508 Darwinism and the Study of Religions 



It is more important to ask, Why do these two worlds join ? 

 Because, it would seem, mana, the egomaniac or megalomaniac 

 element, cannot get satisfied with real things, and therefore goes 

 eagerly out to a false world, the supersensuous other-world whose 

 growth we have sketched. This junction of the two is fact, not 

 fancy. Among all primitive peoples dead men, ghosts, spirits of all 

 kinds, become the chosen vehicle of mana. Even to this day it is 

 sometimes urged that religion, i.e. belief in the immortality of the soul, 

 is true " because it satisfies the deepest craving of human nature." 

 The two worlds, of mana and magic on the one hand, of ghosts and 

 other-world on the other, combine so easily because they have the 

 same laws, or rather the same comparative absence of law. As in 

 the world of dreams and ghosts, so in the world of mana, space and 

 time offer no obstacles ; with magic all things are possible. In the 

 one world what you imagine is real ; in the other what you desire is 

 ipso facto accomplished. Both worlds are egocentric, megalomaniac, 

 filled to the full with unbridled human will and desire. 



We are all of us born in sin, in that sin which is to science " the 

 seventh and deadliest," anthropomorphism, we are egocentric, ego- 

 projective. Hence necessarily we make our gods in our own image. 

 Anthropomorphism is often spoken of in books on religion and 

 mythology as if it were a last climax, a splendid final achievement in 

 religious thought. First, we are told, we have the lifeless object as 

 god (fetichism), then the plant or animal (phytomorphism, therio- 

 morphism), and last God is incarnate in the human form divine. 

 This way of putting things is misleading. Anthropomorphism lies at 

 the very beginning of our consciousness. Man's first achievement in 

 thought is to realise that there is anything at all not himself, any 

 object to his subject. When he has achieved however dimly this dis- 

 tinction, still for long, for very long he can only think of those other 

 things in terms of himself ; plants and animals are people with ways 

 of their own, stronger or weaker than himself but to all intents and 

 purposes human. 



Again the child helps us to understand our own primitive selves. 

 To children animals are always people. You promise to take a child 

 for a drive. The child comes up beaming with a furry bear in her 

 arms. You say the bear cannot go. The child bursts into tears. You 

 think it is because the child cannot endure to be separated from a 

 toy. It is no such thing. It is the intolerable hurt done to the bear's 

 human heart — a hurt not to be healed by any proffer of buns. He 

 wanted to go, but he was a shy, proud bear, and he would not say so. 



The relation of magic to religion has been much disputed. 

 According to one school religion develops out of magic, according 



