RELIGION AND TEE ENVIRONMENT. i 9 



of caste, which has played such a great role in Hindoo society. In 

 the oldest hymns of the Vedas, we find no mention of it. It arose out 

 of the bitter struggles against the non- Aryan people the dark race, 

 whom, at last, they succeeded in conquering. The word for caste- 

 varna means kind or color, and indicated at first the difference be- 

 tween the whiter conquering race and the darker-tinted race whom 

 they subdued, and with whom they would brook no slightest inter- 

 course nor mixture, no relation but that of a slave to his masters. 



This strong antipathy of race and bitter contempt for all who could 

 not fight, nor recite the sacred hymn, petrified into impassable barriers. 

 Pride of birth and intolerance of spirit united to increase these heredi- 

 tary disabilities, and the priestly class did not fail to fan the fire of 

 superstition that gave them such privileges. But, much as the Brah- 

 mans, at first and probably since, have congratulated themselves on 

 the advantages of the institution, the student of history beholds, as its 

 product, the most bitter fruit an intolerable rigidity, a cumbrous cere- 

 monialism, and the alienation and degradation of the common people. 

 It was no wonder that ere long Buddhism should arise, and in the 

 strength of the popular disaffection sweep over all India, and if, in 

 another century, it lost this conquest, yet should go on in triumphant 

 march over Eastern Asia, till it came to number more souls in its ranks 

 than any other faith. 



4. We must notice the great influence of man's varied social condi- 

 tions in differentiating religious belief. The level of religion with any 

 people corresponds to the general level of social organization and re- 

 finement. " Thou art fellow with the spirit that thy mind can grasp," 

 is the pregnant monition of Mephistopheles in Goethe's " Faust." The 

 coarse, imbruted, petty-minded man can not entertain any high or pure 

 notions of God. The negroes of the West Coast represent their deities 

 as black and mischievous, delighting to torment men in various ways. 

 The god of the Polynesian cannibals is believed by them to feed on 

 the souls of the men sacrificed to him, as they themselves do on the 

 bodies. When the negro's fetich does not bring him good fortune, 

 the stock or stone gets a drubbing. 



Among tribes that still remain in the predatory state, subsisting by 

 hunting, and continually resorting to plunder and war, we find religion 

 in its crudest forms. Animal-worship, great regard for omens and use 

 of magic, and shamanistic practices of all sorts, swarm in their reli- 

 gions. Their rites are apt to be cruel and their sacrifices bloody, often 

 demanding human victims. The religions of the warlike negroes of 

 the Gold Coast, the Feejee-Islanders, and the hunting tribes of Amer- 

 ica, illustrate this. 



Even where nations have risen to a high level of civilization, but 

 have retained their military habits, as the Assyrians and the Aztecs, 

 e. g., there the sanguinary and revolting character of their religion 

 shows the same influence. On the other hand, where pastoral life pre- 



