I do not believe these suggestions are correct. It seems to me that the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, instead of being an element in primitive religion, is really a late and derivative13 type of adoration14; and that mythology is mistaken in the claims it makes for its own importance in the genesis of the idea of a God or gods. In order, however, to clear the ground for a fair start in this direction, we ought, I think, to begin by enquiring16 into the relative positions of mythology and religion. I shall therefore 021devote a preliminary chapter to the consideration of this important subject.
Religion, says another group of modern thinkers, of whom Mr. Edward Clodd is perhaps the most able English exponent18, “grew out of fear.” It is born of man’s terror of the great and mysterious natural agencies by which he is surrounded. Now I am not concerned to deny that many mythological19 beings of various terrible forms do really so originate. I would readily accept some such vague genesis for many of the dragons and monsters which abound20 in all savage or barbaric imaginings—for Gorgons and Hydras and Chim忙ras dire15, and other manifold shapes of the superstitiously21 appalling22. I would give up to Mr. Clodd the Etruscan devils and the Hebrew Satan, the Grendels and the Fire-drakes, the whole brood of Cerberus, Briareus, the Cyclops, the Centaurs23. None of these, however, is a god or anything like one. They have no more to do with religion, properly so called, than the unicorn24 of the royal arms has to do with British Christianity. A god, as I understand the word, and as the vast mass of mankind has always understood it, is a supernatural being to be revered26 and worshipped. He stands to his votaries27, on the whole, as Dr. Robertson Smith has well pointed28 out, in a kindly29 and protecting relation. He may be angry with them at times, to be sure; but his anger is temporary and paternal30 alone: his permanent attitude towards his people is one of friendly concern; he is worshipped as a beneficent and generous Father. It is the origin of gods in this strictest sense that concerns us here, not the origin of those vague and formless creatures which are dreaded31, not worshipped, by primitive humanity.
Bearing this distinction carefully in mind, let us proceed to consider the essentials of religion. If you were to ask almost any intelligent and unsophisticated child, “What is religion?” he would answer offhand32, with the clear vision of youth, “Oh, it’s saying your prayers, and heading your Bible, and singing hymns33, and going to church 022or to chapel34 on Sundays.” If you were to ask any intelligent and unsophisticated Hindu peasant the same question, he would answer in almost the self-same spirit, “Oh, it is doing poojah regularly, and paying your dues every day to Mahadeo.” If you were to ask any simple-minded African savage, he would similarly reply, “It is giving the gods flour, and oil, and native beer, and goat-mutton,” And finally if you were to ask a devout35 Italian contadino, he would instantly say, “It is offering up candles and prayers to the Madonna, attending mass, and remembering the saints on every festa.”
And they would all be quite right. This, in its essence, is precisely36 what we call religion. Apart from the special refinements37 of the higher minds in particular creeds39, which strive to import into it all, according to their special tastes or fancies, a larger or smaller dose of philosophy, or of metaphysics, or of ethics40, or of mysticism, this is just what religion means and has always meant to the vast majority of the human species. What is common to it throughout is Custom or Practice: a certain set of more or less similar Observances: propitiation, prayer, praise, offerings: the request for divine favours, the deprecation of divine anger or other misfortunes: and as the outward and visible adjuncts of all these, the altar, the sacrifice, the temple, the church; priesthood, services, vestments, ceremonial.
What is not at all essential to religion in its wider aspect—taking the world round, both past and present, Pagan, Buddhist42, Mohammadan, Christian9, savage, and civilised—is the ethical43 element, properly so called. And what is very little essential indeed is the philosophical44 element, theology or mythology, the abstract theory of spiritual existences. This theory, to be sure, is in each country or race closely related with religion under certain aspects; and the stories told about the gods or God are much mixed up with the cult2 itself in the minds of worshippers; but they are no proper part of religion, strictly46 so called. In a single word, I contend that religion, as such, is essentially47 023practical: theology or mythology, as such, is essentially theoretical.
Moreover, I also believe, and shall attempt to show, that the two have to a large extent distinct origins and roots: that the union between them is in great part adventitious48: and that, therefore, to account for or explain the one is by no means equivalent to accounting49 for and explaining the other.
Frank recognition of this difference of origin between religion and mythology would, I imagine, largely reconcile the two conflicting schools of thought which at present divide opinion between them on this interesting problem in the evolution of human ideas. On the one side, we have the mythological school of interpreters, whether narrowly linguistic50, like Professor Max M眉ller, or broadly anthropological51, like Mr. Andrew Lang, attacking the problem from the point of view of myth or theory alone. On the other side, we have the truly religious school of interpreters, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, and to some extent Mr. Tylor, attacking the problem from the point of view of practice or real religion. The former school, it seems to me, has failed to perceive that what it is accounting for is not the origin of religion at all—of worship, which is the central-root idea of all religious observance, or of the temple, the altar, the priest, and the offering, which are its outer expression—but merely the origin of myth or fable53, the mass of story and legend about various beings, real or imaginary, human or divine, which naturally grows up in every primitive community. The latter school, on the other hand, while correctly interpreting the origin of all that is essential and central in religion, have perhaps underestimated the value of their opponents’ work through regarding it as really opposed to their own, instead of accepting what part of it may be true in the light of a contribution to an independent but allied54 branch of the same enquiry.
In short, if the view here suggested be correct, Spencer and 024Tylor have paved the way to a true theory of the Origin of Religion; Max M眉ller, Lang, and the other mythologists have thrown out hints of varying value towards a true theory of the Origin of Mythology, or of its more modern equivalent and successor, Theology.
A brief outline of facts will serve to bring into clearer relief this view of religion as essentially practical—a set of observances, rendered inevitable55 by the primitive data of human psychology56. It will then be seen that what is fundamental and essential in religion is the body of practices, remaining throughout all stages of human development the same, or nearly the same, in spite of changes of mythological or theological theory; and that what is accidental and variable is the particular verbal explanation or philosophical reason assigned for the diverse rites57 and ceremonies.
In its simplest surviving savage type, religion consists wholly and solely58 in certain acts of deference59 paid by the living to the persons of the dead. I shall try to show in the sequel that down to its most highly evolved modern type in the most cultivated societies, precisely similar acts of deference, either directly to corpses60 or ghosts as such, or indirectly61 to gods who were once ghosts, or were developed from ghosts, form its essence still. But to begin with I will try to bring a few simple instances of the precise nature of religion in its lowest existing savage mode.
I might if I chose take my little collection of illustrative facts from some theoretical writer, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has collected enough instances in all conscience to prove this point; but I prefer to go straight to an original observer of savage life and habit, a Presbyterian missionary62 in Central Africa—the Rev25. Duff Macdonald, author of Africana—who had abundant opportunities at the Blantyre Mission for learning the ideas and practice of the Soudanese natives, and who certainly had no theoretic predisposition towards resolving all religious notions into 025the primitive respect and reverence63 for the dead or the worship of ancestors.
Here, in outline, but in Mr. Macdonald’s own words, are the ideas and observances which this careful and accurate investigator64 found current among the tribes of the heart of Africa. “I do not think,” he says, “I have admitted any point of importance without having heard at least four natives on the subject. The statements are translations, as far as possible, from the ipsissima verba of the negroes.”
The tribes he lived among “are unanimous in saying that there is something beyond the body which they call spirit. Every human body at death is forsaken65 by this spirit.” That is the almost universal though not quite primitive belief, whose necessary genesis has been well traced out by Mr. Herbert Spencer, and more recently in America with great vigour66 and clearness by Mr. Lester Ward17.
“Do these spirits ever die?” Mr. Macdonald asks. “Some,” he answers, “I have heard affirm that it is possible for a troublesome spirit to be killed. Others give this a direct denial. Many, like Kumpama, or Cherasulo, say, ‘You ask me whether a man’s spirit ever dies. I cannot tell. I have never been in the spirit-world, but this I am certain of, that spirits live for a very long time.’”
On the question, “Who the gods are?” Mr. Macdonald says: “In all our translations of Scripture67 where we found the word God we used Mulungu; but this word is chiefly used by the natives as a general name for spirit. The spirit of a deceased man is called his Mulungu, and all the prayers and offerings of the living are presented to such spirits of the dead. It is here that we find the great centre of the native religion. The spirits of the dead are the gods of the living.
“Where are these gods found? At the grave? No. The villagers shrink from yonder gloomy place that lies far beyond their fields on the bleak68 mountain side. It is only 026when they have to lay another sleeper69 beside his forefathers70 that they will go there. Their god is not the body in the grave, but the spirit, and they seek this spirit at the place where their departed kinsman71 last lived among them. It is the great tree at the verandah of the dead man’s house that is their temple; and if no tree grow here they erect72 a little shade, and there perform their simple rites. If this spot become too public, the offerings may be defiled73, and the sanctuary74 will be removed to a carefully-selected spot under some beautiful tree. Very frequently a man presents an offering at the top of his own bed beside his head. He wishes his god to come to him and whisper in his ear as he sleeps.”
And here, again, we get the origin of nature-worship:
“The spirit of an old chief may have a whole mountain for his residence, but he dwells chiefly on the cloudy summit. There he sits to receive the worship of his votaries, and to send down the refreshing75 showers in answer to their prayers.”
Almost as essential to religion as these prime factors in its evolution—the god, worship, offerings, presents, holy places, temples—is the existence of a priesthood. Here is how the Central Africans arrive at that special function:
“A certain amount of etiquette76 is observed in approaching the gods. In no case can a little boy or girl approach these deities77, neither can anyone that has not been at the mysteries. The common qualification is that a person has attained78 a certain age, about twelve or fourteen years, and has a house of his own. Slaves seldom pray, except when they have had a dream. Children that have had a dream tell their mother, who approaches the deity79 on their behalf. (A present for the god is necessary, and the slave or child may not have it.)
“Apart from the case of dreams and a few such private matters, it is not usual for anyone to approach the gods except the chief, of the village. He is the recognised high priest 027who presents prayers and offerings on behalf of all that live in his village. If the chief is from home his wife will act, and if both are absent, his younger brother. The natives worship not so much individually as in villages or communities. Their religion is more a public than a private matter.”
But there are also further reasons why priests are necessary. Relationship forms always a good ground for intercession. A mediator80 is needed.
“The chief of a village,” says Mr. Macdonald, “has another title to the priesthood. It is his relatives that are the village gods. Everyone that lives in the village recognises these gods; but if anyone remove to another village he changes his gods. He recognises now the gods of his new chief. One wishing to pray to the god (or gods) of any village naturally desires to have his prayers presented through the village chief, because the latter is nearly related to the village god, and may be expected to be better listened to than a stranger.”
A little further on Mr. Macdonald says: “On the subject of the village gods opinions differ. Some say that every one in the village, whether a relative of the chief or not, must worship the forefathers of the chief. Others say that a person not related to the chief must worship his own forefathers, otherwise their spirits will bring trouble upon him. To reconcile these authorities we may mention that nearly everyone in the village is related to its chief, or if not related is, in courtesy, considered so. Any person not related to the village chief would be polite enough on all public occasions to recognise the village god: on occasions of private prayer (which are not so numerous as in Christendom) he would approach the spirits of his own forefathers. Besides, there might be a god of the land. The chief Kapeni prays to his own relatives, and also to the old gods of the place. His own relatives he approaches himself; the other deities he may also approach himself, but he often 028finds people more closely related and consequently more acceptable to the old gods of the land.”
The African pantheon is thus widely peopled. Elimination81 and natural selection next give one the transition from the ghost to the god, properly so called.
“The gods of the natives then are nearly as numerous as their dead. It is impossible to worship all; a selection must be made, and, as we have indicated, each worshipper turns most naturally to the spirits of his own departed relatives; but his gods are too many still, and in farther selecting he turns to those that have lived nearest his own time. Thus the chief of a village will not trouble himself about his great-great-grandfather: he will present his offering to his own immediate82 predecessor83, and say, ‘O father, I do not know all your relatives, you know them all, invite them to feast with you.’ The offering is not simply for himself, but for himself and all his relatives.”
Ordinary ghosts are soon forgotten with the generation that knew them. Not so a few select spirits, the C忙sars and Napoleons, the Charlemagnes and Timurs of savage empires.
“A great chief that has been successful in his wars does not pass out of memory so soon. He may become the god of a mountain or a lake, and may receive homage84 as a local deity long after his own descendants have been driven from the spot. When there is a supplication85 for rain the inhabitants of the country pray not so much to their own forefathers as to the god of yonder mountain on whose shoulders the great rain-clouds repose86. (Smaller hills are seldom honoured with a deity.)”
Well, in all this we get, it seems to me, the very essentials and universals of religion generally,—the things without which no religion could exist—the vital part, without the ever-varying and changeable additions of mere gossiping mythology. In the presents brought to the dead man’s grave to appease87 the ghost, we have the central element of all worship, the practical key of all cults88, past or present.
On 029the other hand, mythologists tell us nothing about the origin of prayer and sacrifice: they put us off with stories of particular gods, without explaining to us how those gods ever came to be worshipped. Now, mythology is a very interesting study in its own way: but to treat as religion a mass of stories and legends about gods or saints, with hardly a single living element of practice or sacrifice, seems to me simply to confuse two totally distinct branches of human enquiry. The Origin of Tales has nothing at all to do with the Origin of Worship.
When we come to read Mr. Macdonald’s account of a native funeral, on the other hand, we are at once on a totally different tack52; we can understand, as by an electric flash, the genesis of the primitive acts of sacrifice and religion.
“Along with the deceased is buried a considerable part of his property. We have already seen that his bed is buried with him; so also are all his clothes. If he possesses several tusks89 of ivory, one tusk90 or more is ground to a powder between two stones and put beside him. Beads91 are also ground down in the same way. These precautions are taken to prevent the witch (who is supposed to be answerable for his death) from making any use of the ivory or beads.
“If the deceased owned several slaves, an enormous hole is dug for a grave. The slaves are now brought forward. They may be either cast into the pit alive, or the undertakers may cut all their throats. The body of their master or their mistress is then laid down to rest above theirs, and the grave is covered in.
“After this the women come forward with the offerings of food, and place them at the head of the grave. The dishes in which the food was brought are left behind. The pot that held the drinking-water of the deceased and his drinking-cup are also left with him. These, too, might be coveted92 by the witch, but a hole is pierced in the pot, and the drinking calabash is broken.
“The 030man has now gone from the society of the living, and he is expected to share the meal thus left at his grave with those that have gone before him. The funeral party breaks up; they do not want to visit the grave of their friend again without a very good reason. Anyone found among the graves may be taken for a cannibal. Their friend has become a citizen of a different village. He is with all his relatives of the past. He is entitled to offerings or presents which may come to him individually or through his chief. These offerings in most cases he will share with others, just as he used to do when alive,” Sometimes the man may be buried in his own hut.
“In this case the house is not taken down, but is generally covered with cloth, and the verandah becomes the place for presenting offerings. His old house thus becomes a kind of temple.... The deceased is now in the spirit-world, and receives offerings and adoration. He is addressed as ‘Our great spirit that has gone before.’ If anyone dream of him. it is at once concluded that the spirit is ‘up to something.’ Very likely he wants to have some of the survivors93 for his companions. The dreamer hastens to appease the spirit by an offering.”
So real is this society of the dead that Mr. Macdonald says: “The practice of sending messengers to the world beyond the grave is found on the West Coast. A chief summons a slave, delivers to him a message, and then cuts off his head. If the chief forget anything that he wanted to say, he sends another slave as a postscript94.”
I have quoted at such length from this recent and extremely able work because I want to bring into strong relief the fact that we have here going on under our very eyes, from day to day, de novo, the entire genesis of new gods and goddesses, and of all that is most central and essential to religion—worship, prayer, the temple, the altar, priesthood, sacrifice. Nothing that the mythologists can tell us about the Sun or the Moon, the Dawn or the Stormcloud, 031Little Red Riding Hood41 or Cinderella and the Glass Slipper95, comes anywhere near the Origin of Religion in these its central and universal elements. Those stories or guesses may be of immense interest and importance as contributions to the history of ideas in our race; but nothing we can learn about the savage survival in the myth of Cupid or Psyche96, or about the primitive cosmology in the myth of the children of Kronos, helps us to get one inch nearer the origin of God or of prayer, of worship, of religious ceremonial, of the temple, the church, the sacrifice, the mass, or any other component97 part of what we really know as Religion in the concrete. These myths may be sometimes philosophic45 guesses, sometimes primitive folk-tales, but they certainly are not the truths of Religion. On the other hand, the living facts, here so simply detailed98 by a careful, accurate, and unassuming observer, strengthened by the hundreds of similar facts collected by Tylor, Spencer, and others, do help us at once to understand the origin of the central core and kernel99 of religion as universally practised all the world over.
For, omitting for the present the mythological and cosmological factor, which so often comes in to obscure the plain religious facts in missionary narrative100 or highly-coloured European accounts of native beliefs, what do we really find as the underlying101 truths of all religion? That all the world over practices essentially similar to those of these savage Central Africans prevail among mankind; practices whose affiliation102 upon the same primitive ideas has been abundantly proved by Mr. Herbert Spencer; practices which have for their essence the propitiation or adulation of a spiritual being or beings, derived103 from ghosts, and conceived of as similar, in all except the greatness of the connoted attributes, to the souls of men. “Whenever the [Indian] villagers are questioned about their creed38,” says Sir William Hunter, “the same answer is invariably given: ‘The common people have no idea of religion, 032but to do right [ceremonially] and to worship the village god.”
In short, I maintain that religion is not mainly, as the mistaken analogy of Christian usage makes us erroneously call it, Faith or Creed, but simply and solely Ceremony, Custom, or Practice. And I am glad to say that, for early Semitic times at least, Professor Robertson Smith is of the same opinion.
If one looks at the vast mass of the world, ancient and modern, it is quite clear that religion consists, and has always consisted, of observances essentially similar to those just described among the Central African tribes. Its core is worship. Its centre is the God—that is to say, the Dead Ancestor or Relative. The religion of China is to this day almost entirely104 one of pure ancestor-cult. The making of offerings and burning of joss-paper before the Family Dead form its principal ceremonies. In India, while the three great gods of the mystical Brahmanist philosophy are hardly worshipped in actual practice at all, every community and every house has its own particular gods and its own special cult of its little domestic altar.
“The first Englishman,” says Sir William Hunter, “who tried to study the natives as they actually are, and not as the Brahmans described them, was struck by the universal prevalence of a worship quite distinct from that of the Hindu deities. A Bengal village has usually its local god, which it adores either in the form of a rude unhewn stone, or a stump106, or a tree marked with red-lead. Sometimes a lump of clay placed under a tree does duty for a deity, and the attendant priest, when there is one, generally belongs to one of the half-Hinduised low-castes. The rude stone represents the non-Aryan fetish; and the tree seems to owe its sanctity to the non-Aryan belief that it forms the abode107 of the ghosts, or gods, of the village.”
Omitting the mere guesswork about the fetish and the gratuitous108 supposition, made out of deference to the dying creed of Max-M眉llerism, that ancestor-worship must necessarily 033be a “non-Aryan” feature (though it exists or existed in all so-called Aryan races), this simple description shows us the prevalence over the whole of India of customs essentially similar to those which obtain in Central Africa and in the Chinese provinces.
The Roman religion, in somewhat the same way, separates itself at once into a civic109 or national and a private or family cult. There were the great gods, native or adopted, whom the State worshipped publicly, as the Central African tribes worship the chiefs ancestors; and there were the Lares and Penates, whom the family worshipped at its own hearth110, and whose very name shows them to have been in origin and essence ancestral spirits. And as the real or practical Hindu religion consists mainly of offering up rice, millet111, and ghee to the little local and family deities or to the chosen patron god in the Brahmanist pantheon, so, too, the real or practical Roman religion consisted mainly of sacrifice done at the domestic altar to the special Penates, farre pio et saliente mica112.
I will not go on to point out in detail at the present stage of our argument how Professor Sayce similarly finds ancestor-worship and Shamanism (a low form of ghost-propitiation) at the root of the religion of the ancient Ac-cadians; how other observers have performed the same task for the Egyptians and Japanese; and how like customs have been traced among Greeks and Amazulu, among Hebrews and Nicaraguans, among early English and Digger Indians, among our Aryan ancestors themselves and Andaman Islanders. Every recent narrative of travel abounds113 with examples. Of Netherland Island I read, “The skulls114 of their ancestors were treasured for gods of the New Hebrides, “The people worshipped the spirits of their ancestors. They prayed to them, over the kava-bowl, for health and prosperity.” In New Caledonia, “Their gods were their ancestors, whose relics115 they kept up and idolised.” At Tana, “The general name for gods seemed to be aremha; that means a dead man, and hints,” 034says the Rev. George Turner, with pleasing frankness, “alike at the origin and nature of their religious worship.” When the chief prayed, he offered up yam and fruits, saying, “Compassionate father, here is some food for you; eat it. Be kind to us on account of it.” Those who wish to see the whole of the evidence on this matter marshalled in battle array have only to turn to the first volume of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology, where they will find abundant examples from all times and places gathered together in a vast and overwhelming phalanx.
What concerns us in this chapter a little more is to call attention by anticipation117 to the fact that even in Christianity itself the same primitive element survives as the centre of all that is most distinctively118 religious, as opposed to theological, in the Christian religion. And I make these remarks provisionally here in order that the reader may the better understand to what ultimate goal our investigation119 will lead him.
It is the universal Catholic custom to place the relics of saints or martyrs120 under the altars in churches. Thus the body of St. Mark the Evangelist lies under the high altar of St. Mark’s, at Venice; and in every other Italian cathedral, or chapel, a reliquary is deposited within the altar itself. So well understood is this principle in the Latin Church, that it has hardened into the saying, “No relic116, no altar.” The sacrifice of the mass takes place at such an altar, and is performed by a priest in sacrificial robes. The entire Roman Catholic ritual is a ritual derived from the earlier sacerdotal ideas of ministry122 at an altar, and its connection with the primitive form is still kept up by the necessary presence of human remains123 in its holy places.
Furthermore, the very idea of a church itself is descended124 from the early Christian meeting-places in the catacombs or at the tombs of the martyrs, which are universally allowed to have been the primitive Christian altars. 035We know now that the cruciform dome105-covered plan of Christian churches is derived from these early meeting-places at the junction125 of lanes or alleys126 in the catacombs; that the nave127, chancel, and transepts indicate the crossing of the alleys, while the dome represents the hollowed-out portion or rudely circular vault128 where the two lines of archway intersect. The earliest dome-covered churches were attempts, as it were, to construct a catacomb above ground for the reception of the altar-tomb of a saint or martyr121. Similarly with the chapels129 that open out at the side from the aisles130 or transepts. Etymologically131, the word chapel is the modernised form of capella, the arched sepulchre excavated132 in the walls of the catacombs, before the tomb at which it was usual to offer up prayer and praise. The chapels built out from the aisles in Roman churches, each with its own altar and its own saintly relics, are attempts to reproduce above ground in the same way the original sacred places in the early Christian excavated cemeteries133. We will recur134 to this subject at much greater length in subsequent chapters.
Thus Christianity itself is linked on to the very antique custom of worship at tombs, and the habit of ancestor-worship by altars, relics, and invocation of saints, even revolutionary Protestantism still retaining some last faint marks of its origin in the dedication135 of churches to particular evangelists or martyrs, and in the more or less disguised survival of altar, priesthood, sacrifice, and vestments.
Now, I do not say ancestor-worship gives us the whole origin of everything that is included in Christian English minds in the idea of religion. I do not say it accounts for all the cosmologies and cosmogonies of savage, barbaric, or civilised tribes. Those, for the most part, are pure mythological products, explicable mainly, I believe, by means of the key with which mythology supplies us; and one of them, adopted into Genesis from an alien source, has come to be accepted by modern Christendom as part of 036that organised body of belief which forms the Christian creed, though not in any true sense the Christian religion. Nor do I say that ancestor-worship gives us the origin of those ontological, metaphysical, or mystical conceptions which form part of the philosophy or theology of many priesthoods. Religions, as we generally get them envisaged136 for us nowadays, are held to include the mythology, the cosmogony, the ontology, and even the ethics of the race that practises them. These extraneous137 developments, however, I hold to spring from different roots and to have nothing necessarily in common with religion proper. The god is the true crux138. If we have once accounted for the origin of ghosts, gods, tombs, altars, temples, churches, worship, sacrifice, priesthoods, and ceremonies, then we have accounted for all that is essential and central in religion, and may hand over the rest—the tales, stories, and pious139 legends—to the account of comparative mythology or of the yet unfounded science of comparative idealogy.
Once more, I do not wish to insist, either, that every particular and individual god, national or naturalistic, must necessarily represent a particular ghost—the dead spirit of a single definite once-living person. It is enough to show, as Mr. Spencer has shown, that the idea of the god, and the worship paid to a god, are directly derived from the idea of the ghost, and the offerings made to the ghost, without necessarily holding, as Mr. Spencer seems to hold, that every god is and must be in ultimate analysis the ghost of a particular human being. Once the conception of gods had been evolved by humanity, and had become a common part of every man’s imagined universe—of the world as it presented itself to the mind of the percipient—then it was natural enough that new gods should be made from time to time out of abstractions or special aspects and powers of nature, and that the same worship should be paid to such new-made and purely140 imaginary gods as had previously141 been paid to the whole host of gods 037evolved from personal and tribal142 ancestors. It is the first step that costs: once you have got the idea of a god fairly evolved, any number of extra gods may be invented or introduced from all quarters. A great pantheon readily admits new members to its ranks from, many strange sources. Familiar instances in one of the best-known pantheons are those of Concordia, Pecunia, Aius Locutius, Rediculus Tutanus. The Romans, indeed, deified every conceivable operation of nature or of human life; they had gods or goddesses for the minutest details of agriculture, of social relations, of the first years of childhood, of marriage and domestic arrangements generally. Many of their deities, as we shall see hereafter, were obviously manufactured to meet a special demand on special occasions. But at the same time, none of these gods, so far as we can judge, could ever have come to exist at all if the ghost-theory and ancestor-worship had not already made familiar to the human mind the principles and practice of religion generally. The very idea of a god could not otherwise have been evolved; though, when once evolved, any number of new beings could readily be affiliated143 upon it by the human imagination.
Still, to admit that other elements have afterwards come in to confuse religion is quite a different thing from admitting that religion itself has more than one origin. Whatever gives us the key to the practice of worship gives us the key to all real religion. Now, one may read through almost any books of the mythological school without ever coming upon a single word that throws one ray of light upon the origin of religion itself thus properly called. To trace the development of this, that, or the other story or episode in a religious myth is in itself a very valuable study in human evolution: but no amount of tracing such stories ever gives us the faintest clue to the question why men worshipped Osiris, Zeus, Siva, or Venus; why they offered up prayer and praise to Isis, or to Artemis; why they made sacrifices of oxen to Capitolian Jove 038at Rome, or slew144 turtle-doves on the altar of Jahweh, god of Israel, at Jerusalem. The ghost-theory and the practice of ancestor-worship show us a natural basis and genesis for all these customs, and explain them in a way to which no mythological enquiry can add a single item of fundamental interest.
It may be well at this point to attempt beforehand some slight provisional disentanglement of the various extraneous elements which interweave themselves at last with the simple primitive fabric145 of practical religion.
In the first place, there is the mythological element. The mythopoeic faculty146 is a reality in mankind. Stories arise, grow, gather episodes with movement, transform and transmute147 themselves, wander far in space, get corrupted148 by time, in ten thousand ways suffer change and modification149. Now, such stories sometimes connect themselves with living men and women. Everybody knows how many myths exist even in our own day about every prominent or peculiar150 person. They also gather more particularly round the memory of the dead, and especially of any very distinguished151 dead man or woman. Sometimes they take their rise in genuine tradition, sometimes they are pure fetches of fancy or of the romancing faculty. The ghosts or the gods are no less exempt152 from these mythopoic freaks than other people; and as gods go on living indefinitely, they have plenty of time for myths to gather about them. Most often, a myth is invented to account for some particular religious ceremony. Again, myths demonstrably older than a particular human being—say C忙sar, Virgil, Arthur, Charlemagne—may get fitted by later ages to those special personalities153. The same thing often happens also with gods. Myth comes at last, in short, to be the history of the gods; and a personage about whom many myths exist, whether real or imaginary, a personification of nature or an abstract quality, may grow in time to be practically a divine being, and even perhaps to receive worship, the final test of divinity.
Again, 039myths about the gods come in the long run, in many cases, to be written down, especially by the priests, and themselves acquire a considerable degree of adventitious holiness. Thus we get Sacred Books; and in most advanced races, the sacred books tend to become an important integral part of religion, and a test of the purity of tenets or ceremonial. But sacred books almost always contain rude cosmological guesses and a supernatural cosmogony, as well as tales about the doings, relationships, and prerogatives154 of the gods. Such early philosophical conjectures155 come then to be intimately bound up with the idea of religion, and in many cases even to supersede156 in certain minds its true, practical, central kernel. The extreme of this tendency is seen in English Protestant Dissenting157 Bibliolatry.
Rationalistic and reconciliatory glosses158 tend to arise with advancing culture. Attempts are made to trace the pedigree and mutual159 relations of the gods, and to get rid of discrepancies160 in earlier legends. The Theogony of Hesiod is a definite effort undertaken in this direction for the Greek pantheon. Often the attempt is made by the most learned and philosophically-minded among the priests, and results in a quasi-philosophical mythology like that of the Brahmans. In the monotheistic or half-monotheistic religions, this becomes theology. In proportion as it grows more and more laboured and definite the attention of the learned and the priestly class is more and more directed to dogma, creed, faith, abstract formulae of philosophical or intellectual belief, while insisting also upon ritual or practice. But the popular religion remains usually, as in India, a religion of practical custom and observances alone, having very little relation to the highly abstract theological ideas of the learned or the priestly.
Lastly, in the highest religions, a large element of ethics, of sentiment, of broad humanitarianism161 of adventitious emotion, is allowed to come in, often to the extent of obscuring the original factors of practice and observance.
We are 040constantly taught that “real religion” means many things which have nothing on earth to do with religion proper, in any sense, but are merely high morality, tinctured by emotional devotion towards a spiritual being or set of beings.
Owing to all these causes, modern investigators162, in searching for the origin of religion, are apt to mix up with it, even when dealing163 with savage tribes, many extraneous questions of cosmology, cosmogony, philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and mythology. They do not sufficiently164 see that the true question narrows itself down at last to two prime factors—worship and sacrifice. In all early religions, the practice is at a maximum, and the creed at a minimum. We, nowadays, look back upon these early cults, which were cults and little else, with minds warped165 by modern theological prejudices—by constant wrangling166 over dogmas, clauses, definitions, and formularies. We talk glibly167 of the Hindu faith or the Chinese belief, when we ought rather to talk of the Hindu practice or the Chinese observances. By thus wrongly conceiving the nature of religion, we go astray as to its origin. We shall only get right again when we learn to separate mythology entirely from religion, and when we recognise that the growth and development of the myth have nothing at all to do with the beginnings of worship. The science of comparative mythology and folk-lore is a valuable and light-bearing study in its own way: but it has no more to do with the origin of religion than the science of ethics or the science of geology. There are ethical rules in most advanced cults: there are geological surmises168 in most sacred books: but neither one nor the other is on that account religion, any more than the history of Jehoshaphat or the legend of Samson.
What I want to suggest in the present chapter sums itself up in a few sentences thus: Religion is practice, mythology is story-telling. Every religion has myths that accompany it: but the myths do not give rise to the religion: 041on the contrary, the religion gives rise to the myths. And I shall attempt in this book to account for the origin of religion alone, omitting altogether both mythology as a whole, and all mythical169 persons or beings other than gods in the sense here illustrated170.
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1
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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alias
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| n.化名；别名；adv.又名 | |
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derivative
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| n.派(衍)生物；adj.非独创性的，模仿他人的 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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enquiring
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| a.爱打听的，显得好奇的 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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centaurs
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| n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 ) | |
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unicorn
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| n.(传说中的)独角兽 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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revered
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| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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votaries
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| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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40
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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Buddhist
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| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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adventitious
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| adj.偶然的 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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anthropological
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| adj.人类学的 | |
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tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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65
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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68
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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defiled
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| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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cults
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| n.迷信( cult的名词复数 )；狂热的崇拜；（有极端宗教信仰的）异教团体 | |
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tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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tusk
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| n.獠牙，长牙，象牙 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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psyche
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| n.精神；灵魂 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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affiliation
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| n.联系，联合 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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111
millet
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| n.小米，谷子 | |
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mica
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| n.云母 | |
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113
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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123
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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etymologically
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| adv.语源上 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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cemeteries
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| n.（非教堂的）墓地，公墓( cemetery的名词复数 ) | |
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recur
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| vi.复发，重现，再发生 | |
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dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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extraneous
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| adj.体外的；外来的；外部的 | |
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crux
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| adj.十字形；难事，关键，最重要点 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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affiliated
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| adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
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slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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transmute
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| vt.使变化，使改变 | |
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corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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prerogatives
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| n.权利( prerogative的名词复数 )；特权；大主教法庭；总督委任组成的法庭 | |
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conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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dissenting
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| adj.不同意的 | |
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158
glosses
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| n.（页末或书后的）注释( gloss的名词复数 )；（表面的）光滑；虚假的外表；用以产生光泽的物质v.注解( gloss的第三人称单数 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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discrepancies
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| n.差异，不符合（之处），不一致（之处）( discrepancy的名词复数 ) | |
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humanitarianism
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| n.博爱主义；人道主义；基督凡人论 | |
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investigators
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| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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wrangling
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| v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的现在分词 ) | |
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glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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surmises
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的第三人称单数 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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