ter his own likeness, but
nevertheless as greater than he is.

This then is what we conceive to be the essence of religion--the
worship of higher powers, from a sense of need; and it is of this
that we are to trace the history though only in the barest outlines.
The definition itself suggests in what way the development may be
expected to work itself out. According as the needs change their
character, of which men are conscious, so will their religion also
change. The gradual elevation and refinement of human needs, in the
growth of civilisation, is the motive force of the development of
religion. The deities themselves, their past history and their
present character, the sacrifices offered to them, and the benefits
aimed at in intercourse with them, all must grow up as man himself
grows, from rudeness to refinement and from caprice to order. At its
lowest, religion is perhaps an individual affair between the savage
and his god, and has to do with material individual needs. At a
higher stage (not always nor even commonly later in time) it is the
affair of a family, of a tribe, or of a combination of tribes, and
with each of these extensions the requests grow broader and less
personal which have to be presented to the deity; the religion
becomes a common worship for public ends. The needs of the nomad are
other than those of the settled agriculturist, and those of the
countryman differ from those of the citizen, and those of the
Laplander from those of the Negro, and these differences will be
reflected in the aspect of the deities and in the observances
celebrated in their honour. When art begins to stir within a nation,
the gods have to adapt themselves to the new taste. As society grows
more humane, cruel and sanguinary religious observances, though they
may long keep a hold of the ignorant and excitable, lose their
support in the public conscience and are sentenced to change or to
extinction. And when a new consciousness of personal human dignity
springs up, and men come to feel the infinite value and the infinite
responsibility of personal life, the old public religion is felt to
be cold and distant, and religious services of a more personal and
more intimate kind are sought for.

Thus religion and civilisation advance together; according as the
civilisation is in any people, so is its religion. It is vain,
broadly speaking, to look for the combination of primitive manners
and customs with a lofty spiritual faith.