, but
to beings in some way above and beyond themselves, and whom they are
disposed to approach with reverence. When objects appear to be
worshipped for which the worshipper feels contempt, and which a
moment afterwards he will maltreat or throw away, there also one of
the essential conditions is absent, and such worship must be judged
to fall short of religion. There may no doubt be some religion in it;
the object he worships may appear to the savage, in whose mind there
is little continuity, at one moment to be higher than himself and the
next moment to be lower; but the result of the whole is something
less than religion. And in the third place these higher powers are
worshipped. That is to say, religion is not only belief in the higher
powers but it is a cultivating of relations with them, it is a
practical activity continuously directed to these beings. It is not
only a thinking but also a doing; this also is essential to it. When
worship is discontinued, religion ceases; a principle indeed not to
be applied too narrowly, since the apparent cessation of worship may
be merely its transition to another, possibly a higher form; but
religion is not present unless there be not only a belief in higher
powers but an effort of one kind or another to keep on good terms
with them.

Criticism of other Definitions.--What has now been said will enable
us to judge of several of the definitions of religion which have been
put before the world in recent years. Without going back to the
definitions offered by philosophers who wrote before the scientific
study of our subject had begun, and limiting ourselves to those which
have been propounded in the interests of our science, we notice that
several make religion consist in an intellectual activity.[2] Thus
Mr. Max Mueller[3] says that "Religion is a mental faculty or
disposition which independent of, nay, in spite of, sense and reason,
enables man to apprehend the Infinite under different names, and
under varying disguises. Without that faculty ... no religion would
be possible." To this definition there are various strong objections.
It implies that there is only one way in which men come to believe in
higher beings; they arrive at that belief by finding something which
transcends them and which they cannot understand; _i.e._ by an
intellectual process. It may be doubted whether the sense of
disappointment with the finite is the only road, or even a common
road, to belief in gods