ices, from the standpoint of mental
evolution, has been appreciated. Formerly, primitive man was regarded
merely as a curiosity, and not as an individual from whom anything of
any value whatever was to be learned. But more recent studies have
changed all this. In order to illustrate this matter of the evolution
and development of the human mind we can very profitably quote from Sir
J. G. Frazer:[1] "For by comparison with civilized man the savage
represents an arrested or rather a retarded state of social development,
and an examination of his customs and beliefs accordingly supplies the
same sort of evidence of the evolution of the human mind that an
examination of the embryo supplies of the evolution of the human body.
To put it otherwise, a savage is to a civilized man as a child is to an
adult; and just as a gradual growth of intelligence in a child
corresponds to, and in a sense recapitulates, the gradual growth of
intelligence in the species, so a study of savage society at various
stages of evolution enables us to follow approximately, though of course
not exactly, the road by which the ancestors of the higher races must
have travelled in their progress upward through barbarism to
civilization. In short, savagery is the primitive condition of mankind,
and if we would understand what primitive man was we must know what the
savage now is."

To properly interpret these beliefs and conduct, certain facts must be
kept in mind. One is that with primitive races the group stands for the
unit, and the individual has little if any personality distinct from the
group. This social state gives rise to what is spoken of as collective
thought, collective feeling, group action, etc. Miss J. Harrison[2]
considers this conception a very important one in primitive religious
development. All that the race expresses, all that it believes, is an
expression of collective feeling. As a result of this group thought,
feelings and beliefs are developed which are entertained by every
individual of the community. These racial feelings become a part of the
race itself; they are inseparable from it, and they find expression in
the loftiest of sentiments and the most earnest of religious beliefs.

Our study is not primarily concerned with religious development, but
since early man's deepest feelings found expression in what later became
a religion, it is necessary to search for racial motives in primitive
religions. These feelings are in no wa