The Religious Sentiment

63

First Principles, pp. 108, 127.

64

Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., p. 690.

65

Professor Steinthal in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie.

66

Dr. W. Windelband, Die Erkenntnissiehre unter dem voelkerpsychologischem Gesichtspunkte, in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, 1874, Bd. VIII. S. 165 sqq.

67

I would ask the reader willing to pursue this reasoning further, to peruse the charming essay of Oersted, entitled Das ganze Dasein Ein Vernunftreich.

68

Geo. Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, p. 407.

69

Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 112. Spinoza’s famous proposition, previously quoted, Unaquæque res quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur, (Ethices, Pars III., Prop. VI.,) expresses also the ultimate of modern investigation. A recent critic considers it is a fallacy because the conatus “surreptitiously implies a sense of effort or struggle for existence,” whereas the logical concept of a res does not involve effort (S. N. Hodgson, The Theory of Practice, vol. I. pp. 134-6, London, 1870.) The answer is that identity implies continuance. In organic life we have the fact of nutrition, a function whose duty is to supply waste, and hence offer direct opposition to perturbing forces.

70

Geo. Boole, The Laws of Thought, p. 419.

71

Kant, The Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 23 (Eng. Trans. London, 1869.)

72

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Voelker, Bd. I. s. 291.

73

See this distinction between physical and thought laws fully set forth by Prof. Boole in the appendix to The Laws of Thought, and by Dr. Windelband, Zeitschrift für Voelkerpsychologie, Bd. VIII., s. 165 sqq.

74

Geo. Boole, u. s. p. 399.

75

“Der Glaube aller geschichtlichen Religionen geht aus von dieser Annahme einer sittlichen, in Gott bewusst lebenden, Weltordnung, wonach das Gute das allein Wahre ist, and das Wahre das allein Gute.” Gott in der Geschichte, Bd. I. s. xl. Leipzig, 1857.

76

Geo. Boole, Laws of Thought, p. 410.

77

The latest researches in natural science confirm the expressions of W. von Humboldt: “Das Streben der Natur ist auf etwas Unbeschränktes gerichtet.” “Die Natur mit endlichen Mitteln unendliche Zwecke verfolgt.” Ueber den Geschlechtsunterschied, etc.

78

Wilhelm von Humboldt, Sonnette, “Höchste Gerechtigkeit.”

79

Isaiah, xlv. 7; xlvi. 10.

80

Khordah – avesta, Ormazd – Yasht, 38, and Yaçna, 42.

81

The Koran, Suras lxxxvii., xlvi.

82

The “silent worship” of the Quakers is defended by the writers of that sect, on the ground that prayer is “often very imperfectly performed and sometimes materially interrupted by the use of words.” Joseph John Gurney, The Distinguishing Views and Practice of the Society of Friends, p. 300. (London, 1834.)

83

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, Bd. I., s. 162.

84

The learned Bishop Butler, author of the Analogy of Religion, justly gives prominence to “our expectation of future benefits,” as a reason for gratitude to God. Sermons, p. 155. (London, 1841.)

85

The expressions of Confucius’ religious views may be found in The Doctrine of the Mean, chaps. xiii., xvi., the Analects, i., 99, 100, vii., and in a few other passages of the canonical books.

86

An Inquiry into the Theory of Practice, p. 330.

87

Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker. Bd. I., ss. 165, sqq. One of the most favorable examples (not mentioned by Creuzer) is the formula with which Apollonius of Tyana closed every prayer and gave as the summary of all: “Give me, ye Gods, what I deserve” – Δοιητε μοι τα οφειλομενα. The Christian’s comment on this would be in the words of Hamlet’s reply to Polonius: “God’s bodkin, man! use every man after his desert and who should ’scape whipping?”

88

Aurelii Augustini, De Dono Perseverantiæ, cap. xx. Comte remarks “Depuis St. Augustin toutes les âmes pures ont de plus en plus senti, à travers l’égoisme Chrétien, que prier peut n’être pas demander.” Système de Politique Positive, I., p. 260. Popular Protestantism has retrograded in this respect.

89

Plath, Die Religion und Cultus der alten Chineser, s. 836. This author observes that the Chinese prayers are confined to temporal benefits only, and are all either prayers of petition or gratitude. Prayers of contrition are unknown.

90

Numerous examples can be found in medical text books, for instance in Dr. Tuke’s, The Influence of the Mind on the Body. London, 1873.

91

The commission appointed by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium on Louise Lateau reported in March, 1875, and most of the medical periodicals of that year contain abstracts of its paper.

92

They may be found in the life of Pascal, written by his sister, and in many other works of the time.

93

It is worthy of note, as an exponent of the condition of religious thought in 1875, that in May of that year the Governor of the State of Missouri appointed by official proclamation a day of prayer to check the advance of the grasshoppers. He should also have requested the clergy to pronounce the ban of the Church against them, as the Bishop of Rheims did in the ninth century.

94

Tyndall, On Prayer and Natural Law, 1872.

95

S. M. Hodgson, An Inquiry into the Theory of Practice, pp. 329, 330.

96

The Rev. Dr. Thomas K. Conrad, Thoughts on Prayer, p. 54: New York, 1875.

97

I. John, v. 15. “There are millions of prayers,” says Richard Baxter, “that will all be found answered at death and judgment, which we know not to be answered any way but by believing it.” A Christian Directory, Part II. chap. xxiii.

98

“So wie das Gebet ein Hauptwurzel alter Lehre war, so war das Deuten und Offenbaren ihre ursprüngliche Form.” Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, Bd. I., s. 10. It were more accurate to say that divination is the answer to, rather than a form of prayer.

99

Joseph John Gurney, The Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, pp. 58, 59, 76, 78. An easy consequence of this view was to place the decrees of the internal monitor above the written word. This was advocated mainly by Elias Hicks, who expressed his doctrine in the words: “As no spring can rise higher than its fountain, so likewise the Scriptures can only direct to the fountain whence they originated – the Spirit of Truth.” Letters of Elias Hicks, p. 228 (Phila., 1861).

100

Address to the Clergy, p. 67.

101

See an intelligent note on this subject in the Rev. Wm. Lee’s work, entitled The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, pp. 44, 47 (London and New York, 1857).

102

Rev. William Lee, u. s., p. 243.

103

Blunt, Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, s. v.

104

There is a carefully written essay on the views of the Romish Church on this subject, preceding The Revelations of Saint Brigida (N. Y. 1875).

105

Chusco or Catherine Wabose, “the prophetess of Chegoimegon,” has left a full and psychologically most valuable account of her inspiration. It is published in Schoolcraft’s History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes, Vol. I., p. 390, sqq.

106

The Koran, Sura liii. This is in date one of the earliest suras.

107

The Journal of George Fox, pp. 59, 67, 69.

108

Wilhelm von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. iv., s. 278.

109

In his treatise De Veritate, itself the subject, as its author thought, of a special revelation, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, gives as one of the earmarks of a real revelation: “ut afflatum Divini numinis sentias, ita enim internæ Facultatum circa veritatem operationes a revelationibus externis distinguuntur.” p. 226.

110

Spinoza, Espistolæ et Responsionnes, Ep. xxxiv.

111

In this definition the word apperception is used in the sense assigned it by Professor Lazarus – the perception modified by imagination and memory. “Mythologie ist eine Apperceptionsform der Natur und des Menschen.” (Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Bd. i., s. 44). Most recent mythologists omit the latter branch of the definition; for instance, “A myth is in its origin an explanation by the uncivilized mind of some natural phenomenon.” (John Fiske, Myths and Myth Makers, p. 21). This is to omit that which gives the myth its only claim to be a product of the religious sentiment. Schopenhauer, in calling dogmas and myths “the metaphysics of the people,” fell into the same error. Religion, as such, is always concrete.

112

Half a century ago the learned Mr. Faber, in his Origin of Pagan Idolatry, expressed his astonishment at “the singular, minute and regular accordance” between the classical myths. That accordance has now been discovered to be world-wide.

113

“Ganz gleiche Mythen können sehr füglich, jede selbstständig, an verschiedenen Oerter emporkommen.” Briefe an Woelcker.

114

The last two are the modern orthodox theories, supported by Bryant, Faber, Trench, De Maistre and Sepp. Medieval Christianity preferred the direct agency of the Devil. Primitive Christianity leaned to the opinion that the Grecian and Roman myth makers had stolen from the sacred writings of the Jews.

115

Sir Wm. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics. Appendix, p. 691.

116

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, Bd. ii., s. 107.

117

Th. Nöldeke, Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, Bd. iii., s. 131.

118

See a note of Prof. Spiegel to Yaçna, 29, of the Khordah-Avesta.

119

Ἡ υγρα φυσις αρχη και γενεσις παντων.

Plutarch, De Iside.

According to the Koran and the Jewish Rabbis, the throne of God rested on the primeval waters from which the earth was produced. See a note in Rodwell’s translation of the Koran, Sura. xi.

120

I have discussed some of these myths in the seventh chapter of the Myths of the New World.

121

How it troubled the early Christians who dared not adopt the refuge of the Epochs of Nature, may be seen in the Confessions of St. Augustine, Lib. XI, cap. 10, et seq. He quotes the reply of one pushed by the inquiry, what God was doing before creation: “He was making a hell for inquisitive busy-bodies.” Alta spectantibus gehennas parabat.

122

Many interesting references to the Oriental flood-myth may be found in Cory’s Ancient Fragments. See also, Dr. Fr. Windischmann, Die Ursagen der Arischen Völker, pp. 4-10. It is probable that in very ancient Semitic tradition Adam was represented as the survivor of a flood anterior to that of Noah. Maimonides relates that the Sabians believed the world to be eternal, and called Adam “the Prophet of the Moon,” which symbolized, as we know from other sources, the deity of water. Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, More Nevochim, cap. iv. In early Christian symbolism Christ was called “the true Noah”; the dove accompanied him also, and as through Noah came “salvation by wood and water,” so through Christ came “salvation by spirit and water.” (See St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lectures, Lect. xvii., cap. 10). The fish (ιχθυς) was the symbol of Christ as well as of Oannes. As the second coming of Christ was to be the destruction of the world, how plainly appear the germs of the myth of the Epochs of Nature in the Judæo-Christian mind!

123

Besides the expressions in the Book of Ecclesiastes and the later prophets, the doctrine is distinctly announced in one of the most sublime of the Psalms (xc), one attributed to “Moses the Man of God.”

124

Malachi, ch. iv., v. 2.

125

C. F. Koppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie, s. 28.

126

Odainsakr, ô privative, dain death, akr land, “the land of immortal life.” Saxo Grammaticus speaks of it also. Another such land faintly referred to in the Edda is Breidablick, governed by Baldur, the Light-god.

127

C. F. Koppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche, p. 17.

128

John Stuart Mill, Theism, p. 256.

129

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, Bd. II., s. 47

130

This is the first line of Yaçna, 42, of the Khordah-Avesta. The Parsees believe that it is the salutation which meets the soul of the good on entering the next world.

131

“Sight is the light sense. Through it we become acquainted with universal relations, this being reason. Without the eye there would be no reason.” Lorenz Oken, Elements of Physio-Philosophy, p. 475.

132

History of Philosophy, Vol. II. p. 638 (4th ed.)

133

“The intolerance of almost all religions which have maintained the unity of God, is as remarkable as the contrary principle in polytheism.” Hume, Nat. Hist. of Religion, Sec. ix.

134

“The Lamas emphatically maintain monotheism to be the real character of Buddhism.” Emil Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 108.

135

No one has seen the error here pointed out, and its injurious results on thought, more clearly than Comte himself. He is emphatic in condemning “le tendance involontaire à constituer l’unité spéculative par l’ascendant universel des plus grossières contemplations numérique, geométrique ou mécaniques.” Systême de Politique Positive; Tome I., p. 51. But he was too biassed to apply this warning to Christian thought. The conception of the Universe in the logic of Professor De Morgan and Boole is an example of speculative unity.

136

Bhagavad Gità, ch. iv.

137

See the introduction by Mr. J. W. Etheridge to The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel (London, 1862). St. Augustine believed the trinity is referred to in the opening verses of Genesis. Confessiones, Lib. xiii. cap. 5. The early Christian writer, Theophilus of Antioch (circa 225), in his Apologia, recognizes the Jewish trinity only. It was a century later that the dogma was defined in its Athanasian form. See further, Isaac Preston Cory, Ancient Fragments, with an Inquiry into the Trinity of the Gentiles (London, 1832).

138

The Unseen Universe, p. 194.

139

“A good will is the only altogether good thing in the world.” —Kant. “What man conceives in himself is always superior to that reality which it precedes and prepares.” —Comte.

140

In his chapter Ideen zu einer Physik des Symbols und des Mythus, of his Symbolik und Mythologie.

141

Dr. H. C. Barlow’s Essays on Symbolism (London, 1866), deserves mention as one of the best of these.

142

W. S. Jevons, The Substitution of Similars, p. 15 (London, 1869.)

143

Creuzer, Symbolik, Bd. I, s. 59.

144

Ursprung der Mythologie (Berlin, 1862).

145

Harrison Allen, M. D., The Life Form in Art, Phila. 1874.

146

Cussans, Grammar of Heraldry, p. 16.

147

Numerous examples from classical antiquity are given by Creuzer, Symbolik, Bd. i. s. 114. sqq.

148

W. von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. iv., s. 332.

149

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, Bd. i., s. 282.

150

Carl Frederick Koppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie and Kirche, ss. 59, 60, 61.

151

Adolph Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 232 (Leipzig, 1874).

152

“Es ist so gewissermassen in allen ernsten orientalischen Lehren das Christenthum in seinem Keime vorgebildet.” Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker, Bd. i., s. 297.

153

In a conversation reported by Mr. John Morley, John Stuart Mill expressed his belief that “the coming modification of religion” will be controlled largely through men becoming “more and more impressed with the awful fact that a piece of conduct to-day may prove a curse to men and women scores and even hundreds of years after the author of it is dead.”

154

Essay on the use of Anthropomorphism. Mr. Spencer’s argument, in his own words, is this: – “From the inability under which we labor to conceive of a Deity save as some idealization of ourselves, it inevitably results that in each age, among each people, and to a great extent in each individual, there must arise just that conception of Deity best adapted to the needs of the case.” “All are good for their times and places.” “All were beneficent in their effects on those who held them.” It would be hard to quote from the records of theory-making an example of more complete indifference to acknowledged facts than these quotations set forth.

155

De Veritate, p. 216.

156

August Neander, Geschichte der Christlichen Religion und Kirche, Bd. i., ss. 160, 346. (Gotha, 1856.) St. Clement’s description of Christ is Τον οψιν αισχρον. Tertullian says: “Nec humanæ honestatis corpus fuit, nedum celestis claritatis.”

157

Novalis, Schriften, B. i., s. 244.

158

A. Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 607.

159

Dr. T. Laycock, On some Organic Laws of Memory, in the Journal of Mental Science, July, 1875, p. 178.

160

Speaking of the mission of the artist, Wilhelm von Humboldt says: “Die ganze Natur, treu und vollständig beobachtet, mit sich hinüber zu tragen, d. h. den Stoff seiner Erfahrungen dem Umfange der Welt gleich zu machen, diese ungeheure Masse einzelner und abgerissener Erscheinungen in eine l’ungetrennte Einheit und ein organisirtes Ganzes zu verwandeln; und dies durch alle die Organe zu thun, die ihm hierzu verliehen sind, – ist das letzte Ziel seines intellectuellen Bemühen.” Ueber Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea, Ab. IV.

161

Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, B. I. s. 48.

162

Gesammelte Werke. Bd. VII., s. 63.

163

See this forcibly brought out and abundantly illustrated in the work of M. Coulange, La Cité Antique.

164

W. von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke. Bd. VII., p. 72.

165

H. L. Liddon, Canon of St. Paul’s. Some Elements of Religion, p. 84.

166

The Chevalier Bunsen completed the moral estimate of the one-man-power, thus acknowledged by Machiavelli, in these words: “Alles Grosse geht aus vom Einzelnen, aber nur in dem Masse, als dieser das Ich dem Ganzen opfert.” Gott in der Geschichte, Bd. I., s. 38.

167

W. von Humboldt, Ideen zu einem Vorsuch, die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen, Breslau, 1851. Auguste Comte, Système de Politique Positive, Paris, 1851-4. The former was written many years before its publication.

168

Lectures on Metaphysics, Vol. I., p. 23.

169

The Koran, Suras xi., xvi.

170

The Myths of the New World, Chap. IX.

171

Jacob Grimm quite overlooked this important element in the religion of the ancient Germans. It is ably set forth by Adolf Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, s. 196 sqq. (Leipzig, 1874).

172

The seemingly heartless reply he made to one of his disciples, who asked permission to perform the funeral rites at his father’s grave: “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead,” is an obvious condemnation of one of the most widespread superstitions of the ancient world. So, according to an ingenious suggestion of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was the fifth commandment of Moses: “Ne parentum seriem tanquam primam aliquam causam suspicerent homines, et proinde cultum aliquem Divinum illis deferrent, qualem ex honore parentum sperare liceat benedictionem, docuit.” De Veritate, p. 231.

Herbert Spencer in his Essay on the Origin of Animal Worship, calls ancestral worship “the universal first form of religious belief.” This is very far from correct, but it is easy to see how a hasty thinker would be led into the error by the prominence of the ancient funereal ceremonies.

173

Dhammapada, 21.

174

La Vie Eternelle, p. 339.

175

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I., ch. XV.

176

Address to the Clergy, p. 16.

177

“Toute religion, qu’on se permet de défendre comme une croyance qu’il est utile de laisser au peuple, ne peut plus espérer qu’une agonie plus ou moins prolongée.” Condorcet, De l’Esprit Humain, Ep. V.

178

Romans, ch. ix., v. 3.

179

“Beata quippe vita est gaudium de veritate.” Augustini Confessionum, Lib. x., caps. xxii., xxiii.

180

“Prudens amator non tam donum amantis considerat, quam dantis amorem. Nobilis amator non quiescit in dono, sed in me super omne donum.” De Imitatione Christi, Lib. iii., cap. vi.

181

Fifteen Sermons by Joseph Butler, Lord Bishop of Durham. Sermon “On the love of God.”

182

Unterhaltungen, p. 131.