The social evolution of religion

Front matter

VBoaaancaooi

Social

VOii i oi Religion

Preface

IN this volume have been stated the final results of fifty years devoted to the study of religion in its varied manifestations. Accepting for many years the generally accredited interpretations of Christianity, I have gradually diverged from them as the result of a growing interest in anthropology, ethnology, psycholog}^, and comparative religion.

These chapters were originally read to a small group of persons meeting in a private parlor in Boston, under the auspices of the local branch of The Free Religious Association of America. Not all which was written was read at any of these meetings, but often many pages were omitted in order that the lecture might be followed by questions and discussions.

The lectures have been carefully corrected, many pages excised, many more pages added, and the whole rewritten and thoroughly revised.

My friend, John Haynes Holmes, minister of the Community Church in the city of New York, has read the whole of the manuscript, given me the benefit of his suggestions and corrections, and written the foreword, which states briefly and pertinently that at which I have aimed in my book.

G. W. C.

Religion as Cosmic and Human Motive

Appendix to Chapter I

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Vll

THE changes which took place during the nineteenth century in man's understanding of the world, and of himself as a denizen of this world, were undoubtedly the most remarkable in the annals of human history. They were nothing short of revolutionary in every department of knowledge. Old ideas went, and new ideas came, with a rapidity which was bewildering. Scientific and philosophic dogmas, long accepted as fundamental, were suddenly seen to be little better than myths ; and speculations, at first regarded as phantasmal as they were degrading, were demonstrated to be true with a terrible finality. What was begun centuries before, in the so-called "Revival of Learning", was now carried through to heights of vision and depths of inquiry, which would have amazed the original innovators of that great period. Observation, investigation and experimentation — ceaseless accumulation of data, and daring hypothetical generalization upon the basis of this data — insistence upon facts and humble surrender to the leading of facts — in one word, the emancipated intellect, equipped with the modern scientific methods of inquiry, suddenly "made all things new." The world as it was, straightway took the place of the world as men had imagined, or wanted, it to be. With the result that, in the space of a single generation, so to speak, the whole volume of human knowledge was written anew, with indefinite extensions and marvelous transformations of material ! In no one department of inquiry, perhaps, was this change more remarkable — certainly, in none more startling — than in that of religion. A score of separate influences worked more

ix i i or less unconsciously together to shake down, as Samson the temple of the Philistines, the venerated structure of what was almost universally accepted as divine revelation. The higher criticism of the Bible, the new investigations of church history and the life of Jesus, the study of comparative religion, the disclosures of archeological research, the facts of anthropology, sociology, psychology, all combined to shatter every accepted doctrine of the origin, development and significance of religion, and to present anew the whole problem of this strange phenomenon in the life of man. One has only to name a few of the classic books of this period — Wellhausen 's ' ' History of Israel ' ', Strauss 's ''Life of Jesus", Frazer's "Golden Bough", Tylor's Primitive Culture", Sir Henry Maine's ''Ancient Law" and Early History of Institutions", Spencer ^s "Principles of Psychology" and "Principles of Sociology", Max Miiller's "Sacred Books of the East", Fiske's "Cosmic Philosophy" — to see something of the range of the influences which were at work, and the fundamental character of the results which they were achieving. Religion, as man had known it for nineteen hundred years, was now become a myth. The fact, as contrasted with the myth, was now being disclosed — slowly, imperfectly, with infinite labor and patience, much as a buried temple or tomb is disclosed by the excavator's spade — but with the certainty that in due season the revelation would be complete.

It is only in this, our time, that the permanent significance of these years of research in the field of religion is becoming apparent. Data gathered in a dozen different laboratories, have long been familiar. Only recently has it become possible to synthesize and generalize, and thus to present, with some degree of wholeness, the new picture of religion as a reality of human experience. What this picture is, may be variously described. But it is probable that we come nearest to the truth, and most vividly set forth the nature of the change from old conceptions to new, when we say that we see religion to-day as a human // product rather than as a divine revelation. Religion, evolved from below, instead of imparted from above, is the transformation which modern investigation has worked.

In former days, it was believed that Christianity was a direct, perfect and final inspiration from God. In the old dispensation, Moses had received from the hands of Jehovah the two tables of the law. In the new dispensation, Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father, had descended straight out of heaven, to bring salvation unto men. From this standpoint, Christianity was the ©ne true religion. It stood, like Sinai in the desert, a single mountain, on which man could climb to, and at last meet with, God.

The discovery and sympathetic study of other great religions — Confucianism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Mohammedanism — changed all this. It was seen that these other reli- ^ gions had claims to divine origin identical with those of Christianity. It was recognized that the theology and ethics of these religions were not altogether dissimilar to those associated with the prophets of Israel and the apostles of Christ. It was as though the single mountain peak were become a range of summits, each one of which touched heaven, and shone with the radiance of divine splendor.

Then came the discovery that behind these great religions were long periods of psychological and social development. The prophets were not isolated figures, but children of their time and race. The sacred literatures were not words from heaven, ' out myth, folk-lore, legend, redolent of the soil of eartli and of the heart of man. These mountains, after all, did not meet the sky. Climb their slopes — and it was the substance of the level plains from which they rose, that met your feet. Stand

xi upon their summits — and you touched beneath, the granite frame-work of the planet, while above, and far beyond, the heavens still escaped you. The significant thing about these peaks, after all, was that they were rooted in earth, and thus a part of the native structure of the globe. On them, you breathed a clearer air; from them, you saw a wider horizon. But the revelation was from below upward, and not from above ^ downward. The origins of religion, in other words, were human, ^ not divine.

There are various lines of approach to this great truth* — various departments of knowledge which contribute data in demonstration of the thesis. Archeology is one. The study of sacred literatures, with their common background of mythology, is another. Psychology presents a fertile field of inquiry, as see Starbuck's "Psychology of Religion", and Professor James's great work on "Varieties of Religious Experience." All these, however, must yield precedence to sociology. The hidden tomb, the parchment manuscript, the confession of the individual soul, are all important. But not until we study the race, look upon man as a member of a group, follow step by step the evolution of society, do we come to the heart of the problem. Then, as if by magic, religion takes its place as a product of social experience, a form of social organization, an expression of social need. Sociology, as Herbert Spencer long ago discovered, holds the key to the age-old mystery of God.

It is this social approach to the problem which characterizes this book by George Willis Cooke. Here are presented the human origins of religion in terms of the social history of the race. Two factors combine to make this a work not only of intense interest to the student, but of first-rate importance to the average reader.

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On the one hand, we have in this volume an exhaustive and accurate presentation of the entire field of modern study of religion. The sociological aspect of the problem holds first place throughout, as of preeminent importance ; but other aspects are not neglected. What the mind of man has accomplished in this field in the last one hundred years, is surveyed and summarized. We have here a rich accumulation of first-hand material, a testing of the worth of this material as evidence by the best standards of modern scholarship, and a judicious and unbiased presentation of the conclusions to which this evidence leads us. The book is the fruit of a life-time of patient and exhaustive inquiry. It accomplishes to no small degree in the sociological field, what James accomplished so superbly in the psychological field in his ''Varieties of Religious Experience." Furthermore, it serves to correct the dangerous one-sidedness of that unique masterpiece.

Secondly, this book is important for its study of what the discovery of the human origins of religion is going to mean to religion in the future. Here the author turns from a study of the facts of yesterday to a study of the prospects of tomorrow. That the result is revolutionary, is stating the truth mildly. The thought of God, the function of worship and prayer, the hope of immortality, the place of the church in social life — all these are cast, as it were, into the melting pot. And out of it, ' is seen to come a religion as different from that of the older time as the new world which is destined to emerge out of the Great War, is different from the world before the war. Chapter VIII is perhaps the most important, as it is certainly the most interesting, in the book. ]\Ir. Cooke is prophet quite as much as scholar, and it is not too much to surmise that, for this final chapter of forecast, tlie rest of the book was written.

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It has been my happy privilege to read this work in manuscript, and discuss it with its author. I have been instructed and inspired by this experience. It is a pleasure to take advantage of the opportunity granted me by Mr. Cooke, to commend the book to that wide circle of readers which it is sure to find.

John Haynes Holmes.

New York City.

XIV

THE universality of religion is a generally accepted fact. The statement has been often made that certain bands or tribes were without any religious practice or belief; but it has been shown that this conclusion is a mistaken one. An acquaintance with the language of a people, and an intimate knowledge of its customs and institutions, is essential to a true understanding of its religious life and practices. When such knowledge has been secured, it has been discovered that the religionless people has not only a religion, but it may be much given to the exercise of religious rites and ceremonies.

Religion takes the widest possible range of expression, and in its earlier manifestations is not to be judged by the intellectual demands of the higher civilizations. The religion of primitive peoples is almost invariably expressed in rituals and cults, that is, in something done, and not in something believed. It may be truthfully said that such peoples have no beliefs as such, no purely intellectual or philosophical interpretation of life and its experiences. They dance or sing or act their religion ; and they give it expression in festivals, ceremonials, and rituals.

The religion of the primitive or undeveloped peoples is emotional and not intellectual, poetical and not scientific. Wherever we find such a people and its religion, whether in the present or in a more or less remote past, we may discover, if we give close attention to the facts presented before us, that the attitude manifested is one of feeling and not one of reason. Such peoples do not deal with principles but with persons, not with idea."s but with activities.

XV

Since organic life and humanity have had a definite beginning, it must be supposed that religion also began at some remote period in the history of mankind. "We do not know under what conditions or at what stage in human evolution it took its rise. Perhaps we may be justified in assuming that religion originated with man, and that it has been in existence ever since man became truly man. Indications of awe, reverence, and other emotional attitudes toward the environing world, have been attributed to animals; and it is therefore probable religion began with the beginnings of human experience. This means that religion had a most lowly origin and that it was at first an attitude rather than a reality, an emotion finding com-V munal expression.

It must be recognized that all the evidence is in favor of the conclusion that the earliest manifestations of religion were those of a group, and not those of individuals. The child does not know himself as an individual for the first two or three years of his life ; and, in fact, he does not attain full consciousness of self, with capacity to assert his right to a separate intellectual existence, until he reaches the age of puberty. In the same way, primitive man may be an individual from the first, but the attaining of personality comes only at a comparatively late period, as one of the results of the evolution of civilization. The primitive man and woman are members of a group, and they live its life without recognition of an existence other than it can give them. Its life is their life, its emotions their emotions, its religion their religion. They have not the mental capacity for separating themselves in any manner from its rituals and its myths, its customs and its tabus; and they have no wish to do so. In fact, they are quite incapable of seeing the group life and the group religion in perspective or

Xvi of giving them an objective interpretation. In large degree the group life is coterminous with the individual life, and the individual emotion is emphatically that of the group. The evidence makes it quite certain that the individual of the primitive group recognizes himself only in his communal relations, and in these relations he realizes the whole of his being.

Because man begins his life as a member of a group, and, under the environing conditions of the earliest periods of his existence, could have survived in no other manner, we have a reason why from the first he was religious, that is, conceived of the environing world emotionally. That world, be it understood, was not the universe kno^^^l to us ; but simply and merely the group to which he belonged, and its immediate environing world. In that, and by means of that, all life, and all nature, were known to him. The circle of the world was the circle of the group. All outside the group, whether of the world that gave food and shelter, and contact with plants and animals, or inside of the world experienced in the relations of sex and childhood, and rituals which expressed the emotional content of the group life, was interpreted in terms of the group life and its demands as a group. In this communal existence the primitive man found the whole of his experience and the manner of his interpretation of every phase of the world around him.

In the fact that religion began as an expression of the group life, and as an emotional manifestation of its experiences, we may find reason for asserting that fundamentally all religions are the same, and answer to the same demands of man's nature. Although it is true that the more developed religions began at a period remote from the conditions under which all the primitive religions had their origin, yet none of them but were influenced by tliose traditions or survivals which came from the earliest period. All religion is essentially communal or social,

xvii the expression of what belongs primarily to the community and , not to the individual. The emotional nature of religion gives unity to all its varied manifestations. Human nature, in its primary qualities, is the same wherever found, in whatever religion or period; and therefore this expression of it that we call religion answers everywhere to the same needs, to the same sense of wonder and awe, to the same demand for the interpretation of life and death. No beliefs or practices of the most advanced religions but have their correlates in the more primitive practices and rituals of the communal or group religions. Religion, wherever manifest, answers to the same human demands; and it reaches the responding satisfaction by quite similar methods and to the same primary ends.

Any genuine study of religion, in its universal manifestations, demands sympathy and mental responsiveness to what is best in its several expressions, whether crude or advanced. This may require some degree of aloofness from all that is dogmatic and authoritative in any one religion. He who regards. Buddhism or Christianity or Islam as final, as the one only^ religion which is true and revealed or as having any absolute value for those who accept it, is not in a position to appreciate other manifestations of religion at their true social significance. It is for this reason that an attitude of unconcern about the^/ dogmatic values of any religion, as relates to individual destiny, appears to be essential to a wise and just appreciation of the ' several phases through which religion has passed from the period of the earliest man to its latest manifestations in our own day. No demand is made upon the individual that he shall discard all religion, or that he shall turn aside from that into which he was inducted in childhood; but that he shall become undogmatic, appreciative of all that is human, and willing to consider \i sympathetically whatever ritual or creed has meaning for the

xviii life of another community than his own. Whatever gives meaning and purpose and joy to the life of any individual may be regarded with respect, and should be studied, if studied at all, with sympathy and appreciation.

The contention here set forth is, that all religions are true y to those who accept them as true, and to the extent to which they give meaning to the life of the group or the individual. Even the very crudest religions, those of the peoples the least developed, show forth qualities that serve a noble human purpose. Even such religions make men and women better and wiser in their relations to life and to one another. All religions have their heroes and their saints, and the good may be found wherever man exists. If any one religion developed the best life in all its followers, we need not hesitate to accept it as preferable to all others ; but when we find the highest type of conduct in the most primitive groups and under the crude conditions of life they present and all the way up through every religion to the most developed in other respects, we may conclude that no ritual or creed is final. We need but look about us to see that Christianity has no monopoly of virtue in its followers, and that it cannot make better men and women than are to be found developed by Buddhism and Mohammedanism. A noble life ^ must be regarded as the true test for any and every religion; and noble lives are to be found throughout the world, in all communities and under all religions. If we accept this test, we must say that all religions are true as to the results they produce. It must also be said that all are false or imperfect, in so far as they fail to make sure of the good life for all who accept them. Even the most highly developed religions fail to realize their ideals, their standards of conduct, in the lives of all who receive their rituals and their creeds.

xix

In recognizing these defects in the more advanced religions, we must not forget that all of them are shot through and through with survivals from the past, even from a very remote period in human history. Religion is a development, has had a very prolonged evolution, shows everywhere the results of its continuous advancement or degeneracy; and that what hinders its higher development, or may be properly regarded as its defects is in no small measure the result of this process of growth through the ages.

The religion of to-day shows on every hand the results which come from the attempt to put new wine into old bottles or to attach fresh rituals and beliefs to the old terms and traditions. An illustration of this may be found in the continued use of the word ' ' salvation ' ' for what in no sense connects itself with the origins of that term or whatever it connoted in earlier ages of the history of religion. Even H. G. Wells uses this word with meanings which have not the slightest connection with its earlier uses. We do not now believe that men are to be saved from the dungeons of a tyrannous king or the place of torment of a vengeful God. We do not believe that any im-^ pending dark and gloomy fate hangs over us from which we are to escape by means of magic or the recitation of rituals oi* the belief in cruel and awful creeds; and yet we continue to, use a word which in all its connotations, historically speaking, means something of this kind as impending over us. Therefore it is desirable that we should discard a word having these implications. No modernization of it can cause the obliteration of the historic background of the word.

The same is true of many other religious words and phrases, that we have given them meanings which deny their historical origin and connections. Such a word is ''sacrifice," which no longer means the killing of animals or men as offerings to a God capable of demanding such a price paid to appease his wrath toward men, as not having in some minute detail obeyed his arbitrary commands. We may recognize that our sacrifices of to-day are those of the suppression of selfishness, the giving freely of our substance to relieve the needs of our fellows; but not thus can we escape the tragical and awful history which has brought us this word and its historic significations through the ages. As we study that history we may rightly rebel against the use of a term with such a fateful and dark background of vengeance and cruelty and disregard of human welfare.

When we study thoroughly such instances in the evolution of religion we may query whether it is capable of correcting its own defects, and of eliminating by its own initiative the limitations and the vices of its past. It is doubtful if it ever does this without the aid of those collective forces which we describe when we use the word civilization. Religion is undoubtedly the most conservative social force known to the life of mankind, and it is always extremely reluctant to break with its own histor>^

Such being the tendency of religion, we may rightly accept an attitude of caution in regard to its dogmatisms. We may hesitate in regard to every dogma which is declared to be of ' undoubted veracity. The very claim of revelation, constantly made in the name of religion, is fundamentally of a dogmatic nature, intended to impose silence on all who would think freely and constructively. Religion is a growth, now in process of development as in the past; and, if it is to be regarded in any sense or degree as a revelation, it must be assumed to be a progressive, a constantly unfolding revelation, a continuous process of advance from lower to higher forms of expression.

lie who would study religion in an untrammelled spirit,

XX i without fear and without prejudice, must do so without the slightest thought that the conclusions he reaches can determine ^ his o^^Ti future destiny. It cannot be assumed that any belief decides what is to be the nature of the life which will be that of the individual when he passes from his present state of existence. Belief in regard to subtle theological and metaphysical problems is not vital, does not forecast the issues of life, and can be in no sense fateful mth regard to the determinations of the future. He who hesitates to think with absolute freedom on this account cannot have any opinions in regard to religion which will be of fundamental importance.

What this means is, that religion must be studied in the scientific spirit, and mth the latest and most approved scientific methods. First of all we are to seek for the facts, what religion has been and is; and as if we had before us a plant or a star for investigation. That is, any concern as to what it may mean . for us personally must be absolutely barred out. When we investigate a plant or a star what we are concerned with is its origin, its nature, the process of its development or its relations to other plants and stars. This, too, should be our attitude in the study of religions. In a word, we must apply to them the scientific method and purpose, that of knowing their origin, the processes of their growth, and what they meant to those who accepted them. This method in the study of religions has developed the newest science, that of Comparative Religion, or the study of all the religions of the world in relation to each other, with a view to determining their common factors, that in which they differ, and the stages through which each has grown from its early beginnings to its latest manifestations of itself.

Such a study may not promote piety or worship or a dogmatic belief of any kind; but it does show us what purpose

xxii religion has answered to in the evolution of mankind. We shall come upon much that is crude, vulgar, immoral or unmoral, wanting in all mental inspiration ; but also upon much that is illuminating as to the nature of man, the manner in which culture and civilization have been produced. We will also find many a suggestion as to the future of religion, and the manner in which it can be purified of its crude survivals, and made a vital force in the future evolution of mankind.

It is the purpose of the following pages to set forth the human origin of religion, and especially those phases of it which reflect and interpret the needs and the aspirations of mankind. Whether religion comes to man through instinct, y intuition, philosophical insight, revelation or some form of supernatural intervention, it must be ultimately brought within the compass of the human understanding and fitted to the needs of hoping and sorrowing men and women. It must be reduced to practice, fitted to daily utilities, and made to conform to individual and social demands. The more truly it is socialized, that is, brought to act as a motive cementing together groups of smaller or greater size, the more truly is it worthy of general acceptance. In a word, religion finds its real sanctions in its social values, in its capacity for binding men together in unifying relations.

Religion cannot be understood apart from man and his needs. Since man has created all religions, and still retains in full measure that creative capacity, religion must be studied, in the light of man's unfolding culture and civilization. The old thinker who said that man is the measure of all things Baid better than he knew, and far better than the succeeding ages have recognized. When it was said that man was not made in order that he might keep a day of rest, but the day of rest came into existence for the profit of man, its purport might be

Xxiii extended to signify that religion has its real meanings in the values it confers upon humanity. Man does not exist for the sake of being religious, but religion has come into existence because it confers a human benefit. That benefit alone gives it meaning and value. Religion has not been imposed upon man from some extraneous source or thrust down upon him from above. He is the meaning of it, the worth of it, and the source of its inspirations and its higher values. Above all religions and all gods is humanity, the creator and the sustainer of them all.

XXIT

CHAPTER I The Social Transmission of Human Experiences

RELIGION is of social origin, and, in its beginnings, is an emotional expression of the relations of a group to its environing world. Fundamentally and essentially, it is a manifestation of the collective life of a band of men and women living together in social relations, in order that they may best meet the demands for food, the perpetuation of their own existence as a collectivity through the birth of children, the protection of the group from enemies of whatever kind, and that they may satisfy the claims of the collective life emotionally, ethically, and esthetically.