ar 13. i ^ ^ How Religion Arises: A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. DUREN J. H. WARD. Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031264272 How Religion Arises A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. APPROVED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPSIC FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. ByDUREN J. H. WARD. BOSTON: Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. i»»S. COPYRIGHT, BY DUREN J. H. WARD, iSSS. CONTENTS. Chapter I. Introduction. Chaos in Religious Opinion, Retrospect, ... ... The Problem, The Term Religion, .... " One-idea-ism ' ' in Philosophy, . . . . 5 9 IS 17 21 Chapter II. Leading Philosophical Theories. Religion is of the Will, . . . (i) The Thesis, (2) Conscience — Kant, (3) " Morality touched by Emotion " — Matthew Arnold, Religion is of the Emotions, . . . . (i) The Mystics, . . (2) Dependence — Schleiermacher, (3) The Unorthodox Mystics, . (4) Non-mystic Emotion Theories, The Feeling of Fear, . . . The Feeling of Wonder, . Religion is of Thought, . . . (i) Rationalists, etc., (2) Belief and Faith — Jacobi, . • (3) Freedom and Thought — Hegel 25 25 26 30 32 3- 34 36 37 37 40 42 42 43 45 Chapter III. Reconsideration and Conclusions. § 9. Partiality and Consequent Unrest, . . . 48 § 10. Will, Emotion, Thought, ... . . ■ • 5^ (i) Order of their Functional Precedence, . ... 51 (2) A Couple of Difficulties, • • 5^ (3) Analogies from Other Phases of Life, . ■ 55 §11. The Root-thought of Religion, ..... 56 Notes, . . - Additional References, 64 73 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. § I. Chaos in Religious Opinion. The universal and " all-absorbing " ideas of the human being are few. We may conclude their universality results from their necessity. What continues in being during ages has reason (in the nature of things) for being. What every- body does must be done. What is everywhere is exotic nowhere. Religion is cosmopolitan. In some form, it is at home in every breast. Its products are two-sided, the soul's experiences and the soul's expressions. Again they are from two causes, the internal impulse and the external influence. As languages grow from the linguistic tendency and necessity, so religions are growths from the religious at- titude and needs. All such ideas (language, morality, relig- ion) are both spontaneous and necessitated. They germi- nate and develop because such is the nature of life. They develop with this character or that because such is the nature of their environment. Their tendency is unconscious. Hence, whoever lives naturally lives religiously. Only by rea- soned artifice and studied doubt is he otherwise, and even this may become religious to him. He may find the object of his adoration or his ideal in a charmed bit of stone, a tree, a mountain, the sea, the sun, his ancestor, a noble woman, deified humanity, an ideal life, the Grand Lama, an anthro- pomorphic pantheon, or the high and holy One who inhab- iteth eternity. He may bow down to this or bend his knee to that ; but something inevitably commands his reverence, and draws forth whatever longiags toward fuller, higher life he is capable of. A thinking, feeling, acting being must 6 HOW RELIGION ARISES live by thinking, feeling, and acting. What is built into nature must be exhibited when nature is made manifest. Its varieties may be as numerous as its individuals, for these must be as varied as the circumstances under which they develop. Hence, the universality of religion becomes also an explanation of its variety. In all minor matters, among those who think it is quite safe to say, quot homines tot sententim. Yet how few do their own thinking ! Millions hire it done to suit their taste ; but in doing so they sell their birthright, and forfeit what they might be. "What I want is not in- struction, but provocation," said Emerson. What any mind wants is suggestion, frequent stirring up. Clear thinking is of all importance ; yet how little of it is done ! From ab- sence of this, what worlds of confusion! and confusion is the evil of evils. Religion, the commonest, is almost the least clear of our ideas. What everybody " knows " nobody knows. What is more an every-day affair? Yet who can define it "i We all talk about Christianity much of the time ; yet what is Christianity? One runs a mortal risk of dethroning a man's faith by the confusion one puts him to in asking him to define it. One principal reason of so little faith is so little effort on the part of the " faithless " to express what they have. Better try and mistake than not try at all. Bacon was wise when he said, " Truth emerges sooner from mistake than confusion." Then another class seem to abound in faith, but analysis shows it to be only credulity. It has its basis on nothing firmer than unreasoned and unreasonable authority. It is of the sort described by the boy in Sunday-school, who, on being asked what faith was, replied, " It is being perfectly sure of a thing when you have nothing to back it up." To many, religion is the Church. They see it and know it only through the Church. What the Church does is relig- ious ; what is done outside the Church is secular or irrelig- ious. If religion is the Church, all the good it has done is from the Church. There is no religion elsewhere. Other INTRODUCTION 7 so-called religions are "of the devil." Their people are worse off than they would be without them. They are a great hindrance to the cause of good and to the success of the Church. Others, with just as little realization of the nature of the religious life, and hating the Church for one or another reason, attribute all its evils and mistakes to religion. If the Church has catered to the rich and slighted the poor, religion is to blame. If a hierarchy in the name of religion has supported tyranny and opposed freedom, religion is re- sponsible. And so on for every abuse which irreligious, selfish souls in hypocritical religious garb ha.ve found onpor- tunity to perpetrate. But is the sunlight to blame because men fight in it ? Shall we condemn the night because men steal? Is fire bad because it burns up houses? Is water a curse because men get drowned in it ? Is enthusiasm an evil because some become fanatic ? Is good bad because misused ? Not more so is religion vile because a Church has discredited it. Not creeds, not theologies, not isms, not religions, but religion is the substance, the essence. " Unter der Hiille aller Religionen liegt die Religion selbst," said Schiller. Not these created religion, but religion created these out of such material as it found to work with. All inquiry concerning the evolution and historical origin of the religious sentiment and all discussion concerning its psychological basis have worth only as they tend to and culminate in a definite understanding of its real meaning and content. Foundations are important only that on them structures may rest. Roots are valueless unless from them trees and fruit grow. Highways are good for nothing unless to be travelled over. Temples are worse than useless, except as shrines at which pious folk may have their souls inspired. Therefore, if faith, hope, love, and worship be the worthy factors of human life, which men have supposed, the broadest and deepest philosophical inquiry should make faith more intelligent, hope more cheerful, love more earnest, worship more sincere. "The end of religion is not to an- 8 HOW RELIGION ARISES swer a question of ontology [merely], but to make men better," says Professor D'Alviella." Whoever shrinks from or opposes the most searching, impartial examination of the foundations of his belief betrays his own palpable lack of faith, and is in grave danger of laying himself open to the charges of formality and hypocrisy. In the study of religion there is something more than a notice of the vicissitudes and metamorphoses of each distinct kind. In these times of unbounded curiosity concerning Nature's secrets, the origin of everything under the sun — and above the sun — must be inquired into. Then there is 2.pr^ess to be observed. The conceptions of man concern- ing his relation to superhuman powers have vastly changed during the ages. Sometimes this change has been for growth; sometimes, perhaps, for decay. In the hypothesis of a natural process, tending in the race as a whole toward growth and higher development, all the multitudinous trans- formations find their best explanation. It is the business of the history and philosophy of religion, not only to tell the tale of incidents, but to show how the evolution is determined by the character of the nations and races, — i.e., causes mental and rational within ; and by the outside influences bearing on their lives, — i.e., conditions physical as to place and circumstances and conditions historical as to period and position. Moreover, the treatment of religion has for its task the discernment and explanation of the laws controlling this life, growth, and decay? " Religions are beliefs in action," says Fairbairn, "and the relation between belief and action must be discovered." ^ The history of religion must be conducted in a thoroughly impartial, universal, and scientific manner, while its philosophy must have been de- rived from a careful study of its history. It is the business of philosophy in its application to religion to deal philosoph- ically with the questions of its origin, nature, 2iad. function ; i.e., to deduce and arrange these from the facts which may be obtained. Philosophy must leave to history and science the 1 These figures refer to " Notes," at the end. INTRODUCTION 9 collection of the facts, the data, of which it is to judge the result. Yet the would-be philosopher must himself have been a thorough student of those data, or his philosophy will be but a mass of metaphysical conjectures. In the matter of origin, philosophy must, as psychology, ransack the human mind to find the facts of consciousness. From these and the data afforded by its helpmates in science, it has the task of constructing the universe and arranging all within it harmoniously and consistently. § 2. Retrospect. Before our century, religions received no truly scientific attention ; though religion (or, more accurately, theology) has from time immemorial been a theme of greatest interest, and monopolized a considerable part of man's attention. Yet we may only look to former times for information concerning religions, not for methods of treating them as a study. For the most part, men recognized as religion only the views and practices of their own nation or sect ; 3 all else was heathen- dom, and heathendom was wholly superstition and evil. In- deed, we may still further limit the time ; for what we mean by an effort to treat this problem scientifically was unknown till far into the present century, and even yet is confined to a very limited number of exponents. The expression " scien- tific " now embodies an ideal so high that almost without ex- ception works on religions written more than fifty years ago are worthless as expositions ; hence, from them we cannot hope for more than scattered facts, and even these must be sifted out with the utmost care. Historical collections and philosophical discussions there were, and many; but their atti- tude was always like that of a bribed jury which had its ver- dict ready before it had heard the case. And, even had the method been better and the bias less, the facts were not at hand from which to make up a science of the subject. It is since the year 1771 that the sacred writings of the Persians,* Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, Egyptians, Assyrio-Babylonians, lO HOW RELIGION ARISES and the civilized North American Indians have become a subject of serious study in Europe. Within the same time, also, has arrived the greater part of our knowledge concern- ing African, Polynesian, Northern Asiatic, and other Ameri- can natives. Now, no definite word concerning the nature or essence of religion could ever be spoken without being the result of a comparative inquiry into the universal history and ethnology of religions. A comprehensive survey, and an un- derstanding of the developmental process, of the idea among mankind, are the first prerequisites to the solution of its prob- lems. But the facts in the field of religion are as yet little kno\^. Until these facts are more fully collected and better understood, the ground on which we may properly philoso- phize or hope to draw correct inductions is extremely limited. Although the world has been slow to perceive it, yet in reality there never has been any more ground for assuming that religion could be understood without a study of the most pos- sible manifestations or specimens of it than there ever was for assuming we could know animal life merely by a study, however careful, of the animals on our farms, or the vegetable kingdom by a familiarity with garden products. A practical knowledge (in any department of life) of those species which happen to be most useful in our circumstances is no sufficient understanding of the whole subject. Nor, indeed, will any assertions, assumptions, or speculations about its nature, which we may indulge in, take the place of observation and facts. Men formerly believed they were attaining truth and making enduring sciences by what we now term exercises of imagination ; but under such science the world sat compara- tively still for ages. One century, in which the prevailing ideal has been an attempt to get at the actual things of nature and mind by going to them with broad and careful observa- tion, has done more for the real forwarding of human life than a thousand previous years of speculating and imagining what they must be. Reasoning without data is like sailing without a compass. We are left to chance and guess-work. Where there are no data, reasoning is only imagining at ran- INTRODUCTION 1 1 dom. Where the facts are incomplete, the conclusions will be of little value. Even with the most copious materials to draw from, we may hardly hope to avoid errors. Is there, then, any phase of the religious problem where we are justified in supposing the facts to be sufficiently known for legitimately undertaking the work of their examination and the drawing of their inferences or inductions ? To this I must answer. If we may take for granted that the most gen- eral nature of the subject is fairly well understood, we may then make an inquiry for the psychological origin of the religious tendency.s On the basis of such a presumption, be it great or small, the following inquiry is made. What the general nature of the subject is believed to be will appear in the course of this Introduction. The question as to why religion has not been so studied as to make the facts more abundant and the theories more tena- ble is a large one, and can only be touched upon here. To study religion as a topic of knowledge requires an intellectual interest which is universal. It implies a desire for more knowledge, instead of a self-sufficient feeling that we already possess the truth. It has taken the world long to learn how really little it knows, — in some fields longer than in others. So long as one remains in the attitude that men will only be right when they are persuaded to believe what he believes, he is not likely to be searching for facts. A man who thinks he has the truth does not waste his time looking for it. He sets himself at work persuading others to accept it. He feels its importance so much that he pities the rest of his fellow-men in their mental destitution and errors. It is the man who feels that he has not yet come into possession of it that goes about inquiring. Leaders in religion have generally believed they understood their subject perfectly, have taught their views dogmatically, and altogether have been too intent on apologetically establishing them against objectors to have a realizing consciousness of the importance of asking how it is in the realm of nature. Such a question as we are here in- stituting was inconceivable to the Scholastics, to whom relig- 12 HOW RELIGION ARISES ion was Christianity, and Christianity was the Church ; and the source of all knowledge was a so-called "revelation" on one side and a so-called " pure reason " on the other. Theol- ogy everywhere, in the Oriental and Occidental worlds, has never gotten above the apologetic attitude. It has never willingly heard what an objector had to say. It has never ^ said, " Come, let us together search for the facts and learn the truth " ; but it has ever exhorted, threatened, and con- demned men for not complying with its demand, "Come and accept the truth." Besides the difficulties immanent in religion as an objec- tive study, it contains from the side of the subject who studies it an obstacle peculia,r to the topic ; namely, that the very attitude of the mind toward that which it would inquire into must (until a certain high degree of enlightenment con- cerning the external world is reached) hinder the possibility of its attaining to real knowledge of its object. So long as man, either by his own beliefs or by priestly control, is tabooed from examining into and exercising his reasoning powers in a free and unrestrained manner over any object whatever, so long is he in the very nature of things shut . away from the possibility of understanding it. The influ- ence of the great mysterious Nature surrounding him on every hand has been so powerful as to keep him in great degree mute with fear and reverence. What he has not readily discovered and understood he has too often cheaply settled by assuming it a secret of the gods, a mystery too sacred to be meddled with by his profane hands. The infal- lible authorities with which he has in this way gradually bound himself have kept him for further ages in the condi- tion of misunderstanding. Hence arises the paradox that religion, from first to last the problem par excellence of humanity, is perhaps the least understood and the last to be properly approached. That hundreds and thousands of minds during the whole career of man on the globe have been devoting their most zealous energies to this religious side of life, and yet that not one in a thousand has ever con- INTRODUCTION 13 ceived the subject in the light of the principal facts, seems strangely absurd. Yet this seeming absurdity has its serious and somewhat mitigative side. For example, the Israelite of olden times, filled with the thought of human responsibility and knowing nothing of the true character of the universe and of the reign of law throughout it, can hardly have been seriously to blame when he spoke of the material prosperities and adversities of the nations as so many directly interposed rewards and punishments from the hand of his Deity. In the darkness of his times, this supernatural and ethical ex- planation was doubtless the most rational one possible, although to our minds these things are seen to be the natural results of certain tendencies operating under favorable or unfavorable circumstances, and that moral worthiness or religious zeal may or may not be connected in either case. To use terms belonging to one of the best-known expressions of our age, that which is fitted to its material environment survives and prospers materially, that which is not so fitted perishes; while it may even happen that moral superiority may be a chief cause toward material destruction. But, to illustrate further, the absurdity becomes a real one when, under the vastly broader light of our day and with an en- tirely different world-outlook, men continue adopting the methods and words of the ancients as explanations of the various phases of the religious problem. From yet another side should be illustrated this failure of men to realize the fuller import of the religious nature. So long, for example, as the religious-minded Hindu continues to regard the Vedic scriptures as the infallible fountain and source of all that is possible and necessary to know concern- ing the Divine and its relations to the human, so long will he fail to realize the import even of what his "sacred book" contains ; while, besides, he must ever remain in ignorance of the increasing volume of truth outside the so necessary limits of the old Rishis' world. Hence, whatever amount of zeal and labor he may expend in efforts to solve these ever- pressing questions, the results can never be more to him 14 HOW RELIGION ARISES than a ringing of changes on the old assumptions. I say to him, for it is unintentional if he gets either farther on or deeper down than the Vedas themselves. He is tethered to their outlook; and here he must remain till some outside force of circumstances compels doubt to enter his mind, and permits other ways of looking at the subject. By still other peoples and in many other ways can we bring home to ourselves the reason why men have been so tardy in approaching the religious problem in the manner and method which they would employ elsewhere. As a rule, religious organizations, in order to maintain an unquestioned domination, have been hostile to inquiry concerning the theme. Then, again, sectarian zeal and enthusiasm of the membership have forestalled their investigating, and blinded them against whatever truth might have been obtained from sources beyond their own circle. In many cases where indi- viduals have reacted against this organized authority and undertaken investigation, they have either kept essentially within the old assumptions, and hence made no very impor- tant achievements ; or their reaction has been of an aggra- vated character, and has led either to partiality and blindness against the actual truth in the old or to the extremity of denying within the realm of religion all validity and legiti- macy whatever. In not a few instances, moreover, has the investigation been undertaken in the interest of truth, per- haps uninstigated by any of the above motives; but the inquirer has in great measure unconsciously invalidated his results by reasoning too largely on the basis of some school of philosophy, through which he has come to believe all truth is to be discovered. Whether both an impartial and extended treatment of this great theme may ever be expected is yet, at least, too early to say. Of late, the question is beginning to be studied by a considerable number of earnest investigators, representing anthropological and ethnograph- ical stand-points. Its history, too, is being studied and ex- pounded in a few instances with admirable impartiality. NATURE. The eternal unity, .the self-subsistent sub-stratum, the substance and energy in which and by virtue of which we, with all the manifold diversity about us, have individual being. B- re re re P-S re re •a 3 H re II n> to O EJ. ft) tn n> worn n o o CO re S i-i tfl w .-- E, re cp a- S^-cg 2. 5-3 ^ Is. m 3 3 ffq Cp 2 S o w f > 3 Cfl 5^ < 3' cp s c 0? K 3 • 3 si (TQ M 3- 1—1 ^ g CD 21 O K >o >i n H M o o > Si H ? 3 On the basis of FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION, the human being is generally analyzed into the following SYSTEMS: ? 3 re "a re crq ^ S p 3 M re tfl P* "^ /N o pj o o p 'Z H M s O 3 CD ^ O) O o_ P rii a s ^ o en o ^ tB. 01 1" 2 ■< ^ o 3 C I" >a (J3 3 » I Si g 2. 5-1 P •-1 P ffq fC n ^ ►> (i n m ;2 ITP -< ^ CL tfl o 3- E 3- re s "a S, i° ST o „ 3 5- 8 S ^ - S 3" & cr re p' E, re £ O W •2! W fa > t^ X o PI H O w k! n 3 O 1— < o C3 C cn in n W rj S c O r-i H r! g H S e a M S > E o 2 z 3 n c s Means of sensa- tion, of ' perception, of contact with the external. > s: H > a PI SENS IBI LIT Y.e OR Self-Consciousness. The function, probably, of the whole Nervous System, including all conscious or sensible experience ; the sub-stratum of mind. Its processes are traceable, but its nature is unknown. This is the mysterious point of being. It expresses itself in, or better consists-of, two modes of energy or two basic mental f un ctionings, which are the prime constituents of all activities of mind. , : _A '. , COGNITION. The power of apprehending or grasping reality in general; recognition little defined; passive intellec- tion ; (the simplest " feeling " is a species of cognition or a stage in cognition Sensation, vague or defined, belongs to the " knowing " function.) IMPULSE. The fundamental actuating tendency or life energy ; the impelling nature, initiative of activity of whatever sort from the side of the subject ; the propensity to be, exist, continue, do, etc. ; undetermined desire, appetite; mere energic tendency. INTELLECTION. Thinking; defined conscious mental activity; applied conscious- ness ; mind in definite attitudes. It is the consciousness operative in distinguishing relations of whatever sort within reality, in compre- hending truth, that which is. It has many varieties of application, having different names according to the object and character of the attention. (See Note 6.) VOLITION. Will; impulse consciously directed toward an end ; the actuating desire arising from attention. MORALITY. The special name for the attitude of man to his kind ; the individual consciousness recognizing human relations; an activity both of intellect and will, not a faculty, but an attitude; the recognition of rights, brought about during the struggle for existence against natural powers and in association with other like be- ings in oft-conflicting interests. RELIGION. In general, the individual consciousness facing Nature ; the conscious personal relationship (in what- ever way) of the self to the not-self, to objective reality : or to its deepest essence. More actively con- sidered, the mind or soul in the attitude of desire, hope, trust, faith, energy devoted toward fulness of life in one or in all the channels of man's being ; the mind going out in one or all of its capacities toward the Universal. (Various other attitudes may be added.) introduction 15 § 3. The Problem. Before attempting to indicate definitely the particular part of the whole religious problem with which we are here to be especially occupied, a better understanding between reader and writer will be insured if the latter inserts here a chart, briefly explained, illustrating as far as possible the way in which he conceives man to be related to Nature, at the same time setting forth the nature and modes of man's activity. Of course, this is not the place for an array of the reasons for such an analysis. There is not room in a brief introduc- tion to a short essay for inserting a work on anthropology. It must suffice here to say, though it is not known to con- form to the .views of any special school, it is believed to recognize the facts usually agreed upon ; and, though it be not sanctioned in what may be peculiarly its author's, it is hoped that it may prove of some suggestive importance, or at least will make clearer certain relationships which must be kept in mind throughout the reading of what follows. (See Table I., also Note 6.) We now perceive the relation of the whole subject to other subjects. Our special problem must next be farther defined by a division of the topic within itself. It has its subjective and objective sides ; i.e., religion may be considered from the side of man, who worships, and that of the gods, who are worshipped. Considered with reference to the subject, there are two principal inquiries to make, — the one relating to the origin or most fundamental characteristic of the religious sentiment, idea, or experience, its source and basis in the human mind ; the other an endeavor to determine its content and nature to the fullest extent. The ground requisites for undertaking these have already been alluded to. (Note 5. See also Note 7.) Over against this is the objective prob- lem, in which the inquiry is directed toward the reality and character of that to which the mind turns or to which it addresses itself in its religious attitude, passive and active ; and likewise a treatment of the condtcct of the subject incident 1 6 HOW RELIGION ARISES upon or growing out of such a relationship. But such an exposition as is implied in these few words would cover an immense space, and would require a greater acquaintance with facts than is perhaps yet in the possession of any single person. (i) The theme origin calls for an analysis of the facts of consciousness and a determination of their priority of rela- tionship in the religious experience. It is a search for the root function and the security of its implantation in human nature. (2) Then, as to the content and essence of this religious side of life, nothing short of a philosophical sifting of its mani- fold manifestations can discern the elements essential to its fullest expression. Mere introspection and speculation over that which makes up the thinker's own religion tell little for the subject as a whole. The appeal must be made to history and to racial manifestations on no narrow scale. Till such can be done, no theory is safe on this most important of all features of the question.? (3) On the objective side, the investigation regarding the reality and character of that to which mind is addressed in re- ligion necessitates the broadest possible scientifically attested knowledge of nature. The metaphysical assumptions and speculations, and the appeals to books of authority, both so largely the methods of the past, furnish far too slender a basis for the. religious mind of the present. Even men of very little privilege as to communication with the literature of the times, but who possess some vitality of thought, are finding it impossible to maintain their allegiance to the former standards, as whoever will may learn if he but take the pains to feel this part of the public pulse. While for the wide-reading, thinking, philosophic, and scientific class, those methods are already antedated, only they do not know their strength and have not yet taken any means toward exercis- ing an organized religious influence. (4) And, finally, a portion of the theme, in many respects no less difficult, is that which pertains to the conduct of the INTRODUCTION 17 subject, the proper deportment of a religious life. This is what may be termed the practical side. It includes the ques- tion of cultus, together with the question of whether religion implies public or social relationships, and, if so, what they are. In this latter phase, the discussion comes upon the moral domain ; religion and ethics touch, and (if our answer be a positive one) must to a considerable extent thenceforward blend. There can be no question as to the fact that, in the past, religions have possessed a very practical or active char- acter, though far from being always normal and healthful in their effects. Beliefs have led to actions, — actions, indeed, of the most diverse types. Sometimes this has been the sincerest worship, sometimes the merest liturgical formalism ; sometimes we see the subject expending his very life in the freest and most unselfish . acts of sacrifice for his fellows, sometimes the most arbitrary bigotry and utter disregard of others is uppermost ; sometimes it is propagated in the spirit of charity, liberty, respect for individuality, sometimes dog- matic assertion and the demands of unconditional submission to the powers which happen to be in the ascendency crowd out all else. (See Table II.) These, then, are some out of many futictions of the same consciousness. The one self has many faculties, powers, at- titudes, activities. It applies itself to reality in many ways. Our business here is to make an inquiry as to where and how one of these many conscious activities arises ; in other words, we are here to seek for an answer to the question first in order of sequence and foundation under the topic Religion. § 4. The Term Religion. To another time and place must be left the tracing of the etymological origin and historical career of the term religion. However, a few remarks should here be added. All words have their history. All have gone through changes greater or less, and especially interesting is the history of so great i8 HOW RELIGION -ARISES Analytic Table II. u M )— ( U ifi u K o < o PL, o w m o PM Subjective Side. < Objective Side. < Psychological Origin. The inquiry after the germ, root, fundamental charac- teristic, basis in human nat- ure. Psychological C o n- TENT AND ESSENCE. Con- tent and nature of the idea in its most ideal develop- ment, such an ideal being the outcome of the widest possible historico-ethnical study of such expressions of religion as are accessible. Theism. The reality and character of that to which mind addresses itself in the highest religious attitude. Demands the widest and most thorough knowledge of nature. Cultus. The proper and justifiable conduct of the religious subject toward the object and ground of his devotion and trust, and the social relationships implied (if any). INTRODUCTION IQ a term as this one. Words do not and cannot mean the same from age to age. Our concept of religion is not the same as that of those who used the term in former centuries. Nor, aside from the term, is our notion of the thing in itself the same as that of the old Greek, Roman, Jew, or Hindu, who held to the substance as firmly as we. It is doubtful if a term exists in any of the languages of the past which would render such an idea as this word conveys to us. History is a movement; and language is a growth which takes place apace with the growth of thought in that movement, and which develops out of the ever-changing needs of the race in its career. Hence, we must use words with this in mind, as much as possible in the sense which they bear at the time of their use, and not in their etymological or several historical senses ; though the study of these is of inestimable value to their proper understanding. Again, if we would do justice to others, we must not use words in a narrow and partial sense and under the assumption that such use comprehends their whole significance and import. It would not be diffi- cult to cite works, even in these late days, where this subject is treated as though fear, hope, the sense of mystery, moral- ity, mere ceremony, or ecstasy, is one or another regarded and spoken of as the sum and substance of religion. It may be that with this or that individual or people one or another of these characteristics quite fully describes it, while in other cases they may be the most inadequate designations. It has at various times comprehended one or another of these, and yet other elements. But who has the right to say that now or at any other time it consists solely and essentially of one, of two, or of several of these elements together ? By what sufficient authority shall any one deny the application of the term to the Papuan clasping his hands over his forehead as he squats before his karwar and asks himself whether what he is going to do is right or wrong, even though he may have no word for religion ? If, on the banks of the Ganges, devo- tion occasionally leads the Hindu mother to throw her babe into the gaping mouth of the crocodile ; if, in the Fiji Isl- 20 HOW RELIGION ARISES ands, a pious but old and feeble woman devotedly goes to her grave and unmurmuringly permits a stalwart son to perform his last dutiful act by ending her life with his war club ; or if, in Europe or America, filial sons and daughters minister tenderly to the helplessness of age, and society even main- tains institutions for the education and comfort of idiots, shall we decide that here is religion and there not ? and, if we do, on what principle ? When we read the views of those two great thinkers, nearly contemporaries, Buddha of India and Thales of Greece, the former ridiculing the notion of the existence of gods or demons at all, while the latter seriously affirmed that all things were full of the gods (the former becoming the founder of the chief religion of the world numerically, and the latter the "father of philosophy"), what have we to say about excluding either from the pale of religion ? Or, to take a final illustration, how shall we affirm or deny this appellation to the devoted orthodox Catholic or Protestant who accepts his creed literally, holds his concep- tions of religious things anthropomorphically, and faithfully crosses himself, attends masses, submits to every ceremony and rite, and regularly and believingly reads, repeats, or ex- temporizes his prayers, and not at the same time admit or refuse the like title to the reflecting and self-denying philan- thropist, philosopher, or scientist who holds to no fast creed, declines to accept any anthropomorphic religious tenets, be- lieves in no ceremonies before the mystery of nature, stakes his confidence in the reign of law throughout the universe, draws the lessons of human progress and higher possibility from the world's past, and deliberately and enthusiastically devotes himself to hasten on to those higher plains ? Evi- dently, to discover the origin and discern the essential feat- ures of such a factor as this is no easy task. To the majority of common unphilosophical minds, the question takes one of the two seeming alternatives, — either religion is definitely and dogmatically asserted to subsist in the view held by " me and my sect," or it is eschewed as an inextricable confu- sion, the vanity of vanities, and really a great nuisance from INTRODUCTION 2 I which humanity must rid itself. Philosophers, as a class, have not been satisfied to give the matter up in these light or hopeless ways. They have generally solved the problem to their own satisfaction by fixing upon some prominent con- stituent element and developing what they supposed to be a conclusive argument that, in their discovery, would be found the germ and substance of religion. The various partial methods by which the thinkers have disposed of it will be touched upon in the next section. § 5. "One-idea-ism" in Philosophy. During the last two decades, it has been possible, for those who could afford the effort, to live in a new intellectual world. It is now within the reach of millions. A new con- ception of the universe and of man's place in it is gradually becoming popular. With this new cosmos as standing- ground, mind is already beholding other changes of indefi- nitely far-reaching character. Many wholly new sciences have been built up, and new methods have been applied in old fields. A marvellously wide-spread openness and readi- ness for investigation are observable in many ways. Probably never before has the religious mind of Christendom been so susceptible to philosophical manipulation as now. And, as if conscious of its opportunity and wise in its method, philos- ophy is hastening with the improved methods of psychology to discover the truth and test the reality in the religious sentiment. Not more busy, however, is psychology in this than in numerous other ways. Within quite recent times the scope of this branch of philosophical science has broad- ened much. Its encroachment on the fields of Philology, Ethics, and Theology has been very considerable. In the two latter, the whole question of origin has been boldly taken from the protection of authoritative statement, and treated with searching analysis now by one and now by the other of the two schools of opposed philosophical propen- sities. Now, nothing is plainer than that one's philosophy 2 2 HOW RELIGION ARISES largely determines one's result. If the one is partial, so too is the other. If the method adopted is exclusively empirical, one answer will be given ; if exclusively transcendental, quite another. In general, it is the policy of empirical philosophy to regard religion as a transitory instinct or an illusory stage in human development. Spiritualistic, idealistic, or tran- scendental philosophy has proved a much better helpmate. Its dogmas have been an encouragement and inspiration all the way. Religion thrives best under this sort of rule, be- cause one of its most indispensable elements is spiritual elevation. Empiricism has generally been " of the earth earthy," and earthly things of such form have proven baneful to most former notions of religion. On the other hand, the transcendental tendency has endeavored to develop souls independent of bodies. Is philosophy too materialistically inclined, it sinks man into the mire of sensualism. Is it of a too ethereal frame, it keeps him in the skies of fancy and abstraction. He only really lives when on the solid ground of a thoughtful experience. On still another phase we find the thinkers falling into differences. The world is wide, but enthusiasts think it narrow. Interest and delight in one feature shut their eyes to others. Is one an empiricist or idealist, as before men- tioned, he may narrow his theory of religion still more by laying all stress on one or another of the primary mental faculties, or even on a single subdivision of one of these. (a) There is a class who see religion only through con- science ; consequently, action, conduct, morality, some instiga- tion of the will, seem to them a sufficient account of its origin, foundation, and essence, (d) A second party, filled with sympathy, find nothing which they could name religious out- side of feeling : hence, to them it is a sentiment first and last. It has its spring in the depths of feeling. It is one of, or a function of, the sensibilities. In its purity or (if a transitory view is held) in its erroneousness, it is a feeling and no more. (/) Then come those who dwell in realms of thought alone, and who in turn would monopolize religion for their ends. INTRODUCTION 23 It is a matter of intellect, and therefore all religion begins and ends in thought. Whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. All besides pure, unadulterated thought is extraneous and corrupting, {d) Besides these main tendencies, there are multitudes who have espoused some one idea ranging under the individual faculties. Sometimes this is taken from one, sometimes from another ; now it is treated by the method of this philosophy, now by the method of that. It is one of the curious ways in which nature is adapted to the mind that, when viewed with interest and feeling, an object may in- crease or diminish almost without limit. The perspective changes till a mite may hide a world or a world may seem a mite. Through a single trait of character, a partisan may easily see the throngs of earth moulded into races, nations, societies, or political, educational, and religious parties. So great is truth and so small is man that a single idea clearly seen seems a sufficient basis for all things, (i) To these may be added a final class, who will not admit for religion any legitimate place. It is purely superstitious in origin and nature. Its present assumptions are beneath the contempt of thinking men. It is a thing of the past. It was a freak of the youthful world ; and, as a study in natural history, it has the same interest which any decayed institution would have. There attaches to it a sort of archaeological impor- tance, and its relics look well in museums and as ruins. These are the sceptics who have passed over the stream of doubt to the further bank of negative dogma. Each of these several methods has its great advocates in both experimental and idealistic philosophy. Each of the first four has its champions in theology. Each and all have their enemies. If we wish to know where this great factor originates and what it really is, we must not take as final the answer of the advocates of any exclusive theory, nor the testimony of " retained counsel " for or against the cause. Only impartial Nature is ultimately trustworthy. In religion, as in other features, she has her many phases, all of which are finally to be seen as one great whole, to be unified. 24 HOW RELIGION ARISES Light from any source and on every side we must heartily welcome. Nor have we much trust in reality, if we do not expect that every expression of the religious life, every claim made for or against it, has some basis, and may, rightly used, be of some advantage toward its completer understanding and realization. CHAPTER II. LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES. § 6. Religion is of the Will. (i) The Thesis. — In one or other of its forms, the view that religion is of the Will * finds many supporters in our age ; and, in the wide differences which distinguish them as classes, we have illustration of the scope of life that may fall chiefly under the control of a single faculty or phase of our being. Strange though it seem at first, the moving, potent, prominent principle which underlies the religious life of the punctilious ritualistic churchman and that of the enthusiastic ethical agnostic has the same spring ; namely, that religion is once and always a life of action, of work. In periods specially given over to the practical, this view, in one of its phases, exercises predominating influence. Those so-called "matter-of-fact" and "scientifically"' inclined per- sons are in general drawn in this direction. Here, too, is to be found the root of the " Ethical Culture " movements of to-day. The leaders have by some means become blind in those eyes of the soul which look out upon existence in other ways ; and, consequently, the whole pent up force of their earnest lives must find its outlet here. In its other phase, this view is the principle which rules in those impractical times when the observance of forms claims man's chief attention. We observe, then, the ritualistic, ceremonial, or ecclesiastical proclivity, which seems the very antipode of the former, and, indeed, is such in practical aspects. They are each other's most deadly enemy, while at the same time they grow psychologically from one root. Like all other great moving propensities, they both have 26 HOW RELIGION ARISES their basis of fact, their legitimate birth and being ; and, like every partial and exclusive theory, they achieve great ends at great sacrifice in other ways. The position that religion is chiefly a matter of ritual, liturgy, ceremony, etc., has few or no supporters in theory, though practically acted upon by millions, among multitudes of whom there is probably little, if any, real spiritual perception. The rites of the religious institution into whose membership they were born and reared, and the social opportunity which this method of meeting their fellows affords, are to them the substance of the religious life. The view which makes it in origin and essence a matter of morality is more profound, and has its open and able advocates. For this reason, it is proper that its soundness should receive some special attention, while the other may be passed without further notice. It is noteworthy that the first three views mentioned — namely, that religion is of the will, of feeling, and of thought — had each its able representative in German philosophy at the close of the last century and the beginning of the pres- ent. In the. works of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel, we have the masterly development of each. Representative types of each conviction could no doubt be cited in every active age. In the primitive Christian Church, we find James the man of works, John the advocate of love, and Paul the preacher of belief or reasoned theory, — the Kant- ian, the Schleiermacherian, and the Hegelian. Although various other views will be considered, yet the chronological order in the treatment of the subject by the great German thinkers determines for the most part the order here adopted. (2) Conscience — Kant. — The view that relates relig- ion inseparably with the foundation of the moral nature has its chief philosophical exposition and defence in the work of Kant. One may fairly say that he was the first to make religion a subject of serious psychological inquiry. With him the moral sense becomes the foundation of religion, and the religious foundation in turn becomes the support of the LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 2J conscience. Kant could fix neither without the other. Re- ligion is duty apprehended as divine command.9 Duty is acting under the behest of the "Categorical Imperative." The nature of this command is such that no external consid- erations are to be taken into account. Its dignity, inde- pendence, and sublimity greatly impressed the mind of Kant. His most eloquent strains are poured out over it. " Duty ! thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not to move the vpill by threatening aught that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely holds forth a law, . . . what origin is worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent ? " ^° In true morality, he positively rules out all considerations of gain at the time the will is giving itself the command. In answer to the question, " What ought I to do ? " Kant would say, " Do that which shall make you worthy of being happy." " Does this mean that happiness is to be my object ? " " No," says he, "respect for the moral law, morality, worthiness, should be your object : happiness shall be a result. Happiness comes not from seeking. Seeking it is unworthy, and results in unhappiness." "But, if by means of my conduct I am made worthy of being happy, shall I attain the happiness which I deserve ? In other words, what may I hope ? " The reply is that theoretically and practically Reason pre- supposes that worthiness shall have its reward. The two are inseparably connected in the Pure Reason. Experience makes it evident, however, that happiness is not in proper ratio with worthiness in this world, and therefore there is another. Unless, also, there is a wise author and governor, harmony between morality (or worthiness) and happiness cannot be required. Kant thus finds God and future life presupposed in moral obligation. It will be perceived that he does not make morality obligatory because it is a divine command, or because it has divine command behind it ; but he finds it to be a divine command because it is subjectively obligatory, — i.e., because we are directly conscious of duty 28 HOW RELIGION ARISES as such. Nor does he deduce morality from the existence of God, but he deduces God from the existence of the moral law. He cannot, struggle as he may, rid himself of the old notion that happiness is somehow the end of life, and, if we cannot get it here, we must get it in some other good time and place. It will not do to seek it, because in that way you miss it. This is the curious paradox which it presents. If you seek it, it eludes you. It would seem, then, as if we can only be happy if we don't know it ; and, if we don't know it, what is the use of it ? I am inclined to think that Kant is persuading us to look upon religion as a kind of poor morality. To apprehend duty as a divine command is to assume it from motives of fear or gain. The recognition of any outward divine author- ity as the basis or instigation of moral action is an appeal to human selfishness and weakness. This is but an outward phenomenal support, which must sooner or later fall away. Every established religion begins in these external statutory moral laws apprehended as divine commands, but must go on to higher ground ; namely, to a conception of duty inde- pendent of them, apprehended as binding from within." To speak without deviation : religion is an earlier and lower form of morality, has only a practical validity, and is a sort of unavoidable stage on the way to the grand conception of duty before mentioned. The true morality is above this, for it forbids such acts entirely. The only third way possi- ble would be to apprehend duty as a divine command based on love toward the Divine Being instead of on fear of the divine displeasure. But Kantian Pure Reason has belittled, if not entirely annihilated, our previous Divine Being, and has brought no new and lovable God to take the former's place. Morality is of such sublime importance that it has taken up the sympathies of the great Professor, and the adoration and devotion which we had thought to go to God has been paid to the law of God." The fact in the case is, we can hardly get a full and fair answer as to the basis and nature of religion from Kant, LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 29 because he is so taken up with other matters. The critique of knowledge and the foundation of morality engross his chief attention. Religion as a factor of history, as an essence in human nature having an origin as profound as that of the sublime moral law, never roused his interest. What work he did in the field of theology was of a negative character. He shook the religious confidence of men by his ironical attacks on the arguments for the being of God ; and, when we have mentioned his work as a destroyer, we have said about all that is possible. There was really noth- ing but morality left out of which to get what religious comfort one could. It was for later hands to rear another structure. He claimed to be also a reconstructor ; but in religion "iconoclast " will best describe him. His reconstruc- tive work was in the field of philosophy. His labor in bring- ing order into the existing laws of the human mind was on the positive side. But his efforts at a theological reconstruc- tion were not a success from a philosophical point of view. His profession of finding out God on the new and higher basis of the Practical Reason is open to quite as serious objections as those he raised against other methods. From the point of view of ethics, his is one of the best efforts of philosophy. But as theology, the rationalist might reply, such a notion of freedom as Kant found in the autonomy of the will is just as much a mere idea as is the notion of God which he condemns. If the latter is a dream, an illusion, a wish, what assurance is there that this great sense of human responsibility is more ? Such an appeal as Kant makes to the feeling of the heart does not ^ove his point. Proof pertains to reason. Kant, in the " Critique of Pure Reason," makes cause and effect a mere form of thought, one of the categories. But how much more is this so than is our idea of freedom a form of human feeling or human impulse ? In what consists the superior validity of the latter as a proof for the being of God ? Is it possible for one faculty of mind to set itself up as more trustworthy than another ? Who is to be the judge ? How can we know or show that con- 30 HOW RELIGION ARISES sciousness points with more distinctness to our feeling of moral responsibility than to our intellectual demand for a cause of the world about us ? What makes one a form and the other something better ? No : if one is mere form, the other is not more. Then we have left the uncomfortable alternative of believing that there is reality nowhere, — not even in this belief, — and theology is negated. It has taken the longest and most active life of thought to impeach thought. It shall again prove its candor and veracity. It shall, as of old, take its seat on the throne. (3) "Morality touched by Emotion." — Matthew Arnold. — A theory of religion based also on the moral nature, but of vastly greater active power, is that of Matthew Arnold. Religion is " morality touched by emotion." The origin of morality, then, explains the origin of religion. But, as a morality with any meaning always has its origin in the freedom and self-determination of the will, so religion is traced back to this primary faculty as its fountain-head. But it is touched by emotion : morality alone is, therefore, incom- plete to constitute religion. Whether this emotion may jii- rect the moral conduct as in the sight of God, or humanity, or both, or neither, we are not instructed. From his general teaching, we may infer that moral relations conducted with enthusiasm in the presence, of one's august self would com- pose the substance of a religious life. But this morality, — even in the event that it proved to be the real nature of religion, — what is it at bottom but the con- scious knowledge of relations, these supplemented by states of feeling of oughtness in some direction, these again stimu- lating volition, which, when commended by further thought, leads at once to action ? It is the explicit life of what existed first as thought. Instead of will being first in point of se- quence, it is last. It is but a superficial foundation for this heaven-towering temple to rest it on conduct apprehended as divine command or on duty performed with gushing feeling. In those moments of life when conduct may be powerless and LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 31 the emotions which flood the life of duty have been wiped out by circumstances beyond our control, the soul's life of religion may be most vividly realized. A man shut up in prison, a person helpless and in extreme danger, a martyr bound and awaiting his fate, the emaciated and dying, — can these not know religion ? Is it original in, or does it depend on, the power of action or emotion ? Not but what these, in their opportunity, have their place and are mighty — even the mightiest — factors of religion: only religion must not be im- propriated by the health and flush of life. Even the soul that hath not enough physical basis of life to move a hand or feel the play of an emotion may contemplate, and in this self- forgetful and powerless state may realize, the perfect end of the highest religious life, — its oneness with the Divine. It may be readily perceived and admitted that the performance of life's proper services with a heart is a much higher condi- tion than the same performance in dry, emotionless frigidity of nature from some sense of necessity. It has become a world-wide saying, that, " if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I [in Stoical fortitude] give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." So needful for social well-being has been the inculcation of this virtue, and so much has it been emphasized, that multitudes believe it to be the whole of religion. Against such exclusiveness all that was said in a former section concerning the partial in philoso- phizing will apply with equal weight here. And what is this love ? Whence sprang it ? Certainly, from the same source as morality, — from thought in its incipiency, the early self- consciousness, before specialization, emotion, and volition began. And, finally, it must be noticed that from another point of view, — namely, that of observed fact, — it is the gravest error to identify religion with, or place its origin in, morality ; for some of the most immoral and unmoral peoples have been extremely religious. It is known to all students of religions that only at comparatively high stages of development does religion receive a moral content and begin to exert an actual 32 HOW RELIGION ARISES influence on the moral life. That point, whenever it arrives, marks an epoch of the utmost importance in the religious history of a people, though it by no means marks the begin- ning of their religious career. J 7. Religion is of the Emotions. (i) The Mystics. — The class which naturally attracts attention next includes those religious souls termed Mystics, though these do not by any means compose the whole group who found religion in feeling. Mysticisiji is a term covering mental tendencies of great variety. So great is this variety and of such nature is its essence that definition is next to impossible. The notion common to all its expressions is that of " a supreme, all-pervading, and indwelling power, in whom all things are one." Through the sublime heights of feeling the soul hopes to grasp the ultimate reality of things, the divine essence, and by this attainment enjoy the unspeakable blessedness of actual communion with the Source of all spirit. The side of the unity of all is emphasized at the expense of that of the diversity. In many of its phases the office of the Understanding is set aside, and a faculty claimed to be higher than Reason, one which is blind to division, takes all control. God is lost as object; he becomes experience. All that hin- ders this is distracting impediment. Subject and object must be seen as one. In its ancient forms, this elation of spirit at times took place in mystical swoons, ecstasies, and trances. In modern times, the advancement of knowledge has greatly abated its extravagances, although much of it is still preva- lent among certain low orders of emotional religion. Mysticism is pantheism, but it is much more. Mere pan- theism is death : the better mysticism is life. Materialistic pantheism is degrading: mysticism is inspiring and elevat- ing. Pantheism sees nothing but perfection everywhere, be- cause divinity is everywhere : the better mysticism feels the sense of sin, imperfection, and alienation from the Divine, with which it longs to be one. Yet it differs from the gen- LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 33 eral course of religion in the intensity with which it empha- sizes and realizes the divine factor of the relationship. To such an extent does this proceed in mysticism that the per- sonality and incompleteness of the individual become lost in the absolute completeness of the Divine ; and this, too, though the effort for unity takes its rise in the sense of indi- vidual need and incompleteness, so that in its extreme form all relations are illusory, except that of unity with God. In general, this view of religion does not look' outward toward a life of activity among men. It is well-nigh the opposite of that described in § 6. The mind tends to retire from the confused, jostling, busy, wicked world, and devoutly com- mune with its God and contemplate his nature. While the former class tends to the development of vigorous, indepen- dent, purely practical individuals, this one tends to generate passivity and sensitivity of character. What is the strength of the one is the weakness of the other. It is clear that, from its very nature, this general view of religion cannot develop theologies. Such intense contem- plation or feeling does not analyze, systematize, nor form- ulate. Mysticism has had many " preachers," but few " the- ologians " ; and these few, to the extent that they are theologians, are inconsistent mystics. A purely emotional"3 religion has no right to a theology. Its premises and prov- ince are transcended as soon as it begins to define and sys- tematize. Mysticism is the recoil of devoutness from for- mality, dogmatism, ecclesiasticism, scholasticism, etc. It is in all religions one of the necessary reactions from ceremo- nialism and over-exact statements of faith. Judaism had its Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and Jesus. Christianity has provoked into being its Augustine, Eckhart, Thomas k Kempis, Bohme, F^nelon, Swedenborg, Wesley, and Fox. If not mystics in the full sense of the term, these, one and all, exhibited strong mystical tendencies in reaction against the prevalent dogmatism and hoUowness of their times. And not individuals only, but each religion has its whole sects of mystics. Jevirish Essenes, Greek Neo-Platonists, Christian 34 HOW RELIGION ARISES Moravians and Quakers, ancient Hindu Brahmans, Chinese Taoists, etc., in the early fresh stages of their history, are each reactionary witnesses of this tendency striving to assert its just and natural influence. (2) Dependence — Schleiermacher. — Among moderns, the great master thinker and expounder of religion as a feel- ing is Friedrich Schleiermacher. In giving his view, it is not implied that others of the same general tendency would sub- scribe to it ; for, though with all of the class religion is a so- called intuitive and unreasoned feeling, yet they have the inconsistency of differing as widely in other particulars of how and what as those do who openly profess to reason. The "view of Schleiermacher has the advantage for purposes of comparison of being most thoroughly insisted upon and most definitely expounded. The treatment which religion received at his hands produced what may properly be called an epoch in Christian theology. His enthusiasm over the notion of religion as feeling led him, in his early statements, into the extravagance of claiming that all feeling, except that which is morbid, is religious.'* Kant's results had driven thinkers to curious straits. Since nothing could be abso- lutely known, some doubted everything and became sceptics on all subjects. Others said : The intellect will do very well in its place, but its place is not in the field of religion. Here feeling is the all in all. Of this class was Schleiermacher. In his later work, " Christliche Glaube," he held the source and essence of religion to be in an unreasoned sense of ab- solute dependence on something which sustains and deter- mines us, but which we cannot know. It may be termed the sense of the universe, the feeling which one has before the process of analysis begins. This sense of the infinite is the sense of God. If the intellect is limited, this matters not for religion. It is not relevant here in any way. The authority of faith based on feeling is all-sufficient. Only the heart is reliable. A man may be religious without any in- tellectual statement. Nor has the will anything to do with LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 35 it. It prompts to no course of conduct. Religion is not to blame for men's misdeeds. It neither urges nor hinders activity. When one fully realizes it, then does he have an exalted peace. With this feeling, man sees that it is not himself alone that works. " None of us liveth to himself alone." "Whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." And, as with us, so it is with all that is about us : everything is dependent, absolutely so. This feeling so described not only involves religion, but it is religion. It very evidently expresses one actual feature of the common notions of religion ; namely, that of humility, self-surrender, the destruction of all feeling of pride, the utter incompleteness and insufficiency of the finite. More- over, it is one instance of the tendency mentioned in another place, in which men looking at one element magnify its importance till it comprises all that part of the world which they are considering ; and they unconsciously fill out in prac- tice what is deficient in theory. Although Schleiermacher starts from the same root, yet he emphasizes the subjective- side too much to really belong in this sense to the mysticaP school. To the extent that he does this, his view may be discussed or examined. Where the objective side is dwelt upon, to the entire exclusion of the subjective or individual,, science has little opportunity of exercise. In extreme mys- ticism, God is finally to become absolutely knowable, because the soul will come to be one with him. But Schleiermacher's' enthusiasm over the /ee/mg oi -dependence is so great that he forgets to ascertain much about God ; and, consequently, God is left unknowable, since the soul is kept intensely self- conscious over its own state. This it must lose before the exaltation and peace of which he speaks can be realized. But what is this feeling of dependence in its beginning ? Is it not founded on a conscious recognition of the relation between the self and the not-self 1 And what is such a recognition but an intellectual activity, a thought ? It may not be otherwise specialized or determined ; but it is thought, be it ever so incipient. It may arouse one emotion or another, but they 36 HOW RELIGION ARISES are not the bottom psychological elements in the case. There can be no doubt to later reflection that the emotion of utter dependence and helplessness in the arms of Nat- ure would be a very early conscious feeling ; but so defi- nite a thing as this emotion must have its frame in a previous thought. Mere feeling alone, of such a stage and character as that referred to, is mere indefiniteness and vagueness. It would not know itself as religious or as anything else. There is nothing definite about it till it has had its conscious beginning and direction in a conscious recognition of rela- tionship. But this puts the origin in thinking instead of feeling. (3) The Unorthodox Mystics. — It is worthy of note in this connection that religion outside of the Church has also its mystical minds, and these, too, in even greater vari- ety. The term must in some way cover the Nature Pantheism of the Persian Saadi, the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, the earlier Brahmanism and the Buddhistic Nihilism of the East, the Quietism of Madame Guyon, the Cambridge Platonism of Henry More, and the revulsions from an articulate, rea- soned out, mechanical philosophy to an immediate spiritual one, such as those widely different types of Novalis, Carlyle, and Emerson. These fine spirits, each profoundly religious in his way, would build their peculiar styles of temples on some species of emotion. And, in so far as this was sup- posed to be ultimate, the remarks just urged against Schleier- macher's basis would apply with equal force. Like all other extremes, mysticism has achieved its glitter- ing good at the sacrifice of other equally glittering goods. Does it reach spiritual heights — it has run perilous risks. It oftener falls into the worst of fanaticisms and aberrations. These high altitudes of emotion induce deliriousness, dreams, or intoxication. In its imagined oneness with Divinity, the spirit sometimes attaches to itself an unreasonable impor- tance. It imbibes imputed wisdom, righteousness, and per- fection from its high relationship. "If I were not, God LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 37 could not be ; I am as necessary to him as he is to me." It thinks that what it thinks is divine. " I am the voice of God." " I get the truth by direct intuition." " I am wholly sanctified, and therefore cannot sin or err." But, in all such instances, thought, feeling, and will have run wild. Fancy holds the reins. It dreams out its world. In such frenzies, the most ridiculous claims of power, knowledge, and author- ity may be made, and the most despicable deeds may be committed, all in the name of inspiration. Yet in the tendency there is the profoundest truth, and betimes the highest religious attainments and inspiration are reached. Mysticism of the better class is always a tonic to the com- mon religious life. Even where men do not agree with the mystics in faith, they find themselves strengthened in the reading of their thoughts. Their best works will forever be popular to the devoutly inclined of each and every creed. (4) Non-mystic Emotion Theories. — Besides these genuine experiencers and theorizers of religion as feeling for religion's sake, there is another multitude, — philosophers, pseudo-philosophers, and half-informed writers, — who have imagined themselves great discoverers. Finding some one or more of the feelings prominently represented in certain types of religious manifestation falling under their observa- tion, they have fixed upon this with great enthusiasm as the worthy or unworthy source of this best of all goods or worst of all evils. Upon this, thereafter, they endlessly dilate. It proves itself so satisfactory that further exami- nation of cases is regarded by them as entirely superfluous ; or, in case other facts be afterwards brought to notice, they are ignored. The case is already decided. As a class (though with exceptions), these writers have been inimi- cal to the religious life. The Feeling of Fear. — Among other subdivisions of the principal mental faculties, the feeling of fear has been singled out as the fountain-head of this absorbing impulse. 38 HOW RELIGION ARISES It has at one or another time had its strenuous defenders. Among the ancients, Epicurus and Lucretius were its expo- nents. Among moderns, Hobbes is perhaps the most able. Its advocates are by no means " religionists." The emotion theory has perhaps as many supporters proportionally among scientists and philosophers as among pious folk. But here the object is often critical and destructive. To found religion on mere feeling is to a " man of intellect " the best means of throwing discredit upon it. What is emotional he does not respect. Only the operations of intellect are dignified and worthy. Things of mere feeling are trivial, if not contemptible. For this reason, some — who have become enamoured of intellectual pursuits, and who, in so far as they have given attention to religion, have done so mainly to blame the mistakes of its institutions — most naturally set the whole religious life of man aside, along with other frivolous, transitory superstitions. Among the emotions sup- posed to give rise to it, none is easier to alight upon than fear. With these theorizers, it has the credit of all conse- quences of the religious life, good or bad. It_is_aaid_-tbat th e essenc e of_alLrelig,ion is the sense that _there_are_other beingsjnoifi-4iowerful-tJian--0urselyes. Not knowing exactly their nature and their attitude toward us, we regard them with awe and reverence ; and, in the hope of placating them for possible or imagined Offences, we pay them homage and worship. By some it is urged that the introduction among mankind of a belief in such superior beings is due to the craft of statesmen and rulers, as a device to which to appeal for the better maintenance of authority over the ignorant multitude. If so, these men surely called attention to more than they realized. According to the hypothesis, they were the only ones capable of seeing such a possibility of existence or relationship ; and, though there may have possibly been a practical necesssity in the discovery, yet it proved its legitimacy by the hold which it has taken on human thought. Indeed, we may say, had it not been thus awakened, it must inevitably have come about in some other way. LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 39 What are we to think of. this theory of fear? Under its treatment, religion, at least, becomes universal. Fear is one of the most general characteristics of the race. It is almost as universal as appetite. In fact, it is as common to beast as to man. For whatever creature has the capacity of shudder- ing in the presence of objects indefinitely powerful, and at the same time of being more or less attracted by those ob- jects, should have the credit of being religious, if it be a credit. On such a basis there cannot be claimed for man a monopoly of this sense, lofty or otherwise. The emotion of the horse in the presence of his master or the baying of the dog at the moon are religious feelings and acts of worship from this stand-point. Without much doubt, they are as truly so as many of the practices of the lower human races de- scribed as such by travellers. But a theory is put to its test when it is tried by the facts. Would the general sense of thinking men put into the class religious all the instances of fear which this theory would require ? Though they may have elements akin, yet the child's dread of the darkness, the rustic's quickened heart-beat and hurried pace by the country graveyard, the school-boy's crafty terror of his master's frown, the soldier's dread of official displeasure, or Rip Van Winkle's shudder at thought of Gretchen's coming rage, as religious acts and feelings, would none of them receive general con- sent. Again, a theory, besides excluding none, must include all the facts. This teaching receives its greatest strain when mention is made of the types of religious feeling where fear has disappeared entirely. "Perfect love casteth out fear." The Deity has come to be regarded with complete trust and faith. The believer is filled with the greatest peace. That this view utterly fails to stand the test is evident from the fact that many religions have gradually dropped the element of fear, but in doing so have dropped none of their religious- ness. 's As an explanation of demonology, of the regard for super- natural beings in a negative sense, it has the highest merit; but, as an interpretation of the positive elements of religion. 40 HOW RELIGION ARISES it is Utterly valueless. It has the great advantage of being simple ; and, because of this and the fact that it so thoroughly explains one side of the problem, it has met with a large acceptance as the most satisfactory hypothesis. Carrying it out to its consistent end, many predict the time when the superstitions of religion shall be things of the past. This they do with much reason from their point of view. If the comprehension as natural force of what we supposed to be definite personalities in charge of certain departments of nature does away with our fear, surely it is only a matter of time when the world of nature may become transparent to human thought, and with this would cease our homage. But on the other side, when the more the world becomes trans- parent and the more we see of its perfection in all ways, the more we find to increase our interest in it and our enthusiasm for it, the more we strive to conform our lives to its laws, the more we see of its deeper meaning and underlying principle, — surely the day of no religion becomes farther and farther removed. It was, in fact, the day before humanity arrived at its religious capacity. Moreover, in its philosophic preten- sions, this theory must be saluted by the same farewell that was given to that of feeling in general] even in the event that this special feeling formed the chief background of re- ligion (which we see it does not), there is a more fundamental element behind. This feeling of fear is founded on the con- scious recognition of a relation, and such a recognition is a thought entirely independent of the after-gush of emotion, which may flood the personality and generate action. The Feeling of Wonder. — It would indeed be wonder- ful if somebody did not see in wonder itself the fountain of this activity over which there has been so much human query. But our expectation is met. To this peculiar mental attitude, likewise, have the source and substance of religion been as- cribed. So the great synthetic philosopher, Herbert Spencer, finds it. Religion is a feeling, a feeling of wonder, a feeling of wonder in the presence of the Unknown. ■& Taken liter- LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 4I ally, this theory is self-contradictory and self-annihilating ; for the mind is never troubled with wonders or emotions of any sort over things of which it has no knowledge. Hence we must not take it directly at its word, but assume that it means more than it states in the terms. This "Unknown" is at least known to exist, and to manifest itself in ways sufficient to excite wonder over its nature, etc. It at least stands to the world in the relation of the operator of a mechanical pan- tomime or the director of a drama who himself is not seen. Thus the theory is exceedingly inexact in the use of terms. Moreover, it plays a sort of circular argument in first defining religion to be a certain conscious relation to an unknown somewhat, thus limiting its scope to one mental activity, and then proceeding to state the truism which it has just consti- tuted ; namely, that religion consists from first to last in the sentiment of wonder! By the terms which the theory has set, what else could it be? The soul cannot admire, nor fear, nor love, nor even feel strictly dependent on what it does not at all know. If it does feel itself dependent on something unknowable, it has no assurance that its bene- factor is this " Unknowable " or another one. " Unknow- ables" cannot be distinguished nor restricted in numbers: there may be many or few or none. Nothing is left to do but marvel. What untold possibilities, what unimaginable incomprehensibilities, may that which we do not know stand for! Beyond wonder, we are powerless. The theory at start has dried up every other fountain of the soul. But we must not stop here. The theory has a yet more radical defect : it is psychologically too weak for its under- taking. It would make religion arise in a "feeling of won- der " ; but wonder is not itself primarily a feeling. It is an incomplete cognition, an act of the knowing consciousness which has fallen short of its aim, and which only in its secon- dary stage, as it becomes reconscious of the failure, is inten- sified, or, in other words, receives the flush of an emotion. In short, the theory, though it contains much of truth and a richness of suggestion in its elaboration, as an account of the 42 HOW RELIGION ARISES psychological origin of this so seemingly perplexing activity, has the same shortcoming as the theories before mentioned. § 8. Religion is of Thought. (i) Rationalists, etc. — The theory that all genuine relig- ion has its origin and essence in the thinking, reasoning faculty goes in history under the names, Rationalism, Nat- ural Theology, Natural Religion, etc. Like the other exclu- sive claims set up, it is the theory both of the friends and enemies of religion. One large class of its advocates in Christendom belongs within the Church itself. These do not lay the stress so much on the fact that religion consists in intellectual activity as on the fact that it is to be devel- oped and sustained by efforts of reason. During the past century, they have put forth a vast amount of literature purporting to support by proofs from reason the claims of Christianity. Of this type are the many works on Christian Evidences, Christian Institutions, and Systematic Theology. These usually claim rational demonstration (" in the face of Jews, Turks, and infidels ") for the historic doctrinal faith of the Church. Not only this, but each different sect holds implicit confidence in its ability to put beyond doubt, "be- fore all candid reasoners," its claim to recognition as the only legitimate one. On the other hand, the rejecters of the faith in all its forms hold that by the same powers of reason it can be shown to have no basis whatever in fact. It is the superlative myth which must be exploded before the world can go on. But our present concern is with neither of these. The interest here centres in a class of minds who at the begin- ning have no cause to defend or oppose, and who after con- siderable painstaking have traced the stream of religion to its supposed source in thought. But these, too, after the manner of men, tend to exclusiveness. They are inclined to believe that the little stream with which they start has no tributaries, that thought is source and all besides. They are LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 43 invariably successful in ridding religion of much error, but their success usually continues so far as to rid themselves also of that which they would renovate. They winnow the wheat till there is left no wheat. The process itself becomes so fascinating that reason gets reckless and loses its ration- ality. The wildness sometimes displayed in this tendency rivals the extremes! cases of mystical delirium. But these, like all exaggerated types of activity, can be of but short •duration and limited influence. There is a widely different class of writers, — sometimes among the most respectable philosophers, — whose general tendency is to help on ration- alism. In some form or other, they find either the origin or the essence of religion, or both, to consist in the operations ■of the thinking faculty. One or two of the most noticeable and able of these efforts must be considered. (2) Belief and Faith — Jacobi. — Judging the religion of Jacobi from its practical outcome, one would be surprised to find it classed with those who trace religion to an origin in thought. Yet, although it gets by essence and application a plain mystical turn, it is at beginning a matter of belief. " I believe ; by my faith I am a Christian ; by my reason I am a heathen." ■/ Here is a faith accepted on belief, and that contrary to reason ! It has the appearance of straining reason up to the pitch of credulity, and then accepting its decision. This belief is belief in the reality of an ideal. But this is trying to make thought out of feeling and desire. He wants to accept his faith from the hands of thought, but ■does not see the way. That which he has in mind is evi- ■dently a feeling of the poetical imaginative character. It arises intuitively from the enthusiastic mystical contempla- tion of nature. It really has an origin in thought ; but it is not thought at the time Jacobi undertakes its examination, nor does he spy out its true beginning. The belief of which he speaks may be true or it may not ; it is all one for the purpose of religion. From its truth the belief gets none of its religious worth. All value lies in its persistence. The 44 HOW RELIGION ARISES belief must perforce lift the soul into realms of contempla- tion far above the transitory and conflicting things of life. To talk with less rhetorical fervor, — though perhaps at the expense of the theory, — it is neither more nor less than excitement, enthusiasm, lofty emotion awakened by an inter- est arising from perfect belief in any object. The virtue of the theory is not so high but that emotions of suf- ficient strength awakened by unworthy objects may come under the class religious. The sublime awe filling the be- holder of the starry heavens, the fervid excitement in the mind of a romance reader, the emotions of pity and benevo- lence stirred in the philanthropic heart at the sight of misery, the passionate frenzy of the nihilistic fanatic, as well as the pious devotion of the Christian saint, must all have their place in this religion. We have, then, this curious circumstance : that, although religion has its origin entirely in a belief (a thought), it is in substance ever after entirely a feeling. In treating the ques- tion of origin, his theory properly comes under the class thought ; while, in a discussion on the nature or essence of the religious life, it would fall in with emotional theories. We should further notice that in the statement of his own faith — " By my faith I am a Christian ; by my reason I am a heathen" — he leaves his mind in a contradiction. Now, it is one of the chief realities of religion that it does away conflict. Its end is peace, in one of its aims. A religion that leaves its believers in such spiritual contradiction is no sufficient religion. Jacobi belongs to the school of thinkers who declaim much against reason, and urge the spirit's native power of immediacy, or intuition in knowledge. Schleiermacher, Jacobi, De Wette, and others of this class reason out and write endless discussions to prove that reason is not to be trusted. Through this inconsistency of dis- claiming reason, though always leaning upon it, such writers vitiate greatly their results. From such premises, of course, logical consistency becomes impossible. LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 45 (3) Freedom and Thought — Hegel. — At the same time that Schleiermacher was expounding his celebrated doctrine of the "feeling of dependence," another thinking giant in another room of the same university (Berlin) was discoursing on this subject, and announcing a conclusion the very antithesis of this. We feel that a mind of unusual logical powers has charge of us when we pass under Hegel's tuition. He is with those who find religion to be of the thinking faculty. He is especially hostile to the feeling theory. Man shares this sense of dependence with the 'brutes, but they are not religious. Man surpasses them in his conscious freedom and higher powers of thought. Into this, then, must we look both for the origin and substance of his religious bent. Indeed, at its highest, religion should lie the complete antithesis of what Schleiermacher afhrmed, — namely, the sense of perfect freedom; because the human spirit in its religious consciousness is exactly the Divine Spirit coming to consciousness of itself in and through the finite. ' Again, this matter of feeling is an indifferent thing. It has no content aside from what it gets through thought. It may be as strong with one object as with another, — in the breast of the lowest criminal bent on his evil purposes as in the aspirations of the loftiest saint. It is all one to the nature of feeling whether its object be good or bad, high or low, true or false. Not so with the nature of thought. Its content is definite, and has its manifest object. To Hegel, then, religion is " a niatter of thought, of spirit." ■* This to him is the basis of all things, of the universe itself. Men say that mind is a mass, or an arrange- ment of phenomena ; the phenomena are all we know. But what makes phenomena ? Take away the thinker, and where are the phenomena ? A world without thought is no world. Thought is always, thought is everywhere. It underlies all •experiences and all worlds. Viewed by the Understanding, " I " and " phenomena " are two, not one. Viewed by the Jleason, they are one, not two. Viewed by both as they 46 HOW RELIGION ARISES must be, the universe is a unity in diversity. Phenomena can only be as thought is. Nature, or the totality of phe- nomena, can only be as thought underlies it. This must be so, for only as you take thought out of nature is it inter- pretable. In this way, the interpretation of nature is going on increasingly. Nature is becoming more and more intel- ligible or transparent to the consciousness of the world. What is natural is translatable. Because nature is articu- late, expressive of thought, man gets on in science. Now, the human spirit, on coming face to face with the Spirit in nature, recognizes its kindred. This is the beginning of religion. Gradually, it comes to know its relationship to the Spirit. Religion is the thought of the individual as it places itself in relation with the universal. Man is thus seen to be "the image of God"; and therefore he must, in one sense, by very nature be religious. Yet in Hegelian philosophy there is a still higher stage than the religious for the human spirit to attain ; namely, that of Absolute Knowledge ( IVis- sen). This is to be reached through philosophy. Philoso- phy is far superior to both religion and art as an exponent of the relation between man and the Absolute. Hegel did much powerful thinking on this topic, but it has its serious limitations. Side by side with the profound- est insight and reasoning faculty, we have the same par- tiality in the grounding and working out of his theory that we have seen in some of the other principal views examined ; while this view labors under the additional disadvantage of being more difficult of comprehension and less practical in application. These are difficulties due to its speculative character. Had the theory grown out of an historical and ethnical study of religions, it would never have contained those prodigious flights of abstraction, which, though their study serves as a most excellent intellectual exercise, ex- press but very partially the realities of the religious life. '9 The view that religion has its first gleam psychologically in the faculty of thought has by all odds the advantage. But this is as far as we may urge. Thought pre-empts the LEADING PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES 47 domain, but by no primogeniture assumptions can it entail the territory to its posterity. Enthusi:astic counsel in its behalf has "wickedly" tried to do so. To explain in another way, by exclusiveness in shutting out the contribu- tions of other tributary faculties, the stream becomes narrow and shallow, and has not substance sufficient to fertilize the region through which it flows. Indeed, with such a shallow Nile, life runs a precious risk of becoming a barren waste. Thought is the head-water surely, but it receives vast in- crease further on. In the sense hinted before, reason is first; and "religion is reasonable, but reason is not re- ligion." 20 CHAPTER III. RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS. § 9. Partiality and Consequent Unrest. In some or all of their manifestations, these three leading views of the source and nature of the religious life have been coexistent in the world since the dawn of written philosophy. Most men live largely in the region of what may be described as the analytic or individualizing sphere of the mind, so far as concerns their intellectual operations and realizations. Few indulge extensively in comparison, and fewer yet rise to the recognition of the higher unity which lies behind all this individuality of things. Because of this, in their theories they place the emphasis on the feature in which their interest has been awakened. The more the potency of this feature is observed, the more does its importance become magnified, until finally it is conceived as all-sufficient and all-compre- hensive. So large does it seem that they honestly believe the whole world to be within its domain or under its control. If by founder or opponent such a view be carried to the extreme in its application, it breaks down from sheer incon- sistent exclusiveness. If only moderately urged, it proves an inspiration, which, co-operating with the unconscious action of other equally important elements, helps on the actual progress of life. Upon this concurrent and unconscious recognition of other fundamental component principles is due the whole success of the movement supposedly based on one principle. Herein is a law of the most far-reaching application. When enthusiasts working in a special line ascribe, for example, the whole of our modern high civiliza- tion to the work of Science, to the beneficent influence of RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 49 Protestant Evangelical Christianity, or to any other one ism or ology, it is because their eyes are dazzled by the object of their interest. To one who is searching among the elements, hoping to find the key, the secret principle, of all things, or of his department merely, and to one who is looking for some great and overpowering theory, which shall compel all others to its position and thus make peace and harmony, — to him, indeed, the survey of this chaos is most dishearten- ing. Little wonder that the soul, unable to see its way in hope, should sometimes land in complete scepticism or pes- simism. Yet to this the mind will not willingly go. Its nature is to live, and this is the way to spiritual death. But, even though such a calamity be not the end, the reflecting mind which comes under the tuition of dogmatic and one-sided theo- ries is destined sooner or later to react ; and reaction is not healthful mental growth, but rather disturbance. Indeed, the problems of life are quite uncertain enough to try our equanimity, without the aggravation of being taught to in- crease the difficulty by seizing hold now on one, now on another partial and untenable theory evolved apart from experience by abstract imagination. Unconfused by those theories which originate in narrow outlooks and experiences, the mind will ever rise above the doubts and perplexities which Nature imposes. It doubts, but does not stay in doubt. Some sort of reconciliation must be. Some Provi- dence there is somewhere. Suppose it does conclude the life of doubt is the better life : what's the result ? Only a momentary di ression, if left unhindered. As Bishop Blougram says for Browning : — " And now what are we ? unbelievers both, . . . Where's The gain ? How can we guard our unbelief, Make it bear fruit to us ? — the problem here. Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-tnuch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides, — And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as nature's self, 50 HOW RELIGION ARISES To rap and knock and entei; in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again, — The grand Perhaps ! We look on helplessly. There the old misgivings, crooked questions are — This good God, — what he could do, if he would. Would, if he could — then must have done long since. If so, when, where, and how ? some way must be, — Once feel about, and soon or late you hit Some sense, in which it might be, after all. All we have gained then by our unbelief Is a life of doubt diversified by faith. For one of faith diversified by doubt : We call the chess-board white, — we call it black. The sum of all is — yes, my doubt is great, My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough." ^ In religion, men should find the life of peace. All below is turmoil. That religion is a pretence in which some peace is not found. That religion is noblest which, corresponding nearest to facts, puts most inspiration and most harmony into human life. That theory which depends for its life on the utter exclusion of all other equally fundamental ele- ments is preparing for no permanent peace, but greater war by and by. None of our faculties will submit to be strangled. Like the individuals in society, each demands the right of life and the enjoyment of its activity. Each must then learn its place, and come to respect the parts which others play. Whatever is, and is essentially part of our nature, must somehow get reconciled to all else, or we must quit our philosophizing and declare creation an irre- ducible muddle. Those elements which have been over and over emphasized as the partial or total constituents of the religious life must, presumedly, somewhere be permitted a presence in the hoped for ultimate unification. Partial Re- ligion can learn a great lesson from Science and Philosophy, — that nature is one and indivisible. To know is to know in relation to the whole. " All are needed by each one ; Nothing is fait or prod ato iio iJ'u RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 51 Life is not of one kind : it ought to be the harmony of many kinds. Religion is not the work of one, nor of two faculties, but the blending of all into one complete nature. Com- pleted religion is an attitude of the whole being. At its highest, it demands the realization of the whole of life. § 10. Will, Emotion, Thought. (i) Order of their Functional Precedence. — We are now prepared for more immediate contact with the question at issue, and for more direct statements of the answer al- ready anticipated. The very definite limits of the inquiry here instituted should also be clear. Though we cannot avoid touching frequently upon other questions, yet the discussion throughout is to be held responsible only for an answer to the one which asks. When and how in the individ- ual consciousness does the religious side of life begin ? The one-sidedness and exclusiveness of the philosophical theories portrayed in the previous chapter make- it evident that, no matter whether men are psychologically planned alike or different, religion can be limited neither to an affair of will, nor of feeling, nor of thought, nor of any one species of action, emotion, or cognition alone. Again, it has been shown with somewhat of clearness where it may and may not take its rise. If the words have been used with a rea- sonable degree of exactness, it begins in a cognitive activity. An act of thought is back of all else. Before thinking (however simple) begins, there is no self-consciousness ; before and without self-consciousness, there is no religion. The most primary notion in religion is the conscious recog- nition of something beyond and greater than the self, or, in other words, the self's awakening to the sense of a reality in the not-self profounder than the ordinary observations of life had revealed. (See § ii.) This cannot come without definite thinking. After this comes response in the shape of what we term feelings and volitions. Then out of the impulse toward self-preservation and advancement grow mo- 52 HOW RELIGION ARISES tives and incentives which take their place as permanently impelling and constituting elements of the religious life. (2) A Couple of Difficulties. — In these days, a sort of practical origin for the religious craving is found in the im- pulsive struggle toward self-preservation, or, psychologically speaking, in the combined activity of feeling and will to- gether. One of two things is here to be understood : either the question has not been sounded to the depths, and the fundamental incipient religious attitude of our being has not been perceived, or else the word " origin " is used in a different sense from that of which we here speak. And even in the latter event there is a confusion of two entirely different subjects; namely, that which constitutes the dy- namic impulse in the maintenance of the religious attitude is assumed or taken to be the original function of mind by which this attitude first arises. It is true there is a sense or a point of view from which it may seem proper to say that religion is primarily the product of that side of human nature to which we sometimes give the name volitional im- pulses. But this is really the answer to another question j namely. Where in human need has it its root ? out of what practical depths of our being does it grow, — i.e., continue to be founded? and not, as here, the question. What faculty in the individual is first impressed, moved upon, called into exercise, when the religious life begins ? The one is, so to say, the objective compulsory source; the other, the sub- jective spontaneous origin. If, however, we look into this view still deeper, we per- ceive that the origin which has been looked forward to throughout this paper may be justly called the source of this so-called source, because until the man had become intellectually conscious of his relationship to the Somewhat without, and by his knowing faculties had contrasted its powers and his needs', he did not begin to be a religious being. So, too, when we speak of the race, this cognitive root must have reached a sufficient degree of development RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 55 to consciously grasp that relationship before the evolution of life had constituted what we term a religious being. The other elements of life, including this one in lower degree, were all in possession of beings on a lower stage; yet they were not, and are not, as we believe, religious beings. In general, those who regard religion as originating, phil- osophically speaking, in the desire of man to get help from superior powers in order to preserve his life and carry out his projects, etc., have stopped the inquiry on arriving at a practical answer. They have left unasked the here oft-empha- sized fundamental question, — How did he get this idea of superior power? An intellectual activity in this direction had taken place before he ever came to such notions as the possibility of supernatural assistance. Before he desired it, he had come to believe in its existence, and in the proba- bility of his being in such a relation as to obtain it. Men never desire what they have never conceived of. Especially unreasonable is such an assumption, when it relates to such a previously unexperienced idea as the notion of supernat- ural help must have been to primeval man. Again, it is often said that the thinker need not necessa- rily sympathize with the object in his cold meditation, and, therefore, religion (to which feeling is in some way indis- pensable) cannot have its origin in thinking, but in sympathy. But it must be kept in mind that this sympathy (the relig- ious regard) does not enter into life till thought has made way for it. It is, moreover, a mistake to suppose that profit- able thought can be carried on without entering into sym- pathy with its object. The concentration of consciousness upon an object, or what we term attention, generates what we call feeling, or an intensification of the cognitive state. This is its natural legitimate consummation; and what we term thinking is not complete without the taking up or the realizing of the object in the self. Other so-called thinking is partial, exclusive, incomplete, contradictory. After think- ing has completed itself {i.e., aroused our nature by concen- trated attention upon its object), we name it an emotion, and 54 HOW RELIGION ARISES designate the various kinds by names which indicate to us the direction in which the attention was centred. Thought, then, is generic. A cognitive act is first and all the way a basis. By it man comes into realized relations with the external. Sensation wakes his consciousness j in thinking, it is ordering and connecting phenomena and relat- ing itself to these. Its operations must ever be accom- panied by certain sentiments appropriate to the various relationships which we sustain to the external world of men and things in their individuality and totality, or unity. Feel- ing, such as that which we term religious {i.e., the noble emotion), and action determined by the individual will, {i.e., moral action), are both specific, and are outgrowths of self- conscious thinking. I think ; as I think, I feel, — i.e., as I think, so are my emotions ; and as I think and feel, so I determine and act (if unhindered). Cognition at the bottom, or at the start, makes possible the feeling; in feeling, the being or personality is aroused, and the motive or the occa- sion to act is supplied ; the act follows naturally and without further process, unless counteracted by another motive or some outside obstacle. The act is controlled by feeling, and the feeling by thought. The order in fundamental importance is the reverse of the treatment in this section. Even grant that the emotional is a distinctive fundamental faculty of mind, the admission is done away at once when we face the fact that no emotion ever arises until a con- scious cognitive mental operation has occurred. Such a thing as the advent of an emotion before there has been an intellectual recognition, a conscious grasping in thought, of something real or imaginary over which the feeling may glow, is unthinkable, is equivalent to saying that one may thrill about something which he never thought of nor imag- ined. What we term an act of knowledge precedes every emotion, and is its substance. The driving, impelling force which, with conscious cognitive ability, forms the basis of human life, accompanies it in every waking moment. The one forms, so to speak, the steam power which actuates RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 55 existence ; while the other is the engineer who is the con- scious observer and realizer of all. I am aware that much might be said about the way in which thought is instigated and controlled by action (or vo- lition) and feelings ; but, as a discussion of precedence, this to me is much the same as raising a serious argument about the great influence of the cart over the horse. It is agreed that the cart is indispensable; but it is not nearly so initiative as the horse, nor should it be placed before the horse. (3) Analogies from Other Phases of Life. — Though religion is not wonder, nor fear, nor causality, nor morality, nor feeling, nor thought, solely and only, yet this is not to say that it has no wonder, fear, etc., as influential factors. Moreover, this does not assert that religion has exclusive control of all or any of these elements. They are activities of mind which are operative in most of the affairs of life. In what, then, does religion differ from other human affairs ? How can one institution be different from another, if all are developed and carried on by the same mental activities. To this I may reply : How can watch-making differ from horse- shoeing, since both require the use of the hands and eyes ? Or how can astronomy differ from psychology, since both require the most faithful exercise of intellect.' It is very plain that the attitude determines the result. We name the result after the attitude. If a man goes one way, he gets to Eastport ; if the other, he brings up at San Diego by and by. In science, the mental powers are directed to the analysis of the world and the discernment of its laws. In religion, at its beginning, those powers are turned to beholding the world as a whole, as a manifestation of a Spirit of which the beholder regards himself in some way a miniature likeness. " Worship is a regard for what is above us." This matter of attitude is the key to the problem. Religion is at start a mental attitude, comprehending later its consequent activity. In so far, it is not different from nor more mysterious than any other human expression ; e.g., mathematics, morality, art. S6 HOW RELIGION ARISES or astronomy. Each and all begin in a conscious cognitive attitude of mind toward their specific objects. From this attitude each gets its peculiar character, and, as before said, is named accordingly. Thus, when the mind faces the external in the discernment of points, lines, surfaces, and solids, together with their various possible relations, we have decided to call the posture mathematics. When it turns toward the observation of relations subsisting (or which it deems from experience should subsist) among those parts of the external world made up of its fellow-men, we term it ethics. When it studies the spheres, the attitude is astron- omy. When it strives to express the ideal through the real, we say it is art. When it turns upon itself in contemplation and considers at the same time bodily conditions, it is psy- chology. And so on for every possible attitude the soul may take. Following this first conscious recognizing posture, each specific human sphere of expression consists thence- forth of mental and bodily activities corresponding to the relationships between the knowing subject and the would-be- known or related object. Every attitude whatever which the mind assumes and consciously dwells upon in fixed attention results naturally in corresponding courses of .thought, emo- tion, and conduct. Discern then in any sphere of life the faculty by which such an attitude arises, and you have dis- covered its psychological origin. Watch the process and see what faculties are aroused and set into activity, and you have its nature. Follow out these activities, and you have learned its function and capabilities. § II. The Root-thought of Religion. Our search in this essay being limited to the discovery, if possible, of the origin and nature of that which in the relig- ious consciousness is fundamental, the many allied and at- tractive themes which continually arise must be left aside. Nor should the reader be dissatisfied if he misses here many of the expressions usually familiar in discussions on religion. RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 57 Their use in a treatise which aspires to deal scientifically with the problem would bring in assumptions unjustifiable under this heading and at this stage of the investigation. It must be observed that, because the first beginnings of what we now know as the religious nature are ascribed to the thinking capacity, it is not thereby implied that thought is necessarily the principal element in religion where it appears as a factor in the world of life. The views here presented do not come from counsel retained in behalf of " rationalism," nor do they seek to furnish crumbs of com- fort for any special ism. They are the utterances of a raind free from " school " affiliations of whatever sort, which re- spects honest, independent efforts of whatever origin, and which is trying to make an impartial inquiry for certain bottom facts and relationships within religions, to it as yet unsatisfactorily explained by any school, and even by many still unperceived. What part, function, and influence each primary faculty exerts must receive consideration at another time. Again, it may be supposed that the position taken implies the comprehension by the worshipper of the object wor- shipped. Nothing of the sort is intended. The deities of man may be — indeed, have undoubtedly been — very little comprehended at any time. It was partly the perception of this very incomprehensibleness which first provoked what we term religious emotion and acts of devotion. Nor did the adoration cease when it was discerned that the mys- tery was not resolved by further attentions. Indeed, when enough is perceived or comprehended to rivet attention, this remaining inscrutableness enhances indispensably the relig- ious sentiment. Because His ways are past finding out, He is so much the more adored. We cannot grasp the mys- teries of the transcendent nature toward which the emotions go forth, but our thought has first laid hold upon enough to make us yearn for more. So that at last we can truly say, "A God understood would be no God at all." But the world is in no immediate danger from the wisdom of science being S8 HOW RELIGION ARISES able to fathom reality, and thus destroy what to us is a most essential element of Deity ; namely, ideality. With every explanation comes the tantalizing consciousness that the sphere of mystery is thereby enlarged even more than it was diminished, so that Religion is ceasing to fear Science, and learning instead the respect due to her best ally. Little by little, with such aid, she is learning those ways of Divin- ity which may be spoken, and getting glimpses of those ways which may not as yet be revealed. Here, also, I must beg leave to recall attention to a thought expressed in § 4 on the use of the term "religion." It was there urged that the word must be so used as to include all types of religious phenomena. To this must now be added the statement that, whatever theory of its root one may reach, it must be sufficient to explain all types, the lowest as well as the highest, the most unusual as well as the most common. It is quite too customary in our defini tions and theories of the good (in any sphere) to formulate them so as to rule out those views which we do not happen to fancy. But who may say that all that is not as mine is not of faith ? Who, on his high-bred plane, shall exclude from the nobility of the religious the early man who at the dawn of self-consciousness burst into emotion, as he for the first time beheld through some object of nature the mani- festation of a Presence akin to himself? Who may say that the African's reverence for his fetich, even though he bribes or flogs it, shall not be honored by the term religion ? Shall we of another faith dub as irreligious the Chinaman's devo- tion to the phenomena of nature and to his ideal ancestral spirits ? Shall a Christian anthropomorphism say to a Comte- ian humanitarianism. Thy religion is infidelity? If John Stuart Mill, who could find no comfort in the Christian creed, could say of his wife, " Her memory became to me a religion, and her approbation the standard by which, sum- ming up as it did all worthiness, I endeavor to regulate my life,"" shall an orthodox churchman sneeringly say. Thou hast no faith ? Must not each see for himself, if he sees ? RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 59 He receives so much of the vision as he has eyes to see and ears to hear — not more. Another cannot make a faith for him. He may, it is true, borrow his creed ; but this does not bring him the spirit. Man must bring with him the insight. The blind man has no idea of color. He who dwells on the mere analysis of nature knows — and as such can know — no God. He sees no character, whose eye is only on the form. He gets no effect of the picture, who looks only at the daubs. He perceives no ideal, who fixes only upon the real. He misses most who misses this ; for the true worth of this real is proportionate to its capacity for expressing the ideal. What constitutes the nature of the primitive thought at the source of the religious life, as here developed, must now be more clearly set forth. We cannot go back to our most primitive religious ancestor, and watch the manifestations of his dawning self-consciousness, study his enchanted atti- tude, and learn by actual observation the mode of his religious awakening. But this does not deprive us of a nearly equal opportunity. We have within ourselves and about us numberless manifestations of the very same throb- bing, restless life. Barring the un naturalness of our teach- ings and the artificialness of our habits, we can here study it in all stages of its development. Where the pure life has opportunity to live disenthralled of the harness of galling custom, free and natural as the birds of the air, it is not long in learning to know the Soul in nature. Deep calls unto deep. The soul feels the Nature without responding to the nature within. Little by little, this reciprocity increases, till finally the living human soul seeks a closer communion with the living Soul of nature. Nature goes out to Nature. The thought in the " me " is coming to perceive the wondrous meaning in the All. In proportion to the clearness of this apprehension of the deeper meariing of the world without will be the profoundness of the emotions stirred, and also of the effect of the religious ideal upon the active life of the individual. 6o HOW RELIGION ARISES And thus out of the nature of actual present psychical' experience we may draw an inference (having a force beyond mere theory) regarding the first religious experience of humanity. When man had gotten so far as to turn his thought upon the world about him in the attitude of con- scious discernment ; when the dawning realization that there was something deeper, more profound, than the mere surface- of things had shown him, first beamed into his gross mind ;. when the first awakening of this recognition of the some- thing beyond or underneath the mere usual phenomena which he had ever observed aroused his being, — then began he to be religious, and not till then. Though he may have- arrived at the stature of physical man ages before this,, though he may have experienced ever so severe trials in the struggle for existence, though he may have yearned for assistance ever so plaintively and earnestly, though he may have been ever so advanced in mechanical arts, ever so- fluent of speech, or ever so sympathetic with his fellows, still he was in no historic or present ethnological sense of the term, religious. Not until the self became conscious of itself as over against what it supposed another Self in nature, — seen in a single object or in the totality and unity of a universe, — and had conceived of some personal relationship between the two, can religion be said to have begun. When the individual first consciously, and more or less recogniz- ingly, looks into the face of the universal, he from that moment becomes a religious being. I do not anywhere mean to set up or side with any definite theory as to the nature of the first worship of man. Such undertakings belong to the realm of the random guess-work before alluded to. The question is not here touched whether it was nature worship, fetichism, animism, poly- theism, monotheism, or what not. On any of these bases, the view here developed holds valid. Unless man in primi- tive times possessed a psychological nature entirely different in kind, the origin of his religious expression cannot have been other than that which is here attempted to be ex- RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 6 1 plained. Human mind being in kind what we know it, — be its degree of power ever so low, — religious development must have come about in this order of psychical function. This relationship and kinship with the heart of nature ■once having been perceived, it may grow into ever clearer and more definite consciousness. The way in which it may he conceived and the forms which the conception may take, are as numerous as the possible relations between us and nature. Hence comes again, in a more fundamental way, the explanation of the cause of so many and so widely diver- gent theories about the source and nature of the religious impulse. Numerically as many theories are possible as the human spirit has modes of manifesting its relationship to the universal. If they have not been called forth, it is because they have not yet been clearly perceived , by some live spirit with narrow vision. On the special question concerning the firmness with which this tendency is rooted in human nature, but few additional words are necessary. Either religion is a tran- sient stage belonging to man in lower degrees of intelligence, or it has its basis in some fundamental feature of intelligence itself. One need not possess a great power of prescience to see that, it must be only a transitory attitude of mind, if it has its seat in mere blind feelings of fear, need, dependence, etc. ; for as soon as men cease to have these feelings (and nothing is more certain than that increasing knowledge of nature and command of natural resources are destroying them) they must necessarily cease to be religiously inclined. But, if we have understood the facts aright, the basis of relig- ion lies in the possibility and actuality of the human con- sciousness turning in contemplation toward that great Nature from which it sprang; and so long as it necessarily holds such an attitude, sees something to rivet its attention, finds something to draw forth its powers to new and continued energies, beholds mysteries yet uncomprehended and rela- tionships to nature yet unfulfilled, so long and so secure is this idea certain to remain an all-controlling one, — the more 62 HOW RELIGION ARISES SO in proportion as man becomes a reflecting being, because with this the idea grows more and more comprehensive in content. Moreover, with the development of mind, it ceases to be limited to one or two notions, and comes finally to take in the whole of life. Every act of every capacity comes to be performed under devotion to divine (Nature's) laws, and only when the whole being is unfolded and symmetrically de- veloped to the utmost of its opportunity and capacity can the soul rest. The opinions (creeds) which this religious life holds and the ways (cultus) in which it expresses itself will vary and change from age to age as intelligence in- creases ; nor can nor should it be otherwise. Yet the study of history forces upon us the sad reflection that, from lack of breadth of outlook and its accompanying hope and charity, the views and conduct of the present and the approaching will not infrequently be regarded by the past and the pass- ing as having lost the essentials of faith and as plunging headlong into irreligion. Of such character and permanence, it is believed, is the primary element common to all forms of religion. In the previous remarks is also contained a hint of the effort which it is the object of all religion to realize. In such consists its universal elements ; from these it branches in myriad rays. With additions and variations, we meet it in a thousand forms ; but covertly or overtly there is ever present this first conscious perception of a Life that is greater than " I " and of a possibility that is fuller than the present living actuality. Then come an emotional yearning for the realization and experience of that higher state, a volitional activity in the direction of its realization, and an aiming at its expres- sion and manifestation. Speaking comprehensively, it is life consciously seeking to realize itself. It is not difficult to detect in the basest forms the germ of this which in its highest expression is so sublime. Nor since the human became human has it ceased to have abundant utterance. RECONSIDERATION AND CONCLUSIONS 63 The deep spirits of the race, always perceiving this, have added catholicity to their insight and replaced fretful anxiety by trust. Looking out upon the world in such discernment, with such a confidence and such a charity, Augustine said : " Res ipsa quae nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiques, nee defuit ab initio generis humani quousque Christus veniret in carnem ; unde vera religio, quae jam erat, coepit Christiana appellari." ^3 NOTES. (Pige 8.) iSee his excellent article, " The Religious Value of the Unknow- able," in the work entitled "The Nature and Reality of Religion: A Controversy between Frederic Harrison and Herbert Spencer^" New York, 1885. {.Page 8.) '^A. M. Fairbairn, "Religion in History.'' London, 1884. (Page 9.) 8 1 take pleasure in citing one of the few exceptions to this quite universal attitude and dearth of broad religious study before our times. The Persian Emperor Akbar (i 542-1605) rose above the confusion and divisions of his day to what we would now term a comparative study of the religions of the world. He was, perhaps, the first to perceive a deeper meaning and a. worthier object of interest than their outward forms, ceremonies, special doctrines, and names. Mohammedans, Jews, Christians, Brahmans, and Zoroastrians were invited to his court. He kept in employ philologians, whose work was the translating of aU the sacred books of other peoples to which he could get access ; and expe- rienced readers read to him daily from foreign literatures. See an extended account of the investigations and discussions of this remark- able man in Abulfazl's "Ain i Akbari," translated by Blochmann, and also extracts from the same in Max MuUer's " Introduction to the Science of Religion." London, 1873. App. to Lect. I. (Page 9.) * Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-du- Perron, later a celebrated Orien- talist, returned to Paris in 1762 with Persian and Hindu literary treasures to the number of one hundred and eighty manuscripts, besides other rarities which he had gathered in India under the greatest diificulties. In 1771, he published at Paris a French translation of the Avesta from the Zend. This was the first knowledge Europe had of Eastern sacred treasures. A beginning was made in Sanskrit literature by Sir William Jones's translation of "Sdcontala; or. The Fatal Ring," an Indian drama translated from the original Sanskrit and Pracrit. Calcutta, 1789. (Page -Li.-) 5 But, it may be asked, If we are justified at the present stage of the investigation in asking for the psychological origin of religion, why may we not also try and expect to reach a true solution of the nature of it ? NOTES 65 To this, it must be replied, We may so far as we have the data ; but the data for the one are by no means the data for the other. Whoever has studied this tendency as it has been manifested among various peoples must have discovered that theories drawn from one species do not always fit when applied to others. No great feature of human life is such a monotony in its actual realization as to be limited to one or two characteristics nor to be exhausted in any single people. To illus- trate by analogy: we know enough about language and languages to undertake, and doubtless discover, its psychological origin; but who would dare assume, in face of the yet unsolved riddles of linguistic relationships and the numerous unknown or imperfectly known tongues, to expound and explain the nature, manifestations, characteristics, and many-sided functions of language .' Not more are we in position to do in the field of religion. In the name of true science, then, it must be insisted that any genuine and faithful philosophical study of religion depends absolutely on the completeness and thoroughness of the historico-ethnical study which has preceded it. All other so-called "philosophy of religion" is but a larger or smaller accumulation of speculations and fancies, having no more certainty of truth than guesses generally do. Such "philosophies " may be to some extent philosophies of the thinker's own faith or that of his sect, but they have not the slightest claim as explanations of others' faiths or of the subject as a whole. {.Pagi IS.) ^ It is not necessary for the purposes of this essay to further sub- divide the mental functions, yet a remark by way of a note may help to insure clearness. It will be observed that what we term mind is here regarded as manifesting at bottom two tendencies, — an impelling or impulsive and a comprehending or cognitive. These operate combinedly in all mental functioning. Thus will is a compound of impulse and consciousness, forming what we sometimes term attention ; z>., con- sciousness impelled toward a definite object or end. So, too, with all intellection there goes this fundamental impellent inducing spontaneity. Feeling is an inseparable condition of all consciousness. Simple feeling is a cognitive act. What are usually set down as the " emotions or feelings " are but the greater or less intensiveness of the intellectual or cognitive consciousness, and are named according to the object upon which the recognition is fixed. Sensation, a phenomenon of the senses, is to be carefully distinguished from feeling, meaning emotion. Through the senses and idea-izing power, objects or thoughts are brought before the consciousness. They produce a certain impression or state. If the object be retained in attention, this state is heightened, intensified, "flooded with emotion," we are accustomed to say. (It must be remarked, in passing, that this heightening has its limits, after which the 66 HOW RELIGION ARISES specific emotion is lost entirely, and its opposite condition sets in, as experiments have shown.) In this way may be explained aU the varieties and grades of emotions. Feeling is often spoken of as in some way a conscious faculty of mind ; but, in such cases, the notion is always confused and mixed up with cognitive function. Feeling, apart from cognition, or, rather, without cognition as its substance, would be blind, vacant, without content. It has no meaning apart from an act of the knowing dawn, spirits of ancestors and of great men, spirits in and independent of objects, personified abstract conceptions of virtues, fates, etc. .' (These three characteristics are developed from a suggestion made by Max MuUer, Hib. Lect., 1878.) Or, from another point of view, are they: (i) living or departed human spirits.' (2) transformed human spirits ? or (3) natural forces and phenomena or imagined powers modelled on human spirits .'' Whether the polytheism is of a miscellaneous, democratic, monarchical, or henotheistic conception ? 68 HOW RELIGION ARISES Whether a monotheistic conception is attained by indi- viduals or by the people at any time in their career ? Whether they developed a. philosophy ; and, if so, what it attained to, — dualism, spiritual monism, or mate- rialistic monism ? 2. Character of the Gods, — power, wisdom, beneficence, malev- olence. (Only dualistic religions divide their deities into divine and demoniacal, and their future state into heaven and hell.) V. Their Conception of Man's Nature: I. His Origin. i. His Relation to Supernatural Beings. 3. The Character of their Idea of Salvation (if any) ; i,e., from what to what? Is it only sensuously thought, or does it refer to some condition or state of mind to be avoided and some spiritual accomplishment to be aimed at, and, if the latter, what is the chief feature of the resulting mental development, — intellectual, moral, sympathetic, aesthetic, etc. ? 4. Their Notion of a Future Life, — death, resurrection, region of the dead (immediately after death and their permanent abode, whether (a) in solitary gorges and valleys or on hill-tops where the living rarely go ; (b) on distant islands toward the setting sun; ij:) in an under and shadowy realm below our world ; [d) among the stars or beyond them, in a heavenly kingdom for the good and a lower place of punishment or torment for the wicked; (e) a spiritual state out of spacial relations). VI. What Suggestion does their Environment offer toward Explaining their Theism and Eschatology? VII. CuLTUS: 1. Creeds, — character, and relation to the authority on which they assume to be based, how regarded ? 2. Ceremonies, — prayers, offerings, sacrifices, assemblies, songs, dances, incantations, feasts, fasts. 3. Ordinances having regard specially to individual life, — birth, circumcision, confirmation, baptism, marriage, anointing of the sick, burial, commemoration, canonization, excom- munication. 4. Organizations : — Institutions, sects. Priesthood, — its orders, ordination, duties, standing, vest- NOTES 69 Shamans, — sorcerers, magicians, medicine men, miracle workers, prophets. 5. Places of Worship, — temples, altars, sacred groves, hills, valleys ; sacred utensils. 6. Symbolism, — geometric forms, monograms, paintings, figures. VIII. Moral Teachings (or Relation of the Religion to Practical Life, — virtues, vices). IX. Progressive or Dogmatic in Tendency: 1. Direction and Strength of this. 2. Heresies, — their nature (i.e., whether party reactions or growths of thought), their treatment by the dominant faith. X. The Central Idea of the Religion : 1. In Theory. 2. Its Greatest Emphasis in its Practical Carrying-out. 3. Other Essential Ideas. XI. Its Peculiar Contribution toward Showing the Scope OR Full Content of Religious Life. (.Page 25.) 8 The term Will here, as well as those of Emotion (or Feeling) and Thought, as topics of later sections, are to be understood according to the old and general threefold partition of mental functions. The table given on a previous page shows the sense in which the writer regards it. {Page 27.) 5" Religion ist (subjective betrachtet) das Erkenntniss aller unserer Pflichten als gottlicher Gebote." — Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, i; Aufl., 1794, iv. i. (Page 27.) i» See his " Critique of the Practical Reason." Translated by E. K. Abbot. London, 1879. p. 256. {Page 28.) 11 " -Weil indessen jede auf statutarischen Gesetzen errichtete Kirche nur sofern die wahre sein kann, als sie in sich ein Princip enthalt, sich dem reinen Vemunftglauben (als demjenigen, der, wenn er practisch ist, in jedem Glauben eigentlich die Religion ausmacht), bestandig zu nahern, und den Kirchenglauben (nach dem, was an ihm historisch ist), mit der Zeit entbehren zu konnen, so werden wir in diesen Gesetzen und an den •JO HOW RELIGION ARISES Beamten der darauf gegriindeten Kirche doch einen Dienst (Cultus) der Kirche sofern setzen konnen, als diese ihre Lehren und Anordnung jederzeit auf jenen letzten Zweck (einen offentlichen Religionsglauben) richten.'' (1. c, p. 183.) (Page 28.) ^Fichte reduced this to its consequences, just as he did Kant's theory of reality. He held, as above explained, that morality is all that is needed for life; that religion is impractical, not practical, and, when applied to conduct, conduct suffers. That society which uses it as a support to moral action is corrupt or low in the stage of humanity. Religion is useful as knowledge, to explain the deepest things, to give insight into our nature, and to reduce things to harmony. (Pag' 33-) 1' As stated in Note 8, I use the term " emotion " here strictly in the old or usual psychological meaning, as one of the three prime faculties of mind. It is seen from the analysis given in § 3 that the view here maintained leaves no possibility for either a purely or predominantly " emotional " religion, but that religions so designated find their pecul- iarity or distinctive character in the fact that they are the intensified and extravagant exercise of some single cognitive tendency. (Page 34.) ""Es giebt keine Empfindung, die nicht fromm ware, ausser sie deute auf einen krankhaften verderbten Zustand des Lebens, der sich dann auch den anderen Gebieten mittheilen muss." — Ueber die Religion, 3 Ausg., 1821, pp. 78 and 180, also 108. (First ed., 1799; new ed., 1879.) In a note on this passage written for this third edition, he says he has nothing to take back from the universality of the assertion. (1. v,., p. 180.) From his "Christliche Glaubenslehre," Berlin, 1835, Bd. I. (i Ausg., 1821-22 ; 5 Aufl., 1861, 2 Bde.), I cite the two following statements : — " Die Frommigkeit, welche die Basis aller kirchlichen Gemeinschaf- ten ausmacht, ist rein fvir sich betrachtet wederein Wissen noch ein Thun, sondern eine Bestimmtheit des GefUhls oder des unmittelbaren Selbstbewusstseins." (p. 6, § 3.) (Cf . " Reden iiber die Religion," pp. 56-77-) " Das gemeinsame aller noch so verschiedenen Aeusserungen der Frommigkeit, wodurch diese sich zugleich von alien anderen Gefuhlen unterscheiden, also das sich selbst gleiche Wesen der Frommigkeit ist dieses, dass wir uns unserer selbst als schlechthin abhangig, oder, was dasselbe sagen will, als in Beziehung mit Gott bewusst sind." (1. c, P- IS. § 4-) (Page 39) '^ Schleiermacher, in his " Reden,' ' asks his " cultured " reader who ascribes the origin of religion to fear, " Musst Ihr nicht gestehen, dass NOTES 7 1 wenii es sich so verhielte, und die Frommigkeit mit der Furcht gekom- men ware, sie auch mit der Furcht wieder gehen miisste?" (3 Aufl., p. 109.) (Page 40.) "See his "First Principles," Part I.— "The Unknowable"; also, " Principles of Sociology," Part I., various chapters. (Page 43.) " Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, " Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Mendelssohn," 1785 (2 Ausg., 1789) ; "David Hume iiber den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus," 1787; "Von den gottlichen Dingen und ihrer OfEenbarung," 1811 (2 Ausg., 1S22). His"Werke.'' 6 Bde. Leipzig, 1S12-24. Jacobi's stand-point has been called " emotion-philosophy " and "faith-philosophy." He wrote without the customary school terminol- ogy, more in the form of aphorism than demonstrative argument. He is no system maker. To him thought is too partial and limited for demon- stration. Its business is to see and connect facts. It sees them by im- mediate intuition or faith. This act of mind he never analyzed. If he had, he would have seen that his immediate knowledge, his belief, was not a simple act of mind, but rather a very complex process of thought. (Page 45.) 1' See his " Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Religion," etc. (in his"Werke," Bde. XI. and XII., 1832); also, William Wallace, "The Logic of Hegel." (Prologomena and translation.) (Page 46.) I'This is not the place to indulge in a discussion over Hegel's conclusions as to the nature, permanence, and place of religion. At another time, under the consideration of the parts played by various mental functions in making up the substance of religion, his result may receive further attention. (Page 47 ) ^Causality — Peschel. — A theory of religion which seems at first to be founded on the facts in experience is that which bases itself in the requirement of a Cause for ourselves and for the world about us. One of the clearest expressions of this view was presented by Oscar Peschel. It is not the psychological analysis of a philosopher, but rather the induction of an ethnologist; yet it is given with such philosophical reflections as to justify mention here. He says: "In all stages of civilization, among all races of mankind, religious emotions are always aroused by the same inward impulse, the necessity of discerning a cause or author for every phenomenon or event. . . . All religious emotions proceed only from the desire for acquaintance with the Creator, and the worship of a deity is extinguished the instant that it ceases to satisfy the 72 HOW RELIGION ARISES requirement of causality." (" The Races of Man and their Geographical Distribution." Translated. London, 1876. pp. 245 and 257.) This is a view which bespeaks a great degree of confidence in the reasoning tendency of man, — more, indeed, than would be generally ascribed to certain races low down in the human scale. The so-called savage has- generally no definite notion of cause, yet no one now denies his religious manifestations. To his superstitious way of looking at things, the notion of magie, or the accomplishment of designs without adequate cause, is far more probable. But even this low idea, which it may be replied is a primitive notion of causality, is hardly a necessary conception for the first gleams of religious inclination. To the childish and primitive minds, the notion of cause, in any sense similar to what we mean by the term,, has never been aroused. Things are taken for granted. There .is no thought of their being brought about or manufactured. In Mrs. Stowe's " Uncle Tom's Cabin," Topsy replies, in answer to the question who made her, "I 'specs I just growed." Peschel cites n. case to show the remarkable strength of the idea of cause among heathen peoples; namely, we are told by a native Mexican historian (Ixtlilxochitl) that the renowned king, Tezcucos Netzahualcoyotzi'n, worshipped an unknown god, which he called the Cause of causes. (See W. H. Prescott, "Con- quest of Mexico," i. 194.) But, if this proves anything relevant to the question, it goes to show the rarity of this idea. So high a thought could never be at the foundation of the religious phenomena of peoples who are ages below it according to the ordinary rate of development. Indeed, both the history of religion and science go to show that the notion of a causally connected world of objects is one of the latest to be brought about. It implies the conception of unity in nature, which every scientist upon reflection knows to be foreign to the minds of men pre- vious to a certain high stage of culture. The difference between the perfection of this idea of causal connection in the savage and enlightened minds accounts for the bewildering and degrading polytheism of the one and the ennobling monotheism of the other. That the notion of cause is intimately connected with the religious idea from the time when man first begins to look for causes, I have no doubt; but that man was religious-minded before he was enough of a philosopher to think of such relations is indicated by the known facts of savage life, of child- hood, and by the psychological answer of what constitutes the earliest religious attitude. (Page so.) ^Robert Browning, "Bishop Blougram's Apology." (A philosoph- ical poem.) {.Page 58.) 22 See his " Autobiography." London, 1873. {Page 63.) ''^St. Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus), Retract. I., 13. ADDITIONAL REFERENCES. In addition to the chief authorities (which are cited in the Notes), I wish to express indebtedness for stimulation and valuable suggestion received from the following works also read, wholly or in considerable part, since this essay was begun : — Brinton, D. G. The Religious Sentiment. Caird, Edward. Hegel. Caird, John. The Philosophy of Religion. Candler, H. The Groundwork of Belief. Clarke, J. F. Ten Great Religions, I. (21st ed.) Clifford, W. K. Essays, II. (Ethics and Religion.) "Conflict in Nature and Life." (Anonymous.) Cook, Joseph. Boston Monday Lectures for 1884. Emerson, R. W. Essays, I. and II., also Lectures and Biographical Sketches. Everett, C. C. The Science of Thought. Fairbairn, A. M. Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History. Falckenberg, R. Geschichte der neueren Philosophie. Fiske, John. The Destiny of Man. James, William. Rationality, Activity, and Faith. (In Princeton Review.) Janet, Paul. Theory of Morals. (Translated from the French by Mary Chapman.) Matheson, G. Aids to the Study of German Theology. (2d ed.) Mill, J. S. Nature, the UtUity of Religion, and Theism. Momerie, A. W. The Basis of Religion. Mueller, Max. Hibbert Lectures for 1878, and Introduction to the Science of Religion. Pfleiderer, Otto. Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher Grundlage. (2 Aufl.) Puenjer, G. C. B. Grundriss der Religionsphilosophie. R6ville, A. Prolegomena to the History of Religion. (Translated from the French.) Royce, Josiah. The Religious Aspect of Philosophy. Savage, M. J. Is a Science of Religion Possible? (In Unitarian Review, June, 1885.) 74 HOW RELIGION ARISES [Seeley, J. R.] Natural Religion. (2d ed.) Smyth, Newman. The Religious Feeling. Strauss, D. F. The Old and the New Faith. (Translated from the German.) Tiele, C. P. The History of Religions. (Translated from the Dutch by J. E. Carpenter.) Ueberweg, Fr. History of Philosophy. (Translated by G. S. Morris.) Vol. II. Various books — too numerous to mention here — on the history of philosophy and of the different religions have also been used during this time in preparation of other work which the writer is doing within these fields. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. The morning of June 17, 1851, revealed to the writer the world in which he still moves, and concerning which he has not since ceased to wonder, admire, and inquire. His parents, Samuel and Eunice (nh Varnum) Ward, were then living in Dorchester, Middlesex County, Can. At six, he entered the country district school in Dorchester, and attended it regularly till fourteen, when he was withdrawn to assist on the farm. Between seventeen and nineteen, he aspired to teach school, and was four times awarded certificates of the second grade by the county exam- iners. But, failing to secure a position on account of his youthfulness, he went to Toronto to attend commercial college and learn telegraphy. Business in this line not opening up at once, he taught a school in Fremont, Mich., during the winter of 1871-72. The wielding of "the birch '' proved unsatisfactory, and a, period at high school was deter- mined upon as a preparation for higher teaching. At Memphis, Mich., a year and a half was spent in this way, a certificate of the first grade obtained, and a position secured in the intermediate department of the city schools in Port Huron. Here, again, the craving for higher knowl- edge was increased ; and in the fall of 1874 he matriculated at Hillsdale College. At the end of the first year, foreseeing something of the mental growth that was in store for him, he determined that it should be enjoyed by or shared with her whom he expected later to be his wife (Miss Zuba A. Corss, of Memphis), else he would give up the pursuit for himself. The pecuniary circumstances of all concerned rendered the undertaking impossible by each single-handed; and the twain were made "one" (Aug. 18, 1875), and the "one" attended •college together thereafter. At Hillsdale, the writer continued the study of languages (Latin, Greek, German, English), physical science, and mathematics, took up biology, philosophy, general history, and theology .(Biblical, dogmatic, practical). In the summer of 1879, he was elected principal of the Northern Ohio Collegiate Institute, at South New Lyme, Ohio, and here for three years, besides the management of the Academy, gave the instruction in history, elements of logic, ethics, physi- ology, pedagogics, and elocution. One year of this time he was preacher at the village church. In June, 1882, he resigned the principalship, to undertake a course of yet higher study in Harvard University, Cam- bridge, Mass. Philosophy and comparative history and ethnology of religions thenceforth occupied his attention, guided by the lectures of Professors Everett, Palmer, James, Peabody, Royce, Emerton, Toy, and Lyon. In June, 1885, he won at Harvard the Walker (Travelling) Fellowship, and in August set sail for a period of study in Europe. The first year was spent in the Royal Frederic William's University, of Berlin, hearing lectures from Professors Zeller, Paulsen, Von Gizycki, Du-Bois-Reymond, Oldenberg, Erman, and Dr. Deussen ; and the second in the University of Leipzig, under the instruction of Professors Heinze, Wundt, Ratzel, Seydel, Maurenbrecher, and Dr. Lindner. In both of these latter institutions, the same line of study has been pursued. The gold medal of the Amphictyon Society of Hillsdale College was awarded him at the Junior Oratorical Contest in November, 1877 ; the A.B. degree from Hillsdale College in June, 1878 ; that of A.M. from Har- vard University in 1883; and that of D.B. from Hillsdale in 1884. He is indebted and grateful beyond expression to his teachers, one and all, not only for instruction received, but for their toleration, sympathy, and kindly advice. T>J>K .■5i 'ilia R-S! '*>' s. /.'' ^2fe^?S r-ssi A^ ?fi!j rJ^*?'^^ -^