60 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 1, 1885. 



and power ; and I take it that among savage races a 

 kindred feeling woukl kmg precede the more philosophical 

 stage when the phenomena of sleep and dreams would 

 suggest the idea of the spirit or ghost, leading a separate 

 existence and surviving the death of the body. But 

 undoubtedly so soon as this idea was once formed it would 

 permeate the whole religious system of a community. 

 In the recognition of the "double'' would be found the 

 interpretation of the apparent power and volition of 

 objects themselves inanimate. And we cau easily 

 understand how in the course of time all plants, all 

 R,nimals, all natural phenomena, rain, wind, snow, cloud, 

 sun, moon, and stars, would be regarded as instinct with 

 life and power derived from the ancestral dead of the 

 community. In this sense and in this way, probably, all 

 forms of nature-worship were originallj' derived from 

 anccstor-worohip. It is more than jirolsable, it may be 

 regarded as absolutely certain, that the lielief in One God 

 by whom sun, moon, and stai-s, earth, air, and sea, were 

 made, who rules all the phenomena of nature by virtue 

 of the powers of these his creatures, was a later develop- 

 ment, a purification of the original forms of natural 

 religion. In every case where we cin follow the progress 

 of a people's religion to the birth of a belief in one God, 

 we find this belief preceded by belief in many gods, and 

 this belief again preceded by the worship of dead 

 f.ncestors. 



We must look then for the origin of priesthoods to the 

 times when the vaguely- recognised powers of nature were 

 to be influenced or propitiated, and to the later time 

 when the spirits of dead chiefs (and in some cases even 

 of living rulers) had to be approached with due cere- 

 monial observances. The first priests were the medicine- 

 men and weather-doctors, still found among various 

 races, still believed in by the more ignorant even among 

 civilised peoples, as our servants' faith in astrologers and 

 wise women testifies, and as is shown by the publication 

 of such degrading nonsense as Zadkiel's Almanac 

 and the like. The priestly charr,cter was more fully 

 developed, when it became part of the duties of the 

 medicine-men to induce the spirits of dead ancestors 

 to yield benefits or cease from inflicting evils, — by bribing 

 them, praising them, deceiving, cajoling, threatening, 

 frightening, or coercing them. 



It was natural that in primitive communities, the 

 chief who ruled the people and led them in battle should 

 also be the chief priest ; and equally natural that, as each 

 community developed, these duties should be divided. 

 The priestly duty commonly remained in the family of 

 the chief, — being discharged by son, brother, or near 

 relative, in some cases by the king's daughter. But 

 gradually, the priestly race became a sect apart, descended 

 perhai)S from the royal family but no longer closely con- 

 nected with the actual rulers. " Influences of sundry 

 kinds tend everywhere," says Mr. Spencer, "to com- 

 plicate, in one way or other, the jirimitive course of 

 development. While we see that worshipping the spirit 

 of the dead chief, at first carried on by his heir, is ia the 

 heir's absence deputed to a younger brother — while we 

 see that temporary assumption of the function by a 

 brother or other member of the family tends to become 

 permanent where the business of the chief increases- - 

 while we see that migrating parts of a tribe are 

 h.abitually accompanied by some of the village god's 

 direct or collateral descendants, who carry with them the 

 cult and perform its rites, and that when conquest of 

 adjacent communities leads to an extension of rule, 

 political and ecclesiastical, members of the ruling family 

 become loc.i.1 priests ; we find sundry causes at work 



which render this process irregular. Besides the in- 

 fluence which the chief or his priestly relative is supposed 

 to have with powerful supernatural beings, there is the 

 competing influence ascribed to the sorcerer or rain- 

 maker. Occasionally too the tribe is joined by an 

 immigrant stranger, who, in virtue of superior know- 

 ledge or arts, excites awe ; and an additional cult mry 

 result either from his teachings or his own apotheosis. 

 Moreover a lei'.derof a migrating portion of the tribe, if in 

 some way specially distinguished, is likely at death to 

 become himself the object of a worship competing with 

 the traditional worship, and perhaps initiating another 

 priesthood. Fluctuating conditions are thus apt, even 

 in early stages, to produce various modifications in 

 ecclesiastical organisation." 



The development of a monotheistic priesthood out of a 

 priesthood essentially jiolytheistic, is next considered by 

 Mr. Spencer, iu connection with the hypothesis (with 

 which, and with which alone, nZZ the facts are congruous) 

 that monotheistic ideas are developed out of polytheistic 

 ideas. We find, for example, in the professedly mono- 

 theistic religion of the Hebrews archangels exercising 

 powers in their respective spheres and pr.ictically demi- 

 gods. In derived creeds we find clear mar]<s of poly- 

 theism. As each Fiji chief has a particular god in 

 whom he puts special trust, so, though the followers of 

 Mahomet slied their blood and the blood of others to esta- 

 blish the worship of one god, the Bedouins make sacri- 

 fices at the tombs of their saints, and even the more 

 civilised Mahometans " worship their deceased holy men 

 at shrines erected to them." In the Middle Ages r^nd 

 in Catholic countries polytheistic ideas can, even iu 

 our own time, readily be recognised. Even among people 

 claiming to have purified their religion from such im- 

 perfections, we find a doctrine at least partially poly- 

 theistic as undei'-stood by the bulk of the Trinitarian 

 community, — without taking into account belief in 

 Satan, which as recognising an independent super- 

 natural power undoubtedly implies surviving polj-- 

 theism. Nowhere '' except among the more advanced 

 Unitarip^ns, and by those who are called theists, is a ]}ure 

 monotheism accepted." 



Ecclesiastical hierarchies resemble the political govern- 

 ments with which they r,re associated. In societies 

 which have develojjed a highly-coercive secular rule we 

 find alwaj's a highly-coercive religious rule ; and vice 

 versd. Neither the one rule nor tlie other can be regarded 

 as cause or effect, but the two are developed from a 

 common root, and for a long time can be distinguished but 

 imperfectly from each other. The common result has 

 a common origin in the mor.il nature of the people. 

 Extreme submissiveness of nature encourages alike the 

 growth of despotic political and of despotic ecclesiastical 

 control ; while the presence of that qiiality which de- 

 velops in the advanced r.ice into the sense of the dignity 

 of manhood, resists alike the despotism of living rulers 

 and extreme self-abasement in propitiation of deities. 



Furthermore it is to be noted that ecclesiasticism in 

 developing societie., conduces to cohesion " not only 

 between the co-existing parts of a nation, but between 

 present and past generations." It helps to maintain those 

 characteristics of the society which constitute its indi- 

 viduality. Nor is this quality of ecclesiasticism without 

 credentials, " The life of society has, up to the time 

 being, been maintained under it ; and hence a perennial 

 reason for resistanoo to deviation. Even irrespective of 

 the relative fitness of the inherited cult to the inherited 

 social circumstances, there is an advantage in, if not 

 indeed a necessity for, acceptance of traditional beliefs and 



