change, and
illusions fade away and are replaced by knowledge. That religion
reflects these factors of which it is a function cannot be doubted.
Some thinkers, who have sincerely pondered the problem, declare that
religion will only be transformed. Others, as earnest, assert that it
will disappear, and speak of the non-religion of the future. Is not
the question in large measure one of definition? That man will
continue to evolve ethically can scarcely be doubted, but it can be
doubted with good right that he will continue to seek to fulfill his
needs by rites designed to enlist superhuman agents in his behalf. Is
there not more than a note of skepticism in that much-approved saying:
"God helps those who help themselves?" Already, man is beginning to
classify his needs and to believe that his material needs, at least,
can best be met by industry and knowledge. He supplicates less and
works more. Let us not forget what tremendous economic and social
changes have occurred since the days of the little, helpless
communities that lifted up praying hands to their gods lest famine and
war destroy them completely. To-day, man does more harm to man than
does nature. The face of things has changed more radically than we are
accustomed to realize. Social habits and beliefs {111} cannot fail to
reflect this change. It may very well be that we shall be forced to
conclude that what were, in a sense, the by-products of religion have
become all that promises to survive when man has, indeed, eaten of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge.

We have seen that primitive man read his surroundings in the light of
his own consciousness. Everywhere he saw the evidence of will and
anger, desire and caprice. The world was the theater of personal
agents not so dissimilar to himself. Technically, we should speak of
this outlook as anthropomorphic animism. Perhaps a still lower stage
existed in which things are full of _mana_ or a mysterious power for
good and evil. As man felt his own powerlessness in the midst of
tremendous, and often hostile agencies, which overtopped his own meager
powers, he was led to feel the desire to ally himself with these
agencies and propitiate them in order that all might be well with him.
Man was ever more convinced that his own life was bound up with the
plans of the gods. To displease them was to incur the most serious
danger. The anger of Jove, or Neptune, or Asshur, or Yahweh was not
easily turned