SOCIAL EVOLUTION 87 



we find, deep down in the stratum, the arts of augery, of divination, of 

 fortune telling. In these, I suspect, we discover the earliest religious 

 ideas and practises, as distinguished from religious feeling or faith. 

 Before man thought of fooling, or tricking, or bribing, or importuning 

 the powers that control his fate, he tried simply to find out what they 

 were likely to do to him. He tried to learn whether and how far he was 

 safe, to foresee his fate. 



It has been in view of such considerations as these, and especially 

 because of the strong probability that religion was impersonal before 

 it became animistic, that I have thought it legitimate to identify re- 

 ligion in its ultimate essence or principle, with that elementary and 

 primordial faith in the possibilities of life which springs from success 

 in the struggle for existence. 



Collective economic effort takes at first the form of a group ex- 

 ploitation of various natural sources of subsistence. Each horde be- 

 comes identified with a particular region or hunting-ground, and some- 

 times with a particular kind of food. The notion arises that the 

 human group and its food, plant or animal, had a common origin and 

 are now kindred. Magic is developed as the means relied on to pre- 

 serve and to increase the food supply. This idea and resulting practise 

 constitute totemism, which differentiates primitive communities into 

 economic groups and into kinship divisions. 



Within each group, the adaptation of individuals to prevailing life 

 conditions is furthered by the folkways, imposing upon every person a 

 common morality, and, through initiation ceremonies, or other formid- 

 able disciplines, developing in him some power of self-control. From 

 experiences of discipline received and imparted, and of self-mastery, 

 springs a crude theory of personal power or agency. Here, probably, 

 is the true origin of animism as a theory of causation, and from this 

 point religion tends to become animistic. 



The ever-recurring conflicts between group and group call forth 

 leadership, establish the simpler forms of personal government and 

 mark out the elementary social distinctions. It is now that ideas of 

 spirits separable from material bodies, and, as ghosts surviving bodily 

 death, begin to take shape. Eeligion becomes spiritistic. The habit 

 of making obeisance to the powerful or the clever, and of propitiating 

 them, which has grown up step by step with leadership and personal 

 government, is transferred to the realm of shades. Ghosts must be 

 looked after and prayed to, or they might do mischief. Eemembered, 

 fed and honored, the kindred ghosts of a community are friendly, pro- 

 tecting powers. Eeligion becomes the bond of the living with the dead. 



Through all these struggles, adaptations and adjustments, the fit that 

 survive become in a degree socialized, and in the degree that they become 

 social they become better assured of further survival. By the integra- 

 tion of small hordes of kindred into tribes, and the combination of 



