ich only after long ages of evolution rose to
the surface of human thought, and which, though it had been operative
largely and powerfully, came only in the slow course of human evolution
to be articulately expounded? The first principle of religion is
love--love of one's neighbour and one's God.

In the light of that first principle it is manifest that prayer and
sacrifice are not fundamentally unrelated and accidentally juxtaposed: a
sacrifice accompanied not even by unspoken prayer, prompted by no
desire, no wish for anything whatever, is a meaningless concept. Equally
unmeaning and unintelligible is the idea of a prayer which involves no
sacrifice--whether by sacrifice we understand the offering of gifts or
the sacrifice of self. But perhaps it may be said that, even though love
alone can lead to sacrifice of self, still it is undeniable that prayers
may be put up and sacrifices be offered by a man for the sake of what he
is going to get by doing so; and that that is what Sir James Frazer
means when he sees in religion the belief that beings superior to man
may be induced by prayer so to order things that man may get his heart's
desire. Then, indeed, we get a continuity of evolution, a continuity
between magic and religion, which Frazer perhaps did not intend wholly
to deny: that is to say the continuous thread running through both magic
and religion and uniting them is desire. Desire is continuous, though
the means of gratifying it change. In one stage of evolution magic is
the means; in another, religion. But throughout we find the process of
evolution to be continuous--change in continuity and continuity in
change.

Now it is indeed undeniable that prayer and sacrifice may be made by a
man for the sake of what he is going to get, and may from the beginning
have been made, partly at least, from that motive. But if evolution in
one of its aspects is change, then one of the changes brought about by
evolution in religion is precisely that prayer and sacrifice come to be
regarded as no longer a means whereby a man can get his desires
accomplished--his will done--but as the indispensable condition for
doing God's will. Prayer then becomes communion with God, and the
sacrifice of self the living exhibition of love--the first principle of
religion, the principle which manifests itself now in prayer and now in
sacrifice.

From this point of view, then, Sir James Frazer's account of religion
will be considered unaccepta