My object in the present reconstructive treatise3 has therefore been merely to set forth in as short a form as was consistent with clearness my conception of the steps by which mankind arrived at its idea of its God. I have not tried to produce evidence on each step in full; I have only tried to lay before the general public a rough sketch8 of a psychological 435rebuilding, and to suggest at the same time to scholars and anthropologists some inkling of the lines along which evidence in favour of my proposed reconstruction9 is likeliest to be found. This book is thus no more than a summary of probabilities. Should it succeed in attracting attention and arousing interest in so vast and fundamental a subject, I shall hope to follow it up by others in future, in which the various component10 elements of my theory will be treated in detail, and original authorities will be copiously11 quoted with the fullest references. As, however, in this preliminary outline of my views I have dealt with few save well-known facts, and relied for the most part upon familiar collocations of evidence, I have not thought it necessary to encumber12 my pages with frequent and pedantic13 footnotes, referring to the passages or persons quoted. The scholar will know well enough where to look for the proofs he needs, while the general reader can only judge my rough foreshadowing of a hypothesis according as he is impressed by its verisimilitude or the contrary.
If, on the other hand, this avant-courier of a reasoned system fails to interest the public, I must perforce be content to refrain from going any deeper in print into this fascinating theme, on which I have still an immense number of ideas and facts which I desire the opportunity of publicly ventilating.
I wish also to remark before I close that I do not hold dogmatically to the whole or any part of the elaborate doctrine14 here tentatively suggested. I have changed my own mind far too often, with regard to these matters, in the course of my personal evolution, ever to think I have reached complete finality. Fifteen or twenty years ago, indeed, I was rash enough to think I had come to anchor, when I first read Mr. Herbert Spencer’s sketch of the origin of religion in the opening volume of the Principles of Sociology. Ten or twelve years since, doubts and difficulties again obtruded16 themselves. Six years ago, once more, 436when The Golden Bough17 appeared, after this book had been planned and in part executed, I was forced to go back entirely18 upon many cherished former opinions, and to reconsider many questions which I had fondly imagined were long since closed for me. Since that time, new lights have been constantly shed upon me from without, or have occurred to me from within: and I humbly19 put this sketch forward now for what it may be worth, not with the idea that I have by any means fathomed20 the whole vast truth, but in the faint hope that I may perhaps have looked down here and there a little deeper into the profound abysses beneath us than has been the lot of most previous investigators21. At the same time, I need hardly reiterate22 my sense of the immense obligations under which I lie to not a few among them, and preeminently to Mr. Spencer, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Hartland, and Dr. Tylor. My only claim is that I may perhaps have set forth a scheme of reconstruction which further evidence will possibly show to be true in parts, and mistaken in others..
On the other hand, by strictly23 confining my attention to religious features, properly so called, to the exclusion24 of mythology25, ethics26, and all other external accretions27 or accidents, I trust I have been able to demonstrate more clearly than has hitherto been done the intimate connexion which always exists between cults28 in general and the worship of the Dead God, natural or artificial. Even if I have not quite succeeded in inducing the believer in primitive29 animism to reconsider his prime dogma of the origin of gods from all-pervading spirits (of which affiliation30 I can see no proof in the evidence before us), I venture to think I shall at any rate have made him feel that Ancestor-Worship and the Cult15 of the Dead God have played a far larger and deeper part than he has hitherto been willing to admit in the genesis of the religious emotions. Though I may not have raised the worship of the Dead Man to a supreme31 and unique place in the god-making process, I have at least, I trust, raised it to a position of higher importance than 437it has hitherto held, even since the publication of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s epoch-making researches. I believe I have made it tolerably clear that the vast mass of existing gods or divine persons, when we come to analyse them, do actually turn out to be dead and deified human beings. In short, it is my hope that I have rehabilitated32 Euhemerism.
This is not the place, at the very end of so long a disquisition, to examine the theory of primitive animism. I would therefore only say briefly33 here that I do not deny the actual existence of that profoundly animistic frame of mind which Mr. Im Thurn has so well depicted34 among the Indians of Guiana; nor that which exists among the Sa-moyeds of Siberia; nor that which meets us at every turn in historical accounts of the old Roman religion. I am quite ready to admit that, to people at that stage of religious evolution, the world seems simply thronged35 with spirits on every side, each of whom has often his own special functions and peculiar36 prerogatives37. But I fail to see that any one of these ideas is demonstrably primitive. Most often, we can trace ghosts, spirits, and gods to particular human origins: where spirits exist in abundance and pervade38 all nature, I still fail to understand why they may not be referred to the one known source and spring of all ghostly beings. It is abundantly clear that no distinction of name or rite39 habitually40 demarcates these ubiquitous and uncertain spirits at large from those domestic gods whose origin is perfectly41 well remembered in the family circle. I make bold to believe, therefore, that in every such case we have to deal with unknown and generalised ghosts,—with ghosts of most varying degrees of antiquity42. If any one can show me a race of spirit-believers who do not worship their own ancestral spirits, or can adduce any effective prime differentia between the spirit that was once a living man, and the spirit that never was human at all, I will gladly hear him. Up to date, however, no such race has been pointed43 out, and no such differentia ever posited44.
The 438truth is, we have now no primitive men at all. Existing men are the descendants of people who have had religions, in all probability, for over a million years. The best we can do, therefore, is to trace what gods we can to their original source, and believe that the rest are of similar development. And whither do we track them?
“So far as I have been able to trace back the origin of the best-known minor45 provincial46 deities47,” says Sir Alfred Lyall, speaking of India in general, “they are usually men of past generations who have earned special promotion48 and brevet rank among disembodied ghosts.... Of the numerous local gods known to have been living men, by far the greater proportion derive49 from the ordinary canonisation of holy personages.... The number of shrines50 thus raised in Berar alone to these anchorites and persons deceased in the odour of sanctity is large, and it is constantly increasing. Some of them have already attained51 the rank of temples.” We have seen that an acute observer, Erman, came to a similar conclusion about the gods of those very Ostyaks who are often quoted as typical examples of primitive animists. Of late years, all the world over, numerous unprejudiced investigators, like Mr. Duff Macdonald and Captain Henderson, have similarly come to the conclusion that the gods of the natives among whom they worked were all of human origin; while we know that some whole great national creeds52, like the Shinto of Japan, recognise no deities at all save living kings and dead ancestral spirits. Under these circumstances, judging the unknown by the known, I hesitate to take the very bold step of positing53 any new and fanciful source for the small residuum of unresolved gods whose human origin is less certainly known to us.
In one word, I believe that corpse-worship is the protoplasm of religion, while admitting that folk-lore is the protoplasm of mythology, and of its more modern and philosophical54 offshoot, theology.
The End
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tithe
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| n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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overloaded
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| a.超载的，超负荷的 | |
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mazes
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| 迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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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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copiously
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| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
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encumber
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| v.阻碍行动，妨碍，堆满 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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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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obtruded
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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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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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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fathomed
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| 理解…的真意( fathom的过去式和过去分词 )； 彻底了解； 弄清真相 | |
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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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reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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accretions
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| n.堆积( accretion的名词复数 )；连生；添加生长；吸积 | |
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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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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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affiliation
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| n.联系，联合 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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rehabilitated
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| 改造（罪犯等）( rehabilitate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使恢复正常生活； 使恢复原状； 修复 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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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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pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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42
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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43
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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posited
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| v.假定，设想，假设( posit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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47
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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48
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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49
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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50
shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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51
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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52
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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53
positing
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| v.假定，设想，假设( posit的现在分词 ) | |
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54
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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