90 Science Religion and Reality 



the religious beliefs and practices of a savage tribe are seldom 

 sharply marked off from those of neighbouring tribes, nor do the 

 legends and beliefs of such peoples provide anything in the way of a 

 complete explanation of life. An actual religious system implies 

 a great mental advance from the savage state. It involves the 

 advent of what we may call " mental coherence," an attempt to 

 understand the world as a whole and an acceptance of the view 

 that the world, being comprehensible, must have certain governing 

 principles which can be widely traced through it. 



Such religions or systems of religion we encounter in the 

 Empires of the ancient East. Egypt, for instance, provides us 

 with a whole series of systems of theology. The later Egyptian 

 religion is a syncretic product. In it the series of earlier systems 

 have become fused and often confused. It is easy, however, to 

 see in the final product the various strata of Egyptian theology 

 which succeeded and, to some extent, replaced each other. The 

 fusion, as in the case of modern theological systems, is always in- 

 complete and the joints " show through." As with nearly all 

 great religions the final result is a patchwork. Yet it is evident 

 that each system in its day was an attempt to explain Man and the 

 World and their relation to each other. These systems deal too 

 with man's origin and his fate. They cover the whole field not 

 only of what we now call religion but also of what we now call 

 science. In other words, religion and science are both present 

 but are so interconnected that they cannot be separated. 



A similar system or series of systems is traceable in the beliefs 

 of the Mesopotamian peoples. Best known to us, however, is 

 the kindred religion which arose in Palestine. In the beliefs of 

 the Hebrews, as in those of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian folk, 

 we may detect successive attempts to " cover the phenomena," 

 the actual succession being still traceable in the composite record 

 that has come down to us. It is important for us to note that in 

 the early Hebrew religious system, as in the other religions of the 

 ancient East, there is no trace of a suggestion that natural know- 

 ledge, or any conception of the nature of the world, was regarded 

 as an impediment or handicap to religion. Thus the fields of 

 religion and science have not yet been differentiated. It would 

 therefore be idle to seek here evidence of any opposition between 

 the two. 



Nevertheless, even in this stage we see man giving reasons for 



