cumstances, while the dog will seek liberation by lifting his paws only when in the particular cage in which he has learned the trick, or in one similar to it. This apparently slight dissimilarity points to the import- ant differences between the mental processes of men and of animals, to which I have drawn attention. That the behavior of animals is influenced by their past perceptions and actions is, of course, undoubted ; but whether these actions imply the possession of free ideas is still an open question. If a dog shows depression in the absence of his master, it may be simply because he suffers from the lack of an accustomed set of stimuli, — the master's presence, his voice, his smile, or his caresses, — and yet does not think of the absent master as the cause of his discomfort. We usually credit animals with higher mental processes than are necessary to pro- duce their actions. Lloyd Morgan, in his Animal Life and Intelligence reports the instructive instance of a cow deprived of her offspring. She 1 Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Sociology, 3d ed., 1885, Vol., i. Appendix A, p. 788. MAGIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIMAL MIND 67 was apparently pining away for the absent calf. When the stuffed skin of the calf was presented to her, she licked it, apparently with maternal devotion, until the hay stuffing came out ; then she placidly ate the hay. The movements of animals in dreams may be purely automatic.^ Bentley writes : '' The primary use of the image . . . was to carry the organism beyond the limits of the immediate environment and to assist in foreseeing and providing for the 'future' . . It was a means to what we may term remote adaptation." ^ In order to explain this inability to deal with invisible objects, it is not necessary to deny that animals have images ; although some recent psychologists do deny this for all animals below the apes. It is sufficient to admit that revived experiences cannot have in animals the influence that actual perception would exert. It is not enough for a dog to have an image of his master in order to beg for food. The image must lead to the action. It must be connected with an impulse to beg, an impulse strong enough to bring about the action. Either the absence of images or their lack of motor power accounts for this particular deficiency in animals. I have spoken as if the gods of primitive races were merely reproduc- tions of beings at times present to the senses. As a matter of fact, the spirits and gods with whom men think themselves in relation are prob- ably never mere representations of formerly known beings. The powers addressed are to a certain degree mental creations, instead of reproduc- tions of sense data. This transforming activity of the human mind removes man still further from the animal. There are on record observations from which one might infer that there is occasionally in the mind of certain higher animals something akin to the savage's personification of natural events. This would involve, of course, the possession of images. Sometimes dogs are thrown into paroxysms of fear by peals of thunder, and run into hiding. Darsvin relates how his dog, " full grown and very sensible," growled fiercely and barked whenever an open parasol standing at some distance was moved by a slight breeze. He believes that the dog " must have reasoned to himself, in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement ^ For a brief discussion of these questions, see Margaret Washburn, The Animal Mind, pp. 270-272. 2 The Memory Image and its Qualitative Fidelity, Amer. Jr. of Psychology, Vol. XI, 1899, P- 18. 68 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory." ^ Romanes, in a short and interesting paper entitled " Fetichism in Animals," ^ after giving the preceding illustration, relates this observa- tion about a remarkably " intelligent," " pugnacious," and " courageous " dog. "The terrier (Skye) in question, like many other dogs, used to play with dry bones by tossing them in the air, throwing them to a distance, and generally giving them the appearance of animation, in order to give himself the ideal pleasure of worrying them. On one occasion, therefore, I tied a long and fine thread to a dry bone, and gave him the latter to play with. After he had tossed it about for a short time, I took an opportunity, when it had fallen at a distance from him, and while he was following it up, of gently drawing it away from him by means of the long, invisible thread. Instantly his whole demeanor changed. The bone, which he had previously pretended to be alive, now began to look as if it really were alive, and his astonishment knew no bounds. He first approached it with nervous caution, as Mr. Spencer describes, but as the slow receding motion continued, and he became quite certain that the movement could not be accounted for by any residuum of the force which he had himself communicated, his astonish- ment developed into dread, and he ran to conceal himself under some articles of furniture, there to behold at a distance the uncanny spectacle of a dry bone coming to life." ^ Certain instances of instinctive fear of harmless things may help to interpret the preceding observa- tions. G. Stanley Hall mentions a little girl who would scream when she saw feathers floating through the air. To place a feather in the keyhole was sufficient to keep another child in a room.* Shall we hold that these animals interpreted the unusual experiences reported above as the work of hidden beings of the kind known to them, or shall we agree with Lloyd Morgan, Romanes, Spencer, and others in thinking that their behavior indicated simply surprise, astonishment, and fear, at the unexpected movements of familiar objects ? The latter explanation is probably sufficient. The failure of an object to fit in 1 Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, New York, 1871, Vol. I, p. 64. 2 Romanes, G. J., Nature, Vol. XVII (1877-1878), pp. 168-169, Comp. Lloyd Morgan, Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 92 ff. ^ Comp. Lloyd Morgan's experiment with dogs and soap bubbles, Intro- duction to Comparative Psychology, p. 93. * Hall, G. Stanley, /4 Study in Pears, Amer. Jr. of Psychology (1897), ^o\. VIII, p. 166. MAGIC, RELIGION AND THE ANIMAL MIND 69 with the psycho-physiological attitude of expectation which past expe- rience has taught us to assume brings about the sudden disturbance called surprise, astonishment, or fear. It is what would happen to any person if, on opening his bed in the dark, his hands came in contact with some object concealed there. Personification of the unexpected object is not necessary to cause fright. And yet who will say that in none of these instances there is anything corresponding to the anthro- pomorphic interpretation of natural events so common among men of little culture. It would seem to me an unjustifiably dogmatic assertion to say that no animal can think of thunder as caused by a being like those with which his senses have made him familiar. Creative imagi- nation is no more needed for such an interpretation than for the belief in survival after death, when this is suggested by apparitions in dreams or trances. Unless, however, there exists, in addition, a way of fixing, by means of communicable signs, the animistic interpretations that may chance to flit across the animal's consciousness, they cannot become a perma- nent part of his mental life. Without speech, which holds, clarifies, and keeps alive impressions of this evanescent nature, no stable belief deserving the name animism could have been established. The impor- tant role played by language, in this connection, appears clearly when one considers the part it takes in introducing dream experiences into waking life. The evanescence of dreams which are caught sight of on awaking is familiar to all. Unless one succeeds in putting them into words, they are soon completely lost ; it is through verbal expression that they become part and parcel of our mental possessions. CHAPTER IV ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS ^ We have seen that neither magic nor religion can be produced by the method of trial and error, but that the establishment of each implies ideas of unseen powers. What are the experiences out of which these ideas arise ? Until recently, the accepted view was that set forth in 1877 by Edward B. Tylor in Prifuitive Culture ? A brief statement of his theory will serve as a convenient starting point for our discussion. Tylor seeks to demonstrate that out of naive thinking about the visions of dreams and trances, and from comparisons of life with death, and of health with sickness, arose a belief in the existence of spirits as the powers animating nature. "What men's eyes behold is but the instrument to be used, or the material to be shaped, while behind it there stands some prodigious but half human creature, who grasps it with his hands or blows it with his breath." This belief, which according to him represents the first philosophy of nature, he calls 1 Although I take up the origin of the concepts fundamental to magic and religion before magical and religious behaviors, I do not hold that concepts appear full-fledged before action. I believe that active experi- ence is a necessary factor in the formation of ideas. But the particular ex- periences out of which arose the ideas of unseen powers antedated the appearance of magic and religion. This fact is the reason for the order of topics here adopted. It is, of course, quite true that although the origin of these concepts preceded the modes of behavior in question, their elaboration con'Cva.yx^A pari passu with the development of magic and of religion. 2 Tylor, Edward B., Fritniiive Culture, Vol. I, Chap. XI. 70 ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 71 anhnism. The phenomena mentioned generated initially the ideal of the double, also called ghost or soul. Each man was believed to have a ghost, which could tempora- rily leave the body and appear at a distance from it. By a process of extension souls were ascribed to animals and even to plants. The separation which takes place at death between the double and the body is responsible, ac- cording to this view, for the production of spirits ; so that, at their simplest, spirits are the souls of men, animals, or plants, liberated from a body. Spirits may enter and inhabit any organism, but they do not belong to it as a soul belongs to its body. A soul, it is true, can also leave its body, but only for a short time, under conditions such as { sleep ; otherwise death follows. Thus, in the mind of the / savage, the world is animated by untold numbers of souls and spirits or free souls. ^ ^ " Animism is, in fact, the groundwork of the philosophy of religion, from that of savages up to that of civilized men. ... It is habitually found that the theory of animism divides into two great dogmas forming parts of one consistent doctrine: first, concerning souls of individual creatures, capable of continued existence after the death or destruction of the body; second, con- cerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful deities. . . . Animism, in its full development, includes the belief in controlling deities and subordi- nate spirits, in souls, and in a future state, these doctrines practically resulting in some kind of active worship." (E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. I, Chap. XI, pp. 385, 386.) This is his definition of a " minimum of religion." In Vol. II, Chap. XIV, p. 99, he passes from the fundamental doctrine of souls to the derived doctrine of spirits. "The doctrine of souls, founded on the natural perceptions of primitive man, gave rise to the doctrine of spirits." " The conception of a human soul served as a type or a model on which he framed not only his idea of other souls of lower grade, but also his idea of spiritual beings in general, from the tiniest elf that sports in the long grass up to the heavenly Creator" (p. 100). Credit must be given Hobbes for having clearly anticipated the Tylorian animism. In the Leviathan we read : " And for the matter, or substance of the Invisible Agents, so fancyed, they could not by naturall cogitation, fall upon any other conceit, but that it was the same with that of the Soule of man; and that the Soule of man was of the same substance with that which 72 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION This doctrine of souls and spirits, in so far as it purposes to express the first philosophy of nature, is rapidly giving way under the combined weight of anthropological and of psychological data. An increasingly large number of com- petent writers would now place earlier than the Tylorian animism, or at least side by side with it, another fundamen- tal and universal belief, arising from commoner and sim- pler experiences than visions ; namely, a belief in the exist- ence of an omnipresent, non-personal power or powers. The names best deserving mention in this connection are probably those of Daniel Brinton, in the United States, and of R. R. Marett, in England. In his Lectures, pub- lished in 1897, Brinton^ advanced the theory that " the hidden and mysterious power of the universe " is at first expressed in terms denoting " infinite will." He quotes from Miss Fletcher that the Wakan of the Dakota Indians, " is the deification of that peculiar quality or power of which man is conscious within himself as directing his own acts, or willing a course to bring about certain results," and he continues, " The universal postulate, the psychic origin of all religious thought, is the recognition, or, if you please, the assumption, that conscious volition is the ulti- mate source of all Force. It is the belief that behind the sensuous, phenomenal world, distinct from it, giving it form, existence, and activity, lies the ultimate, invisible, immeasurable power of Mind, of conscious Will, of Intelli- appeareth in a Dream, to one that sleepeth; or in a Looking-glasse, to one that is awake; which, men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy, think to be reall and externall Substances; and therefore call them Ghosts, as the Latines called them hnagines and Umbrae; and thought them Spirits, that is, thin aereall bodies; and those Invisible Agents, which they feared, to bee like them; save that they appear, and vanish when they please." {^Leviathan, ed. A. R. Waller, 1904, Chap. XII, p. 71.) 1 Brinton, Daniel G., Religions of Primitive Peoples, 1897, pp. 60, 47, 164. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 73 gence, analogous in some way to our own ; and — mark the essential corollary — that man is in communication with it." And again : " The idea of a World-Soul, manifesting itself individually in every form of matter from the star to the clod, is as truly the belief of the Sioux or the Fijian cannibal as it was of Spinoza or Giordano Bruno." He holds further that this Will Power, this World-Soul, is first posited in moments of ecstasy or trance, in periods of rap- ture, intoxication, or frenzy. "This influence is at first vague, impersonal, undefined, but is gradually differentiated and personified." The striking features of this theory are: (i) that the idea of personal beings was not man's first explanation of movement and action in the world ; (2) that man began with a quasi-impersonal notion, which Brinton defines in terms of "will," — "All Gods and holy objects were merely vehicles through which Life and Power poured into the world from the inexhaustible and impersonal source of both"; (3) that this notion was first revealed in ecstasies and trances. A psychologist might call it an automatism. It is unfortunate that into this most interesting concep- tion of man's earliest philosophy and its derivation from the sense of our own will Brinton has introduced notions unnecessarily complex and of much later origin. At cer- tain points he seems ready to attribute to primitive man some of Emerson's ideas about the Over-Soul. R. R. Marett, in an important essay entitled Pre- Animistic Religion} urges "that primitive or rudimentary religion, as we actually find it amongst savage peoples, is at once a wider and, in certain respects, a vaguer thing than ' the belief in spiritual beings ' of Tylor's famous ' minimum defi- nition.' " " The animistic idea represents but one among * First published m Folk-lore in 1900, and reprinted in 1909 in The Thresh- old of Religion, Methuen and Co., London. 74 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION a number of ideas, for the most part far more vague than it is, and hence more liable to escape notice ; all of which ideas, however, are active in savage religion as we have it, struggling one with the other for supremacy in accordance with the normal tendency of reHgious thought towards uni- formity of doctrinal expression." Marett, Hke Brinton, is disposed to see in man's sense of will power the archetype of the original conception of the Mysterious Power; but he avoids the latter's error of including too much in the primitive conception. His conclusion may be stated in his own words thus : "The attitude of Supernaturalism towards what we should call inanimate nature may be independent of animistic interpretations." ^ In the Monist for 1906, Arthur O. Lovejoy offers a criti- cism of Marett which deserves attention. ^ The latter, as we have seen, finds the essence of the preanimistic belief 1 Marett, R. R., The Threshold of Religion, pp. 30, 17. In another chap- ter of the same book (p. 137), where he endeavors to push the origin of reh- gion a step farther back than animism, he concludes that " Mana, or rather the tabu-mana formula, has solid advantages over Animism, when the avowed ob- ject is to found what Dr. Tylor calls a minimum definition of religion. Mana is coextensive with the supernatural ; Animism is far too wide. Mana is al- ways Mana, supernatural power, differing in intensity, — in voltage, so to speak, — but never in essence ; Animism splits up into more or less irreducible kinds, notably ' souls,' ' spirits,' and ' ghosts.' Finally, Mana, whilst fully adapted to express the immaterial, — the unseen force behind the scene, — yet conformably with the incoherent state of rudimentary reflection, leaves in solution the dis- tinction between personal and impersonal, and, in particular, does not allow any notion of a high individuality to be precipitated." I maintain that in seeking to replace belief in personal agents (animism) by Mana, " which leaves in solution the distinction between personal and impersonal," Marett disre- gards the only definite line of cleavage which can be used to differentiate religious from non-religious life; that is, the line separating the attitudes and actions that involve the idea of personal power from those that do not. In my view of the matter, when the distinction between personal and impersonal is in solution, religion itself is likewise in solution. 2 Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Fundamental Concept of the Primitive Philoso- phy, Monist, 1906, Vol. XVI, pp. 357-382. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 75 to be the apprehension " of the supernatural or supernor- mal as distinguished from the natural and the normal," and so he proposes the term " supernaturalism," or pref- erably "teratism" as a name for this primitive attitude. " But," says Lovejoy, " Mr. Marett appears to me to place the emphasis on the wrong side. . . . The preanimistic belief — the beUef which is, at all events, independent of animism — is not best described as "supernaturalism," or " teratism," for the fundamental notion in it is not that of the unpredictable, abnormal, and portentous, but that of a force which is conceived as working according to quite regular and intelligible laws — a force which can be studied and controlled. A better name, then, for this group of beliefs would be Primitive Energetics " (p. 381). I question the appropriateness of the expression " quite regular and intelHgible laws," There is without doubt, I should say, much that is unpredictable in the behavior of Wakonda, or Manitou, or Mana. And, in any case, the means used to bring into play the mysterious Power does not indicate the apprehension of a definite and stable quantitative relation between this means and the effects produced. The Power invoked, therefore, is not a me- chanical Power, but a magical force. Irving King,^ in a chapter entitled " The Mysterious Power," brings together the philological and other data bearing upon this subject. The terms iI/(a'«zV^// (Algonquin), Wakonda (Sioux), Orenda (Iroquois), Mana (Melanesian), designate anon-personal Power or Potency considered to be at the basis of all natural phenomena. The same notion is found among the Australians. It appears in particular in their use of the Chiringa, or bull-roarer. ^ King, Irving, The Development of Religion, Macmillan and Co., 19 10. Any one interested in this point will find a good summary of the evidence in Chap- ter VI of Irving King's book, or in Lovejoy's shorter article quoted above. 76 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION 1 shall not attempt to put before the reader the linguis- tic and historical evidence that can be adduced to show that the belief in non-personal forces is prior to animism. It is now generally admitted that among nearly all primi- tive peoples of whom we have accurate knowledge the generic and widely used words previously thought to mean a personal divinity and often a " High God," really desig- nate afar less definite conception, — that of power or force. Originally these words no more designated personal gods than does Mana, which Codrington defines thus : " That invisible power which is believed by the natives to cause all such effects as transcend their conception of the regu- lar course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether in the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, being imparted to them, to their names and to various things that belong to them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is that generally known as Mana. . . . No man, however, has this power of his own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or spirits ; he cannot be said, as a spirit can, to be Mana himself ... he can be said to have Mana." ^ With regard to the historical evidence, it is now gener- ally conceded that as one approaches the original conditions of the race, religious practices dwindle away, while magical behavior is everywhere in evidence. Howitt declares that " if religion is defined as being the formulated worship of a divinity," the Australian savage has no religion.^ Frazer reflects the views of Spencer and Gillen, of Howitt, and probably of every recent first-hand student of Australia, when he writes : " Among the aborigines of Australia, the rudest savages as to whom we possess accurate information, ^ Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians (Clarendon Press, 1891), p. 191. 2 Howitt, A. W., Australian Ceremonies of Initiation, Jr. of the Anthrop Institute (British), 1884, Vol. XIII, p. 432. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 77 Magic is universally practised, whereas Religion, in the sense of a propitiation or conciliation of the higher powers, seems to be nearly unknown. Roughly speaking, all men in Australia are magicians, but not one is a priest ; every- body fancies he can influence his fellows or the course of nature by sympathetic magic, but nobody dreams of propitiating gods by prayer and sacrifice." ^ Because of the presence of magic and the absence of re- ligious rites among the most primitive tribes known to us, some argue that belief in the non-personal powers implied in magical behavior antedated the belief in the unseen per- sonal being involved in our conception of religion. This deduction is unwarranted ; for the Australians, although they are without religious customs and ceremonies, believe in the existence of some sort of Great Being. It is not my chief intention, however, to prove the priority of the belief in non-personal powers to the belief in unseen personal agents ; but to maintain the independent origin of these beliefs. The question of precedence loses much of its importance when these two concepts are not supposed to stand to each other in a genetic relation. It seems to me probable, however, that the non-personal view preceded animism. TJie theses which I maintain in this chapter are : first, that the belief in non-personal powers is neither a deriva- tive of animism nor a first step leading up to it, but that the two beliefs have had independent origins ; a7td, secondly, that ani^nism, appeared second in order of time. I have begun by giving the opinions of certain writers and referring to some historical facts upon which these opinions are based. The psychologist in search of knowledge concerning origins turns naturally to the child 1 Frazer, J. G., The Beginnings of Religion, Fortn. Rev., Vol. LXXVIII (1905) > P- 162. Comp. The Golden Bough-, 2d ed., Vol. I pp. 71-73. 78 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION to supplement anthropological data. What are the first explanatory concepts of the child ? In response to what experiences, and in what order, were they evolved ? Un- fortunately the available data here are also meagre and often indefinite.-^ Long before a child speaks, he uses things. His inter- est early extends to causes, and when language appears, with the questions, "What for? "and "Why?" he is already in possession of the abstract ideas of cause and effect.^ At the end of the third year begins that period of incessant questioning so wearisome to parents. Children wish not only to complete their information about the ap- pearance and the other sensible qualities of objects, but, first of all, to know for what purpose things exist, and how they came to be. Before the end of his third year, Preyer's boy asked, referring to the creaking of a carriage wheel, " Was maclitmir so ? " and not very much later children will ask, "What makes the wind ? " "What makes the train move ? " " How do we move our eyes ? " (girl four years and seven months). " When there is no Qgg, where does the hen come from ? When there was no Qgg, I mean, where did the hen come from ? " (five years old). " If I had gone upstairs, could God have made it that I had not ? " (boy four years old). From this age on, for many years the interrogation point is always wriggling in the mind of the child. 1 Sully, J., Studies in Childhood, Chaps, III, IV, pp. 91-108 ; Tracy, Chap. II, pp. 4, 5, III, p. 3 ; Alexandre Chamberlain, The Child (The Contemporary Science Series), 1900, pp. 147-148; Perez, The First Three Years of Childhood. '^The following instance shows how early concepts appear in the child. A boy eight months old had enjoyed stuffing things into a tin box. After- wards he looked for holes in all his toys. (Perez, ibid., p. 199.) It is to be hoped that soon some one will, by systematic observations of the child, complete the present meagre and scattered data, and so aid in the elucidation of the present problems. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 79 Now, inquiries concerning the causes of things imply an idea of power, for power means at its simplest merely that which produces something. I believe that this primary idea of power which a child possesses before the end of his third year is not the idea of a personal power, and is not derived from the idea of persons. It would seem to me preposterous to suppose that the first " What does that ? " of the infant implies the idea of a personal cause. Is it not much simpler, as well as quite sufficient, to conceive that for him the cause of an event is that which appears to his senses as preceding it? (I waive for a moment the question as to whether or not the crudest idea of causation includes more than the idea of necessary sequence.) That very young children do conceive of non-personal causes seems indicated in the following instance : a child one year and eleven months old wanted her mother to lift her up that she might see the wind. Is there any sufficient reason for thinking that this child expected to see a human being or an animal .'' To my mind, she simply expected to see something passing by. " Something " is a much simpler notion than that of an animal or human being. This expected thing was, for her, what plucked her dress, moved the tree, etc. Why should she have gone to the length of imagining an object, known only in this way, to have the definite characteristics of men or animals } Her actual experience with the wind was with something which had not these characteristics ; it was known to her only as that which pushed or pressed against her. Why not conclude, then, that she simply expected to see some familiar natural object, such as smoke, vapor, cloud.'* It may be argued that because the child speaks of these things as alive, he identifies them with men and animals. That he is usually ready to attribute life to these inanimate causes, is not to be doubted. Some little children when 8o A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION asked what things in the room were alive replied " smoke," "fire." C said his cushion was alive, because it sUpped from under him. The same child, on being told that a certain stick was too short for him, answered, " Me use it for walking stick when stick be bigger." ^ The wind, the smoke, the clouds, anything having the appearance of self-movement, falls in the category of " living " things. But, although for the child a man and the wind may both be alive, it does not follow that he conceives of the wind under the likeness of man. The concept " life " is for him wider than that designated by the same word in the mind of the civilized adult. " Life," it seems, means to the child merely the capacity of self-movement ; while the concepts "man" and "animal" involve in addition cer- tain ideas of structure — head, mouth, limbs — and modes of behavior. Because this idea of forces capable of self-movement or of producing movement and change, is simpler than the concept " person," it may be expected to appear earlier. The relevant facts of child psychology all confirm this view. It is evident, however, that the much more com- plex notion of personality does not lag far behind. It includes, for the child, men and animals, and is readily ex- tended so as to include certain physical objects, — the mov- ing, puffing, and smoking locomotive, for instance. Having reached this stage, does he gradually come to conceive of all causes as personal ? If so, he would pass through a second stage in his philosophical development, a stage which it would be proper to call animism. I prefer to think that non-personal causes continue to do duty side by side with personal agents throughout childhood. There are, in- deed, many facts, some of which are cited in this and in an- other chapter, which justify the opinion that the original idea ^ Sully, J., Diary, in Appendix to Studies in Childhood. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 8i of non-personal causes remains in the mind, and that at no time, either in the history of the child or of the race, does the term " animism " represent adequately the philosophy of primitive man, I have represented the original notion of causal power as independent of the sense of personal effort. But there can be no doubt that the moment soon comes when one's intimate experience of striving is projected into the world of external causes, A passage from G. F. Stout will set clearly before us the point in question. ''Causation for the 'plain man' involves more than mere priority and subsequence ; it carries with it a vague, and, for science, a futile representation of what Professor Pearson calls ' enforcement.' The traces of this bias are often found even in scientific exposition. Thus it is plainly in evidence whenever ' force ' is referred to as a cause of motion or as a reason why a body moves. ... In common language such words as pressure, strain, stress, energy, resistance, impact, imply something more than can be included in a mere description of the space relations of the parts of matter. This something more is cer- tainly rather indistinctly conceived. There is, however, no room for doubting that it consists in an assumed inner state of material bodies, — a state imperceptible to the external observer and uninterpretable in terms of the data yielded by external observation. Hence it follows of necessity that the only source from which the material for these ideas of force, enforcement, etc., springs is our own mental life."^ The projection of the feeling of effort into natural forces I would place midway between the earliest idea of non-per- sonal causal power and the fully developed idea of personal power. The little girl who says to her brother, " If you eat so much goose, you will be quite silly " ; the man who holds that his luck changed because he married a shrew, or be- cause so-and-so died ; or the man who thinks his fortune returned because he wore a " lucky " suit,^ — can hardly be 1 Stout, G. F., Analytic Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 178-179. 2 Jast row, Joseph, /ar/ and Fable in Psychology, p. 252. On the use of analogy, see pp. 236-274. G 82 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION supposed to invest the causes of these effects with the will- effort feeHng. He has simply remained at the lower con- ceptual level, or has reverted to it. I afifirm, then, that there exists a class of causes into which no will-effort feel- ing is projected, and that this class not only arises first, but persists after more complex notions of power have been added. It is to be noted further that a cause conceived under the analogy of a will-effort is not necessarily a personal cause. Even civilized man, as Stout reminds us, commonly endows physical causes with something of the sense of ef- fort which he himself experiences, but, nevertheless, he does not conceive of these causes as truly personal. Facts show that in most communities, at certain periods, the idea of will power has been seized upon and used as an explana- tory category. There is, for instance, a variety of magic called will-magic, because the magical deed is supposed to be due, in part, at least, to the will-effort of the magician. Such a notion is common among the North American Indians. According to Miss Fletcher, " The Sioux Ind- ian has deified the power of which he is conscious within himself, the power by which he directs his own acts or wills a course by which to bring about certain re- sults." They have a word Wa-zhm-dke-dhe, for which there is no word in English unless it be "telepathy." " Dhe-dhe is *to send,' and Wa-zhin-dhe-dhe signifies to send forth one's thoughts and will power towards another in order to supplement his strength. . . . For instance, when a race is taking place, a man may bend his thought and his will upon one of the contestants ... in the be- lief that this act of his, this sending of his mind, will help his friend to win." Similarly, when a man is on the war- path, a group of people, usually women, will gather about his tent and sing certain songs called We-ton-wa-an. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF IMPERSONAL POWERS 83 " These songs are the medium by which strength is con- veyed to the man facing danger ; the act is Wa-zhin-dhe- d/ic." 1 But we must remember that we are not dealing here with a really primitive people. One need not revert to the American Indian to find illustrations of this belief. The idea of action exerted at a distance by a person's will is very common, even among us. Miss Fletcher, like Brinton and others, fails to mark the important distinction between a power conceived under the analogy of our will-effort, and a complete personifica- tion. The will power sent off by a person may be spoken of as having " life," in the sense in which the child first uses this word. But that it is not identical with a person is shown by the fact that the power is detachable in various amounts from a person, and is owned and controlled by a person. The original idea of non-personal power possesses but'; one necessary characteristic : it is dynamic, it does things, i Man's attitude towards it shows plainly that neither intel- ligence nor feeling is a necessary element in its composi- tion. As the workings of this power are to a great extent unforeseen and uncontrollable, it evokes frequently dread and awe ; but in so far as man thinks himself able to con- trol and use it, it loses its mysteriousness and awfulness and becomes a familiar power. As it is not definitely con- ceived as intelligent will, the attitudes and the behavior it can elicit on the part of man are fundamentally different from those produced by the belief in personal, unseen powers. The former gives rise to magic ; the latter, to religion. For that conception of nature which most probably pre- ^ Fletcher, Alice C, Notes on Certain Beliefs concerning Will Power among the Siottx Tribes, Science (New York), N. S,, Vol. V, 1897, PP- Zi^t 334- 84 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ceded the Tylorian animism, or at least existed side by side with it, I would suggest the name dynamism. This term seems to me preferable to supernaturalism, because it does not thrust forward a distinction between nature and something above it; and preferable also to teratism, proposed by Marett, because dynamism does not direct the attention exclusively to the mysterious and wonderful as if these characteristics were fundamental to the conception. It is the idea of active power which is dominant in the conception of Impersonal Force, and this idea is well expressed by dynamism. I prefer this term also to manitouism, proposed by Lovejoy, because dynamism suggests to most people the idea of power, while manitouism either is without significance or conveys a meaning not intended. CHAPTER V THE SEVERAL ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN, PERSONAL BEINGS An inquiry into the origin of the belief in unseen, per- sonal powers is primarily concerned with the individual geniuses of the social groups considered. From time to time new ideas come to birth in the minds of specially gifted individuals, and through them become the possession of the community. This fact should be kept in mind throughout the chapter. But the statement that the conceptions out of which the gods arise are of individual origin is not incon- sistent with the fact that religion is, in a very real sense, the product of the social group. It is, I suppose, the passion for simplicity and unity that has led anthropologists and historians stubbornly to seek the origin of superhuman, personal powers in some one class of phenomena. According to Tylor, the idea of gods had its starting-point in dreams, visions, swoons, trances. Spencer is even more emphatic in deriving gods and worship from one original source, — the worship of the dead. Max Miiller also ascribes to the gods one origin ; he holds that the god-ideas proceed from the personifica- tion of natural objects. This unfortunate assumption of the unitary source of the ideas of gods is, I believe, one of the chief causes of the unsatisfactory condition of our knowledge of the origin and the development of religion. In this chapter I shall advance brief arguments, both 85 86 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION psychological and historical, in support of the four follow- ing propositions : — 1. Gods grew out of several different ideas of super- human beings. 2. These beings had independent origins. 3. The attributes of the gods differ according to their origin. 4. The historical gods are usually mongrel gods, the outcome of the combination of characteristics belonging to superhuman beings of different origins. The need of accounting for observed phenomena gives rise to one class of sources of the belief in unseen, super- human beings ; the affective and moral needs give rise to another class. Class I. — This class contains several independent groups of external and internal phenomena. They are by far the most prolific sources of ideas of superhuman beings. (a) Apparitions of animals and persons yet living, seen in sleep and in the hallucinations of fever or insanity, lead to the belief in " doubles " and " ghosts." When these apparitions come after the death of the person they repre- sent, they produce the belief in " souls " or " spirits." (d) States of seeming death followed by apparent return to life — sleep, trances, and other states of temporary loss of consciousness — suggest a belief similar to the preceding. (c) The spontaneous personification of striking natural phenomena such as thunder, Ughtning, fire, flood, and tempest ; or the sudden appearance of animal or vegetable life, may well lead to belief in personal agents behind visible nature. (d) The problem of creation no doubt forces upon the primitive mind very early the necessity of a Maker. It ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 87 may be that a crude conception of a Creator is attained even earlier than that of a soul or double. (e) The facts of conscience : the feeling of duty, the categorical imperative ; transformations of personality, Christian conversion, etc. (/) Various experiences included under the terms clair- voyance, divination, monition, etc. (£■) Striking motor and sensory abnormalities, such as are met with in hysteria. The desire to explain the phenomena of the last three groups implies a considerable degree of mental develop- ment ; therefore before these causes could become opera- tive, man must have been already in possession of a variety of ideas of superhuman beings and of gods. But if these phenomena could hardly have become sources of original god-ideas, they have undoubtedly led to important modi- fications of them by the ascription to the gods of the moral qualities and of the powers implied in these expe- riences. With the appearance of the moral conscience, for instance, gods became promoters of morality.^ It is to be noted that the metaphysical arguments for the existence of God, — for instance, the cosmological and the ontological proofs and the argument from design, — stand in a different relation from the facts here classified to the belief in superhuman beings. The metaphysical proofs are primarily arguments by which man sought to establish the objective validity of god-ideas already in existence. These proofs have also served to give greater ^ The storm-gods of the Vedic worship " are in many respects presented in perfect harmony with the physical action of storms. They are glorious youths, rushing through the heavens on golden chariots, shaking the sky and mountains, while the forests bend in fear before them." But when wisdom and righteousness are ascribed to them, it is clear that another motive than the original one of explaining storms has come into play. Comp. Stratton, Psychology of the Religious Life., pp. 230-231. 88 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION precision to the god-ideas, and to modify their content. How radically the metaphysical and the naive empirical methods differ, becomes evident in a comparison of the cos- mological argument with the manner in which non-civilized man comes to beUeve in a Maker. Class II. — The affective and the moral needs. These needs become potent relatively late in human history ; so that when they appear as factors in the making of gods, beliefs in superhuman beings have already come into existence through the agency of phenomena of the first class. The experiences of this second class result, therefore, in a transformation of existing superhuman beings by the ascription to them of affective and moral qualities. In an essay on a group of Christian mystics,^ I have indicated four kinds of affective needs, only two of which need be mentioned here : — {a) TJie needs of the Jieart. — Affection and love seek perfect objects that they may be perfectly gratified. Under stress of this need a Nature-god or the Impassible Absolute may be transformed into the Great Friendly Presence, the benevolent Father, even the Passionate Lover, {b^ The needs of conscience (not, as in Class I, the inier- pretatioji of the facts of conscience). — We crave strength in order to fulfil its imperative commands. These cravings are father to the belief in a being who is able and willing to assist in the conflicts of the " spiritual " against the " natural " man. Here might be placed also the conviction that justice must be fulfilled, either in this life or in another. This conviction is usually connected with the belief in a Dispenser of punishment and reward, a FulfiUer of the law of justice. The modern belief in the existence of God rests nearly ^ Leuba, James H., Les Tendances Religieuses chez itn Groupe de Mystiques Chretiens, Rev. Phil., Tome LIV (1902), pp. 1-36, 441-487. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 89 entirely upon the subjective experiences of Class II Dreams, hallucinations, trances, personification of striking phenomena, the idea of a Maker, — these empirical data, together with the metaphysical arguments, have lost, as far as the educated are concerned, all, or almost all, the value they had once as prompters of the belief in God. Apparitions in dreams and trances, and in states of seeming death. — I proceed to a few remarks concerning the first four groups of the first class, and I begin with groups a and b. Most anthropologists seem to be of the opinion that the idea of the " double " or " ghost " is the exclusive source of the original belief in souls, in invisible spirits, and conse- quently in gods. Very recently, however, a distinguished sociologist, E. Durkheim, has vigorously attacked this view.^ He maintains that the conception of soul did not have its origin in dreams, visions, and trances, although the concep- tion may be of service in an attempt to account for some of these phenomena. As the point raised by Durkheim is of considerable importance, I give his chief objections under four heads, and offer answers which seem to me sufficient to refute his arguments. 1. The belief in soul is not the simplest way to account for dreams, visions, etc. Why should not man, instead, have imagined that he could see at a distance through all kinds of obstacles ? This is a simpler idea than that of a double made of a semi-invisible, ethereal substance. 2. Many dreams are refractory to the ghost-interpreta- tion ; for instance, dreams of things that we have done in 1 Durkheim, E., Examen Critique des Systemes Classiques sur la Pensee Religieuse, Rev. Phil. Vol. LXVII, 1909, pp. 10-15. What he regards as the origin of the soul I do not know, for at the present writing the book of which the above is to be a chapter has not appeared. 90 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the past. The double might transport himself into the future, but how could he live over again the past existence of the body to which he belongs ? How could a man when awake really believe that he has taken part in events which he knows to have taken place long ago ? It is much more natural that he should think of memories, since these at least are familiar to him. 3. How could he be so stupid and non-inquisitive as not to be impressed by the fact that the person whose alleged double has conversed with his own double while he slept had also had dreams that same night and was with another person than his own double ? There is, thinks Durkheim, some naivete in the blind credulity ascribed to primitive man by this theory. 4. Even though the ghost-explanation should be sufficient to account for all dreams, it would remain unlikely that man ever sought for an explanation of his dreams ; they are too common occurrences. " What is dream in our life } How small a place it holds . . . and how surprising it is that the unfortunate Australian spends so much energy in evolving a theory of it." Let it be observed first that whatever objection there may be to the ghost-hypothesis as a means of interpreting the phenomena in question, the savage actually does account for them by that notion. This fact, which even Durkheim admits, causes many of his arguments to lose their relevancy. Sir Everard im Thurn relates the follow- ing incident in his book. The Indians of Guiana : " One morning, when it was important to me to get away from camp on the Essequibo River at which I had been detained for some days by the illness of some of my Indian compan- ions, I found that one of the invalids, a young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, with great want of con- ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 91 sideration for his weak health, I had taken him out during the night and had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult cataracts. Nothing could persuade him that this was but a dream, and it was some time before he was so far pacified as to throw himself sulkily in the bottom of the canoe. At that time we were all suffering from a great scarc- ity of food, and, hunger having its usual effect in produc- ing vivid dreams, similar effects frequently occurred. More than once the men declared in the morning that some absent man, whom they named, had come during the night, and had beaten or otherwise maltreated them ; and they insisted on much rubbing of the bruised parts of their bodies." ^ That man should have originally regarded as memories vivid dreams in which he feels and hears himself walking and talking with another person, whose face he sees and whose voice he hears as clearly as in waking life, seems to me an impossible supposition ; and to try to explain the dreadful experience of feeling the hand of one's enemy around one's neck and choking in his grasp, on the ground of remembrances seems mere mockery. I do not know any explanation simpler than the assumption that the person one has felt and seen was actually present. If by chance one knows that person to have been at the same moment in one or several other places, then the immedi- ate inference is that he is double, triple, or quadruple. Certain savages believe, as a matter of fact, that men have four souls. One may, of course, offer objections to this interpretation ; but the savage does not realize the diffi- culties that thrust themselves upon the reflecting mind. Observations of the beliefs of intellectually inferior persons of civilized races show that for most of them there is no 1 Quoted by Edward Qodd in Animism, Archibald Constable and Co., 1905, PP- 31-32. 92 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION contradiction sufficient to make them give up an explana- tion to which they have become attached. Durkheim alludes to other simpler and more adequate explanations of dreams, but these he does not himself advance. In the life of young children are found indications of the possibility of the dream origin of the idea of doubles. Preyer relates of his child, then in his fourth or fifth year, that " he sometimes cried out in the night and imagined that a pig was going to bite him. He seemed to see the animal as if it were actually there ; he could not conceive that it was not there even after his bed was brightly lighted up." ^ In the Diary of a Father, published as an appendix to Sully's Studies of Childhood, we read of C, four years old : " He evidently takes his dream-pictures for sensible reali- ties, and when relating a dream insists that he has actually seen the circus horses and fairies which appear to him while asleep." ^ Yet he knows that he has spent the night in a room into which horses could not enter ; but it does not seem to be one of the wishes of children to get rid of contradictions otherwise than by dismissing the thought of them. The non-civilized adult behaves similarly, and in this he differs simply in degree from ourselves. It is un- necessary to multiply similar instances, yet the following may not be out of place as an illustration of the manner in which a child deals with a situation resembling in one respect that by which primitive man is confronted in the explanation of his dreams and visions. A boy of my ac- quaintance, nearly four years old, had been deeply im- pressed by the dragon in a performance of the Play of Saint George. He was told that it was a skin inside which a person roared and gave lifelike movements to the 1 Preyer, W., The Mind of the Child, Part I, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1896, pp. 168-169. ^ Sully, J., Studies of Childhood, p. 455. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 93 skin. He seemed readily to understand and to accept the explanation, yet he still firmly believed the dragon to be alive. In order to complete the explanation, the dragon's skin was brought to the child, and in his presence a man got into it, roared, and moved about. The child, of course, understood, yet the next day he was ready to go hunting for the dragon, and this was not simply in play, if a care- ful observer can judge at all what is and what is not play in a child's behavior. What happened in this case is a common experience ; emotion made it impossible for him to bring his knowledge and his critical sense to bear upon the problem. An occasional terrifying vision would be sufficient, it seems, to establish and keep up the belief in doubles. Regarding the frequency of hallucinations among savages, Mary Kingsley writes of the West Africans : " I also know that the African, in spite of his hard-headed common sense, is endowed with a supersensitive organiza- tion; he is always a step nearer delirium, in a medical sense, than an Englishman ; a disease that will, by a rise of bodily temperature, merely give an Englishman a headache, will give an African delirium and its visions." ^ The four objections just reviewed are offered by Durk- heim as an argument against animism. That theory taken as an original philosophy of life, I do not defend ; nor in- deed do we need to concern ourselves with it at all. The question in point is simply whether dreams, visions, and the like have been an original source of belief in ghosts or doubles. I see nothing in Durkheim's criticisms to invali- date Marett's assertion that it is "one among the few rela- tive certainties which anthropology can claim to have established in the way of theory." ^ 1 Kingsley, Mary H., The Forms of Apparitions in West Africa., Proc. of the Soc. for Psy. Res., Vol. XIV, 1898-1899, p. 331. 2 Marett, R. R., The Threshold of Religion., Methuen and Co., London, p. 9. 94 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The personification of striking natural phenomena. — I am ready to grant that the spontaneous personification of striking nature phenomena, such as thunder, fire, floods, cataracts, and heavenly bodies, etc., by bestowing upon them either human or animal attributes, was a factor of less importance than dreams and trances. This mode of origin seems, however, to have played an uncommonly important role among the old Aryans, who worshipped "the heavenly ones," "the shining ones," that is, the powers of the luminous heaven. More frequently, per- haps, the tendency to personify served to confirm behefs in powerful invisible beings and to give to them new characteristics. Conclusions as to the probability of this origin may be drawn from the behavior of the child. Many a child barely able to speak forms the habit of ascribing human or animal nature to what is for the adult simply non-per- sonal. He personifies not only because it is for him a natural form of explanation, but also because he finds an inexhaustible source of delight in the fictitious world he creates. Who can make the division between belief and pretence in this mythopoeic world .'' It was during his fourth year that C began " to create fictitious persons and animals, and to surround himself by a world unseen by others but terribly real to him." ^ In this connection one should keep in mind the great individual differences. Some children live almost entirely in the real world, and many probably never confuse make-believe with reality. But there are also those who hold firmly to the reality of a world of their own creation. It is these believing children who make the traditions and the dogmas of child- hood. Is it improbable that savages should, both in ear- nest and in play, have placed personal and animal beings 1 SuUy, J., op. cit., p. 453. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 95 behind certain striking phenomena? How otherwise could they better gratify at once a demand for explanation and a love of dramatic play ? ^ The personifications of the primitive man, as well as those of the child, often are classed as animal forms. Nothing could be more natural. Is not the animal world more varied and mysterious to the savage than the hu- man ? The size, appearance, and behavior of animals are so exceedingly diverse that one may expect almost any- thing that shows self-movement to be an animal. Why, for instance, should not the savage believe that the sun is an animal .-' Is its shape too simple, or its motion too regular ? I do not see how uncivilized man could set limits to the shapes of animals. And as to the sun's movements, they are not, after all, so regular as the scientist would make them. The sun rises at different points winter and summer, and traverses the heavens by different paths. It hides away for long periods, and then shows itself constantly for many days. Even its heat is variable. But even though the personification of natural phenom- ena is to be expected of savages, it is perplexing to find people as far advanced as the old Egyptians, for instance, continuing to worship nature-gods. One must in this case reckon with the momentum of psychic habits just as one does with physical inertia. Habits once formed and ex- 1 I have given some details concerning an unusual instance of fondness for personifying in The Personifying Passion in Youth, 'iviih Remarks upon the Sex and Gender Problem, Monist, Vol. X, 1900, pp. 536-548. The effect produced by great scenery frequently points to the tendency to personify nature. One of my correspondents writes that " Places in which the sense of the sublime is appealed to always call forth religious emotions. . . . The last time I noticed this feeling was at the sight of Niagara Falls about two years ago. I had to restrain myself from kneeling down when I first came near the Falls." 96 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION pressed in venerated institutions cannot easily be cast aside. But something else contributes also to the production of this paradox : the literal assumes a poetic or a moral sense, and the change remains long unrecognized or unacknowl- edged. The ease with which most men pass, without know- ing it, from a genuine belief in God to one which is merely conventional or is maintained for aesthetic or moral reasons, is a fact as amazing as it is pregnant with sociological con- sequences. One may observe among us at present the passage from a vital belief in the traditional personal God to a survival-belief of the kind just mentioned.^ The problem of creation, — This very early and potent source of the idea of great unseen beings has been very insufficiently taken into account. The idea of a mighty Maker of things may safely be attributed to men as low in intelligence as are the lowest tribes now extant, for it appears very early in the child. The first definite inquiries about causes are usually made towards the end of the second year. After that time the question " What makes that?" is for many months frequently on the child's lips. At first his inquiries bear upon particular things and not upon the origin of things in general. Moreover, he does not necessarily think of personal causes. A little later on, ^ 1 The theory of Max Miiller and of Adelbert Kuhn, according to which the starting-point of rehgion was the personification of the more striking natural objects, bears only a superficial resemblance to the theory that the origin of superhuman beings was by the direct, spontaneous personification with which we are concerned. The process of personification which these authors de- scribe is an accident due to the distorting action upon thought of an in- sufficiently definite language. Natural objects, they explain, were originally described by their effects, in terms similar to those used to name the actions of human beings. The sun, for instance, was " the one which darts shafts of light." T/ie one, because of linguistic indefiniteness and the natural tend- ency to conceive movement as arising from a personal cause, came to be understood in a personal sense. Thus, according to this theory, arose the nature-gods and the myths clustering around them. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 97 however, he passes from particular problems to the general one, and thinks of a personal Creator.^ Many persons have had the good fortune of being present at the child's sudden awakening to this problem and his immediate solu- tion of it by the assumption of a great Maker conceived vaguely as a human being. A child notices a curiously made stone and asks who made it. He is told that it was formed in the stream by the water. Then suddenly he throws out in quick succession questions that are as much exclamations of astonishment as queries : "Who made the streams ? Who made the mountains ? Who made the earth ? " If children five years old begin of themselves to inquire into the origin of the world, one must admit the presence of such queries in the mind of the most intelli- gent individuals of the lowest tribes. The Great Maker or Makers usually take on a human shape, probably because men and not animals are to prim- , itive man the constructors of things. The nests of birds and lairs of animals are no better than the huts of the savage himself, and animals make no implements of any sort. The making of weapons and other necessary objects is one of primitive man's vital occupations. One may well suppose, therefore, that when he thought of the making of things about him, he placed the Great Maker in the human rather than in the animal group. Nevertheless, it 1 Before her eighth year, Helen Keller, who is blind, deaf, and mute, had begun to ask questions regarding the origin of things and of herself. Her teacher, Miss Sullivan, thought it preferable to delay an explanation, and told her that she was too young to understand. Her inquiries became more and more urgent. In May, 1890 (she was born in June, 1880) she wrote on her tablet, " \\Tio made the earth and the sea and everything ? What makes the sun hot ? Where was I before I came to my mother ? " See Miss Sullivan's report of 1891, republished in the supplement to The Story of My Life, h^ Helen Keller, Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. It is not uncom- mon for a normal child to puzzle about these questions from his fifth year or even earlier. H 98 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION is not impossible that in some cases the Great Maker should have assumed an animal form. In the discussion of non-personal causes, it was said that in many primitive societies certain names supposed to desig- nate high personal gods have been found by later scholars to have only a non-personal significance. If we accept both this conclusion and the one now reached concerning belief in a Great Maker, we shall expect to find among primitive peoples one name for a general non-personal force and an- other for a great Creator. But after a time the non-personal power may naturally enough in many tribes have com-e to assume personal characteristics, either by direct personifi- cation, or by fusion with the creator-idea. The consequences of the presence of ideas of superhuman beings of several independent origins. — I know of no suffi- cient reasons, either psychological or historical, for denying any of the following propositions. Each appears to me possible and, under appropriate circumstances, probable. 1. Several of the sources may have operated simulta- neously in the formation of diverse ideas of superhuman beings and subsequently of gods, so that several gods of different origins may have, from the first, divided the at- tention of the community. 2. These sources may have been effective not simulta- neously, but successively. A ghost-ancestor may have first attained dominance and, later on, a Great Maker. 3. Any order of succession is possible. It is nearly simultaneously that the belief in unseen personified causes of external events arises in the child's mind, that dreams be- gin to play a part in his waking life, and that the problem of creation presents itself to him. The question as to which is the first cannot be given a universally valid answer. If we imagine a group of children living in close companionship, ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 99 uninfluenced by adults, we may conceive that belief in beings arising from any of these sources would, according to the peculiarities of the children and the circumstances of their lives, first gain ascendency. 4. When several gods existed side by side, fusion and confusion of their characteristics could hardly be avoided : to a deified ancestor may have been ascribed the attributes of a creator, and to a creator the role of an ancestor ; a non-moral nature-divinity may have been raised above the natural phenomenon to which it owed its origin and be- come, as among the old Aryans, creator and governor of the world. An interaction of god-ideas of different ori- gin — and therefore of different nature — is one of the fundamental facts to be taken into account by the student of the origin of religion. It is for the anthropologist and the historian to discover what in any particular case has actually happened in these four respects, and to determine the origin or origins of any particular god. They will have to say, for instance, why Shintoism is a cult addressed exclusively to ancestral spirits, to family and national ancestors, while the other god-ideas have remained unknown to the Japanese, or have been suppressed under the influence of circumstances favorable to the worship of ancestors. It was otherwise with the Aryans. Their imagination was captured by ideas of nature-gods, sun, fire, storms, etc. The richness and versatility of the Greek mind provided that wonderful race with a pantheon composed of ancestor-gods, creator- gods, and nature-gods. Why these differences.-' As to the psychologist, he may regard his task as completed when he has pointed out the several possible origins of the god-ideas, the characteristics of each, and the nature of the general causes which determine the dominance of partic- ular gods. lOO A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION I close this chapter with an illustration of the usefulness of the principles I have just set forth in solving a difficult problem in the history of early religion.^ It is an old opinion that even the lowest savage enter- tains a belief in a Supreme Being, however dimly con- ceived and little reverenced. This view was originally based quite as much on the propensity of Christians to dis- cover at the beginning of society beliefs in agreement with their traditions, as on actual facts concerning these peoples. Although this opinion suffered temporary discredit from the discovery that in several instances the alleged mono- theistic beliefs really proceeded from the teaching of mis- sionaries, recent anthropological researches furnish suffi- cient evidence to warrant a return to this view. It seems "^ now established that in every part of Australia, except perhaps among the Arunta, a tribe of the central regions, there is a belief in an All-Father, who is perhaps always regarded as creator. He is variously named in the differ- ent tribes : Baiame, Duramulum, Mungamongana, Nureli, etc. ; that is, our father, father of the whole people, father of all the tribes who observe the law, great master, and the like. In Africa there also exists, it seems, a general beUef in a great God conceived as creator. Miss Mary Kingsley says that : " The god in the sense we use the word, is in es- sence the same in all of the Bantu tribes I have met with on the coast ; a non-interfering and therefore a negligible quantity. He varies his name ; Anzambi, . . . Nyambi, Ukuku, Suku, and Nzam, but a better investigation shows that Nzam of the Fans is practically identical with Suku of the Congo. . . . They regard their god as the creator of man, plants, animals, and the earth, and they hold that, 1 Another illustration will be found in the chapter on the relation of the- ology to psychology. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS loi having made them, he takes no further interest in the af- fair. But not so the crowd of spirits with which the uni- verse is peopled ; they take only too much interest, and the Bantu wishes they would not, and is perpetually saying so in his prayers, a large percentage whereof amounts to : ' Go away, we don't want you. Come not into this house, this village, or its plantations ! ' " ^ Mgr. Le Roy reports the presence among the Pigmies of Equatorial Africa of a belief in a High God distinct from the spirits whom they wor- ship. He is a creator and preserver, but receives no wor- ship. On the rare occasions when they address him, it is to ask him to leave them alone.^ Concerning the natives of central Australia, — the most primitive of that continent — Spencer and Gillen write : " In all of the tribes there is a belief in the existence of alcJicringia (or its equivalent), ancestors, who made the country and left behind numberless spirit individuals." From Melanesia the evidence is equally interesting. Codrington mentions two superhuman beings who " at any rate were never human . . . yet were in some ways origi- nators of the human race, both were female, both were subjects of stories, not objects of worship." A little farther on he expresses some surprise at the existence in the New Hebrides and Banks Islands of spirit-beings of two orders. He writes of Qat, "The place of Qat in the popular behefs of the Banks Islands was so high and so conspicuous that when the people first became known to Europeans it was supposed that he was their god, the supreme creator of men and pigs and food. It is certain that he was believed to have made things in another sense from that in which men could be said to make them . . . the regular course of the 1 Kingsley, Mary H., Travels in West Africa, London, Macmillan (1897), p. 442. See also Mrs. E. L. Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, pp. 4-10. 2 Mgr. Le Roy, La Religion des Primitifs, Paris, Beauchesne, 1909. I02 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION seasons is ascribed to him, the calm months from September to December when the un Palola sea-worm comes, the yearly blow, at the high tide in the month of wotgore. . . . With all this it is impossible to take Qat seriously or to allow him divine rank. He is certainly not the lord of spirits."^ Let us note that these creators are not worshipped, although they occupy a higher station than any of the worshipped gods. Although the general existence of the belief in High Gods is now accepted by most anthropologists, there is no unanimity of opinion in regard to the origin of the belief. Supporters of the traditional Christian religion have tried to make capital out of this so-called original monotheism. They have referred it to a revelation.^ Andrew Lang, approaching the same facts in a different spirit, has drawn from them conclusions which contain certainly a valuable element of truth. He revives the dis- credited view of the existence, at the origin of human society, of a relatively noble religious belief, and of its sub- sequent degeneration into rites of propitiation and concili- ation addressed to beings greatly inferior in power and in worth to the original High God, and he claims that his theory, " rightly or wrongly, accounts for the phenomena, the combination of the highest divine and the lowest animal qual- ities in the same being. But I have yet to learn how, if the lowest myths are the earliest, the highest attributes came in time to be conferred on the hero of the lowest myth." ^ 1 Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians, pp. 150, 155. 2 See Father Wilhelm Schmidt in L'origine de Pidee de Dieu, Anthropos, III (1908), IV (1909). These papers are researches at second hand from a well-informed person who is evidently before all else a priest of the Roman Catholic Church and an apologist of the traditional Christian system. ^ Lang, Andrew, The Making of Religion, 2d ed., Preface, p. xvi. As to the origin of the belief in a kind of Germinal Supreme Being, he makes in the preface to the second edition the following suggestion : " As soon as man had ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 103 In my opinion, the priority of the High Gods is not the important point in the interpretation of the facts I have just cited. And, further, it would not necessarily follow from priority that the lower beings are degraded High Gods. The truth of the matter as I see it is that the High Gods proceeded from an independent and specific source ; they are, or were originally, the Makers. The essential elements of my theory are that man comes to the idea of superhuman beings along several routes, that the char- acteristics of these beings depend upon their origin, and that one — or one class — of these beings, the one arising from curiosity about the making of things, is necessarily a relatively lofty conception, awe-inspiring, and suggestive of power and benevolence. Gods arising from the belief in ghosts, or from the personification of portentous natural phe- nomena might have appeared first, without at all hinder- ing the coming into existence of a Creator-god. And, whenever that conception appeared, the god would have possessed the comparatively high and noble endowment naturally belonging in the mind of even the lowest savage to the Creator of man and things. The question of the or- der in which these notions found their way into the human mind is thus of subordinate importance. This theory is quite consistent with our present anthro- pological knowledge ; namely, that there exists among the most primitive people now living the notion of a Great God high above all others, to whom is usually assigned the func- tion of creator, that these same people also believe in a the idea of making things, he might conjecture as to a Maker of things. . . . He would regard that unknown Maker as a magnified non-natural man." What is still happening to William James on account of his Varieties of Re- ligiozis Experience happened to Andrew Lang. The authority of his name was claimed in support of the Christian revelation. In the preface to the second edition of The Making of Religion, he declares that he never intended to countenance the belief in an original revelation. I04 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION crowd of spirits and ghosts, and that ivithin the limits of definite Jdstorical periods " sacrifice and prayer become more and more numerous and more artificial in proportion as the idea of a Supreme Being grows dim." ^ The following considerations will, I hope, convince the reader that these facts do not necessarily support the corollary drawn by Lang, as well as by the defenders of an original revelation, that our most primitive tribes mark a deterioration from the earliest condition of humanity, but rather that the facts are consistent with a natural develop- ment and indicate the presence of no factor not operative in modern progressive societies. The idea of a Maker I suppose to have originally pre- sented itself to the race very much as it does to a five- or six-year-old child who is suddenly struck with the idea that some one must have made the world. It did not, therefore, involve such notions as eternity, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. The concept of a Great Maker is, of course, awe-inspiring, because of the power it implies and of the mystery surrounding the operations of such a being. Some degree of interest and benevolence towards that which he has made is also, it seems, unavoidably associated with even the simplest idea of a Maker. Such a being must thus have been relatively exalted. What modifications would this idea undergo when it passed beyond the gifted individuals who had conceived it and became the property of every tribesman, however brutish and ignoble .-' Undoubtedly there would occur the kind of modifications that history records in the case of more recent gods : they are transformed into beings more nearly like the worshippers themselves. But this process does not necessarily imply the deterioration of the people. ^ Father Schmidt, Anthropos, III, p. 604. This statement is probably much too sweeping. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 105 The gods have been debased, but the people themselves have been raised to a higher level by the lofty notions they have corrupted. This degrading process is the natural unavoidable method by which the masses gradually rise towards the level of those who have set for them unattain- able ideals. Thus it is that the return to origins is fre- quently a progress. In the case before us, special factors probably made the degrading process speedier and more irresistible. The exalted Maker found himself, in the mind of the people, in company with other superhuman beings of much humbler extraction. Even though one should dis- regard the possibility of the personification of natural events, one must in any case reckon with the belief in beings suggested by visions, temporary loss of conscious- ness, and other similar occurrences. Since these beings are human doubles, they may possess all the meanness and cruelty of the lowest of men. Their power, though not definitely known, is sufficient to excite fear, but not in most cases great enough to inspire awe. When associated with the ever-present, troublesome doubles, and the many petty spirits conceived in the same way as ghosts, the Maker could hardly preserve his identity and his high attributes. A confusion must have taken place, and as the common is more easily understood and retained than the unusual, the lofty attributes of the High God conceived by the primitive philosophers became obscured, and to him were attributed meaner traits originally belonging to lower gods. One may thus admit that even in the absence of any real de- generation of a community the oldest conception of the Maker was the noblest, provided a limited and specific historical period is considered. When this period of ab- sorption and incubation is past, philosophers and seers again appear, who enlarge the reigning conceptions, charge them with higher worth, and return them to the people, io6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION who degrade them anew in the travail of their own elevation. The fact that to many has seemed unaccountable, namely, that the Maker and All-Father is not among early people an object of worship, while lower beings are prayed to and propitiated, seemed to me just what would be expected of human nature. It is true that a Maker seems the being best qualified to become a God, since he possesses the necessary power and greatness and must be, on the whole, benevolently inclined towards those whom he has created, and since man can hardly fail to feel his depend- ence upon a being from whom he proceeds. Under these circumstances, the speedy appearance of religious practices addressed to the High God would seem unavoidable. Why then is he not sooner worshipped ? Because his very great- ness and remoteness stand as an obstacle in the way of practical relations, while ordinary spirits and great ancestors, more familiar and closer to man than a Maker, call forth more readily those methods of propitiation and of worship constituting the lowest religious expression. The kind of attitude to be expected of an uncivilized man towards the Over-God is well illustrated, in at least one of its aspects, in the following report concerning the noble tribes of the Bight of Panavia. " At each new moon, the chief of a village goes out and stands in the open and talks to Anyambie. He does not praise Anyambie ; he does not request him to interfere in human affairs ; he, the chief, feels compe- tent to deal with them, but he does want Anyambie to attend to those spirits which he, the god, can control better than a man, and he always opens the address to the great god with a catalogue of his, the chief's, virtues, saying : ' I am the father of my people ; I am a just man ; I deal well with all men, etc' ... At first hearing these catalogues of the chiei's virtues used to strike me as comic, and I once said : ' Why don't you get some one else to say that for you ; praising yourself in that barefaced way must be very trying to you.' 'Oh no,' said the chief, ' and besides no man knows how good he is except himself,' which is a common West Coast proverb. But by and by — when I had ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 107 been the silent spectator of several of these talks with the great God, — the thing struck me as really very grand. There was the great man standing up alone, conscious of the weight of responsibility on him of the lives and happiness of his people, talking calmly, proudly, respect- fully, to the great God who, he knew, rules the spirit world. It was like a great diplomat talking to another great diplomat. . . . There was no whining or begging in it . . . the grandeur of the thing charmed me." ^ This is of course neither worship nor propitiation ; Anyambie is apparently too high a personage to concern himself with the details of human life, or to care for such offerings as would please a tribal chief. And yet he is not great or good enough to elicit awe, admira- tion, and reverence. Miss Kingsley's oft-repeated question, " Is he good?" was always answered negatively, except by natives who had been under the influence of missionaries. " ' No,' they say firmly, ' he is not what you call good ; he lets things go too much, he cares about himself only.' And I have heard him called 'lazy too much, bad per- son for business,' and a dozen things of that sort." Now, if Anyambie's character were loftier, the chief might not so readily enter into relation with him. And, further, supposing this god to have been originally the Creator, is it altogether improbable that as men began to realize the imperfections of his works, he should have lost prestige and rank ? Anyambie's deterioration, if it occurred in this manner, would in no wise imply the deterioration of his people. In the Christian religion, the difficulty of entering into formal relation with the Maker is overcome, or rather avoided, by the introduction of intermediaries. The sup- plications and offerings of Roman Catholics are ad- dressed much more to the Virgin Mary and to the Saints than to God the Creator, ^ and Christ usually takes the place of God the Father. It is quite probable that religious rites first appeared in connection with the behef in spirits very near to man ; the closer to him, the more readily would he enter into practical relations with them, as he 1 Kingsley, Mary H., The Forms of Apparitions in West Africa, Proc. of Soc. for Psychical Research, Vol. XIV, 1898, pp. 334-335. 2 Hoffding quotes a Copenhagen preacher as saying in a funeral discourse, " God cannot help us in our great sorrow because He is so infinitely far away; we must therefore look to Jesus." ( The Philosophy of Religion, p. 90.) io8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION would with a great and powerful man. The practices of placing food in the graves, of making a fire near them, of placing hunting or fighting implements in them, not in the expectation of profit, but simply out of humane feeling, are probably prototypes of the earlier religious offerings and sacrifices. To this topic I shall devote a special chapter. Meanwhile I offer these instructive instances of the worship of living men. In the Marquesas or Washington Islands, " the god was a very old man who lived in a large house within an enclosure. In the house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the house and on the trees round it were hung human skeletons, head down. No one entered the enclosure except the persons dedicated to the service of the god. . . . This human god received more sacrifices than all the other gods; often he would sit on a sort of scaffold in front of his house and call for two or three human victims at a time. . . . He was invoked all over the island, and offerings were sent to him from every side." " The kings of Egypt were deified in their lifetime, sacri- fices were offered to them, and their worship was celebrated in special temples and by special priests. Indeed, the wor- ship of the kings sometimes cast that of the gods into the shade. . . . He claimed authority not only over Egypt, but over ' all lands and nations.' " ^ The Maker, though not worshipped and propitiated so early as the lower gods, nevertheless exercises from the first an influence at times profound and often the most ennobling known to the primitive mind. In this connection one should remember Howitt's statement concerning the All- Father of the South-Eastern Australians. He is, we are told, " imagined as the ideal of those qualities which are, according to their standard, virtues worthy of being imitated. ^Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, 3d ed., pp. 387, 418. ORIGINS OF THE IDEAS OF UNSEEN BEINGS 109 Such would be a man who is skilful in the use of weapons of offence and defence, all powerful in magic, but generous and liberal to his people, who does no injury or violence to any one, yet treats with severity any breaches of custom or morality." ^ The reader will remember that religion as defined in a preceding chapter includes, under the name Passive Religiosity, affective relations of this sort. Hovvitt, Hartland, and others have been unwilling to take the High Gods as Creators in the true sense of the word. They have held them to be primarily ancestors and, in particular, great chiefs deified. They have had no difficulty in showing that the All-Father of the Australians is often spoken of as chief of the other world. G. M'Call Theal says that the more reliable traditions mention Umkulunkulu, the Great Great One of the South African natives, as the most powerful of their ancient chiefs, and therefore he is unwilling to describe him as a Creator. Be this as it may with regard to Umkulunkulu, it remains established that the High God is usually spoken of as a Creator. To say, as Hartland does, that the concept of creation as we understand it is a notion foreign to the savage is beside the point, and, moreover, it is true only if "we" means the highly cultured few. The savage thinks of a Maker as children and even many civilized adults do. What is more likely than that this Maker of man and things should come to be spoken of as Great Chief, Ruler of the Sky Country, or First Ancestor? The appHcation of the term " monotheism " to the be- lief in the High God of the uncivilized is to be deprecated ; for monotheism, in the current acceptance of the term, means more than a belief in a Maker ; it means also that there exists no other god but him. This is obviously not implied in the conception of the High God. The Maker is the highest god, but there exists side by side with him other powerful gods. One should not expect the relation of the Maker to the other gods to be clearly and consistently defined. After all, the monotheism of our uneducated 1 Howitt, A. W., The Native Tribes of Soutk-East Australia, London, Macmillan (1904), pp. 506-507. no A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION Christian population is of a similar sort. Pure monotheism belongs to the few ; the masses are rather henotheists.^ Summary. — The observation of a variety of phenom- ena suggests to the primitive mind the existence of unseen agents of different sorts: (i) dreams, trances, and allied phenomena generate the belief in ghosts and spirits of human form and attributes ; (2) the personification of natural objects leads to the belief in nature-beings con- ceived frequently as animals; (3) the problem of creation gives rise to the belief in a Maker or Makers in the form of man. These beliefs are neither manifestations of a diseased mind nor the outcome of a revelation ; they arise from perfectly normal mental processes. There are few men living to-day, barring the mentally defective, who, if de- prived of the inheritance of civilization, would not people an unseen world with these unreal creatures. But ghosts, spirits, and makers are not in themselves gods. Only a few of them possess from the first or acquire later on the attributes necessary to the establishment of the system of relations called religion, and are thus trans formed into gods. This transformation will be the subject of the next chapter. ^ For discussions regarding High Gods, see the following : Andrew Lang, The Making of Religion, 1898, new ed., 1900; E. Sydney Hartland, The High Gods of Australia, Folk-lore, 1898, Vol. IX, pp. 290-319 (a critical re- view of "The Making of Religion"); Lang, Australian Coa'i, Folk-lore, 1899, Vol. X, pp. 1-46 (a reply to Hartland) ; Hartland, Australian Gods : a Rejoinder, ibid., pp. 46-57 ; Hartland, The Native Tribes of South- East Aus- tralia, by A. W. Howitt, Folk-lore, Vol. XVI, 1905, pp. 101-109 ; Lang, All- Fathers in Australia, ibid., pp. 222-224; A- W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Folk-lore, Vol. XVII, 1906, pp. 174-189; Father Schmidt, Anthropos, III, pp. 819-833 ; A. Van Gennep, Mythes et Legendes d\4ustralie, Paris, 1905. CHAPTER VI THE MAKING OF GODS AND THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY The mere knowledge that the world is peopled with invisible beings does not of itself lead to the establishment of a religion. It is only when the unseen beings become important factors in the struggle for life that they acquire the significance of real gods. As a matter of fact, how- ever, a " mere knowledge " of unseen agents completely unrelated to the daily life is a fiction. Creators, nature- beings, spirits, and ghosts are all connected in some degree with the practical life of the tribe. This is inevitable, be- cause these beings owe their very existence in the mind of man to fundamental human needs. If, for instance, strik- ing cases of fertility gave rise to the idea of nature-beings, their leading attribute would be the power to render fertile. If a belief in spirits arose from the observation of dreams and trances, these spirits would possess the kinds of power that belong to man. But some of these beings lose their significance after a time, while others enter more and more into the life of the community ; they become objects of special attention and thus centres of observances and practices, i.e. they become gods. The reason for this growth on the part of certain of the unseen beings is obvious. How could man, consti- tuted as he is, believe in the existence of powerful beings and not try to conciliate them when he thought them dangerous, or to seek favors from them when he thought them benevolent? The general fact of man's entering into III 112 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION relations with certain hyperhuman agents needs no other explanation than is afforded by the lust for life. But the many problems regarding the particular attributes as- cribed to certain gods require detailed historical and anthro- pological knowledge. As I am only a psychologist, I shall have to content myself with the following remarks about circumstances and conditions under which certain attributes are conferred upon unseen beings. It would evidently be advantageous to man if he could think of the unseen beings as possessing every power of which he stands in need. Now it happens that one of the most useful propensities of man is to ascribe to unseen beings, without strict regard to their original nature, the ability to supply all the wants of the tribe and the indi- vidual. Therefore, the powers with which the gods are invested are as many and as varied as human needs. It is truly a remarkable habit, — that of imagining in other beings coveted powers and virtues, and of turning these powers, by supplications and offerings, to one's own bene- fit, or of enriching oneself with these virtues by means of sympathetic communion. This method characterizes not only the relations of men with gods, but also those of men with men. We see in others the perfections which we lack : the numberless little human gods and goddesses who keep the flame of love and hope burning in the hearts of their votaries perform services similar to those of the heavenly gods. One would not expect a tribe to develop a cult touching that which is unimportant to its members, or that which is easily available in a more direct way. The things essential to life and at the same time hardest to secure are those with which the gods will be mainly connected in the mind of man. If a community depends for its subsistence upon the sea, its gods will be endowed with the powers necessary ESSENTIAL dL^JL-VCTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY "3 to make fishing safe and productive ; if it subsists upon grains and fruits, its religious and its magical dealings will be chiefly with gods of vegetation. In dry regions, where happiness and often life depend upon the fall of rain, the whole ritual centres about the production of rain, and the rain-maker takes precedence even of the chief. Therefore the early gods will not only be parts of the social order, but they will be related to economic factors of the first importance. When the conception of a universe governed by physical laws has become established, the gods lose their impor- tance as controllers of natural events, but they gain new functions which qualify them to continue in the service of man. They become comforters in time of sorrow, lovers of justice and mercy, gods of righteousness ; i.e. they are con- cerned chiefly with ethical and emotional struggles. The God of the advanced Christian nations, for instance, no longer a god of fertility, although still to a certain degree a god of battle, is essentially a god of the conscience and the heart. The qualifications which a being must possess in order to be available as a god are the following : — 1. He must be a psychic, a spiritual agent. — By these terms I mean simply the quality which the savage attrib- utes to agents that are influenced by volition, thought, and feeling, as distinguished from those that are not. This rough differentiation expresses sufficiently well the essential difference, as understood both by primitive and by civilized man, between what is called the material and the spiritual world. 2. As \.o personality, I shall say here merely that from the beginning up to the present time the gods of all the historical religions have been personal beings, imagined 114 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION under the form of men, or of animals, or, in the higher religions, independent of form. When inanimate objects such as the sun have been spoken of as gods, it is because they were regarded as symbols, or as inhabited by a god, or possibly because they were classed vaguely with animals. It may have to be granted that there are now religions in process of formation free from the belief in a personal god. The trend of religious life in civilized countries is not only away from anthropomorphism, but even away from a definitely personal god. This matter I shall take up in a chapter on the future of religion. I do not think it necessary at this point to define the term "personal " any further than by saying that it involves what is implicitly contained in the idea of man as it exists in the mind of the savage, — the idea of an acting, feeling, and thinking agent. 3. The personal Power must be hyperhuman^ i.e. he must transcend in some direction ordinary human ca- pabilities ; otherwise he could not gain the ascendency which invariably belongs to the god-ideas. He need not be superhuman, in the sense of belonging to another than the human or animal order. It is well known that most of the earliest gods were held to belong to the race of men. But human relationship is a limitation that the gods of the higher religions have transcended. Neither need the personal Power be omnipotent, omnipresent, nor omniscient. It is only among highly developed races that these qualities become attributes of the one and only God. A god is sufficiently endowed when he possesses the powers neces- sary to fulfil the expectations of his worshippers. Even the high God, to whom is addressed the prayer, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread," need not be conceived as omnipotent and infinite. ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 115 4. The Jiyperhuman pozver must be a part of the essefice of the god, not merely an external possession separable from him in definite quantities, either by the exertion of his own will, or by magical ceremonies performed by other beings in order to coerce him into manifesting this power. One finds that the wild man very early speaks of and deals with certain beings as if their wonderful power were separable from themselves, while with regard to others he behaves and speaks as if the power were of their very sub- stance. Ghosts are often worshipped because of the wonder- ful non-personal Force at their disposal. Among the Melane- sians, for instance, " The ghost who is to be worshipped is the spirit of a man who in his lifetime had niana in him ; the souls of common men are the common herd of ghosts, nobodies, alike before and after death." " On the death of a distinguished man, his ghost retains the power that belonged to him in life, in greater activity and with greater force ; his ghost therefore is powerful and worshipful, and so long as he is remembered the aid of his powers is sought, and worship is offered to him ; he is the tindalo of Florida, the Ho' a of Saa." ^ Now between beings that are worshipped or coerced because of an impersonal, detach- able power in their possession, and beings whose very nature transcends that of man, and enables them to perform wonderful deeds, there is a dissimilarity too important to be disregarded. The objects or persons in which is incor- porated anonpersonal Potency become, it is true, mysterious and sacred, and therefore special objects of attention ; but, nevertheless, the attitude and the feeling of the worshipper cannot be identical in the two cases. It appears to me advisable to reserve the use of the term " god " for unseen beings who are superhumanly powerful 1 Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians, their Anthropology and Folk-Lore, Clarendon Press, 1891, pp. 125, 253-254. ii6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION in their very nature. The significance of this distinction will appear more clearly as we examine, a few pages below, the facts upon which rests the opinion of some anthropolo- gists that certain gods arose from the deification of magicians. 5. Another requisite of a god is invisibility. — The reason for this requirement has been stated. A god, however, may appear occasionally without jeopardizing his divine character. But gods manifest themselves in their own shape only in the lower religions. In the higher religions, when they wish to come to earth, they assume temporarily a human or an animal shape. The higher the god, the less frequent are his appearances. The worship of animals would furnish a contradiction of the preceding statement if these animals could ever be re- garded as gods in the full sense of the term. I find no data to prove that they are so regarded. Animals, Hke men, may be receptacles of non-personal power which they may be induced to use in behalf of worshippers. Again, like men, they may be the forms in which spirits or gods incarnate themselves. In these two ways — as receptacles of magical power and as incarnations of powerful spirits — animals play a very considerable role in the life of peoples of primitive culture. Any animal, it seems, may, because of its association with something striking or important, assume one or the other of these roles. They are more commonly ascribed, however, to animals that attract atten- tion by peculiarities of shape, color, or behavior. " Living sacred objects in the Solomon Islands are chiefly sharks, alhgators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds. Snakes which haunt a sacred place are themselves sacred, as belonging to or serving as an embodiment of the ghost ; there was one in Savo, to look upon which caused death. In San Cristo- val there is a special reverence for snakes as representatives of the spirit-snake Kahausibware. Sharks are in all these ESSENTIAL CEL\RACTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 117 islands very often thought to be the abode of ghosts, as men will before their death announce that they will appear as sharks, and afterward any shark remarkable for size or color which is observed to haunt a certain shore or rock is taken to be some one's ghost, and the name of the deceased is given to it." "The sacred character of the frigate-bird is certain ; the figure of it, however conventional, is the most common ornament employed in the Solomon Islands, and it is even cut upon the hands of the Bugoto people." ^ Although animals can be looked upon as magic-gods and gods-incarnate, they can hardly figure as magicians ; for the sounds and movements they make can rarely be re- garded in the same light as the magical practices of the medicine-man or the rain-maker. It is still more difficult to conceive of them as gods, in the full meaning I have given to that term. 6. The perso7ial Power must be accessible (not through coercitive measures, but through anthropopathic action); otherwise he could never be the objectof a cult. He would at most be " a regulative idea " in the manner of the " ab- solute " in idealistic philosophy, or of the god of Deism. 7. Benevolence tozvard men must enter into his com- position. — As this point will be taken up again when we deal with the original religious emotions, I need say no more about it here. Mystcriousjtess, azufulness, and frequently sacredness have been thought to be the differentiating characteristics of the gods. A being who is usually invisible, who wields great power for good or evil, and whose behavior is not predictable is evidently a mysterious and awful being ; mysteriousness and awfulness, therefore, always belong to 1 Codrington, R. H., op. cit., pp. 178-179, 180. Comp. Irving King, The Development of Religion, pp. 230-234. ii8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION gods, and man's relations with gods will be more or less deeply colored by awe. But in awe there is nothing dis- tinctive of religious life, for this emotional experience occurs outside of religion as well. Any spectacle suggestive of great power and at the same time of danger may inspire awe. Moreover, mysteriousness and awf ulness are not coordinate with the preceding list of characteristics ; for awf ulness and mysteriousness are derived from power, invisibility, etc. It has also been urged that whatever is sacred is reli- gious and whatever is religious is sacred ; moreover, that the presence of this quality constitutes a chasm between the religious and the non-religious. I have already had occasion to argue that this view is tenable only when the sense of the term " religion " is so extended as to lose its historical meaning and to become coextensive with what- ever is of great importance to man. The word " sacredness " points not to a simple emotion, but to a highly complex affective experience, of which awe and reverence are dom- inant components. This emotional state is undoubtedly experienced outside of religious life. It belongs, for in- stance, to the mysterious Mana of the Melanesians, as well as to gods. Now Mana itself is sacred because of the good and evil things it can do ; so that sacredness has its origin in the values which life places upon food, fertility, sickness, birth, death, etc. Certain objects and places are sacred because Mana is to be found in them, or because powerful ghosts inhabit them. And ghosts are sacred for the very reason that a non-personal Power is sacred, — they have dominion over sunshine and rain, plenty and famine, birth and death.^ ^ Sacred objects or places are those possessing y'f/awa or serving as dwelling- places of ghosts of power. "These places are sometimes in the village, in which case they are fenced round lest they should be rashly tread upon, sometimes in the garden ground, sometimes in the bush. A vunuha is sacred ESSENTIAL CIL\R.\CTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 119 Men, magicians, and gods. — In TJie Golden Bough} J. G. Frazer, after giving many illustrations of magicians that developed into chiefs and kings, shows that certain kings and magicians have been deified. From this ad- mirable store of information, I draw the following pas- sages : — " Now in central Australia, where the desert nature of the country and the almost complete isolation from foreign influences have retarded progress and preserved the natives on the whole in their most primitive state, the headmen of the various totem clans are charged with the im- portant task of performing magical ceremonies for the multiplication of the totems, and as the great majority of the totems are edible animals or plants, it follows that these men are commonly expected to provide the people with food by means of magic. Others have to make the rain to fall or to render other services to the community. In short, among the tribes of Central Australia the headmen are public magicians. Further, their most important function is to take charge of the sacred storehouse, usually a cleft in the rocks or a hole in the ground, where are kept the holy stones and sticks {c/turinga) with which the souls of all the people, both living and dead, are apparently supposed to be in a manner bound up. Thus while the headmen have certainly to per" form what we should call civil duties, such as to inflict punishment for breaches of tribal custom, their principal functions are sacred or mag- ical." Similarly, in southeastern Australia, " In the Yerkla-mining tribe," for instance, " the medicine-men are the headmen ; they are called Afobung-bai, from mobung, ' magic' They decide disputes, ar- range marriages, conduct the ceremonies of initiation, and in certain to a tindalo, ghost of power, and sacrifices are offered to the tindalo in it. In some cases the vtinuha is the burial-place of the man who has become a tindalo, in others his relics have been transplanted there ; in some places there is a shrine, and in some an image. There are generally, if not always, stones in such a sacred place ; some stone lying naturally there has struck the fancy of the man who began the cultus of the tindalo ; he thinks that it is a likely place for a ghost to haunt, and other smaller stones and shells called peopeo are added. When a vunuha has been established, everything within it is sacred, tambu, and belongs to the tindalo." (Codrington, op. cit., pp. 175-176-) 1 Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, pp. 335, 336, 338, 341, 342, 345. 350. 353. 375. 387. 392. I20 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION circumstances settle the formalities to be observed in ordeals of battle. ' In fact, they wield authority in the tribe, and give orders where others only make requests.' " In New Guinea and in Melanesia the magician occupies a similar position. " According to a native Melanesian ac- count, the origin of the power of chiefs lies entirely in the belief that they have communication with mighty ghosts (Jindalo), and wield that supernatural power {tnana) whereby they can bring the influence of the ghosts to bear." "The real gods at Tana may be said to be the disease- makers. It is surprising how these men are dreaded, and how firm the behef is that they have in their hands the power of life and death." These sorcerers are thought by Dr. Turner, from whom Frazer draws the last quotation, to be on the highroad to divinity. In Africa "the evidence for the evolution of the chief out of the m.a- gician, and especially out of the rain-maker, is comparatively plentiful." " Tradition always places the power of making rain as the fundamental glory of ancient chiefs and heroes, and it seems probable that it may have been the origin of chieftainship." P. Kollman states that the people of the neighborhood of Victoria Nyanza " hold that rulers must have power over Nature and her phenomena." The Malays firmly be- lieve to this day that their king possesses such a power. In Upper Egypt also " most of the chiefs . . . are rain-makers, and enjoy a popu- larity in proportion to their powers to give rain to their people at the proper season." The belief in the magical power of kings has lasted until modern times. Queen Elizabeth often exercised the miraculous gift of healing scrofula by touch. Now it is a common saying that the savage does not draw a sharp distinction between a '■' god " and a powerful sorcerer. " His gods, as we have seen, are often merely invisible magicians who behind the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations which the human magician works in a visible and bodily form among his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed to exhibit themselves to their worshippers in the likeness of men, it is easy for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to acquire the reputation of being an incar- nate deity. Thus, beginning as little more than a simple conjurer, the medicine-man or magician tends to blossom out into a full-blown god and king in one." And history provides us with quite a number of instances of human beings which have been treated as gods. In the Marquesas or Washington Islands there was a class of men deified in their life-time. " A missionary has described one of these human gods from personal observation. The god was a very old man who lived in a large house within an enclosure. In the house was a kind of altar, ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 121 and on the beams of the house and on the trees round it were hung human skeletons, head down. No one entered the enclosure except the persons dedicated to the service of the god ; only on days when human victims were sacrificed might ordinary people penetrate into the precinct. This human god received more sacrifices than all the other gods ; often he would sit on a sort of scaffold in front of his house and call for two or three human victims at a time. They were always brought, for the terror he inspired was e.xtreme. He was invoked all over the island, and offerings were sent to him from every side. Again, of the South Sea Islands in general, we are told that each island had a man who represented or personified the divinity. Such men were called gods, and their substance was confounded with that of the deity. The man-god was sometimes the king himself; oftener he was a priest or subordinate chief." Similar men-gods are found in semicivilized com- munities ; they were common in ancient Egypt, for instance, and are found even to-day in India, especially among the Buddhist Tartars. These facts point to the following distinctions and com- ments. Certain of the so-called human gods are regarded as incarnations of powerful spirits. If the spirits are true divinities, their incarnations may properly be spoken of as gods-incarnate.^ But the majority of men-gods are merely men who own a large portion of the non-personal power. They are like the famous English ruler of the Dyaks of Sarawak — Rajah Brooke — endowed with magical virtue. " Hence, when he visited the tribe, they used to bring him the seed that they intended to sow next year, and he fer- tilized it by shaking over it the women's necklaces which had been previously dipped in a special mixture. And 1 Frazer makes this distinction, and no other : " As a result of the foregoing discussion, the two types of human gods may conveniently be distinguished as the religious and the magical man-gods respectively. In the former, a being of an order different from and superior to man is supposed to become incarnate, for a longer or shorter time, in a human body, manifesting his superior power and knowledge by miracles wrought and prophecies uttered through the medium of a fleshly tabernacle in which he has deigned to take up his abode. This may also appropriately be called the inspired or incarnate type of man- god." ( The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 244.) 122 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION when he entered a village, the women would wash and bathe his feet first with water, and then with the milk of a young cocoanut, and lastly with water again, and all this water which had touched his person they preserved for the purpose of distributing it on their farms, believing that it insured an abundant harvest. Tribes which were too far off for him to visit used to send him a small piece of white cloth and a little gold and silver, and when these things had been impregnated by his generative virtue, they buried them in their fields, and confidently expected a heavy crop." ^ Such men, even though they receive adora- tion and sacrifice, are magicians rather than true gods. For it is to the man and not to the mysterious Power that the prayers and offerings are made. The non-personal Power itself cannot be reached by anthropopathic methods, although the man who controls this Power is accessible by this means ; therefore the man is given homage and gifts in the expectation that he will use it in behalf of the worshipper. Between the ordinary magician and the man-god there is an important point of difference. The former does not possess the Power in his own right, but must abstract it from the air or from particular objects ; whereas the man- god is himself a reservoir of Mana, and can supply it whenever he chooses. There are thus four classes of wonderful beings known to the savage : — {a) The man who knows ways by which a mysterious Potency outside himself can be directed to certain definite purposes. He is a simple 7nagician. (J?) The man who himself possesses the magical power, and therefore needs no magical art to obtain it. But the power is in him ; it is not a part of his very nature. He 1 The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 361. ESSENTIAL CIL\R.\CTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 123 may be called a magic-god, and may be regarded as a con- necting link between magicians and true gods. (f) The man in whom a god has taken up his abode. Let him be Xi2SC\Q.^ god-hicartiatc. {d) The being in whom the dualism of person and power is transcended. His wonderful deeds do not proceed from his use of a magical force, distinct from his essence ; they are the expression of his very nature. He is a true god. It goes without saying that the savage does not possess clear ideas of these four classes of beings, and that he may deal with the same man at one time as if he were a simple magician, and at another time as if he possessed Matia in his own right. The magic-god may descend to the level of a mere magician and perform magical ceremonies or be the object of magical coercion on the part of others. Much confusion of this kind naturally exists. But I believe that soon the savage comes to " feel " more or less vaguely these differences, and that his behavior is in some degree affected by them. Is it possible for a magic-god to become a true god while yet alive .'' I know of no facts that would compel an affirmative answer. In a living being, personal defects and limitations are, I suppose, too obvious to allow real deification. A man, even if physically and morally im- perfect, might be master of wonderful forces, but could hardly be regarded as a god. His physical form, his petty physical needs, his behavior, work against his deification : he is too evidently a man. And so he is accepted simply as what I have called a magician or a magic-god. After his death, however, when he is disencumbered of the in- firmities of the flesh, he may perhaps assume in the minds of those who knew him the magnitude of a god.^ ^ Is one justified in saying that Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, from a simple magician, healing body and soul by a power "not herself," which she knew 124 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The predominance of the social form of consciousness at the beginning of civilization must give a peculiar cast to the relation of the individual w^ith gods. To primitive man, life is not so commonly and clearly as it is to the man of modern civilized society a struggle to realize himself ; it ap- pears to him more frequently as the struggle of the social group to which he belongs. And, in so far as the gods hold a blood relationship to the social group, the primitive religious relations may take on an intimate character, something similar, — though on a lower plane, — to the consciousness of the Christian mystic who feels himself to be a part of the divine substance. But the expression of communion or union with gods is a small part of the religious behavior of the savage. Ordi- narily the god stands over against the tribe, and so relations with him maybe called "external," in opposition to the inner relations of the mystical type. The overemphasis of the mystical mood, to which many are prone when describ- ing religious consciousness, is the outcome of a natural ten- dency to exalt that which appears rare and exquisite in human nature. It is as if one mistook the hors-d' oeiivre of the meal for the substance. I hold that in the absence of the mystical form of consciousness religion might still ex- ist and find embodiment in most of the religious institu- tions with which we are familiar. The conception of the source of psychic energy, without belief in which no religion can exist, has undergone very interesting transformations in the course of historical devel- opment. The human or animal form ascribed to the gods in the earlier religions became less and less definite, and at how to coerce, developed into a magic goddess? That such may be the destiny of the founder of Christian Science seems almost possible in the light of the history of religious sects. ESSENTIAL CHAPL^CTERISTICS OF A DIVINITY 125 the same time the number of gods decreased. The culmi- nation of this double process was Monotheism, in which the One, Eternal Creator, and Sustainer of life had no longer necessarily the shape of man or beast : though still anthro- popathic, he might be formless. Love and righteousness were his chief attributes. In a second phase, this formless but personal God was gradually shorn of all the qualities which make for individuality. He became the passionless Absolute in which all things move and have their being. Thus the personifying work of centuries is undone, and humanity, after having, as it were, lived throughout its in- fancy and youth under the controlling eye and the active guidance of personal divinities, finds itself, on reaching maturity, bereft of these sources of life. The present re- ligious crisis marks the difficulty in the way of an adap- tation to the new situation. As belief in a personal God seems no longer possible, man seeks an impersonal, effi- cient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty to science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he has learned from experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also in " spiritual faith." It is this problem which the Comtists, the Immanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists, are trying to solve. Any solution that provides for the preservation and per- fection of life by means of faith in a hyperhuman, psychic power will have the right to the name religion. CHAPTER VII THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE^ I. The Emotions in Primitive Religion It is held by many that religion had its origin in the emotional life, in " loving reverence," or in fear, or in awe; and many, as we have seen, make some particular emotion the distinguishing mark of religion. Since religion is a part of the struggle for the preservation and perfection of life, it involves from the very beginning emotional states. But to speak of religion as originating in emotions is to proceed upon a conception of religion which, at this stage of our study, I hope will seem utterly inacceptable. If any sentiment or emotion, such as reverence or fear or awe, is found at the dawn of religion, it exists as part of a response, in a particular situation, to a sense of the pres- ence of an invisible Being, upon whom one depends and with whom one desires to hold satisfactory relations. The emotion belongs to an experience involving the whole man ; that is, man as a feeling, thinking, willing being. The question that I desire to raise in the first part of this chapter, then, is not " In what emotion does religion originate ? " but " What is the dominant emotion at the beginning of rehgious life .■' " Let us first consider the ^ In this chapter I have used freely, and often verbally, a paper on Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in Religion, published in the Amer. Jr. of Religious Psychulogy and Education, Vol. II, pp. 1-23, and also a brief chapter of my booklet on the Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion. 126 THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 127 question a priori, on the basis of what we have learned regarding the nature of religion. What are the emotions which even the most primitive savage is likely to experi- ence as he feels the invisible presence of his great tribal ancestors, of mighty nature-beings, of creators ? Fear them he most certainly does. If he believes himself able by magic to coerce any of them, his attitude towards that one is self-assertion, self-reliance, and pride, perhaps even arrogance, mitigated no doubt by a lurking fear that his magic may fail. But such a relation to a spirit or god does not constitute religion ; it is, as we know, magic. If, on the other hand, he finds himself in a personal, anthropo- pathic relation with one of these unseen beings, and, realiz- ing his need, seeks to win the god's favor with presents, or by bowing before him in an attitude of fear, respect, and hope, we have an altogether different emotional attitude. The man is no longer self-assertive and proud. A sense of subjection is present, together with fear, either as pure fear or as that higher emotion derived from fear and curiosity, — awe. There may be, in addition, something belonging to the opposite end of the emotional gamut, — something approaching the tender emotion. If this should appear to some to endow primitive man with feelings beyond him, I would answer that we owe to our animal ancestry not only the instincts and emotions of fear, of self-assertiveness and its opposite, but also those simpler forms of the tender emotion which appear in the parental relations of the higher animals and in the attach- ment of certain of our domestic animals to their masters. Why then should one be unwilling to attribute to the most primitive savage a degree of tender regard for his Great Ancestor or for his Creator.'' I do not imagine the first group of human beings to have been necessarily either bloodthirsty brutes, incapable of anything but violence and 128 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION cruelty, or abject, timorous creatures, familiar only with fear. The lowest men we know do not at all answer to either description. There is among them — and I shall have occasion to say more on this point — kindness, mutual consideration, and even real affection. This is what one would expect of primitive man, if he should have inherited the best in his animal ancestry. Shall we add gratitude to the list of original religious emotions .'' Young children have the reputation of being thankless, and savages show the same trait. Gratitude is not a simple primary emotion as are fear, self-assertion, self-subjection, and the tender emotion. Nevertheless, I do not see why some degree of gratitude should not, even at the beginning, mix with the other emotions. If some of the gods are regarded as benevolent, then one has a right to expect expressions of gratitude towards them when they have fulfilled the desires of their dependents. The oldest and probably most widely accepted opinion is that fear led to reUgion. Hume's conclusion that "the first ideas of religion arose . . . from a concern with re- gard to the events of life and fears which actuate the human mind " is maintained by most of our contempora- ries. Among psychologists, Ribot, for instance, affirms that " the religious sentiment is composed . . . first of all of the emotion of fear in its different degrees, from pro- found terror to vague uneasiness, due to faith in an un- known, mysterious, impalpable Power." ^ The sway of fear at the dawn of human existence is a well-established fact. It is probable that evil spirits were the first to receive particular attention. " Among the Bongos of central Africa good spirits are quite unrecog- nized, and, according to the general negro idea, no bene- 1 Ribot, Th., The Psychology of the Emotions, p. 309. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 129 fit can ever come from a spirit." ^ In other tribes good spirits are known, but the savage always " pays more at- tention to deprecating the wrath of the evil than securing the favor of the good beings." The tendency is to let alone the good spirits, because they will do us good of themselves. But though fear is the most conspicuous emotion of primitive religious life, it is not the only one present, and there is no quality in fear that fits it to be the so-called original religious emotion.^ The making of religion re- quires nothing found in fear that is not present also in the other emotions. If tender emotions are not prominent at the dawn of religion, it is only because fear is the first of the well-organized emotional reactions, and biologically at first the most valuable. It antedates the human species and to-day appears first in the infant as well as in the young ani- mal. In early human existence it was kept in the fore- ground by the circumstances of existence. It is true, how- ever, that before the protective fear reaction could be established, the lust of life had begun to express itself in aggressive habits ; for instance, the habit of securing food. But these desires did not, as early as in the case of fear, ^ Avebury, Lord (Sir John Lubbock), The Origin of Civilization, 5th ed., 1892, p. 225. ■■^ R. R. Marett, in an essay entitled Pre-Animistic Religion, gives expres- sion to an interesting view of the original religious emotion. '■ Before, or at any rate apart from, Animism, was any man subject to any experience, whether in the form of feeling, or of thought, or of both combined, that might be termed specifically 'religious'?" His answer is affirmative; the emotion arising in the presence of the mysterious — awe — is the original religious emotion. " Of all English words Awe is, I think, the one that expresses the fundamental religious feeling most nearly. Awe is not the same thing as 'pure funk.' 'Primus in orbe deos fecit timor' is only true if we admit Wonder, Admiration, Interest, Respect, even Love, perhaps, to be no less than Fear, essential constituents of this elemental mood." (^The Threshold of Re- ligion, Methuen and Co., 1909, pp. 8, 13.) K 130 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION give rise to any emotional reaction as constant, definite, and poignant as fear. The place of fear in primitive religion is, then, due not to its intrinsic qualities, but simply to the circumstances which made it appear first as a well- organized emotion, vitally connected with the maintenance of life. It is for exactly the same reason that the domi- nant emotion in the relations of uncivilized men and of animals with strangers is usually fear. I wish to add, however, that there does not seem to me anything preposterous in the supposition that groups of primitive men found themselves in circumstances so favor- able to peace and safety that fear did not occupy the fore- most place. Neither wild men nor wild animals need have found themselves so situated as to be in a constant state of fright. If the African antelope runs for its life twice a day, on an average, as Sir Galton supposes, the wild horse on the South American plains, before the hunter appeared in his pastures, ran chiefly for pleasure. Travellers bear testimony to the absence of fear in birds and animals inhabiting certain regions. But, it may be asked, would religion have come into existence under these peaceful conditions ? A life of ease, comfort, and security is not conducive to the establishment of practical relations with gods. Why should happy, self-sufficient men look to un- seen, mysterious beings for assistance .-' History teaches us that in times of prosperity men forget their gods. Under such circumstances the unmixed type of fear-religion would never have come into existence. Religion would have ap- peared late and, from the first, in a nobler form. It would have been characterized by a feeling of dependence upon Creators and All-Fathers regarded as benevolent gods, and would have elicited primarily awe and reverence. W. Robertson Smith denies that the attempt to appease evil beings is the foundation of religion. " From the earli- THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 131 est times religion, as distinct from magic or sorcery, ad- dresses itself to kindred and friendly beings, who may indeed be angry with their people for a time, but are always placable except to the enemies of their worshippers or to renegade members of the community. It is not with a vague fear of unknown powers, but with a loving rever- ence for known gods who are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship, that religion, in the only sense of the word, begins." ^ In this passage Robertson Smith does not deny that certain practices intended to avert the action of evil spirits preceded the establishment of affec- tionate relations with benevolent powers ; he declares only that the attempt to propitiate dreaded evil spirits is not religion. Can this limitation of the meaning of religion be ac- cepted ? When a person seeks to conciliate an evil being, his feelings and his behavior are undoubtedly very different from his experience when he communes with a benevolent being. Yet in both cases an anthropopathic relation with a personal being is established. In this respect, both stand opposed to magical behavior. This common an- thropopathic element is so fundamental that it seems advisable to give both types of relation the name rehgion. But since they differ in important respects, the terms Negative Religion may be used for man's anthropopathic dealings with essentially bad spirits, and Positive Religion for his relations with benevolent gods. But not even Positive Religion is at first free from fear. The benevolent gods are quick to anger, and cruelly avenge their broken laws. This is one more reason for not com- pletely dissociating the propitiation of evil spirits from the worship of kindly gods. 1 Smith, W. Robertson, The Religion of the Semites, p. 55. 132 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION 2, The Emotions in the Course of the Development of Religion Origins are interesting chiefly because of the light they shed upon the present and the future. In order to give that light its fullest illuminating power, the beginnings should be connected with the present by a knowledge of the intervening developments. I have not undertaken in this book to treat systematically the development of the several aspects of religion, yet I think this section will not be out of place. It is a topic of social psychology inter- esting from more than one point of view. One of the most significant facts revealed by a compari- son between the earlier and later forms of religion is an emotional progression. It begins with the yielding of fear to its relative, awe, which in its turn is displaced by other emotions in which fear is not merely held in control, as in awe, but is completely overcome. They are reverence, ad- miration, gratitude, a sense of the sublime, and the tender emotion. In the highest civilization of to-day, fear, awe, and, to a considerable degree, even reverence, have been displaced by the tender emotion, which rules supreme. Fear expresses itself in rejecting or breaking away from its object; the tender emotion in embracing or accepting its object. The progression of the dominant emotional tone from fear to the tender emotion, passing through awe, reverence, and sublimity, means, then, gradually substitut- ing acceptance, agreement, and union for rejection, disa- greement, and separation. The importance of this fact will appear in what follows. This advance from a negative to a positive reaction is, of course, not the result of religion. To take it so would be to put the cart before the horse. Rehgion is the in- strument, not the creator, of human impulses and desires. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 133 Whatever the development through which it passes, that which takes place in it is no more than the manifestation in one realm of life — the religious — of what takes place in life generally. The obviousness of the transformation I have indicated makes a long demonstration unnecessary. A few illustra- tive facts may, however, be in place. Neither Christ, nor Gautama, nor even Mohammed were actuated by fear. They were, it seems, of all men, fearless. But they were in advance of their times. After their death, their religions, founded upon a plane far above the lives of their contemporaries, were degraded to the level of the period, — a level so low that even in the Christian era fear is found intrenched as the predominant religious force. For those acquainted with history, the mention of the Dark Ages, when cruelty and dread sounded the leading notes in the tumultuous dramas in which the Church of Rome played frequently a chief part, will be a sufficient reminder of the potency of fear in those times. After the great Protestant schism, fear remained for another long period the preponderant emotion in the life of most Chris- tian bodies. Predestination, together with the belief in hell, was made an instrument of terror. Nowhere was the dread avvfulness of God more seriously realized than among the Jansenists of Port Royal. Le Maitre, de Saci, Pascal, three of their great leaders, were brought to God chiefly through fear.^ What Fontaine says of de Saci, in the Menioires, quoted by Sainte-Beuve, could have been as- serted with equal truth, perhaps, of all the noble men who directed the movement. " Those who have said after his death that the fear of the Lord had filled him, have made a true portrait of him." " The chaste fear of God and re- 1 Sainte-Beuve, Port Royal, Vol. I, pp. 378-380, Til) \ Vol. II, pp. 328, 502 ff. Comp. Histoire de M. M. Alacoque, loth ed., pp. 124-125. 134 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION spect for his infinite grandeur so possessed him that he was in His presence as in a continual tremor of fear." The great movement started by John Wesley was also fed by fear, as is sufficiently attested by the terrifying elo- quence of its most distinguished disciples. Even the soci- ety that took the peaceful name of " Friends " was not at the beginning free from fear. The change that has come over the Christian world with regard to fear is reflected in the altered emotional tone of religious revivals. In all revivals earlier than the present generation, one of the chief instruments was fear : fear of God's wrath, fear of wretchedness in this life, fear of tor- ments hereafter. It was common for people " under con- viction of sin " to be so frightened that they would "throw themselves on the ground and roar with anguish." The terrifying method was carried so far that a few ministers made an effort to soften the preaching. Jonathan Edwards, however, thought that " speaking terror to them that are already under great terrors, instead of comforting them," is to be commended if done with the intention of bringing more light. He complains of the weakness of those who shrink from throwing children into ecstasies of fear with talk of hell-fire and eternal damnation. " But if those who complain so loudly of this," he remarks, " really believe what is the general profession of the country, viz., that all are by nature the children of wrath and heirs of hell ; and that every one that has not been born again, whether he be young or old, is exposed, every moment, to eternal de- struction, under the wrath of Almighty God ; I say, if they really believe this, then such a complaint and cry as this betrays a great deal of weakness and inconsideration. As innocent as children seem to be to us, yet, if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are young vipers and are infinitely more hateful than vipers and are THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 135 in a most miserable condition, as well as grown persons." ^ This appeal to fear of a hundred years ago is rare to-day. The great evangeUst Moody ^ had little to say about hell and the wrath of God, and a great deal about heaven and the love of Christ. In the latest of great revivals, the Welsh revival, the meetings were pitched in the key of the 1 Edwards, Jonathan, Thoughts on the Revival of Religion (1832), p. 203. The terrifying nature of Edwards's sermons is indicated by such titles as The Eternity of Hell Torments, The ftistice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. In the last is found the following famous passage : "The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as we hold a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dread- fully provoked. His wrath toward you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight. You are ten thousand times so abomi- nable in his eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours. . . . There is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into Hell since you arose this morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to Hell since you sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful, wicked manner of attending to his solemn worship." Finney was of Edwards's mind. " Without pity or abatement he appealed to the selfish emotion of fear. He held that whoever comforts the sinner does him an injury ' as cruel as the grave, as cruel as hell,' for it is calculated to send him headlong to the abyss of everlasting fire." (Davenport F. M., op. cit.., p. 193.) " Impassioned appeals to terror were uncommon with Wesley," yet he believed in everlasting torment for the wicked, and at times made fearful pictures of what awaited unrepentant sinners, {/did., p. 166.) "If Wesley did not go so far as Edwards in ' preaching terror,' some of his followers did. No community ever saw more terrible scenes of mental and nervous disorder than are described in the fournal as having occurred under the preaching of one Berridge and one Hicks in the vicinity of Everton, almost under the shadow of the University of Cambridge." {Ibid., p. 1 7 1.) 2 " With Moody, religious evangelism was emancipated from the horrid spectres of irrational fear. I do not mean that he was blind to the natural law of retribution. . . . There was no thoughtless optimism about his preach- ing of divine justice. But the old emphasis was completely changed. Moody's favorite theme was the love of the Heavenly Father. He believed that the lash of terror is for slaves and not for the freeborn of Almighty God." (Dav- enport, F. M. op. cit., p. 171.) 136 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION tender emotions. " The burden of Evan Roberts's teach- ing is love and gratitude, obedience and personal service and joy." ^ The practices of the Salvation Army show- that even in the lower strata of society fear has fallen into disuse as a religious tool. If this is true of the unedu- cated part of our population, it is even more marked among the cultured classes. God is best known to our prosperous church-goers as a compassionate Son of Man, healing the sick and comforting the wayward. The hissing of threats and maledictions has given place to the singing of the Son's redeeming love, and of the dehghts of Beulah Land. One must, however, make two reservations to this state- ment. On the one hand, the spirit of Christ has, at all times, been represented here and there in all its gentleness. There have always been rare men like Francis of Assisi and Fenelon to bear witness to the struggle between the spirit of fear and the spirit of love. On the other hand, the cruder attitude is still met with occasionally, chiefly among the less intelligent. This is, for instance, how a French priest, Curate of Notre-Dame-du-Mont, lately man- aged part of the religious instruction by which children are prepared for confirmation and for their first commun- ion. On the last day of a " retreat " he locked the doors of the church in which the children were assembled and forbade even the sexton to walk about. The church was then darkened. A pall, stretched out before the sanctu- ary, bore a crucifix and two holy candles. In this artfully prepared place he preached an hour's discourse on Christ's Passion, describing minutely every detail of the crucifixion, — the thorns penetrating into the flesh, the blood trickling down the face, the moral anguish of the loving Saviour. 1 Fryer, A. "^.t Psychological Aspects of the Welsh Revival, 1^04-^, Proceed- ings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. XIX, 1905, p. 92. Evan Roberts was the chief leader of the revival. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 137 Before he was halfway through, sobs broke out among the terrified children. In this state they were sent to confession. A few years ago I circulated a qiiestiomiaire on several phases of religion, especially upon its impulses and motives. The three hundred answers received were in many cases supplemented by personal correspondence. Inadequate as these answers are for statistical purposes, they are valuable as " qualitative " information concerning the religious atti- tude of our contemporaries. They reflect strikingly the new temper. Fear is of so little significance in their religious life that its removal would make practically no difference, except in the case of two of them, an elderly French clergyman and a young law student. The first writes as follows : " I feel very much that my letter will disappoint you. The feeling of Divine justice and of its exigencies has much weakened in pious persons. In me it has continually grown stronger. The principles are neglected, and sentimentality is put in their place. More- over, I have suffered dreadfully, physically and morally ; the history of Job is constantly present to my mind. I have seen the evil spirits at work trying to injure me. I have seen Satan displaying his utmost ingenuity to make me suffer the inexpressible. You will therefore readily understand that my usual mood is not one of superficial lightheartedness, that I cannot be an optimist in the com- mon acceptation of the word. I believe that the just man will be saved, — without that certitude there can be but despair and death, — but he is to be saved painfully, as by fire. ... I am moved to religious practices by a feeling of duty and to appease the wrath of God which rises against sinful humanity. . . . For many people the most charac- teristic religious experience is the feeling of God's love, of his goodness, compassion, and readiness to succor those 138 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION who call upon Him. I would not say that this is false, but its one-sidedness brings it near to being false. . . . My experience is that man being sinful must suffer, suffer much, drink also of the bitter cup of Jesus Christ. In my religious exercises, I always experience fear towards the Holy God, who must inexorably avenge His broken law and His majesty outraged by sin. " ^ The law student (age 23) admits that the circumstances which of tenest affect him religiously are those which frighten him or make him nervous. Fear is with him an emotion easily aroused. Several of his religious practices are kept up chiefly because of a vague fear that harm will befall him if he discontinues. This is true, for instance, of his attend- ance on Y. M. C. A. meetings, although he " shrinks " from them. There is " little pleasure and some annoyance in them." He used to read the Bible morning and evening. Lately he has left off the evening chapter because "it wearies him so." " But," he says, " it was a great effort, and I felt the fear for a day or two." In these two cases of fear-ridden religion — the sole in- stances that have come to my notice through the question- naire — fear is constitutional. Both men are mild phobiacs, and their natural disposition makes use of obsolete Chris- tian doctrines. The young man knows that he is very ner- vous, and he suspects that his fears are abnormal. " It [the fear] makes me very unhappy even when I am anx- ious, or at least willing, to do the very thing it prompts me to do. It may be a disease ; for I remember that as a mere child it led me into the most absurd habits or tricks. I would feel it my duty to pick up all the loose pieces of' glass and china in our home-yard lest some poor barefoot be injured." He knows now, even at the moment the fear ^ Reprinted from The Contents of Religious Consciousness, Monist, Vol. XI, I90i,pp. 563-564. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 139 is felt, that it is "admittedly groundless, unreasonable, and inconsistent." In most cases, my correspondents have their attention so habitually turned in other directions that when they write upon the impulses and motives of rehgious Hfe they either forget fear or have actually nothing to say about it. When they do mention fear, it is as a rule in general terms ; for instance, " fear of danger." A few are more definite. One writes that she would not begin the day without prayer for fear that things in general would go wrong. Another would not dare undertake a railway journey without first securing God's protection. A few mention the fear of death itself, without reference to the beyond, while still others seem not to dread the great crisis so much as the other world.^ The " fear of God " appears more frequently than any other fear. Some describe it as a " reverential fear " or as a "feeling of dependence." In others it bears a more mercenary stamp. I find only five who seem to have been disturbed at any time by the thought of the hereafter, and of these five, four declare that they have outgrown that youthful stage.2 In childhood and adolescence it is not un- usual for fear to be the principal incentive to religious Hfe. Before reaching the point where we fear sin and remorse extremely, but punishment not at all, — a height which Harriet Martineau attained at the early age of twenty,^ — there is usually a period during which our religion is prompted 1 In his study of conversion, Starbuck found that in 14 per cent of his cases fear of death and hell played a considerable part. His were chiefly ad- olescent conversions. {The Psychology of Religion, Ch^rlts Scribner's Sons, New York, 1899, p. 52.) 2 Stanley Hall, in A Study of Fears, reports that only 1 1 out of 299 persons who answered his questionnaire mention specific fear of hell. (Amer. Jr. of Psychology, Vol. VIII, 1906-1907, p. 223. ) Scott finds in an inquiry on Old Age and Death that 90 per cent of his correspondents do not mention hell at all. (Amer. Jr. of Psychology, Vol. VIII, 1906-1907, p. 104.) 2 Martineau, Harriet, Autobiography, Vol. I, p. 31. • I40 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION by fear of physical suffering and punishment. St. The- resa confesses that it was base fear more than love that prompted her to enter the religious life. Mrs. X., of whom I have written elsewhere,^ had " no use " for God in her child- hood, except when she was frightened. " I do not think that I bothered with God when I was a child, except when frightened. Usually I did not care a button for him. I would say my prayers as directed, but automatically. Only if I got into a plight I would cling with the completest faith to what I had been taught about God's power and his readiness to answer our prayers." ^ In the reHgious experience of my correspondents, fear plays, on the whole, a role exceedingly insignificant. Our contemporaries have the positive attitude. Their virtues and their defects are those of an aggressive, optimistic, and democratic age. I do not claim, however, that the results of my investi- gation show the exact degree to which fear is still present in the Christian religious consciousness. Among Roman Catholics, fear is probably much more influential than among the people represented by the answers to my questionnaire. Let us turn now from the facts to their interpretation. Three causes for the decline of fear are discernible. (i) At present in civiHzed society the occasions for fear have become few. The pressing dangers to which men were formerly exposed have almost ceased to exist. Wild beasts, human enemies, and the horrors of war are for most of us only imaginary experiences. It was not so in New ^ Leuba, J. H., The Personifying Passion in Youth, with Remarks upon the Sex and Gender Problem, Monist, Vol. X, 1900, p. 547. See also Th. Flournoy's Observations de Psychologie Religieuse, Archives de Psychologic, Vol. II, 1903, Observation II, p. 331. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 141 England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Then the conditions of life were favorable for the spread of the harsh Calvinistic beliefs. Conflicts with unsubdued nature and with savage Indians kept the fear reaction uppermost. The tender emotions could hardly thrive where one went to church with a gun on the shoulder and divided one's atten- tion between worship and the expectation of warwhoops. Speaking of the Edwardian revivals, Davenport says: "I think it may be said that no such effects as are there visible could have been produced even with the aid of the shock- ing appeals to terror employed by the preachers of that period if there had not been in the population a tremen- dous amount of latent fear." The causes of fear which have not been removed by civilization — the celestial bodies, the thunder, the light- ning — have lost much of their terrifying power ; for they are now understood and partly mastered. At any rate, eclipses, comets, tornadoes, and electric storms are all physical phenomena to us. In a study of fear among children, I find the following : " The director of the school and his assistants, after having considered the question, agreed in saying that they had never discovered in the children the least sign of fear. Another teacher made the same declaration, in words that deserve to be repeated : * I have never noticed fear in my pupils. What should they fear } Their master } We are not in that age. Their school ? That is made as pleasant as possible. Their work } They are amused while being taught. Their pun- ishments .'' They are so light and so infrequent ! No, rightly or wrongly, the children of to-day fear nothing ; at least the feeling of fear has no occasion to manifest itself during school-time.' " ^ 1 Binet, A., La Peur chez lez Enfants, Annee Psychologique, Vol. II, 1895, pp. 224-225. 142 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION (2) The fear reaction is falling into disuse, not only be- cause of a lack of proper stimuli, but also because modern intellectual and moral education produces an increased capacity for converting emotional stimuli into controlled reactions. Reflection and attention are natural enemies of emotional reactions. They engender a habit of self-pos- session : the more reflective and attentive, the less emo- tional, (3) The fundamental cause of the decline of fear is, however, neither knowledge of the physical world, nor mental training, but the recognition of the inadequacy of fear as a method of meeting danger. Without entering into a detailed examination of the defects of the hereditary fear-reaction, we may note that it meets each and every danger in the same manner. It is an instinctive ten- dency to run away from the source of danger, a tendency which, it must be observed, is accompanied by a scattering of the wits. When violent it brings about a momentary paralysis ; it interferes with respiration ; it produces spas- modic constriction of the blood vessels, shiverings, violent spasms of the heart, resulting in pallor and peripheral anaemia. These physiological constituents of the reaction are not altogether without direct or indirect value ; the immobility which they enforce would, for instance, often be the wisest behavior for the threatened man or animal. Yet this animal fear-reaction is not the only way, nor usually the best way, in which an intelligent being, living in highly complex relations, may meet every dangerous situation. The origin of the fear-reaction accounts for its inade- quacy. It arose at a low level of animal life through the natural selection of those chance variations (assisted proba- bly by adaptive habits) which gave an animal an advan- tage over its fellows. Now, the struggle for life does not THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 143 create improvements ; it simply preserves the fittest among the variations blindly produced by nature. The " fittest " is anything, however wretched, which is superior, for the purpose of animal life, to that which existed previously. Natural selection can do no more than preserve the less deficient. The selected improvements have been trans- mitted to man through generation after generation of ani- mals, in the face of rapidly changing circumstances. As a result, man, with powers of observation and foresight immeasurably superior to those of the animals in which this way of meeting danger was established, still retains the instinct to act in this primitive, inadequate fashion. The typical fear-reaction is a survival of a by-gone age. " The dominant impression left by such a study " [a study of fears in children and adolescents], writes Stanley Hall, " is that of the degrading and belittling effects of excessive fears." 1 This insufficiency of the fear-reaction leads civilized man to struggle against its manifestation. Our instinctive legacy for meeting danger is so evidently deficient that a man in peril struggles as frequently against fear as against its object. In other words, that which was meant to be a means of safety — the fear-reaction — is itself looked upon as a source of danger, A most interesting phase of the powerful mind-cure movement is the war it wages against fear. " Fear," says Horace Fletcher, " is to be placed in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not respectable things." ^ For these people fear is the Great Sin ; it is Satan's new name. Physicians are ready to agree with the more moderate of the Christian Scientists 1 Hall, G. Stanley, A Study of Fears, Amer. Jr. of Psychology, Vol. VIII, p. 238. 2 Fletcher, Horace, Happiness as found in Fore-thought minus Fear-thought, Menticulture, Series II. 144 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION in their impeachment of fear. One physician writes : " When all is said that can be said about the uses of fear, we come to the conclusion that on the whole the sense of danger is a nuisance. Fear is out of date, an anachronism, a vestige, a superannuated and silly servant that has seen better days. . . . We cannot begin to know the mean- ing of freedom in spiritual Hfe until we have done with it. Until men and women learn that there is nothing about which it is worth while to be anxious, until they put fear aside and look forth upon the world with equanimity and confidence, they cannot exercise a free judgment nor exert a free will." "Generally speaking, the capacity for fear in the human mind is absurdly in excess of its utility." ^ Civilized man, however, does not strive to be rid of the awareness of danger. What he wants is to be independent of the single, blind, inherited way of meeting every emer- gency, and to remain in possession of his intellectual and muscular powers, so as to use them judiciously. The goal towards which we are moving is a fearless alertness to physical and moral dangers. It may seem to some that we have uselessly complicated a simple problem. They might say that if the influence of fear in religion is waning, it is because we have ceased to believe in terrifying doctrines. When the belief in the judgment, hell, the devil, and an angry God gives way, fear is dethroned. This account would be satisfactory if the discredit into which these doctrines have fallen were not as much the outcome of the progressive changes I have mentioned as of the activity of reason exercised directly upon religious ideas. If we no longer believe in hell, it is as much because, being tuned to another key, we 1 Wilson, George R., The Sense of Danger and the Fear of Death, Monist, Vol. XIII, 1903, pp. 367, 366. THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 145 are not easily frightened, as because we have come to ad- mit the insufficiency of the proofs for the existence of hell. In the two cases cited above, in which fear held its old sway, the beliefs were supported by a temperament in accord with them. Without this temperamental disposi- tion, they would probably not have believed in the torments of hell. In the early days of New England, the conditions of life kept fear in the foreground, hence its dominance in religion. Love agrees better with the contemporary popu- lar temper, and so our judgment is biased in favor of the doctrines which exhibit the love of God. In regard to these doctrines we are as easily satisfied intellectually as others used to be regarding the fearful doctrines. The decline of fear in religion is to be ascribed primarily neither to religious influences nor to critical doctrinal studies. Its more profound causes are, as I have said, increased knowledge of the physical universe ; intellectual and moral training ; and, above all, the realization of the defects of the fear inheritance. The nature of these causes indicates that the passing of fear observed in the Christian religion must take place in the religions of all progressive peoples, despite their theologies and creeds. As human nature changes, so do gods and religions change. The effort to readjust our primitive instincts and impulses to the present altered circumstances is what is meant by the expression " the struggle of the spiritual against the natural man." Fear gradually yields the place of dominance to awe.^ In the ancient Greek mysteries ; in the old Druidic rites 1 celebrated amid the sombre majesty of forests ; in the mod- ern elaborate ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, ^ See on awe, W. McDougall's Social Psychology, pp. 129-132; on the sub- lime, Th. Ribot's Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 270, 348-350. 146 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION as well as in the plainer forms of worship where simplicity and silence take the place of ornamentation and music, — awe constitutes an essential part of the whole emotional impression. Judged by the efforts made to affect the worshippers with awe, this emotional reaction must pos- sess a high rehgious value. Of what use, then, is awe in religion .-' One of the services that awe and a sense of the subUme render religion is to bestow upon it a dignity impossible to fear. Fear is not an experience of which we may be proud ; it is a narrowly utilitarian and unintel- ligent reaction. In so far as it expresses essential egotism, it can only discredit religion in the eyes of those who have awakened to the nobility of disinterestedness. Awe and the sublime differ from fear in that they do not openly refer to personal needs, neither do they bla- tantly announce weakness and incapacity. They have no apparently selfish purpose ; they have, indeed, no obvious purpose at all. The shudder that creeps over one at the sight of the leaping waters of a cataract is neither egoistic nor altruistic ; it is disinterested. It is true, however, that the awe-producing aspects of nature have all lurking about them the threat of potential danger. The value of awe to religion is not only its disinterested- ness — a purely negative virtue; it has a direct ennobling effect. To be impressed by the great, the powerful, the mysterious, and still to be unafraid, is to evince one's partial kinship with these forces. Fear reveals antago- nism, enmity, isolation; awe, involving as it does the recognition of greatness without actual fear, gives the first sense of a not unfriendly relation with the cosmos. To feel the power of a thing and at the same time to admire it, as we do in awe, is not only to begin to under- stand, but also to be attracted. The sympathetic vibra- tions of awe are the first organic sign of a friendship with THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 147 the cosmic forces, the first step towards that ultimate union with the Great Whole, achieved in certain forms of prac- tical mysticism. The thrills of awe are thus enlarging, vitalizing, ennobling. It should be observed further that there is but a single easy step from awe and sublimity to admiration and rever- ence. Now in passing from fear through awe to admira- tion and reverence, man progresses from the position of a beggar for protection to that of a bestower of praises. Since man is bent upon self-respect and self -exaltation, it is not surprising that, among the egoistic utilitarianism of the fear-religion, he should have seized upon awe and the sublime as redeemers of his religious nature. However important to religion disinterestedness and the sense of kinship with greatness may be, awe and the sub- lime render religion a still greater service by bringing to the mind ideas of superhuman agents, of gods, or of God. Majestic greatness favors a religious rather than a scien- tific solution to the question of origins ; for it suggests an explanation by reference to unseen, personal agents. In reflective, non-emotional moments, one might refer natural phenomena to physical forces, while when under the in- fluence of instinctive, emotional reactions, one might in- terpret the same events in the traditional anthropopathic manner necessary to the historical forms of religion. Emotions absorb attention, arrest the stream of thought, and thus for the moment limit the intellectual range. Even those who have formed in youth the habit of look- ing upon nature as a mechanism may, when awed or frightened, relapse into an animistic conception. There are persons who in a forest or in a tempest " feel the divine " within them ; " something in the stars of the night reaches out" to them. In this way the ever present animistic tendency crops out and bids us dispense with 148 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION rational proofs of the existence of God.^ Any experience awakening a strong emotion is likely to shake off the un- stable accretions of rational intelligence, to throw us back \ upon primitive tendencies, and thus to resuscitate ghosts, spirits, and gods. This discrepancy between the godward tendency of our thoughts in certain emotional seizures and their direction when under the guidance of experience in- dicates on the one hand the progress made by the individ- ual since he discarded animism, and on the other hand the tenacity of the mental habits rooted in a distant past. When questioned concerning the emotions most condu- cive to religion, our Protestant contemporaries rarely forget to mention awe and the sublime. For one who names fear, there are hundreds who single out awe, the sublime, and the beautiful as potent sources of religious moods and activities.^ The following selections will illustrate this influence. " Mid-ocean, lightning, and thunder inspire me with awe and the sense of dependence, and turn my feelings toward God." (No. 8.) " I can never look up at the stars at night but adoring love and worship fills my soul. The same at early dawn ^ Comp. William James on the sense of presence, in Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 58 fF. 2 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth ? ********* Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon ? God ! Let the torrents, like a shout of nations. Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! God, sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! — (Coleridge, Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni.) THE EMOTIONS IN RELIGIOUS LIFE 149 when the beautiful new day comes straight from the hand of God." (No. 39.) " Places in which the sense of the sublime is appealed to always call forth religious emotions. I have felt this in grand old cathedrals. The last time I noticed the feel- ing was at the sight of Niagara Falls about two years ago." (No. 121.) No. 51, who is frequently moved to awe by nature and also by the works of man, writes : " The same [religious] feeling I experience when meditating upon the massiveness of the Brooklyn bridge, and again when I behold such steamships as the Sf. Paul, Tojirrainc, etc." " I prefer a religious service of much formalism. I have no religious feelings in public except as I am sur- rounded by the noble in architecture, in colored glass, in the pageantry of the Church. I have knelt at some shrine in walking through the country abroad, with religious feelings, and I have done likewise in some altar in a cathedral. I prefer the Romish worship to any other on this account, but I refrain from having anything to do with it because I think it dangerous to liberty." (No. 37.) Even those who declare themselves without religion often call awe a religious emotion. (For instance, Nos. 51 and 37 quoted above.) Why should any one call awe a rehgious emotion unless it be that it brings to the mind discarded ideas of a Power, which, if believed in, would be a God. If the data I have collected show clearly that in Protes- tant religion men have, as a whole, set their faces away from the dreadful and towards the desirable, they indi- cate further that the stage of culture at which awe can be the dominant religious emotion is also past. I imagine that the worshippers of Odin and of Thor were swayed more by awe than by any other emotion. I50 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The Christianity of past centuries knew no better ally, after fear, than awe. But now the awful, as well as the fearful, is losing its power. To be sure, these emotions still retain much of their original power in large portions of the Christian world. The Roman Church, for instance, is not ready to dismiss so efficient an agent. Vast cathe- drals, majestic music, mysterious rites, gorgeous pageantry, still entrance the faithful, impress the thoughtless, and draw to its spectacles even those indifferent to religion. The terrible they have for the most part outgrown ; the awful they have not passed ; and the sublime they are using as effectively as possible. In Protestant worship, and especially in the United States, it is somewhat different. Yahve, who was wont to thunder on the summit of Mount Sinai, in the presence of whom Moses himself could hardly I live, is being displaced by the God of love, before whom I not even prodigal sons need tremble. The " new " revela- tion is a gospel of love : " Children, flowers, fruit trees, — everything is full of God's love." (No. 39.) In church architecture, the comfortable is put before the majestic ; in doctrine, the serviceable is preferred to the mysterious ; and in the conception of God, the loving is not to be over- shadowed by the awful. The tendency to banish awe as well as fear is evident not only in religion, but in secular life also. The rod is proscribed in the home and in the school ; the child is no longer to sit at the feet of the master, but pupil and teacher are to work arm in arm as becomes good friends ; sin is either weakness or disease, and should be met with sympathetic tenderness. Nothing is worth while except sympathy, charity, love, and their companions, trust, hope, courage, fortitude. The positive reactions are being selected because of their superior efficiency for the conditions of civilized life. CHAPTER VIII THE ORIGIN OF MAGICAL AND OF RELIGIOUS PRACTICES When the ideas of powers suitable for magic and religion have been accounted for, and the impulse to enter into practical relations with these powers has been admitted, the origin of magic and of religion is not yet completely understood. There remains yet to discover the origin of the relations themselves ; that is, the origin of the magical and the religious rites and ceremonies. That done, we shall have completed the part of the book dealing with origins. I. Magic : its Varieties and Classification The term " magic " I would restrict to those practices in- tended to secure some definite gain by coercitive action, in essential disregard, (i) of the quantitative relations implied in the ordinary and in the scientific dealings with the physical world; (2) of the anthropopathic relations obtain- ing among persons. Although magic never makes an anthropopathic appeal, it frequently brings to bear its peculiar coercitive virtue upon feeling-beings. It aims, then, at compelling souls, spirits, or gods to do the operator's will, or at preventing them from doing their own. In necromancy, spirits are summoned by means of spells and incantations. In ancient Egypt the art of deaHng coercitively with spirits and gods reached a high development. Maspero, speaking of a 152 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION curious belief regarding names, says, " When the god in a moment of forgetfuhiess or of kindness had taught them what they wanted [the sacred names], there was nothing left for him but to obey them." ^ At Eleusis, it was not the name but the intonation of the voice of the magician which produced the mysterious results.^ But how should be classed the behavior of a suppliant who attempts by requests, offerings, adoration, or other anthropopathic means to induce a ghost, spirit, or god to give him magical power ? The Dieri of Central Australia in dry spells " call upon the spirits of their remote an- cestors, whom they call Mura, Mura, to grant them power to make a heavy rainfall." ^ This behavior belongs clearly to the religious type; but that which follows — the suppliant's use of the magical power secured from the spirit — -is magic. A spirit may be asked to use his magical power himself. In that case the suppliant uses the anthropopathic method of bringing about a magical action.* To one who approaches the subject for the first time, the possibility of bringing order into the chaos of magical 1 Maspero, G. C, Eludes de niythologie et d^archeologie igypiiennes, Paris, 1903, Bibliotheque Egyptologique, Vol. II, p. 298. - Foucart, Paul, Recherches siir la Nature des Myst'eres d^ Eleusis, Memoires de I'Institut, Vol. XXXV, 2d Part, pp. 31-32. Comp. Maspero, op. cit., p. 303. A surprising revival of the belief in the magical power of names came to my notice a fevi' years ago. At a camp-meeting of Seventh Day Adventists in Massachusetts, I heard an ex-cowboy evangelist deliver an impassioned address on the power of the " Word." He showed by many citations from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures that the Book did not teach the direct action of God and Christ, but that whatever they did was accomplished through the power of the Word. It was by the Word, not by God, that the vt'orld was created, and it was by believing in the Word that men were saved. ■^ Frazer, J. G., op. cit., 2d ed., Vol. I, p. 86. * Jevons's view differs from this in that for him the magical power always belongs to a conscious agent. " Magic is the mysterious power of a person or conscious agent to cause injury — or, secondarily, it may be, benefit — to another person who may be at a distance ; a power which when exerted is VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 153 customs seems remote. Before taking up the origins of magic, we would better gain some knowledge of its many forms. This may be done conveniently by making a critical examination of a widely used classification of these forms, in the course of which study it will appear that several important varieties of magic fall outside of this classification. The classification referred to is that of Frazcr : " If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two : first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause ; and, second, that things that have once been in con- tact with each other continue to act on each other at a dis- tance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely, the Law of Similarity, the ma- gician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it ; from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it forms part of its body or not. Charms based on the Law of Similarity may be called Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or Contagion may be called Contagious Magic." ^ accompanied by, or ascribed to, an exclamation, a gesture, or an action indi- cating and effecting what is willed. To us the exclamation or gesture indicates only what is willed. In the opinion of the savage, who fails to discriminate between the categories of likeness and identity, the action he performs not merely resembles, but is the action which he wills." (F. B. Jevons, Magic, Proceedings Third International Congress of the History of Religions, pp. 71-78.) 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cit., 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 52. See also Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, Macmillan, 1905, p. 54 ; and A. van Gen- nep's review of that book in the Revue de VHistoire des Religions, Vol. LI II, 1906, pp. 396-401. 154 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION This classification clearly embraces the larger number of magical practices, especially the injuring of images in order to injure enemies, the simulation of birth to produce child-bearing, the numerous cases of homoeopathic magic both in medicine and outside of it ; the contagious magic of navel string and placenta, of wounds and blood, of gar- ments, of footprints, and the like.^ Yet several types of magic remain outside this classification, or are brought within it only by extremely far-fetched explanations. " The Bushmen despise an arrow that has once failed of its mark; and, on the contrary, consider one that has hit as of double value. They will, therefore, rather make new arrows, how much time and trouble soever it may cost them, than collect those that have missed and use them again." ^ Similarly, other tribes attach a special value to a hook that has caught a big fish. One might bring the mental process involved here back to Frazer's second principle. Contagious Magic : " Things that have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after physical contact has been severed." But it is possible to make a simpler explana- tion than the ascription to the hook of a specific power acting telepathically upon fish. Nothing need be involved here, it seems to me, but the conviction that something that has happened once is likely to happen again. No prin- ciple is simpler and more firmly established than this; it is an imperfect form of this corollary of the Principle of Identity : something that has happened once will happen again under identical circumstances. The savage goes wrong because, instead of taking into account all the cir- cumstances, he thinks merely of the hook. But if he prizes 1 See for illustrations, The Golden Bough, 3d ed., Vol. I, pp. 55-214. 2 Lichtenstein, M. H. K., Travels in South Africa, Vol. II, p. 271, quoted by Lord Avebury, Origin of Civilization, 6th ed., p. 34. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 155 the hook, not simply because it has already caught fish, but because he thinks of the hook as possessing an attrac- tive power over fish, the mental process at the root of his action is another and a more complex one : he now believes in action at a distance. Considered psychologically, the behavior of the savage when he prefers the successful hook may thus be of two quite distinct kinds. The magic based upon the simple conviction that what has happened once is Hkely to happen again, finds no place in Frazer's system ; for the two branches of magic that he recognizes " may conveniently be comprehended under the general name of Sympathetic Magic, since both assume that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy, the impulse being transmitted from one to the other by means of what we may conceive a kind of invisible ether." ^ There remains the question of fact. Does the savage act on these two principles, or only on the one mentioned by Frazer ? Facts and arguments will be offered below in support of the former alternative. Frazer's classification may again prove inadequate in re- gard to certain dances performed by the women when the men are engaged in war. " In the Kafir district of the Hindoo Koosh, while the men are out raiding, the women leave their work in the fields and assemble in the villages to dance day and night. The dances are kept up most of each day and the whole of each night. . . . The dances of these Kafirs are said to be performed in honor of certain of the national gods, but when we consider the custom in connection with the others which have just been passed in review, we may reasonably surmise that it is or was origi- nally in its essence a sympathetic charm intended to keep the absent warriors wakeful, lest they should be surprised in their sleep by the enemy." ^ According to the author of 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cii., 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 54. ^Ii>id.,^p. 133-134. 156 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION TJie Golden Bough, this practice would thus fall under the Law of Similarity, to which he gives, as we have seen, a double form. It is the first alternative which applies in this case, " like produces like " : the keeping awake of the women causes the men to keep awake. This is a possible explanation. But it is noteworthy in the other instances given by Frazer ^ that the stay-at-homes are not simply trying to keep awake, but that they are doing many other things, not all of which can be interpreted as mimetic magic (like produces like). It seems very likely that the primary cause of the danc- ing is not the belief that keeping awake will make the warriors wakeful, but the excitement and anxiety under which the women would naturally labor while their husbands are fighting. Now, a state of high tension may be expected to work itself off, not only according to a law of " like produces like," that is, of contagion, but in all sorts of spontaneous activities. The facts appear to agree with this theory. The dance is not kept up night and day in every tribe, and in most of them, as far as my information goes, there does not appear to be any deliberate purpose of resisting sleep. Nor do these women use dancing alone ; in some tribes they refrain from sexual intercourse, believing that if they do not, their husbands will either be killed or wounded. In cer- tain islands the women and children are forbidden to re- main inside the houses, or to twine thread or weave. If one turns to the savages' own explanation of their actions, one finds great variation. I do not discover in Frazer that any tribe gives the interpretation that he suggests ; but he reports that the Yuki Indians say that if they dance all the time, " their husbands will not grow tired." In Madagascar the women say that by dancing they impart strength, cour- age, and good fortune to their husbands. Why bring these 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cit,, 3d ed., Vol. I, pp. 131-134. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 157 various ceremonies back to an intention of keeping the warriors awake ? Some of the actions may be inspired by that purpose, but why all of them ? Let us say rather that the anxiety of the women tends to work itself off in spon- taneous movements, some of them having, in the beginning at least, no mimetic or telepathic connection with the fight- ing of the husbands. They simply dance or jump up and down for relief, and the relief felt leads to the repetition of the movement. Thus the dancing habit is formed. Now if the women dance while they are filled with a desire for the success of the men in war, does not our knowledge of psychology lead us to expect the formation of a causal connection between dancing and the success of the warriors .' At first this connection will probably be regarded as general, and not as a specific relation be- tween depriving oneself of sleep and keeping awake the warriors. The dancing, at this stage, will be a magical ceremony of the simplest sort. But certain mental tenden- cies readily lead to modifications of the primitive dancing. The minds of the dancers will at times be filled with im- ages of the fighting, and these images will tend to shape the movements. In this way mimicry of fighting may take the place of the original dancing. Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, for instance, " the wives of the men who are away with the army paint them- selves white, and adorn their persons with beads and charms. On the day when a battle is expected to take place, they run about armed with guns, or sticks carved to look like guns, and taking green paw-paws (fruits shaped somewhat like a melon), they hack them with knives, as if they were chopping off the heads of the foe."^ In the Queen Charlotte Islands, "when the men had gone to war, '^ Ibid., p. 132. On dancing and its relation to primitive religion, see I. King, op. cU., pp. 108-I12. 158 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the women at home would get up very early in the morn- ing and pretend to make war by falling upon their children and feigning to take them for slaves." Certain tribes went as far as to scourge severely two lads, by way of helping the warriors. If any of these dancers accounted for the practice by saying that keeping awake helped warriors to remain watchful, I should look upon this statement as an after- thought. The idea of the danger of surprise to the sleep- ing men would readily enough connect itself with the dancers' loss of sleep, a loss arising from the dancing, which is itself an expression of anxiety. Perhaps the largest and most important class of magic not provided for in the classification we are considering is Will-Magic. Here is one instance taken from ancient In- dia. In order to protect his belongings from destruction, the Buddhist monk is directed to make a " firm resolve," saying, " For the space of seven days let not this and that article be burnt by fire, borne away by a flood, blown to pieces by the wind, carried off by robbers, or eaten by rats and the like. . . . Then for the space of seven days no harm will touch them." ^ This is not a request addressed to a spirit, but a " firm resolve " that the wish expressed shall be reaHzed. In the Kei Islands, when a battle is in prog- ress, the women wave fans in the direction of the enemy and sing : " O golden fans ! Let our bullets hit, and those of the enemy miss."^ The essence of Will-Magic is the belief that an exertion of the will takes effect at a distance. This kind of magic may or may not be complicated by the addition of magical elements of another type. Can Will-Magic be classed under Frazer's Law of Simi- ^ Pali Texts, Visuddhi-Magga, Chap. XXIII, taken from Buddhism in Translation, Henry C. Warren, Harvard University Press, 1896, p. 385. "^ Frazer, J. G., op. cit., 2d ed., Vol. I, p. 2^. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 159 larity? This law is expressed in a double form: "Like produces like" and " An effect resembles its cause." From this law, we are told, " the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it." But imitation is not in the least a requirement of Will- Magic, although it may be superadded. The formula " like produces hke " means, if it means anything, that be- cause two things have elements in common, — shape, color, etc., what happens to one will happen to the other also. Nothing of this is necessarily involved in Will-Magic. The other form of the law, " an effect resembles its cause," applies no better. It means that if you want, for instance, a tumor to dry up, you can succeed by causing something else to dry up ; or if you want jaundice to disappear, you can succeed by making the yellow color of some object, a flower, for instance, vanish. In this case the effect you have produced becomes the cause of a similar effect. I must observe here that these two formulas represent each a different mental process, and that if the savage is aware of this difference, the two mental processes should not be included under one principle. To do so seems to me to obliterate distinctions, rather than to bring order by means of a helpful generalization. If primitive man does not discriminate, then the distinction has no application to the mental processes involved in savage magic. Although I feel confident in affirming that Frazer's classification needs completion, I do not claim that the following one is adequate. 1. Principle of Repetition. — Something that has hap- pened once is likely to happen again. A successful arrow will meet with further success, and one that has failed with further failure. No telepathic power is involved here. 2. Principle of the Transmission of an Effect from one Object to Another. — Sympathetic Magic. An action tak- i6o A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ing place upon an object will take place upon another object when the two objects are connected with each other in the mind of the magician. The connections may be of several kinds. I mention three of these, (a) The objects bear a likeness to each other (association by similarity) : in- juring the likeness of a thing injures the thing itself, {b) The objects have been or are in contact (association by contiguity): whatever is done to a tooth once belonging to a person will happen to the person himself. A variation of this form of magic is seen in the custom of rubbing oneself with a part of a powerful and courageous animal in order to acquire these traits, {c) The objects have been in the relation of cause and effect : cooling the arrow which has inflicted a wound will prevent the inflammation of the wound. In this class of magic an attraction or a telepathic influ- ence is exerted between objects. 3. Principle of Efficiency of Will-Effort. — Other sys- tems of classification are of course possible. A classifica- tion according to the nature of the Power involved in the magical operation, and the relation of this Power to the magician appears to me to have considerable merit, so I add it here. Class I. — Practices in which there is no idea of a Power belonging to the operator or his instrument, and passing thence to the object of the magical art. To this class belong many instances of so-called Sympathetic Magic ; ^ many of the taboo customs ; most modern superstitions, — those, for instance, regarding Friday, the number thirteen, 1 Hang a root of vervain around the neck in order to cause a tumor to disappear : as the plant dries up, so will the tumor. If the fish do not appear in due season, make one of wood and put it into the water. Keep the arrow that has wounded a friend in a cool place, so that the wound may not become inflamed. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC i6i horse-shoes, planting when the tide is coming in. In these instances the effect is thought to follow upon the cause without the mediation of a force passing, let us say, from the magician to the wooden fish placed in the stream and thence to the living fish. An illustration of this class of magic has already been given in the old lady's belief that good luck would come to a household as the result of spar- rows having fallen down the chimney. The gambler who believes in his " luck " does not usually conceive of it as a Power in any true sense of the word. Several facts drawn from child life, which point to this same conclusion, will be noted presently. Divination by casting lots or otherwise, when a spirit or god is not supposed to guide the cast, may be included here as a subdivision. The aim of divination is to secure an item of knowledge for the magician, while the other practices of this class are calculated to produce effects of some other kind. But in neither case does there exist the idea of a Power mediating between the thing sought and its antecedent. Class II. — Non-personal Powers are believed to belong to the magician himself, or to particular objects, such as the magician's instruments, and to pass from these into other objects, or to act upon them so as to produce certain effects. If the magician himself possesses this force, he does not think of it as identical with his "will," or even as intimately connected with it. Howitt relates that some native Australians begged him not to carry in a bag containing quartz crystals a tooth ex- tracted at an initiation ceremony. They thought that the evil power of the crystals would enter the tooth and so injure the body to which it had belonged.^ Many charms 1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XIII, 1884, p. 456, quoted by Frazer. M 1 62 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION have a potency of this nature, while others have an animis- tic significance, that is, they involve the action of spirits, and so do not belong here. Eating the fat of a brave and strong man or animal, or rubbing oneself with it in order to gain courage and power is an act belonging to this second class, as are also most cases of Contagious Magic. There seems to be among all peoples a stage of develop- ment at which a Power hke that described above is con- ceived clearly enough to be given a name ; Wakanda in North America, Majia in Melanesia. This variously named non-personal Potency is the efficient cause of by far the greater part of the magical practices. Class III. — Will-Magic. This includes the cases in which the magician feels that his will-effort is an efficient factor. Under this head usually fall spells, incantations, and solemn curses. A man who says to the magic spear, " Go straight and kill him," feels no doubt that by these words, in which quivers his whole soul, he directs the spear on its errand of death. When discussing the origin of non-personal Powers, we saw how early man's attention is directed to his will-efforts, and how very soon he attempts to turn his " will " to account in the magical way. Among the North American Indians, sending forth one's thought and will is a common practice. Miss Fletcher tells us that, "When a race is taking place, a man may bend his thoughts and his will upon one of the contestants ... in the belief that this act, this ' sending of his mind,' will help his friend to win." ^ In this and other similar cases, the will-power itself seems to perform the magical deed ; while more commonly, per- haps, the spell or incantation " carries " one's will to another 1 Fletcher, Alice C, Notes on Certain Beliefs concerning Will Power among the Sioux Tribes, Science (New York), N. S., Vol. V, 1897, pp. 331, 334. ' VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 163 person, who is then compelled to act according to the desire of the magician. The importance of this class of magic is so great that Marett has raised the question as to whether an accom- panying spell is not an indispensable part of " perfect " magic. ^ F. B. Jevons also connects magical power in general with the sense of one's own energy.^ In my opinion, this exercise of the will is the characteristic of only one class of magic. In magic as well as in religion, we must, it seems to me, admit several independent origins. What follows will, I hope, be conclusive on this point. In this attempt at classification, I would not give the impression that the conceptions of the savage are clear and definite. On the contrary, I hold them to be hazy and fluid. What appears to him impersonal at one mo- ment may suddenly assume the characteristics of a spirit. Mana, for instance, although usually an impersonal force stored in plants, stones, animals, or men, takes on at times truly personal traits. One should not be surprised to meet with cases that belong to several classes. The following is a good instance of the mingling of will-magic with other types: "The ancient Hindoos performed an elabo- rate ceremony, based on homoeopathic magic, for the cure of jaundice. Its main drift was to banish the yellow color to yellow creatures and yellow things, such as the sun, to which it properly belongs, and to procure for the patient a healthy red color from a living, vigorous source, namely, a red bull. With this intention, a priest recited the following spell: *Up to the sun shall go thy heart-ache and thy jaun- 1 Marett, R. R., The Threshold of Religion, pp. 52 ei seq. 2 See footnote on page 152. In the chapter on the origin of the idea of non-personal Power, I have already argued against the view that Will-Magic is the primary form of magic. 164 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION dice : in the colour of the red bull do we envelop thee ! We envelop thee in red tints, unto long life. May this person go unscathed and be free of yellow colour ! . . , Into the parrots, into the thrush, do we put thy jaundice, and furthermore, into the yellow wagtail do we put thy jaundice.' While he uttered these words, the priest, in or- der to infuse the rosy hue of health into the sallow patient, gave him water to sip which was mixed with the hair of a red bull; he poured water over the animal's back and made the sick man drink it ; he seated him on the skin of a red bull and tied a piece of the skin to him. Then in or- der to improve his colour by thoroughly eradicating the yellow taint, he proceeded thus. He first daubed him from head to foot with a yellow porridge made of turmeric or crucums (a yellow plant), set him on a bed, tied three yellow birds, to wit a parrot, a thrush, and a yellow wag- tail, by means of a yellow string to the foot of the bed ; then pouring water over the patient, he washed off the yellow porridge, and with it no doubt the jaundice, from him to the birds. After that, by way of giving a final bloom to his complexion, he took some hairs of a red bull, wrapt them in gold leaf, and glued them to the patient's skin."i 2. The Origins of Magical Behavior The idea of non-personal Powers is no more synonymous with magic than the idea of great, unseen, personal beings is synonymous with religion. If there is to be a magical art, ways and means of using the Power must be produced. How did the apparently endless variety of magical practices come to be .■' Most of them will be accounted for by the following principles of explanation. These are of unequal importance, but each accounts, it seems to me, for a certain class of magic. 1 Frazer, J. G., op, cii., 3d ed., Vol. I, p. 79. \'ARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 165 (a) Children often amuse themselves by making prohi- bitions and backing them up with threats of punishment. " If you do t/izs," they say, " t/iat will happen to you." The " f/it's " and the "t/iai " have usually no logical connec- tion, nor does the child have any thought of a particular power or agent meting out the punishment. It is important to remember in this connection that what is done in the make-believe spirit by one person is often taken seriously by another, independently of any empirical verification. A little girl, seven years old, was told that killing a snail would cause rain. She immediately ac- cepted the statement, and rational arguments did not take the idea out of her head. How many of the senseless superstitions of the savage arose in this way we shall never know. It seems probable, however, that many of the commands, precautions, and prescriptions in the life of the savage have had this origin ; for there is frequently no logical connection between the deed forbidden or pre- scribed and the thing to be secured. I have in mind cer- tain taboo customs, parts of initiation ceremonies of the Australians,^ regulations governing hunting and the like. A good instance of the last is found among the Central Esquimaux : certain kinds of game must not be eaten on the same day ; none of the deer's bones must be broken during skinning ; and bits of the animal must be buried in the ground or placed under stones. In many cases a fuller knowledge would undoubtedly disclose rea- sons of utility, real or imaginary, for these magical prac- tices ; but that this would be true in every instance seems an unjustifiable assumption. The fact that the savage is usually ready with reasons for his behavior is no proof that these reasons lie at the basis of the practices. The expla- nations may be after-thoughts. 1 spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, London, Mac- millan, 1899, Chaps. VII-IX. 1 66 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION {b) It seems good psychology to hold that certain magical practices originated in threats of untoward happenings made for the purpose of preserving things vital to the life and prosperity of the tribe, — for instance, the authority of the chief, and the sanctity of the marriage relation. The magical beliefs which enforce continence on the part of the wives of men engaged in war appear to have had this origin. The punishment may be anything which is re- garded as efficacious. In Madagascar conjugal fidelity is enforced by the threat that the betrayed husband will be killed or wounded in the war; among the indigenous tribes of Sarawack, the belief is that the camphor obtained by the men in the jungle will evaporate if the women are unfaithful ; while in East Africa, the husband will, in the same eventuality, be killed or hurt by the elephant he is hunting. 1 The high sanction which the requirements of social life give to beliefs of this kind is readily understood. The mental attitude out of which these beliefs arose need not be regarded as a deliberate intention to deceive the women. One should bear in mind the half make-believe, half serious attitude of children in their intercourse with one another. Yet I do not think it impossible that beliefs of this sort have originated in purposive deception. Spencer and Gillen^ relate of the most primitive people known to us, the Arunta of Central AustraHa, that the adult males rule the women and children by means of a bogle called Twanyirika. (c) The motive which leads civilized people to make vows may account for certain magical practices. One of the original impulses of human nature seems to be to try to avoid a catastrophe or to secure advantages by promising 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cii., 2d ed., Vol. I, pp. 29-31. 2 Spencer and Gillen, op. cii., p. 246, note I. See also The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 491-492. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 167 to do something which would gratify the person who has control over the event. This motive in its cruder form is a desire to do something meritorious in order to deserve immunity from danger. Customs of continence may have had the origin mentioned above, or they may have arisen from the women's efforts to do something praiseworthy, so that the life of their husbands might be preserved and their success insured. {d) Other types of magical behavior have their origin in the spontaneous response of the organism to specific situations. In states of excitement the liberated energy must find an outlet in movements. To restrain every external sign of intense emotion is unendurable. By the bedside of a sick person one loves, one must do something for him. The " expression " of the excitement is not altogether at random. It takes place according to certain principles.^ For instance, it is a common fact that even men of culture when under stress of emotion act in the absence of the object of their passion as if it were present. A man grinds his teeth, shakes his fist, growls at the absent enemy ; a mother talks fondly to her departed babe and presses it to her breast. The less a person is under the 1 Comp. Irving King: "In innumerable cases they (magical and re- ligious acts) can be shown to be primarily the natural reaction of the psycho- physical organism, almost its mechanical reflex, in situations of strain and relaxation, or to such conditions as require practical adjustments of some sort." Op. cit., pp. 179-188. In attempting to explain the bodily movements which accompany emotions, Darwin set down three principles, two of which should be taken into account in the consideration of the origin of magical behavior : the principle of actions due to the constitution of the nervous system, and the principle of serviceable or associated habit. (Q\^z.x\q% Tizx^'wi, Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, pp. 28 fif.) These principles become, in Wundt's treatment of the matter, the principle of the direct modification of innervation, the principle of the association of related feelings, and the principle of the relation of the movements to sense-representations. (W. Wundt, Physiolo- giscke Psychologie, 5th ed., Vol. Ill, pp. 286-296.) 1 68 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION control of reason, the more likely is he to yield to such promptings. If a happy coincidence were to lead to a connection be- tween such behavior and success in war, these spontaneous actions would become magical, that is, actions performed in the belief that they are of assistance to the warriors. But coinciding fortunate events are not necessary to the estab- lishment of the connection in question. It is psycholog- ically probable that the desire in the mind of the person during the spontaneous activities will lead to a connection between these and the realization of the desire. It is worth while to dwell a moment longer upon this possibility. A few pages above I had occasion to discuss certain dancing ceremonies. I attempted there to account for the magical dances of the women while the men are at war as due in their original form to a spontaneous expression of restlessness and excitement. Duration and repetition of the excitement would favor its expression in coordinated, inteUigible movements, — mimicry of fighting, for instance. If now there appears a sense of necessary connection be- tween mimic fighting and success in war, what was a mere spontaneous expression of excitement becomes a magical practice. This step is not impossible, for if, while the danc- ing goes on, the wish for the success of the warriors is up- permost in the minds of the women, the dancing will prob- ably come to be regarded as a condition of success. This last step would be no more than an expression of the well- known law of association : two things that have been to- gether in the mind tend to recall each other. Thus forms of behavior arising as a release from emotional tensions gradually assume definiteness and become means of exer- cising magical influence, quite independently of any experi- mental proof.-^ 1 If any one finds it difficult to admit that the savage can so easily be de- ceived, I would call his attention to the well-known instances of children's VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 169 Several of the numerous varieties of so-called Sympa- thetic Magic, particularly the widespread practice of doing to an effigy that which one would like to do to the original, can be accounted for by the addition to the former prin- ciples of the following law of mental action. Objects re- sembling each other become associated in the mind, so that the mind tends to pass from one to the other. Like objects may become to some extent equivalents in mental opera- tions. The fact that the satisfaction to the person laboring under the excitement of anger or any other emotion in- creases with the similarity of the object upon which he wreaks his vengeance to the person really intended, was probably discovered by chance and led to the making of images and effigies for magical purposes. (e) In the preceding modes of origin, movements and behaviors first appear independently of any magical inten- tion, and afterwards acquire a magical significance. But the magical principles soon became disengaged from mag- ical practice. At this point a new chapter opened in the history of the magical art. Magic no longer arose only by chance, but new forms were created deliberately. From this moment there must have been a tendency to treat according to more or less definite magical principles every difficult situation. Here belong most of the numerous practices that may be classed under the heading " like produces hke." That "like produces like" is a law of nature expressed every- where about us. Cold, for instance, produces cold, and beliefs and self-deceptions regarding dolls, for example. Most of them be- have, at a certain age, as if their dolls were alive, and at some moments they seem really to believe this. What they think at other moments is another matter. We need not suppose that the savage cannot take, at times, a crit- ical attitude and perhaps undeceive himself. It is sufficient that at other moments, when under the pressure of need or in the excitement of important ceremonies, he should be able to assume the attitude of the believer. 1 70 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION fire engenders fire. The frequent spreading of dreadful infectious diseases among vegetables, animals, and men seems quite sufficient to suggest this belief. The attention of the savage would naturally be drawn very early to that relation, because of the many striking and dangerous forms it takes. Now as he is quite unable to distinguish among the different agencies involved in the various experiences of this sort, he cannot draw the line between the " likes " that really produce "like" and those that do not; hence his very strange expectations. And as it is often impos- sible to obtain or manipulate the objects possessing the quality desired, the whole comes to be replaced by a part, or even by a symbol, which is treated as if it contained the power of the whole. For example, eating or wearing a part of a courageous or powerful animal makes one bold or strong, or protects from danger; rubbing the chin of a young man with a rat's totem makes the hair grow, etc. Another origin of the same class is suggested by an in- teresting observation made by Sully.^ A little girl thought that making her hair tidy would stop the blowing of the wind. The wind disheveled her ; conversely putting her hair in order would make the wind cease. Similarly some children imagine that since the wind produces whistling sounds, whistling will produce wind. The second of two successive events is thought able to reproduce the first. In attempting to demonstrate the priority of magic to religion, Frazer writes : " Magic is nothing but a mistaken application of the very sim- plest and most elementary process of the mind, namely, the association of ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity, while religion assumes the operation of conscious or personal agents, superior to man, behind the visible screen of nature. Obviously the concept of personal agent is more complex than a simple recognition of the similarity or contigu- ity of ideas. . . . The very beasts associate the ideas of things that are like each other or that have been found together in their experience. 1 Sully, J., Studies of Childhood, 1896, p. 80. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 171 . . . But who attributes to the animals a belief that the phenomena are worked by a multitude of invisible animals or by one enormous and prodigiously strong animal behind the scenes ? " ^ It is undoubtedly true that the mind of man tends to pass from one object to others similar or present at the same time ; but this psychological fact does not in itself account for magic. The mind of animals is regulated in like manner. In the spring the sight of a feather makes the bird " think " of nest-build- ing, and the smell and sight of the master's coat probably brings the master to the dog's mind. Yet animals do not practice the magical art. This fact shows the insufficiency of "a simple (mistaken) recognition of the similarity and contiguity of ideas " as an explanation of the origin of magic. If an animal had had his attention drawn to the color of carrots and of jaundice, he might connect them by their color likeness ; and also " coat " and " master " might follow each other in a dog's mind. But in order to treat the coat as he would the master, or to eat carrots for the cure of jaundice, the dog must have, in addition to the associa- tion, the belief that whatever is done to the coat will be suffered by the master, and that the eating of carrots will cure the disease. The ex- istence of these ideas, together with their motor and affective values, makes magic possible. Frazer seems to have overlooked this funda- mental difference between mere association of ideas and the essential mental processes involved in magic. This difference may be further il- lustrated by the instance of a dog biting in rage the stick with which he is being beaten. He is indeed doing to the stick what he would like to do to the man ; but in attacking the stick he does not think that he is injuring the man. His action is blindly impulsive, while the form of magic in question involves the purpose of inflicting injury on something else than the stick, and the belief that the injury is actually done.'- If magical actions cannot be deduced simply from the principles of association, they can at least be classified according to the kind of as- sociation they illustrate. For although the various ideas brought to- gether in magic, in a relation of cause and effect, are frequently said to have come together by " chance," some of the conditions under which 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cit., 2d ed., Vol. I, p. 70. Oldenburg {Die Religion des Veiia, Berlin, 1894) was first, I believe, in holding to a pre-religious magica- stage of culture. But it is Frazer who first made a clear separation, not only between magic and religion, but also between magic and the belief in spirit- agents. 2 Comp. R. R. Marett, From Spell io Prayer, Folk-lore, Vol. XV, 1904, pp. 136-141, reprinted in The Threshold of Religion, pp. 44-48. 172 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION they have in fact become connected are expressible in the universal laws of association ; namely, association by similarity or contrast, by conti- guity or spatial opposition, and by emotional congruity or disparity. Whenever magical acts have been classified, it has been mainly with reference to the kinds of association involved in the mental processes. But every kind of activity involving mental operations falls in some of its relations under the laws of association, hence these classifications are relatively unfruitful. I have attempted, therefore, to group magical practices according to a factor of greater significance, namely, the na- ture of the power involved. 3. The Origins of Religious Practices The main sources of religious ceremonies and rites are so obvious that little time need be spent in stating and illustrating them. First of all, certain magical practices may perhaps be turned to religious account. " It will not surprise us," says Jevons, "if we find that the ceremonies which were used for the purpose of rain-making before rain was recognized as the gift of the gods, continue for a time to be practised as the proper rites with which to approach the god of the community, or the rain god in particular." ^ This would, of course, be religion, in our sense of the term, only if the ceremony were thought of as acting anthropo- pathically upon the god. If, instead, its action were co- ercitive, it would still be a magical rite brought to bear this time upon a personal Power. This source of rehgious practices can be of only slight consequence, since it is rarely possible for coercitive methods to be adaptable to religious action. Most of the forms of religious behavior arise, no doubt, from transferring practices useful in human intercourse to man's relations with gods. Because of the origin and nature of the gods, human relations are the prototypes ^Jevons, F. B., Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion, pp. 91-92. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 173 of intercourse with gods. A god who is a Great Ancestor and chief of a tribe will naturally be approached in a way similar to that customary with living chiefs. If the "god " is still living, that is, if he is a medicine-man or a chief deified, he will evidently be dealt with according to the customs of men. We have already seen how widespread is the worship of men supposed to possess marvellous powers. Certain religious practices may be an extension of friendly offices or other natural actions towards the dead in the grave, and towards ghosts which cannot yet be ranked with gods. When a Jupagalk in great pain calls on some dead friend to come and help him, — that is, to visit him in a dream and teach him some song whereby he may avert the evil magic that is hurting him,^ — his call- ing for the friendly service of his relative is certainly of the same nature as a religious prayer. The custom of placing in graves objects of which the deceased may have need is widespread. Howitt reports this custom among the natives of southeast Australia. A trait of human nature well worth noticing is that the Australians, who provide water and food for the dead, also break the legs of the corpse "to prevent the ghost from wandering at night," ^ presumably not as a further good office, but out of fear that he may cause them injury. In regard to religious practices, the following quotations referring to the Melanesians are instructive. In Melanesia "a man is buried with money, porpoise teeth, and ornaments belonging to him, his bracelets put on upside down ; and these things are often afterwards secretly dug up again. . . . When they hang up the dead man's arms on his house, they make great lamentations; all remains afterwards untouched, the house goes to ruin, mantled as time goes on with the vines of the growing yams, a picturesque and indeed a touching sight ; 1 Howitt, A. W., The Native Tribes of South- East Australia, p. 435. 2 Howitt, A. W., op. cii., p. 474. 174 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION for these things are not set up that they may in a ghostly manner accompany their former owner, they are set up there as a memorial of him as a great and valued man, like the hatchment of old times. With the same feeling they cut down a dead man's fruit trees as a mark of respect and affection, not with any notion of these things serving him in the world of ghosts ; he ate of them, they say, when he was alive, he will never eat again, and no one else shall have them. . . . The series of funeral-feasts or death-meals, the 'eating of death,' as they call it, follows upon the funeral, or even begins be- fore it, and is the most important part of the commemoration of the dead ; it may be said, indeed, to be one of the principal institutions of the islands. The number of the feasts and the length of time during which they are repeated vary very much in the various islands, and depend also upon the consideration in which the deceased is held. The meals are distinctly commemorative, but are not altogether devoid of the purpose of benefiting the dead ; it is thought that the ghost is gratified by the remembrance shown of him, and honored by the handsome performance of the duty ; the living also solace themselves in their grief, and satisfy something of their sense of loss by affection- ate commemoration."^ Social customs such as prostrating oneself before power- ful men and chiefs, and making offerings that may incline them to be favorable, are no doubt the prototypes of adora- tion and offering. Rivers, in his interesting account of the Todas, mentions that one division of a clan makes to an- other division an offering of a buffalo as an atonement for certain offences. He expresses the opinion that we have here " something which is midway between a social regula- tion of the nature of punishment and a definitely religious rite of propitiation of higher powers." ^ This is probably true of the feasts of the Thompson Indians, as well as of those of many other primitive populations. " All of them," says Teit, "apparently held uppermost the idea of good fellowship. Many were simply social gatherings, called, for instance, by one family when it chanced to have ^Codrington, R. H., op. cit., pp. 254, 255, 271. 2 Rivers, W. H. R., The Todas, London, Macmillan, 1906, p. 311. VARIETIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF MAGIC 175 a large supply of food, that it might show its liberality and good-will. Feasts were also given when one family visited another. There were also social gatherings called potlaches, at which there was a general distribution of pres- ents by a wealthy individual or family. All these customs were so definitely fixed that their observance was certainly a phase of tribal good form, if not of tribal moraUty and re- ligion. At any rate, they are interesting as showing a rudimentary stage in the development of real religious feasts." ^ If feasts such as these are held within a non- reUgious social life, it is easy to understand how readily they may become part of the religious life when the god- ideas appear. But in most cases, social feasts develop in a milieu where Great Ancestors have had from the begin- ning a prominent share in the festivals. The intimate and detailed relations existing between the religious forms of a people and the social life have long been recognized.'^ Gods and religious rites reflect the oc- cupations, customs, and chief interests of a people. Were this not so, the conception of rehgion and of its origin pre- sented in this book would be radically wrong. 1 King, Irving, op. cit., p. 107. 2 Among recent books, seo Karl Budde, The Keligion of Israel up to the Exile ; George Barton, Semitic Origins. CHAPTER IX COROLLARIES REGARDING THE RESPECTIVE NATURE OF MAGIC AND RELIGION AND THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER Before bringing to a close the comparative study of these two forms of behavior, I propose to discuss briefly the following corollaries, which may be drawn from the propositions set down in the preceding pages. 1. Magic and religion have had independent origins. Neither of them need be regarded as a development from the other. 2. Magic contributed very little directly to the making of religion. 3. The simpler forms of magic probably antedated ;:eligion. 4. Because they are different ways of achieving the 9ame ends, magical and religious practices are closely as- sociated. 5. Rehgion is social and beneficial ; magic is dominantly individual and often evil. 6. Magic is of shorter duration than religion. 7. Science is closely related neither to magic nor to religion, but to the mechanical type of behavior. I. Religion and magic have had independent origins. — This is the most important of these corollaries. The facts and arguments brought forward in the preceding discus- sion of the origins of the non-personal Power, of the god- 176 MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 177 ideas, and of magical and religious practices afford, to my mind, conclusive evidence of the truth of this proposition. Religion cannot be said to be an outgrowth of magic ; and religion in no way leads to magic. 2. What did magic contribute to the making of religion? — We cannot accept the answer given by Frazer. Since he recognizes not only a fundamental distinction, but even an opposition of principle, between magic and religion, he cannot allow the former a positive influence in the establish- ment of religion. Yet, he traces a genetic relation between them ; it is the recognition of t\\Q failure of magic that is the cause of the worship of gods. " I would suggest," writes Frazer, " that a tardy recognition of the inherent falsehood and barrenness of magic set the more thoughtful part of mankind to cast about for a truer theory of nature and a more fruitful method of turning her resources to account." When a man saw that his magical actions were not the real cause of the activity of nature, he concluded that, " if the great world went on its way without the help of him or his fellows, it must surely be because there were other beings, like himself, but far stronger, who, un- seen themselves, directed its course and brought about all the various series of events which he had hitherto believed to be dependent on his own magic. ... To these mighty beings, whose handiwork he traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry of nature, man now addressed himself, humbly confessing his dependence on their invisible power, and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him with all good things. ... In this, or some such way as this, the deeper minds may be conceived to have made the transition from magic to religion." ^ Concerning this view, I would say, first, that Frazer does not even attempt to ^ Frazer, J. G., op. cit., 2d ed., Vol. I, pp. 75-78. N 178 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION disprove the effectiveness of the sources of the behef in ghosts, nature-beings, and creators mentioned in preceding sections. These sources are sleep, trances, and apparitions ; the impulse to personify great and starthng natural phenom- ena; the idea of creation. His hypothesis of the origin of religion is, therefore, superfluous, unless he can show that the transition from magic to religion took place in the manner he suggests before the experiences and reflections we have named had given rise to the god-idea and to intercourse with gods. If, disregarding this objection, we consider the assumption on which Frazer's hypothesis rests, namely, that sagacious men of wild races persuaded themselves and their fellows of the inefficiency of magic, we find it clearly contradicted by the history of the relation of magic to religion, and also by the psychology of credulity. On the latter ground, he may justly be accused of attributing insufficient influence both to the will to believe and to the support the will to believe receives from the many appar- ent or real successes of magic. These successes, with the help of the several ways of accounting for failures without giving up the belief,^ were, in my opinion, sufficient to support a belief in the efficiency of magic until long after the birth of religion. Must we not draw this conclusion from the recent spread of the spiritualistic movement, not only among the untutored, but even among people of culture.^ The recent gains of spiritism have been made in spite of numberless failures, the repeated discovery of deception, and the satisfactory scientific explanation of a large proportion of the alleged spiritistic facts. To sup- pose that before ghosts, nature-beings, and creators had ^ A widespread opinion ascribes the failures of the magician to a rival or to the counter-influence of some evil spirit. "If a man died in spite of the medicine-man, they [the Chepara of South-East Africa] said it was WuUe, an evil being, that killed him." (Hovvitt, op. cit., p. 385.) MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 179 been thought of as exercising a practical influence upon men's conduct, there existed persons so keenly observant, so capable of scientific generalization, and so free from the obscuring influences of passion as to be able to reject the many instances of apparent success of magic, is to posit a miracle where a satisfactory natural explanation already exists.^ Although the hypothesis that gods and religion are the consequence of the recognition of the failure of magic must be rejected, it does not follow that two modes of activ- ity with a common purpose, as are magic and early reli- gion, do not react upon each other in many ways. If magic was first in the field, we may believe that the satisfac- tion its results gave to man were apparent and real, and that in providing him with a means of expressing and gratifying his desires, it tended to retard the establishment of any other method of securing the same ends. The habit of doing a thing in a particular manner always stands more or less in the way of the discovery of other ways of doing the same thing. So that, in these respects, magic was a hindrance to the making of religion. There is, however, a grain of truth in Frazer's hypothesis. Had magic completely satisfied man's multifarious desires, he 1 In the third chapter of Magic and Religion, Andrew Lang vigorously attacks Frazer's hypothesis. A part of his argument, based on generally accepted historical data, is summarized in this passage: " If we find that the most backward race known to us believes in a power, yet propitiates him neither by prayer nor sacrifice, and if we find, as we do, that in many more advanced races in Africa and America, it is precisely the highest power which is left unpropitiated, then we really cannot argue that gods were first invented as powers who could give good things, on receipt of other good things, sacrifice and prayer." He remarks, in addition, that although one would not expect people who had recognized the uselessness of magic and had turned to gods, to continue the development of the magical art; yet, in order to find the highest magic, one has to go to no less a civilization than that of Japan, where gods are numerous. i8o A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION would, in all probability, have paid but scant attention to the gods ; for it is mainly in times of trial that man turns to them. It was thus greatly advantageous to the develop- ment of religion that the inadequacy of magic should have been felt. Besides, magic exercised a considerable in- fluence on the general mental growth of savage popula- tions ; in this sense also it may be said to have indirectly helped religion. 3. The simpler forms of magic probably existed prior to religion. — A proof of the separate origins of magic and of religion leaves the question of priority unsolved. When one questions students of primitive history, they say unan- imously that, in the lower societies of which we have accu- rate knowledge, magic is always in evidence, whereas religion may be represented by mere rudiments. Thus they convey the impression that magic antedated religion. But the historical argument is open to serious objections. The so-called " primitive " populations are not at all primi- tive, and so any one, without contesting the correctness of the facts reported by anthropologists, may refuse to admit that these facts represent the condition of really primitive societies, and may maintain, on the contrary, that originally there was no magic, but only a simple and crude reHgion, and that what we observe to-day is a state of degeneration. No headway can be made towards an historical solution of the problem until our knowledge has been increased to an extent perhaps impossible. There remains, fortunately, another line of argumenta- tion : the comparative consideration of the mental processes required for the establishment of magic and religion. If certain classes of magical practices can be shown to result from observations more obvious and from mental processes more elementary than those involved in the making of re- MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES i8i ligion, it will be legitimate to conclude that those classes of magic probably came into existence earlier than religion. That this conclusion is warranted by the facts, has, I be- lieve, been made clear in the preceding pages, where one class of magic was shown to be independent both of the notion of animism and of dynamism, and where the idea of a non-personal Power, upon which most kinds of magic depend, was found to be in all probability a conception earlier in time than animism. The priority of magic does not, of course, mean that there has been no overlapping of the periods during which the two modes of behavior came into existence : but only that magic probably began before religion. The problem of priority would be of great importance were magic and rehgion genetically related. But, as this is not the case, the question possesses little real significance. 4. Magic and religion are often closely associated. — Certain authors have affirmed that magic and religion, in their crudest expression, are hardly to be distinguished. This is an error impossible to one who has accepted the conceptions offered in this book. It is true, indeed, that they are often used together and for a common purpose, but this in no way obliterates their difference. Perhaps enough has been said already about the nature of the magical power and of the relation to it of the per- sonality of the magician. For the sake of pointing out once more the distinction existing between magical and re- ligious behavior, however, I will venture two additional illustrations. In ancient Peru, when a war expedition was contemplated, the people used to starve some black sheep for several days and then slay them, uttering the incantation, " As the hearts of these beasts are weakened, so let our enemies be weakened." If this utterance is to be regarded i82 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION as an attempt to project the operator's " will " upon the enemies, we are in the realm of pure magic. But if it is to be understood as a request addressed to a personal being, it is a prayer, and then we deal probably with an instance of the combination of magic with religion. One of the finest incantations of the ancient Egyptians seeks to make " the father of light " enter into a lamp. " * Come down into this flame, inspire with thy holy spirit. ... O Logos that orderest day and night. . . . Come, show thyself to me, O God of gods ; enter, make manifest thyself ... in thy ape form enter.' This must have been an invocation to Thoth, the sacred ape, showing that one of the greatest gods was invoked to manifest himself by magic." ^ Here a request is made of a god to enter into a lamp. So far we deal with a religious attitude and behavior. But what seems to be expected of the god is, in part at least, a mag- ical activity, i. e. the use of a mysterious power in his possession. In an ingenious essay, already mentioned,^ Marett, argu- ing against Frazer's "oil and water" theory of the relation of magic to religion, attempts to show that a pro- gressive personification and deification of the magical instrument often takes place, and, at the same time, " the spell evolves into a prayer." Magic, he urges, is not in origin a mechanical " natural science," capable only of yielding to religion as a substitute and never of joining forces with it as ally or blood-relation. " Magic proper is all along an occult process, and, as such, part and parcel of the ' god-stuff ' out of which religion fashions itself." And he provides illustrations which, he thinks, " show how artificial must ever be the distinction we draw, purely 1 Petrie, Flinders, Aspects of Egyptian Redgion, Transactions of the Third In- ternational Congress of the History of Religions, Vol. I, p. 192. ■■^ Marett, R. R., Frotyi Spell to Prayer, pp. 76 ff. MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 183 for our own classificatory purposes, between magic and religion." I have no wish whatsoever to deny that the spell often passes into prayer and that the magical instrument may be deified ; and I quite agree that magic and religion fre- quently join forces. But the term "blood-relation " means a closer relation than that obtaining between them, and the accusation that the distinction between these two forms of behavior is artificial does not seem to me warranted. The feeling-attitude of magic is always distinct from the feeling-attitude properly called religion, because the Powers to which magic and religion respectively address themselves are of a different nature. There is nothing in Marett's instances that would give one the right to gainsay what I have insisted regarding the definiteness of the distinction. Magic and religion are frequently allies because tJicy often have the same end, but an alliance prompted by a common purpose is not a blood relationship. And if one chooses to speak of magic as " evolving " into religion, one should not understand by that expression that, because of an essen- tial identity of nature, the one becomes the other. That which happens is merely that, having two instruments at his service for producing one and the same result, the sav- age uses them simultaneously or in succession. Will-Magic in all its phases belongs to magic and never to religion. For the Power that is sent forth in Will- Magic is indeed despatched by a person, but is not itself a person ; it is a non-personal Power, detachable in various quantities from a person. Between a person dealing, as a person, with another, and a person using upon another a coercitive Power, there is a chasm, — a chasm equally great whether the coercitive Power seems to proceed from the very centre of the personality, as in Will-Magic, or whether it is entirely external, as in other varieties of the art. Hav- 1 84 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ing said so much, I must add that, although Marett regards magic and rehgion as " overlapping," he holds, neverthe- less, that these terms embody " a distinction of first-rate importance." He merely wishes "to mitigate the contrast by proposing what, in effect, amounts to a separation in lieu of a divorce." ^ 5. Religion is social and beneficent; magic is dominantly individual and often evil. — The individualistic, private, and evil character of magic has been emphasized by certain students of primitive life and contrasted with the social, public, and benevolent character of religion. That these epithets express a relative difference between these two forms of behavior is undeniable. One must agree in the main with King, when he writes : " There is, we believe, no generalization concerning savage practices which may be made with greater assurance than this, that magic is relatively individualistic and secret in its methods and in- terests, and is thus opposed fundamentally to the methods and interests of religion, which are social and public. This individualistic and secret character of magic makes it easy for it to become the instrument of secret vengeance, as we have seen above. There is no primitive society, as far as our accounts have gone, which does not dread the sor- cerer." ^ But it would be an error to regard these dif- ferences as essential and to try to use them for the differentiation of magic from religion. There is nothing in the nature of magic to make it necessarily personal, se- cret, or evil. The facts speak clearly. On the one hand, there is an abundance of magic performed not for an in- dividual only, but for a group, or for the whole tribe, — a magic, the technique of which is public and the intention 1 Marett, R. R., op. cit., pp. 31, 34. * King, Irving, op. cit., p. 195. MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 185 benevolent. One need only refer to Egyptian magic in confirmation of this statement. And, on the other hand, there are stages in the later life of nations, during which religion is predominantly a personal matter. Christian mysticism, for instance, which is for many the highest expression of Christianity, is eminently individualistic. The fact that religion is used for social ends more widely than is magic is a consequence of their fundamental differences in origin and in nature. Since early gods are re- garded as tribal ancestors, creators, or nature beings, they are intimately related, not with isolated individuals, but tvith the social group as a whole. The natural tendency would therefore be for the tribe as a whole to maintain relations with these beings. On the other hand, no obvi- ous reason exists for the non-personal magical Power to be considered as belonging to, or as acting for, the entire community. It is at the service of any individual who chances to get hold of it. This same fundamental dif- ference explains why, when the separation between the offices of magician and of priest has taken place, the ma- gician is more loosely connected with the tribe than is the priest. The frequently evil character of magic is also readily explained. The blood-relationship involved between gods and the tribe in the conception of ancestral and creator gods necessarily implies a general attitude of benevolence toward the tribe. The gods are, therefore, in theory at least, inaccessible to the enemy of the common weal. The worship, by a community, of personal powers recog- nized as evil, would lead speedily to the destruction of the community ; for it would result in a systematic strength- ening of antisocial forces. Thus it comes to pass that magic is much used for the gratification of individual and evil purposes. But to say, 1 86 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION as King does, that when the ends of magic are more or less socialized, they begin to partake of the nature of re- ligion, while " when religion becomes subservient to anti- social or to merely private ends, it is scarcely to be distinguished from sorcery," ^ is to fail in the recognition of the fundamental difference existing between these two types of behavior. 6. Magic is of shorter duration than religion. — Opinions conflict regarding the ultimate fate of religion, but it can- not be denied that it is still among us, widespread and influential, while magic has long since fallen into disrepute and is probably doomed to disappear altogether. Why this difference in the historical course of these two modes of behavior } If the reader will turn to the first chapter. Religion as a Type of Rational Behavior, he will see that all but two of the reasons assigned there for the continuance of re- ligion, even though gods should have merely a subjective existence, apply also to magic. The two exceptions are these : since the Power with which magic deals is not per- sonal, it cannot provide the comfort found in communion with a loving All-Father, and it cannot serve as a stay and inspiration of the moral life. Now, it is because religion admits of these moral relations with an ideal Being that it has endured. Were it, like magic, able to serve men only in the other respects listed in the chapter referred to, it would certainly have long since lost most of the potency it still retains ; for its inefificiency as a means of controlling physical nature has by this time become evident. Another circumstance has accelerated the fall of magic. Its failure to " make good " in certain directions might have been sufficiently overbalanced by successes in other 1 King, op, cit., p. 195. MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 187 directions which would have delayed longer its fall, were not the fundamental principles of science directly opposed to it. Science is built on the principle that a quantitative relation exists between cause and effect. As soon as this notion found lodgement in the human mind, magic became on log- ical grounds radically inacceptable. The conflict of religion with science could not be so direct and deadly, for as the alleged effects of religious practices are ascribed to per- sonal agents, science could attack religion only by showing that it was inefficient or by proving directly that the gods were merely mental creations. Now, the inefficiency of religion in matters physical can be proved with relative ease ; but not its inefficiency in matters spiritual. And as to a metaphysical disproof of the existence of gods, the student of the history of philosophy knows what difficul- ties stand in its way. 7. Magic and the origin of science. — The reader will remember that after having discriminated roughly, in the introduction, three modes of behavior observable in man, I added that while the anthropopathic behavior becomes reUgion when it is directed to gods, the mechanical be- havior becomes science when the principle of quantitative proportion implicit in that behavior is definitively recog- nized. The common opinion is, however, that magic is the precursor of science. Frazer, who may stand as the representative of that theory, writes, for instance: " Magic is next of kin to science, for science assumes that in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably with- out the intervention of any special spiritual or personal agency. Thus its fundamental conception is identical with that of modern science ; underlying the whole system is a faith, implicit, but real and firm, in the order and uniform- ity of nature . . . his power [the magician's], great as he 1 88 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION believes it to be, is by no means arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield it only so long as he strictly conforms to the rules of his art, or to what may be called the laws of nature as conceived by him. . . . Thus the analogy between the magical and the scientific conception of the world is close. In both of them the succession of events is perfectly regu- lar and certain, being determined by immutable laws, the operation of which can be foreseen and calculated pre- cisely." ^ Regarding this opinion, I observe that the acknowl- edgment of a fixed relation between actions or beliefs and their results is not peculiar to magic ; it is implied also to a considerable degree in religion and, more perfectly, in mechanical behavior. Salvation is by the right practice, or by the right faith, or by both. The gods cannot be approached and conciliated in any way ; worshipper, no less than magician, has to conform to a definite ritual. In certain communities not entirely barbarous, salvation is held to depend upon a belief in no fewer than thirty- nine articles ! Frazer finds it convenient to disregard the considerable share of the personal, i.e. of the capricious, the incalculable, in magic. Yet the personality of the magician introduces an indeterminable factor, one particularly con- siderable in Will- Magic. Nothing could be more directly antagonistic to the scientific attitude than the influence accorded to the personality of the magician. It appears to me truer to the facts to say that the fundamental concep- tion of science, far from being identical with that of magic, is absent from it. For the essential presupposition of science — that which differentiates it alike from magic and from religion — is the acknowledgment of definite 1 Frazer, J. G., op. cit., pp. 61-62. In the third edition (pp. 458-461) a change seems to have taken place in the author's opinion. What this change amounts to, I cannot exactly make out. MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 189 and constant quantitative relations between causes and effects, relations which completely exclude the personal element. That which magic shares with science is not the belief in the fundamental principle we have named, but the desire to gain the mastery over the powers of nature, and, perhaps, the practice of the experimental method. The experimentation of magic is, however, so Hmited and so unconscious that it can hardly be assimilated to the modern scientific method. If any one should turn to history for an argument in support of Frazer's thesis, and should point out that the alchemist is the lineal ancestor of the scientist, the sufficient answer would be as follows: (i) Historical succession does not imply continuity of principle. Al- though magic, alchemy, and science form an historical sequence, the fundamental principle of the last is not to be found in the others. (2) The clear recognition of the principle of fixed quantitative relations means, whenever and wherever it appears, the birth of science and the death of both magic and alchemy. This last fact demonstrates clearly the fundamental opposition of these arts to scientific procedure. Magic does not, any more than religion, encourage the exact observation of external facts, but rather promotes self-deception with regard to them. So the discovery of the scientific principle was probably almost as much hin- dered by the false notions and the pernicious habits of mind encouraged by magic, as it was furthered by the gain in general mental activity and knowledge which it brought about. If the quantitative presupposition of science is absent from magic and religion, it is implicitly present in mechani- cal behavior. The savage is nearer the scientific spirit, and 190 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION its methods when he constructs a weapon to fit a particular purpose, or when he adjusts his bow and arrow to the direction and the strength of the wind, than when he exor- cises diseases, burns an enemy in effigy, or abstains from sexual intercourse to promote success in the hunt. 8. Summary of the forms assumed by magic and religion. — In the preceding pages I have taken pains to discrimi- nate and classify to an extent perhaps wearisome, but he who would understand human nature cannot rest satisfied with the loose class-terms that are current. He must strive after a finer differentiation of its confusingly rich expressions. Three types of behavior have been separated as charac- teristic of the life of man, even in the most primitive tribes now extant : the mechanical, the coercitive, and the an- thropopathic types. At the root of the two latter types are found the conceptions of an indeterminate Potency, of visible beings (men and animals), and of unseen, personal agents (ghosts, spirits, nature-beings, gods). 1. Mechanical behavior is the ordinary, commonplace behavior of men when dealing with inanimate things. It contains the germ of the recognition of a principle which, when explicitly formulated, becomes the corner- stone of science : the principle of quantitative relation. 2. Coercitive behavior, or magic, has been found to fall into three groups : (i) no idea of power is present; (2) the Power does not belong to the magician, but he secures it from outside himself ; (3) the Power is regarded as identical with the will of the operator. Another classi- fication brings magic back to three principles : Repetition, Transmission of effects, and Efficiency of will-effort. Three classes of wonderful men exist in primitive societies. I have called them, Magicians, men able to MAGIC AND RELIGION: COROLLARIES 191 secure and make use of the non-personal Potency ; Magic- Gods, men possessing in their own right the wonderful Potency ; Incarnate Gods, men in whom a god has taken his abode. 3. The anthropopathic behavior includes the willing and feeling relations of men and animals with one an- other, and those of men with unseen beings. It includes, therefore, religion. I have called Passive Religiosity the relations maintained by most primitive tribes with the highest god in whom they believe, usually a creator-god, by whom they are influenced, but whom they cannot be said to worship. Passive, unorganized religiosity must be, it seems, the necessary precursor of organized religion ; it is its larval stage. But it does not by any means dis- appear from society when a system of definite relations with gods, or with impersonal sources of religious inspira- tion has been developed. In all societies there is always a large number of people who live in the limbo of organ- ized religion. They are open to the influence of religious agents, in whom they believe more or less cold-heartedly, without ever entering into definite and fixed relations with them. The belief in a Supreme Being who keeps aloof from the universe permits only Passive Religiosity. If one wishes to single out the peculiar relations into which men enter with evil spirits, one may speak of them as constituting a Negative Form of Active Religion. PART III RELIGION IN ITS RELATION TO MO- RALITY, MYTHOLOGY, METAPHYSICS, AND PYSCHOLOGY CHAPTER X 1. MORALITY AND RELIGION The extent of the literature on the relation of morality to religion is amazing. Almost every conceivable kind of relation has been attributed to them. It has been main- tained, for instance, that morality has no existence out- side of reHgion ; that it is one of the fruits of reHgion ; that purified religion is morality; and that no connection whatever exists between morality and religion. But if one accepts the conception of religion offered in this book, the relation to religion of ethical appreciations and needs does not present a particular problem. It is merely a part of the general problem of the relation to religion of the human impulses, tendencies, and cravings. There can be no agreement as to the relation of morality to religion until there is agreement regarding the origin and the nature of each. In so far as the opinion that the social life is the matrix of moral sentiments has become generally accepted, progress has been made towards unanimity. This view does not necessarily imply a naturalistic philoso- phy. One may posit behind the phenomenal world, as or- ganizer and inspirer, a conscious Power. In either case, provided one admits that the moral life issues out of the ordinary social relations, the problem remains the same : when the moral tendencies, needs, and cravings have ap- peared, why and how do they become connected with the religious life ? 195 196 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The grounds for the belief in the social, non-religious origin of morality are now so well known that I need not attempt an exhaustive presentation of them. In order to keep from disintegration, a community, however low, must enforce rules making for cohesion and efficiency. These rules are learned gradually from the lessons of life. Such things as treachery, stealing, and murder, among members of the group, will necessarily soon fall under the ban of tribal opinion. Moreover, the value of kindness and love will be felt in the family relations, and will extend thence to the wider tribal connections. Even among the higher animals, the mother cherishes and protects the young ; for the satisfaction of the maternal instinct, she will undergo privation and even death. ^ The existence of social virtues of considerable nobility, even among the lowest savages, with or without religion, is one of the facts which late ethnological discoveries have placed beyond doubt. The following quotations show in a surprising manner the independence of moral ideas from rehgious beliefs. " Among the Central Australian natives there is never any idea of appealing for assistance to any one of these Alcheringa ancestors in any way. . . . They have not the vaguest idea of a personal individual other than an actual living member of the tribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far as anything like what we call morality is concerned. ... It must not, however, be imagined that the Central Australian native has nothing in the nature of a moral code. As a matter of fact, he has a very strict one, and during his initiation ceremonies the youth is told that there are certain things which he must ^ For a valuable, detailed account of the origin of the tender emotion from the maternal protective impulse, see Alexandre Sutherland's Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. There is also an excellent briefer treatment in William McDougall's Social Psychology, pp. 66-81. MOR.\LITY AND RELIGION 197 do and certain others which he must not do, but he quite understands that any punishment for the infringement of these rules of conduct . . . will come from the older men and not at all from any supreme being, of whom he hears nothing whatever. In fact, he then learns that the spirit creature, whom, up to that time, as a boy, he has regarded as all-powerful, is merely a myth, and that such a being does not really exist, and is only an invention of the men to frighten the women and children." ^ A similar invention of bugbears for the moral edification of the youth is found also among the Ona Indians of Tierra del Fuego. They " pretend that the natural features of their country, such as the woods and rocks, the white mists and running waters, are haunted by spirits of various sorts, ' bogies in which they themselves do not believe, but which are a strong moral aid in dealing with refractory wives and wilful children.' " In order to estabhsh the belief, men dis- guise themselves in appropriate costumes and frighten children and youth. At about fourteen they are initiated in these mysteries. " At a series of nocturnal meetings they then learn the true nature of the ' moral aid ' by which their green unknowing youth has been trained in the way it should go, . . . Any boy or man who betrays the se- cret is quietly put to death ; and the same fate overtakes any woman who is suspected of knowing more than is good for her." 2 The morality of the Australian aborigines — the most primitive savages of which we have accurate knowledge — does not fall far short of that of large portions of our Christian communities. And yet many of their tribes have ^ Spencer and Gillen, N^ortherii Tribes of Central Australia, Macmillan, London, 1904, pp. 491-492. See also The Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 246, footnote. ^Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, 1st ed., Vol. I, pp. 166, 167. 198 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION no religion at all, if by religion one means offering formal petitions for the assistance of the gods. " The natives of Queensland were said to be generally honest in their deal- ings with one another. ... If a native made a find of any kind, as a honey tree, and marked it, it was thereafter safe for him, as far as his own tribesmen were concerned, no mat- ter for how long he left it. " Under the influence of the food rule, a certain gener- osity of character is fostered. He was accustomed to share his food and possessions. A man of the Kurnai tribe must give a certain part of his ' catch ' of game, and that the best part, to his wife's father. Each able-bodied man is under definite obligation to supply certain others with food. . . . Howitt says of these food rules and other similar customs that they give us an entirely different and more favorable impression of the aboriginal character than that usually held. " Among the Central Australians, chastity is a term to be applied to the relation of one group to another, rather than to the relation of individuals. Men of one group have more or less free access to all the women of a certain other group. Within the rules prescribed by customs, breaches of mari- tal relations were severely punished. Among the natives of North Central Queensland, the camp as a body punished incest and promiscuity. "Much affection was usually shown to children, and this in spite of the fact that abortion and infanticide were practised in many locahties. Howitt says, ' . . . they [the mining tribes] are very fond of their offspring and very indulgent to those they keep, rarely striking them.' " Lumholtz says that the Queenslanders were very con- siderate of all who were sick, old, or infirm. In northern parts of Australia there were many blind, and they were MORALITY AND RELIGION 199 always well cared for by the tribe, being often the best fed and nourished."^ The morality of the native Australians before they suf- fered from contact with the whites was sufficiently high to lead Andrew Lang to compare their " commandments " with the Decalogue. The following rules are apparently taught and fairly well practised among them : — "To Hsten to old people and to obey them. "To share everything with their friends. "To live in peace with their friends. " Not to have relations with young girls and with mar- ried women." ^ The struggle for existence imposes upon primitive tribes two different codes; one regulating the behavior of the members of the tribe towards one another, the other gov- erning their relations with other tribes. Herbert Spencer aptly characterized these codes when he named them the ethics of amity and the ethics of enmity. ^ Killing a brother ^ King, Irving, The Development of Religion, Macmillan and Co., 1910, Chap. XI, pp. 287-305, freely quoted with many omissions. King draws his information from the most reliable sources. 2 Here are two baby songs reported by Mrs. E. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe; A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia, London, Archi- bald Constable and Co. (1905), pp. 52, 54. If they do not conform to the best pedagogical principles, they mark, at any rate, an earnest ethical purpose. " Give to me. Baby, Give to her. Baby, Give to him, Baby, Give to one. Baby, Give to all, Baby." «' Kind be. Do not steal, Do not touch what to another belongs, Leave all such alone, Kind be." ' Spencer, Herbert, The Principles of Ethics, Appleton and Co., 1893, Vol. I, p. 316. (See the whole chapter, pp. 307-324.) 200 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION tribesman is a crime ; killing a member of a hostile tribe is a good deed. The necessity for these two irreconcilable standards is evident ; they are the forms in which the pri- mordial impulses of survival and aggrandizement manifest themselves. As these two codes exist simultaneously, there are developed two sets of ideas and sentiments. These incongruous codes still survive among Christian nations : the god of love (ethics of amity) becomes at times a fighting god (ethics of enmity), supplicated for help, and thanked for assistance in the slaughter of enemies. Chris- tian nations have not yet been able to accept as universally valid the code of love, which was the only one admitted by the founder of their religion. With the accumulation of experience, national and indi- vidual, a reflective morality is born, and an effort is made to formulate ethical rules for an ideal social order from which no man is excluded. But both in the imperfect mo- rality of barbarous tribes and in rules aiming at the ideal state desired by the developed moral conscience, we have the natural outcome of social experience. Although the appearance and development of conscience is by no means necessarily dependent upon religion, re- ligion has been from the first closely connected with the maintenance of tribal customs, and later with the support of the principles of higher ethics. It has been, therefore, an important factor in ethical progress. Where the earli- est gods are great ancestors or tribal heroes, should they not naturally be expected to do for their tribe that which the living chiefs are trying to do, — to enforce the sacred customs .-' These gods must, it seems to me, come to be regarded as the guardians of all the values established within the tribal life. Nature-gods or creator-gods need not be so directly interested in the morality of the tribe as would be ancestor or hero-gods ; yet in their friendly deal- MORALITY AND RELIGION 201 ing with the tribe the former will, on the whole, " stand for" the recognized virtues, even though they should not practise them themselves. The natural tendency will be to expect them to behave towards men according to the double code of amity and enmity. A new phase in the socio-reUgious development appears when the gods not only assist in enforcing the customs and regulations which the tribe has come to regard as essential, but also maintain moral relations with the indi- viduals. This is the level of so-called ethical religions. The individual has become morally self-conscious ; a sense of personal righteousness has developed ; the voice of con- science proclaims the moral law and condemns its trans- gressions. Then, in the stress of his moral need, man learns to look upon his god as the personification of his ideal, and as purveyor of moral energy. In God he sees realized that after which he yearns, the perfect, which is not to be found on earth. The history of the development of gods is a magnificent testimony to the strength of man's craving for power and perfection, and to his ingenuity in gratifying his wants. He has endowed his gods according to his needs ; and he has believed in them and communed with them, because in these ways he has been brought nearer to the realiza- tion of his desires. The psychological study of contem- porary religious experience makes it evident that the God of Christianity continues to be an object of worship, not because his existence is rationally established, but because he affords ethical support and affective comfort. With regard to their function in the moral life, gods are either unconscious or conscious devices for the speedier attainment of ideals arising in the social life. Therefore, although religion has always been a guardian of morality and an aid to moral progress, it may not be called the 202 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION original source of moral inspiration. It is not true that " the beginnings of all social customs and legal ordinances are directly derived from religious notions," nor that "re- ligious motifs lay at the basis of morals and morality from the beginning of civilization." Rather must we say, with Harold Hoffding : "Values must be discovered and pro- duced in a world of experience before they can be con- ceived or assumed to exist in a higher world. The other world must always be derived from this world ; it can never be a primary concept. . . . Discussion is always led back by implacable logic to the conceptual priority of ethics over reHgion." " He who is just because the god in whom he believes is just, must attribute value to justice itself. Here religion has its logical premise in an inde- pendent ethics, whether or no it consciously posits it." ^ Because rehgion exists among peoples whose customs do not all agree with modern Christian, ideas of right and wrong, and fulfils there its essential purpose, — that is, assists in the enforcement of these customs, — it has been said that early religions are opposed to morality. But this judgment arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of religion and its relation to morality. The reHgion of these people bears to their life exactly the same relation that our rehgion bears to our Hfe : it supports the accepted rules or convictions, be they moral or immoral. There is no dif- ference in the functions discharged by the religion of these primitive people and by our rehgion ; but there are differences between our ideas of morality and theirs. The question of the relation of morality to religion is, therefore, merely a part of the general problem of the re- lation to it of man's impulses, cravings, desires, and ideals. Morality and rehgion do not need each other in order to 1 Hoffding, Harold, The Philosophy of Religion, Macmillan, 1906, pp. 330, 329. See the whole section, pp. 322-331. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION 203 come into existence, but, when they have appeared, reli- gious beliefs are speedily called upon for the gratification of tnoral needs. 2. MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION In his Lectures on the Science of Language, Max Muller complains that the religion and the mythology of the ancient nations are usually confounded, and he attempts to differentiate them. Mythology, he tells us, consists of the "fables" about the gods; while religion is "trust in an all-wise, all-powerful, eternal Being, the Ruler of the world, whom we approach in prayer and meditation." ^ He would consign to the realm of mythology all the ir- relevant, foolish, and immoral stories related of the gods. This distinction is accepted by Andrew Lang : " Where relatively high moral attributes are assigned to a Being, I have called the result ' Religion.' Where the same Being acts like Zeus in Greek fables, plays silly or obscene tricks, is lustful or false, I have spoken of * Myths.' " "^ 1 Muller, Max, Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, Scribner, 1884, p. 433. " Mythology has encroached on ancient religion, it has at some times well nigh choked its very life ; yet through the rank and poisonous vegetation of mythic phraseology we may always catch a glimpse of that original stem round which it creeps and winds itself, and without which it could not enjoy even that parasitical existence which has been mistaken for independent vitality." {IhiJ.) See also First Series, p. 21. 2 Lang, Andrew, The Making of Religion, 2d ed., 1900, Preface, p. xiii. The following passage from W. Robertson Smith is of interest in this connection : — " But strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacre4 sanction and no binding force on the worship- per. . . . Belief in a certain series of myths was neither obligatory as a part of true religion, nor was it supposed that, by believing, a man acquired merit and conciliated the favor of the gods. What was obligatory or meri- torious was the exact performance of certain sacred acts prescribed by religious tradition. This being so, it follows that mythology ought not to take the 204 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION This seems like making the modern Englishman's notion of what is moral and sensible the test of religion in con- tradistinction to myth. Morality and rationality, however, can hardly be regarded as essential characteristics of religion. Lang is better inspired when he argues that religion and mythology arose from two separate human moods; one earnest and serious, the other humorous and fanciful. " The humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and libidinous savage would like to play if he could." The conception of the nature and function of religion I have presented leads directly to the following differ- entiation. When man is concerned with his practical relation to psychic, superhuman powers, any ideas — im- moral or otherwise — that he may hold regarding these powers belong to religion. According to the mood we are in, the same name may designate different objects ; what is said or thought of gods outside the temple need not be just what is said or thought of them within. To the child, the word " doll " means at one time a living person, who is capable of ideas and affection, and of whom she takes tender care ; at another time, it signifies merely so much rags and color, and is treated accordingly. So it is with man and the invisible personages in whom he believes. Their nature and attributes vary with his moods. If the aesthetic mood is upon him, he may find delight in repre- senting these beings in their fairest form in clay or marble ; at that moment he is an artist. If, in a fanciful mood, he prominent place that is too often assigned to it in the scientific study of ancient faiths. So far as myths consist of explanations of ritual, their value is altogether secondary . . . the ritual was fixed and the myth was variable, the ritual was obligatory, and faith in the myth was at the discretion of the worshipper." (^The Religion of the Semites, t^, 19.) MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION 205 lets his imagination weave stories about them, not seriously, but playfully, as the child romances about her doll, he then becomes a maker of myths. If at another time he is dis- interestedly concerned about understanding the origin and nature of these beings, he regards them for the time being as objects of philosophic thought. But if, in a serious mood, he feels himself in vital relation with them, they are for him at that moment religious objects. Zeus may thus be in turn to the same person an object of artistic, mytho- poeic, philosophic, or religious activity. Whatever charac- teristics are attached to Zeus in the mind of the worshipper either when he actually worships or when he thinks of Zeus as an object of worship, and only these characteristics, belong to Zeus as a god. These various moods may of course overlap. The creative fancy, for instance, may combine with the spirit of inquiry. As a matter of fact, most myths betray a wish to understand ; they are both mythological and phil- osophical. The less seriously the gods are taken, the more luxuri- antly does mythology flourish. A race like the Greeks, fonder of the beautiful than of the awful, of pleasure than of righteousness, yields readily to the promptings of the fancy. If there is little mythology in the Hebrew scrip- tures, it is because the Hebrew took his God in grim earnest. Even the story of creation, in Genesis, is more a bit of crude nature philosophy than a myth. There is hardly a myth connected with the Christian God or with Christ. Whatever in Christianity might be called myth clusters around the lesser personages of the pantheon, — the Virgin Mary, the disciples, and especially the saints. The essen- tial traits of the Divine Father and of His Incarnate Son have always been such as to make it utterly impossible for one to assume towards them the detached, playful attitude 2o6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION out of which myths are born. On the other hand, the Christian God and Christ have given rise to endless philo- sophical disputations. This is exactly what one might expect ; for these beings, too august and too vitally impor- tant to the believer to be the subjects of playful romance, make a strong appeal to the understanding. 3. METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION As this topic has been touched upon in the criticism of intellectualistic definitions, and is to be taken up again in the next chapter, I shall simply restate here the partial conclusion already reached. The search for explanations and the wish to understand induce a frame of mind and a behavior very different from the attitude and behavior of a person who endeavors to conform his life to an accepted solution, or to make use of it for himself or his fellows. To seek an answer to the question, Does God exist, and what is he ? is to philoso- phize ; to seek in God the fulfilment of hopes and desires, is to be religious. In his philosophical moments man wants to know; in his religious moments he wants to be. CHAPTER XI THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY I. The Situation ; the Propositions of Empirical Theology ; the Documental Evidence " Le conflit entre le christianisme et la science a ^clat^ d'abord sur le terrain cosmologique ; la lutte s'est transportde ensuite sur le terrain de la biologic ; elle se trouve mainteaant sur celui de la psychologie." Theodore Flournoy, unpublished lecture. One of the results of the scientific and philosophical activity of the past century has been to convince the best informed among the theologians who have remained Chris- tians in the traditional sense of the word, that science and metaphysics are not the allies but the enemies of their be- Uefs.i This conviction has resulted in an energetic effort to render theology independent of science and metaphysics. Should this endeavor succeed, it would be a matter of in- difference to religion that historical criticism contests the authenticity of portions of the Bible, that physical science denies miracles, and that psychology explains by natural means revelation and conversion. Ritschlianism, the only recent system of theology that ^ The metaphysicians have themselves compelled this recognition, even those of the English school of Hegelians. See on this an instructive and de- lightfully written chapter in Schiller's Studies in Humanism, on " Absolutism and Religion," especially pages 283-288 ; and note his reference to McTag- gart's Some Dogmas of Religion. 207 2o8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION has given evidence of vitality, marks the culmination of this effort. To save religion, Ritschl ^ took the bold step of claiming a radical separation between Christian theology and what he called " theoretical " knowledge. He alleges in justification a specific difference between religious and non-religious knowledge. " It is incompetent for it [theology] to enter upon either a direct or an indirect proof of the Christian Revelation by seeking to show that it agrees with some philosophy or some judicial view of the world ; for to such, Christianity simply stands opposed." ^ This is the opinion of the entire Ritschlian school. W. Herrmann affirms, for example, that " Whether philosophy be deistic, pantheistic, theistic, or whatever it is, is a matter of indifference to theologians. ... He who imagines he will solve or even advance the problem of religion with the assistance of that metaphysic of the much-longed-for theistic philosophy, either divests himself in theology of his Christianity, or is directly asking for another religion."^ An English disciple makes the following confession: " From philos- ophy, the efforts of which have resulted in disappointment, it cannot expect any effective assistance as an ally ; from science, which has been made confident by its successes, it may anticipate serious attack; its own capacity for independence on the one hand, and for resistance on the other, appears greatly lessened by the activity of historical criticism. It must depend more and more exclusively on the inherent vitality and the inexhaustible vigour of religion." * ^ Albrecht Ritschl. His chief work is Die Christliche Lehre von der Recht- fertigung und Versoehnung, 3 vols. (1870-1874). A third edition, revised and modified in at least one important particular, appeared in 1888. The first volume was put into English in 1872 and the third in 1900, under the title The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, H. R. Mackin- tosh and A. B. Macaulay (T. & T. Clark). This third volume contains Ritschl's own theological system. For a good bibUography of Ritschlian literature, with comments, see Alfred Garvie's The Ritschlian Theology, also pp. 27-30 and 32-38. 2 A. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 24. s Quoted by O. Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, Vol. II, p. 190, from Die Metaphysik in der Theologie (1876). * Garvie, A., Ritschlian Theology, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1899, p. 16. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 209 Three of the fundamental propositions of the theology of Ritschl are as follows : — 1. The facts on which theology rests are to be found in religious consciousness, and nowhere else. They form a group of facts apart. 2. Theology is independent of metaphysics. It cannot, for example, make use of the arguments for speculative theism. 3. Christian dogmas are an illegitimate mixture of the- ology and metaphysics. They must be purged of the metaphysical elements. This theology, modified in diverse fashions, has spread widely and has influenced many who do not accept it en- tirely. It is scarcely necessary to add that neither Ritschl nor any of his followers has been able to hold strictly to these principles, so that this theology is just as remarkable for its lack of consistency as for its radicalness. Could the Ritschlians have been consistent, they would have gained independence from metaphysics, but at the cost of mak- ing of theology a natural science, that is, a branch of psychology. It should not be imagined that in separating theology from science and metaphysics Ritschl made a new de- parture. The German movement merely makes a more thorough and systematic use of an old conviction. The opinion that what is deepest or most essential in reHgion is a matter of revelation, of intuition, of heart, and not a matter of reflection or of philosophy, is as old as the ethical religions. It is presupposed in the saying of Tertullian, " I believe because it is irrational," as well as in that of Anselm, " I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I beUeve in order that I may understand." Pascal has given to this conviction its classic form, "The heart has reasons which reason does not know." Ac- 2IO A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION cording to him, upon these " reasons of the heart " rests the beUef in the gods of rehgions. He says, " The meta- physical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of man and so involved, that they make little impression ; and when some persons find them sufficient, it is only dur- ing the moment they actually see the demonstration. But an hour afterwards they believe they have been deceived," ^ Even Pascal, that magnificent intelligence, convinced him- self of the existence of God much more by what passed in his heart than by metaphysical arguments. At the time of his conversion he saw, he tells us, that the God who saves is not the " God of philosophers," but the " God of Abraham and of Jacob." Pascal's saying is commonly taken to mean that the " heart " is an organ of knowledge comparable with the senses and the intellect ; it teaches religious truth inacces- sible to the reason. The same conviction is expressed to- day by the Ritschlians, as well as by others, thus : "There is a moral insight and spiritual discernment of supersensu- ous eternal reality, which is as certain a means of knowl- edge as is observation or experiment with regard to sensible objects. . . . The point most to be insisted upon is that in religious knowledge there is a perception of reality as well as an appreciation of worth." ^ But what, according to this teaching, are the data upon which theology is to build .-' The unanimous re- sponse of pious souls who no longer have illusions as to what they can hope from science and metaphysics is that "religious experience," "inner experience," or "spiritual experience" — three expressions used synonymously — manifests the truth of religion and, in particular, the reality ^ Pascal, B., Pensees, Sec. IV, p. 277, ed. by Leon Brunschvieg. 2 Garvie, A., Expositor, Vol. VIII, 1903, p. 304. Comp. Max Miiller's affirmations in Chap. II of this book. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 211 of the God in whom they believe. The unanimity of opin- ion goes no further. Some affirm that in this experience God is directly " apprehended " or " perceived " ; that he reveals himself directly in consciousness. This is the mys- tic point of view. Others hold that spiritual experiences are only the data from which the action of God is inferred. The belief in the direct revelation of God in conscious- ness signifies necessarily, it seems, that religious experi- ence ^ does not belong entirely to the realm of psychology, that it includes something superhumanly determined. As a matter of fact, this is what its defenders unceasingly maintain. Psychology, on its side, claims the right to submit every content of consciousness to scientific study, whether it be dubbed "inner," "spiritual," or otherwise; moreover, it has begun to make good that claim. Thus the conflict between religion and science, which broke out first in the field of cosmology, then of biology and the his- torical sciences, is now carried into the field of psychology. The Roman Catholics, belated in matters of science, remain almost indifferent to this new phase of the conflict. They still rely upon the metaphysical proofs of the existence of God and upon bibhcal evidence. With the Protestants the situation is different. They have bowed to the insuffi- ciency of the metaphysical arguments and the weakness of the historical proofs. This is why they depend more and more exclusively upon religious experience, in the hope of finding there a direct, unassailable proof of the divine nature of their religion. The pubHcations of Protestant theological schools show unmistakably that Protestantism is struggling against the new evidence which would incorporate the entire rehgious ^ I use here the current expression religious experience in the sense or- dinarily given to it, i.e. that of which a person is conscious in his religious moments. -s 212 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION life within the natural order. The danger from historical and literary criticism is forgotten in the presence of psy- chological questions : Are communion with God, conver- sion, mystic revelation, etc., to be explained entirely according to natural psychological laws .-' If the answer be yes, how then legitimatize belief in a personal God sup- posed to produce these results in answer to petitions or to desires .'' If, on the other hand, there remains an unex- plained residue after science has completed its work, what is the nature of this, and what can be drawn therefrom in behalf of faith ? My task in this chapter will be to show : — 1. That belief in the gods of religion and, indirectly, certain other fundamental doctrines, rest, as a matter of fact, upon inductions drawn from the " inner " life. 2. That religious experience ("inner experience") be- longs entirely to psychology — "entirely" being used in the same sense as when it is claimed that the non-religious portions of conscious life belong entirely to science. 3. That since the gods of religion are empirical gods they belong to science. The documental evidence. — I shall let representatives of different schools, especially ministers of religion and pro- fessors of theology, speak for themselves; for it is evi- dently they whom we should hear. Even if some of the documents submitted are very crude, they express the opinions of those who truly represent the beliefs with which we are concerned. What we must avoid is mistaking the opinions of philosophers or theologians for the facts of re- ligious life. The number and length of the quotations may seem excessive, but I wish to avoid the defect of most dis- cussions of religion, i.e. an exaggerated reliance upon tra- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 213 ditional opinion and a priori reasoning, instead of upon a painstaking consideration of the facts. Doaiment i. — I do not know of any place in Christian writings where the arguments for the Christian faith are more definitely expressed than in the following fragments of a sermon by a distinguished Buddhist priest. I place them first in order to emphasize the agreement between contemporary Buddhism and Christianity regarding the principles upon which both would erect an unassailable theology. The substantiation of these principles would thus prove the validity of the two religions. But do not principles which establish the tenets of two religions prove too much .-• " I believe that that which makes religion what it is, in contradistinction to philosophy or ethics, consists in the truth that it is essentially founded on facts of ones own spiritual experience, which is beyond intellectual demonstra- bility, and which opens a finite mind to the light of uni- versal effulgence. In short, spiritual enlightenment is indis- ipensable in religion, while philosophy is mere intellection. " By spiritual enUghtcnment, I mean a man's becoming conscious through personal experience of the ultimate na- ture of his inner being. This insight breaks, as it were, the wall of intellectual limitation and brings us to a region which has hitherto been concealed from our view. The horizon is now so widened as to enable our spiritual visions to survey the totality of existence. So long as we groped in the darkness of ignorance, we could not go beyond the threshold of individuation. " The enlightenment which thus constitutes the basis of religious life is altogether spiritual and not intellectual. . . . Philosophy and science have done a great deal for the advancement of our knowledge of the universe, and there is a fair prospect of their future service to this end. 214 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION But they are constitutionally incapable of giving rest, bliss, Joy, and faith to a troubled spirit. . . . The faculty seems to have all the essential characteristics of the feeling. It is intuitive and does not analyze ; it is direct and refuses a medium of any form. It allows no argument, it merely states, and its statement is absolute. When it says 'yes,' the affirmation has such a convincing force that it removes all doubts, and even sceptically disposed intellectual minds have to admit it as a fact and not as a whim. It speaks as one with authority. True, it has only a subjective value, which, however, is just as ultimate and actual as sense-per- ception. Since it is immediate, there is no other way to test its validity than that each experiences it personally, individually, and inwardly. The inner sense which I have called religious faculty makes us feel the inmost life that is running through every vein and artery of nature ; and we are completely free from scepticism, unrest, dissatisfac- tion, and vexation of spirit. " Mere talking about or mere believing in the existence of God and his intimate love is nonsense as far as religion is concerned. Talking and arguing belong to philosophy, and believing, in its ordinary sense, is a sort of hypothesis, not necessarily supported by facts. Religion, however^ wants above everything else solid facts and actual personal experience. If God exists, he must be felt. If he is love, it must be experienced. . . . Without the awakening of the rehgious sense or faculty, God is a shadow. ... In Bud- dhism this faculty is known as Prajna.'' " The dictates of the Prajna are final, and there is no higher faculty in our consciousness to annul them. Faith is absolute within its own limits, and the office of the intel- lect is to explain or interpret it objectively. . . . But as long as there is some unutterable yearning in the human heart for something more real, more vital, more tangible, THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 215 than mere abstraction, mere knowing and mere ' proving,' we must conclude that our consciousness, however frac- tional, is capable of coming in touch with the inmost life of things in another way than intellection." ^ That which this writer understands by spiritual experience exceeding the possibility of an intellectual demonstration is, on his own statement, merely a part of the affective life, — the peace, happiness, joy, which accompany in his case a certain conception of the universe. His God proves his objective existence and his attributes by action on the soul : "If God exist. He must be felt"; "if He is love, it must be experienced." The metaphysical arguments concerning the existence of the object of religion can, according to him, enter into consideration only secondarily. They are, in fact, entirely superfluous. Document 2. — Similar convictions are voiced in the fol- lowing passages from the writings of a former president of one of the foremost theological schools in America : — " Many times, in the experiences of those whose senses are trained by use to discern good and evil, the still, small Voice sounds in the soul's ear in tones of mystery. Inti- mations of duty assert themselves so subtly that we cannot put them into words, while of their divine authority we have no doubt ; warnings against courses of conduct that to our prejudiced minds seem expedient, yet upon which the unformulated verdict of conscience sets its prohibition. There is but one adequate explanation of these phenomena. They are the Witness of God in the Sotil." " Through the subconscious depths of our being, where our life and Infinite Life become one, His influence finds entrance to all the avenues of consciousness. His very ^ Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, Soyen Shaqu, Lord Abbot of Engaku-ji and Kencho-ji, Kamakura, Japan, Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1906. I have italicized in this and the other documents the most significant statements. 2i6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION spirit, life-making, reasonable, holy, witnesses with our spirits that we are the children of God. From this source come our holy desires, appreciation of goodness, recurrent advances in spiritual knowledge, vigorous cotitrol of unruly instincts and passions, moral courage, calmness in suffering, self-restraint i?i sorroiv. " " How can we know that ajiything spoken in Scripture is truth ? By the witness of God in the Soul that what is spoken is the thing that is. . . . This is the simple truth, verified by the deepest facts in the realm of life, to which this truth refers. Antiquity, usage, or authority migJit declare against this, but the witness of God in the soul co?i- firms tlie sure word of prophecy. Again a Scripture says concerning prayer : ' In everything by prayer and suppli- cation with thanksgiving let your request be known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understand- ing shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' How do I know that this is true? Not from usage, nor antiquity ; although from each of these sources comes a powerful corroboration. But I know it for truth by the Witness of God in my soul confirming the sure word of prophecy. Confused with doubt, beset by temptation, oppressed with grief, 'weary of earth and laden with sin,' I approach in perfect confidence of spirit the Divine Ground and Source of my existence. As a troubled child confiding in a trusted Father, I pour my personal confidences into the ear of that Invisible Being with whom I am myste- riously connected ; and from the depths of my subconscious life wells up into consciousness a calmness of spirit, a restored equilibrium, a deliverance from oppression, a peace of God of which one may truly affirm : ' it passeth understanding.' " ^ 1 Hall, Charles Cuthbert, The Barrows Lectures for igob-igoy, Christ and the Eastern Soul, University of Chicago Press, 1909, pp. 88-S9 ; 93-94 ; 100. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 217 Document 3. — A professor at the school of Protestant theology in Paris writes : " God is not a phenomenon that we may observe apart from ourselves, or a truth demon- strable by logical reasoning. He who does not feel Him in his heart will never feel him, from without. The object of religious knowledge reveals itself only in the subject, by means of the religious phenomena themselves. . . . We never be- come conscious of our piety externally, we feel religiously moved, perceiving, more or less obscurely, in that very emo- tion the object and the cause of religion, i.e. God. Observe the natural and spontaneous movement of piety ; a soul feels an inner peace and light ; is it strong, humble, resigned, obedient ^ It immediately attributes its strength, its faith, its humility, its obedience, to the action of the divine spirit within itself, Anne Doubourg, dying at the stake, prayed : ' Oh, God do not abandon me lest I should fall off from thee * . . . to feel thus in our personal and empirical activity the action and the presence of the spirit of God within our own spirit, is a ^nystcry, as it is also the source of religion." " Truths of the rehgious and of the moral order are known by subjective action of what Pascal calls the heart. Science can know nothing about them, for they are not in its order." ^ Document 4. — A leader of the liberal movement in the United States expresses similar views. " God is not an hypothesis which the minister has invented to account for the phenomena of creation. He knows that there is a * power not ourselves that makes for righteousness,' because when he has been weak that power has strengthened him, when he has been a coward that power has made htm strong, when he has been in sorrow tJiat power has comforted him, when he has been in perplexity that power has counselled 1 Sabatier, A., Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion, James Pott and Co., New York, 1902, pp. 30S-309, 311. 2i8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION him, and he has walked a different path and Hved a differ- ent Hfe and has been a different man because there is that power, impalpable, invisible, unknown, and yet best and most truly known." ^ Dociifnent 5. — The religious belief of Digamma, prob- ably a fellow in a College of Oxford University, rests upon an induction made from a special class of fadts. At twenty- two he found himself involved in circumstances that seemed as if they must lead to the ruin of his career. " The cir- cumstances of which I have spoken tended to produce ex- treme mental depression. A cloud had, as it were, descended on my life. Bict I noticed that after earliest prayer this de- pression was greatly relieved, and at times completely vanished. That which struck me most in the phenomenon was its ir- rationahty. What I mean is that the relief was experienced again and again without any consciousness of its cause. I could not attribute it to a feeling of satisfaction at having performed a religious duty, for I noticed that the relief came in many cases when no such feeling of satisfaction was or had been present in my mind. The importance of the phenomenon in respect to one's life was such as to lead me to further observation of it ; and this process of induc- tion has with me extended over a period of more than twenty years. ... In watching this phenomenon, there- fore, I have carefully checked my observation and have excluded all instances in which some intermediary cause intervened between prayer and the mental happiness re- sulting from it. In the thousands of instances which have come under my observation, for the phenomenon is at least of daily occurrence, I have never observed a7iy case ifi which earnest prayer has not been ^answered' (to use the ordinary 1 Abbott, Lyman, Address before the Alumni of Bangor Theological Semi- nary, The Outlook, June 25, 1898. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 219 word) hy an increase of mental happiness. I have spoken of this as ' irrational ' because it does not arise from any physical or external cause, nor indeed from any of those internal causes to which such feeling can be ascribed. Its irrationality consists in the fact that, if my induction be valid and correct, it is connected with the phenomenon of earnest prayer by a chain of causation which may be ex- plicable by conjecture, but is not determinable by reason. " I do not wish it to be supposed that my observation leads me to believe that a high level of mental happiness must always result from prayer. There are other factors, of course, in the calculation, and, above all, the factor of bodily condition. Still I imagine, though I cannot say that I have ever reahzed, that this factor may be to a great extent elim- inated by the action of that factor which we call prayer. 'The prayer of the righteous man availeth much' is after all a saying which must be true if the power of prayer is in any sense admitted. " But, nevertheless, even to one who, like myself, is but ordinary in respect to righteousness, the conviction has come after long years of observation, that prayer does in- variably raise the level of mental happiness. " No one has yet succeeded in defining any universal cause of happiness, but I take it that many would admit that we can best attain it when our individual natures are acting in accord with the great world of nature around us. In the physical world, at any rate, it is by such action that we seek the means to this end. I take it that the case is the same with regard to the spiritual world. We are con- scious that we are environed by it, and the more we adapt ourselves to that environment, the happier will be our life. The all-pervading power in that spiritual world is what we know as God. . . . Conseqiie^itly my faith rests upon an empirical basis. But time forbids my speaking of the de- 220 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION ductions from this major premise. This at any rate I know, that God can be approached along those paths along which I was led in childhood." * Thus in the case of Digamma the empirical basis of religious belief is the raising of the affective level through prayer. Is not his argument admirably simple .'' — Prayer relieves depression, increases happiness ; this does not arise from any external physical cause, nor from any bodily cause ; it is therefore the effect of getting into harmony with the all-pervading power of the spiritual world, — namely, God. One could not easily find a more striking example of the offhand, amateurish manner in which these problems are disposed of. In matters religious every one assumes the right to interpret as best he can what takes place in his consciousness. A physical phenomenon would be sub- mitted to a physicist or a chemist. Why not submit these psychological facts to a psychologist } Digamma might have remembered, it seems, that other means besides prayer produce the effects he has observed. And does he not know that the mere idea of a power "that we call God" may, entirely irrespective of its objective existence, produce the comforts he finds in prayer } Is the sweet and benefi- cent emotion of one who believes himself loved a sufficient proof that he is loved .'' But Diga^nma was probably too desirous of preserving at any cost this means of blessed- ness to deserve consideration as an interpreter of his own experiences, even supposing him to have had the required knowledge. Document 6. — The following document throws some light on the manner in which these questions are understood 1 Digamma, An Aspect of Prayer, an address before a "society in a certain college in Oxford," Oxford, B. H. Blackwell. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 221 by the students of theology in Protestant schools. " Our teachers have told us that a Christian student should never forget certain positive facts verified by every Christian during his life, facts that have revealed to him the existence of a supernatural power ; they have told us of ' experi- ences ' having an absolute value and giving faith an un- shakable foundation." What are these experiences ? " In conversion more than anywhere else we can say, ' I know,' . . . We know that this transformation has not come about of itself ; in mo- ments of inquiry, of troubles of conscience, of confused and unhappy aspirations, we were already experiencing a mysterious activity. ... It is a definite assurance that if we should cease to abandon ourselves to the all-powerful influence creating our new self, the work already com- menced would be undone. These are the revalations of prayer, that profound sentiment that a Being hears us, that he himself inspires the words which without effort of thought spring from our heart. . . . To be sure, we may be forbidden to speak of ' experiencing God ' ; it is quite true that I can experience only myself and the modifica- tions of this self. But, similarly, if I cannot say that I have experienced my fellow-men, still there are certain states of consciousness as to the nature and the significance of which I am not deceived ; I know when I have the right to say that I know my fellow-being, I know when my feelings are in harmony with his, when our hearts are as one, — and I also know when my soul communes with the Father. Likewise, when I have once met Christ, I recognize him in my hours of pure and lofty meditation. . . . I know of a certainty that my right is absolute to affirm before all — for myself — the work of the Spirit in me, God intimately known to my heart, Christ always the same." Yet, despite appearances, this young enthusiast is not 222 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION without some information on suggestion, subconsciousness, and automatism. He has, in particular, read The Varieties of Religions Experience. So, notwithstanding the lightness of his psychological baggage, he feels deeply, at times at least, the force of certain psychological arguments. " The second objection," he tells us, "is much more formidable, every one knows it ; in a word, it is autosuggestion. Yes or no, in the Hfe of piety, in prayer particularly, is there only illusion .'' " His answer deserves quoting, for it ex- presses the typical attitude of most intelligent and culti- vated Christians. Their intense need of believing, and their insufficient understanding of the scientific explanation of psychic automatism permits them to set it aside when they cannot invalidate it. " After long reflection, we do not believe it possible to remove the difficulty by reasoning. Our attitude at present is this. . . . We understand perfectly the state of mind of a loyal adversary who believes that he can explain prayer by a sort of division of the personality, . . . and we also understand this explanation to be seducingly simple. But when endeavoring to ' realize ' the meaning of the contradiction ... it becomes evident to us that it will be very difficult to bring about an agreement and that the objections of our adversary cannot reach us. We stand on two different grounds, and so we doubt if he will ever understand us, but he ca?inot shake in us the affirma- tions of experience ; namely , that we feel within us a being that is not ourselves ; we see born within us new ideas and perceptions, real revelations that do not come from ourselves ; we verify each day, and for years have been able to verify in our life, a progressive ajid continuous guidance 'which permits us to assert that we do not proceed alone along life's path- way, that our Christian faith is not an illusion." ^ 1 Paradon, Emile, De P Experience Chretienne, Thesis presented at the School of Protestant Theology at Montauban, 1902. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 223 There is probably not a religious work, whether artless and naive like Paradon's or subtle like Pascal's, from which one could not take similar passages. How could these writers understand and appreciate the scientific explana- tion, since they lack the psychological knowledge which alone makes such an explanation compelling ? Doacment 7. — Numberless impassioned souls know from experience the conviction voiced in this instance, thus : ** I say to you that I have known God within me, and it was not a dream, an hallucination ; never had my reason been more master of itself ; and I say to you that there was within me, speaking to me, drawing me close, uniting itself to me, one who was not of myself, who proceeded not from me, who had penetrated within me and who filled the depths of my being with I do not know what light which was not of this world, causing me to tremble with I know not what emotion, that nothing human will ever give birth to. And this strange and mysterious guest had no need to tell me His name. I say to you that I recognized Him the Invisible, Him the Power, Him Love, Him Health, Him the Reason of all being, Him the Supreme Explanation, Him the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He was there, making His abode in my astonished and trembling soul, and causing feelings to spring up in it that it could no longer recognize for its own." ^ I cite as a curiosity the following passage from the Larger Catechism of Luther. He is commenting on the first commandment. " What is it to have a God, or what * Minault, Paul, Dhcours Religieux, La Solitude, p. 64. Quoted by E. Pon- soye in Experience et Acie de Foi, Thesis, Montauban, 1905, p. 43, 224 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION is God ? A God denotes that something by means of which man shall be aware of all good things and wherein he shall have a refuge in every necessity. Therefore to have a God is nothing other than to trust and to believe him from the heart, as I have often said that the trust and confidence of the heart alone create both God and idol" Document 8. — Of recent defences of the belief in God and his action in the soul, probably the most elaborate is that of Henri Bois, professor at the School of Theology at Montauban. I may perhaps be permitted to add the substance thereof at some length, even though it is ex- ceedingly involved and apparently contradictory. I am not writing a history of philosophical thought, but am providing illustrations of the experiences and arguments upon which contemporary Christianity rests. The form these take for one who is intrusted with the education of future clergymen is therefore highly pertinent to my purpose. Professor Bois begins by admitting that re- ligious experience falls entirely within the domain of psychology, even of psycho-physics. The difficulties that confront the psychology of religion are enormous, but " it is the business of savants to find expedients, and, if I may say it, shifts for overcoming obstacles." He regrets the mystic affirmation, " God is given immediately in con- sciousness," and he holds, on the contrary, that one attains to God by an induction. But, let us give heed, there is induction and induction. The kind of induction he means he calls " metaphysical " ; " it is an induction that exceeds observable phenomena," although "based on experience," It is in fact an induction that necessitates faith ! " I prefer to say that the true religious experience in the proper sense, just as scientific experience, makes no pretension THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 225 to an absolute objectivity, that it too furnishes us with facts without lending them other significance than that of phenomena that are renewed every time their equally phenomenal conditions appear. I prefer to say that ob- jectivity, here just as in the sciences, is nothing else than the possibility for every man to prove in himself or in others, while conforming to certain conditions, the same connections of phenomena, by virtue of the universality and constancy of the laws of the spirit, which are just as constant and universal as those of nature. Finally, I prefer to say that unquestionably if the religious man claims an entirely different significance for his religious experience, it is not experience in its own capacity that raises these demands in him, it is faith." Metaphysical induction is then an act of faith by which the religious soul is assured of the transcendent reality of God. He repeats this in various places : " Yes, experience attests for us the strong conviction of the religious soul that he is in communication with a transcendent being, the evi- dence of whose existence cannot be proved. For if repentance, or love, the feehng of downfall, or moral resurrection is a fact, God is not a fact, and his reality and his activity cannot be considered immediately and surely as data merely because of the feeling that we have in regard to them. There is indeed a science of psy- chology that quite rightly studies religious experiences, and seeks to show their connections, conditions, and laws, without departing from the order of observable phenom- ena. But this psychology does not suffice the religions man who wishes to be and to remain religions. For him it is necessary to transceyid and interpret his religions ex- perience by meajis of faith." A little farther on the reader is surprised to find that what was called metaphysical induction has now become Q 226 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION a perception : " Besides the false mysticism and its ex- travagances, there exists among a great number of men a strong feeling of union with God, wJiicJi is calm, health- ful, and beneficent, which has the effect of creating within the soul a new centre of activity and of force, of their in- troducing peace, joy, freedom, love, and light. . . . When that something appears more responsive the more one asks of it, when it transcends irreducibly every seizure that one attempts upon it, when it is a source that we cannot exhaust, a presence that we cannot avoid, should it not be adjudged real ? " There is then in the realm of religion, a perception of a reality existing independently of us, a reality which we do not create, and which can be known ahke by different consciousnesses. There is a perception that is not that of the senses, of which the senses are not capable, and which is given not to the intelligence, as the ^intellectual intuition^ of the philosopJiers, but to the affective and volitional be- ing, the spiritual and mo7'al being. . . . By such a per- ception we know directly the Being which truly is, in opposition to the immediate objects of our sensible per- ceptions that are but appearances and symbols behind which we have to place a true reality entirely opposed to them." The terms "metaphysical intuition," "faith," "per- ception," are used here in a confusing manner. We have nevertheless discovered the author's fundamental argument It is this: the experiences which he men- tions, and which, in accord with the other authors we have quoted, he considers to be the characteristic experiences of the Christian religious life, are so excellent and so com- pletely inexplicable by natural means that transcendence alone accounts for them. It seems to him that if all the treasures by which he is enriched come from his THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 227 subconsciousness, they must have been placed there by God. Professor Bois tells us that the Christian believes because he cannot do otherwise. "The Christian feels that he believes. Yes, he feels it, and he feels also that whatever effort he may attempt to the contrary he will not succeed in not believing it. He is unable not to believe it. . . . The Christian may likewise feel authorized to say : I can- not prevent myself believing in the intervention of God. T he irr es istibility of niy _ belie/ is the cxjterion I have of its trutJiT'^ From end to end of the Protestant world this is appar- ently the only argument confidently relied upon for justi- fying the belief in an objective God in direct relation with man: There are experiences of another order than those belonging to science. In them God reveals himself. The pious soul "perceives" God in the emotion which seizes it ; it " feels " God within itself. The entire self-sufficiency of the experiential basis of faith in God has nowhere been more boldly proclaimed than among the society of Friends. "The fundamental significant thing which stands out in early Quakerism was the conviction which these founders of it felt, that they had actually discovered the living God and that He was in them. They all have one thing to say — *I have experienced God.' " " It [Quakerism] was first of all the proclamation of an experience. The movement came to birth, and received its original power, through persons who were no less pro- foundly conscious of a divine presence than they were of a world in space." ^ 1 Bois, Henri, La Valeur de U Experience Religieuse, Emile Nourry, Paris, 1908. 2 Jones, Rufus, Social Law in the Spiritual World, p. 161. 228 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION Document g. — The so-called modern, positive movement in German theology calls for a short exposition ; ^ with this I shall bring to a close the presentation of data regarding the grounds of the present faith in Christianity. This movement may be regarded as an adaptation of Ritschlian- ism to the preservation of the old faith. The aim of Pro- fessor Reinhold Seeberg, one of the leading spirits of this movement, like that of Kaftan and Herrmann, is to save the old faith by giving it a new theological vestment. By "old faith" they mean a supernatural revelation and a supernatural redemption. Their theology finds the original ground for faith in individual experiences; in which is also found the necessary justification for accepting as historical facts the records of redemption in the New Testament. These records, therefore, be- come independent of literary and historical criticism. See- berg, for instance, relates how a miracle took place in his own life. "I came into the presence of the traditions of the church. These seemed strange. They belonged to a past age. I found a protest arising within myself at the very thought of believing this supernatural account of things. Then something happened. The words that had been said to me were transformed into living power ; their com- plexity was changed to simplicity. I did not bring this about myself, and no man was the cause of it. The will of God in his omnipotence penetrated into my heart. The complexity of tradition gained power and unity by be- coming means for the activity of God."^ ^ For an account of this movement, see Martin Schian, Zur Beurtheilung der modernen positiven Theologie, Topelmann, Giessen, 1907, 121 pages. See also Gerald Boiney Smith, The Modern Positive Movement in Theology, Amer. Jr. of Theol., January, 1909, pp. 92-99. From the latter I draw much of my information on this movement. 2 Seeberg, Reinhold, Zur systematischen Theologie, Deichert, Leipzig, 1909, p. 140. See also by the same author, The Fundamental Truths of the Chris- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 229 The ground of his faith is thus the peculiar kind of ex- periences commonly known as " conversion." Without taking the trouble to analyze them psychologically, he declares his conviction that they transcend human nature and justify him in accepting the Christian interpretation. Principal Forsythe, a vigorous expositor, in English, of the German movement, adopts the main positions of the conservative Ritschlians. In his Lyman Beecher Lecture, he writes : " The man, the church that is in living inter- course with the risen Christ, is in possession of a fact of experience as real as any mere historic fact, or any expe- rience or reality, that the critic has to found on and make a standard. And, with that experience, a man is bound to approach the critical evidence of Christ's resurrection in a different frame of mind from the merely scientific man who has no such experience."^ There is nothing new in the main argument offered by these most recent theologians. The reasons of the Chris- tians for their belief in God the Father and Jesus his Son;* of the Mohammedans for belief in Allah and his Prophet ; \ of the Australians for belief in Baiami, the Creator and Ruler, — are in substance the same. Experiences demand in each instance the existence and intervention of the par- ticular God in question. The "irresistibility " of religious belief is everywhere the criterion of its truth. ^ No facts of consciousness have seemed so conclusive of tian Religion, Putnam, New York, 1908, 331 pages. Comp. W. Herrmann, Ojffenbarimg unci JF?<«i/^r, Topelmann, Giessen, 1908, 71 pages. 1 Forsythe, P. F., Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, Armstrong, New York. 1907, p. 276. 2 The marvellous Mana of the Melanesians is often found in stones. "A man comes by chance upon a stone which takes his fancy ; its shape is singu- lar, it is like something, it is certainly not a common stone, there must be mana in it. So he argues with himself, and he puts it to the proof ; he lays it at the root of a tree to the fruit of which it has a certain resemblance, or he buries it f 230 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the intervention of an external personal power and of the consequent independence of religion from science as the facts of conscience. We have found them directly men- tioned by the Rev. C. C. Hall, and at least implied in all the other documents. The peculiar characteristics to which these phenomena owe their place in apologetics are their obligatoriness and universality. The authority with which conscience is invested is one that man feels compelled to admit even when he resists it. And he cannot avoid ascribing to that authority a transindividual origin. "^ In addition, certain effects following upon a particularly vivid realization of the moral law bear what seems to many the unmistakable mark of a superhuman origin. During the conversion crisis, for instance, certain inferior cravings which have formerly gained the mastery are found to be displaced by new desires, presenting themselves as having not only the right but also the power to triumph. The manner in which the triumph of previously impotent higher tendencies is achieved usually makes the person feel as if he had been little more than a spectator in the struggle ; so that he readily accepts the belief that the reorganiza- tion of the forces of his inner being under the dominance of impulses of supreme value is the work of the Grace of God. These and similar experiences point, no doubt, to an ori- gin reaching beyond the person ; but is this origin neces- sarily superhuman; that is, outside of sociological causality .-^ This is not the place for an explanation of the phenomena of conscience, but I shall venture the statement that the objective character and the obligatoriness of moral obliga- tion is a problem that falls within the fields of social and in the ground when he plants his garden ; an abundant crop on the tree or in the garden shows that he is right, the stone is niatia, has that power in it." (Codrington, R. H., The Melanesians, pp. 1 18-120.) THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 231 individual psychology. The origin of these experiences is ) superindividual, but not superhuman. -' Moreover, if divine intervention should be made mani- fest in man only by the sense of moral obligation and its results, it would follow that only a part of the religious life would depend upon superhuman influence and tran- scend science. The lower, non-moral religions as well as much of the religious life of the ethically minded would be purely human. The preceding quotations have made clear that the facts of conscience constitute only one of the classes of experience in which the followers of Christianity and other religions find their gods. I must finally mention the peculiar twist given to the argu- ment by a number of theologians, who are apparently not sat- isfied with the strategic position gained by claiming peace, joy, moral strength, and the particular circumstances of the appearance of these experiences, as a sufficient proof of the divine aflflatus. They set it down that a certain class — or classes — of judgments of value constitutes religious knowl- edge, and that these judgments are the products of a function of the mind radically different from those yielding " theo- retical," that is, scientific or metaphysical, knowledge. And they affirm of these two kinds of knowledge, that even when they concern the same object they nowhere coincide. For Ritschl, who may be regarded as a representative of this trend of thought, " judgment of value " is synonymous with " feeUng experience and meaning." The specifically reli- gious function of the mind is, according to him, the forma- tion of certain judgments or " perceptions " of value. These judgments proceed from the action that certain ideas have upon man when he accepts them as true. For example, the idea of Jesus conceived of as the only Son of God pro- duces in man experiences having a peculiar affective quality 232 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION and significance. And Garvie interprets W. Herrmann as saying : " For science and philosophy . . . the real means the explicable. In religious knowledge the real is that which can be enjoyed by self-consciousness, that which can be experienced as valuable for the ends of self." ^ This is a restatement in more technical terms of the familiar say- ing, " The heart has reasons which reason does not know." The knowledge of reason becomes, in this phraseology, "theoretical knowledge," and the "reasons" of the heart "judgments of value." I think that no one — certainly no psychologist — would contest that the formation of judgments of value is a par- ticular function. But that religious life is tJic specific ex- pression of that function, orlthat theology deals only with a certain class of judgments of value, is a statement so obviously false that it should not need consideration. The preceding chapters should have convinced us that no par- ticular class of judgments of value can be said to constitute religion or to belong exclusively to religion. Judgments of all sorts enter into it. But, in any case, the psychologist will declare without hesitation that judgments of value are part of the data which it is the task of the psychologist to describe, analyze, compare, and classify, and of which he must determine the conditions and the consequences. Judgments of value belong to psychology as much as any other fact of con- sciousness. With regard to sensory feelings, science dis- covers their partial dependence upon sensations and specific organs, the objective conditions of their appearance, their effects upon voUtion, etc. A similar statement is true of the higher feelings ; they also are dependent upon psycho- physiological factors ; they also belong to a vast network of causal connections which it is the task of science to 1 Garvie, A., Expositor, 1903, Vol. VIII, p. 148. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 233 bring to light. Identifying religion with a particular class of judgments of value can, therefore, in no way lead to the separation of religion from science. The insufficiency of this Ritschlian theory of knowledge is so evident that some have believed that Ritschl had no intention of affirming more than the subjective existence of God. Professor Denney says, for example, that for Ritschl, "though Jesus Christ has for the religious con- sciousness the religious value of God, he has for the scien- tific consciousness only the common real value of man." ^ The foregoing documents will be held sufficient, I hope, to bear out the statement with which I began ; namely, that belief in the Christian God rests no longer upon the wonders of the physical universe, nor upon metaphysical arguments, but upon certain inner experiences. The al- most complete absence of reference to physical miracles and to the argument from design, which only recently were made to bear the brunt of the assaults upon revealed re- ligion, is indeed striking, and physical science may well regard this silence as a flattering recognition of its tri- umph. It should also have become clear that these inner expe- riences are looked upon either (i) as being the material for what is called an "induction" of the existence of a divine power — apparently a scientific procedure ; or (2) as bear- ing in themselves the mark of transhuman origin, that is they are taken as " immediate " revelations of God. This second alternative is the one embraced by the mystics. I shall call it the mystical claim. ^ Quoted by Garvie, Ritschlian Theology, p. 188. 234 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION II. Religious Knowledge as immediately given in Specific Experiences It is an interesting problem to determine what influences have led theologians to anchor their beliefs upon the prop- osition that religious experience differs from other forms of consciousness in that it gives one an immediate knowl- edge of the external existence of certain objects of be- lief, although they do not fall under the senses, and an immediate knowledge of the truth of certain historical facts. The motive for this astonishing claim is the -desire to make rehgious values entirely independent of any factor which might threaten them. The conviction that the separation of theology from science and from metaphysics is necessary for the sake of religion would, of course, strengthen this motive. I need not dwell upon the potency of desire in determining conviction ; recent dis- cussions on the will, and on the right to believe have called attention to the dependence of belief upon desire. The acceptance of the mystical claim has been made easier by ignorance in matters psychological, — an ignorance which has resulted, among other things, in the confusion of truly immediate experience with immediate experience interpreted. Ignorance of psychology is interestingly displayed by the author of a recent thesis offered for the degree of Doctor of Theology. The author thinks he has dis- covered in conversion operations beyond the field of psychology. Is he thinking of some metaphysical prob- lems .'' By no means ; for he says that he hopes to obtain some idea of their solution "by a more subjective and consequently less scientific study of conversion, — a study which will endeavor to fill, by as faithful as possible an THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 235 analysis of inner experience, the gaps left by science." ^ He hopes to reach beyond psychology "by as faithful as possible an analysis of inner experience," by a study more subjective and consequently less scientific ! What does this mean ? Simply that unwittingly the author is about to try to do the work of the psychologist. On the distinction between bare, raw experience and its objective interpretation, I must dwell at some length. It is obviously ignored in the impatient complaints by which religious persons endeavor to protect themselves from what they deem an unwarranted encroachment of science and of philosophy. What have we to do, they say, we who have been upheld when about to stumble, comforted when in despair ; who have experienced the inexpressible joy of communion with the Divine ; what have we to do, we who know the Lord, with the psychol- ogist and his reference to nerve-cells, brain centres, automatism, subconsciousness, and the rest of it ? His discussions and conclusions do not reach us at all. He deals with a mechanical world, we with desires and pur- poses, joys and sorrows; we live, he analyzes life. We move in different spheres ; let him not meddle with us. These imaginary but typical persons might continue thus : The inner life is not a mass of ideas and of feelings, of emotions and volitions, in the sense in which the psychologist looks upon them when he considers conscious experience to be made up of psychic elements connected in some way with an organism. The reality in which we move is a world of action, of desire, of aversion, of ends and purposes. Were these statements intended simply to affirm that iBerguer, Henri, La Notion de VaUur, Geneve, Georg & Co., 1908, p. 228. 236 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION one's experiences are final when they are considered merely as facts of consciousness, who would take excep- tion to them ? Surely not the psychologist. States of rehgious consciousness are what they are, irrevocably. They can no more be denied or explained away than any other state of consciousness, — than, for instance, what passes in the mind of a merchant or poet. They have happened ; that is the long and the short of it. Science has never attempted to deny that Saint Francis had moments of inexpressible joy, — joy which he held infinitely^^uperior to any "earthly" pleasure; that Bunyan heard voices which he thought belonged to devils or to God ; or that George Muller prayed for help and was " lifted up with a sense of the presence of the Almighty within him." Science accepts these as facts of consciousness, and so there cannot be any conflict here between psychology and theology. A conflict does arise, however, when these persons imagine their experiences to involve the objective or the universal validity of certain of their ideas. When they say, for instance, that their experiences attest the present existence of Jesus of Nazareth, or that the belief in certain doctrines is a necessary condition of these experi- ences. Isaac Pennington, for example, describes thus what happened to him at a meeting at Swamington : " I felt the presence and power of the Most High. . . . Yea, I did not only feel words and demonstrations from with- out, but I felt the dead quickened, the seed raised, inso- much that my heart said, ' This is He, there is no other : this is He whom I have waited for and sought after from my childhood.' . . . I have met with my God ; I have met with my Saviour. ... I have met with the true knowl- edge, the knowledge of life."^ ^ Pennington, Isaac, Works, 1S61, Vol. I, pp. 37, 38. Quoted by R. Jones in Social Law in the Spiritual World, p. 162. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 237 Such claims as this pass out of the incontrovertible, subjective sphere into the sphere of science since the affirmation that certain ideas mean an objective existence or are universally valid raises the question of the inter- pretation of experience. ^ The validity of the reli^ous states of consciousness is precisely of the same sort as that of any other state of con- sciousness ; they are absolute, undeniable, only so long as they are considered merely as the experience of a subject, and no longer. Before the theologians who claim to find in inner experience the data of theology, and on that ground to remove it from all contact with science, may be looked upon as intellectually worthy of consideration, they must explain how they secure objective and universal knowledge. The mystical claim can exist only because of the failure to separate the subjective significance of con- sciousness from the transsubjective meaning which is attributed to some parts of it. The difficulty in the way of making this distinction may be exemplified from the writings of William James. In The Varieties of Religioiis Experience, William James endeavors to show that mystic states — these states in- clude for him drunkenness and not merely religious states of mysticism — unveil at times realities that exceed what ordinary consciousness is able to apprehend. "As a mat- ter of psychological fact," he tells us, "mystical states of a well-pronounced and emphatic sort are usually authori- tative over those who have them. They have been ' there ' and know. ... It mocks our utmost efforts, as a matter of fact, and in point of logic it absolutely escapes our ju- risdiction. Our own more ' rational ' beliefs are based on evidence exactly similar in nature to that which mystics quote for theirs. Our senses, namely, have assured us of certain states of fact; but mystical experiences are as 238 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us. The records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them, they are absolutely sensational in their epistemological quality, — that is, they are face-to-face presentations of what seems immediately to exist. The mystic is, in short, invulner- able." 1 " They have been * there ' and know " ; " mystical expe- riences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us" ; "the mystic is in short invulnerable," — these affirmations involve the confusion we have just considered, unless mystical "intui- tions " exclude all extra-subjective references. In that case the mystic "revelations" would, of course, be unassailable. But pious souls mean more than that when they speak of the validity of their experiences. They claim the objective reality of the religious objects, and the universal validity of the dogmas which chance to be regarded by them as a necessary condition of their experience. And it is also undoubtedly more than the bare subjective fact for which William James claims invulnerability. "They [the mys- tics] offer us," he writes, "hypotheses, hypotheses which we may voluntarily ignore, but which as thinkers we cannot possibly upset." Thus, that which he regards as invulner- able are hypotheses, i.e. intellectual constructions. The great American psychologist seems to have been blinded by a too great desire to discover a new world. Should one of the great mystics be asked to formulate his "intuitions," he would mention in substance those Christian doctrines in which his mystic experiences are set. He would say, for example, that he has " felt " the infinite goodness of God, has become aware of His incarnation in 1 James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans, Green and Co., 1904, p. 423. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 239 Jesus Christ ; perhaps he would even affirm that the mys- tery of the Trinity had been unveiled to him. He would, it is true, hasten to add that words are insufficient to express these unutterable things. William James, more cautious, does not accept all these " revelations " as invul- nerable hypotheses. But this restraint is at the expense of consistency. Why does he content himself with the fol- lowing meagre characterization of the " invulnerable " essence of the mystical deliverances ? " They speak to us of the supremacy of the Ideal ; they speak to us of union with the infinite, of security, of repose."^ In a very sympathetic account of the pages from which I have quoted. Professor Boutroux makes use of the follow- ing similar phrases to express the essence of religious experience : " It is the feeling that all goes well, outside us and within us. . , . It is the consciousness of partici- pating in a power greater than our own, and the desire of co- operating with that power in works of love, of peace, and of joy. It is on the whole an exaltation of life as creative force, as harmonization, and as joy." But he also begins by saying that this feeling " cannot be described," that these descriptions are good only so far " as one can sug- gest the idea with words." ^ William James does not say, as do more na'fve persons, " These experiences speak to us of union with God or with his incarnate Son," but only, " They speak to us of union with the infinite." Even this truncated formula, however, implies a passage from the subject to an object beyond. For the phrase " union with the infinite " has meaning only in so far as the terms between which the union exists are apprehended. The phraseology of James and Boutroux 1 James, op. cii., pp. 428, 362. 2 Boutroux, Einile, Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, 1908, Vol. XVI, P-5- 240 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION indicates, it seems, a desire to reduce as much as possible the alleged transcendent implications of mystical experi- ences, without altogether giving them up. Their failure to say in what consists the objective validity of the mystical experience confirms the opinion that the only invulnerable thing in " union with the infinite," whether it be induced by " divine love," by wine, or by the contemplation of sub- lime nature, is the affective consciousness — a conscious- ness that does not reach beyond itself. \ V The manner in which God acts in the soul. — This should be a question of prime interest to those who believe in the action of God upon man. Yet the religious person is usu- ally so much engrossed in results and pays so little criti- cal attention to means and methods that he has little of consequence to say on this topic. As to the psychologist, he cannot be expected to apply himself to the solution of this problem until the alleged intervention has been sub- stantiated. I shall, however, in order to gratify a possible curiosity on the part of some readers, report two sugges- tions that have been made as to the manner in which God works upon the soul. The one at present in wider favor is derived from the speculations of F. W. Meyers. This is the view to which William James has given currency in the conclusion to T/ie Varieties of Religions Experience. According to this hypothesis, God, or other extra-human agents, acts upon the subliminal consciousness, — a very obscure term which seems to have captured the popular imagination. It has also won the approbation of a goodly number of theologians. The most ignorant or the least prudent among those who make use of this hypothesis even identify, it seems, all subconsciousness with the divine.^ It ^ " I feel obliged, nevertheless, to recognize that it has several times hap- pened that my lamented friend Frommel and M. FuUiquet [Professors of The- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 241 is an hypothesis which unfortunately entices even men of science to renounce their task, — the investigation of phe- nomena, — by deceiving them into thinking that reference to the subconscious is a final explanation. That which Kant said of transcendental hypotheses, in the Discipline of Pure Reason, is true of the subliminal hypothesis: they " do not advance reason, but rather stop it in its progress ; . . . they render fruitless all its exertions in its own proper sphere, which is that of experience. For, when the ex- planation of natural phenomena happens to be difficult, we have constantly at hand a transcendental ground of ex- planation which lifts us above the necessity of investigating nature." In the second class of hypotheses, God is conceived of I as acting directly upon consciousness and no longer in- > directly through subconsciousness. One can here main- tain that divine action is exercised upon the duration and the energy of the attention given to certain objects. For, in order to transform an individual, it would evidently suf- fice to be able to prolong in him the duration of right and noble ideas. It is true that if divine intervention were limited in this fashion it could not serve as an explanation of all that its believers love to attribute to it. Besides, many would prefer a theory that leaves a greater freedom to the Divinity; for example, a theory conceiving of God as acting upon the feelings, and through them upon all the conscious processes. *' God can excite new centres of asso- ciation of ideas, can arrest old associations ; all intellectual activity being subservient to feeling, He can produce what- ever doctrines and ideas He wishes."^ ology at the School of Theology at Geneva] have expressed themselves as if they identified all subconsciousness with God or with the result or the seat of divine action." (PI. Bois, Foi et Vie, September 16, 1909, p. 565.) ^ Bois, H., Inspiration et Revelation, lemons inedite, 1902-1903, quoted by E. Ponsoye, Experience et Acte de Foi, Thesis, Valence, 1905, pp. 63-64. K 242 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION Should God act in this manner, nothing ought to be easier for the psychologist than to show in the life of feel- ing and of thought disturbances not depending upon known natural causes. The student of reUgious life would be in the position of the astronomer who knows that certain stars are affected by forces of which he does not yet under- stand the source. The fact is that, in proportion as psy- chology advances, the apparent anomalies of the religious life are more and more completely explained according to known laws. [ This section has come to its logical conclusion : the claim that " inner experience " is independent of psychological science remains unsubstantiated. I trust it has become clear that the hope to lift a theology based on inner ex- perience out of the sphere of science is preposterous ; since whatever appears in consciousness is material for psychology. Religious knowledge may be said to be im- mediate and independent of science only in the sense in (which this can be stated of any experience. Any bit of conscious life is in itself, as a fact of consciousness, unas- sailable. But a theology that should remain within the domain inaccessible to science would be limited to a mere description of man's religious consciousness, and would be deprived of the right to any opinion on the objective reality of its objects and on the universal validity of its propositions. If superhuman factors are at work within human experi- ence, there are no ways of discovering them except the ways of science. The authority of Kant has not infrequently been claimed by those holding the views I have criticised. Some, in their eagerness to put him on their side, have said, in effect, " Did he not sharply separate the world of sense from the 'intelligible' world, the empirical realm THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 243 from the realm of reason ? And did he not teach that beyond science there was a higher world, the world of freedom into which one pene- trates only by faith ? After all, we are merely restating, in our own way, one of the fundamental propositions laid down by the illustrious author of the Critique of Practical Reason^'' The truth of the matter is that '' their own way " of stating Kant de- nies his most fundamental propositions. No support whatsoever can be found in his writings for attempting to establish either that in certain experiences God is immediately revealed to the soul (this mystical claim has never been imputed to Kant by any one entitled to being heard), or that certain portions of " experience " could not be explained by natural means, — that is, according to the causal principle, — just as satisfactorily as any other psychic experience. If Kant made an absolute separation between the " sensible " and the " intelligible " world, it was not because he found some portions of sensi- ble experience scientifically explainable and others showing empirical evidence of a transcendent origin. To seek empirical ground for the action of God in man's soul is to place oneself completely outside of the Kantian philosophy. Yet this is precisely what the contemporary em- pirical theologians do. Kant's belief in God, Freedom, and Immortality is a corollary of the Moral Law itself. The categorical command im- plies, in Kanfs mind, the possibility of the realization of the Moral Law, which is not satisfied in this world hence we must, he thinks, have a right to postulate the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, i.e. a transcendent Moral World in which the Moral Law is com- pletely realized. Very different is the argumentation of the theologians. Digamma observes, as we have seen, that earnest prayer has been " answered " by an increase of mental happiness ; therefore he believes in God. Bois, similarly, as a basis of his faith in a reality existing independently of us, points to a " strong feeling of union with God, calm and healthful, which produces peace, joy, and strength." Seeberg tells us how, when his mind was protesting against the belief in the supernatural account of the religious life, something happened within him : an inexplicable transformation, a miracle, took place ; words he had not understood were transformed into living power, and he found himself in living in- tercourse with the risen Christ. William James attempts to single out within the phenomenal life, experiences from which one may infer the existence of a transcendent agent in dynamic relation to man. On the other hand, " religion " according to Kant's statement can be 244 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION neither proved nor disproved by science, though dogma (in his sense of the term) can be. But his God and his religion are not the God and the religion the theologians are defending. Kant's conception of God implies a denial of what they account necessary : a personal God in dynamic relation with man, either directly or through the Son of Man and the Saints. " The conception of a supernatural intervention in our often defective moral faculty, and even in our uncertain or weak dis- position to fulfil our whole duty, is a transcendental conception and a mere idea, of the reality of which no experience can assure us." Prayer, the instrument par excellence of Christian life, was for him a super- stitious delusion, although useful and respectable under certain con- ditions.i The facts are so clear that common fairness and a little knowledge should suffice completely to disconnect the name of Kant from the present empirical Christian apologetics. There remains for us to consider the opinion that re- ligious knowledge is the product of an induction. Is this conception valid, and if so what becomes of the relation of theology to science } III. Theology as a Body of Induced Propositions Empirical apologetics occupies a curious position ; it stands on two mutually exclusive propositions. On the one hand, it would protect religion against metaphysics by setting up inner experiences as containing the proof of the existence and of the nature of the Christian God, and as the only source of religious knowledge. On the other hand, it would defend religion against science by invoking the principle of transcendence according to which science is incompetent to deal with religious knowledge and, in 1 " Prayer, considered as an inner formal worship of God and therefore re- garded as a means of grace, is a superstitious delusion (a fetichism) ; for it is merely a wish expressed to a being who requires no explanation of the inner disposition of the suppliant, by which means therefore nothing is accomplished." (Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blosen Vernun/i, general remarks, Hartenstein edition, Vol. VI, pp. 290-294.) THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 245 particular, with the question of God. Let us begin with the consideration of the second of these propositions. I. THE EXCLUSION OF THE TRANSCENDENT FROM THE SPHERE OF SCIENCE In an excellent lecture on the Principles of Religious Psychology, Professor Flournoy defines the attitude which he thinks the psychologist should take towards religious beliefs. " Psychology neither rejects nor affirms the tran- scendent existence of the religious objects; it simply ig- nores that problem as being outside of its field." He quotes approvingly Ribot, " The religious feeling is a fact which psychology simply analyzes and follows in its trans- formations, but it is incompetent in the shatter of its objective value," and adds : " The words I have italicized express exactly what I mean by the exclusion of the tran- scendent. . . . Religious Psychology can be estabUshed and can progress only by resolutely avoiding and referring to philosophy the insidious questions in which she stands in danger of becoming entangled from the start." ^ Im- agine the relief felt by those who have watched with dread the advance of psychology in the sphere of religion, when they hear an eminent psychologist say: "And finally, never be afraid of science. ... In particular do not fear its influence upon your faith, for science and faith are not of the same order. Science is neutral, silent, 'agnostic,' regarding the foundation of things and the final meaning of life. It is an unfair use of it which makes it proclaim any dogma whatsoever, whether materialistic or spiritualis- tic. And so, never ask of it arguments favoring your con- victions ; the support it might seem to lend you would be ^ Flournoy, Th., Les Principes de la Psychologic Religieuse, Archives de Psychologic, Vol, II, 1903, pp. 37-41. 246 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION but a reed which, should you lean upon it, would pierce your hand. But be equally certain that it does not speak in favor of antagonistic doctrines." ^ Professor Flournoy is right, if the God of religion is really the Metaphysical God, Absolute, Infinite, Imper- sonal. In that case science is certainly incompetent. But if, on the contrary, the object necessary to the religion of Professor Flournoy's auditors, and to religion generally, manifests himself directly to human consciousness, if he reveals himself in inner experiences, and if faith in him is based upon these facts, — then he is an empirical God and belongs to science. The fundamental problem confronting us is, then, whether the God of the religions is the Impas- sible Absolute, whose existence is established by metaphys- ical arguments, or whether he is a Being whose objective reality is demonstrated by the production of peace, joy, strength, righteousness, and other results of that order, in those who commune with him. One of the chief outcomes of the preceding chapters has been the demonstration of the empirical origin of the gods and of the empirical nature of the grounds for the present behef in them. This conclusion will receive ad- ditional support if it is shown that when the exclusion of science from the transcendent world is supposed to divorce science from the fundamental current religious beliefs, it is because of a failure to keep separate two God-ideas that are as distinct in content as they are in origin : a metaphys- ical idea, which has nought to do with religion ; and an empirical idea, which belongs to religion. Had these two God-ideas been kept distinct, much of the muddle in which theology and the philosophy of reHgion are now flounder- ing would have been avoided. 1 Flournoy, Th., Le Genie Religietix, a lecture to the Swiss Students' Christian Association, Sainte-Croix, 1904, p. 34. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 247 Before proceeding further we must consider briefly at least one of the metaphysical arguments, so that we may compare the attributes of the Being to which it would lead with the attributes demanded of the God of the historical religions.^ I choose the " cosmological " proof, because it has enjoyed preeminence and because it still retains a little of its old vitality. It arises from the logical necessity, in order to understand the universe, of stopping somewhere in the regression by which science passes from one phe- nomenon to another one regarded as its cause : an effect has a cause ; that cause is itself the effect of another cause, and so on. But if there were no limit to this causal chain, a complete explanation of any term of the series could never be obtained. In other words, in order that there may be causes at all, there must be a First Mover, itself uncaused or its own cause. The criticism destructive of this argument, culminating in the form given it by Kant, remains unanswered. We are not, however, concerned with the validity of the proof, but only with the nature of the Being which it would demonstrate. The Being of the cosmological argument proceeds from the need of a causal understanding of the universe, — a need quite different from that which urges, for instance, the Christian mystics to a belief in an All-Father. Now a Being can legitimately possess only the attributes required in order that he may gratify the need from which he arose. Thus the Cosmological Being may properly be spoken of as the First Cause, the Absolute, the " eternally complete 1 For a recent discussion between orthodox Roman Catholics and Roman Cathohc Modernists upon the metaphysical arguments for the existence of God, see the Revue de Alctapkysique et de Morale, Vol. XV, 1907, pp. 129-170 ; 470-513; ^ViA Revue de /"/iiV., Vol. XIII, 1908, pp. 5-25, 123-142. In the former, Le Roy offers a critical review of the classical proofs and shows in what respects they are insufficient. In the latter, Abbe Gayraud answers him in approved scholastic fashion. 248 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION consciousness," or even as "the principle of unification," but he should not receive names denoting personahty. To conceive of the First Cause as personal would be to add elements foreign to those demanded by the logical necessity of stopping the regression of secondary causes, so that to designate it by symbols drawn from relations between per- sons — King, Lord, Father — is to make an illegitimate use of these symbols. Hence the Cosmological God cannot be the God of any of the historical religions. An Absolute God manifesting himself through immutable secondary causes would leave man indifferent, since the causes with which he is concerned are those acting upon him and on which he can react.^ Philosophers with rehgious bent have felt the antagonism of the God of the understanding to the God of the heart. But that they have not always clearly reahzed it, and that they have rarely been able to rid their minds of it, is abun- dantly indicated in their writings. St. Augustine, — to speak of a Christian philosopher, — recognized that the expression " mercy " could not properly be applied to the Absolute God, since the word implies suffering through the suffering of others. Nevertheless, he thought himself 1 In the article " Atheisme et Materialisme," in the Questions de philosophic morale et sociale, Durand de Gros denounces " the mess produced by the de- testable mixing of two orders of disparate ideas, which have been put together by an accident into a hybrid, monstrous whole." He endeavors to show that the religious question must be clearly separated from the ontological question. Comp. G. Belot in A Note on the Triple Origin of the Idea of God. " By what right do we give the same name, God, to an abstract principle, a simple affirmation of Unity, the Necessary, the Conclusion or the basis of a purely intellectual dialectic, and to the object of a social cult in a traditional and popular religion ?" (^Revue de Aletaphysiqtie et de Morale, Vol. XVI, 1908, p. 718.) See also F. C. S. Schiller, Studies in Humanism, Macmillan and Co., 1907, pp. 285; 285-289. The reader will find an interesting discussion of the attributes of the meta- physical gods in Chaps. VI and VII of John McTaggart's Some Dogmas of Religion, Edward Arnold, London, 1906. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 249 justified in using the term to save the ignorant from stumbling.^ The ignorant ! And he himself, the learned doctor, the tender and compassionate soul, has he found it possible to believe only in the impassible, infinite God ? The Confessions show that, like less powerful intellects, St. Augustine maintained tender sentimental relations with his God, relations more dignified, to be sure, but of the same character as those described by the great love-sick Spanish mystic. It is a significant chapter of philosophy where the scholastic doctors tax their ingenuity to adapt the philosophical conception of God to a God serviceable to religion. If the Christian mystics have escaped the difficulty, they owe it to their utter disregard of logical relations. Most of them apparently do not even suspect the flagrant contradiction that exists between the concep- tion of a being of whom nothing can be predicated, one who is to be defined only by negations, and a God with whom it is possible to maintain the intimate relations described in their autobiographies. They come into the presence of their God and he vivifies their souls ; they address him and his answers illuminate their intelligence ; they love him and in return are made to tremble by a sense of his unutterable love. That such a God cannot at the same time be Unity, Perfect Identity, Nothing, Infinite, never appears to them clearly enough to disturb their men- tal quietude. And this is, in truth, the condition of the great majority of deeply rehgious souls, in no matter what environment, who rise at times to philosophical meditation : they fail to see the contradiction, thanks to that admirable il- logicalness without which life would be, after all, impossible. 1 Augustinus, De Moribus EccUsies Caikolicce, Chap. XXVII, quoted by Hoffding, The Philosophy of Religion, p. 78. Schleiermacher says likewise, " To attribute mercy to God were more appropriate to an homiletic or poetic man- ner of speaking than to the dogmatic." (^Der Christliche Glaube, § 85.) 250 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION In the course of several investigations I have collected a number of biographies that show in a striking manner these two conceptions of God alternating or existing side by side in the same person. Several examples have already been given in the chapters on the origin and nature of gods. Here are three others, given in answer to the question, " Do you think of God as personal or impersonal ? " The first comes from a high school teacher, the others from college students. "When I am in the states of mind in which I need a personality for help, or for response to an inner tide of joy or enthusiasm, then God is for me a per- sonality. At such moments He seems to be as far away as heaven and yet also in my very soul at the same mo- ment. In everyday or matter-of-fact moods, the thought of God is in the background of my mind as an Impersonal Idea of Force. ... In more intellectual conditions of mind, the Fatherhood conception of God is in the back- ground as one I believe in and must have, while in the foreground the improbability of such an anthropomorphic conception is dominant. I seem able to entertain both the personal and impersonal conceptions at once without con- fusion and with real comfort, but if one is in the foreground the other is withdrawn to the back somewhere." One of the college students writes : " In an agitated or excited state of mind, I think of God as a Personal Father who is ready to reward or punish. But generally I think of God as a mass of forces having certain effects follow from certain causes ; the force that causes us to do good will bring with it its own reward and vice versa." Another student says : " I think of God sometimes as a personal being and at times as an impersonal one. The conception differs according to the state of my feelings. For instance, when I am perplexed by some distressing occurrence and feel the need of some kind of counsel, my THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 251 conception of God and my appeal to Him is as to a per- sonal being. On the other hand, when I am out in the woods and see a beautiful landscape or an unusual sunset, my conception of God is impersonal. I think of God then as a great power, of no definite shape or size, with none of the attributes of a being." Cardinal Newman, when about thirty years of age, wrote, " I loved to act as feeling myself in my Bishop's sight, as if it were the sight of God." ^ So do millions of other people. Is it in the presence of the One, Unchange- able, Eternal Being, that they stand " as in the presence of their Bishop " ? Although the Infinite Being of the metaphysician should not be called personal in the ordinary sense of the word, philosophers have not infrequently used that term. Lotze, for instance, understands by " Perfect Personality " an in- finite being possessing the following metaphysical attri- butes : oneness, unchangeableness, omnipresence, eternity. If these predicates are to be valid for the Highest Being, then that Being must have in addition, he claims, perfect personal existence.^ This use of the term "personal" is the opposite of the customary one ; it is therefore to be used only for the production of confusion. Certain of our con- temporaries have unfortunately followed Lotzc's example. Some do this the more willingly because the equivocation in this use of the word " person " protects them from the opprobrium of those to whom the denial of a personal God is the great immorality. The following frank remarks of Bradley deserve to be quoted : " And if by personality we are to understand the highest form of finite spiritual development, then certainly 1 Apologia, 1888, p. 50. 2 Lotze, H., Outlities of the Philosophy of Religion, tr. by G. T. Ladd, Ginn, Heath and Co., Boston, 1885, Chaps. Ill and IV. 252 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION in an eminent degree the Absolute is personal. For the higher (we may repeat) is always the more real." But he regrets this use of the term "personal" mainly "because it is misleading and directly serves the cause of dishonesty." " For most of those who insist on what they call ' the per- sonality of God ' are intellectually dishonest. They desire one conclusion, and, to reach it, they argue for another. . . . They desire a person in the sense of a self, amongst and over against other selves, moved by personal relations and feelings toward these others — feelings and relations which are altered by the conduct of others. And, for their pur- pose, what is not this, is really nothing. . . . Of course, for us to ask seriously, if the Absolute can be personal in such a way, would be quite absurd. And my business for the moment is not with truth, but with intellectual honesty." ^ When consciousness is attributed to the Absolute, as in the Hegelian metaphysics, it should be added, in order to preclude deception, that the Eternal and the human consciousness "cannot be comprehended in a single con- ception." ^ So that "consciousness" in the Absolute and " consciousness " in man is not a point of agreement, but one of divergence ; for the term is used in two differ- ent senses according as it is applied to one or to the other. 1 Bradley, F. H., Appearance and Reality, Chap. XXVII, pp. 531-532. "^ Green, T. H. Prolegomena to Ethics, § 68. " The philosophical theists like C. H. Weisse and H. Lotze affirm, it is true, that only an infinite being can possess personality, and that a limited and con- sequently dependent being is not worthy of this title; only a being absolutely active can be a person. But in speaking thus, it is admitted that the word " personality " can be taken in two entirely different senses according as it is ap- plied to God or man. Hence, strictly speaking, these philosophers agree in the conclusion at which Spinoza and Kant have arrived : after having elimi- nated everything that is valid of finite beings only, nothing remains of our fundamental psychological concept but the name." (Hoffding, H., op. cit., p. 80 of French edition ; p. 86 of English edition.) Feuerbach was not deceived by the ambiguous use of the term "per- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 253 The conflict arising from this twofold idea of God has been regarded as an anomaly of the religious life. Hoff- ding calls it the "religious paradox." The reHgious con- sciousness has need of a finite object; nevertheless, he says, "it tends to conceive of its object as quite superior to all finite relations. But in yielding without reserve to this tendency, it defeats its purpose, for intimate and vital relations between it and its object become thenceforth im- possible. . . . When these tendencies are present in their extreme forms, we have the religious paradox : God is im- mutable, yet changeable ; he is eternal, yet becoming ; he is victor, yet vanquished ; blessed, yet suffering." ^ The source of this opposition is not in the religious life itself ; for it is philosophical speculation, not the religious life, that tends to conceive of its object as infinite. Since men havef been able neither to harmonize the several ontological con- ceptions nor to single out one of them as sufficient, they have had to get along as best they could with several God- ideas, and these they have sadly confused. If the great ' founders of religions, like Gautama and Jesus, did not fall into this error, it is because they ignored metaphysical son," nor was he willing that the confusion should continue. " The denial of determinate, positive predicates concerning the divine nature is noth- ing else than a denial of religion with, however, an appearance of re- ligion in its favor, so that it is not recognized as a denial ; it is simply a subtle, disguised atheism. The alleged religious horror of limiting God by positive predicates is only the irreligious wish to know nothing more of God, to banish God from the mind. Dread of limitation is dread of exist- ence. All real existence, i. e. all existence which is truly such, is qualitative, de- terminative existence. He who earnestly believes in the divine existence is not shocked at the attributing of gross, sensuous qualities to God. He who . . . shrinks from the grossness of a positive predicate, may as well renounce exist- ence altogether. . . . An existence in general, an existence without qualities is an insipidity, an absurdity." (Ludwig Feuerbach, Werke, Vol. VH, Chap. 2, Das Wesen des Chrisienihums, p. 42 ; tr. by Marian Evans, p. 15.) 1 Hoffding, H., op. cit., pp. 83-84 of French edition ; p. 91 of English edition. 2 54 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION arguments. With them the need of logical understand- ing was completely subordinated to the passion for con- crete living. I have elsewhere quoted Gautama on this point. May I not now claim to have unravelled a tangle at the root of empirical apologetics ? On one side it would de- fend religion against science by invoking the principle of transcendence, according to which science is incompetent to deal with the question of God and with religious knowl- edge generally. On the other, it would protect reHgion against philosophy by insisting on inner experience as the only sufficient proof of the existence and nature of the Christian God. Now, the fact is that it is only the God of metaphysics that is inaccessible to science, a Being for whom the historical religions have no use ; whereas the gods of the religions are empirical beings. Their exist- ence is made evident in consciousness ; they are therefore within the sphere of science. TJie empirical theologians employ the term " God'' in two different setts es ; hence the confusion. I have had occasion to remark that the metaphysical proofs have fallen into disrepute. The dubious way in which theologians nowadays bring them in (when they do not leave them out entirely), however much they may feel the need of buttressing their faith, should not be ascribed altogether to the recognition of the logical weakness of these proofs. There are good reasons for thinking that this change is due to some dim recognition that the kind of God these arguments would support is not the one they ywant. The sooner it is definitely admitted that, "from the point of view of practical religion the metaphysical monster which they [the old systems of dogmatic theology] offer to our worship is an absolutely worthless invention of the THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 255 scholarly mind," ^ the better for the human race. If popu- lar religions are to continue in existence, the facts upon which they are to stand must be patent to every believer. Voltaire was inspired by his consummate good sense when he wrote : " It always seems to me absurd to make the ex- istence of God depend upon a plus b divided by z. Where would human kind be if it was necessary to study dynamics and astronomy in order to know the Supreme Being } " ^ The real controversy, as far as reUgions of the present type are concerned, hangs, as Principal Lodge well says, upon the question : " Is the world controlled by a living Person, accessible to prayer, influenced by love, able and willing to foresee, to intervene, to guide, and wistfully to lead without compulsion spirits in some sort akin to Him- self .''... The whole controversy hinges, in one sense, on a practical pivot — the efficacy of prayer." 2. THE INDUCTIVE METHOD AND EMPIRICAL THEOLOGY The gods of religion being in reality inductions from observations of inner phenomena, it follows that the prop- ositions of theology regarding them are to be justified in the same way as science justifies its hypotheses, that is to say, by reference to experience. We have seen that this is just what religious people have always done. They say, "We know that our beliefs are true, because when put to the proof they have succeeded for us " ; or, " Inner experience furnished us with the undeniable proof that, after all, whatever may be said to the contrary, God exists, for he works within us." We have seen also that the- ologians have embraced as a last recourse this popular pro- cedure. Max Reischle speaks for the Ritschlian School when he declares : " Although theoretical reason cannot ^ James, o/>. di., p. 447. 2 Voltaire, Letter to A. M. Koenig, Frankfort, June, 1753. 256 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION prove either the truth or the falsehood of the propositions of faith, yet a proof of their truth may be drawn from the practical consideration that the only sufficient help in man's moral conflict is found in Christianity, and that the faith which accepts Christ as divine revelation finds its own justification." From the time Jesus bade men try his doctrine to the present day, the popular and the only really effective proof of the truth of Christianity has been its success in provid- ing at least a part of the blessedness it promises. The ex- istence of every one of the gods in whom men have ever put their faith has been held to be proved by the test of experience. Fetiches are trusted because their efficiency has been proved. Yahve showed himself to be the true God by helping his worshippers to defeat the hosts of Chemosh. The Virgin Mary demonstrates daily her powers of intercession by serving those who address their petitions to her. Now the scientific method of ascertaining truth is obser- vation of the facts, made, whenever possible, under definite, controllable conditions, i.e. experimentation. The funda- mental epistemological principle of empirical theology and the popular method of verifying religious propositions seem, therefore, in essential agreement with the principle and method of scientific procedure. Why is it, then, that theology and science are so far from each other in their conclusions that theology, for fear of destruction, would divorce itself from science .■' The truth is that empirical theologians have never intended \.o adopt scientific methods ; incredible as it may seem, they have apparently never real- ized that to make " inner experience " the only source of religious knowledge means a surrender to psychological science. Their respect for experience and their use of it is of a kind with that of the ignorant empiric in medicine. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 257 The test of the truth of a belief by means of experience involves a procedure incomparably more difficult and pains- taking than religious people imagine. Let me illustrate the difficulty. Some one on observing that a nail in water has rusted concludes that the water is the cause of the rust. Another person noticing that a bright steel blade rusts in air decides that the air is the cause. A third finds that the more a steel object is handled, the more it rusts, and forthwith he believes that the hands are the efficient agent. Each one of these conclusions is in a fashion veri- fied by a practical test, and in a fashion each is "true." But the deeper truth does not appear until the chemist, having observed the behavior of steel under different con- ditions, and having studied likewise that of other metals, is led by the method of elimination to the conclusion that oxygen is the one thing necessary for the formation of rust, and that moisture assists the chemical operation. Having the wider knowledge, the chemist finds the deeper truth. Some years ago the most divergent opinions existed as to the manner of obtaining hypnotic sleep. Those who said it was necessary to make " passes " based this opinion on what they had seen "with their own eyes." Those who thought the subject must fix his eyes upon something brilliant, expressed likewise the result of their experi- ence. And those who employed verbal suggestions used again an empirical argument. All had success as proof, not only of the validity of their method, but also, as they thought, of the conclusions they drew therefrom ; for in- stance, that hypnotic sleep is produced by the magnetic fluid projected by the hands making the passes. And so these people incorporated in the experience they called immediate and unassailable, inductions open to scientific criticism just as is commonly done in the field of religious experience. The psychologist, on the other hand, putting 258 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION together all that he has learned about hypnotism and simi- lar topics, comes to the conclusion that a method succeeds in proportion as it arrests mental activity and induces the expectation of sleep. Not only have theologians failed carefully to scrutinize their facts and to bring them into comparative relation with similar facts either in other religions or in secular life, according to the way of science, but they have even declared, as we know, that this cannot be done. Ritschl, for instance, states that " the Christian religion presents an element which transcends all merely secular knowl- edge ; namely, the end and the means of the blessedness of man. Whatever content may have been ascribed to this word 'blessedness,' it expressly denotes a goal, the knowledge of which is unattainable by Philosophy and the realization of which cannot be secured by the natural means at the command of men, but depends upon the positive character of Christianity." ^ In justification of their failure to make exact, comprehen- sive investigations, they have alleged that religious expe- rience is something sui generis, incomparable with the rest of life, and also that it is a whole and therefore not subject to analysis.^ " It is not a further development of the nat- ^ Ritschl, K., Justification and Reconciliation, p. 193, 2 The only answer to make to the dogmatic assertion that religious experi- ences are unanalyzable wholes is actually to analyze them. That the products of a psychological analysis are not identical with the object analyzed is just as much a truism in psychology as in the physical sciences. No compound is identical with the elements of which it is composed. Analyzing a substance means breaking it up. Is that an argument against the use of the analytical method in chemistry ? Is it any more an argument against the analysis of psy- chic processes ? Are not the recent results of psychological investigation in the fields of perception, feeling, imagination, hallucination, association, speech, emotion, aesthetics, etc., sufficient to convert sceptics into enthusiastic support- ers of the scientific study of psychic experiences ? The day is past for talking of the inscrutable, incomparable, unanalyzable, religious experiences. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 259 ural man, but a new departure ; it is a living process, com- ing to us as a whole." ^ To this obscurantist declaration, they have frequently added an almost neccessary comple- ment, to wit, that the apprehension of religious truth requires a special "sense" or "faculty." Garvie, in the passage already quoted, expresses this opinion in its common form. Whoever has this "sense " for the " discernment of super- sensuous eternal reality," may "confidently reject the crit- icism of the objects of faith which is offered to him by the irreligious man who lacks it." " Over against the suspi- cions and surmises of criticism, we can put the certainties of our experience of Christ's saving power." ^ In similar language did all men speak of practically every phase of mental life, before the birth of modern psychological science. Attention, memory, imagination, reason, etc., were looked upon as so many unanalyzable, distinct " faculties," each somehow independent of the others. Theology has not yet learned the lesson writ large in the history of psychology. It continues to bear to psychology a relation similar to that of alchemy to chemistry. The former took things as a whole, was little concerned with observation, analysis, comparison. It pre- ferred to gloat over the wonderful properties of this or that mysterious substance. Its most characteristic trait was a splendid faith in the existence of some miraculous matter which would transmute base metal into gold. At a later period, it held to an equally naive conviction that there was to be found an elixir that would infallibly re- store men to health. The science of chemistry was born when the childish faith in the existence of a philosopher's 1 See, for instance, Eucken's uncritical philosophy of religion in Haupt- probleme der Religions-philosophie der Gegenwart (three lectures), 1907, Reuter and Reichard, Berlin. He is, apparently, one of those who see no escape from intellectualism except in affectivism. 2 Garvie, A., op. cii. (1903), VIII, pp. 369, 370. 26o A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION stone or in the elixir of life was renounced, or, at least, when it was admitted that the only way to find these things was by careful observation and analysis, aided by the experimental method. With this new procedure, chemistry has discovered a hundred different substances capable of changing the color of base metals, and has actually learned how to transform charcoal into diamond. Simple religious souls, as well as most theologians, continue, alchemist-like, to believe in the existence of a religious panacea, and, therefore, neglect, nay, often despise, the careful, persistent, scientific study of man's spiritual nature, of its defects and remedies. In what practical way, for instance, is the present soteriology in advance of that of St. Augustine ? What has Chris- tian theology done in the course of two thousand years to increase our knowledge of " sin," its central problem ? What has been gained by the endless discussions of the relation of evil to an Omnipotent and Righteous God, of free will, of the respective shares of man and of the Divine Grace in overcoming evil .-' Need any one be told to-day that the question of predestination is chiefly a prob- lem of heredity and breeding, and that our teachers on this subject ought to be, not Christian Fathers, but con- temporary scientists and educators ? The eradication of moral evil is a problem demanding for its solution a knowledge far more difficult of attainment than that which has already enabled us to master many bodily diseases : nothing will suffice short of an exhaustive knowledge of general psychology, individual and social ; in particular a knowledge of psychology in its relation to physiology. The indifference of those who are supposed to be the custodians of religious knowledge to the only ways by which knowledge on the cardinal problems of practical THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 261 religion can be increased, excusable a hundred years ago, has become a scandal and a public danger, — a scandal and a danger which will continue as long as the Christian Church seeks its information on sin and the means to righteousness only in its own sacred Scriptures and in unanalyzed experience.^ 3. THE ACT OF FAITH AND ITS MOTIVES If the fundamental truths of religion are either imme- diately given in inner experiences or induced from them, one does not see why something additional called " faith " should be a necessary condition of religious belief. Yet this is what both classes of empirical theologians maintain. What does this mean ? If God manifests himself imme- diately and clearly in consciousness, as the mystical em- piricists so insistently aver, why should a conscious process additional to those in which the truths of religion are re- ^ The craven advice offered by one of Germany's most prominent theolo- gians may serve in estimating the difficulty there is for any one brought up in the traditional theological schools to make a clean departure from the old ideas. " The reconciliation of our present knowledge of nature and history with the religious faith handed down in the Church, and imparted to us in our education, will remain in the future the perpetual problem of Theology. It is evident that its formulae, from the very fact of their having this practical object, cannot claim to be scientific propositions, valid univer- sally for all times. A sound tact giving prominence to what is for us re- ligiously essential, and putting into the background what is antiquated will, perhaps, be better able to solve the problem than a rigorously systematic method." (O. Pfleiderer, The Development of Theology since Kant, p. 205.) When men of the highest influence affirm that theology can hardly do better than perpetually strive to reconcile that which is acknowledged to be false, or at least deficient (the religious faith handed down in the Church), with our present knowledge, and that " sound tact " is the essential quality of a successful theologian, we must hold it well for the manhood of our young men that they should prefer to that sublime vocation almost any other — even, perhaps, that of the American "practical" politician, whose chief business seems to be the reconciliation of the irreconcilable : dishonesty and honestv. 262 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION vealed intervene, and what may be the function of this process ? To say that it is by faith that these experiences are laid hold of and accepted seems a denial of the quali- ties of immediacy and unimpeachableness claimed for them. But perhaps "faith " is intended to designate the particu- lar attitude, i.e. the volitional and feeUng setting resulting from the immediate revelation. This meaning seems to me the only one the mystical empiricists can logically assign to that word. Faith would then be a will-attitude accom- panied by a definite mood and generated by religious ex- periences. But in this case one could not speak of believing by faith that these experiences are from above, since the faith-state would not be a cause, but a consequence of be- lief. Usually, however, faith is spoken of as producing belief or as an "organ" of knowledge. For those who regard religious propositions as inferences from inner experiences, and who admit, as we have seen, that a natural explanation of them is possible, the word " faith " is susceptible of another meaning. These people reject a logically satisfactory human account of certain experiences in favor of a superhuman one ; this they call making an act of faith. But why should an act of faith be made in favor of a proposition different from one rec- ognized as logically valid } Because of the conviction that only thus can certain vital advantages, certain essential values, be secured. Practical 7ieeds determine the act of faith. This second meaning is clearly the one impHed in the quotations made earlier from Professor Bois. It appears also plainly in the following passage by a young theolo- gian : " Even when he theoretically separates these from the metaphysical belief that conditions it, the experience with its priceless value remains. . . . Relying upon this THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 263 fact which gives him strength, joy, inner unspeakable ra- diance whenever he presents himself before the living per- son of Christ, relying furthermore upon rational, historical, and moral motives, he freely maintains the Christian in- terpretation, and keeps by an act of faith and of love his living assurance." ^ We find this meaning of faith again in Professor Boutroux: "The essential phenomenon is here the act of faith by which, experiencing certain emotions, consciousness pronounces that these emotions come to it from God. Religious experience is not of itself objective. But the subject gives it an objective significance by means of the belief it inserts there." ^ If now we compare these two meanings of faith, we find them not antagonistic. In the second meaning,/^?//// names the will-act by which an interpretation of apparently vital importance is embraced ; in the first meaning, the word denotes the particular blessed condition of mind and heart which is generated by the whole-hearted acceptance of certain propositions. These two meanings are comple- mentary ; taken together they cover the will-act and its psychological consequences. Understood in this inclusive sense, faith is anything but a rare phenomenon. Its sphere is not limited to religious 1 Ponsoye, E., op. cit., p. 8. 2 Boutroux, E., Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale., 1908, Vol. XVI, p. 25, Elsewhere he has said: "And thus in religious experience, considered as such, I find again faith, and with it, confidence and submission to an authority. It is because by faith I attribute an infinite value to religious phenomena, that I refuse to see there a simple case of natural suggestion or autosuggestion. (^Esprit et Autoritc, Revue Chretienne, August, 1904, p. 102.) Here the act of faith is not the will to believe moved by the wish to retain certain precious " realities," but faith is now something by which an "infinite " value is attrib- uted to religious phenomena. Can this have the same meaning as the quota- tion in the text ? I confess that I do not see how it can, nor yet what else it could mean. 264 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION life. Strange it is, indeed, that all the praises lavished upon faith should have been prompted by its r61e in reli- gion ; for it is met with in every phase of human existence. The pragmatists have recently reminded us that it is by faith we hve. If we could or would not act until we had obtained the kind and degree of certitude we require in our analytical moments, life would at once come to a stop. Faith is as essential to the progress of commerce, industry, science, as to the progress of religion ; for it is in making faith-ventures that commerce and industry are established and that new scientific hypotheses are afforded a chance to prove themselves true. The faith-act is a commonplace of life, because it is a corollary of imperfect knowledge, and a condition of the acquisition of the knowledge necessary to life. It is only when faith involves tragic issues, or when it leads to convictions regarded as preposterous by most people, or yet when it involves a quasi-ecstatic mood that it attracts attention. It is because these circumstances are often existent in religion, that religious faith has always been conspicuous. But it should be frankly acknowledged that the propositions of theology and of science, in so far as they are faith-propositions, are marks of incomplete knowledge, and that, therefore, the duty of theology as well as of science is to press forward towards fuller light. Unfortunately, faith, which is normally the ally of science and of religion, often becomes their enemy. This happens whenever particular faith-propositions become so firmly rooted in tradition as to prevent recognition of new facts and the formulation of new beliefs from which better re- sults would be secured. Our ofBcial creeds are in the main stupendous instances of such deterrent beliefs. The motive of the act of religious faith is then not the need of explaining causative ly religions experiences, but the **felt'' impossibility of otherwise s "curing certain valuable THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 265 ends. The numerous quotations placed at the beginning of this chapter have made clear what it is that Christian re- ligious faith is intent upon preserving or securing. Peace, joy, inner radiance, strength, moral energy, — these are the words with which we have become familiar. William James uses the terms " reconciliation," " union." " Mysti- cal states," he says, "tell of the supremacy of the ideal, of vastness, of union, of safety, and of rest." The only im- provement Professor Boutroux would make upon this is, apparently, to prefix the megalomanic adjective "infinite" to some of these nouns. All would probably agree upon this formulation : religious faith secures things to which is attached high value, and, if one had in mind exalted forms of rehgion, one would have to say " supreme value." ^ Whatever vitality remains in the belief in the Christian God proceeds from the gratification it provides for affective and moral needs. There are millions who say, " It seems to me undeniable that that notion [a personal God] , although altogether too human to be properly attributed to God, has a deep meaning, a moral significance, a religious value, that no other term possesses" ; ^ and consequently they choose to think of God as a person. It is precisely because no 1 It should be observed here that a certain argument often thought to sup- port the Christian religion offers in reality not the slightest motive for belief in the Christian God, but only for belief in a moral order, in a spiritual universe. In this argument it is asserted that it is impossible for him who feels moral val- ues to admit that they are only an accident in the development of mankind. It is claimed that these supreme values must express at least one of the funda- mental characteristics of ultimate reality. This argument falls outside our discussion; for it is satisfied with the ad- mission of the existence of a moral principle belonging to the essence of the universe. The philosophers who insist most strongly upon this argument are precisely those who reject the Christian conception of God the Father and Comforter, and it is partly in order to supply the place of that rejected belief that they have taken pains to find reasons for believing in a moral order. "^ Leo, Albert, Atude Psychologique sur la Friere, Thesis, Faculty of Theol- ogy, Montauban, 1905, p. 43, 266 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION other form of available belief satisfies so easily and so com- pletely certain urgent needs of the human heart that the idea of God the Father remains among us. The following illustration shows again, in a striking manner, these needs, their energy, and just how potent they are in defeating reason. Thirty years ago, a woman a little over forty was teacher of botany in one of our colleges. One Sunday she drifted into a church to hear the old hymns of her childhood, and then continued to attend its services, although she was fully conscious of her dissent from the faith of its members. Her motives are clearly stated : " The quiet, restful place, the singing of the old hymns, and the friendly greetings which assured me of my welcome, all helped to attract me to a custom to which I had long been a stranger." The young clergyman inter- ested and attracted her also. During a trying moment in her career she took him into her confidence. " This gave me the relief that comes from the feeling that one unpre- judiced knows and understands our case." On several occasions when the gap between her beliefs and those of the minister and his congregation was made evident, she considered breaking her informal relations with the church ; but she could not bring herself to give up the comfort and strength she found there. Several years passed in this fashion, the bonds connecting her with the pastor and the church growing stronger, but her beliefs remaining unal- tered. The death of a dear and intimate friend with whom she had been associated in her work brought her to a crisis. "One Sunday morning I went to church feeling so bur- dened and troubled that it seemed to me I could no longer endure it. Some change must come ; the work was more than I could carry through alone. Almost the first sen- tence of the sermon was, ' It is of no use, we cannot get through this world and accomplish what we are placed THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 267 here to do unless we let some one besides ourselves carry the heavy end of the burden.' The whole sermon was after this strain, and how I blessed God for sending me that comforting message which I needed so much ! " At the close of the service, as she endeavored to slip out un- observed through the crowd, a lady greeted her kindly with the words, " I think you are a stranger here." " * Stranger ' — so I was ! But I did not want the fact to stare me in the face just then ! I was trying to climb into the fold in some other way than through the open door, and my theology repudiated my need of a fold or a pastor ! " She decides that since she cannot join the church honestly, the only thing to do is to sever her relations with it, and she sits down to write a letter to the pastor in explanation of the intended step. Almost against her wish, her pen writes : " I must confess I would like that old faith that you preach and that I have so long rejected. I have sought long and faithfully for something to take its place, and I have never yet been able to find it." This confession made, various biblical passages fill her mind, for instance, " Except ye become as little children, ye can in no wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven." " This means you must be willing to be led ; you must resign entirely all thought or wish to enter the Kingdom by any other means than the way devised by God himself ; to do this, you must lay aside all trust in your own intellectual powers ; you never will be able to understand before you come, come as a child comes, with loving trust in the hand that leads. ... To this I answered silently, but firmly, that I was willing to come in any way ; I would give up forever my plan of understanding first, and coming afterward. I wanted this faith earnestly enough to comply with the conditions. Then came the text, ' Peace which passeth understanding.' There was no explanation of this in words, but simply 268 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the presence of God's Spirit. . . . God's very presence in my heart, fiUing it with a peace which I had never felt before. ... I did not ask or wish to understand it, only to experience it was enough." She accepted her experience of peace and joy as coming from God himself for two reasons : " first, the strong sense of God's presence ; secondly, the clearness of spiritual vis- ion which enabled me to see and understand how different God's way for me to come into the Kingdom was from the way I had chosen for myself," — namely, intellectual con- viction.^ IV. The Task of Psychology in the Study of Religious Life If we are right in holding that religion consists, in its individual aspect, of the relations maintained by man with superhuman powers of psychic order, and if these relations, quite like those of a subject with his sovereign, or of a lover with his loved one, take the form of sensations, im- ages, conceptions, sentiments, emotions, etc., issuing in action, immediate or deferred, overt or not, — if, that is to say, these relations assume forms common to the whole of psychic life, — then the task of psychology with regard to religion is of the same character as its task in other parts of conscious life. It is, of course, theoretically possible for one to affirm the presence in religious experience of special psychic ele- ments and special forms of consciousness. But I am not aware that any competent person has seriously attempted this. Neither has the logic built upon the principles of identity, excluded middle, and contradiction been replaced by another logic valid in the construction of religious knowl- 1 From A Scientist's Confession of Faith, Amer. Baptist Pub. Soc, Phila- delphia, 1898. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 269 edge. Until proof of the contrary is produced, we may set it down that religious experience is made up of the same elements as the rest of conscious life, and that these ele- ments are connected and elaborated according to laws hold- ing for mental life generally. It follows that religious life is a province of science just as is any other portion of con- scious life. Expressed in general terms, the task of psychology in respect to the group of facts constituting religious Hfe is to observe, compare, analyze, and to determine the conditions and consequences of the appearance of these facts. Its chief problems, outside of the genetic one, may be classi- fied under four heads : (i) the impulses, motives, and aims ; (2) the means employed to reach the ends — ceremonial, prayer, communion, etc. ; (3) the results secured ; (4) the means and the results considered in the relation of cause and effect.^ The control, for man's profit, of the physical forces is the ultimate goal of physical science. The control of the psychical forces is the practical aim of psychology, — of the psychology of religious life as well as of any other branch of the science. It is conceivable that in accomplishing this task the psychologist may encounter phenomena transcending what he can explain by the causes already known. So-called premonitions, clairvoyance, telepathy, sudden moral conver- sions, and mystic illuminations might, for instance, baffle his efforts at explanation. And it might be claimed that the course of historical events testifies to a divine action. Dr. Reinhold Seeberg, Professor of Theology at the Uni- versity of Berlin, maintains that certain facts of history "certify to man the operative presence of God"; "these facts are distinct from the common or regular connection 1 1 hope to be able to follow this outline in two volumes to follow this one. t/ 270 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION of events. They are in themselves characteristically mar- vellous, or they are so constituted that man is through them made aware of the presence of God, and in them feels the power of God." The same author speaks also of "the influence of God upon the human mind, an influence ap- parent under different forms, but directed to arouse recog- nition and appreciation of God, submission to His will, and a desire to serve Him. This cause and its effects are always miraculous in their nature." ^ These are possibilities ; but let this be clearly seen : it is for science to show that any one of these possibilities has become at a particular time a reality. The facts must first be analyzed, compared, classified, and an effort made to trace them back to familiar causes. Who is qualified to \ attempt this work ? Who has a right to make the distinc- li tion between the human and the superhuman ? Is any pious person who has passed through alleged superhuman experiences qualified for this.? It was formerly the ten- dency to see the work of God or of devils in a great num- Sber of psychic phenomena to-day "naturalized." If any one has the right to attempt this discrimination, it is the psychologist. He it is who can — if any one can — mark the points at which unknown factors interfere in the psy- cho-physiological system. For the rest, it is clear that from the presence of inexplicable perturbances one cannot posit the inadequacy of the known forces unless one may claim a complete knowledge of them. It would require a large volume to present fully the recent knowledge concerning the phenomena alleged by reputable religions or disreputable "cults" to be super- human. Only a few general remarks upon two points are called for here. ^ Seeberg, Reinhold, Revelation and Inspiration, Harper Brothers, 1909, pp. 40, 51- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 271 I. What does psychology think of those phenomena, which, although they may not exceed what we know to be possible to man, seem to many to demand a transcendent explanation because of the unusual conditions of their ap- pearance ? I refer to the great majority of visions and so- called revelations; to the imperative feehng of obligation,; and the sense of passivity which often accompany thoughts; and actions, thus giving the impression that some one other than ourselves thinks or acts for us. Not long ago science was seriously embarrassed by these sensory and motor automatisms. To-day facts of this kind are incorporated in the domain of nature. William James, whose authority has been used illegiti- mately in certain circles, has not separated himself from his fellow-psychologists on this point. In the first part of The Varieties of Religions Experience, he explains in an orthodox fashion the phenomena he studies ; that is, with- out making use of extra-human causes. If, after having made that demonstration, he declares that he prefers in certain cases another explanation, this is not at all because the natural explanation does not account for the facts in question just as well as it does for other experiences ; it is for reasons of another order, which I have already had occasion to mention. It has become so evident that a natural explanation is just as adequate to these remarkable rehgious experiences as to the other manifestations of psychic life, that this view has forced itself even upon those who are by educa- tion and temperament least disposed to accept it. We have seen several examples of this. Here is one more, taken from a recent thesis of a bachelor in theology pre- sented at the theological school at Montauban. After hav- ing compared cures accomplished by non-religious means with those which, according to him, depend upon divine 272 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION operation, he is obliged to admit that there is no difference in the manner in which the cure takes place. " For us," he says, " everything takes place as if it were nothing more than a natural action. This does not prevent its being a divine action." And later on he adds, " It must be recog- nized with good grace that the special intervention of God is never susceptible of positive proof." ^ It is in what he calls ultimate personal experience that he finds the proof for divine healings. We have seen what this may signify. 2. What are the conclusions of psychology concerning experiences apparently transcending what man can of him- self do or know ? On this point I must content myself with the following reflections. If there were extra-human sources of knowledge and superhuman sources of human power, their existence should, it seems, have become in- creasingly evident. Yet the converse is apparently true ; the supernatural world of the savage has become a natural world to civilized man ; the miraculous of yesterday is the explicable of to-day. In rehgious lives accessible to psy- chological investigation, nothing requiring the admission of superhuman influences has been found. There is nothing, for example, in the Hfe of the great Spanish mystic whose celebrity is being renewed by contemporary psychologists, — not a desire, not a feeling, not a thought, not a vision, not an illumination, — that can seriously make us look to tran- scendent causes.^ >^ As proof of this I might give the failure of William James to find in rehgion anything not amenable to natural laws. Tke Varieties of Religious Experience does not purport to ^ Lavaud, Charles, La Guerison par la Foi, 1906, pp. II0-118. 2 See on this subject the excellent book of Henri Delacroix, Etudes (fHis- toire et de Psychologic du Mysticisme : Les Grands Mystiques Chretiens, Felix Alcan, 1908, and my articles on the same subject in the Revue Philosophique, Vol. LIV, 1902, pp. 1-36, 441-487. THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 273 be a systematic study of religion. It owes its existence to the desire of finding in religious life facts which may serve as arguments for the transcendent hypothesis developed in the conclusion of the book. What has the author discov- ered .-• In my opinion, nothing that can serve him ; and it is difficult to believe that such is not his own opinion. Af- ter having shown that instantaneous conversions can be explained by the theory of the subliminal, he says : " But if you, being orthodox Christians, ask me as a psychologist whether the reference of the phenomenon to a subliminal self does not exclude the notion of the direct presence of Deity altogether, I have to say frankly that as a psychologist I do not see why it necessarily should. The lower manifes- tations of the Subliminal, indeed, fall within the resources of the personal subject : his ordinary sense material, in- attentively taken in and subconsciously remembered and combined will account for all his usual automatisms. But just as our primary wide-awake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material, so it is logically conceivable that if there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us, the psychological condition of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which alone should yield access to them." ^ Observe that the author assumes in this passage neither the attitude of the mystic nor that of the metaphysician, but that of the scientist, inasmuch as he seeks for a factual difference (he speaks of "lower" and "higher" manifestations) which may justify belief in superhuman causes.^ If there were higher experiences that could not ^ James, op. cit., p. 242. The italics are mine. ^ William James's avowed position throughout The Varieties of Religious Experience is that of the empiricist. He writes, for instance, of theology, " She must abandon metaphysics and deduction for criticism and induction." (Pages 455-456.) If he relinquishes this standpoint anywhere, it must be due, it seems, to an inadvertence. T 274 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION be satisfactorily explained by natural causes, it would be scientific procedure to try other hypotheses. The author's I task is thus clear : it is to indicate the manifestations which he regards as having a superhuman origin and to state the grounds on which he makes the differentiation. After examining those phenomena among which one might expect to meet superhuman manifestations, he ar- rives at the conclusion I have commented upon, — that the mystic states seem to point towards a reconciliation, a union ; they speak of the supremacy of the jdeal, of security, of repose. Now I, for one, am somewhat amazed that this should have seemed to William James sufificient to warrant the making of so pregnant a differentiation. Because cer- tain experiences speak of reconciliation and of union, of security and of repose, we are asked to put them on one side of the line separating the humanly conditioned from the divinely conditioned ! Such states of consciousness should not be explicable by natural means, and all others should! William James's effort to find in religious experiences phenomena warranting the hypothesis of divine action is a fiasco which, despite his own preference announced in the conclusions, should be felt as a severe blow by the super- naturally inclined. But you forget, some one may say, the phenomena in which the Society for Psychical Research is interested, phenomena which seem to indicate the action of extra-hu- man agents : the divining rod, premonitions, clairvoyance, and communications of spirits. I do not forget them. But one has a right, before introducing spiritistic theories, to wait until they have undergone the experimental proof to which they are now being submitted. The arguments that are sometimes used to invalidate studies of re- ligion by men of science on the pretext that these men have not in themselves known the experiences they are studying, deserve perhaps a THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 275 moment's attention. It is contended that one must have had these ex- periences in order to comprehend them, just as one must see in order to know lio-ht. The analogy frequently used between the absence of visual perceptions and the absence of religious experiences is defective ; for the forms of consciousness in which religious experiences are cast, '. are the same as those that enter into the composition of psychic life in general. The feelings and emotions of religion are peace, confidence self-surrender, hope, faith, love, moral obligation, etc. ; that is, states the nature of which is known by all people who live in the moral world. If every one knows from personal experience the forms in which the re- ligious life manifests itself, it follows that just as it is not necessary to be a soldier in order to understand military life, nor mad in order to make researches in mental alienation, nor a painter in order to be an art critic, — the psychology of religious life may be understood and the quality of religious life appreciated to a certain extent by all. Devotion to a religion is much more likely to make one hopelessly biassed and blind. A lover would not be asked for an impartial criticism of the one he loves. The ideal condition for the student of religion would be to have lived naively through religious experiences and then to have gained freedom from traditional convictions. If the psychologist has passed through the experiences he discusses, so much the better for him. If he has not, he is no more disqualified for religious studies than for the psychological analyses of non-religious experiences which have never been his, — a crime of passion, the mental state of a captain of industry struggling with his rivals, or any form whatever of mental disorder. 1 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Contemporary Protestant Christianity grounds its beliefs solely upon so-called " inner experience," which, it is claimed, leads directly or through "faith" to a knowledge of God, without the mediation of science and of meta- physics. From these Protestant Christianity would divorce itself, for the metaphysical arguments no longer seem reli- ^ The author was brought up in a religious atmosphere. During adoles- cence and several subsequent years, he was deeply stirred by religion and passed through conversion. And although now he finds little acceptable in the Roman Catholic and the Protestant dogmas, he has retained a sympa- thetic appreciation and understanding of religious life. 276 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION able, and science undermines rather than supports the central beliefs of the historical religions. But to say that reUgion is based solely upon "inner," " immediate " experience, really means that theology is a branch of psychological science. So that the claim that religious experience is inaccessible to 'science rests upon a misunderstanding and a confusion : the nature of religious experience is misunderstood, and the God of metaphysics is confused with the God of the religions. The immediacy of religious knoivledge is illusory. The expression " immediate experience " can be applied only to mere sensation (sensory impressions not referred to an ob- ject), and to mere feeling. Every transsubjective refer- ence falls under the criticism of the intellect. / If the claim that certain religious experiences are condi- ( tioned by superhuman action can be established, it is the psychologist who stands the best chance of doing this suc- cessfully. The insistent affirmation of the new theology that it finds its warrant in " inner experience " turns out to mean some- thing quite different from that which the proposition would mean to a man of science. The final grounding of the whole religious structure upon an act of faith is sufficient to correct the misunderstanding into which he might fall. In the language of these theologians, dependence upon experience is not intended to mean that religious knowledge is to proceed from an analysis of a certain class of facts of consciousness, a comparison of them with other similar facts, and a study of the conditions under which these facts come into existence. The scientific treatment of religious experiences is the very thing that empirical theology would preclude. Indeed, the theologians of this school are deter- THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY 277 mined to face no longer any attempt at scientific or philo- sophical examination of the truths of their dogmas. They have turned their faces resolutely away from metaphysics and from psychology. Henceforth, the only question they are willing to acknowledge as relevant is, " Does this or that belief produce the results we want ? " If it does, they think themselves justified in holding to it by an act of faith, even against science and philosophy. The superficial way in which the new theology uses the pragmatic conception of truth makes that conception appear ridiculous. A theology intelligently pragmatic, interested in the value of religion to humanity, rather than in the pres- ervation of a particular form of religion, would realize that the practical problems with which it is confronted can- not be solved offhand, by an appeal to the immediacy of religious experience or by acts of faith. There are many — and they deserve serious consideration — who hold, for in- stance, that a balance sheet of what the civilized world would lose in renouncing the ideal of a God-Providence and of what it would gain by fixing its attention upon human society in the process of formation, would not be in favor of the traditional opinion. If theology is ever to find out what beliefs work best towards self-realization and happiness, it will have to deal with inner experience according to the best scientific meth- ods. Until it does so, it cannot make any claim to serious consideration. And when it does so, it will have become a branch of psychology. PART IV THE LATEST FORMS AND THE FU- TURE OF RELIGION CHAPTER XII THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION An author audacious enough to write on the future of religion — as I shall do in the final chapter of this book — is perhaps less likely to be ridiculous if as a preparation he adds to an investigation of the origin and functions of religion a study of the trend of contemporary religious Hfe. In the past and present may be read a prophecy of the future. The present time abounds in religious movements pos- sessing the value of experiments. Let us learn from them what we can. Perhaps we shall discover what conceptions and practices the average man, dissatisfied with traditional Christianity, is ready to accept, and what may be their value to him. As we take up the new doctrines, let us keep in mind their relation both to the generalizations of science and to the belief in the anthropopathic Christian God. I shall consider successively the influence of pantheistic conceptions upon theistic religion, the psychotherapic cults, the Religion of Humanity of Auguste Comte, and the Eth- ical Culture Society. But first I shall introduce a few pages on original Buddhism, because this earliest attempt to establish a religion independent of supernatural per- sonal powers is too instructive to be omitted. I. Original Buddhism.^ — Buddhism, unlike the more primitive religions, is largely the creation of one man, the 1 The substance of these pages was first published in the second part of Religion, its Impulses and Ends, Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. LVIII, 1901, PP- 763-773- 281 282 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION Buddha Gautama. This fact simplifies considerably our task, because in the experiences which launched the founder upon his career, and in the doctrines he formulated, can be readily discerned the motives and purposes of original Buddhism. Would that we had a full record of the inner life of the young man in whom the new rehgion was germinating. His disgust and his yearning, his disappointments and his hopes, his sorrows and his loves, would make a precious contribution to the psychology of religion. Unfortunately history offers only meagre information on these points. Yet the Httle we know of Gautama's early life, taken to- gether with his subsequent activity, and particularly his teaching, is sufficient to make clear his motives. At the age of about twenty-nine, Siddharta, the son of an Indian prince, abandoned his father's palace and his own family to search for the peace of Nirvana. He thought to find it in a life of isolation and rigid penance. There is com- plete unanimity of opinion as to the cause of this conduct : Siddharta had tasted all the joys of life and had found them insufficient, delusive, or loathsome. From the rapid growth of Buddhism, we may conjecture that this Indian prince was not alone in his moral nausea. The views of human life entertained by the more serious Indians of the period were extremely gloomy. Kern writes : "What strikes us most is the emphatically pronounced dread of the miseries of life, of old age and death ; a dread inten- sified by the belief in perpetual rebirth, and consequently of repeated misery. All sects — barring the Sadducees of the epoch — agree in the persuasion that life is a burden, and unmixed evil. All accordingly strive to get liberated from worldly existence,, from rebirth, from Samsara." ^ 1 Kern, H., Manual of Indian Buddhism, Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, ed. by G. Buhler, III Band, 8 Heft, p. ii. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 283 When the famous Brahman, Kassapa of Urvela, had left all to join the new Teacher, and the astonished people asked him : — "What hast thou seen, O thou of Urvela, That thou, for penances so far renowned, Forsakest thus thy sacrificial fire ? I ask thee, Kassapa, the meaning of this thing : How comes it that thine altar lies deserted? " he answers : — " 'Tis of such things as sights, and sounds, and tastes, Of women, and of lusts, the ritual speaks. When these I saw to be the dregs of life, I felt no charm in offerings small or great." ^ But this pessimism was not all-embracing, or else it would not have given birth to a religion. The conviction that life is not worth living, deadening by itself, leads to irresistible activity when associated with the persuasion that there is a way of escape leading to the peace that " passeth understanding," a way not beyond the power of man to discover. This hopeful belief was shared by the seriously minded Indians of the time. Kern writes of the general state of religion in India at the advent of Gautama : " All [sects] are convinced that there are means to escape rebirth, that there is a path of salvation, a path consisting in conquering innate ignorance and in obtaining the highest truth." The successive steps of Gautama in the search for the path of salvation need not be given in detail here. His departure from home, his seclusion, his penances and fasting (he probably went through the technical Yoga practices), and, finally, the attainment of the Buddhahood, iThe first Kkandhaka, Chap. XXII, 5, quoted by Rhys Davids in his Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, Hibbert Lectures for 1881, p. 159. 284 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION have of late become almost as well known to the reading public as the chief events of the life of Christ. Our inquiry may be limited to an examination of the meaning of the term " Nirvana " and of the means used to attain that blessed state. " Nirvana " denotes the goal of the Buddhist's religious activity. The complete con- notation of the word is open to discussion ; but it is now generally granted that its meaning is not purely negative, as some formerly held ; it does not mean simply anni- hilation, suppression of life. A quotation from the Bud- dJiist Birth Stories will bring out its positive side : " When the fire of lust is gone out, then peace is gained ; when the fires of hatred and delusion are gone out, then peace is gained ; when the troubles of mind, arising from pride, credulity, and all the other sins, have ceased, then peace is gained ! Sweet is the lesson the singer makes me hear, for the Nirvana of Peace is that which I have been trying to find out. This very day I will break away from house- hold cares ! I will renounce the world ! I will follow only after Nirvana itself." ^ Whatever may have been the exact belief of the Buddhists concerning the end of their religious efforts, this at least may be regarded as estab- lished on the authority of Burnouf, Oldenberg, Barth, Kern, La Vallee Poussin, and others: Arahatship, the hmnediate Nirvana, is a bliss to be enjoyed on this earth, free from the disappointments of the senses and of the fear of death itself ; the Absolute Nirvana, the ultimate end, which can only be reached after death, is a "state" void for all eternity of the sufferings of the flesh and mind. The Absolute Nirvana implies a cessation of con- sciousness ; the doctrine of the Skandhas and that of Karma, both admitted by Gautama, lead unquestionably 1 Davids, Rhys, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, Hibbert Lectures for 1881, pp. 160, 161, 159. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 285 to annihilation of personality.^ But the Master never expressed himself definitely on this point. He is reported to have said that it is one of the questions which must be set aside as useless. Practically Nirvana means for the believer deliverance from suffering, — salvation, final and forever. We may well believe that few took the trouble to form a clear representation of the condition of the saved individual. It was enough for life's purpose to define it as the highest happiness. Does the modern Christian have a more dis- tinct idea of his future state .-' The thoroughly pragmatic and non-ritualistic nature of Buddhism cannot fail to be noticed. One cannot ap- proach the religion of Gautama from the point of view of traditional Christianity without being struck with two characteristics : the absence of ritualism, and a deeply grounded aversion to speculation. " Buddha does not deny the existence of certain beings called Indra, Agni, Varuna ; but he thinks that he owes nothing to them. . . . He does not busy himself with the origin of things ; he takes them just as they are, or as they appear to him to be ; and the problem to which he incessantly returns in his conversations is not that of being itself, but that of exist- ence. Still more than in the Vedanta of the Upanishads, his doctrine is confined to the doctrine of salvation." ^ If the disciple must learn and understand the real nature of man and the conditions of his existence, it is only in order to escape from the " fetter of delusion," and to be prepared to follow the path of salvation. Knowledge is the revealer of the path ; it is a means, not an end. The exclusively utilitarian purpose of primitive Buddhism is ^Kern, H., op. cit., pp. 46-54; Poussin, Louis de La Vallee, Etudes et Materiaux, pp. 43-46, 83-84. ^Barth, The Religions of India (tr. by the Rev. J. Wood), pp. 109-110, 286 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION unquestionable ; the way leading to freedom from suffering was Siddharta's quest, and the announcement of the "way" constitutes the burden of his preaching. The Dhanitnacakkappavattana formulates the gospel of the Hindu sage thus : — 1. " Birth is sorrow ; clinging to earthly things is sorrow. 2. " Birth and rebirth, the chain of reincarnations, result from the thirst for life together with passion and desire. 3. " The only escape from this thirst is in the annihila- tion of desire. 4. " The only way of escape from this thirst is by follow- ing the eightfold path : right belief, right resolve, right word, right act, right life, right effort, right thinking, right meditation." ^ That Buddha refused to enter upon metaphysical discus- sions concerning the soul, and that he held it irrelevant to reason upon the origin, nature, and existence of spiritual beings, is now a fact recognized by every authority. It is written in the SiUtas : — " It is by his consideration of those things which ought not to be considered [the gods and future existence] and by his non-consideration of those things which ought to be considered, that wrong leanings of the mind arise within him [the disciple]. 1 Dhammacakkappavattana, Hopkins, pp. 305-306. The eight fold path is thus interpreted by Rhys Davids: " I. Right views; free from superstition or delusion. 2. Right aims ; high, and worthy of the intelligent, earnest man. 3. Right speech; kindly, open, truthful. 4. Right conduct; peaceful, honest, pure. 5. Right livelihood; bringing hurt or dan- ger to no living thing. 6. Right effort; in self-training and in self-control. 7. Right mindfulness; the active, watchful mind. 8. Right contemplation; earnest thought on the deep mysteries of life." — Davids, Rhys, Sacred Books of the EffSi, Vol. XI, p. 144, introduction to Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 287 "Unwisely doth he consider thus: 'Have I existed during the ages that are past, or have I not ? What was I doing during the ages that are past ? How was I dur- ing the ages that are past ? Having been what, what did I become in the ages that are past? Shall I ex- ist during the ages of the future, or shall I not? What shall I be during the ages of the future ? How shall I be during the ages of the future ? '. . . Or he debates within himself as to the present : * Do I after all exist, or am I not ? How am I ? ' " In him thus unwisely considering, there springs up one or other of the six absurd notions [all of which are about the soul]. This, brethren, is called the walking in delusion, the jungle, the wilderness, the puppet-show, the writhing, the fetter of delusion ! " ^ Another peculiar and pregnant fact must be dwelt on an instant. If original Buddhism is a non-speculative religion, if it has no theology, it is because its salvation is to be se- cured by the individual's efforts, and not by the grace of any God. Let the Brahman discourse upon the origin, the na- ture, and the attributes of the gods, let him bow down to them in adoration, let him offer them sacrifices in the hope of securing their assistance ; the disciple of Buddha is to gain salvation for himself by himself. In one of his last conversations with Ananda, his beloved disciple, the Buddha, speaking of the future of the Brotherhood and of Ananda's desire that he would leave instructions touch- ing the Order, said: "The Tathagata [Gautama] thinks not that it is he who should lead the brotherhood. . . . Why then should he leave instructions in any matter con- cerning the order?" He then adverts to his approaching passing away, and continues : — ^ Davids, Rhys, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 88. For a similar passage, see Buddhism in Translations, H. C. Warren, pp. 11 7-1 28. 288 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION "Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves. "And whosoever, Ananda, either now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp unto themselves, and a refuge unto themselves, . . . and holding fast to the truth as their lamp . . . shall look not for refuge to any one besides themselves, it is they, Ananda, among the Blikkhus (the members of my society) who shall reach the very topmost height [Nirvana Arahatship] — but they must be willing to learn."! This proud individualism with regard to the means of salvation leaves no room for worship in original Buddhism. The Founder is merely the revealer of the Truth ; he is the Enlightener ; and only thus is he the Saviour. That is, the orthodox belief authorizes only a commemoration of the saints and of the symbols of their mission. If, never- theless, one finds among later Buddhists two methods by which the assistance of the gods is sought, — the Tantric and the Adoration methods,^ — they should be ascribed to the transformations of Buddhism which followed the death of Gautama. Shall we class this original Buddhism with religion, or shall we agree with Tiele that " Primitive Buddhism ignored religion".''^ With this opinion we shall have to 1 Davids, Rhys, op. cit., pp. 182, 183. 2 For a description of these methods, see La Vallee Poussin, op. cit., pp. 107, 108. 3 Tiele, C. P., Outline 0/ a History of Religion, p. 137. "Buddhism, in fact, rejected . . . the whole dogmatic system of the Brahmans, their worship, penance, and hierarchy, and simply substituted for them a higher moral teaching." (^Ibid., p. 136.) THE LATEST FORJVIS OF RELIGION 289 agree unless we can show that although original Buddhism disregarded gods, it made use, in its efforts to escape from the chain of reincarnation, of a psychic power transcend- ing man. On this point I can only say that certain methods adopted by Gautama and his early disciples sug- gest that they objectified Thought and Resolve somewhat as the psychotherapist objectifies Thought and Love, and the magician Will-Magic. This Power stood for the Bud- dhist as the deepest reality, the very essence of things. Little opportunity was provided for developing that concep- tion or the means of entering in relation with that Power, since Buddhism soon took unto itself much of what its founder had rejected, — in particular, a belief in personal divinities. In the Pali Pitakas and in certain Suttas, as well as else- where, there appears a belief in wonderful powers acquired by performing various rites. The adept may expect, for instance, "to hear with clear and heavenly ear, surpassing that of men, sounds both human and celestial ; to compre- hend by his own heart the hearts of other beings and of men [telepathy], to be able to call to mind his various temporary states in days gone by." ^ But here we are evidently in the sphere of magic and not of religion. The chief lesson that primitive Buddhism teaches the inquirer into the future of religion is the difficulty for men of the Hindu temperament, and at the intellectual level of the contemporaries of Gautama, to produce a religion based upon a belief in a non-personal psychic power. 2. Pantheism and immanence in theology. — Among the most significant aspects of the higher religions are the persistency with which pantheism crops out in theistic 1 Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Miiller, Vol. XI, Akankheyya Sutta. 290 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION religions, and the ease with which theism keeps in check pantheistic intrusions. Brahmanism rests upon pantheism, but it has never been free from theistic doctrines. Behind the all-including imper- sonal One, remained the pre-Brahmanic gods, Indra, Agni, Vishnu, etc. Brahma itself soon became personified. Sim- ilarly, Buddhism began as a godless religion, but the dis- ciples soon turned to gods for assistance.^ If pantheistic religions have not kept themselves free from gods, the theistic religions have failed to keep them- selves free from pantheistic conceptions. The rich Hel- lenic Pantheon had its pantheistic background. The Christian religion, also, has always included undercurrents of a pantheistic nature. The powerful mystical trend in the Christian Church is pantheistic ; and the recent move- ments we shall presently study are expressions of the same tendency. The vigor with which pantheism is pushing its way into modern religious life is not surprising ; for it is the expres- sion in religion of a type of conception which has triumphed in philosophy because of its greater logical consistency. In a world such as ours, a personal God, all-powerful and all-good, is a conception bristling with contradictions. The ^ " The mystical piety of India, when strictly pantheistic, knows nothing of the gratitude for Divine mercy and the trust in Divine righteousness which characterize evangelical piety. . . . When feelings like love, gratitude, and trust are expressed in the hymns and prayers of Hindu worship, it is in consequence of a virtual denial of the principle of pantheism. . . . Hinduism holds it to be a fundamental truth that the absolute Being can have no personal attributes, and yet it has not only to allow but to en- courage its adherents to invest that Being with these attributes in order that by thus temporarily deluding themselves they may evoke in their hearts at least a feetle and transient glow of devotion. ... It is the personal gods of Hindu polytheism, and not the impersonal principle of Hindu pantheism, that the Hindu people worship." {Anti-tkeistic Theories, Robert Flint, 6th ed., pp. 388-389.) THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 291 fact that the development of modern philosophy has been away from theism is shown by the " God " of Spinoza and that of Shelling, the "regulative idea" of Kant, the "abso- lute ego" of Fichte, the "absolute idea" of Hegel, and the various forms of present-day " absolute ideal- ism." The surprising thing is rather the tenacity of religious theism in the face of its rejection by philoso- phy. When, however, religion is understood to be a pursuit of practical ends, it is clear why this theory discarded by philosophy has lagged behind in religion. For, from the practical point of view, neither of these two conceptions is entirely satisfactory ; hence there is a ten- dency to use both, without much regard for logical consist- ency. The failure of pantheism entirely to displace theism indicates not so much a logical weakness of the former, as its insufficiency for the gratification of certain of the reli- gious needs of modern society. On the other hand, the rela- tive success of Christian theism in keeping its ground against pantheism is not a sign of the philosophical ade- quacy of theism, but rather an indication of its success in providing some of the things that man seeks in religion. The efforts at theological restatement now going on un- der the name Immanence disclose with striking clearness the need of religion for both pantheism and theism, and the indifference of pious souls to stringent consistency, provided the coveted values are secured. To set forth the leading features of this tendency, I can- not probably do better than draw from The New Theology, by Rev. R. J. Campbell. It is regarded, I believe, as ex- pressing very well the leading principles of the immanent movement as understood by the clergy. If we were con- cerned with a history of contemporary theology, I should 292 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION find it necessary to define certain terms more explicitly and to make distinctions that are quite beside the purpose of this book. I shall have accomplished my purpose if I make clear how deeply the Immanentists feel the insuffi- ciency of a theism that does not make possible the essen- tial oneness of man and God. Whether or not this oneness is consistent with Christian theism and with human person- ality is one of the questions by which they refuse to be embarrassed. The universe is God's thought about Himself, writes Campbell.^ God is the power which is finding expression in the universe and which is present in every tiniest atom of the wondrous whole. This power is the one reality we cannot get away from, for whatever else it may be, it is ourselves. Campbell affirms the essential oneness of God and man. There is no dividing line between our being and God's "except from our side." There is no substance but consciousness; mankind is of one substance with the Father. And so, when our finite consciousness ceases to be infinite, there will be no distinction whatever between our consciousness and God's. The distinction between finite and infinite is not eternal. " The being of God is a complex unity containing within itself and harmonizing every form of self-consciousness that can possibly exist." In spite of these statements, he maintains the distinctive- ness of man's personality, perhaps on the theory that the soul and the spirit are sharply separated: the soul we make, while "the spirit we can neither make nor mar, for it is at once our being and God's." He rejects the accusation that his doctrine is pantheistic in the sense of standing for a blind force, " a fate-God, 1 In the following statements, taken from The New Theology, Macmillan, New York, 1907, I have preserved as far as practicable the words of the author. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 293 ... a God Who does not even know what He is about." He adds : " My God is my deepest Self and yours too ; He is the Self of the Universe and knows all about it. . . . With Tennyson you can call this doctrine the Higher Pan- theism, if you like ; but it is the very antithesis of the Pantheism which has played such a part in the history of thought." And when people turn upon him, saying, " This view of the relationship of God to man, which you preach, hails not from Palestine but from Oxford," he does not deny its kinship to the Neo-Hegelianism of T. H. Green, but remarks that it is much older, and refers the critics to the mystic gospel of John. Whether it is older or not, it cannot but be clear to any one able to assume a critical attitude that Absolute IdeaUsm is not consistent with the kind of personal God with whom one can main- tain the social relation expressed in the Christian worship, both Roman Catholic and Protestant.^ Campbell finds it 1 Campbell has recognized only one logical difficulty as standing immov- ably in his way. But as he is preeminently a mystical moralist, and not a philosopher, he does not allow himself to be swerved from his course by this obstacle. " The only telling criticism that can be directed against it [his con- ception] is that which proceeds from the side of scientific Monism. A thor- oughgoing monist might reasonably contend that, up to a certain point, I have been arguing for a monistic view of the world, in company with practically the whole of the scientific world, and have then given the case away by ad- mitting a certain amount of individual freedom. I confess it looks like it ; I have had to face the antinomy. I see that there is no escape from the asser- tion of the fundamental unity of all existence ; and yet, by the very constitu- tion of the human mind, we are compelled to take for granted a certain amount to individual initiative and self-direction." (^The Ntw Theology, p. 41.) On the " true notion of the spiritual relation in which we stand to God," T. H. Green writes: "He is not merely a Being who has made us, in the sense that we exist as objects of divine consciousness in the same way in which we suppose the system of nature to exist, but that He is a Being in whom we exist ; with whom we are in principle one ; with whom the human spirit is identical, in the sense that He is all which the human spirit is cap- able of becoming." {^Prolegomena to Ethics.) Campbell is one of the theologians who have used the writings of William 294 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION possible, nevertheless, to deal with his pantheistic God like a loyal Christian theist, and thus he reaps the advantages of both pantheism and theism. This is no more than the Christian Mystics have always done. Many of the writings of the Society of Friends show the same combination of pantheism and theism that is typical of modern immanence theology. They set forth God as an external Power, which can filter into the human soul, and also as a Being who is the human spirit. One of the leaders of the progressive Friends writes, for in- stance, " We have ... a God ' in whom we live and move and are,' whose Being opens into ours and ours into His, Who is the very Life of our lives, the matrix of our per- sonality ; and there is no separation between us unless we make it ourselves." ^ He insists upon the "unity of con- sciousness": "Even the budding personahty betrays an infinite background and suggests an infinite foreground. What we really have, when the person appears, is the self-consciousness of the world, manifest at a focus point — a nnique expression of the eternal self — set free to make Ids individual contribution to the world of spiritual Being:"^ A clean-cut theism, making what seems an impassable gulf between God and man, is intolerable to such men as these; they would have both oneness of God and man, James to bolster up their theology. In order to explain the oneness of God and man he has recourse to the " subconscious mind " and draws from it the following propositions : i. We have a higher self and our limited conscious- ness does not involve a separate individuality. 2. The whole human race is fundamentally one — " Ultimately your being and mine are one and we shall come to know it." 3. The highest of ourselves, the ultimate Self of the Uni- verse, is God. 1 Jones, Rufus, Tke Double Search, John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia, p. 100. 2 Jones, Rufus, Social Law in the Spiritual World, John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia, p. 85. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 295 and the independent reality of each. " The true view, the proper formulation must hold that God is the inward prin- ciple and ground of the personal Hfe — the indwelling life and light of the soul, permeating all its activities." "The Inner Light, the true Seed, is no foreign substance added to an undivine human life. It is neither human nor divine. It is the actual inner self formed by the union of a divine and a human element in a single undivided life." ^ This doctrine is in substance that set forth by Sabatier,^ and, in fact, by the majority of those who to-day take a share in attempting to reform religious doctrines "from the in- side." ^ 3. Psychotherapic Cults : Christian Science ; Mind-Cure; New Thought. — The most noteworthy religious event since the Reformation is perhaps the appearance in the United States of a number of religious movements which may be grouped together under the designation of psychotherapic cults. The foremost of them is " Christian Science," founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. I hasten to add that the value of these cults does not, in my mind, belong to their " metaphysics," considered as a philosophical system. It is the product of ignorant and ill-trained minds. Much of it defies logic and offends com- mon sense. But the defects which in the eyes of many wholly damn these movements might conceivably be re- 1 Jones, Rufus, op. cii., p. 1 76. The italics are mine. 2 Sabatier, A., Religions of Authority, p. 307, 2 Oliver Lodge, a recognized scientist, writes in the same spirit : — " We are rising to the conviction that we are a part of nature, and so a part of God ; that the whole creation — the One and the Many and All-One — is travailing together toward some great end ; and that now, after ages of development, we have at length become conscious portions of the great scheme, and can cooperate in it with knowledge and joy." {Suggestions to- ward the Re-interpretation of Christian Doctrine, The Hibbert Journal, April, 1904, Vol. II, p. 475.) 296 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION moved, and there would remain important elements of a new religious faith acceptable to the modern world. In this chapter I shall try to show that the psychother- apic movements in their essential teaching are popularized and distorted formulations, on the one hand, of important truths regarding the " power of thought " over body to which psychology has recently given added significance, and, on the other, of a non-theistic philosophy alUed to the absolute idealism of modern metaphysics. Although they distort contemporary thought, they do not intend to oppose it. They wish rather to build upon it. These new cults are forcible reminders of the fact that belief in a Saving Power is a condition of the existence of religion, and also that the desire for deliverance from moral and physical miseries and for the realization of ideals con- tinues to be the motive of rehgious life, just as it was in the days of Gautama, the Enlightener, and of Jesus, the Healer. The mind-cure books announce "the discovery of the might of Truth in the treatment of disease as well as of sin,"^ "the vital law of true life, true greatness, power, and happiness." They claim to be " systems of transcendental medicine," or of " psychic therapeutics." They purpose to minister to those who " would exchange impotence for power, weakness and suffering for health and strength, pain and unrest for peace, poverty for fulness and plenty." They proclaim " the birthright of every man born into the world to be physically whole and mentally happy." Their claims have an extravagant sound, but no more so than those made for " faith " by the New Testament writers who declared it would remove mountains and secure eternal blessedness after death. Nothing but vital personal expe- riences could have inspired the enthusiasm and the assur- ^ Eddy, Mary G. Baker, Science and Health, 1908, Preface. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 297 ance with which these modern zealots proclaim the abound- ing efficacy of their "truth." If they call themselves Christians, it is not in the tradi- tional sense. Of traditional Christianity they speak re- spectfully, but they want a new dogmatics. They say, " The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity." ^ In another of their aggressive little books one reads : " Unrest is universal. The old landmarks are disappearing. . . . Creed and dogma are things of the past ; religious ceremonial and form no longer interest the masses." 2 The impression these cults have produced on thoughtful religious people is well expressed in this passage : — " Renan with his usual intuition declared that if it [the religion of the future] were already in our midst, few of us would know it. "The prediction has proved true. The new religious movement, Christain Science, has spoken a language so foreign to cultivated ears, its interpretation of the Bible is so false, it is so obviously committed to errors, illusions, and aberrations of every sort, that the intelligent have been disposed to shrug their shoulders in contempt and to ignore it. And yet they have not been able to ignore it altogether. Every once in a while this curious superstition proves its existence with un- expected power. We see a hard-headed business man totally devoid of religious sentiment undergo a new kind of conversion which leaves him as devout and ardent as a Christian of the first century. An ailing wife or daughter whom no physician has been able to help, through some mysterious means is restored to health and happiness. The victim of an enslaving habit, apparently with very little effort and without physical means, sufferings, or relapse, finds himself free. We enter a home where the new belief reigns and we find there a peace to which we are strangers. " All over the country solid and enduring temples are reared by grateful hands and consecrated to the ideal and name of Mrs. Eddy. And this strange phenomenon has occurred in the full light of day, at 1 Eddy, Mary G. Baker, Science and Health, 1908, Preface. "^ Patterson, Charles B., A New Heaven and a New Earth, Preface. 298 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the end of the nineteeth and at the beginning of the twentieth century, and these extraordinary doctrines have propagated themselves not in obscure corners of the earth, among an ilHterate and fanatical popula- tion, but in the chief centres of American civilization. Such facts may well cause the philosophical student of religion to reflect." ^ In these movements is restored the alliance between the art of healing the body and the art of healing the soul, which was always a leading characteristic of the higher reHgions during their period of greatest vitality. To the masses the most impressive aspect of religions has always been their power to heal the body. It was so in the early ministry of Christ and during the first Christian centuries. It is so now with these psychotherapists. And this re- vival acquires great significance from the fact that it can now be grounded upon the deeper understanding of the interrelation of mind and body which we owe to modern science.^ My chief effort will be to get from the writings of the leaders of these therapeutic schools a clear idea of the power which they expect to regenerate humanity, and then to consider its adequacy. Whatever their affiliations, these writers practically agree on the points that most interest us. 1 Worcester, Elwood ; McComb, Samuel ; Coriat, Isador H., Religion and Medicine, New York, 1908, pp. 8-10. 2 Speaking of the four Satyani of Gautama {i.e. the four axioms of certain- ties: suffering, cause, suppression, the path], Kern says: " It is not difficult to see that these four Satyas are nothing else but the four cardinal articles of Indian medical science, applied to the spiritual healing of mankind, exactly as in the Yoga doctrine. This connection of the Aryasatyas with medical science was apparently not unknown to the Buddhists themselves." And concerning the twelvefold causal root of the evil world, the twelve Nidanas (causes), he declares that they stand to the four Satyas " in the same relation as pathology to the whole system of medical science." Now the four truths and the twelve causes are fundamental facts upon which Gautama's scheme of deliverance is built. (Kern, Manual of Buddhism, Grundriss der Indo- Arichen Philologie und Altertumskunde, III Band, 8 Heft, pp. 46-47.) THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 299 I do not shrink from beginning with brief quotations from two of the most extravagant and crude of them ; for even they find followers among people who prove themselves intelligent and sensible in the affairs of Ufe. T. Troward, a leader of Mental Science (not a disciple of Mrs. Eddy), late divisional judge in Punjab, and Edin- burgh Lecturer on Mental Science, teaches the existence of an unlimited, impersonal, though intelligent Power, which man may press into service, or appropriate to himself. His view of man's relation to that Power is curious. The individual can call it into action and give it direction, " be- cause it is in itself impersonal though intelligent." " It will receive the impress of his personaUty, and can there- fore make its influence felt far beyond the limits which bound the individual's objective perception of the circum- stances with which he has to deal. It is for this reason that I lay so much stress on the combination of two apparent op- posites in the Universal Mind, the union of intelligence with impersonality. . . . How do we know what the intention of the Universal Mind may be ? Here comes in the ele- ment of impersonality. It has no intention, because it is impersonal. . . . Combining, then, these two aspects of the Universal Mind, ... we find precisely the sort of nat- ural force we are in want of, something which will undertake whatever we put into its hands without asking questions or bargaining for terms, and which, having undertaken our business, will bring to bear on it an inteUigence to which the united knowledge of the whole human race is as noth- ing, and a power equal to this intelHgence. " ^ I find it difficult to conceive of an unlimited impersonal intelligence which has no intention and which individual intelligence may direct. But in fairness to the abstruse 1 Troward, T., T^e Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science, The Arcane Book Concern, 1909, Chicago, pp. 66-68. 300 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION Judge, I must add that this difficulty is no greater than that presented by Hegel's conception of the Absolute Mind. In the work of W. F. Evans we meet a consistent pan- theism. He strives to give to his opinions an impressive background compounded of modern science, antique pan- theism, and modern idealism. How vast and accurate is his knowledge appears in the following passage. " The soul of man is a part of the anima ynundi, the soul of the world." The power of the healing thought " issues from the spiritual world of which our minds are apart, for all ideas belong to that boundless realm of life." " It is stored up in exhaustless and overflowing abundance in the bosom of nature ... it can be controlled in its lower degrees of manifestation by the intelligent will of man, which is the highest form of its development and expression." "This grand whole . . . the universal world of spiritual intelli- gence is called in Sanscrit, Addi-Budda. In the writings of Paul it is called The Christ. ... It is identical with what is called magnetism, and it is also that which the philosophers have called the divine Jiotis." ^ One of the ablest and sanest writers of New Thought, Ralph Waldo Trine, in a book which has passed its seventy- fifth thousand, also announces a pantheistic gospel of an infinite power at the service of man. " The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of Infinite Life and Power that is back of all, that animates all, that manifests itself in and through all ; that self-existent principle of life from which all has come, and not only from which all has come, but from which all is continually coming." " This Infinite Power is creating, working, ruling through the agency of great immutable laws and forces that run 1 Evans, W. F., The Primitive Mind- Cure : Elementary Lessons in Chris- tian Philosophy and Transcendental Medicine. .THE LATEST FOR]MS OF RELIGION 301 through all the universe, that surround us on every side. Every act of our every day lives is governed by these same great laws and forces." " In a sense there is nothing in all the great universe but law." But the presence of laws indicates a force back of them. " This Spirit of Infinite Life and Power that is back of all is what I call God." " God, then, is this Infinite Spirit which fills all the uni- verse with Himself alone, so that all is from Him and in Him, and there is nothing that is outside. . . . He is . . . our very life itself." " In essence the life of God and the life of man are identically the same, and so are one. They differ not in essence, in quality ; they differ in degree." "... if the God-powers are without limit, does it not then follow that the only limitations man has are the limi- tations he sets to himself, by virtue of not knowing himself .? " " The great central fact in human life, in your life and in mine, is the coming into a conscious, vital realization of our oneness with this Infinite Life, and the openifig of our- selves to this divine overflow^ This means simply " that we are recognizing our true identity, that we are bringing our lives into harmony with the same great laws and forces, and so opening ourselves to the same great inspirations as have all the prophets, seers, sages, and saviours in the world's history, all men of truly great and mighty power." ^ He does not hesitate to use the term " God-man." Christian Science. — It seems almost incredible that one professing to be a Christian should teach the impersonality of the divine nature. And yet this is undoubtedly what Mrs. Eddy does, and in this respect she agrees with those 1 Trine, Ralph Waldo, In Tune with the Infinite or Fulness of Peace, Power, and Plenty, Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., New York, pp. 1 1-20. 302 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION from whom I have just quoted. The term that she prefers as a name for the Divine Power is Principle. As syno- nyms she uses Life, Truth, Love, God. In the earUer edi- tions of Science and Health, it is written that God " is not a person, God is Principle." ^ This is undoubtedly the standpoint of her later writings also. But in them, prob- ably because of the pressure of adverse public opinion, she insists less than at the beginning of her career upon the impersonality of Principle, and the word " person " appears more frequently. "Once in 1898, Mrs. Eddy hints that God may be personal * if the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality,' and Mr. Farlow in 1907 assures the Rev. Edgar P. Hill that Mrs. Eddy does believe that ' God is person in the infinite sense.' "^ Yet in the seventy-third edition of No and Yes, 1 Eddy, Mary G. Baker, op. cit., 3d ed., 1881, I, 67; II, 97. 2 Powell, Lyman P., Christian Science, the Faith and its Founder, pp. 139-140. I take the following passages from the same book. " Principle in her theology gathers up into itself all the concepts we habitually associate with God, except the most important — personality. Before her book appeared in 1S75, she was telling her pupils, as two of them informed me, that they could make no progress till they had banished from their minds the thought of God as a person. She instructed Richard Kennedy ' to lay special stress ' in heal- ing patients on the impersonality of God. This is the commanding thought that rings through the first chapter of the first edition of Science and Health." " Mrs. Eddy's pantheism is unnecessary, and yet its origin was inevitable in a mind as literal as hers. Quimby often spoke of God as Principle. In the Quimby manuscript from which, for several years, Mrs. Eddy taught, no sentence is more startling than the sentence, ' God is Principle.' " " For more than thirty years Mrs. Eddy has been solemnly asserting that in 1866 she received a ' final revelation.' Now this ' final revelation,' which was finally as well as first expressed in 1875, in Science and Health, is satu- rated with thought that God is not a person. In the very first chapter we are informed that ' God is Principle, not person ' [I do not find that expression in the first chapter of the 1908 edition, but it is in No and Yes, published in 1909], that Jesus preached the impersonality of God, that the error of believ- ing in the personality of God that crucified Jesus, that the trouble with con- THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 303 published in 1909, a pamphlet intended "to correct invol- untary as well as voluntary error," we read : " Is there a personal Deity ? God is Infinite. He is neither a limited mind nor a limited body. God is Love ; and Love is Prin- ciple, not person. What the person of the Infinite is, we know not ; but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of the fatherliness of this Supreme Being. God is individual, and man is his individualized idea. . . . Limitless person- ality is inconceivable. ... Of God as person, human reason, imagination, and revelation give us no knowledge. " When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity it may seem distant and cold, until better apprehended. This Principle is Mind, Substance, Life, Truth, Love. When understood, Principle is found to be the only term that fully conveys the ideas of God, — one Mind, a perfect Man, and divine Science." ^ This Principle, though not a person, "is intelligence." Although she wrote, " God is All in all," and " All in all is God," 2 she will not be called a pantheist. In the edition of No and Yes already quoted, she claims that " Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind. It shows that matter and mortal mind have neither origin nor existence in the eternal Mind. . . . For God to know, is to be ; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally exist. If He knows matter, and matter cannot exist in Mind, then mor- tality and discord must be eternal." ^ Her pantheism is in any case not materialistic, since she holds matter to be unreal, a deception of mortal Mind. Hers is an idealistic pantheism, such as an ignorant person ventional Christianity to-day is that it makes God a person. ..." (Pages 137-140.) 1 Eddy, No and Yes, 1909, pp. 19, 20. 2 Eddy, Science and Health, 1S98, p. 7. 8 Eddy, No and Yes, pp. 15, 16. 304 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION of a thoroughly optimistic temperament might evolve on the basis of imperfect knowledge of Absolute Idealism and from observations of the mastery of mind over body. The writings of Mrs. Eddy's disciples reflect the uncriti- cal, pantheistic idealism of their leader. Their favorite phrases are such as these : " God's presence is the presence of love " ; " God is life everywhere present " ; " One life fills all, it is the Perfect Life." The similarity of the essential aspects of New Thought and Christian Science to the mystical element in Christianity is evident. Both give clear expression to the anti-isolation motive, to a dynamic belief in oneness-with-the-whole, and both feel the essence of the cosmic plasma to be love, Man is steeped in all-embracing Love. He need only place himself in unison with the everlasting, all-compre- hending life-force and the fulness of life will be his. How love can be an attribute of an impersonal power does not seem to give Mrs. Eddy one moment of uneasiness. In their curative practices, the psychotherapic cults have the benefit of the recent discoveries concerning the effects of suggestion. Regarding their methods, I may say here merely that they tend to place the person, as do the prac- tices of the other ethical religions, in a state of increased suggestibility, a state described in part by the words re- laxedness, collectedness, monoideism, meditation, commun- ion. This condition of the subject aids greatly in the realization of the expected benefits. The efficacy of these curative methods is sufficiently demonstrated by the won- derful extension of the movements. In every walk of life people bear witness to the saving grace that is in Christian Science or in New Thought, The forces of a new life have welled up within them ; the burdens of existence have lightened, nay, have disappeared ; and now they THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 305 walk through life contented, hopeful, and aggressively benevolent.^ Unnecessary importance is attached by the critical pubHc to the vagaries of Christian Science and of New Thought ; for instance, to the meaning and consequence they ascribe to their denial of the reality of matter as they appear in certain aspects of their treatment of disease ; and in the wild hopes of some of their prophets that "the time will certainly come when the highly developed man will have the p'ower to lay down or take up his life through a conscious knowledge of the laws of eternal being and the direct application of these laws to his own life." ^ But the 1 The following is an example of what people find in Christian Science apart from the cure of disease : — " I accepted Science and Health without expecting it to offer more than a human theory about life, — even the name did not lead me to expect it to be religious; in fact, the chief incentive to my reading it at that time was the great kindness and sincere sympathy evinced by my friend, who placed a copy at my disposal. ... I started timidly at first, and prayerfully, lest it should be misleading, but before I had gone very far I experienced that won- derful spiritual quickening which is so often spoken of in our meetings. I wish I could tell exactly what that experience meant to me, the wonderful awakening I had; how old things vanished and all things became new. It seemed as if the burdens, perplexities, doubts, and fears had all suddenly rolled away; as if the sun had emerged from behind the clouds, and every- thing was again bright and beautiful. "And what a feeling of strength, hope, and courage came! Those old troublesome questions, especially the question of death, were explained, and I felt a wonderful release to know that death was not of God. I read and reread the latter part of the chapter on Christian Science Practice, where that glorious truth is explained; it was so beautiful, so natural, and so true. There was such perfect joy to me in that freedom, that I used to declare over and over again, of those who had just passed from us (the members of our home circle), 'They are not dead'; and so free was I made from the old bondage, that never since then has the thought of that change affected me as it did before." {Christian Science Sentinel, December 3, 1901.) ^ Patterson, Charles B., op. cit.. Preface. When I say " wild hopes," I speak as the prosaic man that I am. No less X 3o6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION denial of the reality of matter, when understood as a denial of the existence of a substance essentially different from spirit and having separate existence, so far from being sheer nonsense, is the very doctrine maintained by the dominant philosophical school, namely idealism. This philosophy holds that independent matter is an illegitimate inference from sensation and feeling, and that the only reality for which " matter " can stand is of a nature one with spirit. Much of the jeering leveled at the Christian Scientist's denial of the reahty of matter is made possible only by ignorance of that teaching. An apologist of the psychotherapic sects would be justified in making the following claims : — (i) The salvation they promise is, first of all, for this life. (2) The soul is not saved independently of the body. The nefarious asceticism of older faiths is impossible on the principles of Christian Science. (3) Their ideal involves efficiency in the conduct of this life. (4) Their conception of salvation is free from anything miraculous. They dispense with the wonders of the Fall, of the self-sacrifice of a divine personage, and of salvation by his atonement. (5) They divert attention from the sense of guilt and suffering, and direct it to an immediately accessible healing and invigorating power. (6) Although they usually define the aim of life in terms of power, happiness, and love, they cannot fairly be charged either with insensitiveness to moral values, or with indif- ference to the ethical advancement of mankind. a philosopher than Bergson has expressed that same hope of overcoming death, in a passage which I quote later on. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 307 (7) Despite its extravagance, their " metaphysics " may- be resrarded as a crude and distorted formulation of a o Wc/tanschauung made unavoidable by modern knowledge, — a Wcltaiischamtng opposed in several important respects to the traditional, but no longer acceptable, Christian phi- losophy. (8) These cults have proved their value by their results. In estimating the chances of continued life of religious movements, one should bear in mind that vitally beneficial beliefs may carry a heavy load of error and even of ab- surdity. The Christian rehgion was not destroyed by the expectation of the second coming of the Lord and of the end of the world, by extravagant notions of the power of faith, by absurd or incomprehensible doctrines regarding the means of salvation, the resurrection of the body, and the like. There is enough substantial, practical truth in Chris- tianity to bear the enormous doctrinal dead-weight it carries even to this day. It may be possible for the psychotherapic doctrines to be purified in a reformation which would either remove entirely or drive into side currents most of the offensive tenets. 4. The religion of humanity. — The expression " religion of democracy" is heard with increasing frequency. It usually means merely devotion to the principles of demo- cratic government. In this sense the " religion of democ- racy " does not concern us. But it is used at times in a sense inclusive of the leading ideas of the Religion of Humanity of Auguste Comte. The founder of Positivism acknowledges at the root of every ethical rehgion two essential needs for which religion must provide. They find expression in two common be- liefs : (<^) the belief in a great universal Being, with 3o8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL^ STUDY OF RELIGION whom the human soul may communicate, and from whom it may receive strength to overcome egoism and to work for the common good; {b) the beUef in personal immor- tality, which is the ordinary form of the conviction of the indestructibility of the good, or, as Professor Hoffding would say, of the " belief in the persistency of value." In the religion by which Comte sought to complete his philosophical work, God is replaced by the Grand Eire, Humanity. This conception has for him the advantage of being based upon facts and not upon imagination, as is the theological idea of God. But does the idea of Humanity really satisfy the two requirements of an adequate religion .-' Yes, thinks Comte, provided the Grand Eire is properly understood. Humanity thought of as merely the collection of the men actually living could not replace the idea of God. But Humanity is to be conceived as " a continuity ; a solidarity in time composed of all the good and generous feelings, thoughts, and deeds of men. It is the supraspatial Being in which the tutelary influences and the groping and transitory individual efforts are purified and organized, and thus, becoming fixed and permanent, acquire immortal life." " Humanity so understood is the God whom men seek : a real, immense, and eternal existent with whom they are in relation and in whom they live and have their being. Out of the reservoir of moral forces accumulated in that Being throughout the centuries, great thoughts and noble feelings flow out to man. Humanity is the Great Being who Hfts us up above ourselves and communicates to us the com- plements of strength we require in order to overcome our egotistic leanings." " In humanity the individuals see the realization of their desire for immortality, for it gathers up, preserves, and in- corporates into itself whatever belongs to its essence, what- THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 309 ever makes it greater, more beautiful, and more powerful. ^ It is made up entirely of the thoughts and feelings of real men, and it is composed much more of the dead than of the living. The dead live in the tender and efficacious memories of the present generations. . . ." 2 This Great Being, who is to perform towards humanity the essential services of the Christian God, clearly differs from the latter in not being omnipotent and superhuman. " The idea of an omnipotent and superhuman deity," writes Frederic Harrison, for many years the leader of the Eng- lish Positivists, " cannot be compared with the idea of a collective human civilization." " Humanity is an ideal as- semblage of human beings, living, dead, and unborn, and (presumably) without any collective personality or con- sciousness."^ Its limitations, errors, and disabilities are recognized ; yet its possibilities are indefinitely great and magnificent. Comte, then, wanted to organize a new religion around the unifying conception of a dynamic, spiritual power, ac- tualized at any moment in living humanity, — a power con- taining in itself whatever of the past achievements of men are incorporated in the present civilization ; a power, furthermore, growing with the growth of every individual and pointing forward towards a future in which man's dearest aspirations will be realized in the social life. ^ The form of immortality which Comte offers in the Religion of Humanity will not seem to Christian believers a satisfactory substitute for the belief in the immortality of the individual soul. But if that belief is one that science can- not admit, man will have to reconcile himself to its loss. What most needs to be repeated is that reconciliation costs man, on the whole, very little. Belief in individual immortality is not as necessary to man as the small minority who talk about it would make it appear. Man gets along perfectly well without it. Our behavior shows that we are very well organized to live an individually finite life on this temporary planet. 2 Boutroux, Emile, Science and Religion, Flammarion, Paris, 1909, p. 54. • Harrison, Frederic, Annual Address, 1902. 3IO A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The philosophical critic may say that in this, the culmi- nating part of his work, Comte has departed from the positivistic principles he laid down at the beginning. But the logical consistency of Comte's philosophical and reli- gious construction does not concern us. The questions we have to consider refer to the possibility of man's accepting and laying hold of this idea of Humanity so as to find in it the essential values men seek in religion. The assumption of the existence of the power implied in this notion of Humanity is certainly not in opposition either to science or to logic. We do in a very real sense live upon the material and spiritual inheritance which rep- resents strivings and achievements of past generations, and to our descendants we shall pass on this inheritance, to- gether with that which we shall have been able to add to it. And the thought of the great men of the past arouses in us a stimulating anticipation of still greater men to come. But can this idea of a power made manifest in society and leading to social consolidation and happiness take hold of the mind and heart of the masses of men ; can it inspire them with hope, trust, courage ; can it wake up in them dormant possibilities ? Comte believed that his Su- preme Being was " more readily accessible to our feelings, as well as to our thinking " than the " chimerical beings of the existing religions." ^ Yet the history of the Rehgion of Humanity seems to a give negative answer to my query. The Religion of Humanity has had and still has a number of ardent disciples, but it has not spread beyond very small circles, in Paris, London, and in some of the South Ameri- can countries. Christian Science, on the other hand, though loaded with delusions, gives signs of irrepressible vitality. The Religion of Humanity, even if it were 1 Comte, Auguste, Catechisme Posiliviste (1891), pp. 53, 55. THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 311 heavily handicapped with absurd notions, would thrive, pro- vided its central idea got hold of men. So long as humanity remains divided in antagonistic nations, and these nations are so far from a fully organized brotherhood, can it be hoped that the idea of the Great Being will seem a reality to the ordinary man ? Will he not rather gather from his experiences that antagonistic selfish forces contend for mastery ? Just as the physical world appears to the un- civilized to be ruled by a multitude of gods, so must the present social life appear to its semimoralizcd members, not the expression of one great power, but rather of a mul- tiplicity of warring forces. Yet the power that is in the ideas of family, of social and business "set," of country, cannot be doubted. The deplorable habit of referring to religion instead of to the common relations of life as the source of ethical enlighten- ment and stimulus makes us blind to the fact that to-day most men and woman derive whatever strength they may have to maintain their integrity and to devote themselves to the public good from their respect and love for their family, their friends, their business associates, and the state, and from their desire for the respect and love of men, much more than from any religious conviction. It is no longer the consciousness of God, but the consciousness of Man that is the power making for righteousness. What the sense of human fellowship can do when circumstances awaken it is a matter of history. Students of the future of religion, and especially critics of the Religion of Human- ity, should not forget the great patriots, who were just as powerfully moved to action by the thought of the fragment of humanity to which they belonged as were Loyola, Luther, and John Wesley by the thought of their relation with God. Nor should they forget the testimony which nations have frequently borne to the power of the idea of 312 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION the brotherhood of man ; fof instance, the splendid out- burst of generous enthusiasm of the early days of the French Revolution, together with the sadly misdirected devotion to the public good which followed, and, to-day, the heroism of thousands in Russia who are ready to make the last sacrifice in order that their fellow-countrymen may live. In the establishment of a new religion, a most important consideration is that of the means available to provide a cult in which all may participate. A way must be found for keeping before men's minds the ideal Power and for entering into relation with it. The failure of Comtism is to be ascribed partly to the difficulty of providing satisfac- tory means for collective devotion. Comte was fully awake to the necessity of providing a cult, and he was willing to draw freely upon the resources of sentiment and imagina- tion, for he did not fear that his disciples might mistake symbols for realities. Love, the cement of society, was to be symbolized by woman. In woman the beauty and the power of love was to be objectified and celebrated. He would, further, poetically personify Humanity under the name Grand Eire, the earth as the Great Fetich, and space as the Grand Milieii. The usefulness of these symbols may well be questioned. The Comtist cult as practised now consists mainly of a commemoration of great men and of great social events. Some of the Positivist societies have instituted sacraments : the sacrament of presentation of new members, the sacrament of initiation, and others. It is incontestable that this Godless religion accomplishes for the few who practise it essentially that which Christi- anity does for its adherents. The following paragraphs, with which I bring this chapter to a close, will convey the temper of the Positivist services : — THE LATEST FORMS OF RELIGION 313 " We meet here to-day to celebrate the festival of Human- ity. By thought and by feeling we seek to enter into the presence of that assemblage of noble lives who, from the earliest ages until now, have labored for the benefit of men, and have left a store of material and of spiritual good from which all the blessings of our present life have issued. Before the resistless power of this unseen host we bow in thankful submission ; knozviug well that of ourselves we are insufficient, either to see or to do what is right. Whatever wider thoughts or generous impulses prompt us to rise above ourselves, and to live unselfishly, come to us from the higher source. They are the free gift of humanity T In the course of the first address, which begins with the preceding lines, the speaker makes his point still clearer. *' Each one of us has now to ask himself how far the faith which he professes is in any true sense a religion to him ; how far it enables him to pray. I use that old word because there is absolutely no other that expresses the facts of the case so simply. After every wish that the laws of nature may be suspended for our individual benefit has been unflinchingly set aside, the final meaning of the word remains ; rather, it appears for the first time in all its purity. To pray is to form the ideal of our life, by entering into communion with the Highest." "With this loftier and purer conception of prayer, it is very evident that Positivists are in complete sympathy. Nay, it is clear that so far as such a conception is formed, it is not merely in sympathy with Positivism, but is itself wholly and entirely Positivist." ^ But do we not detect here something more than the idea of Humanity as Comte framed it .^ Has not atranshuman power been smuggled in } We shall presently, in a criticism of Comte's religion, return to this query. 1 Bridges, J. H., M. B., Discourses on Positive Religion, First Address. The italics are mine. CHAPTER XIII THE FUTURE OF RELIGION I. THE PRESENT SITUATION The statement that religion is a thing of the past, or that it may do for women and children but not for men, does not mean that there are no longer any human needs which religion might gratify, but merely that modern knowledge has made the traditional religions, beliefs, and practices in- acceptable. As a matter of fact, human needs have not grown fewer nor less urgent. Civilization has not done away with the struggle for life, although food and shelter have become assured to most people. Relief from anxiety for the immediate necessities of physical existence has sim- ply removed the struggle to a higher level; higher cravings have become more pressing. Never before, perhaps, have so many persons in quest of a nobler, richer life, suffered so keenly from the resistance of their in- herited animal instincts and from the hindering customs of a crudely organized society. In larger numbers than ever before, and, I believe, with greater earnestness, also, men aspire to the fulness of life which can come only through the freedom born of moral integrity and of right and sympathetic relations with one's fellow-men. So that the benefits, material and spiritual, which it has been the function of religion to confer, are desired now as much as ever ; but the number of those who can derive these bene- fits from the existing religions is greatly diminished. For help in the pursuit of their moral ideals, men are as ready as ever to turn to any available agent or agency. 314 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 315 The willingness of our contemporaries to make use of reli- gious means of assistance is strikingly demonstrated by the pathetic efforts of thousands to continue in the service of religions in which they no longer have a rational belief, and by the persistent gropings of those who have severed their connection with the churches to recover their loss by some new faith and practice. Reckless and debasing compromises with intellectual truth in a short-sighted effort to secure moral good, and a restless search after rationally tenable beliefs mark this age of religious disso- lution. The question before the student of religion is not whether religion is still needed, but what sort of religion can be accepted by the present generation. The one essential respect in which the religious situation is changed is the general absence of a bona fide belief in personal divinities. The leaders in philosophy, science, literature, and even in religion, as well as increasing numbers of the rank and file, reject openly or secretly the traditional Christian beUef in a Divine Father in direct communica- tion with man. Their occasional attempts to harmonize traditional practices with their disbelief make the dis- crepancy appear only the more clearly. In the golden age of Christian faith, "God was present even physically, and at each breath of wind He was felt as if behind a curtain. They believed then in God in a con- tinual practical way, and as if He were present in the smallest occurrences of life. Everywhere was the invisible Protector. The heavens above were open, peopled with living figures, with patrons manifest and attentive. The bravest soldier walked in an habitual mingling of fear and trust, like a little child." ^ " ' If God hates you, you are done 1 Sainte-Beuve, quoted by Leon Gautier in La Chevalerie, p. 34, abbre- viated. 3i6 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION for,' says Gueri le Sor to Comte de Cambrai, as he was reproaching him for having just burned a monastery to- gether with the nuns."i " Roland, in the Chanson de Ro- land, dying on the rocks of Roncevaux, reaches out his glove to God with a gesture which signifies the homage of the vassal to his lord. God was as real to him as his own feudal lord." Contrast this simple belief and behavior with the impli- cations of the following advice offered by a prominent educator. He conceives of God as " an infinite power, immanent in all life and all nature, but working through law, not under the action of human-like motives and pur- poses." Nevertheless, he finds it possible to write : " It seems, therefore, clear to me that, in the sense that I have used the words, all serious men, whatever their intellectual training, must pray, not perhaps for material help, not in expectation that the laws of the universe shall be changed at their request, not even primarily for strength to live rightly and justly, but as the supreme effort of the human soul to know God. . . . And whether that which we call prayer be a direct communication with Him as our Heav- enly Father, or whether it be a communion with our higher consciousness, which is in touch with Him, in either case the time can never come when a human soul will not rise from such a communion purified and strengthened, with new hope and new patience, and with a more serene view of his own duty and his own future." ^ To pray to an infinite Power who cannot be expected at the request of man to change the laws of nature, is not the old child- like prayer ! Prayer is recommended here, even though no God is known who can answer it, because, somehow, it "works." The student of religion cannot, of course, 1 Gautier, Leon, La Chevalerie, p. 51. 2 Pritchett. Henry S., What is Religion ? pp. 86, 93. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 317 rest satisfied with this empirical solution of the problem of prayer. 2. PANTHEISM : PROS AND CONS The attempts to formulate strictly pantheistic religions have resulted in failure. The newest pantheism, that of Mrs. Eddy, was stillborn. Her followers have not been able to deal with " Principle" as she intended; they have identified it with the Christian Father. The shortcomings of pantheism have been repeatedly formulated under three heads : pantheism does not satisfy the heart's demand for sympathetic relations with a Great Personal Being ; it cannot be an ally in moral struggles ; it involves a denial of individual freedom. The argument in support of the first objection runs as follows : strict pantheism denies to God " fatherly love, providential care, redeeming mercy." " Instead of love and communion in love, it can only commend to us the contem- plation of an object which is incomprehensible, devoid of all affections. . . . When feelings like love, gratitude, and trust are expressed in the hymns and prayers of Hindu worship, it is in consequence of a virtual denial of the prin- ciples of pantheism." ^ That pantheistic religions cannot provide the support craved by the ethical nature of man is the strongest argu- ment that can be brought against them. There can be no morality in a pantheism, "since the worst passions and vilest actions of humanity are states and operations of the One Absolute Being." When stoicism is offered as an in- stance of sublime moral doctrine rooted in a pantheistic interpretation of life, the retort is at hand that " Stoicism 1 Flint, Robert, Anti-Tkeistic Theories, William Blackwood and Sons, 1899. P- 388. 3i8 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION escaped the moral consequences of its pantheism only by disregarding speculative consistency, and asserting the most manifest contradictions." ^ Frederic Harrison, writing in the Nincteetith Cejitury, put forcibly, if somewhat rhetorically, both this and the former argument. " There lies this original blot on every form of philosophical Pantheism, when tried as a basis of rehgion, or as the root idea of our lives, that it jumbles up the moral and the immoral, the non-human and the ante- human in the world . . , virtue and vice, suffering and victory, etc. " Go then, with the Gospel of Pantheism to the father- less and the widow, and console them by talking of sunsets, or the universal order ; tell the heartbroken about the per- mutations of energy ; ask the rich tyrant to remember the sum of all things and to listen to the teaching of the Anima Miindi ; explain to the debauchee and the glutton and the cheat, the Divine essence permeating all things and causing all things — including his particular vice, his passions, his tastes, his greed, and his lust. ... In agony, struggle, rage of passion and interest, the suffering look of a child, the sympathetic voice of a friend, the remonstrance of a teacher, the loving touch of a wife, is stronger than the Force of the solar system, more beautiful and soothing than a sunset on the pinnacles of the Alps."^ If the only argument against pantheism were the one I have named in third order ; namely, that it denies indi- vidual freedom, its religious usefulness would hardly be endangered ; for life is not materially affected by specu- lations as obscure as those regarding Determinism and Free Will. In such matters man walks by faith. Because of these three weaknesses of pantheism it is 1 Flint, op. cit., p. 398, 2 Harrison, Frederic, Nineteenth Century, Vol. X, 1 88 1, pp. 289-290. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 319 held that " from the point of view of practical needs and interests pantheism is far less satisfactory than theism ; we cannot conceive of a personal, moral, or religious rela- tion to the universe or an aspect of it, except in a very- confused and fanciful way." This opinion, which may be found in nearly every treatise on philosophy, must be accepted on the whole as valid. But we have not done justice to pantheism, considered as a basis for religion, until we have recognized its supe- riority over theism in one important respect. The con- sciousness of the identity of the self with the Whole is for people of a certain temperament an experience so exquisite and of so great practical value that, had they to choose be- tween theism and pantheism, they would prefer the latter. As a matter of fact, they do not choose, they make use of both conceptions. Poets as well as religious mystics have made us familiar with this experience : — " And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with joy Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things." ^ For St. Francis of Assisi, the odors and lights of nature always had an intimate message. He loved the earth and its creatures as he loved God and man. When on leaving Verna not long before his death, he arrived at the gap from which one gets the last sight of the Verna, " he alighted from his horse and, leaning upon the earth, his face turned toward the mountain, 'Adieu,' he said, 'moun- 1 Wordsworth, William, Tiniern Abbey. 320 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION tain of God, sacred mountain, mons coa^ulatiis, mons pin- guis^ mons in quo bene placituni est Deo habitare ; adieu Monte-Verna, may God bless thee, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; abide in peace; we shall never see one another more.* " ^ Even that valiant champion of theism. Professor Robert Flint, admits that " by inculcating its doctrine of the im- manence of God in all human thought and action, while at the same time especially insisting on the achievements of power and genius as the manifestations of the divine agency, it has gained for itself a sympathy and exerted an influence which are far from inconsiderable. The conqueror, the phi- losopher, the poet, feels himself borne upwards, as it were, and along a path of glory and success, by the force of an indwelling God. The hours of highest achievement and joy are those in which man is frequently least conscious of his weaknesses and limitations as a man, and most prone to identify himself with God. Pantheism may give strength both for endurance and action, although it is more closely connected with the pride of power than with power it- self." 2 The attraction of a pantheistic conception depends greatly upon the qualities with which the Whole, of which man makes himself a part, is invested. When he conceives of gods, he makes them ideals ; he does likewise — within the limits set by the form of the conception — when he evolves a pantheism for religious use. Not merely to be a part of the Great All, but to be a part of the Great All conceived as the Good brings repose, confidence, and self- respect. I have already had occasion to draw attention to the invaluable habit of assuming the existence outside of oneself of the values one craves, and then of appropriating ^ Sabatier, Paul, Life of Francis of Assisi, p. 298. 2 Flint, op. cit., p. 400. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 321 them by identifying oneself with the bearer of these qual- ities. This tendency is so strong that, as we know, the Absolute is frequently endowed with attributes belonging properly only to a personal Being. Because of the great value of pantheism. Christians have at times transformed their God into Nature ; and despite this value, the pantheists have constantly drifted into be- liefs in personal gods, for it is easier to hold converse with gods, saints, and devils, than with nature. The God to whom a glove can be handed has a hold upon the imagi- nation incomparably stronger than the God who can be wor- shipped only in the aspects of the physical world. 3. THE FUNDAMENTAL INSUFFICIENCY OF POSITIVISM AS A BASIS FOR RELIGION Theism having become logically impossible and panthe- ism being practically insufficient, where shall we look for a religion of the future .■' In our survey of contemporary religious movements, we have considered Comte's attempt to use the idea of Humanity, and we have observed the increasing strength which this idea is gaining as a regula- tive power in social intercourse. In the conception of Humanity as a growing, self-per- fecting organism composed of moral units, there is certainly nothing that runs counter to the fundamental principles of science nor to its important conclusions. But does a religion of Humanity escape the objections that have proved fatal to pantheism, and does it possess the positive qualifications required of a source of religious life.' The greatest weakness of Comte's religion Hes not in the very real difficulties of weaning man from ancient habits of worship and of introducing new religious forms and symbols, but in its lack of a philosophical background favorable to religion. The common opinion is that, in 322 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION order to live with dignity and contentment, man must believe that his life possesses an absolute and eternal significance, and that devotion to an ideal must be more than a pedagogical device for the conduct of life. If he is to put forth his best energies, man must beUeve that the individ- ual and society are parts of a whole moving towards a blessed consummation. And it is also commonly supposed that only in such beliefs can a reHgion in the true sense of the word find root. Now, the religion of Comte is wedded, in theory at least, to a Naturalism which makes these beliefs impossible. The NaturaHsm of Positivism not only afifirms that the whole of experience — physical and psychical — can be accounted for without reference to a personal God ; but it rejects all forms of idealism. It teaches that mechanical principles are adequate to explain all things. Spiritual existence such as appears in man is determined altogether by mechanical forces ; it is a mere accompaniment of ma- terial action. Such a philosophy as this involves, of course, the rejection of personal immortality. It cannot even replace personal immortality by social immortality ; for science points clearly to the ultimate disappearance of the race of man from the face of the earth. The ethics of Naturalism is purely utilitarian. It holds that goodness has no value in itself; it is not an end, but only a means to happiness or to the fulness of life. Ethical perfection cannot be a true ideal, but merely a means to happiness. If the moral law is not a kind of higher divinity in the presence of which we must bow, but simply "a recipe which we, or society, may use in the search for happiness or natural good " ; ^ if humanity is a transient manifestation of a blind, unfeeling Force, and is soon to disappear with- 1 Christie, R., Humanism as a JHe/i^ioK, The Contemporary Review, 1905, LXXXVIII, p. 696. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 323 out leaving a trace behind ; if, in short, man has not an absolute value, — then, it is asked, what can a religion of Humanity amount to ? It is no more than a rather clumsy- device for inducing men to sacrifice themselves for the happiness of others. If any one should find an heroic satisfaction, a noble dehght, in accepting existence under these conditions, and in practising virtue for its own sake, well and good, but he would be an exception, 4. THE INDEPENDENCE OF MORAL APPRECIATION FROM TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEF Let us consider somewhat more closely the opinion that an idealistic faith is necessary to morality. It is the problem of the basis of moral judgments. I shall here do little more than state the position which, in my opinion, obvious facts compel us to take, and which has long since ceased to be novel. Independently of a belief in God or in a Moral Order, the love of the true, the beautiful, and the good is bred in man in the course of his social experience. Psychologists agree that moral feelings do not belong to a different order from the other feelings, and that they are all equally the natural outcome of human interrelations. The human individual unavoidably finds satisfaction in dignity, right- eousness, and love, for reasons similar to those which make certain kinds of food desirable. Pleasure is on the whole connected with efficiency and pain with inefficiency ; that is physically pleasurable which in general makes for continuation and growth. If the re- verse connection existed, humanity would long since have disappeared from the earth. ^ Similarly, in the ethical sphere; 1 For a carefully formulated biological theory of pleasure and pain, see Henry Rutgers Marshall, Pain, Pleasure, and Esthetics, Macmillan, 1894, pp. 202-205. 324 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION if those actions which conduce to the preservation, ex- tension, and strength of the social organism were not felt as good, human society would disintegrate. The interre- lations of individuals living in groups have produced, and continue to produce, the moral likes and dislikes ; that is, likes and dislikes tending to the continuation and increased happiness of the whole. When an individual or a society has yielded too much to morally bad tendencies, either it mends its ways, or, not mending them, is destroyed. The vices of the Greco- Roman world led to its perdition. But these vices did not fasten upon the Greeks and Romans, because they had lost the vision of the ideal. It is the reverse : the love of vice having been bred in them, they lost the ideal. Na- tions and individuals take warning from the dreadful fate that has overtaken other peoples and persons and are driven to desire that which leads to the opposite outcome. A nation defeated in war learns to hate the defects to which it owes its defeat. The conscience of the ward poli- tician does not become the ideal of the community, because his methods point to social dissolution. I despise his practices, not because I have a transcendent philosophy, but because of likes and disHkes that have been bred in me in my home experiences and in the larger world outside. No will of mine can change this, any more than it can change my physical tastes. It is only affirming what is obvious to declare that the instincts and tendencies, the likes and the dislikes, developed in man by his social life, constitute the true foundation of morality. Apprehension of the good is necessarily anterior to the establishment of moral relations with a superhuman world. " Whoso loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen .-*" If, believing in God, I accept his will as mine, my act is not ethical be- THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 325 cause of my voluntary subjection to a greater power. It is the quality of my purpose that makes my action good or bad : if I recognize that Power as good, my will to sub- ordinate myself to it is a good will ; if I think of the Power as bad, to accept its law as mine is morally bad. The attributes of the ideal can be only those the value of which has been discovered in social intercourse. The question we have just considered is not whether a Moral Purpose is really of the essence of the universe, but only whether that belief is a necessary condition of moral feelings and judgments. It would not, therefore, be to the point to argue the existence of a Moral Architect from the fact that man's nature is such as to make the appear- ance and the development of the moral life unavoidable. The granting of this contention would leave my argument untouched : as far as human consciousness is concerned, the Moral Order is a product of human society. In the independence of moral appreciation from tran- scendental beliefs Ues the very assurance needed to tide over this " unbelieving generation." The best that is in man is generated in the homely experiences of daily life, and faith in God and in immortality are the outcome and not the basis of the discovery of human worth. Anchored in this assurance and fortified by a sense of human fellow- ship, man is prepared to surrender if need be the assist- ance which cruder generations have found in superhuman beliefs. But the recognition of the independence of morality from superhuman beliefs does not involve the uselessness of these beliefs. And upon this second truth one has the right to insist as much as upon the first. It would be idle to pretend that a naturalistic conception of life is all that man asks for and that, for instance, be- 326 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION lief in a Divine Father and in the absolute value of the person is not comforting and elevating. As a matter of fact, getting rid of the delusion that moral progress is inseparable from idealism does not necessarily commit one to the type of naturalistic philosophy we have considered. For the bare acceptance of the facts we have touched upon leaves them without final explanation. Why is the world so con- stituted as to produce the moral experiences ? What na- ture, what attributes, are to be ascribed to the power or powers manifested in Humanity.-* To recognize the legiti- macy of these questions is to admit implicitly the theoretical possibility of an idealistic complement to the scientific nat- uralistic theory of the origin in man of moral values. Whether logically possible or not, an idealistic formula- tion is, as I have already said, desirable. To the man physically healthy and morally good there is nought at- tractive in the thought that he and his fellow-men are but chance bubbles, glistening for an instant before the final disappearance. One may be convinced, as I am, that this assurance would not prevent the formation of admi- rable characters, compounded of noble self-sufficiency and active benevolence, chastened by a sense of cosmic in- significance. But that this origin and this destiny are all that the heart of man desires is belied by every page of history, ancient and modern. 5. THE LATENT IDEALISM OF NATURALISTIC RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS A naturalistic philosophy is so far from satisfying the aspirations of the human heart that most of those who have embraced Naturalism have, unknown to themselves, re- tained idealistic elements. Examine the discourses of the disciples of Comte, even those of Comte himself, and you will discover smuggled in under the names Grand Eire and THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 327 Humanity the very concepts they condemn as illegitimate. The cult of the present-day Positivists is permeated with the assumptions and the moods of idealism. These men have fallen into the inconsistency we have noticed in the case of St. Augustine and of other Christians who deal with their God as if he were swayed by human feelings, although their philosophy declares him the Impassive Absolute. It is even affirmed — and not without good show of evidence — that whatever foothold the Positivist and other related movements have gained, they owe to the introduction into their naturalistic philosophy of the idealism present in every human heart. In socialistic writings one meets with ringing declara- tions of idealism : — " It needs but a cursory view of history to realize — though all history confirms the generalization — that this arena is not a confused and aimless conflict of individuals. Looked at too closely, it may seem to be that, a formless web of individual hates and loves ; but detach oneself but a Httle, and the broader forms appear. One perceives something that goes on, that is constantly working to make order out of casualty, beauty out of confusion, justice, kindliness, mercy, out of cruelty and inconsiderate pressure. For our present purpose it will be sufficient to speak of this force that struggles and tends to make and do, as Good Will. ... In spite of all the confusions and thwartings of life, the halts and resiliencies and the counter-strokes of fate, it is manifest that in the long run human life becomes broader than it was, gentler than it was, finer and deeper. On the whole — and nowadays almost steadily — things get better. There is a secular amelioration of life, and it is brought about by Good Will working through the efforts of men."^ 1 Wells, H. G., New Worlds for Old, Macmillan, 1908, pp. 4-5. 328 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION The great mass of enlightened men can get along with- out the personal God and immortality, but they agree with the following utterance : " These three ideas, the idea of righteousness, the idea that justice will gain the ascendant, and that there is a sublime purpose in things — three aspects of one idea — these I would not give up,"i If, on the one hand, man refuses to have anything more to do with certain traditional behefs, on the other hand he is ap- parently unwilling to do without beliefs that will perform the essential function of those he has discarded. Under these circumstances, we may put aside as a purely academic question whether a form of religion, truly so-called, could arise upon a consistently naturalistic view of the world. We may do so the more readily since, after all, no system of philosophy is less firmly established than Naturalism. The problem to which our attention should rather be directed is the possibility of a religion in which the idea of Humanity would play a role similar to the one given it in Comtism, but in which Humanity would be regarded as an expression of a transhuman Power realizing itself in Humanity. In this direction, at any rate, points the Zeit- geist. 6. THE ETHICAL CULTURE SOCIETIES Among the most noteworthy signs of the times, I count the Ethical Culture Societies. They may embody the first stage of a religion in which a divine power objectified in I Humanity replaces the traditional God. They began as a protest against the place given in reUgion to dogma and the supernatural, — a protest inspired by the conviction of the independence and the supremacy of the moral ideal. In this conviction they have remained steadfast. The first principle of the West London Ethical Society is that " the good life has supreme claim upon us, and this claim rests 1 Adler, Felix, The Religion of Duty, p. 57. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 329 upon no external authority, and upon no system of super- natural rewards and punishments, but Jias its origin in the nature of man as a social and rational being." Officially these societies are no more than their name implies, ethical societies, i.e. associations aiming " to in- crease among men the knowledge, the love, and the prac- tice of the right." And the only means they sanction for the realization of their purpose are human means, — keep- ing the moral ideal above all else before men, formulating ethical principles workable in our social life, and applying them in theory and in practice to the individual and to the social life. To call them religious societies, therefore, would be to misapply the term ; for religion is not synony- mous with devotion to an ethical purpose. Yet with re- gard to the individual beliefs of their leaders, the matter stands differently. An organization for ethical purposes resting upon a naturalistic foundation, does not fulfil the sum total of their wishes, although in the present state of heterogenous opinions they are content to keep to them- selves whatever convictions they may have pointing reli- gionward, or at least to keep them out of the official statements of the society. The more penetrating and philosophical among these men have wanted an interpreta- tion of the facts of moral experience that would both jus- tify their faith in the absolute value of the moral ideal and vitally relate Humanity to the Universe. They, no more than any other thinking men, can help seeking beyond the individual some underlying power which would account for man's presence on this earth, for his moral cravings, and which would point out his destiny. As a matter of fact, the writings of all the leaders of this movement reveal beliefs in a power underlying — I avoid the word " transcending " — humanity. They write in strains such as this : " Be that so or not so, the fact remains 330 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION that the very essence of our human nature, which accounts for its having moved steadily ' upward, working out the beast,' and forward into juster laws and kindlier customs, is the pull and strain of something in our make-up, ' the procreant urge ' of the world-spirit in us, our capacity for conceiving ideals and insisting upon realizing them in the face of all the odds which Time and Fate have marshalled against us. In this, with all its implications, lies the glory of manhood. . . . The logical conclusion to be drawn for our present purpose from this change in our way of think- ing about the Power * behind the veil ' is that man is at once human and divine. Man, in the light of this idea of immanence, is the expression at once of a divine principle of reason, affection, and will (no mere blind life-force, the characterless nondescript Vitalism of Bernard Shaw, et al.) and of a natural and sub-human principle (inseparable from it) of appetite and passion — strange mixture is he of ' dust and deity,' of animal and angel, of saint and satyr ! " ^ In an address entitled First Steps tozvard a Religion, Felix Adler, the founder of the movement, finds warrant for the existence of a transhuman reality, which, for want of a better name, he calls Spirit. This Spirit urges humanity onward towards a goal already dimly discern- ible ; a perfectly organized society, each member of which shall find the means of his own self-realization in further- ing the social end ; that is, in discharging the duties of his social position.^ ^ Chubb, Percival, The Reinterpretation of Thanksgiving, Ethical Ad- dresses, November, 191 1, Vol. XIX, pp. 74-75. 2 Adler, Felix, op. cii., pp. 3-25. See also this author's papers. The Moral Ideal, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. XX, 19 10, pp. 387-394; The Re- lation of the Moral Ideal to Reality, International Journal of Ethics, October, 191 1, Vol. XXII, pp. 1-18. In these papers Professor Adler argues for the replacement of the ideal of individual perfection of Christian Ethics by a social ideal. The individual's perfection is relative to the place he fills in the THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 331 A belief in a transhuman Power of the kind thus roughly- outlined, together with a belief in the supremacy of the ethical ideal conceived as a social goal, would constitute a basis upon which a cult could hardly fail to develop, a social organism. " Instead of uniformity of action in the pursuit of common ends, functional differences in reciprocal adjustment supply the index of what is moral." The English Ethical Societies have just set forth their understanding of the principles and aims of the Movement in a small book, The Ethical Move- ment ; its Principles and Aims, edited by Horace J. Bridges, Ethical So- cieties, 19, Buckingham St., W.C, London. The following books and pamphlets will also be found interesting with regard to the religious aspirations of the Ethical Societies: The Essentials of Spirituality, Felix Adler; Ethical Religion, William Salter ; The Conserva- tive and Liberal Aspects af Ethical Religion, an address by Percival Chubb; National Idealism and a State Church, 1907, Stanton Coit; National Ideal- ism and the Book of Common Prayer, 1908, Stanton Coit. The two books by Stanton Coit are published by Williams and Norgate, London; the others by the American Ethical Union, 1415 Locust St., Philadelphia. Transhuman beHefs have been sedulously kept out of the official state- ments of the Ethical Societies, probably because they could not be formulated so as to command unanimous approval within the Society and might keep out men who would like to cooperate with the members on a merely practical ethical basis. There is, further, the enormous difficulty of formulating these beliefs so as to satisfy the requirements of those made fastidious by a knowl- edge of philosophy and of the general conclusions of science. The probability of a religion issuing directly or indirectly from these So- cieties seems to me considerable. One may be hopeful of a movement spring- ing from keenly felt moral needs, a movement maintained throughout thirty-five years with unswerving earnestness and indifference to showy success, by men respectful of science, and convinced that whatever be the fate of religion, one cannot dispense with intellectual honesty. One may be the more hopeful of such a movement when, in addition, it manifests an irrepressible yearning to transform itself into a religion, and when the first steps towards an idealistic foundation have already been taken individually by the leaders. In becoming a religion of Humanity the Ethical Societies would find their avowed purpose widened, for a religion which limited itself to the purpose they have officially announced would leave out much that the human heart demands and that all ethical religions have included. In religion men seek the realization not only of ethical ideals, but also of affective and aesthetic cravings. Life, fulness and perfection of life, is the aim of religion. 332 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION cult similar to Comtism in that the divine would not be personified in a transcendent personal God, but would be progressively realized in Humanity. It would be superior to Comtism in that it would be free from the life-inhibiting propositions of naturalistic philosophy. 7. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS NECESSARY TO RELIGION There are, of course, appalling difficulties in the way of a formulation of a metaphysical conception adequate for present use in rehgion. How shall we conceive the trans- human Force of which humanity is an expression ? What sort of existence does it have outside of human conscious- ness ? What relation does this Power sustain to the ma- terial universe and to man, to good and to evil ? If it is thought of as Purposive Intelligence, we are back in theism. The hoary puzzles all rise up and clamor for solution. In attempting to forecast the course of religious de- velopment, one must guard against the common misap- prehension of the relation of religion to philosophy. The traditional view of the matter is that a religion includes necessarily a complete philosophical system. But the union of religion with philosophy is the outcome of the absence of specialization at the beginning of social Hfe. Magic, religion, poetry, philosophy, grew together in- separably. It was only as different aims were distinctly conceived, and different means and methods of realizing them appeared, that the original plenum broke into parts. Magic became clearly separated from religion; religious dogmas from myths and legends ; poetry acquired an existence independent of both religion and myth ; and philosophy was seen to have its own particular purpose and another content than religion. The reader who has followed me so far has, I trust, admitted that the purpose of religion and that of phi- THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 333 losophy are not identical. Their difference was set forth in the second chapter of this book ; it should have become more and more evident in the succeeding chapters. And in the discussion of the relation of theology to psychology there came to light the vigorous, if reckless, effort made by contemporary theologians to free themselves altogether from general metaphysics and from science. This effort is ill conceived, no doubt, but it indicates that the day is past for the identification of a metaphysical system in its entirety with the fundamental propositions necessary to religion. Since the purposes of religion and of meta- physics are not identical, their theoretical basis need not be the same. This certainly does not mean that religion is not dependent upon certain parts of metaphysics for its intellectual foundation. It means only that religion need load itself with philosophical burdens no further than is necessary for its practical purpose. A religion which could accept and utilize in its intellectual foundation a complete system of metaphysics would have by so much the advantage. But it should be definitely admitted that this is not necessary : avowed agnosticism with regard to many questions to which traditional religions give solutions is not inconsistent with a workable religion. But if the religion of the future, conscious of its dis- tinctive purpose, must keep itself free from metaphysical entanglements, it ought also not to run counter to well- established scientific or philosophical conclusions ; it must be free from the dishonest shifts to which traditional Christianity is now driven. How inconsiderable may be the sufficient philosophical understructure of an efficient religion, and in what unfin- ished form it may be left, is an important matter upon which a final word must be said. Let the reader remember the 334 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION gross inconsistencies and contradictions which appear on every hand when one compares religious practices with the- oretical beliefs. Much of this we have encountered in this study, particularly in the chapter on " Theology and Psy- chology." Let him also think of the indefiniteness, or rather fluidity, of the God-idea of educated persons, and he will realize to some extent the resourcefulness of man when his happiness is at stake. These facts must be kept in mind by one attempting to estimate the religious possibilities residing in vague philosophical conceptions. The religion of the future will have to rest content appar- ently with the idea of a non-purposive Creative Force, making of the universe neither an accidental creation nor one shaped in accordance with some preconceived plan. Would man find what he wants in a Power describable as an impetus coursing through matter, and drawing from it what it can, a Power appearing in man in the form of striving consciousness ? " God, thus defined, has noth- ing of the already made ; He is unceasing life, action, free- dom. Creation, so conceived, is not a mystery ; we experi- ence it in ourselves when we act freely." ^ Such at least is the doctrine of one of the most remarkable of contempo- rary philosophers. It is not, he holds, a doctrine of value only in speculation ; " it gives us also more power to act and to live. For, with it, we feel ourselves no longer iso- lated in humanity ; humanity no longer seems isolated in the nature that it dominates. As the smallest grain of dust is bound up with our entire solar system, drawn along with it in that undivided movement of descent which is materiality itself, so all organized beings, from the humblest to the highest, from the first origins of life to the time in which we are, and in all places as in all times, do but evi- 1 Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution, Holt, New York, 191 1, pp. 248, 265. See also pp. 251, 261, 265. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 335 dence a single impulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter, and in itself indivisible. All the living hold to- gether, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death." ^ There is no question but that Humanity idealized and conceived as a manifestation of Creative Energy possesses surpassing qualifications for a source of religious inspira- tion. Human relationships have always given rise to the noblest activities of man ; they have been and remain the very fountain of life. In a religion of Humanity, man's attention would be directed not to a remote, intangible Perfection, but to a concrete reahty of which he is a part and the perfection of which depends upon his own perfection. In Humanity each person can regard himself as a link in the chain connecting the hosts of the past with the hosts that are to come. The recognition of this vast relationship would give a sense of fellowship and unity, a feeling of responsibility and dignity ; it would make a world worthy of one's best efforts. A rehgion of Humanity need not be lacking in the forms and symbols necessary to a practical religion. Without vio- lence to reason, and with little demand upon the imagina- tion, it could provide those human embodiments of power and virtue which man seeks for moral inspiration and up- lift. Man has always been a hero-worshipper. Expres- sions of admiration and gratitude, of joy and sorrow, would 1 Ibid, pp. 270-271. 336 A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION find easily an appropriate place in a religion of Humanity.^ The sense of weakness and imperfection, the need of com- fort and encouragement, the desire for the final triumph of good, are sentiments which might readily enough be collectively expressed in declarations addressed to the religious brotherhood, or even perhaps to the Ideal Society. And I see no sufficient reason why a religion of Human- ity should not incorporate in a modified form elements of the therapeutic cults which have been found effec- tive in the healing of mind and body. A religion in agreement with the accepted body of scientific knowledge, and centred about Humanity con- ceived as the manifestation of a Force tending to the creation of an ideal society, would occupy in the social life the place that a religion should normally hold, — even the place that the Christian religion lost when its cardinal beliefs ceased to be in harmony with secular beliefs. ^ " I want to win fair recognition of that hitherto slighted human provi- dence which has been and actually is operative in our world, nearer to us and more humanly appealing to us than the august cosmic providence I have spoken of. It is a providence which has not only increased the fruitfulness of the earth and provided our material necessities, but gained by man's patient and heroic effort knowledge and truth, justice and kindness. . . . We are to include in our conception of our human providence not only the few great men who are held in renown for the more splendid conquests of our humanity, but also the vast multitude of the unknown in all lands and through all ages: the slaves and serfs harnessed to the merciless Juggernaut of the oppressor; the unremembered artists and craftsmen who have adorned life with beauty; the singers, sages, inventors, and discoverers, all the forgotten folk who have added their unremembered increments of value to our vast human inheritance. . . . Strange that no such note should sound in our Thanksgiving proclama- tions ! " (Percival Chubb, The Reinterpretation of Thanksgiving, Ethical Addresses, November, 191 1, Vol. XIX, No. 2.) APPENDIX DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION AND CRITICAL COMMENTS AN APPENDIX TO PART I, CHAPTER II Contents : — FAGB 1. Intellectualistic Point of View . . • 339 2. Affectivistic Point of View .... 346 3. voluntaristic or practical point of view . 352 APPENDIX DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION AND CRITICAL COM- MENTS In this appendix will be found a large number of definitions not given in chapter ii, " Constructive Criticism of Current Conceptions of Religion " and also a fuller exposition and criticism of a few of those discussed in that chapter. I have divided these definitions roughly into three groups, — intellectualistic, affectivistic, and voluntaristic — and I have added at the end Wundt's classification, together with his criticism of the three types of con- ceptions represented in his classification. It need hardly be said that no at- tempt has been made to provide an exhaustive list of definitions'. I trust that the perusal of these forty-eight definitions will not bewilder the reader, but that he will see in them a splendid illustration both of the versa- tility and the one-sidedness of the human mind in the description of a very complex yet unitary manifestation of life. INTELLECTUALISTIC POINT OF VIEW Max MiJLLER. (See p. 25 of this book.) — In the Intro- duction to the Science of Religion, Miiller wrote : " ReHgion is a mental faculty or disposition, which, independent of, nay in spite of, sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infinite under different names, and under varying disguises. Without that faculty no religion, not even the lowest worship of idols and fetiches, would be possible ; and if we will but listen attentively, we can hear in all religions a groaning of the spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the In- finite, a love of God." (Pp. 13-14.) This "mental faculty" he calls " faith." This use of the term " faculty " was vigorously attacked. Miiller, yielding in a measure to the objections, declared, in the 339 340 APPENDIX Origin of Religion, that he did not mean to say that there is a separate religious consciousness. " When we speak of faith as a re- Hgious faculty, in man, all that we can mean is our ordinary conscious- ness so developed and modified as to enable us to take cognizance of religious objects. . . . This is not meant in a new sense ... it is simply the old consciousness applied to new objects." If " faculty " is an ambiguous or dangerous word, he is ready to re- place it by " potential energy," and to define the subjective side of religion as " the potential energy which enables man to appre- hend the Infinite." (P. 23.) That "faculty" or "potential energy," also called "faith," is, like reason, a development of sensuous perceptions, but a development of a different kind. The human mind, according to Miiller, is made up of three " faculties " or " potential energies " : sense, reason, faith. The last two are different developments of sensuous perception. " Our apprehen- sion of the Infinite takes place independently of, nay in spite of, sense and reason." The facts of Religion, subjective and objec- tive, can be explained only by an appeal to that third " potential energy." "We have in that perception of the Infinite the root of the whole historical development of the human faith." He admits, however, that this perception is at first obscure. ^ To make religion proceed from a special faculty or potential energy is to open a chasm between secular and religious life, with- out any sufficient reason for so doing. One clear result of the psychological investigations of religion has been to show that no particular faculty is needed to account for religious life. Max Miiller's use of the words " perception " and " infinite " is also open to serious criticism. At times perception seems to be ^ Tide cannot agree with Max Miiller that " the perception or apprehension of the Infinite, the yearning of the soul after God, is the source of all religion." The point he will not admit is that primitive man " perceives " the Infinite " because such perception requires a considerable measure of self-knowledge and reflection, which is only attainable long after religion has come into existence, long after the religious spirit has revealed itself. The origin of re- ligion consists in the fact that man has the Infinite within him, even before he is himself conscious of it, whether he recognizes it or not.' ' " It is man's original, unconscious innate sense of infinity that gives rise to his first stammering utterances of that sense, and to all his beautiful dreams of the past and the future." {Elements of the Science of Religiott, Vol. II, Lecture IX, pp. 230, 233.) APPENDIX 341 synonymous with feeling, and at other times with apprehension. In the Origin of Religion, he writes, for instance, " With every finite perception there is a concomitant perception, or, if that word should seem too strong, a concomitant sentiment or presen- timent of the Infinite." (P. 43.) As to the word "infinite," I am of the opinion that the chief service it renders in a definition of religion is to betray man's ineradicable megalomania. What other function it fulfils in Max Miiller's writings, I do not know. Has any one ever mistaken the principles of physiology for therapeutics or the sense of beauty for art ? Max Miiller has to admit that throughout a whole volume he confused dogma with religion ! In his Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, he refers to the critcisms directed against his conception of religion and says : " The fact was that in my former writings I was chiefly concerned with dogmatic Religion. . . . Still I plead guilty to not having laid sufficient emphasis on the practical side of religion ; I admit that mere theories about the Infinite, unless they influence human conduct, have no right to the name of Religion." But although he thus formally recognized this truth, it never acquired in his mind its full meaning. He continued to write as if a particular " per- ception " or " apprehension " constituted religion. Herbert Spencer. (See p. 26 of this book.) — Religion has from the beginning dimly discerned the ultimate verity and has never ceased to insist upon this truth, — " that all things are mani- festations of a Power that transcends our knowledge." "The consciousness of a mystery is traceable to the rudest fetichism. Each higher religious creed, rejecting those definite and simple interpretations of Nature previously given, has become more re- ligious by doing this. As the quite concrete and conceivable agencies alleged as the causes of things have been replaced by agencies less concrete and conceivable, the element of mystery has of necessity become more predominant. . . . And so Re- ligion has ever been approximating towards that complete rec- ognition of this mystery which is its goal. . . . No exposure of the logical inconsistency of its conclusions . . . has been able to weaken its allegiance to that ultimate verity for which it stands. . . . there still remained the consciousness of a truth 342 APPENDIX which, however faulty the mode in which it had been expressed, was yet a truth beyond cavil." {First Principles, pp. 99, 100.) The views of Miiller and Spencer are not so different as they might seem at first glance. The two men might have reached the same conclusion if one of them had not remained entangled by the way. Max MuUer affirms nothing that cannot be brought into agreement with Spencer's opinion, provided the words " percep- tion " "apprehension," "sentiment," used interchangeably by Miiller, be replaced by " recognition " ; and, provided that " In- finite " be interpreted as meaning the ultimate mystery of things. This liberal interpretation of Max Miiller will not appear far-fetched if the fact is recalled that he names the faculty by which we appre- hend the infinite " faith," and also that he sees no objection to regarding the infinite as an object of " sentiment " rather than as an object of " perception." What place is occupied by feeling in Spencer's intellectual in- terpretation is not altogether clear. But this at least is evident : the feelings which " respond " to religious ideas — the religious feelings — are not the " vital elements " of religion. Eduard von Hartmann. — Hartmann's utterances on religion leave one with the impression that he had not reached complete clearness. According to him religion, although it is an " affair of the feelings," has for its foundation metaphysical conceptions. A system of metaphysics must arouse feelings of a certain kind be- fore it becomes religion. " The man who carries within himself metaphysical conceptions of such a nature that his emotions are positively affected by them possesses religion . . . every man has need of metaphysical ideas in order to satisfy his need of religion ... it must be a system of metaphysics which will serve to satisfy, even in those persons who are strangers to science, directly, the need of metaphysics, and, in- directly, the religious need. " This metaphysics, which we might call popular metaphysics, is religion. However, religion consists of something more than the metaphysical ideas of the masses ; it contains the capability of discerning the means and directions for arousing in a strong and lasting form the religious sentiment with this metaphysics for its foundation, — that is to say, religious cultus ; and secondly, reli- APPENDIX 343 gion contains the deductions drawn from this metaphysics for the practical conduct of men; in other words, religious ethics. . . . " Thus we see that religion constitutes the whole of the phi- losophy of the masses. ... In fine, religion comprises all the idealism of the masses, art not being accessible to them, except under a form too coarse to elevate them to artistic idealism. . . . " The masses do not know metaphysics by name, but they do know what they require of religion ; namely, that it should give them ' the truth ' ; not all the truths as they lie scattered in the various special sciences, but the truth which the universal science, philosophy, strives to attain, the one and eternal truth able to satisfy their unconscious need of metaphysics." {The Religion of the Future, pp. 73, 74, 75.) In another passage he describes the nature of the " metaphys- ical " ideas which lie at the foundation of religion. Although religion " needs ideas as a foundation for the feelings, yet these ideas must be as little abstract as possible, and the reverse of distinct and definite. Indeed, an idea which is intended to rouse the religious feelings should be intuitive, figurative, fantastic, and confused to the last degree." {The Religion of the Future, p. 28.) Other passages in Hartmann's work suggest a view of religion very like that which I have discussed under the third class; — that religion is " a consciousness of our practical relation to an invisible spiritual order." He writes, for instance : ** Moreover, all tabooes do not belong to religion proper, that is, they are not always rules of conduct for the regulation of man's contact with deities that, when taken in the right way, may be counted on as friendly. . . ." And again he says that religion in the true sense begins " with a loving reverence for known gods, who are knit to their worshippers by strong bonds of kinship." James Martineau. — Martineau understands by religion "the belief in an ever living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind." {A Study of Religion, p. i.) G. J. Romanes. — " The distinguishing feature of any theory which can properly be termed a religion is that it should refer 344 APPENDIX to the ultimate source or sources of things ; that it should suppose this source to be an objective, intelligent, and personal nature. . . . To speak of the Religion of the Unknowable, the Religion of Cosmism, the Religion of Humanity, and so forth, where the personality of the First Cause is not recognized, is as unmeaning as it would be to speak of the love of a triangle, or the rationality of the equator. ... " Religion is a department of thought having for its object a self-conscious and intelligent Being." {Thoughts on Religion, p. 41.) Hegel. — Hegel defines religion as " the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind." In the opening pages of the Philosophy of Religion, he de- scribes religion in an eloquent passage : " It is the realm where all enigmatical problems of the world are solved ; where all contra- dictions of deep musing thoughts are unveiled and all pangs of feeling soothed. . . . The whole manifold of human relations, activities, joys, everything that man values and esteems, wherein he seeks his happiness, his glory, and his pride — all find their final middle point in religion, in the thought, consciousness, and feeling of God. God is therefore the beginning and the end of everything. ... By means of religion man is placed in relation to this centre, in which all his other relations converge, and is elevated to the realm of highest freedom, which is its own end and aim. This relation of freedom on the side of feeling is joy which we call beatitude ; ... on the side of activity its sole office is to man- ifest the honor and to reveal the glory of God, so that man in this relation is no longer chiefly concerned with himself, his own in- terests and vanity, but rather with the absolute end and aim." (Quoted from Sterrett's Studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, pp. 38-39.) F. B. Jevons. — " Religion as a form of thought is the percep- tion of ' the invisible things of Him through the things that are made.' " (^History of Religion^ pp. 9-10.) Ladd, George T. — In the following, Ladd identifies religion with a theory of reality. " For religion is, as a matter of histori- APPENDIX 345 cal and psychological fact, always metaphysical. It is always a naive or a reasoned theory of reality. It is an attempt to explain human experience by relating it to invisible existences that belong, nevertheless, to the real world. Indeed, monotheism finds in its One and Alone God the Ultimate Reality, the Being from whom all finite beings proceed, on whom they all depend, and to whom they all owe the devotion of their lives in a faithful allegiance. This, however, is ontological doctrine — somehow postulated ra- tionally, or reasoned out, or superstitiously and vainly imagined." {Jr. oj Phil., Psy., and Scientific Methods, 1904, Vol. I, No. i, p. 9.) Hugo Munsterberg. — " Thus we claim that religion and phi- losophy have the same task. Both aim to apprehend the worlds of values as ultimately identical with each other, and therefore the world — totality — as absolutely valuable. Both philosophy and religion must transcend the life-experience for that end. . . . But the supplementation of all possible experience in religion and phi- losophy takes opposite directions. . . . We may say that religion transcends experience, but that philosophy goes back to the pre- suppositions of experience. Religion constructs a superstructure which overarches the experienced world ; philosophy builds a sub- structure which supports the experienced world. For that reason religion creates God, who gives the value of holiness to the world ; philosophy seeks the ultimate foundation in the external act, which gives to the world the value of absoluteness." And further : " Religion is accordingly also a form of apprehension through the overpersonal consciousness. ... It is the form in which this com- bined content must be thought in order to become a common self- asserting world at all. But religion is the form of forms ; it is the absolutely valid form for the connection of that which is itself found in various forms." {The Eternal Values, p. 358.) In the above passage Professor Munsterburg speaks of religion as "constructing," "creating" gods, as a "form" in which the various contents of consciousness must be thought. The term " religion " as he uses it there denotes, it is clear, the system of ideas, of conceptions, within which religious life moves, and the mental activities by which it is built up. Religion and philosophy 346 APPENDIX thus understood have, of course, the same task ; but, in this sense, " religion " means the philosophy of religious life, not religious life itself. A more discriminating use of the term " religion " appears in the following passage : — " Religion is the completion [^Erganzung] of experience. It does not complete merely actual experience ; that is the task of science, and faith would do more than simply fill up the gaps in science. Such gaps can be filled only by means of possible experi- ence, while faith, not only with transcendent but also with immanent conceptions of God, goes beyond all that is given. The given universe and the given individual powers are not sufficient to enable us to experience the totality of the ideal. The individual who feels values completes the universe through revelation and his own powers through prayer." {Gfundziige, y>' i66.) That Professor Mtinsterberg is deahng here with religion itself and no longer w-ith the concepts of religion is made clear by the sense given to the word Erganzung: it is made to include the making of oneself whole. II AFFECTIVISTIC POINT OF VIEW F. ScHLEiERMACHER. (See p. 33 of this book.) — Schleier- macher does not believe that feeling can exist independently of the other mental processes. He says expHcitly of perception, feeling, and activity, that " they are not identical and yet are insep- arable." For him religion consists in certain feelings holding a definite relation to the life of action (morahty), and to the hfe of thought (science, philosophy). Religion is passivity, contemplation. By itself it does not urge men to activity. " If you could imagine it implanted in man quite alone, it would produce neither these nor any other deeds. The man . . . would not act, he would only feel." (^Speeches on Religion '^. ^l.) But if religion does not belong to the world of action, no more does it belong to the world of thought: "Religion cannot and will not originate in the pure impulse to know. What we feel and are conscious of in religious emotions is not the nature of things, but their operation upon us. APPENDIX 347 What you may know or believe about the nature of things is far beneath the sphere of ReUgion." {Ibid., p. 48.) He makes, legiti- mately, a sharp distinction between the feelings themselves and the ideas which arise when the feelings are made the objects of reflection : " If you call these ideas," says he, " religious principles and ideas, you are not in error. But do not forget that this is scientific treat- ment of religion, knowledge about it, and not rehgion itself." {Ibid, pp. 46, 47.) These two points — namely, that religion is not morality, and that it is not knowledge — are persistently emphasized in Schlei- ermacher's writings. It is not clearly explained how the feelings which constitute religion are generated and how they differ from the non-religious feelings. "Your feeling," he says, "is piety [a word for him synonymous with religion], in so far as it expresses . . • the being and life common to you and to the All." {Ibid., p. 45.) Religion is the feeling produced upon us by any particular object, i.e. by any part of the universe, when it is received, felt as a part of the whole, " not as limited and in opposition to other things, but as an exhibition of the Infinite in our life. Anything beyond this, any effort to penetrate into the nature and the sub- tance of things, is no longer religion, but seeks to be a science of some sort." {Ibid., p. 49.) Further on, he tries again to describe the kind of apprehension which determines the religious feeling : " The sum total of Religion is to feel that, in its highest unity, everything that stirs our emotions is one in feeling ; to feel that aught single and particular is only possible by means of this unity ; to feel, that is to say, that our being and living is a being and liv- ing in and through God." He adds, "But it is not necessary that the Deity should be presented as also one distinct object." {Ibid., p. 50.) Within the limits set in the preceding quotations, i.e. provided the feeling aroused by the particular object reveals the unity of the whole, every feeling is religion. This, then, is clearly affirmed in the discourse on the Nature of Religion, that it is the action of particular things upon us that underlies all religious emotions ; we cannot " have " religion except through the influence exercised upon us by concrete, particular things. In the Christliche Glaubenslehre, Schleiermacher gives a defini- tion of rehgion which differs in its wording from that found in the Reden. It is in this later work that he reaches the oft-quoted 348 APPENDIX formula : " The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an ab- solute dependence." To render fully his thought, the words "upon the Universe," or "upon God," should be added. This formula attempts to complete, not to correct, the earlier statement. He had said, " Religion is feeling," it is the feeling generated in us by single experiences when these are viewed as intimations of the whole of which they are parts. But he had not said what kind of feeling would be produced under these circumstances. In the Glajibenslehre he adds that the intuition of the whole through the presentation of a particular object produces a feeling of dependence. It will be a feeling of dependence, because in these experiences man realizes that the reaction called forth by the particular object is utterly insufficient, since at bottom it is a reaction by which he tries to meet, not the particular thing which has called it forth, but the whole which it represents. In his earlier writings Schleiermacher avoided the word " God " and was satisfied to use impersonal terms : the All, the Whole, the Universe, the Infinite. Later on the word " God " appears, and we find him making a distinction between the Universe and God which he does not seem to have had in mind previously. He distin- guishes between the Whole as an aggregate of mutually conditioned parts of which we ourselves are one, and the Unity underneath this coherence which conditions all things and conditions our re- lations to the other parts of the Whole. No criticism need be made here other than that which the reader has found in Chapter II. C. P. TiELE. (See p. 33.) — "I am satisfied that a careful analysis of religious phenomena Compels us to conclude that they are all traceable to the emotions — traceable to them, I say, but not originating in them. Their origin lies deeper." {Science of Religion, Vol. II, p. 15.) He means that in the emotion we have the "beginning of religion, which is merely the awakening of religious consciousness," not its origin. {3id., p. 25.) " In the sphere of religion the emotion consists in the conscious- ness that we are in the power of a Being whom we revere as the highest, and to whom we feel attracted and related ; it consists in the adoration which impels us to dedicate ourselves entirely to the APPENDIX 349 adored object, yet also to possess it and to be in union with it." (^Ibid., p. 19.) " We mean . . . that religion is, in truth, that pure and reveren- tial disposition or frame of mind which we call piety. . . . Now, whenever I discover piety ... I maintain that its essence, and therefore the essence of religion itself, is adoration. In adoration are united those two phases of religion which are termed by the schools ' transcendent ' and ' immanent ' respectively, or which, in religious language, represent the believer as ' looking up to God as the Most High ' and as ' feeling himself akin to God as his Father. ' For adoration necessarily involves the elements of holy awe, humble reverence, grateful acknowledgment of every token of love, hopeful confidence, lowly self-abasement, a deep sense of one's own unworthiness and shortcomings, total self-abnegation, and unconditional conservation of one's whole life and one's whole faculties. . . . But at the same time — and herein consists its other phase — adoration includes a desire to possess the adored object, to call it entirely one's own." {Ibid., pp. 198, 199.) Concerning the origin of religion, Tiele writes that it " begins with conceptions awakened by emotions and experiences, and these conceptions awakened produce definite sentiments, which were already present in germ in the first religious emotions, but which can only be aroused to consciousness by these conceptions ; and these sentiments manifest themselves in actions." (Jbid., p. 67.) John McTaggart. — " Religion is clearly a state of mind. It is also clear that it is not exclusively the acceptance of certain propositions as true. It seems to me that it may best be de- scribed as an emotion resting on a conviction of a harmony be- tween ourselves and the universe at large." This presupposes, in the author's mind, belief in the ultimate goodness of the uni- verse ; otherwise there would be, according to him, no religion possible. He holds that this definition is wide enough to include among religious men Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel, who did not accept any of the historical religions. {Sojne Dogmas of Religio7i, London, 1906, p. 3.) G. SiMMEL. — "The religious life means the whole existence pitched in a certain key [ Tonart] . The religious feeling [ Tonari\ 350 APPENDIX arises in the relation of man to external nature, to fate, to human- ity. At times certain sociological conditions and relations pos- sess, as such, the religious coloring. The relation of the pious child to his parents, of the enthusiastic patriot to his country, or of the humanitarian cosmopoHtan to mankind, the relation of the workman to his fellow-laborers, or of the proud feudal lord to his class, the relation of the subject to the master under whose command he stands, or of the faithful soldier to the army — all these relations have, regarded from the psychological standpoint, a common ' tone,' which we must call religious." (^Die Religion, Frankfurt a. M., Rutten u. Loening, p. 79.) O. Pfleiderer. — " In the religious consciousness all sides of the whole personality participate. Of course we must recognize that knowing and willing are here not ends in themselves as in science and morality, but rather subordinated to feeling as the real centre of religious consciousness. . . . This is not a simple feeling, but a combination of feelings of freedom and independ- ence." {The Notion and Problem of the Philosophy of Religion, Phil. Rev., Vol. II, 1893, pp. 1-23.) Th. Ribot. — " In every religious belief, two things are neces- sarily included : an intellectual element, i.e. an item of knowledge constituting the object of the belief ; an effective state, i.e. a feeling which accompanies the former and expresses itself in acts. Whoever does not possess this second element knows not the religious feeling, but only abstract and metaphysical conceptions." (Zfl Psychologie des Sentiments, pp. 297-298.) George M. Stratton. — Religion is the appreciation of an unseen world, usually an unseen company ; and religion is also whatever seems clearly to be moving toward such an appreciation or to be returning from it. Or perhaps it might better be de- scribed as man's whole bearing toward what seems to him the " Best or Greatest." " Religion is the gradual awakening to the weight and import of a particular order of objects." {The Psychology of the Religious Life, pp. 343, 345.) A. RiTSCHL. — " In all religion the endeavor is made, with the help of the exalted spiritual power which man adores, to APPENDIX 351 solve the contradiction in which man finds himself as a part of the natural world, and as a spiritual personality, which makes the claim to rule nature." In another place : " All religion is interpretation of the course of the world, in whatever compass it is recognized, in the sense that the exalted spiritual powers (or the spiritual power), which rule in or over it, maintain or confirm for the personal spirit its claims or its independence against limitation by nature or the natural operations of human society." (Ritschl, A., Rechtferti- guTig und Versohnung, Vol. Ill, pp. 189, 17, as quoted by Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, pp. 162, 163.) W. Herrmann. — " The religious view is an answer to the question, ' How must the world be judged, if the highest good is to be real?' while metaphysics deals with facts. In it we inquire in what universal forms all being and happening can be represented without contradiction. For the correctness of these representations it does not in any way matter in what relation to the aims of our wills, to our weal or woe, things stand." " For theology to seek a basis in metaphysics and not in the certainties of the religious experience, would be to lean on an arm of flesh and to distrust ' the spirit of the living God.' " "The concern of Religion is to regard the multiplicity of the world as the orderly whole of means by which the highest value of the pious man, which is expressed in feeling, is realized." (Herr- mann, W., Die Meiaphysik in der Theologie, as reported by Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, pp. 64, 65, 174.) Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. — " Religion is the aggregate of those sentiments in the human mind arising in connection with the relations assumed to subsist between the order of nature (in- clusive of the observer) and a postulated supernatural." {The Re- ligious Sentiment of the Humati Mind.) J. A. Comenius. — " By rehgion we understand that inner ven- eration by which the mind of man attaches and binds itself to the supreme Godhead." {Great Didactic, Keatinge tr., p. 190.) 3S2 APPENDIX III VOLUNTARISTIC OR PRACTICAL POINT OF VIEW William James. (See p. 39.) — Professor James starts with a very broad definition, which he gradually narrows until he brings into agreement with the common use of the word " religion. " " In the broadest and nmost general terms possible one might say that religious life consists of the belief that there is an unseen order and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto. This behef and this adjustment are the religious attitude of the soul." {The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 53.) But however justifiable this conception may be, it is too inclu- sive to agree with the meaning generally given to religion. No attitude is accounted religious unless it is grave and serious ; the trifling, sneering attitude of a Voltaire must be excluded if we would not strain too much the ordinary use of the word. But if religion does not include light irony, neither does it include grumbling and complaint. The mood of a Schopenhauer or of a Nietsche, though often relieved by an ennobling sadness, is almost as often mere peevishness running away with the bit between its teeth. The sallies of such men " lack the purgatorial note which religious sadness gives forth. . . . There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker ; if sad, it must not scream or curse." But still further elimination is needed ; for the conception as it now stands would include the chilling reflections of Marcus Aure- lius on the eternal reason, as well as the passionate outcry of Job. It would encompass what we are tempted to call philosophical or ethical rather than religious attitudes ; the grave, austere submis- son of the stoic, as well as the " enthusiastic temper of espousal " characteristic of the mood commonly -called reUgious. {Ibid., p. 38. See the whole of Lecture II.) A. Reville. — " Religion rests above all upon the need of man to realize an harmonious synthesis between his destiny and the op- posing influences he meets in the world." {La Religion des peuples non-civilises , Vol. I, p. 120.) APPENDIX 353 H. BosANQUET. — "A man's religion, it may be said, is that set of objects, habits, and convictions, whatever it might prove to be, which he would die for rather than abandon, or at least would feel himself excommunicated from humanity if he did abandon. It would follow from this that his actual religion may differ in any degree from his nominal creed. On the other hand, it might be contended by students of the philosophy of religion that only those convictions which are called religious par excellence in the normal sense are capable of affording in the fullest degree that support, and that sense of triumphant unity, which seem to be the central facts of religious experience." (Baldwin's Dictionary, art. Religion, Philosophy of.) G. Sergi. — Religion, according to Sergi, is "a pathological manifestation of the protective function, a sort of deviation of the normal function . . . , a deviation caused by ignorance of nat- ural causes and of their effects." (Z« Emotions, p. 404.) Hiram M. Stanley. — " We take it then that religion must be biologically defined as a specific mode of reaction to high supe- riorities of environment, or psychologically as a perception of a highly superior being, leading to a peculiar mode of emotion and will toward that being, and thus securing the most advantageous action. The reverential and worshipful emotion spent is the essence of religion, and whenever this is found among the lowest animals, or the highest specimens of mankind, there is religion." {^On the Psychology of Religion, Psychol. Rev., 1898, Vol. V, p. 258.) J. G. Frazer. — " By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of Nature and of human life." {The Golden Bough, 2d. ed., Vol. I, p. 63.) Goblet d'Alvtella. — " These three elements, common to all organized religions, may be classed as follows : — "i. The belief in the existence of superhuman beings who inter- vene in a mysterious manner in the destinies of man and the course of nature. 2A 354 APPENDIX " 2. Attempts to draw near to these beings or to escape them, to forecast the object of their intervention and the form it will take, or to modify their action by conciHation or compulsion. " 3. Recourse to the mediation of certain individuals supposed to have special qualifications for success in such attempts. "4. The placing of certain customs under the sanction of the superhuman powers." (The Hibbert Lectures for 1891, p. 4.) Henry Rutgers Marshall. — Considering religion objectively, Marshall concludes that it consists in those special activities which imply restraint of individualism, and that these activities, or at least the general tendencies from which they spring, are instinc- tive. " The restraint of individualistic impulses to racial ones (the suppression of our will to a higher will) seems to me to be of the very essence of religion: the belief in the Deity, as usually found, being from the psychological point of view an attachment to, rather than of the essence of, the religious feeling." {Instinct and Reason, Macmillan, 1898, p. 329. See, for comparison, Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution, p. 103, and Hiram M. Stanley's paper On the Psychology of Religion, Psychol. Rev., 1898, Vol, V, p. 258.) Marshall's argument in support of the instinctiveness of religion runs somewhat as follows. Religion is not, on the whole, advan- tageous to the individual ; on the contrary, it is in most cases clearly detrimental and would therefore not have remained a fac- tor in human societies unless it was advantageous to the race. That religious activities are detrimental to the individual and advantageous to the race, is Marshall's thesis. Practices of this kind remain in existence through the survival of the fittest race. This implies the establishment of the practices, or at least of the tendencies leading to them, as instincts. It appears in what precedes that Marshall includes under " in- stinct " not only congenital activities relatively definite, but also others. In instincts, " the definiteness and the fixity of the actions is of very secondary moment, that which is important being the fact that there exists a biological end which determines the trend of these organized activities." In this wider sense religion may well be called an instinct, but in this sense the " instinctive nature " of religion ceases to have any particular significance. For APPENDIX 355 if only " the tendencies to the main drift " of religion are instinctive, then what is true of religion in this respect is true also of every other human activity. That religious activities are of value to the race, no one will doubt, but the opinion that they are on the whole detrimental to the individual seems to me the result of an insufficient investiga- tion of religious life. The facts upon which Marshall places emphasis — seclusion, vision, fasting, one aspect of prayer, one aspect of sacrifice — do not at all represent the whole of religious life. F. ToNNiES. — Religion " is essentially social and ... of a twofold nature, apparently contradictory, and indeed very often actually conflicting. For its function is first to validate and fortify authority, consequently to make the strong and powerful more strong and powerful . . . ; but second, it goes very far in protect- ing and supporting the weak, notably women and children, old age, widows and orphans. . . . The influence of the first function is eminently /^//V/V^/, while the second may be called ethical. {The Origin and Function of Religion, a discussion, by A. E. Crawley and others, in Sociological Papers, 1906, Macmillan, Vol. Ill, p. 267.) Benj.\min Kidd. — "A religion is a form of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the indi- vidual where his interests and the interests of the social organism are antagonistic and by which the former are rendered subordinate to the latter in the general interests of the evolution which the race is undergoing." {Social Evolution,-^. 103.) A. CoMTE. — " Religion, then, consists in regulating each one's individual nature, and forms the rallying point for all the separate individuals. "To constitute a complete and durable harmony what is wanted is really to bind together man's inner nature by love and then to bind the man to the outer world by faith. Such, generally stated, is the necessary participation of the heart to the synthetical state, or unity, of the individual or the society." {Catechism of Positive Religion, pp. 46, 51.) 356 APPENDIX Thomas Davidson. — "A religion is that which places us in such harmony with our environment that we attain the highest possible development in knowledge, love, and will. But surely no institution was ever better calculated for this than our republic." " I think, then, we may conclude, not only that Americanism is a religion, but that it is the noblest of all rehgions, that which best insures the realization of the highest manhood and womanhood, and points them to the highest goal, — a goal which it is their task throughout eternity to approach without reaching. It is a religion, too, that unifies our present life with eternal hfe, and identifies our civil with our religious Hfe. It is a religion that can be taught to every human being, and that, when taught, will make all men brothers. It can be made the principle of ethical life in all its phases, — domestic, social, and political. Re- ligion need no longer be banished from our public schools, as a mere matter of individual opinion, when it is really the mainspring of social life. In teaching children to lead the life of true Ameri- cans, we shall be leading them in the paths of eternal life." (American Democracy as a Religion, Internal. Jr. of Ethics, Vol. X, pp. 37, 38, 39.) Renan. — " My religion is now as ever the progress of reason ; in other words, the progress of science." {The Future of Science, Preface.) Edward Cairo. — " Without as yet attempting to define reli- gion, ... we may go as far as to say that a man's religion is the expression of his ultimate attitude to the universe, the summed-up meaning and purport of his whole consciousness of things." "... it is always the consciousness, in some more or less ade- quate form, of a divine power as the principle of unity in a world of which we are not only spectators, but parts. Indeed, the presence of this unity as an element or presupposition of our con- sciousness is the only reason of man's being religious at all." (^Evolution of Religion, Vol. I, pp. 30, 235.) William Ralph Inge. — " Our consciousness of the beyond is, I say, the raw material of all religion." {Christian Mysticism, Bampton Lectures for 1899, p. 5.) APPENDIX 357 Feldc Abler. — " Religion is that which brings man into touch with the infinite : this is its mission. If we put aside the mate- riaUstic explanations of morality, and see the majesty, the inexplicable augustness of it, we shall find that, in the moral life itself, the moral experience itself, we possess religion. Rehgion is at the core of it, for religion is the connection of man's life with the absolute, and the moral law is an absolute law." {The Reli- gion of Duty, p. 94.) A. Sabatier. — Religion "is a commerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in distress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and its destiny depend." (^Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion,"^. 27.) " What we call the religious consciousness in a man is the feel- ing of the relation in which he stands, and wills to stand, to the universal principle on which he knows himself to depend, and with the universe in which he sees himself to be a part of one great whole." "This feeling, filial in regard to God, fraternal in regard to man, is that which makes a Christian." {Ibid., pp. 147, 149.) J. RovcE. — " Religion is the consciousness of our practical relation to an invisible, spiritual order." Upton. — " It is the felt relationship in which the finite self- consciousness stands to the immanent and universal ground of all being, which constitutes religion." {The Basis of Religious Belief, Hibbert Lectures for 1893.) R. J. Campbell. — " All religion begins in cosmic emotion. It is the recognition of an essential relationship between the human soul and the great whole of things of which it is the outcome and expression. The mysterious universe is always calling, and, in some form or other, we are always answering. . . . But religion, properly so-called, begins when the soul consciously enters into communion with this higher-than-self as with an all-comprehend- ing intelligence ; it is the soul instinctively turning towards that from whence it came ... it is the soul reaching forth to the great mysterious whole of things, the higher-than-self, and seeking 358 APPENDIX for closer and ever closer communion therewith." {The New Theology, p. i6.) E. Kant. — " Religion is (considered subjectively) the recogni- tion of all our duties as divine commands." {Die Religion inner- halb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunfty Viertes Stuck, erster Theil.) Prince Kropotkin. — This leader of the Anarchist movement stresses the social aspect of religion. For him, " a passionate de- sire for working out a new, better form of society" is a religious impulse. {The Ethical Need of the Present Day, T\it Nineteenth Century, August, 1904, Vol. LVI, pp. 207-226.) F. W. H. Myers. — Religion is " the sane and normal re- sponse of the human spirit to all that we know of cosmic law ; that is, to the known phenomena of the universe, regarded as an intel- ligible whole. . . . For, from my point of view, man cannot be too religious. I desire that the environing, the interpenetrating universe, — its energy, its life, its love, — should illumine in us, in our low degree, that which we ascribe to the World-Soul, say- ing, ' God is Love,' ' God is Light.' The World-Soul's infinite energy of omniscient benevolence should become in us an en- thusiasm of adoring cooperation, — an eager obedience to what- soever with our best pains we can discern as the justly ruling prin- ciple — TO i7ye/AoviKoi/ — without US and within." {Human Per- sonality, Vol. II, pp. 284-285.) Daniel G. Brinton. — " There is no one belief or set of beliefs which constitutes a religion. We are apt to suppose that every creed must teach a belief in a god or gods, in an immortal soul, and in a divine government of the world. . . . No mistake could be greater. The religion which to-day counts the largest number of adherents. Buddhism, rejects every one of these items." {Reli- gions of Primitive Peoples, American Lectures on the History of Religions for 1896-1897, p. 28.) After reviewing the principal theories of the origin of religion, he expresses his own opinion as follows : " The real explanation of the origin of religion is simple and universal. ... It makes no difference whether we analyze the superstitions of the rudest APPENDIX 359 savages, or the lofty utterances of John the EvangeHst, or of Spinoza the 'god-intoxicated philosopher'; we shall find one and the same postulate to the faith of all. "This universal postulate, the psychic origin of all religious thought, is the recognition, or, if you please, the assumption, that conscious volition is the ultimate source of all Force. It is the belief that behind the sensuous, phenomenal world, distinct from it, giving it form, existence, and activity, lies the ultimate, invisible, immeasurable power of Mind, of conscious Will, of Intelligence, analogous in some way to our own ; and, — mark this essential corollary, — that man is in comtnunication with it. " What the highest religions thus assume was likewise the founda- tion of the earliest and most primitive cults. The one universal trait amid their endless forms of expression was the unalterable faith in Mind, in the supersensuous, as the ultimate source of all force, all life, all being." {Religions of Primitive Peoples, Ameri- can Lectures on the History of Religions for 1896-189 7, pp. 47, 48.) In an earlier book {The Religious Sentiment, p. 79) Brinton gave the following definition : " Expectant attention directed toward an event not under known control, with a concomitant idea of Cause and Power." The authors of the three following quotations are concerned with the origin of religion. Thomas Hobbes. — "And in these four things. Opinions of Ghosts, Ignorance of second causes. Devotion towards what men fear, and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques, consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion." {Leviathan, Cambridge, 1904, P- 73-) David Hume. — "We may conclude, therefore, that in all na- tions . . . the first ideas of religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and fi-om the incessant hopes and fears, which actu- ate the human mind." {Essays, Vol. II, 1889, The Natural His- tory of Religions, p. 315.) R. R. Marrett — "Though open to conviction, therefore, I still incline to regard awe as the bottom fact in religion, and to suppose wonder-working to have become distinctly religious just in so far as 360 APPENDIX it came to be regarded with awe, namely, as something supranor- mal. My counter-hypothesis, in short, is this, that the essence of religion is miracle, and that the ' miracle of grace ' is but one form of miracle and therefore of religion." ( The Origin and Function of Religion^ a discussion, by A. E. Crawley and others, in Sociologi- cal Papers, 1906, Macmillan, Vol. Ill, p. 267.) W. WuNDT. — "In my opinion, the question can only be answered in one way : all ideas and feelings are religious which refer to ati ideal existence, an existence that fully corresponds to the wishes and requirements of the human mind." "The endeavor after an existence that shall satisfy the wishes and requirements of the human mind " is " the original source of religious feeling." {Ethics, Vol. I, The Facts of the Moral Life, tr. by Gulliver and Titchener, Macmillan, 1S97, pp. 59, 60.) This ideal he characterizes as changeable, — crude or refined according to the intellectual and aesthetic culture of the people concerned. It is " a product of human feehng and imagination." Wundt's Classification — Wundt finds three fundamentally different hypotheses in the field. " We may term them iht auton- otnous, the metaphysical, and the ethical theories of religion. " (i) The autonomous theory, plainly foreshadowed in the views of Hamann and Jacobi, became explicit in the work of Schleier- macher. It maintains that religion is an independent domain, above and beyond those of metaphysics and ethics. While the subject of metaphysics is theoretical knowledge of finite things, and that of ethics the relations of empirical conduct, religion is an 'immediate consciousness of the universal existence of all finitude in infinity, of all temporal things in things eternal,' or, as Schleier- macher expressed it later, ' a feeling of absolute dependence.' "(2) The metaphysical theory identifies religion with specula- tive knowledge of the universe. This may either be regarded as a knowledge to which human thought attains by the mediation of ideas (the older rationalism), or made a phase of the dialectical development of the absolute mind (modern speculative idealism). Hegel's definition of religion fits both conceptions equally well. It runs as follows : * Religion is the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind.' Here there is an APPENDIX 361 express intention to abolish the difference between religion and philosophy, or at least to make it appear unessential and merely external. . . . "(3) Finally, the ethical theory sees in religion the realization of moral postulates. This mode of thinking had its roots in the ' illuminated ' deism of the eighteenth century ; but its most in- fluential representative was Kant, whose doctrines are still widely current in philosophical and theological circles. Kant calls re- ligion ' a knowledge of all our duties as divine commands,' and so makes it the sum-total of all the hypotheses that we are compelled to set up, whether to explain the existence of the moral law or to assure its realization. As these presuppositions lead to transcen- dental ideas, empty of experiential contents, they are objects of faith and not of knowledge. . . ." {Ethics, Vol. I, The Fads of the Moral Life, tr. by Gulliver and Titchener, Macmillan, 1897, pp. 49-51-) Wundt criticises these three theories as follows : " (i) The explanation proposed by the autonomous theory is too indefinite. While it makes religion an immediate knowledge of God, or a feeling of absolute dependence, it leaves the object of this knowledge or feeling entirely undefined. (2) The answer given by the ethical theory is too narrow. Even if we incline to see the principal value of religion in its ethical effect, or believe that religion is completely contained in morality, we cannot avoid the conclusion that, as things are now, ethos and religion are really not identical in the human consciousness, and that religion is not to be regarded as a special ethical attitude. (3) Finally, the fault of the metaphysical theory, in both its forms, is that it con- founds religious ideas with intellectual problems." {Ibid., pp. 57-58.) THE AUTHOR'S PUBLICATIONS ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION 1 . Studies in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena [on conver- sion], Amer. Jr. of Psy., 1896, Vol. VII, pp. 309-385. 2. The Psycho-Physiology of the Categorical Imperative ; a chapter in the psycho-physiology of ethics, Amer. Jr. of Psy., 1897, Vol. VIII, pp. 528-559. 362 APPENDIX 3. hitrodtictio7t to a Psychological Study of Religion, Monist, 1901, Vol. XI, pp. 195-225. 4. The Cotitents of Religious Consciousness, Monist, 1901, Vol. XI, PP- 536-573- 5. Religion, its Impulses and its Ends, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1901, Vol. 58, pp. 751-773- 6. Les Tendances Religieiise chez Ics Mystiques Chritiens, Revue Philosophique, 1902, Vol. 54, pp. 1-36, 441-487. 7. The State of Mystical Death ; an instance of internal adapta- tion, Amer. Jr. of Psy., Commemorative number, 1903, Vol 14, pp. 133-146. 8. Empirical Data on Immortality, Internat. Jr. of Ethics, 1903 Vol. 14, pp. 90-105. 9. Professor William fames' s Interpretation of Religiojis Expe rience, Internat. Jr. of Ethics, 1904, Vol. 14, pp. 323-339. 10. Faith, Amer. Jr. of Relig. Psy. and Educ, 1904, Vol. I, pp 65-82. 1 1 . The Field and the Problems of the Psychology of Religion, Amer, Jr. of Relig. Psy. and Educ, 1904, Vol. I, pp. 155-167. 12. The Psychology of the Christian Mystics, Mind, N. S., Vol. 14; pp. 15-27. 13. Fear, Awe, and the Sublime, Amer. Jr. of Relig. Psy. and Educ 1906, Vol. 2, pp. 1-23. 14. Revue Generate de Psychologic Religieuse, Ann^e Psychologique 1905, Vol. XI, pp. 482-493- 15. Revue Generate de Psychologic Religieuse, Annde Psychologique 1906, Vol. 12, pp. 550-569. 16. Religion as a Factor in the Struggle for Life, Amer. Jr. of Relig Psy. and Educ, 1907, Vol. 2, pp. 307-343. 17. The Psychological Origin of Religion, Monist, 1909, Vol. 19, pp 27-35- 18. Magic and Religion, Sociological Review, January, 1909, pp 20-35. 19. The Psychological Nattire of Religion, Amer. Jr. of Theol., Jan uary, 1909, pp. 77-85- 20. Three Types of Behavior, Amer. Jr. of Psy., 1909, Vol. 20, pp 107-119. 21. La Religion con^ue convne fonction biologiqtte, Sixieme Congres International de Psychologic, Geneve, Rapports et Comptes Rendus, pp. 1 18-125. 22. Les Relations de la Religion avec la Science et la Philosophic, ibid., pp. 125-137. 23. The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion, Archibald Constable and Co., London, 1909, p. 95- APPENDIX 363 If questions of priority were to arise regarding views ad- vanced in this book, they should be settled by reference to the papers listed above in which have appeared much of the substance of this volume. The topics treated in these publications cover, in a provisional manner, a much wider field than the present book. I hope to be able to complete, at a not too distant date, the task I have set myself. INDEX OF AUTHORS Abbott, LjTnan, 218. Adler, Felix, 328, 330, 331, 357. Ames, E. S., 51, 53, 54. Anselm, 209. Aristotle, 43. Arr^at, L., 30. Augustine, Saint, 32, 248^-249. Avebury, Lord (Sir John Lubbock), 129. Bancroft, H. H., 21. Barth, 285. Barton, George, 175. Belot, G., 248. Bentley, I. M., 67. Bergson, Henri, 334-335' Berguer, Henri, 235. Binet, A., 141. Biran, Maine de, 32. Bois, Henri, 224-227, 241, 243. Bosanquet, H., 353. Boutroux, Emile, 239, 263, 265, 309. Bradley, F. H., 39, 251-2^2. Bridges, Horace J., 331. Bridges, J. H., 313. Brinton, D. G., 24, 72-73. 358^359- Budde, Karl, 175. Caird, Edward, 356. Campbell, R. J., 291, 292-294, 357-3S8- Chamberlain, Alexandre, 78. Christie, R., 322. Chubb, Percival, 330, 331, 336. Clodd, Edward, 91. Codrington, R. H., 4, 6, 12, 76, ior-102, 115, 117, 119, 174. 230. Coit, Stanton, 331. Comenius, J. A., 351. Comte, A., 38, 65, 307-310, 321-323, 326, 355. Coriat, Isador, 298. Crawley, A. E., 47-48, 51. Curr, E. M., 12. D'AIviella, Goblet, 353-354- Darwin, Charles, 58, 67, 167. Davenport, F. M., 11, 135, 141. Davids, Rhys, 283, 284, 286-288. Davis, H. B., 59. Delacroix, Henri, 272. Denney, Professor, 233. Dewey, John, 43. Digamma, 220-222, 243. Dorsay, G. Owen, 16. Durkheim, E., 51, 89-90, 93. Eddy, Mary Baker, 295, 297, 301-304. Edwards, Jonathan, 135. Eucken, Rudolph, 259. Evans, W. F., 300. Feuerbach, L., 32, 38-39, 252-253. Fletcher, Alice C, 82-83, 162. Fletcher, Horace, 143. Flint, Robert, 290, 317, 318, 320. Floumoy, Theodore, 140, 207, 245- 246. Forsythe, P. F., 229. Foucart, P., 21, 152. Francis of Assisi, Saint, 319. Eraser, A. C, 29, 32. Frazer, J. G., 6, 76-77, 108, 1 19-122, 152. 153-159, 163-164, 166, 170-171, 177-180, 188-189, 197, 353. Fryer, A. T., 136. Garvie, A., 208, 210, 232, 233, 259. Gautier, Lton., 316. Gayraud, Abb6, 247. Green, T. H., 252, 293. Gros, Durand de, 248. Guyau, M. J., 41. Guyon, Madame, 36. Hall, Charies Cuthbert, 216. Hall, G. Stanley, 68, 139, 143. Harrison, Frederic, 309, 318. Hartland, E. S., 109, no. Hartmann, Eduard von, 22, 342-343. Hebert, Marcel, 54. Hegel, 344. 36s 366 INDEX OF AUTHORS Herbart, J. F., 32-33. Herrmann, W., 229, 232, 351. Hobbes, Thomas, 71, 359. Hofiding, H., 33, 46-47. 107. 202, 252, 253- Howitt, A. W., 12, 76, 108-109, no, 173, 178. Hume, David, 359. Huxley, Thomas, 24. Inge, William Ralph, 256. James, William, 31, 32, 39-40, 44, 103, 148, 237, 240, 243, 255, 271, 272-274, 352. Jastrow, Joseph, 81. Jevons, F. B., 52, 163, 172, 344. Jones, Rufus, 227, 294-295. Kant, E., 242-244, 358. Kern, H., 282, 283, 285, 298. Kidd, Benjamin, 355. King, Irving, 48-52, 75, I57, 167, 175, 184-186, 198-199. Kingsley, Mary H., 93, loo-ioi, 106- 107. Kropotkin, Prince, 358. Kuhn, Adelbert, 96. Ladd, George T., 344. Lang, Andrew, 102-103, no, I79, iQQ, 203-204. Lavaud, Charles, 272. L60, Albert, 265. LeRoy, Mgr., loi, 247. Leuba, J. H., 88, 95, 126, 140. Lichtenstein, M. H. K., 154. Lodge, Oliver, 295. Lotze, H., 251. Lovejoy, Arthur 0., 74-75, 84. Lubbock, Sir John (Lord Avebury), 129. Luther, Martin, 32. McComb, Samuel, 398. McDougall, Wm., 145, 196. McTaggart, John, 207, 248, 349. Marett, R. R., 72, 73-74, 75, 84, 93, 129, 163, 171, 182-184, 359-360. Marshall, Henry Rutgers, 323, 354-355- Martineau, Harriet, 139. Martineau, James, 23, 25, 343. Maspero, G. C, 151-152. Matthews, Dr. Washington, 19, 20. Minault, Paul, 223. Mommsen, A., 21. Morgan, C. Lloyd, 64, 66, 68. Morris, M., 3. Miiller, Max, 25-26, 41, 85, 96, 203, 339-341. Miinsterberg, Hugo, 44, 345-346. Myers, F. W. H., 358. Newman, Cardinal, 251. Paradon, Emile, 222. Parker, Mrs. E. L., loi, 199. Pascal, Blaise, 209-210. Patterson, Charles B., 297, 305. Paulsen, Friedrich, 16. Pennington, Isaac, 236. Perez, Emile, 78. Petrie, Flinders, 6, 182. Pfleiderer, O., 41, 208, 261, 350. Ponsoye, E., 263. Powell, Lyman P., 302. Preyer, W., 92. Pritchett, Henry S., 316. Reischle, Max, 255. Renan, Ernst, 356. R6ville, A., 38, 352. Ribot, Th., 128, 145, 350. Ritschl, Albrecht, 208-209, 231, 233, 258, 350-351. Rivers, W. H. R., 174. Romanes, G. J., 23, 24, 25, 68, 343-344- Royce, J., 357. Sabatier, A., 38, 40, 217, 295, 357. Sainte-Beuve, 133, 315. Salter, William M., 331. Schian, Martin, 228. SchiUer, F. C. S., 207, 248. Schleiermacher, F., 33-34, 35, 249, 346- 348. Schmidt, Father Wilhelm, 102, 104, no. Schopenhauer, 38. Seeberg, Reinhold, 228, 243, 269-270. Seeley, J. R., 53. Sergi, G., 24, 353. Siebeck, Hermann, 40. Simmel, G., 349-350. Smith, Gerald Boiney, 228. Smith, W. Robertson, 20, 130-131, 203. Soyen Shaqu, 215. Spencer, Herbert, 24, 26-28, 65-66, 199, 341-342. Spencer and Gillen, loi, 165, i66, 197. INDEX OF AUTHORS 367 Stanley, Hiram M., 333. Starbuck, E. D., 139. Stout. G. F., 81, 82. Stratton, George M., 38, 350. Sully, James, 78, 80, 92, 94, 170. Sutherland, Alexandre, 196. Tertullian, 209. Theal, G. M'Call, 109. Thompson, Daniel Greenleaf, 351. Thum, Sir Everard im, 90. Tiele, C. P., 15, 33, 288, 340, 348-349- Tonnies, F., 355. Tracy, Frederic, 78. Trine, Ralph Waldo, 300, Troward, T., 299. Tylor, Edward B., 70-72, 85. Upton, 357. Van Gennep, A., no. Voltaire, 255. Warren, H. C, 158. Washburn, M. F., 67. Wells, H. G., 327. Wilson, George R., 144. Worcester, Elwood, 298. Wordsworth, W., 319. Wundt, W., 24, 43, 167, 360-361. INDEX OF SUBJECTS Abstract ideas, 60-61. Alcheringa, loi. Animals, behavior of, 57-69; actions impossible to, 62 ; difference between men and, 62-65; worship of, 116-117. Animism, Tylorian, 70-72 ; and belief in non-personal powers, 76-77. Apparitions, 89. Australians, 12, 76-77, loi, 10S-109, 110, 165, 166, 173, 178, 197. Awe, 118, 145-149. Awfulness, 117. Behavior, three types of, 4-7, 190; mechanical, 5; coerdtive, 5-7; an- thropopathic, 5; animal, 57-69; origins of magical, 164-172; of religious practices, 172-175. Benevolence of gods, 117. Brahmanism, 290. Brooke, Sir James, 3; 121. Buddhism, 281-298. Cats, behavior of, 59. Cause, child's conception of, 96-97. Ceremonies, magical, 12-13, 62; of Catholicism, 21; religious, 172-175. Child, explanatory concepts of the, 7&- 81 ; 9^97- Chimpanzee, behavior of, 58. Christian Science, 295-296, 301-307. Classification, of wonderful beings, 122- 123; of magic, 153-164, 190-191. Comtism, 307-313, 321-323. 326-328. Conscience, facts of, 87. Conscious life, unit of, 35; place of thought and feeling in, 42-45. Contagious Magic, 153-154. Creation, problem of, 96-98. Creative force, 334-335- Creator, conception of, 87, 96-98. Dakota Indians, 72. Dancing, 62, 155-158, i68. 2B Definitions of religion, intellectualistic, 25-32, 339-346; affectivistic, 32-38, 346-351 ; voluntaristic, 38-42, 352- 360; Wundt's classification of, 360- 361. Deification of men, 119-124. Dieri, 152. Disease, cure of, ii. Documental evidence, inner exi)eriences, 212-229. Dogs, behavior of, 58, 66, 67, 68. Dreams, 89-92. Ducks, behavior of, 64. Dyaks, of Borneo, 3 ; of Sarawak, 121. Dynamism, 84. j Edwardian revivals, 141. Emotions, in primitive religion, 126-131; in later forms of religion, 132-148. Empirical God, 246-254, 272-274. Empirical religion, documents, 212-229. Empirical theolog>', 207-212. Ethical Culture Societies, 328-332. Faith, 261-268. Fear, in religion, 128-131, I33-I4S; causes for decline of, 140-145 ; in Roman Church, 150; in secular life, 150. Feeling, place of, in religion, 35-38; in conscious life, 42-45; "feeling of value," 45-52; of effort, 181-183. Friends, Society of, 294-295. Ghosts, 14, 86 ; origin of belief in, 89-93. God, proofs for existence of, 87-88, 247- 249; as creator, loo-iio; the maimer in which God is supposed to act in the soul, 240-242 ; failure of Wm. James' attempt to prove the action of, 272- 274; empirical and metaphysical conceptions of, 246-254. God-incarnate, 123 ; magic-god, 123. Gods, subjective existence of, 10 ; advan- ^ 369 370 INDEX OF SUBJECTS tages of belief in non-existent, ii-is; dynamic value of belief in, 14; origin of idea of, 85-110; making of, iii- 113, 124-125; essential characteris- tics of, 113-118; function of, in moral life, 201-202. Gratitude, 128. Hebrew worship, 20. Hero-ancestors, 14. High Gods, 102-110. Homoeopathic Magic, 153. Humanity, religion of, 307-313; 321- 323, 326-328, 335-336. Hysteria, 87. Ideas, free, 64; in animals, 65-67; of impersonal powers, 70-84; of unseen, personal powers, 85-110. Images, 67. Imitation, in animal life, 60. Imitative Magic, 153. Immanence in theology, 291-295. Immediacy of religious knowledge, 234- 240; 276; documental evidence, 212- 229. Inductive method in theology, 255-261. Inner experience, 233, 242, 275-277 ; I, documental evidence of the existence of God, 212-229; and divine action, 272-274. Invisibility of gods, 116-117. Law, of Contact or Contagion, 153; of Similarity, 153, 156. Magic, 5-7, 62 ; origin of, 77 ; varieties and classification of, 1 51-164; rela- tion of, to religion, 177-180; prior to religion, 180-181 ; associated with religion, 181-184; duration of, 186- 187; relation to science, 187-190. Magic-gods, 123. Magical behavior, origins of, 164-172. Magicians, 119, 122. Mana, definition of, 76, 122, 123, 163. Manitouism, 84. Melanesians, 63, 101-102, 115, 119-120. Metaphysics, relation of, to religion, 25- 32, 206, 207-211. Mind-cure, 296, 301-304. Monotheism 109; see also under Theism. Moody, D. L., 135. MoraUty, relation of, to religion, 195- 203 ; social origin of, 196 ; of primitive man, 196-200; independent of reli- gion, 323-326. Mysteriousness of gods, 117. Mythology, relation of, to religion, 203- 206. Navajo Great Mountain Chant, 19. Needs, aSective and moral, 88-8g. Negative religion, 131. New Thought, 304-307. Non-personal powers, origin of belief in, 70-84; prior to animism, 76-77; children's conception of, 79-81. North American Indians, religious prac- tices of, 19. Origin, of idea of impersonal powers, 7c^ 84 ; of ideas of unseen personal beings, 85-110; of gods, 110-113; of magical practices, 164-172; of reUgious prac- tices, 172-175. Pantheism, 289-295; 317-321. Passive religiosity, 191. Personal beings, 85-110. Personal God, 125. Personality, of God, 250-254; 315-317; of gods, 113-114. Personification of natural phenomena, 94-96. Philosophy, diSerentiated from religion, 29-32; and theology, 207-212. Positive religion, 131. Positivism, 307-313; insufficiency of, 321-323, 327- Prayer, varieties of, 16. Principle of Repetition in magic, 159. Psychology, animal, 57 ; relation of, to theology, metaphysics, and science, 207-212; to religion, 42-45, 220, 245- 246, 257-258, 268-275- Psychotherapic cults, 295-307. Religion, nature and function of, 3-22; characteristic impulses of, 7; as an instinct, 9 ; biological value of, 14-15. 16-18 ; as gratification of human needs, 16; current conceptions of, 23-54; variety of definitions of, 23-25 ; defined from intellectual point of view, 25-32 ; Miiller's definition of, 25-26 ; Spencer's definition of, 26-28; difierentiated INDEX OF SUBJECTS 371 from philosophy, 28-32; defined as emotion, 32-35 ; Schleiermacher's defi- nition of, 33-34; place of feeling in, 35-38; defined from practical fx)int of view, 38-42; Feuerbach's definition of, 38-39 ; James's definition of, 39-40 ; Sabatier's definition of, 40; Siebeck's definition of, 40; thought and feeUng in, 40-41; defined as "feeling of vsilue," 45-52; Hoffding's definition of, 46-47 ; Crawley's definition of, 47- 48; King's definition of, 48-52; differentiated from the rest of Ufe, 52- 54; fear in, 128-131, 133-145; rever- ence in, 130-131; emotions in later forms of, 132-148; awe and the sub- lime in, 145-149 ; relation of magic to, 176-191 ; social and beneficient nature of, 184-186; latest forms of, 281-313; future of, 314-336; present situation 10,314-317; independent of moraUty, 323-326; philosophical basis of, 332- 335 ; definitions of, 339-360. See also imder ceremonies, definitions, docu- mental evidence, empirical, origin, psy- chology. Religion of Humanity, 307-313, 321-323 ; 326-328, 335-336. ReUgious, needs, 8; emotions, 9; prac- tices, 18-22, 172-175; consciousness, 30-31 ; knowledge, immediately given in specific experiences, 234-240. Reverence, 131. Ritschlian theology, 208-210, 231-233, 258. Roberts, Evan, 136. Sacredness, 10; as characteristic of reli- gion, 45-4Q; of gods, 117-118. Science, relation of, to religion, 208, 209, 211, 220, 242-244, 245-246,. Sioux Indians, 82-83. Sublime, sense of, 146-149. Suggestion, 11, 18. Supematuralism, 84. Sympathetic Magic, 155, 160, 169. Tender emotion, 127. Teratism, 84. Theism, insuflBciency of, for religion, 289- 291, 319-321. Theology, empirical, 207-212 ; as a body of induced propositions, 244-245, 255- 261; immanence in, 291-295. Thought, place of, in conscious life, 42-45. Trances, 86, 89. Transcendental belief, 323-326; the transcendental and science, 207-212. Trial-and-error method of learning, 60- 62. Tuppa, 3. Unseen agents, no. Value, feeling of, 45-52 ; judgment of, 231-233- Varieties of magic, 151-164. Wakan, 72. Wa-zhin-dhe-dhe, 82-83. Welsh revival, 135-136. Wesley, John, I34-I3S- Will-effort, 81-83, 160. Will-Magic, 15&-159, 162-163, 183. 'TpHE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects By WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH Author of " Christianity and the Social Crisis " Christianizing the Social Order Cloth, i2mo, $i.jo net Dr. Rauschenbusch's former book " Christianity and the Social Crisis " called for a social awakening of the moral and religious forces; his new book shows that this awakening is now taking place, and to that extent is full of hopefulness. Dr. Kauschenbusch examines the present social order to determine what portions have already been Christianized and what portions have not yet submitted to the revolu- tionizing influence of the Christian law and spirit. 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