Chapter 17

That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to what followed and is yet to follow. In relation to what preceded, Christianity claims "to be the fulfilment of all that is true in previous religion" (Illingworth, _Personality: Human and Divine_, p. 75). The making of that claim assumes that there was some truth in previous religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they were true--a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the missionary. The truth and the good inherent in all forms of religion is that, in all, man seeks after God. The finality of Christianity lies in the fact that it reveals the God for whom man seeks. What was true in other religions was the belief in the possibility of communion with God, and the belief that only as a member of a society could the individual man attain {259} to that communion. What is offered by Christianity is a means of grace whereby that communion may be attained and a society in which the individual may attain it. Christianity offers a means whereby the end aimed at by all religions may be realised. Its finality, therefore, does not consist in its chronological relation to other religions. It is not final because, or in the sense that, it supervened in the order of time upon previous religions, or that it fulfilled only their truth. Other religions have, as a matter of chronology, followed it, and yet others may follow it hereafter. But their chronological order is irrelevant to the question: Which of them best realises the end at which religion, in all its forms, aims? And it is the answer to that question which must determine the finality of any form of religion. No one would consider the fact that Mahommedanism dates some centuries after Christ any proof of its superiority to Christianity. And the lapse of time, however much greater, would constitute no greater proof.

That different forms of religion do realise the end of religion in different degrees is a point on which there is general agreement. Monotheism is pronounced higher than polytheism, ethical religions {260} higher than non-ethical. What differentiates Christianity from other ethical religions and from other forms of monotheism, is that in them religion appears as ancillary to morality, and imposes penalties and rewards with a view to enforce or encourage morality. In them, at their highest, the love of man is for his fellow-man, and usually for himself. Christianity alone makes love of God to be the true basis and the only end of society, both that whereby personality exists and the end in which it seeks its realisation. Therein the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Not merely does it hold that man cannot make himself better without making society better, that development of personality cannot be effected without a corresponding development of society. But it holds that such moral development and improvement of the individual and of society can find no rational basis and has no rational end, save in the love of God.

In another way the Christian theory of society differs from all others. Like all others it holds that the unifying bond of every society is found in worship. Unlike others it recognises that the individual is restricted by existing society, even where that society is based upon a common worship. The {261} adequate realisation of the potentialities of the individual postulates the realisation of a perfect society, just as a perfect society is possible only provided that the potentialities of the individual are realised to the full. Such perfection, to which both society and the individual are means, is neither attained nor possible on earth, even where communion with God is recognised to be both the true end of society and the individual, and the only means by which that end can be attained. Still less is such perfection a possible end, if morality is set above religion, and the love of man be substituted for the love of God. In that case the life of the individual upon earth is pronounced to be the only life of which he is, or can be, conscious; and the end to which he is a means is the good of humanity as a whole. Now human society, from the beginning of its evolution to its end, may be regarded as a whole, just as the society existing at any given moment of its evolution may be regarded as a whole. But if we are to consider human society from the former point of view and to see in it, so regarded, the end to which the individual is a means, then it is clear that, until perfection is attained in some remote and very improbable future, the individual members of the {262} human race will have laboured and not earned their reward, will have worked for an end which they have not attained, and for an end which when, if ever, it is attained, society as a whole will not enjoy. Such an end is an irrational and impossible object of pursuit. Perfection, if it is to be attained by the individual or by society, is not to be attained on earth, nor in man's communion with man. Religion from its outset has been the quest of man for God. It has been the quest of man, whether regarded as an individual or as a member of society. But if that quest is to be realised, it is not to be realised either by society or the individual, regarded as having a mere earthly existence. A new conception of the real nature of both is requisite. Not only must the individual be regarded as continuing to exist after death, but the society of which he is truly a member must be regarded as one which, if it manifests or begins to manifest itself on this earth, requires for its realisation--that is, for perfect communion with God--the postulate that though it manifests itself in this world, it is realised in the next. This new conception of the real nature of society and the individual, involving belief in the communion of the saints, and in the kingdom of Heaven as that {263} which may be in each individual, and therefore must extend beyond each and include all whether in this world or the next--this conception is one which Christianity alone, of all religions, offers to the world.

Religion is the quest of man for God. Man everywhere has been in search of God, peradventure he might find Him; and the history of religion is the history of his search. But the moment we regard the history--the evolution--of religion as a search, we abandon the mechanical idea of evolution: the cause at work is not material or mechanical, but final. The cause is no longer a necessary cause which can only have one result and which, when it operates, must produce that result. Progress is no longer something which must take place, which is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. It is something which may or may not take place and which cannot take place unless effort is made. In a word, it is dependent in part upon man's will--without the action of which neither search can be made nor progress in the search. But though in part dependent upon man's will, progress can only be made so far as man's will is to do God's will. And that is not always, and has not been always, {264} man's will. Hence evolution has not always been progress. Nor is it so now. There have been lapses in civilisation, dark ages, periods when man's love for man has waned _pari passu_ with the waning of his love for God. Such lapses there may be yet again. The fall of man may be greater, in the spiritual sense, than it ever yet has been, for man's will is free. But God's love is great, and our faith is in it. If Christianity should cease to grow where it now grows, and cease to spread where it as yet is not, there would be the greater fall. And on us would rest some, at least, of the responsibility. Christianity cannot be stationary: if it stands, let it beware; it is in danger of falling. Between religions, as well as other organisations, there is a struggle for existence. In that struggle we have to fight--for a religion to decline to fight is for that religion to die. The missionary is not engaged in a work of supererogation, something with which we at home have no concern. We speak of him as in the forefront of the battle. We do not usually or constantly realise that it is our battle he is fighting--that his defeat, if he were defeated, would be the beginning of the end for us; that on his success our fate depends. The metaphor of the missionary as an {265} outpost sounds rather picturesque when heard in a sermon,--or did so sound the first time it was used, I suppose,--but it is not a mere picture; it is the barest truth. The extent to which we push our outposts forward is the measure of our vitality, of how much we have in us to do for the world. Six out of seven of Christendom's missionaries come from the United States of America. Until I heard that from the pulpit of Durham Cathedral, I had rather a horror of big things and a certain apprehension about going to a land where bigness, rather than the golden mean, seemed to be taken as the standard of merit. But from that sermon I learnt something, viz. not only that there are big things to be done in the world, but that America does them, and that America does more of them than she talks about.

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APPENDIX

Since the chapter on Magic was written, the publication of Wilhelm Wundt's _Völkerpsychologie_, Vol. II, Part II, has led me to believe that I ought to have laid more stress on the power of the magician, which I mention on pages 74, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, and less on the savage's recognition of the principle that like produces like. In the stage of human evolution known as Animism, every event which calls for explanation is explained as the doing of some person or conscious agent. When a savage falls ill, his sickness is regarded as the work of some ill-disposed person, whose power cannot be doubted--for it is manifest in the sickness it has caused--and whose power is as mysterious as it is indubitable. That power is what a savage means by magic; and the persons believed to possess it are magicians. It is the business of the sick savage's friends to find out who is causing his sickness. Their suspicion may fall on any one whose appearance or behaviour is suspicious or mysterious; and the person {268} suspected comes to be regarded as a witch or magician, from the very fact that he is suspected. Such persons have the power of witchcraft or magic, because they are believed to have the power: _possunt quia posse videntur_. Not only are they believed to possess the power; they come to believe, themselves, that they possess it. They believe that, possessing it, they have but to exercise it. The Australian magician has but to "point" his stick, and, in the belief both of himself and of every one concerned, the victim will fall. All over the world the witch has but to stab the image she has drawn or made, and the person portrayed will feel the wound. In this proceeding, the image is like the person, and the blow delivered is like the blow which the victim is to feel. It is open to us, therefore, to say that, in this typical case of "imitative" or "mimetic" magic, like is believed to produce like. And on pages 75-77, and elsewhere, above, I have taken that position. But I would now add two qualifications. The first is, as already intimated, that, though stabbing an effigy is like stabbing the victim, it is only a magician or witch that has the power thus to inflict wounds, sickness, or death: the services of the magician or witch are employed for no other reason than that {269} the ordinary person has not the power, even by the aid of the rite, to cause the effect. The second qualification is that, whereas we distinguish between the categories of likeness and identity, the savage makes but little distinction. To us it is evident that stabbing the image is only like stabbing the victim; but to the believer in magic, stabbing the image is the same thing as stabbing the victim; and in his belief, as the waxen image melts, so the victim withers away.

It would, therefore, be more precise and more correct to say (page 74, above) that eating tiger to make you bold points rather to a confusion, in the savage's mind, of the categories of likeness and identity, than to a conscious recognition of the principle that like produces like: as you eat tiger's flesh, so you become bold with the tiger's boldness. The spirit of the tiger enters you. But no magic is necessary to enable you to make the meal: any one can eat tiger. The belief that so the tiger's spirit will enter you is a piece of Animism; but it is not therefore a piece of magic.

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INDEX

Acosta, Father, 193.

Agnostic, 4, 6.

Agries, 143.

Alfoors, 194.

Algonquins, 143.

All-father, 190.

Ancestors, 162.

Ancestor worship, 52, 53; may be arrested by religion, 53, 54, 55.

Andaman Islands, 169.

Animal sacrifice, 209; animal meal, 178.

Animals, worshipped, 111.

Animism, 204, 215, 216, 217; and magic, 89, 90, 98; and fetichism, 116, 117, 118; polytheism, 131; not religion, 136.

Anticipation, of nature, 73.

Antinomy, the, of religious feeling, 174.

Anzam, 170.

Applied science of religion, 2 ff.; looks to the future, 3; is used by the missionary as a practical man, 15, 16; its object, 18, 21.

Ashantee Land, 153, 155.

Atheist, 4, 6.

Atman, 247.

At-one-ment, 178.

Attention, 9, 10.

Australia, 183 ff.

Australian tribes, religion of, 27, 28.

Aztecs, 188, 190.

Basutos, 181.

Becoming, 214.

Being, is in process of evolution, 214; still incomplete, 214.

Belief, and desire, 39, 40; in immortality and God, 31, 32; erroneous, and magic, 79; in magic, 85; religious, 137.

Bhogaldai, 194.

Billiards, 78.

Blood, and rain, 161.

Bones, of animals, hung up, 78.

Boorah, 162 ff.

Bosman, 109 ff., 112, 113.

Bread, prayer for daily, 181.

Buddhism, 247 ff.; and immortality, 36, 37, 61, 62, 63; its fundamental illogicality, 66; its strength, 66.

Buro, 194.

Buzzard, 76.

Byamee, 162 ff., 191, 198.

Cause, and conditions, 77, 85.

Celebes, 194.

Ceram, 181.

Ceremonies, for rain, 161.

Chain of existence, 65.

Charms, and prayers, 150, 115, 152.

Chattels, 241, 243.

Cherokee Indian, 50, 76, 77.

Chicomecoatl, 193.

Childhood, 98.

China, 194, 197.

Christianity, 239 ff., 258, 259, 260; the highest form of religion, 15, 18, 22, 23; and other forms of religion, 26, 27, 28, 35; alone teaches self-sacrifice as the way to life eternal, 69; and sacrifice, 209.

Clouds, 153; of smoke and rain, 161, 162.

Communal purposes, and magic, 91.

Communion, 175; not so much an intellectual belief as an object of desire, 43, 44; of man with God the basis of morality, 62; logically incompatible with Buddhism, 63; involves personal existence, 67; with God, 137; sought in prayer, 172; and sacrifice, 172; in Mexico, 193; maintained by sacramental eating, 195; annually, 196; renewed, 198; the true end of sacrifice, 207, 208; between man and God, 249; imperfect, 257.

Community, 254; and magic, 81, 97; and its God, 91.

Community, the, and fetiches, 122; and its gods, 135; and prayer, 146, 147, 148, 166; and the individual, 218, 239.

Comparative method, 20, 21.

Comparative Philology, 20.

Comparison, method of, 17; implies similarity in the religions compared, 19; and implies difference also, 20; contrasted with comparative method, 21; deals with differences, 22.

Comte, 213.

Conciliation, and coercion, of spirits, 121.

Congregations, 170.

Contagious magic, 85.

Continuation theory, 55, 56.

Corn, eaten sacramentally, 194, 195.

Corn-maiden, 195.

Corn-mother, 195.

Corn-spirit, 196, 199, 200.

Cotton-mother, 194.

Creator, 170.

Creek Indians, 194.

Custom, 244; protected by the god of the community, 219.

Dances, 162; and prayer, 153.

Dead, the, 38; return, 47; spirits of the, 92.

Death, a mistake according to the primitive view, 44, 45; or else due to magic, 45, 46, 80.

Deer, 74.

Degradation of religion, 24.

Deification, 53.

Deiphobus, 54.

Delaware prayer, 145.

Departmental deities, 190.

Desacralisation, 186.

Desire for immortality, is the origin of the belief in immortality, 40, 41; is not a selfish desire, 42; the root of all evils, 66; religious, 115, 116, 121; and prayer, 142, 149; and the worship of the gods, 135; and religion, 158, 166; of the community, 163.

Desire of all nations, 115, 173.

Dieri, 50, 161, 164.

Difference, implies similarity, 27.

Differences, to be taken into account by method of comparison, 22; their value, 23, 24; postulated by science, 24.

Differentiation of the homogeneous, 23, 24, 25.

Domesticated plants and animals, 190.

Dreams, and the soul, 37; their emotional value, 42.

Drought, 164.

Dugongs, 164, 165.

Dynamics, of society, 246, 255.

East Indies, 181.

Eating of the god, 193.

Eating tiger, 74, 89.

Ellis, Colonel, 113, 120, 121, 122.

Emotional element, in fetichism and religion, 136.

End, the, gives value to what we do, 13; and is a matter of will, 13; of society, 251, 253; a category unknown to science, 255.

Ends, anti-social, 81.

Error, 25.

Euahlayi, 48, 162, 191, 198.

Evolution, 214; of religion, 6, 239, 247, 253; and progress, 9, 12, 24, 264; theory of, 23; and the history of religion, 172, 173; of humanity, 239, 244, 246; law of, 252; end of, 254, 256.

Faith, 137, 238; the conviction that we can attain our ends, 14; shared by the religious man with all practical men, 14, 15; exhibited in adopting method of comparison in religion, 17; in Christianity, 18; banishes fear of comparisons, 18, 19; in the communion of man with God manifests itself in the desire for immortality, 68.

Family, and society, 98.

Famine, 205.

Father, 98.

Feeling, religious, 137; moral and religious, 81.

Fetich, defined, 111, 112; offerings made to it, 112; not merely an "inanimate," 113, 116; but a spirit, 116, 117; possesses personality and will, 117; aids in the accomplishment of desire, 117, 119; may be made, 120; is feared, 120; has no religious value, 120, 121; distinct from a god, 122; subservient to its owner, 122; has no plurality of worshippers, 122; its principal object to work evil, 123; serves its owner only, 127; permanence of its worship, 129; has no specialised function, 129, 130; is prayed to and talked with, 132; worshipped by an individual, 134; and not by the community, 135, 170.

Fetichism, 105 ff., 215; as the lowest form of religion, 106, 107; as the source of religious values, 107, 108; and magic, 90; and religion, 114, 120, 136; the law of its evolution, 119, 120; condemned by public opinion, 122, 123; offensive to the morality of the native, 126; and at variance with his religion, 126, 127; not the basis of religion, 127; and polytheism, 128, 131, 132, 133; and fear, 136.

Finality of Christianity, 258, 259.

First-fruit ceremonials, 183, 184; and the gods, 185, 187; an act of worship, 187, 188.

First-fruits, 181.

Flesh of the divine being, 196.

Fly-totem, 165, 166.

Folk-lore, 85.

Food supply, 205.

Footprints, 74.

Forms of religion, 19.

Framin women, 152, 153, 155, 156.

Frazer, J. G., 50, 76, 78, 79, 83, 92, 94, 102, 153, 157, 158, 160, 180, 192, 194-200, 202, 205.

Fuegians, 169.

Funerals, and prayer, 163.

Future, knowledge of the, 14, 15.

Future life, its relation to morality and religion, 36, 37, 57.

Future punishments, and rewards, 51, 61.

Future world, 52 ff.

Ghosts, 38, 42.

Gift-theory of sacrifice, 206.

God, worshipped by community, 91, 98; a supreme being, 168; etymology of the word, 133, 134; a personal power, 136, 137; correlative to a community, 137.