omething more than knowledge; it is also
faith and communion, and these can be deep and true, even when the
knowledge which provides their forms of expression is greatly
mistaken. And when the forms of knowledge in which religion has
clothed itself are found to be mistaken, religion has power to leave
them behind and to adopt other forms, as the tree is clothed with
fresh leaves in place of those which are withered.

Yet it would be wrong to admit that even in its character as
knowledge early religion was illusion and no more. The poetic
faculty, the faculty which prompts us to find outside us what we feel
to be within us and to assert its reality, led man right and not
wrong. What he worshipped was not the bare object which met the eye
and ear, but the thing as he conceived it. He conceived that there
was without him that of which his inner consciousness bore witness,
an ideal, a being not grasped by the senses, which could help him,
with which he could hold intercourse, which had the power he himself
had not. This, not the faulty outward expressions in which the
sentiment clothed itself, was the living and growing element of his
religion.

In addition to the books cited in this chapter, we may mention--

C. Boetticher, _Der Baumkultus der Hellenen_, 1856.

J. Ferguson, _Tree and Serpent Worship_, 1868.

J. Ferguson, _Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries_, 1872.

J. G. Fraser, _Totemism and Exogamy_, 4 vols. 1910. An immense
collection of material on the subject of totemism, with fresh
conclusions as to the origin and meaning of the system.

CHAPTER V
EARLY DEVELOPMENTS--PRACTICES

In early religion it is important to remember that belief counted for
much less than it now does; a man's religion consisted in the
religious acts he did, and not in the beliefs or thoughts he
cherished about his god. Worship, moreover, is that element of
religion which in all ages and lands is apt to advance most slowly.
Even in times of ferment of ideas and change of belief, we often see
that the worship of a former time, be it simple or stately, goes on
in its old forms, as if it were a thing that could not change. Men
alter their beliefs more readily than their habits, especially the
habits connected with their faith. If this is the case generally, it
was much more the case in the early world than it is now. The
religion of a shrine in old times consisted of a certain story about
the god, and certain acts done befor