hus developed? In order to trace any process of
evolution it is necessary to define that which is evolved; for it
belongs to the very idea of evolution that the identity of the
subject of it is not changed on the way up, but that the germ and the
finished product are the same entity, only differing from each other
in that the one has still to grow while the other is grown. Futile
were it indeed to sketch a history of religion with the savage at one
end of it and the Christian thinker at the other, if it could be said
that in no point did the religion of the savage and that of the
Christian coincide, but that the product was a thing of entirely
different nature from the germ. It seems necessary, therefore, in the
first place, to say what that is, of which we are to attempt the
history; or in other words, to say what we mean by religion.

It must not be forgotten that an adequate definition of a thing which
is growing can only be reached when the growth is complete. During
its growth it is showing what it is, and its higher as well as its
lower manifestations are part of its nature. The world has not yet
found out completely, but is still in the course of finding out, what
religion is. Any definition propounded at this stage must, therefore,
be of an elementary and provisional character. I propose then as a
working definition of religion in the meantime, that it is "The
worship of higher powers." This appears at first sight a very meagre
account of the matter; but if we consider what it implies, we shall
find it is not so meagre. In the first place it involves an element
of belief. No one will worship higher powers unless he believes that
such powers exist. This is the intellectual factor. Not that the
intellectual is distinguished in early forms of religion from the
other factors, any more than grammar is distinguished by early man as
an element of language. But something intellectual, some creed, is
present implicitly even in the earliest worships. Should there be no
belief in higher powers, true worship cannot continue. If it be
continued in outward act, it has lost reality to the mind of the
worshipper, and the result is an apparent or a sham religion, a
worship devoid of one of the essential conditions of religion. This
is true at every stage. But in the second place, these powers which
are worshipped are "higher." Religion has respect, not to beings men
regard as on a level with themselves or even beneath themselves