THE
DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION
A STUDY IN ANTHROPOLOGY
AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
BY
IRVING KING, Ph.D.
STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
OF THF \
UNIVERSITY )
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1910
Aff rights reserved
^«%4
Copyright, 1910,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910.
NortoDolr '\^xt»9
J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Oo.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
MY FATHER
AND
MOTHER
204121
Of yh£
^NiVERs/ry
OF
PREFACE
As the subtitle indicates, this volume is a study in the
social psychology of primitive religion. It is, however, far
from complete as first planned. It was the original intention
to include a number of topics which are of great interest to the
student of primitive religion, such as the development of
sacrifice and the origin and development of birth, marriage,
death, and burial ceremonies. Not only have some topics
been omitted ; those which are here ofifered to the public are
far from completely worked out. They have been written
at irregular intervals during the past eight years, in the
midst of many duties which tended inevitably to destroy the
continuity of thought as well as to render a thorough working
out of individual problems well-nigh impossible. Under
these circumstances it is but natural that, as the work has
proceeded, there should have been a change in interest and,
to some extent, in point of view.
In treating the various phases of the problem the author
has attempted to offer sufficient illustrations to lend weight
to the positions he has taken. It has not seemed best to try
to make these illustrations exhaustive. In almost every in-
stance those offered are only a tithe of the ones which might
have been given.
Nothing set forth in these pages is presented in a dogmatic
spirit. In every detail, whether of fact or of interpretation,
the author holds himself subject to correction and criticism.
vii
viii PREFACE
While it is scarcely possible but that some errors have been
incurred, it is hoped that the general point of view may
appeal to students of anthropology, sociology, and psy-
chology as suggestive and pertinent.
As regards the view-point it is, in a word, that the religious
attitude has been huilt up through the overt activities which
appear in primitive social groups, activities which were either
spontaneous and playful or which appeared with reference to
meeting various practical needs of the life-process ; and that
the development of emotional values has been mediated
through the fact that these activities were in the main social.
Many difficulties have naturally attended the satisfactory
working out of this view-point. In the first place, social
psychology is not itself a clearly defined science with definite
and generally accepted principles of method. It is hoped,
however, that a series of studies of this sort, even though they
are incomplete, may contribute something toward a clarifica-
tion of the relation of psychology to anthropology and the
social sciences. If this should be accomplished, the author
will be entirely satisfied, even though every one of his own
specific conclusions may have to be modified or even rejected.
It may be said, then, that the primary purpose of the book
is to contribute something toward the definition of social
psychology by illustrating the application of psychological
method in the interpretation of the data of a relatively limited
field of social phenomena. The author is quite well aware
that many eminent psychologists would dissent from this con-
ception of psychology, or even hold that there is no such
thing as a psychological method in the sense here taken. He
does not, however, feel inclined to quarrel over questions of
terminology. He believes firmly that there is a method of
approach to the problems of social development which is
most suggestive, and it is to him immaterial whether or not
PREFACE
IX
that method may properly be called psychological. It is the
method itself which interests him rather than the name that
it may be most proper to apply to it.
Another serious difficulty attends any one who, outside
the world of anthropology, presumes to interpret the data
afforded by that field. One who has first-hand acquaintance
with some of the natural races, and especially with their
languages, naturally looks with some suspicion upon the
attempts of the psychologist to say anything worth while
regarding primitive custom or primitive religion, if, indeed,
he even takes notice of such attempts at all. The present
writer, however, feels, if a comparative study of primitive
religion must wait for a scholar acquainted at first-hand with
the races and their languages, that such study will probably
never be made. He cannot believe that he who makes such
a study, equipped only with the point of view of the anthro-
pologist, is less likely to fall into serious fallacies than is the
psychologist who gets his facts at second-hand. What is
needed is a friendly cooperation among scholars in an in-
vestigation of this sort. The work of neither the anthropolo-
gist nor the psychologist can be complete in itself, and yet
each is only too ready to regard his statements as the final ones.
The present writer has been very clearly conscious of the limi-
tations of his method, but he is frank to say that his failure to
attain satisfactory results in many cases has been due to the
very character of the observations collected by the anthro-
pologist. Surely some training in psychology would have
rendered some of the laborious undertakings of the student
of the natural races much more fruitful of results. There
are of course notable exceptions, but it is certainly true that
much is yet to be desired in the form in which material
regarding the customs of present-day natural races is at pres-
ent gathered together.
X PREFACE
The author is indebted to the editors and publishers of
various philosophical and psychological journals for permis-
sion to use again in Chapters II, VIII, X, XI, and XIII por-
tions of articles which have already been offered in print.
He is particularly grateful for the many helpful suggestions
and criticisms of friends who so kindly read the manuscript
in whole or in part. Particular acknowledgment is due Miss
Lela Douthart of Kansas City, Kansas, who rendered valu-
able and generous assistance in the revision of the manu-
script for the press.
State University of Iowa,
September 24, 1909.
CONTENTS
PAGES
Preface .••, vii-x
CHAPTER I
Introduction — The Possibility and the Scope of the
Psychology of Religion
Necessity of a preliminary inquiry into the nature of the material and
the possibility of a psychological treatment — Character of previous
studies in this field — The differentia of the religious consciousness
— Can it be stated best in terms of content or of function? — As far
as content goes, leaving preternatural elements (if such there be)
out of account, religious states of mind do not appear to be of differ-
ent species from other aspects of experience — The functional
differentia — Preliminary statement of the religious end — The logic
of supernaturalism and its relation to the psychology of religion —
Impossibility of science's recognizing such elements or factors —
Every religious experience, from the very fact of its being known at
all, must find its place in the causal series of natural science —
Attempt of some to confine the scientific treatment of religion to
its * content ' on the ground that religious * values ' lie essentially
beyond the pale of science — Criticism of this position — * Value '
as well as 'content' has a natural history, or at least as much
natural history as it is possible for any observable fact to have —
Import of the psychology of religion for the practical religionist —
For the theologian — For the philosopher — The one-sidedness of
inquiries into the nature of religion which ignores psychology —
The psychological problem restated I-23
CHAPTER II
Preliminary Questions regarding the Evolution of Religion
The first problem that of defining more accurately the nature of the
content which may be supposed to have undergone an evolution —
The assumption of some scholars that this is an instinct or other
innate capacity — This involves a total misapprehension of the
xi
xii CONTENTS
PAGES
meaning of the term * instinct ' as it is ordinarily used in biological
science — The term has probably been seized upon to give a certain
glamour of science to the notion that there is a primitive or innate
rehgious * sense ' — Marshall's instinct theory apparently more sci-
entific — And yet it is incredible that an instinct opposed to all
consciously felt self-interests could ever have developed — Difficulty,
on this theory, of accounting for religion as a conscious experience
— The religious consciousness more than the parallelistic accompa-
niment of instinctive acts — While the history of religion may pre-
suppose a sort of original or innate religious * sense ' as its starting-
point, the science of religion must try to break it up into simpler
elements — The naive use of psychological terminology in the sci-
ence of religion.
The religious consciousness is of the valuational type — May be
described as an attitude — Definition of — The possible truth in the
theories criticised above — The common element of all religions is
this appreciative or valuating attitude — A relatively simple aspect
of consciousness — TJiis is the content^ the evolution of which we
are to explain — In the evolution of religion we probably do not
have to deal with any absolute increase in mentality but only with
the building up of complex psychical attitudes — Not much increase
in absolute mental capacity since the time of primitive man — Atti-
tudes in general, and the religious attitude in particular, built up
in each generation through the objective conditions of the life-
process— We do not, therefore, need to presuppose any funda-
mental changes in mentality.
This brings us to the second preliminary problem ; namely, that
of the conditions which have mediated the developmental process
— These are held to be the overt activities of the life-process —
Attitudes are the outcome of these activities rather than their cause
— The consequent close connection between the ethnology and the
psychology of religion — The problem of the evolution of religion
is then that of showing how this specific type of consciousness has
been built up, or differentiated, from a matrix of overt activity and
relatively objective phases of consciousness .... 24-43
CHAPTER III
The Consciousness of Value
The primacy of the valuational consciousness — Its relation to the active
aspects of experience — The primitive activities of the life-process
and the genesis of the value-consciousness — Relation of custom to
CONTENTS xiii
PAGES
valuation — Development of customs from impulsive, instinctive,
and practical activities of primitive man — Some customs the mere
accumulation of chance variations in elementary life-activities —
Illustrations — Others the result of more or less practical recogni-
tion of relation of means to end — Illustrations — Others the out-
come of emotional overflow during temporarily impeded action —
Illustrations — Influence of the play impulse in the development of
custom — General emotional consequences of the organization of
activity about various objects of attention .... 44-61
CHAPTER IV
The Genesis of the Religious Attitude
The religious attitude a special development from the valuational con-
sciousness — Possible causes of this specialization of values — The
hypothesis of social influence — Import of the social atmosphere in
the determination of general human characteristics — In the pre-
ceding chapters overt activities, or customs, were seen to lie back
of the consciousness of value — We may now add that these activi-
ties are in the main social — The social group, at any rate, may
greatly stimulate the development of valuation — The social organ-
ism is the primitive man's universe — Activities arising within it
furnish the matrix from which higher concepts of worth may emerge
— Illustrations — A loose social structure mediates vague and evan-
escent values and vice versa — Illustrations from the West Africans,
the Eskimo, the Australians, the North American Indians — Gen-
eral illustrations of the relation of value to social types of activity,
e.g. among the primitive Semites, Hurons, Kafirs, Dyaks, Navaho,
West Africans — Relation of modern religious consciousness to ^
social activity 62-87
CHAPTER V
The Origin of Religious Practices
Religious acts originally social acts or customs of various sorts — Reli-
gion not merely modelled upon previous social processes and insti-
tutions — Is rather an organic part of the general social milieu —
Illustration of this fact in the well-known connection of primitive
religion with governmental institutions ; e.g. in the religions of
antiquity, among the Eskimo, the Malays, Pueblo and Kwakiutl
Indians, the negro races — Meaning of the so-called * general
religiosity ' of primitive life — Dependence of religious rites upon
xiv CONTENTS
PAGES
social interests and structure illustrated by the Todas, West Africans,
Kafirs, Masai — Relation of religious ceremonies to the general
social and practical activities of a group — These latter seem to have
a definite and easily explainable natural history — All gradations
from the purely playful and practical to the religious — Illustrations
of this gradation : Pueblo natal ceremonies, Iroquois festivals and
dances, feasts of the Thompson Indians, social and semi-religious
activities of various negro tribes— ^ The moonlight dances of the
Bushman interesting illustrations of the purely playful origin of cere-
monial dances — Ordinary social intercourse the basis of some
Japanese ceremonials — Other illustrations — The remarkable case
of the Todas — Their religious ceremonials clearly extensions of
practical and social processes — Ceremonials of the primitive Sem-
ites, the Navaho, the Moqui, and the early Romans show like char-
acteristics — Conclusion S8-133
CHAPTER VI
The Mysterious Power
The primitive belief in a mysterious pov^rer illustrated by the Algonkin
'concept,' manitou — This belief, with variations, widely prevalent
among the natural races — A quasi-mechanical, impersonal potency
— Probably underlies many types of primitive worship — Further
description of the Algonkin belief — Called wakonda by the Siouan
tribes — Associated with the striking characteristics of animals —
^^ The explanation of all human successes — Called by the Iroquois
orenda — Held by other Indian stocks — Has been frequently mis-
interpreted by observers — The same belief occurs in Melanesia,
New Zealand, and other South Pacific Islands — Although it is
here often associated with ghosts and spirits, it is yet quite imper-
sonal and mechanical in its action — Differences between the Mel-
anesian and the Indian belief — Not a development of ghost
worship — Presence of the same ' concept ' among other primitive
peoples, e.g. the Bantu, Masai, the nomad tribes of northern Asia —
Possibly present among the Australians — Facts that apparently
support such a view — An examination of many of their so-called
magical rites from this point of view — Its relation to the enforce-
ment of custom — In the Intichiuma ceremonies — In beliefs re-
garding the local totem centres — In the beliefs regarding the * bull-
roarers ' — Something analogous to the same * concept ' appears to
have been present in the primitive religion of the Romans — Sug-
gestions of, among the early Semites — Conclusion as to the wide
prevalence of the notion — Its relation to religion and to magic.
CONTENTS XV
PAGES
A truly primitive * concept ' — Conditions which may have pro-
duced it — More naive than animism — The expression of the most
elementary ' take-care ' attitude, which need not have been associated
with spirits at first — Easy to infer the presence of a mysterious
power in whatever attracts attention; e.g. in the soughing of the
wind, the cunning or strength of animals, etc. — Illustrations which
possibly throw some light upon its origin and variations — Not a
religious * concept * and yet it has played a part in the development
of religion and especially in the evolution of the belief in a deity —
Survivals of this primitive philosophy in modern culture . . 134-164
CHAPTER VII
Magic and Religion
The essential nature of primitive religion may be made clearer by con-
trasting it with magic — Frazer's theory of the relation of magic to
religion stated and criticised — Statement and criticism of Jevons's
theory — The problem that of determining the conditions which lie
back of magical and religious practices — Many savage customs
frequently classed under magic are quite spontaneous reactions of
the primitive man to various situations of strain and relaxation —
Only with the lapse of time are such acts connected with the idea
of controlling certain sequences of events in the world of nature or
human life — Development of the theory and practice of sympa-
thetic magic from these primitive and direct responses of the man
to his environment — Much of the substrate of habit and custom
cannot be called, strictly speaking, either magic or rehgion, although
it is common to interpret much of it as magic — The so-called axiom
that * like produces like,' if it is actually held by primitive man, is
more likely an afterthought than the cause of magical practices —
This substrate of primitive naive activity is evidently tbe basis of
much of the so-called magic of the Australians.
In the case of magic, we have the same basis of playful and of prac-
tical attitudes which were found to be associated with the begin-
nings of religion — The two, however, express different points of
view with reference to the world — The latter seems to have sepa-
rated from the former largely under the influence of social stimu-
lation — This is suggested in the status of the sorcerer among
almost all primitive peoples — He is usually a person possessed of
secret powers and a sinister disposition as over against the priest,
the public functionary — The individualistic character of magic
xvi CONTENTS
illustrated by the Todas, Niger tribes, Kafirs, Eskimo, Ojibwa,
Australians, and many others that might be given — Further con-
firmation in the supposed relation between magic and disease —
This distinction between priest and sorcerer prevails in practically
all primitive society — Religion, social; magic, antisocial — Illustra-
tions — Reminiscences of the conflict of religion with sorcery in
the modern conflict of religion with science — Further illustrations
of the mysterious and private character of magic — Unfamiliar
peoples usually supposed to be highly gifted in sorcery — The
magician usually acquires his powers through his own subjectivity,
or at least in ways lying outside of social agencies — Various illus-
trations of — Certain marked peculiarities of magic seem to be
traceable to its isolation from the stimulus of positive social factors
— The possibility of religion's availing itself of magical expe-
dients 165-203
CHAPTER VIII
Further Considerations regarding the Evolution of the
Religious Attitude
If the religious attitude is a special differentiation from a matrix of
social interests and activities, the question arises as to the sense
in vsrhich it may be possible to trace an evolution in religion —
Some have approached the problem possessed by the idea that they
were to discover the successive unfoldings of some primitive in-
stinct, or the progressive revelation of some perfected divine truth
— These theories based upon a superficial biological analogy —
Social phenomena too complex to be arranged with much assur-
ance in a developmental series — The determination of successive
stages of religious development presupposes the ability to compare
and relate social backgrounds — The peculiar difficulty attaching
to such a task — Diversity in primitive social development — What
shall be the criterion? — Variations in religion as dependent upon
social backgrounds — From this it would seem to follow that differ-
ent types of primitive religion are quite discrete and, far from being
due to the unfolding of an original instinct common to all man-
kind, have really no direct relation to each other — Illustrations of
this apparent discreteness — Different religious forms go back to
different social situations rather than to preceding religious forms
— This more largely true of primitive religions than of the modern
types — In the latter a degree of stability of content and organiza-
CONTENTS xvii
PAGES
tion is attained that seems to give them a certain independence of
immediate social conditions as well as a sort of continuity and
momentum that enables them to develop along diverse lines, each
peculiar to itself — These diverse strains of religious development
have, each of them, their own individual merit — No religion can
include all possible and legitimate values — Two further points re-
garding the development of different religious strains — First as
regards the method of transmission from one generation to another
— This dependent upon the transmission of some sort of a body of
activity or of religious customs, together with an appropriate concep-
tual framework, i.e. upon social heredity — And secondly, as regards
the means of the elaboration in successive generations — This in
large measure dependent upon the growth of individuality — The
development of the higher religious consciousness is always corre-
lated with some development of personality either in extension or
intention. 204-222
CHAPTER IX
Origin and Development of Concepts of Divine Personages
(I) Only certain phases of this extremely complex problem will be ex-
amined here, those especially which have to do with the relation of
deities to various economic and social interests — This relation is
deeper than a mere reflection of the cultural level of the worshippers
— It is rather the expression of certain aspects of social valuation,
and is organic with other modes of social reaction — (II) The prob-
lem of the natural history of deities is the problem of why social
values are to some extent expressed in terms of superior personali-
ties — Deities often supposed to be the peculiar differentia of re-
ligion as over against magic — This view is inadequate, however,
since deities are only one of the means of expressing religious valu-
ation — Furthermore, the primitive mechanical conception of the
world should not be separated so radically from the notion of the
world as pervaded by spirits — We must avoid at the outset adopt-
ing concepts that are too fixed — The well-recognized tendency of
all social groups to socialize all that claims their attention is suffi-
cient as a point of departure — The values which are thus social-
ized may arise from almost every phase of human life and association
— Must guard against the tendency to seek the origin of deities
within a too narrow set of conditions — The primary question for
psychology is, then, as to why certain things have attracted atten-
xviii CONTENTS
tion in primitive society — This usually due to the fact that they in
some way appear to be connected with man's welfare — They are
the objects of food value, those connected with protection, repro-
duction, and the like, animals, plants, stones, disease, etc. — The
basis of attention always some more *ot less intimate relation to
the group — Interest in ancestors and spirits usually goes back
to some supposed connection with the original interests of the life-
process — (III) From this relation of deities to acute social inter-
ests we may be able to dispose of the so-called remnants, in primitive
life, of higher conceptions of the deity — These vague, far-off gods
rather stranded remnants of times when the interests of the group
were different from the interests of the present, not necessarily higher
gods — Illustrated by the deistic ideas of theTodas — ^^a/ deities