498 Darwinism and the Study of Religions 
when was religion revealed or what was the revelation, but how 
did religious phenomena arise and develop. For an answer to this 
we turn with new and reverent eyes to study “the heathen in his 
blindness” and the child “born in sin.” We still indeed send out 
missionaries to convert the heathen, but here at least in Cambridge 
before they start they attend lectures on anthropology and com- 
parative religion. The “decadence” theory is dead and should be 
buried. 
The study of primitive religions then has been made possible and 
even inevitable by the theory of Evolution. We have now to ask 
what new facts and theories have resulted from that study. This 
brings us to our second point, the advanced outlook on religion 
to-day. 
The view I am about to state is no mere personal opinion of my 
own. To my present standpoint I have been led by the investi- 
gations of such masters as Drs Wundt, Lehmann, Preuss, Bergsen, 
Beck and in our own country Drs Tylor and Frazer’. 
Religion always contains two factors. First, a theoretical factor, 
what a man thinks about the unseen—his theology, or, if we prefer so 
to call it, his mythology. Second, what he does in relation to this 
unseen—his ritual. These factors rarely if ever occur in complete 
separation; they are blended in very varying proportions. Religion 
we have seen was in the last century regarded mainly in its theoretical 
aspect as a doctrine. Greek religion for example meant to most 
educated persons Greek mythology. Yet even a cursory examination 
shows that neither Greek nor Roman had any creed or dogma, any 
hard and fast formulation of belief. In the Greek Mysteries* only 
we find what we should call a Conjfiteor; and this is not a confession 
of faith, but an avowal of rites performed. When the religion of 
primitive peoples came to be examined it was speedily seen that 
though vague beliefs necessarily abound, definite creeds are practi- 
cally non-existent. Ritual is dominant and imperative. 
This predominance and priority of ritual over definite creed was 
first forced upon our notice by the study of savages, but it promptly 
and happily joined hands with modern psychology. Popular belief 
says, I think, therefore I act; modern scientific psychology says, 
1 Tcan only name here the books that have specially influenced my own views. They 
are W. Wundt, Vélkerpsychologie, Leipzig, 1900. P. Beck, ‘‘Die Nachahmung,” Leipzig, 
1904, and ‘‘Erkenntnisstheorie des primitiven Denkens” in Zeitschrift f. Philos, und 
Philos. Kritik, 1903, p. 172, and 1904, p.9. Henri Bergson, L’Evolution Créatrice and 
Matiare et Mémoire, 1908. K. Th. Preuss, various articles published in the Globus (see 
p. 507, note 1), and in the Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, and for the subject of magic, 
MM. Hubert et Mauss, “‘ Théorie générale de la Magie,”’ in L’ Année Sociologique, v1. 
2 See my Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 155, Cambridge, 1903. 
