Pagan and Christian Creeds [37]
all these cases, and many others that I have not mentioned-- of the magical worship of Bulls and Bears and Rams and Cats and Emus and Kangaroos, of Trees and Snakes, of Sun and Moon and Stars, and the spirit of the Corn in its yearly and miraculous resurrection out of the ground--there is still the same idea or moving inspiration, the sense mentioned in the foregoing chapter, the feeling (hardly yet conscious of its own meaning) of intimate relationship and unity with all this outer world, the instinctive conviction that the world can be swayed by the spirit of Man, if the man can only find the right ritual, the right word, the right spell, wherewith to move it. An aura of emotion surrounded everything--of terror, of tabu, of fascination, of desire. The world, to these people, was transparent with presences related to themselves; and though hunger and sex may have been the dominant and overwhelmingly practical needs of their life, yet their outlook on the world was essentially poetic and imaginative.
Moreover it will be seen that in this age of magic and the belief in spirits, though there was an intense sense of every thing being alive, the gods, in the more modern sense of the world, hardly existed[1]--that is, there was no very clear vision, to these people, of supra-mundane beings, sitting apart and ordaining the affairs of earth, as it were from a distance. Doubtless this conception was slowly evolving, but it was only incipient. For the time being--though there might be orders and degrees of spirits (and of gods)--every such being was only conceived of, and could only be conceived of, as actually a part of Nature, dwelling in and interlaced with some phenomenon of Earth and Sky, and having no separate existence.
[1] For a discussion of the evolution of RELIGION out of MAGIC, see Westermarck's Origin of Moral Ideas, ch. 47.
How was it then, it will be asked, that the belief in separate and separable gods and goddesses--each with his or her well-marked outline and character and function, like the divinities of Greece, or of India, or of the Egyptian or Christian religions, ultimately arose? To this question Jane Harrison (in her Themis and other books) gives an ingenious answer, which as it chimes in with my own speculations (in the Art of Creation and elsewhere) I am inclined to adopt. It is that the figures of the supranatural gods arose from a process in the human mind similar to that which the photographer adopts when by photographing a number of faces on the same plate, and so superposing their images on one another, he produces a so-called "composite" photograph or image. Thus, in the photographic sphere, the portraits of a lot of members of the same family superposed upon one another may produce a composite image or ideal of that family type, or the portraits of a number of Aztecs or of a number of Apache Indians the ideals respectively of the Aztec or of the Apache types. And so in the mental sphere of each member of a tribe the many images of the well-known Warriors or Priests or wise and gracious Women of that tribe did inevitably combine at last to composite figures of gods and goddesses--on whom the enthusiasm and adoration of the tribe was concentrated.[1] Miss Harrison has ingeniously suggested how the leading figures in the magic rituals of the past--being the figures on which all eyes would be concentrated; and whose importance would be imprinted on every mind--lent themselves to this process. The suffering Victim, bound and scourged and crucified, recurring year after year as the centre-figure of a thousand ritual processions, would at last be dramatized and idealized in the great race-consciousness into the form of a Suffering God--a Jesus Christ or a Dionysus or Osiris--dismembered or crucified for the salvation of mankind. The Priest or Medicine-Man--or rather the succession of Priests or Medicine-Men--whose figures would recur again and again as leaders and ordainers of the ceremonies, would be glorified at last into the composite- image of a God in whom were concentrated all magic powers.
Moreover it will be seen that in this age of magic and the belief in spirits, though there was an intense sense of every thing being alive, the gods, in the more modern sense of the world, hardly existed[1]--that is, there was no very clear vision, to these people, of supra-mundane beings, sitting apart and ordaining the affairs of earth, as it were from a distance. Doubtless this conception was slowly evolving, but it was only incipient. For the time being--though there might be orders and degrees of spirits (and of gods)--every such being was only conceived of, and could only be conceived of, as actually a part of Nature, dwelling in and interlaced with some phenomenon of Earth and Sky, and having no separate existence.
[1] For a discussion of the evolution of RELIGION out of MAGIC, see Westermarck's Origin of Moral Ideas, ch. 47.
How was it then, it will be asked, that the belief in separate and separable gods and goddesses--each with his or her well-marked outline and character and function, like the divinities of Greece, or of India, or of the Egyptian or Christian religions, ultimately arose? To this question Jane Harrison (in her Themis and other books) gives an ingenious answer, which as it chimes in with my own speculations (in the Art of Creation and elsewhere) I am inclined to adopt. It is that the figures of the supranatural gods arose from a process in the human mind similar to that which the photographer adopts when by photographing a number of faces on the same plate, and so superposing their images on one another, he produces a so-called "composite" photograph or image. Thus, in the photographic sphere, the portraits of a lot of members of the same family superposed upon one another may produce a composite image or ideal of that family type, or the portraits of a number of Aztecs or of a number of Apache Indians the ideals respectively of the Aztec or of the Apache types. And so in the mental sphere of each member of a tribe the many images of the well-known Warriors or Priests or wise and gracious Women of that tribe did inevitably combine at last to composite figures of gods and goddesses--on whom the enthusiasm and adoration of the tribe was concentrated.[1] Miss Harrison has ingeniously suggested how the leading figures in the magic rituals of the past--being the figures on which all eyes would be concentrated; and whose importance would be imprinted on every mind--lent themselves to this process. The suffering Victim, bound and scourged and crucified, recurring year after year as the centre-figure of a thousand ritual processions, would at last be dramatized and idealized in the great race-consciousness into the form of a Suffering God--a Jesus Christ or a Dionysus or Osiris--dismembered or crucified for the salvation of mankind. The Priest or Medicine-Man--or rather the succession of Priests or Medicine-Men--whose figures would recur again and again as leaders and ordainers of the ceremonies, would be glorified at last into the composite- image of a God in whom were concentrated all magic powers.