THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
velopment. (1) In the primitive stage spirits are innumerable, " they swarm." No hmits can be placed on the number of objects possessed by them as their home, and countless hordes besides roam homeless in earth and sea and air. But as man's mentality grows, he compares and generalizes and groups. To take one example: whereas each plot of ground once had its corn-spirit whose gift the crop of that field was, comparison gave rise to the idea of an earth-goddess, a Demeter or Ceres or Core, by whose beneficence came all the gifts earth made to man in growing crops. The corn-spirits of a district coalesced and then became a national deity to whom finally all increase of the earth was attributed. The history of Zeus among the Greeks also illustrates this principle. Nearly 200 names are known for this deity, only about one-third of which are poetic or descriptive. Nearly all the rest are referred to local or elemental deities whom he absorbed or displaced, assuming their functions and their cults, the latter of which are in several cases discordant with his normal worship and alien to his nature as a sky-god. The explanation is that as Zeus became the great national deity through the leadership of the tribes whose principal god he was, he took over the being, attributes, offices, shrines, and worship of older gods whose memory lingered solely in the names added to his as expressive of some special phase. So was it everywhere. The number of the gods was ever diminishing. Pantheons replaced the hordes of worshipful spirits, and in these the principal god obscured the lesser who tended to vanish from cult and recognition. Thus in Assyria Asshur became almost the only god aside from Ishtar, and in Israel, where according to the first commandment the gods of the nations were recognized as real existences, by the time of the exUe Yahweh had come to be regarded as the only god of all the earth. Sometimes in this process gods were associated in triads or trinities, as in Egypt, Babylonia, and India, in the last case paralleling every phase of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Thus the tendency is toward monotheism, a result achieved only in Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, and possibly in Zoroastrianism. (2) Another general tendency is that toward crystallization in ritual and creed. At the rise of a religion observances and conceptions are spontaneous, free, individualistic. But as the community grows exhortation hardens into doctrine, confession into creed, observance into ritual, acceptance of which and conformity to which mark the true believer. Thus orthodoxy and heterodoxy take their rise and become integral parts of religious thinking and terminology. (3) There is also a general tendency toward sectarianism. Against the disposition to define correct modes of teaching, of belief, and of worship arises the individualistic and diversified mentality of mankind, protesting against the limitations placed upon conceptions of God and on ways of serving him. Groups of individuals find themselves agreeing together in disagreeing with the standards erected. The result is that sect arises wherever attempt is made at uniformity. As an
example, what is perhaps the most rigid and unyielding religious platform yet made, the teaching of Mohammed, is obliged to accommodate Sunni and Shiah with their almost untellable variety of subdivisions. Judging from the universal tendency of religion to develop sect, if history forecasts the future, oneness of belief will never be attained. And if the apparent demands of human nature be taken into the reckoning, such a result is not desirable. The Calvinistic mind must be left to its adoration of the mathematical precision of definite and exact foreordination, while the Arminian mind rejoices in the absolute responsibility of the individual for his own salvation or destruction. Geo. W. Gilmoee.
Bibliography: I.-V.: The indispensable book here is M. Jastrow, The Study of Religion, New York, 1901 (thorough, profound, and sound). Consult also: J. E. Carpenter, Place of Hist, of Religion in Theological Study, London, 1891; Chabin, La Science de la Religion, Paris, 1898; L. H, Jordan, Comparative Religion, Its Genesis and Growth, New York, 1905 (very useful for bibhography, but uneven and not always sound in judgment); P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, i. 1-16, Tubingen, 1905; E. Crawley, The Tree of Life. A Study of Religion, London, 1905 (rationalistic but suggestive); S. von Czobel, Die Entwickelung der Religionsbegriffe, 2 vols., Leipsie, 1907; O. Pfleiderer, ffieligion and Historic Faiths, New York, 1907; C. Schaarschmidt, Die Religion. Einfiihrung in ihre Entviicklungsgeschichte, Leipsie, 1907.
VI.: On primitive religion the literature is immense. On the whole field the following four books are indispensable and supplement each other: E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, London, 1903 (the classic on Animism); D. G. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, New York, 1897 (by the highest American authority); J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3 vols., London, 1900 (primarily concerned with Magic, it covers the whole field of primitive religious conceptions); F. B. Jevons, Introduction to Hist, of Religion, London, 1896' (valuable, but handicapped by presuppositions; cf. the keen criticism in J. M. Robertson, Pagan Christs, ib. 1903).
For Animism and primitive psychology consult: W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feld-Kulte, 2 vols., Berlin, 1875-77; F. Granger, Worship of the Romans, London, 1895; Marian R. Cox, Introduction to Folklore, ib. 1897 (valuable as a " first book "); Mrs. J. H. Philpot, The Sacred Tree, ib. 1897; A. S. Geden, Studies in Comparative Religion, ib. 1898 (clear, excellent); A. Borchart, Der Animismus, Freiburg, 1900; F. Schultze, Psychologie der Naturvvlker, book iii., Leipsie, 1900; .\. E. Crawley, Mystic Rose, New York, 1902 (suggestive, though erratic); F. H. Cushing, Zuni Tales, New York, 1902 (should be read by all students of primitive notions); R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa, ib. 1904 (" Fetichism " is equivalent here to " religion "); E. Clodd, Animism, London, 1905 (low-priced, should be in every library); .Anthropological Essays Presented to E. B. Tylor in Honour of his 76th Birthday, Oxford, 1907 (treats many of the more recondite matters touched on in the text).
On Magic, besides the general works mentioned above, consult: A. C. Haddon, Magic and Fetishism, London, 1906 (one of the "good little books"); F. Lenormant, Chaldcean Magic, London, 1877; L. W. King, Babylonian Magic, ib. 1896; T. W. Davies, Magic, Divination, and Demonology, ib. 1898; E. A. T. Budge, Egyptian Magic, ib. 1899; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, ib. 1900; A. Lang, Magic and Religion, ib. 1901.
On Mythology consult: F. Max Miiller, Contributions to the Science of Mythology, 2 vols., London, 1897 (his completed statement, cf. his Natural Religion, Lect. xvi., 1889, and Science of Language, Lect. ix,, 1880); A. Lang, Custom and Myth, London, 1884; idem. Myth, Ritual and Religion, ib. 1899 (Mr. Lang is the leading exponent of the anthropological school); J. Fiskc, Myths and Mythmakers, Boston. 1872; D. G. Brinton, .^fyths of the .\'ew World. Philadelphia, 1896; Jevons, ut sup., chap. xix.