64 Science Religion and Reality 



performance. It is essential to every religion that its dogma 

 should be considered and treated as absolutely inalterable and 

 inviolable. The believer must be firmly convinced that what he 

 is led to accept as truth is held in safe keeping, handed on exactly 

 as it has been received, placed above any possibility of falsification 

 or alteration. Every religion must have its tangible, reliable 

 safeguards by which the authenticity of its tradition is guaranteed. 

 In higher religions, we know the extreme importance of the 

 authenticity of holy writings, the supreme concern about the purity 

 of the text and the truth of interpretation. The native races 

 have to rely on human memory. Yet, without books or inscrip- 

 tions, without bodies of theologians, they are not less concerned 

 about the purity of their texts, not less well safeguarded against 

 alteration and misstatement. There is only one factor which 

 can prevent the constant breaking of the sacred thread : the 

 participation of a number of people in the safe-keeping of tradition. 

 The public enactment of myth among certain tribes, the official 

 recitals of sacred stories on certain occasions, the embodiment of 

 parts of belief in sacred ceremonies, the guardianship of parts of 

 tradition given to special bodies of men ; secret societies, totemic 

 clans, highest-age grades — all these are means of safeguarding the 

 doctrine of primitive religions. We see that wherever this 

 doctrine is not quite public in the tribe there is a special type of 

 social organisation serving the purpose of its keeping. 



These considerations explain also the orthodoxy of primitive 

 religions, and excuse their intolerance. In a primitive community, 

 not only the morals but also the dogmas have to be identical for all 

 members. As long as savage creeds had been regarded as idle 

 superstitions, as make-belief, as childish or diseased fancies, or at 

 best crude philosophic speculations, it was difficult to understand 

 why the savage clung to them so obstinately, so faithfully. But 

 once we see that every canon of the savage's belief is a live force 

 to him, that his doctrine is the very cement of social fabric — for 

 all his morality is derived from it, all his social cohesion and his 

 mental composure — it is easy to understand that he cannot afford 

 to be tolerant. And it is clear also that once you begin to play 

 ducks and drakes with his " superstitions," you destroy all his 

 morality, without much chance of giving him another instead. 



We see thus clearly the need for the prominently overt and 

 collective nature of religious acts and for the universality of moral 



