302 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



ligion may approximate to the truth, such reality and 

 approximation are not the subjects of the present discus- 

 sion. Nor is it our purpose to bring out more explicitly 

 the genetic relationship of one religion to another ; the 

 evolution of Buddhism from Brahmanism, the origin 

 of Christianity from Judaism, and the divergent de- 

 velopment of the several creeds of Christendom amply 

 illustrate the nature of religious history. It is evolu- 

 tion here as elsewhere and everywhere. 



Having distinguished the three general elements of all 

 religions, beyond which everything else is of minor impor- 

 tance, we now turn to the question as to the natural origin 

 of these elements. Clearly they cannot arise independ- 

 ently, for the belief in supernatural and eternal spirits is 

 closely connected with the conception of an immortal soul. 



The first is the conception of infinite personalities that 

 later become more or less merged into one supreme being. 

 This begins with the idea of the soul as the human ego, 

 conventionally regarded as something independent of 

 the material body during life and immortal after death. 

 The savage goes to sleep, and in his dreams he goes 

 upon journeys and battles strenuously with other men 

 and with beasts, only to find when he awakes that his 

 body is not fatigued, and that it has not really taken 

 part in the activities of his dream life. His companions 

 about the fire also tell him that this is so, while he is 

 equally sure that his essential self has been doing many 

 things during the interval of sleep. In his dream life he 

 finds himself joined by others whom he knows are dead. 

 He sees again even those whose bodies he may have as- 



