3 50 Science Religion and Reality 



roots instead of by their fruits is widespread, and in all the higher 

 activities of mankind it is far less illuminating than the Aristotelian 

 canon that the " nature " of a thing must be sought in its completed 

 development, its final form. There have been writers who have 

 treated all existing forms of religion as survivals of barbarous 

 beliefs and customs. The error is no doubt associated with a very 

 recent tendency to regard myth, ritual, and magic as the kernel 

 instead of the husk of religion. If the essence of a religion were 

 sought in the devotional life of its followers and in its influence 

 upon the thought and action of the peoples among whom it 

 flourishes, there would be less disposition to seek for explanations 

 of it among the primitives of the past and the savages of the 

 present. 



Anthropologists of this type may learn something from the 

 analogy of biology. The fact that gill-slits and a tail exist in 

 the human embryo tells us something about the remote past of 

 humanity, but nothing about its present or its future. It tells us 

 nothing about Newton to know that he once had a tail. Religion 

 in the higher sense, which alone seriously concerns us, is a pheno- 

 menon of civilised humanity. We do not care much how it began ; 

 we want to understand it as it is or may be. 



An even more serious objection is suggested by the extreme 

 uncertainty of historical and anthropological records. In this 

 field, if in any other, " nothing worthy proving can be proven, nor 

 yet disproven." Laborious compilers may collect instances given 

 by travellers of this or that quaint tribal custom, found in diiferent 

 parts of the world ; they may make ingenious theories as to the 

 inner meaning of sacrifices and sacraments ; but can they really 

 enter into the mind of the savage, and interpret his thoughts to 

 civilised Europeans ? The savage, we may guess, could not ex- 

 plain himself if he would, and would not if he could ; for he is a shy 

 person, imbued with the notion that certain things are not to be 

 talked of to strangers. Some learned anthropologists have never 

 seen a savage, and would be much alarmed if they met one ; others 

 have travelled in barbarous countries, but have failed to master the 

 very complicated native languages, which are not the same in any 

 two tribes. There have been instances when the natives have 

 wilfully made game of the investigator, whose motives for inquiring 

 they cannot be expected to understand. 



Consciously or unconsciously the champions of the historical 



