The study of religion falls naturally and easily into two parts. The
first is a question of origin. Under what conditions did the hypothesis
that supernatural beings control the life of man come into existence? We
know that in civilised times religious beliefs are in the nature of an
inheritance. A member of any civilised society finds them here when he
is born, he grows up with them, generally accepting them without
question, or effecting certain modifications in the form in which he
continues to hold them. If we treat religion as a hypothesis, advanced
as other hypotheses are advanced, to account for a certain class of
facts, then we can safely say that religion is one of the earliest in
the history of human thought. And its antiquity and universality
preclude us from seeking an explanation of its origin in the mental life
of civilised humanity. Whether the religious hypothesis can or cannot be
justified by an appeal to civilised intelligence, it is plain it did not
begin there. Its beginnings are earlier than any existing civilisation;
and in its most general form may be said to be as old as mankind itself.
Consequently, if any satisfactory explanation of the origin of the
religious idea is to be found, it must be sought amid the very earliest
conditions of human society.
Now whatever the differences of opinion concerning matters of detail,
there is substantial agreement amongst European anthropologists upon one
important point. They all agree that the conception of supernatural, or
'spiritual,' beings owes its beginning to the ignorance of primitive man
concerning both his own nature and the nature of the world around him.
The beginnings of human experience suggest questions that can only be
satisfactorily answered by the accumulated experience of many
generations. These questions do not materially differ from those that
face men to-day. The why and wherefore of things are always with us;
life propounds the same problem to all; it is the replies alone that
vary, and the nature of these replies is determined by the knowledge at
our disposal. The difference is not in nature but in man. The answers
given by primitive man to these eternal questions are a complete
inversion of those of his better informed descendants. The conception of
natural force, of mechanical necessity, is as yet unborn, and the
primitive thinker everywhere assumes the operation of personal beings as
responsible for all that occurs. This is not so much the product of
careful and elaborate philosophising, it is closer akin to the _naive_
thinking of a child concerning a thunderstorm. Primitive thought accepts
the universal operation of living and intelligent forces as an
unquestionable fact. Modern thought tends more and more surely in the
direction of regarding the universe as a complex of self-adjusting,
non-conscious forces. Primitive thought assumes a supernatural agency as
the cause of disease, and seeks, logically, to placate it by prayer or
coerce it by magic. Modern thought turns to test-tube and microscope,
searches for the malignant germ, and manufactures an antitoxin. The
history of human thought is, as Huxley said, a record of the
substitution of mechanical for vitalistic processes. The beginning of
religion is found in connection with the latter. A genuine science
commences with the emergence of the former.
With this aspect of the matter I have not, however, been specially
concerned. It has been left on one side in order to concentrate
attention upon another and a more neglected aspect of the subject--that
of the conditions that have served to perpetuate the religious idea.
Grant, what cannot be well denied in the face of modern investigation,
that ideas of the supernatural began in primitive delusion. How comes it
that this idea has not by now disappeared from civilised society? What
are the causes that have given it such a lengthy lease of life?
Experience has shown that all really verifiable knowledge counts as an
asset of naturalism, and is so far opposed to supernaturalism. Moreover,
the history of science has been such that one feels justified in the
assumption that, given time and industry, there are no phenomena that
are not susceptible to a naturalistic explanation. Why, then, has not
supernaturalism died out? Even the religious idea cannot persist without
evidence of some kind being offered in its behalf. This evidence may be
to a better instructed mind inconclusive or irrelevant, but evidence of
some sort there must have been all along, and must still be. Granted
that the religious idea began with primitive mankind, granted also that
it was based on a mistaken interpretation of natural phenomena, these
reasons are quite insufficient to explain why thousands of generations
later that idea is still with us. "Our fathers have told us" offers to
the average mind a strong appeal, but surely the children will require
some further proof than this. What kind of evidence is it that
throughout the ages religious people have accepted as conclusive? A
study of primitive psychology shows clearly enough how the religious
idea vitalised the facts. What we next have to discern is the class of
facts that have kept the religious idea alive.
The foregoing pages constitute an attempt to answer this question. The
need for some such investigation was clearly shown by the publication of
the late Professor William James's _Varieties of Religious Experience_
and its reception by the religious press of the country as an
epoch-marking work. As a mere collection of documents, the work is
interesting enough. But its critical value is extremely small. How
religious visionaries have felt, or what has been their experiences, can
only furnish the mere data of an enquiry, and _their explanation of the
cause of their experiences is a part of the data_. This, apparently,
Professor James overlooked; and it will be noted by critical readers of
his book that it proceeds on the assumption that the statements of
religious visionaries are to be taken, not only as true concerning their
subjective experiences at a given time, but also as approximately true
as to the causes of their mental states. This, of course, by no means
follows. A scientific enquiry cannot separate mental conditions from the
subject's interpretation of their causation. Whether this interpretation
is genuine or not must be decided finally by an appeal to what is known
of the laws of mental life, under both normal and abnormal conditions.
If these are adequate to explain the "Varieties of Religious
Experience," there is no need whatever to assume the operation of a
supernatural agency. Nor does calling this agency 'transcendent' or
'supermundane' make any substantial difference. For, in this connection,
these are only names that serve to disguise a visitant of a highly
undesirable character.
The evidence on behalf of a naturalistic explanation of religious
phenomena has been purposely stated in a suggestive rather than in an
exhaustive manner. The main lines of evidence are threefold. First,
there is the indisputable fact that in the lower stages of culture all
mental and bodily diseases are universally attributed to spiritual
agency. This explanation holds the field; it is the only one possible at
the time, and it is not replaced until a comparatively late stage of
human history. But of special importance is the fact that a belief does
not die out suddenly. It is only destroyed very slowly, and even after
the facts upon which the belief was originally based have been otherwise
interpreted, the attitude of mind engendered by the long reign of a
belief remains. It has by that time become part of the intellectual
environment. Theories of a quasi-philosophic or quasi-scientific
character are elaborated, and give to the original belief something of a
rational air. Even to-day the extent to which superstitious practices
still gather round the subject of disease is known only to the curious
in such matters. Not that the original reason is given for the practice.
In nearly every case a different one is invented. To take only a single
example. We still find saffron tea largely used in cases of measles. All
medical men are aware that it possesses not the slightest curative
value. Students of folklore are aware that it has its origin in the
theory of sympathetic cures. Its redeeming feature is that it is
harmless; so we find it still in common use, and the recovery of a child
from measles is often enough attributed to the potency of the
concoction. So with the relation of disease to the persistence of the
belief in the supernatural. The conclusion that disease--whether bodily
or mental--is due to the agency of spirits is one that follows from the
existence of the religious idea; but in turn the observed facts react
and strengthen the religious belief. Every case of disease becomes to
the primitive mind an unanswerable proof in favour of the original
hypothesis. The disease is there, and the only explanation possible is
in terms of the animistic idea. And all the time the religious idea is
becoming more deeply embedded in the social consciousness, more firmly
established as a social fact.
The next line of evidence is that furnished by what I have called the
culture of the supernatural. By some means or other--probably by
accident in the first instance--it is discovered that certain herbs and
vegetable drugs have a peculiar effect on one's mental state. Those who
use them see or hear things other people do not normally hear or see.
Abstention from food and other bodily privations produce similar
results. What is the inevitable conclusion? The only one possible under
the existing conditions is that communication has been set up with an
invisible world from which one is shut off under normal conditions. From
this to the next step is obvious and easy. If a drug, or a fast, brings
one into communication with the supernatural world, one has only to
repeat the conditions in order to repeat the experience. And repeated
they are in all religions, with, at most, those modifications induced by
changed times and circumstances. This is why fasting and other forms of
'fleshly mortification' play so large a part in the history of religion.
The savage medicine man, the Hindu fakir, the medieval saint, all create
their ecstasies by the simple plan of disturbing the normal operations
of the nervous system. It is not, of course, implied that this is done
with a full consciousness of all that is involved in the practice. The
derangement is to them the condition of the supernatural manifestation,
not the physiological and psychological cause of the experience.
The third main line of evidence is connected with the phenomena of
sexuality. It has been shown that in early stages of culture man
everywhere connects the phenomena of the sexual life with the activity
of supernatural forces. Following the lines of investigation indicated
by Mr. Sidney Hartland, we saw reason to believe that the primitive
conception of procreation is not that afterwards prevalent, but that of
assuming the birth of a child to be due to the direct action of
spiritual beings on the mother. Proofs of this are found in existing
beliefs among primitive peoples, in the magical practices so widely
current to obtain children, and in numerous other customs connected with
childbirth. The phenomenon of puberty in the male and of menstruation in
the female gives a terrifying reality to this belief. But still more
important is the fact that a great deal of assumed religious feeling is
found on analysis to be little more than masked sexuality. The
connection between eroticism and piety has been noted over and over
again by medical observers in the cases that have been brought
professionally under their notice. And it is hardly less marked in a
large number of instances that are usually classed as normal. Thus great
religious teachers have often emphasised the value of a celibate life as
a means of furthering religious devotion, and nearly all have treated it
with marked respect. The reason given for this is that marriage involves
a greater absorption in material or worldly cares, while celibacy
leaves one free to full devotion to the spiritual. But the bottom reason
for it is that sexual and domestic feelings, lacking their proper outlet
in marriage and family life, run with greater force in the outlet
provided by religion. So it happens that we find unmarried men and
women, devoted to the religious life, expressing themselves towards
Jesus or the Virgin in language which, separated from its religious
associations, leaves no doubt as to its origin in unsatisfied sexual
feeling. In these cases we are dealing with a perversion of one of the
deepest of human instincts. And it is one of the commonest of
observations in psychology that when a feeling is denied outlet through
its proper channel it finds vent in some other direction, and is to that
extent masked or disguised.
Allied to the fact of perversion is that of misinterpretation. In the
chapter on _Conversion_ we have seen how largely this occurs at the
period of adolescence. The significant features of adolescence are a
development of the sexual nature and an awakening of a consciousness of
race kinship. Connected with these, and flowing from them, is a more or
less rapid development of what are called the altruistic feelings, the
individual becoming less self-centred and more concerned for the
well-being of others. From an evolutionary point it is easy to read the
fundamental meaning of these transformations, although in the course of
social development they have become overlaid with a number of secondary
characteristics. Still, in a completely rationalised social life, with
adequate knowledge concerning the nature of adolescence, every care
would be taken to direct these developing energies into purely social
channels. Adolescence is the great formative period; it is then that
imitation and suggestion play their most important parts, and it is then
that the foundations may be laid of a really good and useful
citizenship. If we fail then, we fail completely.
In a society where supernaturalism still exerts considerable power
another, and a more disastrous, policy is pursued. Every endeavour is
made by religious organisations to exploit adolescence in their own
interest. Thousands of priests, often, no doubt, with the best of
motives, are engaged in impressing upon the youthful mind an entirely
erroneous notion of the character and the direction of the feelings
experienced. The sense of restlessness, consequent upon a period of
great physiological disturbance, is utilised to create an unhealthy
'conviction of sin,' or the need of 'getting right with God.' Social
duties and obligations are made incidental rather than fundamental.
Activities that should be consciously directed to a social end are
diverted into religious channels, and one consequence of this, as we
have seen, is a large crop of nervous disorders that might be avoided
were a healthier outlet provided. In this the modern priest is acting
precisely as his savage forerunner acted. As the savage medicine man
associates sexual phenomena with the activity of the tribal ghosts, so
the modern priest often associates the psychological conditions that
accompany adolescence with a supernatural influence. The distinction
between the two is a purely verbal one. In neither case is there a
recognition of the nature of the processes actually at work; in both
cases the phenomena are used to emphasise the reality and activity of
the supernatural. In both cases the social feelings are disguised by
the religious interpretation given, with the result that instead of
adolescence being, as it should be, the period of a conscious entry into
the larger social life, it only too often marks the beginning of a
lifelong servitude to retrogressive forces.
These are the main lines along which, I conceive, the study of the
pathologic elements that enter into the history of religion must be
studied. And so long as we restrict our study to the lower culture
stages the evidence is clear and unmistakable. It is when we reach the
higher stages of civilisation that the problem becomes more difficult.
For although it is possible to detect the same factors at work they are
expressed in a different way, and affiliated to current philosophic and
even scientific ideas. Thus, it would be readily admitted by most people
nowadays that visions seen by a fasting man, or by a taker of drugs, or
by one suffering from some nervous disorder, were wholly inadmissible as
evidence. So far we have advanced beyond the point of view of primitive
races. But the testimony of one who by constantly dwelling upon a single
idea, and by excluding rational and corrective influences, has brought
about a quite abnormal state of mind, is still counted of value by
theologians. Much of the current cant concerning 'mysticism' may be
cited in illustration of this. Exactly what mysticism is no one appears
to know. Definitions are numerous and varied. So far as most mystics are
concerned the definition of Harnack--"Mysticism is rationalism applied
to a sphere beyond reason"--appears to hit the mark, although how reason
can be used in a sphere to which it does not apply is precisely one of
those unintelligible statements that so delights those with yearnings
after the ineffable. The normal mind will probably find more
satisfaction in John Stuart Mill's description of mysticism as being
"neither more nor less than ascribing objective existence to the
subjective creations of the mind, and believing that by watching and
contemplating these ideas of its own making, it can read what takes
place in the world without."
But the general claim of 'mystics,' and, indeed, of supernaturalists
generally, is that they are, in virtue of the exercise of certain
qualities or 'faculties,' either inoperative at certain times, or absent
in the case of normal folk, able to perceive a truth not perceptible to
people less fortunately endowed. And these claims, I have no hesitation
in saying, are wholly false. There are all degrees of development of
human faculty, but it is substantially the same with all. There is no
royal road to truth in this direction more than in others. Truth is
reached in the same way by all, and although an induction may in the
case of certain well-dowered individuals be so rapid as to rank as an
'intuition,' a careful analysis destroys the illusion.
When we clear away from the claims of the 'mystic' all the superfluities
of language that are there, and so reduce these claims to their lowest
and plainest terms, we find ourselves face to face with the claim of the
supernaturalist as it has existed from savage times onward. The method
remains true to itself. In the first instance, we have the claim to
illumination based upon direct interference with the normal workings of
the mind. In the next stage, we find this interference still marked, but
less direct. Finally, we have the unhealthy operation of fixed ideas,
and the exclusion of all conditions that would prevent the operation of
hallucination or illusion. But the method remains the same throughout,
and it is equally sterile throughout. In all history these mystical
states of illumination have discovered no verifiable truth; they have
never at any time advanced human knowledge in the smallest degree. And
the reason for this is plain: The brain of the mystic, like that of the
non-mystic, can only work on the basis of its acquired knowledge or
experience. It can create nothing new; it can declare no truth that is
not in the nature of an induction from existing knowledge. All that the
religious mystic can accomplish after brooding upon inherited religious
beliefs is to create new combinations, or effect certain modifications
or developments of them, and by continued contemplation endow his
subjective creations with an objective existence. That is why the
Christian mystic remains a Christian. The Mohammedan mystic remains a
Mohammedan. The 'supersensible reality' is always of the kind consonant
with their inherited beliefs and their social environment. That is also
why mysticism has its fashions like all other forms of religious
extravagance. And as he is "applying rationalism to a sphere above
reason," the mystic may give full vent to his imaginative powers. That
which is above reason may defy reasonable disproof. To some, however, it
has the disadvantage of not admitting of reasonable verification. There
is nothing here but the primitive delusion operating under changed
conditions.
In addition, to the lines of investigation followed in the foregoing
pages, a great deal might be said as to how far the religious idea has
been perpetuated by an exploitation of purely social qualities. It must
be obvious to even the cursory student that a great deal of what is now
being put forward as religious is really no more than a sociology with a
religious label. The feeling for truth, beauty, justice, the desire for
social intercourse, are all treated as expressions of religious
conviction. All sorts of social reforms are urged in the name of
religion, and the degree of success achieved dwelt upon as fruits of the
religious spirit. But in no legitimate sense of the word can these
things be called religious. They may or may not be consonant with the
existing religion, but in themselves they are very clearly the outcome
of man's social nature, and would exist even though religion disappeared
entirely. The appeals made to man's moral sense, to his sense of
justice, to his sympathies, are thus fundamentally appeals made to his
social nature, and so far as the religious appeal is placed upon this
basis it becomes an exploitation of the social consciousness.
Unfortunately, the long association of religious forms with social life
and institutions, due ultimately to the immense power of supernaturalism
in early society, this, combined with early education, makes it a matter
of no small difficulty for the average man or woman to separate the two
things.
Finally, let us imagine for a moment that the course of human history
had been different to what it actually has been. Suppose that by some
miracle humanity had started its career in full possession of that
knowledge of nature which has been so laboriously accumulated. In that
case, would the belief in the supernatural have ever existed? Would the
thousand and one 'spiritual beings' of primitive society have ever had
being? And if not called into being then, from what other source could
they have been derived? Is there anything in later scientific knowledge
that would ever have suggested the supernatural? We know there is not;
we know that the whole of modern science is an emphatic protest against
its existence. Unfortunately the scientist does not come first, but
last; and by the time he appears, the supernatural has made good its
foothold; it has permeated human institutions, and has bitten so deeply
into habits of thought as to make its eradication the most difficult of
all tasks.
Let us carry our imagining yet a step further. Imagine that even after
primitive ignorance had created the supernatural, it had come to an
abrupt stop when man had emerged from the purely savage stage. Suppose a
generation born, not without knowledge of what their progenitors
believed, but with a sufficient knowledge of their own to correct their
ancestor's errors. Suppose that generation in a position to recognise
disease, insanity, delusion, hysteria, hallucination for what they are.
Assume them to be under no delusion concerning the nature of man,
physically or mentally. Would the religious idea have persisted in the
way that it has done? Granted religion would still have continued to
exist as an ultimate philosophy of nature that appealed to some minds,
as other systems of philosophy number their disciples, would it have
been the dominating power it has been? What under such conditions would
have become of that evidence for the supernatural, accepted generation
after generation, but which is now rejected by all educated minds? Where
would have been that long array of seers, prophets, illuminants, whose
credentials have been found in states of mind that are now seen to have
been pathological in character? For remember it was not always--very
seldom, in fact--the justice, or the reasonableness of the teachings set
forth, that won support, but generally the 'signs and wonders' that were
pointed to as evidence of the divine commission of the teachers. Assume,
then, that these 'signs and wonders' had been wanting, and that for
thousands of years people had looked at natural phenomena from the point
of view of the educated mind of to-day, what would have been the present
position of the religious idea? Would it not have been like a tree
divorced from the soil?
Well, we know that the course of history has been far different from
what I have assumed to be the case. We know that the savage dies out
very slowly, and that even in civilised States to-day he is honoured in
the existence of a whole army of representatives. Each generation moves
along the road marked out by its predecessors, and broadens or lengthens
it to but a small extent. For many, many generations people went on
adopting the conclusions of the savage concerning man and the universe,
and finding proofs of the soundness of those conclusions in exactly the
same kind of experiences. The beliefs thus engendered were wild and
absurd--admittedly so, and many of such a nature that educated people
are now ashamed of them. But such as they were, they served the purpose
of perpetuating the belief in the supernatural, and so served to
strengthen the general religious idea. Of that there can be no
reasonable doubt. For the influence of beliefs that have been long held
does not end with the intellectual perception of their falsity. A belief
such as witchcraft dies out, but by that time it has done its work in
familiarising the general mind with the reality of the supernatural, and
so prepares the ground for other harvests. These long centuries of
superstitious beliefs have left behind in society a psychological
residuum that is at all times an obstacle and is sometimes fatal to
scientific thinking. We are like men who have obtained freedom after
almost a lifetime of slavery. We may be no longer in any real danger of
the lash, but fear of the whip has become part of our nature, and we
shrink without cause. So with all those now admitted delusions that have
been described in the foregoing pages, and which for generations were
asserted without question. They bit deeply in to social institutions;
the temper of mind they induced became part of our social heritage. They
perpetuated the long reign of supernaturalism, and still interpose a
serious obstacle to sane and helpful conceptions of man and the
universe.