The Idea of God in Early Religions

The petition, which, as far as the science of religion enables us to judge, was the first petition made by man, was for deliverance from evil. The next, in historical order, was...

But though permissible petitions be distinguished from petitions which are impermissible, it by no means follows that impermissible petitions cease to be put up. What actually h...

If then we had merely to account for cases in which prayer does not happen to have been recorded as a constituent part of the rite of worship, we should not be warranted in infe...

But, when it came to be discovered, and accepted, that the ancestors of the Indo-European peoples had once been savages, and that savages, all the world over, possessed myths, i...

_With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521_

In all systems of worship man not only turns to his gods but does so in the conviction that he is returning, or trying to return, to them--trying to return to them, because they...

Polydaemonism, like fetishism, does not produce mythology; but, for a different reason. The beings worshipped in the period of polydaemonism are beings who have not yet come to...

We have, however, now to notice a consequence which ensues upon the community's custom of not eating until after the first-fruits have been offered to the god. Not only is a hab...

It is because man looked for this being or power in the external world that he found, or thought he found, it there. He looked for it and found it, in the same way as to this da...

One fact from which we may start is that it is with sacrifice that the community draws near to the god it wishes to approach. The outward, physical fact, the visible set of acti...

Common consciousness, capable of emotion and purpose, 2, 3, 14; the source and the criterion of the individual's speech, thought and action, 2, 3; its attitude towards magic, 9...