al, but it is difficult to find a
principle of classification that shall bring out the essential
characteristic or characteristics of every religion and yet distinctly
mark every one off from all others. All have much in common, and the
elements in all are so mixed that divisions necessarily cross one
another. Every religion is the product of some one community and
represents its peculiar view of human life in its relation to the
supernatural; there may be borrowings and fusions, but the final outcome
is shaped by the thought of the people to whom the religion specifically
belongs.[2094] The differences between various religions are the
differences of thought between the communities involved, and the
differences and the resemblances are often curious and sometimes defy
explanation.

+1149+. Leaving aside ritual, which, so far as it is a merely external
form of approach to the deity, does not touch the essence of religion,
the following points may be said to be common to all religions: (1) The
sense of a supernatural control of life, and the conviction that the
supernatural Power must be placated or obeyed.[2095] (2) The belief that
religion deals with and controls the whole of life; this belief is
pronounced among savages, who know nothing of natural law, and is
regarded as essential in more advanced communities, in which, from the
religious point of view, law, physical or mental, is taken to be an
expression of the will of the deity. (3) The creation of divine
personalities[2096] (representing popular ideals), and movements toward
a unitary view of the divine control of the world. (4) An ethical
element in the conception of the character of the supernatural Power and
the modes of pleasing this Power. The ethical side of religion
corresponds to the general ethical standard of the people--in savages it
is low, but it exists. (5) The conception of salvation as the goal of
religious faith and service; the salvation looked for is at first
physical, is gradually moralized, and ultimately takes the form of
spiritual union with the deity. These are the essential elements of
religion; they all exist in crude form in the lowest strata of society,
and are purified in the course of social growth.

+1150+. A classification naturally suggested by this enumeration of
fundamentals would be one based on grades of general culture, savage,
half-civilized, and civilized; but such a classification would not take
account of the difference