Introduction to the History of Religions Part 32

Marett's remarks on pre-animistic religion in his _Threshold of Religion_.

[3] Appeal to the Powers carries with it a certain sense of oneness with them, in which we may reasonably recognise the germ of the idea of union with G.o.d, which is the highest form of religion. This idea is not consciously held by the savage--it takes shape only in highly developed thought (Plato, the New Testament, Christian and other mysticism).

If the impulse to religion be thought to be love of life (so Leuba, in the _Monist_, July, 1901), this is substantially desire for safety and happiness.

[4] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 170.

[5] Gen. xxviii, 20-22; Hos. ii; Ezek. x.x.xvi; and the Psalter pa.s.sim.

[6] The cla.s.sic expression of this view is given by Statius (_Th._ 3, 661): _primus in orbe deos fecit timor_. Cf. L.

Marillier, in _International Monthly_, ii (1900), 362 ff.

[7] For numerous examples of the belief in supernatural birth see E. S. Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_.

[8] Modern civilised nations, after victories in war, commonly a.s.sume that G.o.d has thus p.r.o.nounced in favor of the justice and right of their side, and sing Te Deums.

[9] This vagueness reappears in some systems of late philosophic speculation. On the question whether a sense of the divine exists anterior to conscious experience cf.

Marett, _Threshold of Religion_.

[10] This is only a particular application of the general a.s.sumption that all human powers exist in germ in the lowest human forms. Discussions of the sense of the infinite are found in the _Gifford Lectures_ of F. Max Muller and Tiele, and in Jastrow's _Study of Religion_. But early man thinks only of the particular objects with which he comes into contact; the later belief in an Infinite is a product of experience and reflection.

[11] Cf. _Annee sociologique_, iii (1898-1899), 205 ff.

[12] On the Fuegians cf. R. Fitzroy, in _Voyages of the Adventure and the Beagle_, ii (1831-1836), 179 ff.; on the African Pygmies, A. de Quatref.a.ges, _The Pygmies_ (Eng. tr., 1895), p. 124 ff.; W. Schmidt, _Pygmaenvolker_, p. 231 ff.; on Ceylon, T. H. Parker, _Ancient Ceylon_, iv; and on the Guaranis and Tapuyas (Botocudos) of Brazil, Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie_, iii, 418, and the references in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, ii, 837 f. The Fuegians are said to stand in awe of a "black man" who, they believe, lives in the forest and punishes bad actions. On the people of New Guinea see C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, chaps. 16, 25, 48, 55.

[13] Such relations exist between men and the vague force variously called mana, manitu, wakonda; but the conception of this force is scientific rather than religious, though it is brought into connection with religious ideas and usages.

[14] The evidence is summed up in G. d'Alviella's _Hibbert Lectures_. Cf. Brinton, _Religion of Primitive Peoples_, p.

30 ff.

[15] The question whether the religious sense exists in the lower animals is discussed by Darwin, _Descent of Man_ (1871), p. 65 ff., 101 f., and others. The question is similar to that respecting conscience; in both cases there is in beasts a germ that appears never to grow beyond a certain point. On the genesis of the moral sense see (besides the works of Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, and their successors) G. H. Palmer, _The Field of Ethics_; L. T.

Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_; E. Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_. In regard to religious feeling we observe in certain animals, especially in the domesticated dog, an att.i.tude of dependence and devotion toward the master as a superior Power that is similar to the att.i.tude of man toward a deity, only with more affection and self-surrender. But in the animal, so far as we can judge, the intellectual and ethical conceptions do not come to their full rights--there is no idea of a Power possessing moral qualities and controlling all phenomena. The beast, therefore, is not religious in the proper sense of the term.

But between the beast and the first man the difference may have been not great.

[16] The Central Australians, however, have an elaborate marriage law with the simplest political organization and the minimum of religion.

[17] Cf. L. M. Keasbey, in _International Monthly_, i (1900), 355 ff.; I. King, _The Development of Religion_, Introduction.

[18] _Cf._ Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, chap. xi f.

[19] Beasts, plants, and what we call inanimate objects, also are held, in early stages of civilization, to have souls--a natural inference from the belief that these last are alive and that all things have a nature like that of man.

[20] So Semitic _nafs_ 'soul,' _ruh_ 'spirit'; Sanskrit _diman_ 'soul,' 'self'; Greek _psyche_, _pneuma_; Latin _anima_, _spiritus_; possibly English _ghost_ (properly _gost_ 'spirit'); and so in many low tribes. See Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 432 f.; O. Schrader, in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, ii, 15.

[21] The expression 'to receive the last breath' (_aeneid_, iv, 684 f.), used by us to represent the last pious duty paid to a dying man, was thus originally understood in a strictly literal sense.

[22] So the Delaware Indians (Brinton, _The Lenape_, p. 67).

[23] Cf. the name 'shade' (Greeks, Redmen, and others) for the denizens of the Underworld.

[24] Photographs are now looked on by some half-civilized peoples with suspicion and fear as separate personalities that may be operated on by magical methods. A similar feeling exists in regard to the name of a man or a G.o.d--it is held to be somehow identical with the person, and for this reason is often concealed from outsiders.

[25] Cf. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii, 402; Fraser, _Golden Bough_, 1st ed., i, 178 f.; article "Blood" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_.

[26] So in the Old Testament, in the later ritual codes: Deut. xii, 23; Lev. xvii, 14; Gen. ix, 4; and so Ps. lxxii, 14; cf. Koran, xcvi, 2 (man created of blood).

[27] _Iliad_, xiv, 518; xvii, 86; cf. W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, 2d ed., p. 40 n. (Arabic expression: "Life flows on the spear-point").

[28] R. B. Dixon, _The Northern Maidu_, p. 259.

[29] So friendly (fraternal) compacts between individuals are sealed by exchange of blood, whereby the parties to the covenant become one; many examples are given in H. C.

Trumbull's _Blood-Covenant_, 2d ed.

[30] In many languages (Semitic, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English, German, etc.) the word for 'soul' is used in the sense of 'person' or 'self.' But the conception of "life"

was in early times broader than that of "person" or that of "soul."

[31] An incorporeal or immaterial soul has never been conceivable.

[32] For old-German examples see Saussaye, _Religion of the Teutons_, p. 297; for Guiana, E. F. im Thurn, in _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xi, 368; compare the belief in the hidden soul, spoken of below, and article "Animals"

in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_.

[33] So the bush-soul or beast-soul among the E?e-speaking peoples of West Africa (A. B. Ellis, _The E?e-speaking Peoples_, p. 103) and in Calabar (Kingsley, _West African Studies_). Spirits (Castren, _Finnische Mythologie_, p. 186) and demons (as in witchcraft trials) sometimes take the form of beasts. For American Indian examples see Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 294.

[34] See the Egyptian representations of the soul as bird (Ohnefalsch-Richter, _Kypros, the Bible and Homer_, pl. cvi, 2; cix, 4, etc.); Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 183, compare p. 109. Other examples are given by H. Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i, 355 ff.; N. W. Thomas, in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, i, 488. On _siren_ and _ker_ as forms of the soul see Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, pp. 139, 197-217. Cf. Hadrian's address to the soul:

Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula rigida nudula Nec ut soles dabis jocos?

[35] The body is spoken of as the person, for example, in _Iliad_, i. 4; Ps. xvi, 9.

[36] Hence various means of preserving the body by mummification, and the fear of mutilation.

[37] On the cult of skulls in the Torres Straits and Borneo see Haddon, _Head-hunters_, chap. xxiv.

[38] J. H. Bernan, _British Guiana_, p. 134.

[39] See Old Testament pa.s.sim, and lexicons of the various Semitic languages.

[40] An elaborate account of the loci of qualities is given by Plato in the _Timaeus_, 69 ff.

[41] On the importance attached to the liver as the seat of life see Jastrow, _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and a.s.syria_, p. 149 ff.

[42] Diels, _Fragmente der Vorsokratiker_, 2d ed., i, 101 f., quoted in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, article "Brain and Mind."

[43] _Phaedo_, 96 B; _Timaeus_, 44.

[44] _Tusc. Disp._ i, 9, 19; cf. Plautus, _Aulul._ ii, 1, 30.

[45] Arabic _dimag_ appears to mean 'marrow,' but how early it was employed for 'brain' is uncertain.

[46] Waitz, _Anthropologie_, iii, 225; cf. Roger Williams, _Languages of America_, p. 86.