FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS 457 



ducts of the land, and the character of these offerings affects not 

 only the cult but the whole religious life. 



If the mental development of a people is thus to a marked extent 

 the reflection of the natural surroundings in which it lives, the indi- 

 viduals composing it show varying degrees of susceptibility to im- 

 pressions by this environment. Just in proportion to the depth and 

 variety of these impressions, and the consequent richness of the 

 intellectual life, divergent types of thought and differing customs 

 develop. These differences are reflected in the religious life. There is 

 more variety of religious belief, more spontaneity and diversity of 

 religious practice. Heresies and schisms are indications of religious 

 vitality. It is not an accident that Syria, Greece, and Germany have 

 been fruitful in new departures of religious thought, and particularly 

 so in periods marked by intellectual progress in various directions. 



If social conditions and institutions are unquestionably deter- 

 mined by physical environment and mental development, it is 

 equally certain that they in turn exercise a profound influence upon 

 the physical and intellectual growth of the individual, and con- 

 sequently also upon his religious character, whether he yields more 

 easily to the impression or reacts against it. The regime of tribal 

 gods warring one with another is the natural complement of the 

 tribal organization of society. The members of a small tribe may say 

 unto their tutelary divinity, " Who among the gods is like unto thee? " 

 And they may serve the god of their fathers with such intensity of 

 devotion that to some extent they ignore all other gods. But they 

 cannot cease to believe in the existence of other gods, or even degrade 

 these gods into a lower class of beings, until the social development 

 renders possible a broader outlook. This may come by the political 

 organization of empires; it may also be brought about by the loosen- 

 ing of tribal connections through wider social contact. It is evident 

 that the great Persian, Greek, and Roman empires had a tendency to 

 lead religious thought to more transcendental and Unitarian concep- 

 tions of divinity. The little gods fell from their thrones with the little 

 kings and grouped themselves as servants around the celestial 

 "king of kings." It is also obvious that the close contact between 

 men of different blood, speech, and customs, within the same political 

 organization, tended to force into the background the accidental 

 in religion, the mere tribal peculiarities, however tenacious the 

 resistance may have been here and there. As monarchical institu- 

 tions yield to democracy, the religious life inevitably undergoes 

 profound changes. When the rights of every man and woman to 

 a share in the direction of public affairs become recognized, and the 

 administration of public business becomes the work, not of rulers, 

 but of servants chosen by the people for their fitness, the state 

 gradually ceases to have an official cult, and to take cognizance of, 



