but may here be stated. The higher and even the lower polytheisms are only alluded to in passing, our object being to keep wel in view the
conception of a Supreme, or practical y Supreme, Being, from the lowest
stages of human culture up to Christianity. In polytheism that conception
is necessarily obscured, showing itself dimly either in the _Prytanis_,
or President of the Immortals, such as Zeus; or in Fate, behind and above
the Immortals; or in Mr. Max Muel er's _Henotheism_, where the god
addressed--Indra, or Soma, or Agni--is, for the moment, envisaged as
supreme, and is adored in something like a monotheistic spirit; or,
final y, in the etherealised deity of advanced philosophic speculation.
It has not been necessary, for our purpose, to dwel on these civilised
religions. Granting our hypothesis of an early Supreme Being among
savages, obscured later by ancestor-worship and ghost-gods, but not
often absolutely lost to religious tradition, the barbaric and the
civilised polytheisms easily take their position in line, and are easily
intel igible. Space forbids a discussion of all known religions; only
typical specimens have been selected. Thus, nothing has been said of the
religion of the great Chinese empire. It appears to consist, on its
higher plane, of the worship of Heaven as a great fetish-god--a worship
which may well have begun in days, as Dr. Brinton says, 'long ere man had
asked himself, "Are the heavens material and God spiritual?"'--perhaps, for all we know, before the idea of 'spirit' had been evolved. Thus, if it contains nothing more august, the Chinese religion is, so far, beneath
that of the Zunis, or the creed in Taa-roa, in Beings who are eternal, who were before earth was or sky was. The Chinese religion of Heaven is also
coloured by Chinese political conditions; Heaven (Tien) corresponds to the Emperor, and tends to be confounded with Shang-ti, the Emperor above. 'Dr.
Legge charges Confucius,' says Mr. Tylor, 'with an inclination to
substitute, in his religious teaching, the name of Tien, Heaven, for that
known to more ancient religion, and used in more ancient books--Shang-ti,
the personal ruling deity.' If so, China too has its ancient Supreme
Being, who is not a divinised aspect of nature.
But Mr. Tylor's reading, in harmony with his general theory, is different:
'It seems, rather, that the sage was, in fact, upholding the tradition of
the ancient faith, thus acting according to the character on which he
prided himself--that of a transmitter, not a maker, a preserver of old
knowledge, not a new revealer.'[1]
This, of course, is purely a question of evidence, to be settled by
Sinologists. If the personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, occupies in older
documents the situation held by Tien (Heaven) in Confucius's later system, why are we to say that Confucius, by putting forward Heaven in place of
Shang-ti, was restoring an older conception? Mr. Tylor's affection for his theory leads him, perhaps, to that opinion; while my affection for my
theory leads me to prefer documentary evidence in its favour.
The question can only be settled by specialists. As matters stand, it
seems to me probable that ancient China possessed a Supreme Personal
Being, more remote and original than Heaven, just as the Zunis do. On
the lower plane, Chinese religion is overrun, as everyone knows, by
Animism and ancestor-worship. This is so powerful that it has given rise
to a native theory of Euhemerism. The departmental deities of Chinese
polytheism are explained by the Chinese on Euhemeristic principles:
'According to legend, the War God, or Military Sage, was once, in human
life, a distinguished soldier; the Swine God was a hog-breeder who lost
his pigs and died of sorrow; the God of Gamblers was _un decave_.'[2]
These are not statements of fact, but of Chinese Euhemeristic theory. On
that hypothesis, Confucius should now be a god; but of course he is not;
his spirit is merely localised in his temple, where the Emperor worships
him twice a year as ancestral spirits are worshipped.
Every theorist will force facts into harmony with his system, but I do not see that the Chinese facts are contrary to mine. On the highest plane is
either a personal Supreme Being, Shang-ti, or there is Tien, Heaven (with
Earth, parent of men), neither of them necessarily owing, in origin,
anything to Animism. Then there is the political reflection of the Emperor on Religion (which cannot exist where there is no Emperor, King, or Chief, and therefore must be late), there is the animistic rabble of spirits
ancestral or not, and there is departmental polytheism. The spirits are,
of course, fed and furnished by men in the usual symbolical way. Nothing
shows or hints that Shang-ti is merely an imaginary idealised first
ancestor. Indeed, about al such explanations of the Supreme Being (say
among the Kurnai) as an idealised imaginary first ancestor, M. Reville
justly observes as fol ows: 'Not only have we seen that, in wide regions
of the uncivilised world, the worship of ancestors has invaded a domain
previously occupied by "Naturism" and Animism properly so cal ed, that it is, therefore, posterior to these; but, farther, we do not understand, in
Mr. Spencer's system, why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the
Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and
possessor of divine powers, not held by any of his descendants. This
proves that it was not the first ancestor who became God, in the belief of his descendants, but much rather the Divine Maker and Beginner of all,
who, in the creed of his adorers, became the first ancestor.'[3]
Our task has been limited, in this way, mainly to examination of
the religion of some of the very lowest races, and of the highest
world-religions, such as Judaism. The historical aspect of Christianity,
as arising in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, would demand
a separate treatise. This would, in part, be concerned with the attempts
to find in the narratives concerning our Lord, a large admixture of the
mythology and ritual connected with the sacrificed _Rex Nemorensis_, and
whatever else survives in peasant folk-lore of spring and harvest.[4]
After these apologies for the limitations of this essay, we may survey the backward track. We began by showing that savages may stumble, and have
stumbled, on theories not inconsistent with science, but not till
recently discovered by science. The electric origin of the Aurora Borealis (whether absolutely certain or not) was an example; another was the
efficacy of 'suggestion,' especial y for curative purposes. It was,
therefore, hinted that, if savages blundered (if you please) into a belief in God and the Soul, however obscurely envisaged, these beliefs were not
therefore necessarily and essential y false. We then stated our purpose of examining the alleged supernormal phenomena, savage or civilised, which,
on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, help to originate the conception of 'spirits.'
We defended the nature of our evidence, as before anthropologists, by
showing that, for the savage belief in the supernormal phenomena, we have
exactly the kind of evidence on which all anthropological science reposes.
The relative weakness of that evidence, our need of more and better
evidence, we would be the very last to deny, indeed it is part of our
case. Our existing evidence will hardly support any theory of religion.
Anyone who is in doubt on that head has only to read M. Reville's 'Les
Religions des Peuples Non-Civilises,' under the heads 'Melanesiens,'
'Mincopies,' 'Les Australiens' (ii. 116-143), when he will observe that
this eminent French authority is ignorant of the facts about these races
here produced. In 1883 they had not come within his ken. Such minute and
careful inquiries by men closely intimate with the peoples concerned, as
Dr. Codrington's, Mr. Hewitt's, Mr. Man's, and the authorities compiled by Mr. Brough Smyth, were unfamiliar to M. Reville, Thus, in turn, new facts, or facts unknown to us, may upset my theory. This peril is of the essence
of scientific theorising on the history of religion.
Having thus justified our evidence for the savage _belief_ in supernormal
phenomena, as before anthropologists, we turned to a court of
psychologists in defence of our evidence for the _fact_ of exactly the
same supernormal phenomena in civilised experience. We pointed out that
for subjective psychological experiences, say of telepathy, we had
precisely the same evidence as al non-experimental psychology must and
does rest upon. Nay, we have even experimental evidence, in experiments in thought-transference. We have chiefly, however, statements of subjective
experience. For the coincidence of such experience with unknown events we
have such evidence as, in practical life, is admitted by courts of law.
Experimental psychology, of course, relies on experiments conducted under
the eyes of the expert, for example, by hypnotism or otherwise, under Dr.
Hack Tuke, Professor James, M. Richet, M. Janet. The evidence is
the conduct rather than the statements of the subject. There is
also physiological experiment, by vivisection (I regret to say) and
post-mortem dissection. But non-experimental psychology reposes on the
self-examination of the student, and on the statements of psychological
experiences made to him by persons whom he thinks he can trust. The
psychologist, however, if he be, as Mr. Galton says, 'unimaginative in the strict but unusual sense of that ambiguous word,' needs Mr. Galton's 'word of warning.' He is asked 'to resist a too frequent tendency to assume that the minds of every other sane and healthy person must be like his own. The psychologist should inquire into the minds of others as he should into
those of animals of different races, and be prepared to find much to which his own experience can afford little if any clue.'[5] Mr. Galton had to
warn the unimaginative psychologist in this way, because he was about to
unfold his discovery of the faculty which presents numbers to some minds
as visualised coloured numerals, 'so vivid as to be undistinguishable from reality, except by the aid of accidental circumstances.'
Mr. Galton also found in his inquiries that occasional hallucinations of
the sane are much more prevalent than he had supposed, or than science had ever taken into account. All this was entirely new to psychologists,
many of whom still (at least many popular psychologists of the press)
appear to be unacquainted with the circumstances. One of them informed me, quite gravely, that '_he_ never had an hal ucination,' therefore--_his_
mind being sane and healthy--the inference seemed to be that no sane and
healthy mind was ever hal ucinated. Mr. Galton has replied to _that_
argument! His reply covers, logically, the whole field of psychological
faculties little regarded, for example, by Mr. Sul y, who is not exactly
an imaginative psychologist.
It covers the whole field of automatism (as in automatic writing) perhaps
of the divining rod, certainly of crystal visions and of occasional
hal ucinations, as Mr. Galton, in this last case, expressly declares.
Psychologists at least need not be told that such faculties cannot,
any more than other human faculties, be always evoked for study and
experiment. Our evidence for these faculties and experiences, then, is
usual y of the class on which the psychologist relies. But, when the
psychologist, fol owing Leibnitz, Sir William Hamilton, and Kant,
discusses the Subconscious (for example, knowledge, often complex and
abundant, unconsciously acquired) we demonstrated by examples that the
psychologist will contentedly repose on evidence which is not evidence at
all. He will swal ow an undated, unlocalised legend of Coleridge, reaching Coleridge on the testimony of rumour, and told at least twenty years after the unverified occurrences. Nay, the psychologist will never dream of
procuring contemporary evidence for such a monstrous statement as that
an ignorant German wench unconsciously acquired and afterwards
subconsciously reproduced huge cantles of dead languages, by virtue of
having casual y heard a former master recite or read aloud from Hebrew and Greek books. This legend do psychologists accept on no evidence at all,
because it illustrates a theory which is, doubtless, a very good theory,
though, in this case, carried to an extent 'imagination boggles at.'
Here the psychologist may reply that much less evidence will content him
for a fact to which he possesses, at least, analogies in accredited
experience, than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which _he_
knows, in experience, nothing analogous. Thus, for the mythical German
handmaid, he has the analogy of languages learned in childhood, or
passages got up by rote, being forgotten and brought back to ordinary
conscious memory, or delirious memory, during an illness, or shortly
before death. Strong in these analogies, the psychologist will venture to
accept a case of language _not_ learned, but reproduced in delirious
memory, on no evidence at al . But, not possessing analogies for
telepathic crystal-gazing, he will probably decline to examine ours.
I would first draw his attention to the difference between revived memory
of a language once known (Breton and Welsh in known examples), or learned
by rote (as Greek, in an anecdote of Goethe's), and verbal reproduction
of a language _not_ known or learned by rote but overheard--each passage
probably but once--as somebody recited fragments. In this instance (that
of the mythical maid) 'the difficulty ... is that the original impressions had not the strength--that is, the distinctness--of the reproduction. An
unknown language overheard is a mere sound....'[6]
The distinction here drawn is so great and obvious that for proof of the
German girl's case we need better evidence than Coleridge's rumour of a
rumour, cited, as it is, by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter, Du Prel, and
the common run of manuals.
Not that I deny, _a priori_, the possibility of Coleridge's story. As Mr.
Huxley says, 'strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right to the title of an "impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'[7]
To the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not call the
existence of demons and demoniacal possession 'impossible.'[8] Mr. Huxley
was no blind fol ower of Hume. I, too, do not cal Coleridge's tale
'impossible,' but, unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept it on
'Bardolph's security.' And I contrast their conduct, in swal owing
Coleridge's legend, with their refusal (if they do refuse) to accept the
evidence for the automatic writing of not-consciously-known languages (as
of eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr. Schiller), or their
refusal (if they do refuse) to look at the evidence for telepathic
crystal-gazing, or any other supernormal exhibitions of faculty, attested
by living and honourable persons.
I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of its
dilemma.
After offering to anthropologists and psychologists these considerations,
which I purposely reiterate, we examined historically the relations of
science to 'the marvellous,' showing for example how Hume, fol owing his
_a priori_ theory of the impossible, would have declined to investigate,
because they were 'miraculous,' certain occurrences which, to Charcot,
were ordinary incidents in medical experience.
We next took up and criticised the anthropological theory of religion as
expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of
alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, al making for the
foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the
study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside
them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that
such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universal y said to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly
support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory
of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of
'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the
existence of human faculties not al owed for in the current systems of
materialism.
We next turned from the subject of supernormal experiences to the admitted facts about early religion. Granting the belief in souls and ghosts and
spirits, however attained, how was the idea of a Supreme Being to be
evolved out of that belief? We showed that, taking the creed as found in
the lowest races, the processes put forward by anthropologists could
not account for its evolution. The facts would not fit into, but
contradicted, the anthropological theory. The necessary social conditions
postulated were not found in places where the belief is found. Nay, the
necessary social conditions for the evolution even of ancestor-worship
were confessedly not found where the supposed ultimate result of
ancestor-worship, the belief in a Supreme Being, flourished abundantly.
Again, the belief in a Supreme Being, _ex hypothesi_ the latest in
evolution, therefore the most potent, was often shelved and half
forgotten, or neglected, or ridiculed, where the belief in Animism (_ex
hypothesi_ the earlier) was in ful vigour. We demonstrated by facts that
Anthropology had simplified her task by ignoring that essential feature,
_the prevalent alliance of ethics with religion_, in the creed of the
lowest and least developed races. Here, happily, we have not only the
evidence of an earnest animist, Mr. Im Thurn, on our side, but that of a
distinguished Semitic scholar, the late Mr. Robertson Smith. 'We see that
even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man
reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of
the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the
laws of morality.'[9] Wel hausen has already been cited to the same
effect.
However, the facts proving that truth, and unselfishness, surely a large
element of Christian ethics, are divinely sanctioned in savage religion
are more potent than the most learned opinion on that side.
Our next step was to examine in detail several religions of the most
remote and backward races, of races least contaminated with Christian or
Islamite teaching. Our evidence, when possible, was derived from ancient
and secret tribal mysteries, and sacred native hymns. We found a
relatively Supreme Being, a Maker, sanctioning morality, and unpropitiated by sacrifice, among peoples who go in dread of ghosts and wizards, but do
not always worship ancestors. We showed that the anthropological theory of the evolution of God out of ghosts in no way explains the facts in the
savage conception of a Supreme Being. We then argued that the notion of
'spirit,' derived from ghost-belief, was not logical y needed for the
conception of a Supreme Being in its earliest form, was detrimental to
the conception, and, by much evidence, was denied to be part of the
conception. The Supreme Being, thus regarded, may be (though he cannot
historically be shown to be) prior to the first notion of ghost and
separable souls.
We then traced the idea of such a Supreme Being through the creeds of
races rising in the scale of material culture, demonstrating that he was
thrust aside by the competition of ravenous but serviceable ghosts,
ghost-gods, and shades of kingly ancestors, with their magic and their
bloody rites. These rites and the animistic conception behind them were
next, in rare cases, reflected or refracted back on the Supreme Eternal.
Aristocratic institutions fostered polytheism with the old Supreme Being
obscured, or superseded, or enthroned as Emperor-God, or King-God. We saw
how, and in what sense, the old degeneration theory could be defined and
defended. We observed traces of degeneration in certain archaic aspects of the faith in Jehovah; and we proved that (given a tolerably pure low
savage belief in a Supreme Being) that belief _must_ degenerate, under
social conditions, as civilisation advanced. Next, studying what we may
call the restoration of Jehovah, under the great Prophets of Israel, we
noted that they, and Israel general y, were strangely indifferent to that
priceless aspect of Animism, the care for the future happiness, as
conditioned by the conduct of the individual soul. That aspect had been
neglected neither by the popular instinct nor the priestly and philosophic reflection of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Christianity, last, combined what
was good in Animism, the care for the individual soul as an immortal
spirit under eternal responsibilities, with the One righteous Eternal of
prophetic Israel, and so ended the long, intricate, and mysterious
theological education of humanity. Such is our theory, which does
not, to us, appear to lack evidence, nor to be inconsistent (as the
anthropological theory is apparently inconsistent) with the hypothesis of
evolution.
Al this, it must be emphatical y insisted on, is propounded 'under all
reserves.' While these four stages, say (1) the Australian unpropitiated
Moral Being, (2) the African neglected Being, still somewhat moral,
(3) the relatively Supreme Being involved in human sacrifice, as in
Polynesia, and (4) the Moral Being reinstated philosophically, as in
Israel, do suggest steps in evolution, we desire to base no hard-and-fast
system of ascending and descending degrees upon our present evidence.
The real object is to show that facts may be regarded in this light, as
wel as in the light thrown by the anthropological theory, in the hands
whether of Mr. Tylor, Mr. Spencer, M. Reville, or Mr. Jevons, whose
interesting work comes nearest to our provisional hypothesis.
We only ask for suspense of judgment, and for hesitation in accepting the
dogmas of modern manual makers. An exception to them certainly appears to
be Mr. Clodd, if we may safely attribute to him a review (signed C.) of
Mr. Grant Al en's 'Evolution of the Idea of God.'
'We fear that all our speculations will remain summaries of probabilities.
No documents are extant to enlighten us; we have only mobile, complex and
confused ideas, incarnate in eccentric, often contradictory theories. That this character attaches to such ideas should keep us on guard against
framing theories whose symmetry is sometimes their condemnation' ('Daily
Chronicle,' December 10, 1897).
Nothing excites my own suspicion of my provisional hypothesis more than
its symmetry. It really seems to fit the facts, as they appear to me, too
neatly. I would suggest, however, that ancient savage sacred hymns,
and practices in the mysteries, are really rather of the nature of
'documents;' more so, at least, than the casual observations of some
travel ers, or the gossip extracted from natives much in contact with
Europeans.
Supposing that the arguments in this essay met with some acceptance, what
effect would they have, if any, on our thoughts about religion? What is
their practical tendency? The least dubious effect would be, I hope, to
prevent us from accepting the anthropological theory of religion, or any
other theory, as a foregone conclusion, I have tried to show how dim is
our knowledge, how weak, often, is our evidence, and that, finding among
the lowest savages al the elements of al religions already developed
in different degrees, we cannot, historical y, say that one is earlier
than another. This point of priority we can never historical y settle. If
we met savages with ghosts and no gods, we could not be sure but that they once possessed a God, and forgot him. If we met savages with a God and no
ghosts, we could not be historical y certain that a higher had not
obliterated a lower creed. For these reasons dogmatic decisions about the
_origin_ of religion seem unworthy of science. They will appear yet more
futile to any student who goes so far with me as to doubt whether the
highest gods of the lowest races could be developed, or can be shown to
have been developed, by way of the ghost-theory. To him who reaches this
point the whole animistic doctrine of ghosts as the one germ of religion
will appear to be imperilled. The main practical result, then, will be
hesitation about accepting the latest scientific opinion, even when backed by great names, and published in little primers.
On the hypothesis here offered to criticism there are two chief sources of Religion, (1) the belief, how attained we know not,[10] in a powerful,
moral, eternal, omniscient Father and Judge of men; (2) the belief
(probably developed out of experiences normal and supernormal) in
somewhat of man which may survive the grave. This second belief is not,
logical y, needed as given material for the first, in its apparently
earliest form. It may, for all we know, be the later of the two beliefs,
chronologically. But this belief, too, was necessary to religion; first,
as finally supplying a formula by which advancing intel ects could