5 8 Science Religion and Reality 



the greatest comfort he can have in his supreme conflict. And 

 this affirmation has behind it weight of numbers and the pomp 

 of solemn ritual. For in all savage societies, death, as we have 

 seen, compels the whole community to forgather, to attend to 

 the dying, and to carry out the duties towards him. These duties 

 do not, of course, develop any emotional sympathy with the dying — 

 this would lead merely to a disintegrating panic. On the contrary, 

 the line of ritual conduct opposes and contradicts some of the 

 strongest emotions to which the dying man might become a prey. 

 The whole conduct of the group, in fact, expresses the hope of 

 salvation and immortality ; that is, it expresses only one among the 

 conflicting emotions of the individual. 



After death, though the main actor has made his exit, the 

 tragedy is not at an end. There are the bereaved ones, and these, 

 savage or civilised, suffer alike, and are thrown into a dangerous 

 mental chaos. We have given an analysis of this already, and 

 found that, torn between fear and piety, reverence and horror, 

 love and disgust, they are in a state of mind which might lead to 

 mental disintegration. Out of this, religion lifts the individual by 

 what could be called spiritual co-operation in the sacred mortuary 

 rites. We have seen that in these rites there is expressed the dogma 

 of continuity after death, as well as the moral attitude towards 

 the departed. The corpse, and with it the person of the dead one, 

 is a potential object of horror as well as of tender love. Religion 

 confirms the second part of this double attitude by making the dead 

 body into an object of sacred duties. The bond of union between 

 the recently dead and the survivors is maintained, a fact of immense 

 importance for the continuity of culture and for the safe keeping 

 of tradition. In all this we see that the whole community carries 

 out the biddings of religious tradition, but that these are again 

 enacted for the benefit of a few individuals only, the bereaved ones, 

 that they arise from a personal conflict and are a solution of this 

 conflict. It must also be remembered that what the survivor goes 

 through on such an occasion prepares him for his own death. The 

 belief in immortality, which he has lived through and practised 

 in the case of his mother or father, makes him realise more clearly 

 his own future life. 



In all this we have to make a clear distinction between the 

 belief and the ethics of the ritual on the one hand, and on the other 

 the means of enforcing them, the technique by which the individual 



