The evolution of religion

AUTHOR OF “CULTS OF THE GREEK STATES” FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD; UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN CLASSICAL ARCHÆOLOGY; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE GERMAN IMPERIAL ARCHÆO...

Such a method, though not hitherto styled anthropological, has already been applied by various scholars in the different parts of our field; the exposition of the Babylonian ele...

In ancient Greece the fetich was common enough: sacred axes, sacred sceptres, pyramidical or cone-shaped stones, rudely hewn {45} tree-stumps, are examples which we find in the...

And is it nothing more than a coincidence that in the same city of Ephesus, where during St Paul’s visit the fanatics raised a tumult in behalf of their Virgin Artemis, some six...

We may probably discover the nature of the instinct underlying much of the cathartic custom-law by taking as our typical example the savage feeling about blood. Evidence from al...

Again, we have other evidence besides the linguistic that the earliest conception of sin which we can call spiritual was still half-materialistic, and was still closely allied t...

The above is some slight illustration of the development of the Greek concept of purity and of its ethical influence. It remains to trace its action in a very important departme...

According to the modern definition of prayer, man addresses uttered or inaudible speech to a divine power conceived as Spirit or God, but always as personal, in order to obtain...

Connected as it seems with this superstition about names is the belief that, in order to gain complete power over a human or divine personality, it is necessary to know their or...

And the Iranian prayers appear to rise above the Vedic in the enthusiasm of the idea of righteousness that pervades them, and in the conviction that the believer can aid Ahura-M...

[60.1] _Vide_ Frazer’s _Golden Bough, passim_, especially vol. ii. pp. 115-168 (death and resurrection in rites of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Dionysos), and vol. iii. pp. 138-200: _...