rn, or the spirit of the
Spring, or the spirits of the rain and the thunder, or the spirits of
totem-animals--it had not yet quite risen to the idea of gods. It
had not risen to the conception of eternal deities sitting apart and
governing the world in solemn conclave--as from the slopes of Olympus
or the recesses of the Christian Heaven. It belonged, in fact, in its
inception, to the age of Magic. The creed of Sin and Sacrifice, or of
Guilt and Expiation--whatever we like to call it--was evolved perfectly
naturally out of the human mind when brought face to face with Life
and Nature) at some early stage of its self-consciousness. It was
essentially the result of man's deep, original and instinctive sense of
solidarity with Nature, now denied and belied and to some degree
broken up by the growth and conscious insistence of the self-regarding
impulses. It was the consciousness of disharmony and disunity,
causing men to feel all the more poignantly the desire and the need of
reconciliation. It was a realization of union made clear by its very
loss. It assumed of course, in a subconscious way as I have already
indicated, that the external world was the HABITAT of a mind or minds
similar to man's own; but THAT being granted, it is evident that the
particular theories current in this or that place about the nature of
the world--the theories, as we should say, of science or theology--did
not alter the general outlines of the creed; they only colored its
details and gave its ritual different dramatic settings. The mental
attitudes, for instance, of Abraham sacrificing the ram, or of the
Siberian angakout slaughtering a totem-bear, or of a modern and pious
Christian contemplating the Saviour on the Cross are really almost
exactly the same. I mention this because in tracing the origins or the
evolution of religions it is important to distinguish clearly what is
essential and universal from that which is merely local and temporary.
Some people, no doubt, would be shocked at the comparisons just made;
but surely it is much more inspiriting and encouraging to think that
whatever progress HAS been made in the religious outlook of the world
has come about through the gradual mental growth and consent of the
peoples, rather than through some unique and miraculous event of a
rather arbitrary and unexplained character--which indeed might never be
repeated, and concerning which it would perhaps be impious to suggest
that it SHOULD be repe