Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/798

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

784 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

chological reaction which is the parent of the whole group of emotions which we vaguely class as religious. There is little warrant, as Frazer's critics have pointed out, for assuming that the blank awe or cringing fear of that stone-chipping animal who was destined to be a man was bravely mastered by any thought- ful and judicious use of a primitive science. The conjurer's arts did not come from any involved processes of thought, any insistent reasoning of cause and effect, even of the mistaken lines which Frazer analyzes. They bear on the face of them the con- vulsive response to nervous stimuli, and their efficacy generally has some relation to the fearful or disgusting character of the rites. The basal emotions of religion, even in the narrow sense of Frazer's definition, are already there. As for the invoking of spirits, turning to higher powers for aid, it is clear that this affords no sure dividing-line between magic and another thing called religion; for magic may use spirits or may not, without being any the more or less magic.

The attempt to exclude magic from religion also leads one into strange straits at the other end of our evolution. For Frazer actually defines religion so narrowly as to exclude that highest religious thought, that mysticism where belief has grown into confidence, and that theism which reverently but calmly faces omnipotence. The conciliation of higher powers by sacrifice and prayer represents only a part of religion.

One cannot separate religion from magic by a mere definition. The further we examine the phenomena of religions the more we find them interpenetrated with strains of magic forces, and where our comparatively keen analysis fails to detect those elu- sive penetrations of varying grades of intensity and power, the primitive mind certainly never was able to distinguish them. The Romans had their college of augurers as well as their sacri- ficing priests;^ the augurers by their arts of divination made sure what sacrifice would be acceptable or adequate, and then the sacrificing priests fulfilled their demands. The joint operation,

  • In fact three of the priestly colleges were concerned with divination.

The XVviri sacris faciundis, the Augures, the Haruspices ; while the magistrates took part in those that concerned the state.