- human power, and this is the essential assumption of all religion.
The least assumption a religion can make is that of a single such power, and this (or more than this) it always must assume. For without this we should remain within the boundaries of science; we should examine and classify phenomena, but we could never pass beyond the phenomena themselves to their mysterious origin or their hidden cause.
But this is not the only assumption involved in every possible religion. Every religion assumes also that there is in human nature something equally hyperphysical with the power which it worships, whether we call this something soul, or mind, or spirit. And between this human essence and the divine power there is held to be a singular correspondence, their relationship finding its concrete expression in religious worship on the one side and theological dogma on the other. All the practices and all the doctrines of every positive religion are but the modes in which men have sought to give body to their idea of this relationship.
We have then, strictly speaking, three fundamental postulates involved in the religious idea:—
First, that of a hyperphysical power in the universe.
Secondly, that of a hyperphysical entity in man.
Thirdly, that of a relation between the two.
The power assumed in the first postulate we may term the objective element in religion; the entity assumed in the second postulate we may term the subjective element. In the following chapter we shall deal with the objective element in the religious idea.
