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RELIGION
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RELIGION . The origin of the Latin word religio or relligio has been the subject of discussion since the See also:time of See also:Cicero . Two alternative derivations have been given, viz. from relegere, to gather together, and religare, to bind back, fasten . Relegere meant to gather together, collect, hence to go over- a subject again in thought, from re and legere, to collect together, hence to read, collect at a glance . This view is that given by Cicero (Nat . Deor. ii . 28, 72) . He says: " Qui omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter retractarent et tanquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo," " men were called `religious ' from relegere, because they reconsidered carefully and, as it were, went over again in thought all that appertained to the See also:worship of the gods." He compares elegantes from eligere, diligentes from diligere, and continues, " his enim in verbis See also:omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quae in religioso." This view is supported by the See also:form of the word in the See also:verse quoted by See also:Gellius (iv . 9), " religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas," and by the use of the See also:Greek 6M-See also:yew, to pay heed to, frequently with a negative, in the sense of the Latin negligere (nec-legere), cf . Oeaw (new o1JK i&?d'yo'm (See also:Homer, Il. xvi . 388), heeding not the visitation of the gods, or of; yap K?,cXw1rer Rios . . .
IrXcyovtnv (Od. ix
.
275)
.
The alternative derivation, from religare, to fasten, bind, is that adopted by Lactantius (Inst. iv
.
28), "Vinculo pietatis obstricti, Deo religati sumus unde ipsa religio nomen cepit
.
" He quotes in support the See also:line from See also:Lucretius (i
.
931), " religiosum nodis animos exsolvere." Servius (on See also:Virgil, Aen. viii
.
349) and St See also:Augustine (Retract. i
.
13) also take religare as the source of the word
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It is one that has certainly coloured the meaning of the word, particularly in that use which restricts
it to the monastic See also:life with its binding rules
.
It also has appealed to See also:Christian thought
.
See also:Liddon (Some Elements of Religion, Lecture I
.
19) says: " Lactantius may be wrong in his See also:etymology, but he has certainly seized the broad popular sense of the word when he connects it with the See also:idea of an See also:obligation by which See also:man is See also:bound to an invisible See also:God." See also:Archbishop See also:Trench (Study of Words) supposed that when " religion " became See also:equivalent to the monastic life, and " religious " to a See also:
(X.)
The study of the forms of belief and worship belonging to different tribes, nations or religious communities has only recently acquired a scientific See also:foundation
.
The Greek historians See also:early directed their See also:attention to the ideas and customs of the peoples with whom they were brought into contact; and See also:Herodotus has been called the " first anthropologist of religion." See also:Theopompus described the See also:Persian See also:dualism in the 4th See also:century B.C., and when Megasthenes was See also:ambassador to the See also:court of Chandragupta, 302 B.C., he noted the religious usages of the See also:middle See also:Ganges valley
.
The early Christian Fathers recorded many a valuable observation of the See also:Gentile faiths around them from varying points of view, sympathetic or hostile; and See also:Eusebius and See also:Epiphanius, in the 4th century A.D., attributed to the librarian of See also:Ptolemy Philadelphus the See also:design of See also:collecting the sacred books of the Ethiopians, See also:Indians, Persians, Elamites, Babylonians, Assyrians, See also:Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians and Greeks
.
The See also:Mahommedan See also:Biruni (b
.
A.D
.
973) compared the doctrines of the Greeks, Christians, See also:Jews, Manichaeans and Sufis with the. philosophies and religions of See also:India
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See also:Akbar (1542-1605) gathered Brahmans and Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Mahommedans at his court, and endeavoured to get See also:translations of their scriptures
.
In the next century the Persian author of the Dabistan exhibited the doctrines of no less than twelve religions and their various sects
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Meanwhile the scholars of the See also:West had begun to See also:work
.
See also:
See also:Gladstone (1868, p
.
207 ff.)
.
See also:David See also:Hume, on the other See also:hand, based his See also:essay on The Natural See also:History of Religion (1757) on the conception of the development of human society from See also:rude beginnings, and all See also:modern study is frankly founded on the general idea of See also:Evolution.'
The materials at Hume's command, however, were destined to vast and speedy expansion
.
The Jesuit missionaries had already been at work in India and See also:China, and a brilliant hand of English students, led by See also:Sir See also:
While ethnography was gathering up the facts from every part of the globe, See also:psychology began to analyse the forms of belief, of See also:action and emotion, to discover if possiole the key to the multitudinous variety which history revealed
.
From the See also:historical and linguistic See also:side attention was first fixed upon the myth, and the publication of the ancient See also:hymns of the Rig Veda led Max See also:
See also:Positive, tome v., 1841, p
.
30)
.
This has been since designated as polyzoism or panthelism or panvitalism,' and represents the obscure undifferentiated groundwork out of which Tylor's See also:Animism arises
.
Many are the clues by which it has been sought to explain the See also:secret of primitive religion
.
Hegel, before the anthropological See also:stage, found it in magic
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Max Muller, See also:building on philosophy and mythology, affirmed that " Religion consists in the See also:perception of the See also:infinite under such manifestations as are able to See also:influence the moral character of man " (Natural Religion, 1899, p
.
188)
.
Herbert Spencer derived all religion from the worship of the dead (Principles of See also:Sociology, i.), like See also: G . Frazer regards religion (see his See also:definition quoted below) as superposed on an antecedent stage of magic . In The See also:Tree of Life (1905), Mr E . Crawley interprets it by the vital See also:instinct, and connects its first manifestations with the processes of the organic life . The See also:veteran Wilhelm See also:Wundt (Mythus and Religion, ii . 1906, p . 177) recurs to the primitive conceptions of the soul as the source of all subsequent development . The origin of religion, however, can never be determined archaeologically or historically; it must be sought conjecturally through psychology . (J . E . C.) A . PRIMITIVE RELIGION There is a point at which the History of Religion becomes in its predominant aspect a History of Religions . The conditions that we describe by the comprehensive See also:term " See also:civilization " occasion a See also:specification and corresponding differentiation of the life of See also:societies; whence there result competing types of culture, each instinct with the spirit of propagandism and, one might almost say, of See also:empire . It is an See also:age of conscious selection as between ideal systems . Instead of necessitating a wasteful and See also:precarious elimination of inadequate customs by the actual destruction of those who practise them—this being the method of natural selection, which, like some See also:Spanish See also:Inquisition, abolishes the See also:heresy by wiping out the heretics one and all—progress now becomes possible along the more See also:direct and less 2 Comte's own term " See also:fetishism " was most unfortunately misleading (see FETISHISM) . Marett proposed the term " Animatism," Folk Lore (1900), xi. p . 171 3 See his treatise on The Making of Religion (1898), and Hartland's See also:article on " The ' High Gods ' of See also:Australia," Folk Lore (1898), ix. p . 290 . painful path of See also:conversion . The heretic, having developed See also:powers of rational choice, perceives his heresy, to wit, his want of See also:adaptation to the moral environment, and turning See also:round embraces the new faith that is the See also:passport to survival . Far otherwise is it with man at the stage of savagery—the stage of See also:petty See also:groups pursuing a self-centred life of inveterate See also:custom, in an See also:isolation almost as See also:complete as if they were marooned on See also:separate atolls of the ocean . Progress, or at all events See also:change, does indeed take See also:place, though very slowly, since the most primitive See also:savage we know of has his portion of human intelligence, looks after and before, See also:nay, in regard to the pressing needs of every day shows a quite remarkable shrewdness and resource . Speaking generally, however, we must pronounce him unprogressive, since, on the whole, unreflective in regard to his ends . It is the See also:price that must be paid for social discreteness and incoherency . And the consequence of this atomism is not what a careless thinker might be led to assume, extreme diversity, but, on the contrary, extreme homogeneity of culture . It has been found unworkable, for instance, to classify the religions of really primitive peoples under a See also:plurality of heads, as becomes necessary the moment that the presence of a distinctive basis of linked ideas testifies to the individuality of this or that type of higher creed . Primitive religions are like so many similar beads on a See also:string; and the concern of the student of comparative religion is at this stage mainly with the nature of the string, to wit, the common conditions of soul and society that make, say, totemism, or See also:taboo, very much the same thing all the savage world over, when we seek to penetrate to its essence . This fundamental homogeneity of primitive culture, however, must not be made the excuse for a treatment at the hands of psychology and sociology that dispenses with the study of details and See also:trusts to an a priori method . By all means let universal characterization be attempted—we are about to See also:attempt one here, though well aware of the difficulty in the See also:present See also:state of our knowledge—but they must at least See also:model themselves on the composite photograph rather than the impressionist See also:sketch . An enormous See also:mass of material, mostly quite in the raw, awaits reduction to order on the part of anthropological theorists, as yet a small and See also:ill-supported See also:body of enthusiasts . Under these circumstances it would be premature to expect agreement as to results . In regard to method, however, there is little difference of See also:opinion . Thus, whereas the popular writer abounds in wide generalizations on the subject of primitive humanity, the See also:expert has hitherto for the most part deliberately restricted himself to departmental investigations . Religion, for example, seems altogether too vast a theme for him to embark on, and he usually prefers to See also:deal with some single See also:element or aspect . Again, origins attract the litterateur; he See also:revels in describing the transition from the pre-religious to the religious era . But the expert, confining his attention to the known savage, finds him already religious, nay, encumbered with religious survivals of all kinds; for him, then, it suffices to describe things as they now are, or as they were in the comparatively See also:recent fore-time .
Lastly, there are many who, being competent in some other See also:branch of science, but having small acquaintance with the scientific study of human culture, are inclined to explain primitive ideas and institutions from without, namely by reference to various external conditions of the See also:mental life of peoples, such as race, See also:climate, See also:food-See also:supply and so on
.
The anthropological expert, on the other hand, insists on making the primitive point of view itself the be-all and end-all of his investigations
.
The inwardness of savage religion—the meaning it has for those who practise it—constitutes its essence and meaning likewise for him, who after all is a man and a See also:brother, not one who stands really outside
.
In what follows, then, we shall, indeed, venture to present a wholesale appreciation of the religious idea as it is for primitive man in general; but our See also:account will respect the modern anthropological method that bids the student keep closely to the actualities of the religious experience of savages, as it can with reasonable accuracy be gathered from what they do and say
.
We have sought to render only the spirit of primitive religion, keeping clear both of technicalities and of departmental investigations
.
These are See also:left to the separate articles bearing on the subject
.
There the reader will find the most solid results of recent anthropological See also:research
.
Here is he merely offered a flimsy See also:thread that, we See also:hope, may See also:guide him through the See also:maze of facts, but alas! is only too likely to break off See also:short in his hand
.
Definition of Primitive Religion.—In dealing with a development of culture that has no immutable essence, but is intrinsically fluid and changing, definition must consist either in a definition of type, which indicates prevalence of relevant resemblance as between specimens more or less divergent, or in exterior definition, which delimits the See also:
Tylor in Primitive Culture (I), i
.
424, proposes as a " minimum definition" of religion " the belief in spiritual beings." Objections to this definition on the See also:score of incompleteness are, firstly, that, besides belief, practice must be reckoned with (since, as Dr W
.
See also:Robertson See also: 
64) that to constrain or coerce a personal being is to treat him as an inanimate See also:agent; for such a principle is quite inapplicable to cases of See also:mere terrorism, whilst it may be doubted if it even renders the sense of the savage magician's typical notion of his modus operandi, viz. as the bringing to See also:bear of a greater mana or psychic influence (see below) on what has less, and must therefore do as it is bidden . Such definitions, then, are to be accepted, if at all, as definitions of type, selective designations of leading but not strictly universal features . An encyclopaedic account, however, should See also:rest rather on an exterior definition which can serve as it were to See also:pigeon-hole the whole mass of significant facts . Such an exterior definition is suggested by Mr E . Crawley in The Tree of Life, tog, where he points out that " neither the Greek nor the Latin See also:language has any comprehensive term for religion, except in the one teat, and in the other sacra, words which are equivalent to `sacred.' No other term covers the whole of religious phenomena, and a survey of the complex details of various worships results in showing that no other conception will comprise the whole body of religious facts." It may be added that we have here no generalization imported from a higher level of culture, but an idea or blend of ideas See also:familiar to primitive thought . An important consequence of thus giving the study of primitive religion the wide See also:scope of a comparative hierology is that magic is no longer divorced fi out religion, since the sacred will now be found to be . oextensive with the magicoreligious, that largely undifferentiated plasm out of which religion and magic slowly take separate shape as society comes more and more to contrast legitimate with illicit modes of dealing with the sacred: We may define, then, the religious object as the sacred, and the corresponding religious attitude as consisting in such manifestation of feeling, thought and action in regard to the sacred as is held to conduce to the welfare of the community or to that of individuals considered as members of the community . Aspects of the Nature of the Sacred.—To exhibit the general character of the sacred as it exists for primitive religion it is simplest to take stock of various aspects recognized by primitive thought as expressed in language . If some, and not the least essential, of these aspects are quasi-negative, it must be remembered that negations—See also:witness the Unseen, the Unknown, the Infinite of a more advanced See also:theology—are well adapted to supply that See also:mystery on which the religious consciousness feeds with the slight basis of conceptual support it needs . (I) The sacred as the forbidden . The primitive notion that perhaps comes nearest to our " sacred," whilst it immediately underlies the meanings of the Latin sacer and Sanctus, is that of a taboo, a Polynesian term for which equivalents can be quoted from most savage vocabularies . The See also:root idea seems to be that something is marked off as to be shunned, with the added hint of a mystic See also:sanction or See also:penalty enforcing the avoidance . Two derivative senses of a more positive import See also:call for See also:special See also:notice . On the one hand, since that which is tabooed is held to punish the taboo-breaker by a sort of mystic infection, taboo comes to stand for uncleanness and See also:sin . On the other hand, since the isolation of the sacred, even when originally conceived in the See also:interest of the profane, may be interpreted as self-See also:protection on the part of the sacred as against defiling contact, taboo takes on the See also:connotation of ascetic virtue, purity, devotion, dignity and blessedness . Primary and secondary senses of the term between them See also:cover so much ground that it is not surprising to find taboo used in See also:Polynesia as a name for the whole See also:system of religion, founded as it largely is on prohibitions and abstinences . (2) The sacred as the mysterious . Another quasi-negative notion of more restricted See also:distribution is that of the mysterious or See also:strange, as we have it expressed, for example, in the Siouan wakan, though possibly this is a derivative meaning . Meanwhile, it is certain that what is strange, new or portentotis is regularly treated by all savages as sacred . (3) The sacred as the 'secret . The literal sense of the term churinga, applied by the Central Australians to their sacred See also:objects, and likewise used more abstractly to denote mystic See also:power, as when a man is said to be " full. of churinga," is " secret," and is symptomatic of the esotericism that is a striking See also:mark of Australian, and indeed of all primitive, religion, with its insistence on See also:initiation, its exclusion of See also:women, and its strictly enforced reticence concerning traditional lore and proceedings . (4) The sacred as the potent . Passing on to positive conceptions of the sacred, perhaps the most fundamental is that which identifies the efficacy of sacredness with such mystic or magical power as is signified by the mana of the Pacific or orenda of the See also:Hurons, terms for which analogies are forthcoming on all sides . Of mana Dr R . H . See also:Codrington in The Melanesians, 119 n., writes: " It essentially belongs to personal beings to originate it, though it may See also:act through the See also:medium of See also:water, or a stone, or a See also:bone . All Melanesian religion consists .. . in getting this mana for oneself, or getting it used for one's benefit." E . Tregear's See also:Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary shows how the word and its derivatives are used to See also:express thought, memory, emotion, See also:desire, will—in short, psychic See also:energy of all kinds . It also stands for the vehicle of the magician's energy—the spell; which would seem like-See also:wise to be a meaning, perhaps the root-meaning, of orenda (cf . J . N . B . See also:Hewitt, See also:American Anthropologist, N.S., iv . 40) . Whereas everything, perhaps, has some See also:share of indwelling potency, whatever is sacred manifests this potency in an extra-See also:ordinary degree, as typically the wonder-working See also:leader of society, whose mana consists in his cunning and See also:luck together . Altogether, in mana we have what is See also:par excellence the primitive religious idea in its positive aspect, taboo representing its negative side, since whatever has mana is taboo, and what-ever. is taboo has mana . (3) The sacred as the animate . The term " animism," which embodies Tylor's classical theory of primitive religion, is unfortunately somewhat ambiguous . If we take it strictly to mean the belief in ghosts or See also:spirits having the " vaporous materiality " proper to the objects of See also:dream or See al |