CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE NATURE AND THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION
The organised, historical Religions are sufficiently described, in their
objective aspect, as systems of practical relations with unseen,
hyperhuman, and personal Beings. The experiences in which this type of
Religion consists, when subjectively considered, are the states of
consciousness correlated with the aforesaid relations. Judged according to
this definition, several savage tribes and a very large number of persons
among civilised peoples would have to be accounted non-religious. Most of
them may, however, lay claim to what we have called Passive Religiosity.
In these concluding pages we propose to give increased precision and
coherence to the conception of Religion presented in this essay. We shall
do so under two heads, (1) Passive and (2) Godless Religions.
1. Andrew Lang's polemic against Frazer's definition of Religion will
serve as a convenient text for the introduction of what we wish to say
under the first head. According to the habit of anthropologists, Frazer
has put forward as the mark of Religion the _propitiation or the
conciliation_ of personal beings superior to man and believed to direct
and control the course of nature and of human life. Lang objects, and very
properly, that this definition is too narrow. 'I mean by Religion,' says
he, 'what Mr. Frazer means and more. The conciliation of higher powers by
prayer and sacrifice is Religion, but it need not be the whole of
Religion. The belief in a higher power who sanctions conduct and is a
father and a loving one to mankind is also Religion,'[46] although it
should not be accompanied by request for benefits. The presence in the
higher societies and even at the dawn of civilisation of persons strangers
to any religious rite, yet influenced by a belief in divine beings cannot
be denied. With regard to the most barbarous of the Australian savages
Howitt writes: 'If Religion is defined as being the formulated worship of
a divinity, then these savages have no Religion; but I venture to assert
that it can be no longer maintained that they have no belief which can be
called Religion, that is, in the sense of beliefs which govern tribal and
individual morality under a supernatural sanction.'[47] The reader will
remember that we included under the term Religion the amorphous relations
to which Howitt alludes. But the difference, objective and subjective,
between the organised Religions, let us say that of Saint Ignatius, and
the guiding and restraining influence exercised upon an African savage or
a Parisian deist by the apprehension of a Great Ruler, justifies the use
of the differentiating appellations, Passive and Active Religion.
We take this opportunity of remarking how difficult it is even for
particularly clear-headed persons to keep Religion distinct from
philosophy. Lang was ill-advised enough to write in the same place, 'If
men believe in a potent being who originally made or manufactured ...
things, that is an idea so far religious that it satisfies, by the figment
of a supernatural agent, the speculative faculty.' What has 'the
speculative faculty' to do with Religion? As little as the gratification
of the aesthetic or of any other 'faculty,' _i.e._ nothing at all. The
outcome of speculative thinking is _philosophy_, of which Religion may
make use, but that is not a reason for confusing it with philosophy. The
religious experience consists not in seeking to understand God, but in
fearing Him, in feeding upon Him, in finding strength and joy in Him. If
believers in Ruling Powers may be called religious, it is not because they
possess _an idea_ of these powers, but in virtue of the guiding and
inspiring influence these powers exert upon them.
2. _The Godless Religions._--We have found it convenient up to this point
to speak as if Power had to be personal in order to become the centre of a
Religion. That view would exclude original Buddhism, the Religion of
Humanity, and several other varieties of mental attitudes generally
regarded as religious. The significant fact that until recently every
existing historical Religion was a worship of a personal Divinity, is not
a sufficient reason for refusing to recognise other types. The affinity
between the worship of a God and certain relations maintained with
non-personal sources of power is substantial enough to be recognised by
the use of a name common to both.
What are the Religions that dispense with a God? Original Buddhism, and
the Religion of Humanity formulated by A. Comte, are the only ones
possessing a somewhat definite form and organisation. The Buddha Gautama
discovered and offered to man a way of salvation in which the efficient
power was not an external, personal power, but an indwelling, psychic
principle. But the disciples speedily deified the Master who had enjoined
them to adore no one, and substituted for his teaching the worship of the
God Gautama. So that, almost as soon as born, Buddhism ceased to exist as
a Godless Religion.
'Humanity' is qualified to become the centre of a Religion because its
service accomplishes for man in essence and by similar methods precisely
what the acknowledged Religions do for their disciples.[48] I quote from
A. Comte: 'Around this Real, Great Being, immediate instigator of each
individual and collective existence, our feelings and desires centre as
spontaneously as do our ideas and actions.... More readily accessible to
our feelings as well as to our thinking [than the chimerical beings of the
existing Religions], because of an identity of nature which does not
preclude its superiority over all its servants, a Supreme Being such as
this excites deeply an activity destined to preserve and to improve it
[the Supreme Being].'[49] The claim of original Buddhism and of Comtism to
be called Religions is, in our opinion, legitimate, because they each
provide an inclusive, non-material source of power and a method of drawing
upon it.
But the term Religion is used by some in a still wider sense. Professor J.
R. Seeley, for instance, bestows that valued name upon 'any habitual and
permanent admiration.'[50] Should we concur in this extension, it would be
difficult to stop anywhere. We should have to admit almost anything which
any one may have a fancy for designating by that much-abused word, even to
'the sense of eternity in connection with our higher experiences,' and
'the feeling of reality and permanence of all we most value.' But since
the function of words is to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of
language by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all
precision and unity of meaning. We would therefore throw out of our
definition anything which did not include:--(1) A belief in a great and
superior psychic power--whether personal or not. (2) A dynamic
relation--formal and organised or otherwise--between man and that Higher
Power tending to the preservation, the increase, and the ennobling of
life. This conception is broad enough to include even the uncrystallised
form of Religion conditioned, in the words of Professor James, by 'an
assurance that this natural order is not ultimate, but a mere sign or
vision, the external staging of a many-storied universe, in which
spiritual forces have the last word and are eternal.'
* * * * *
Active Religion may properly be looked upon as that portion of the
struggle for life, in which use is made of the Power we have roughly
characterised as psychic and superhuman, and for which other adjectives,
'spiritual,' 'divine,' for instance, are commonly used. In this biological
view of Religion, its necessary and natural spring is the same as that of
non-religious life, _i.e._ the 'will to live' in its multiform
appearances, while the ground of differentiation between the religious and
the secular is neither specific feelings nor emotions, nor yet distinctive
impulses, desires, or purposes, but the nature of the force which it is
attempted to press into service. The current terms, 'religious feeling,'
'religious desire,' 'religious purpose,' are deceptive if they are
supposed to designate affective experiences, desires and purposes met
with only in religious life.
The conception of the Source of Psychic Energy, without the belief in
which no Religion can exist, has undergone very interesting
transformations in the course of historical development. The human or
animal form ascribed to the gods in the earlier Religions became less and
less definite. At the same time the number of gods decreased. The
culmination of this double process was Monotheism, in which the One,
Eternal, Creator and Sustainer of life was no longer necessarily framed in
the shape of man or beast: though still anthropopathic, he might be
formless. Sympathy, love, and justice were among his attributes. In a
second phase, this formless, but personal, God was gradually shorn of all
the qualities and defects which make individuality. He became the
passionless Absolute in which all things move and have their being. Thus,
the personifying work of centuries is undone, and humanity, after having,
as it were, lived throughout its infancy and youth under the controlling
eye and with the active assistance of personal divinities, on reaching
maturity, finds itself bereft of these sources of life. The present
religious crisis marks the difficulty in the way of an adaptation to the
new situation. As belief in a God seems no longer possible, man seeks an
impersonal, efficient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty
to science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he knows
from experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also
in 'spiritual faith.' It is this problem which the Comtists, the
Immanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists are all trying
to solve. Any solution will have the right to the name Religion that
provides for the preservation and the perfectioning of life by means of
faith in a superhuman psychic Power.
Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh
University Press
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _The Non-Religion of the Future_, p. 2.
[2] _The Golden Bough_, 2nd edition, i. p. 63.
[3] _Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion_, p. 27.
[4] _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, pp. 53, 38, abbreviated and
rearranged.
[5] Wuendt's _Ethics_, English tr., iii. p. 6.
[6] H. B. Davis has this to say on the power of generalisation of the
raccoon, a very intelligent animal: 'When an animal [raccoon] is forced to
approach a new fastening from a new direction, it is often as much
bothered by it as by a new fastening. Nevertheless, in course of time the
animals seem to reach a sort of generalised manner of procedure which
enables them to deal more promptly with any new fastening (not too
different from others of their experience).' 'The Raccoon: A Study in
Animal Intelligence,' _Amer. Jr. of Psy._, Oct. 1907, p. 486.
[7] _Meditationes_, ii. p. 10, Amsterdam, 1678.
[8] C. Lloyd Morgan, _Introduction to Comparative Psychology_ (The
Contemporary Science Series, 1894), p. 89.
[9] F. M. Davenport, _Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals_, Macmillan
(1905), p. 36; quoted from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the [Amer.]
Bureau of Ethnology, p. 761.
[10] E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, iii. p. 547, as quoted by Frazer,
_The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. p. 13.
[11] A. W. Howitt, _The Native Races of South-East Australia_ (1904), p.
373.
[12] _Principles of Sociology_ (3rd edition, 1885), i. Appendix A, p. 788.
[13] _The Descent of Man_, 2nd ed., i. p. 145.
[14] _Nature_, xvii. (1877-78), pp. 168-169. Comp. Lloyd Morgan, _Introd.
to Comparative Psychology_, p. 92 ff.
[15] A Study in Fears, _Am. Jour. of Psy._ (1897), viii. p. 166.
[16] Lord Avebury, _On the Origin of Civilisation_ (3rd edition, 1875), p.
212.
[17] _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 500, 506-508.
[18] Hang a root of vervain around the neck in order to cause the
disappearance of a tumour: as the plant dries up, so will the tumour. If
the fish do not appear in due season, make one of wood and put it into the
water. Keep the arrow that has wounded a friend in a cool place that the
wound may not become inflamed.
[19] _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884), p. 456,
quoted by Frazer.
[20] Dr. R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Clarendon Press, 1891), p.
191.
[21] 'Etudes de mythologie et d'archeologie egyptiennes' (Paris, 1903),
_Bibliotheque Egyptologique_, ii. p. 298.
[22] Foucart, 'Recherches sur la Nature des Mysteres d'Eleusis,' _Memoires
de l'Institut_, xxxv. 2nd part, pp. 31-32. Comp. Maspero, _ibid._, p. 303.
[23] 'The Beginnings of Religion,' _Fortn. Rev._, lxxxiv. (1905), p. 162.
Comp. _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. pp. 71-73.
[24] _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., i. p. 70. Oldenburg (_Die Religion des
Veda_, Berlin, 1894) was first, I believe, in holding to a pre-religious
magical stage of culture. But it is Frazer who first made a clear
separation, not only between Magic and Religion, but also between Magic
and belief in spirit-agents.
[25] Comp. R. R. Marett, 'From Spell to Prayer,' _Folk-Lore_, xv. (1904),
pp. 136-141.
[26] The latest classification is probably that of Frazer in _Lectures on
the Early History of the Kingship_ (Macmillan, 1905), p. 54. A. van
Gennep, in a review of that book in the _Revue de l'Histoire des
Religions_, liii. pp. 396-401, offers a somewhat different classification.
[27] I use 'animism' in the sense which Tylor gave it, _i.e._ a belief in
the animation of all things by beings similar to the 'souls' or 'ghosts'
revealed to the savage by dreams and other natural experiences.
[28] The interested reader will find a summary of observations on this
topic in Alex. F. Chamberlain's _The Child_ (The Contemporary _Science
Series_, 1900), pp. 147-148. See also Sully, _Studies of Childhood_, p.
82.
[29] See, for instance, many of the prohibitions included in the
initiation ceremonies of the Australians in Spencer and Gillen, _loc.
cit._, chapters vii-ix.
[30] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, 2nd ed., I. pp. 29-31.
[31] Fourth ed. (1903), i. p. 285.
[32] The word _naturism_ should be adopted as a name for the pre-animistic
and pre-religious stage of culture, a stage corresponding to the one
through which a child passes before he inquires into hidden causes and
mechanisms. See on this an excellent little book published in this series,
_Animism_, by Edward Clodd, pp. 22-25.
[33] Lord Avebury, _On the Origin of Civilisation_ (3rd ed., 1875), pp.
113-114.
[34] _The Golden Bough_, i. p. 19.
[35] Maspero, _loc. cit._, pp. 298-299.
[36] Amelie Bosquet, _La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse_ (Paris et
Rouen, 1845), p. 308.
[37] _Loc. cit._ i., pp. 75-78.
[38] 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 Wulle, an evil being, that killed
him.'--Howitt, _loc. cit._, p. 385.
[39] Chap. iii.
[40] _Ibid._, p. 59.
[41] R. R. Marett, 'From Spell to Prayer,' _Folk-Lore_, xv. (1904), pp.
132-165.
[42] _Loc. cit._, pp. 61-62. In the third volume (pp. 458-461), a change
seems to have taken place in the author's opinion. What it amounts to, I
cannot exactly make out.
[43] _The Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 309.
[44] _The Religion of the Semites_, p. 55.
[45] See, on this development, my article, 'Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in
Religion,' _American Jr. of Religious Psy. and Educ._, ii. p. 1.
[46] _Magic and Religion_, pp. 48-49, 69.
[47] 'On some Australian Customs of Initiation,' _Jr. of the Anthrop.
Inst._, xiii. (1883-1884), p. 459.
[48] F. Harrison, _Moral and Religious Socialism_, New Year's Address,
1891.
[49] A. Comte, _Catechisme Positiviste_, ed. Apostolique (1891), pp. 53,
55.
[50] _Natural Religion_, Macmillan (1882), p. 74.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.