“The different religions being lame attempts to represent under various guisesthis one root-fact of the central universal life, men have at all times clungto the religious creeds and rituals and ceremonials as symbolising in some rudeway the redemption and fulfilment of their own most intimate natures—andthis whether consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as mostoften) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way.”
The Drama of Love and Death, p. 96.
The subject of Religious Origins is a fascinating one, as the great multitude of books upon it, published in late years, tends to show. Indeed the great difficulty to-day in dealing with the subject, lies in the very mass of the material to hand—and that not only on account of the labor involved in sorting the material, but because the abundance itself of facts opens up temptation to a student in this department of Anthropology (as happens also in other branches of general Science) to rush in too hastily with what seems a plausible theory. The more facts, statistics, and so forth, there are available in any investigation, the easier it is to pick out a considerable number which will fit a given theory. The other facts being neglected or ignored, the views put forward enjoy for a time a great vogue. Then inevitably, and at a later time, new or neglected facts alter the outlook, and a new perspective is established.
There is also in these m