existence of evil, and then
tends to become inhuman and therefore ethically bad.[2118] It is,
however, commonly saved from such an unfortunate result by common sense
and the instinct of sympathy. And it is so general a conception and its
goal is so remote that it cannot be a strong and permanent moral force
for most persons--immediate experiences are as a rule more powerful than
remote expectations. But, so far as it is a living faith, religious
optimism is in the main a healthy ethical factor in life.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] That is, phenomena regarded as special acts of a
superhuman Power; in the larger conception of religion all
phenomena are at once natural and divine acts.

[2] In early religion they are usually ghosts, beasts,
plants, or inanimate objects; rarely living men. Cf.
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 God, 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. xxxvi; and the
Psalter passim.

[6] The classic 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 assume that God has thus pronounced 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
assumption that all human powers exist in germ in the lowest
human forms. Discussions of the sense of the infinite are
found in the _Gifford Lectu