he garden, and converse with him
(Genesis iii. 8).

(For when the human mind has reached that stage of
consciousness in which each man realizes his own 'self' as a rational
and consistent being, "looking before and after," then, as I have
said already, the mind projects on the background of Nature similarly
rational Presences which we may call 'Gods'; and at that stage
'Religion' begins. Before that, when the mind is quite unformed and
dream-like, and consists chiefly of broken and scattered rays, and when
distinct self-consciousness is hardly yet developed, then the presences
imagined in Nature are merely flickering and intermittent phantoms, and
their propitiation and placation comes more properly under, the head of
'Magic.')

So much for the genesis of the religious ideas of Sin and Sacrifice, and
the rites connected with these ideas--their genesis through the in-break
of self-consciousness upon the corporate SUB-consciousness of the life
of the Community. But an exactly similar process may be observed in the
case of the other religious ideas.

I spoke of the doctrine of the SECOND BIRTH, and the rites connected
with it both in Paganism and in Christianity. There is much to show that
among quite primitive peoples there is less of shrinking from death and
more of certainty about a continued life after death than we generally
find among more intellectual and civilized folk. It is, or has been,
quite, common among many tribes for the old and decrepit, who are
becoming a burden to their fellows, to offer themselves for happy
dispatch, and to take willing part in the ceremonial preparations for
their own extinction; and this readiness is encouraged by their
na[i:]ve and untroubled belief in a speedy transference to "happy
hunting-grounds" beyond the grave. The truth is that when, as in such
cases, the tribal life is very whole and unbroken--each individual
identifying himself completely with the tribe--the idea of the
individual's being dropped out at death, and left behind by the tribe,
hardly arises. The individual is the tribe, has no other existence.
The tribe goes on, living a life which is eternal, and only changes its
hunting-grounds; and the individual, identified with the tribe, feels in
some subconscious way the same about himself.

But when one member has broken faith with the tribe, when he has sinned
against it and become an outcast--ah! then the terrors of death and
extinction loom large upon him. "T