Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/811

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��740 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1S99

��tales of necromancy are added. In poetry, to personification and similitude allegory is added, and the themes of poetry are mainly the themes of religion.


 * ' Religion itself undergoes marked development. There still

remains an element of terpsichorean worship and an element of sacrificial worship, but ceremonial worship is more highly de- veloped, while terpsichorean and sacrificial worship is performed with an allegorical meaning.

Here we must note, as of profound significance, that the fine arts or arts of pleasure are all pursued in the interest of religion. Music, like all the other fine arts, may be made by individuals for personal pleasure, but, in tribal and monarchical society, the motive which secures excellence is demotic. This demotic excel- lence inheres in religious ceremonies. In these stages of society the evolution of the fine arts is therefore wholly dependent upon religion. It is thus that religion is practiced in intimate asso- ciation with the pleasures of mankind from which it receives the glamour of superlative joy. !■ jj Ethics and religion are still identical, for religion as a theory

\ ;f. • of conduct is still the highest ethics of mankind.

We have yet to portray the evolution of ethics during the j \ social state of republickism. On the threshold of this phase of

the subject we must consider the role which is played by great

leaders in society. This we have already set forth in other


 * j departments of sociology, but in the department of ethics, moral


 * I leaders are most conspicuous, and by their disciples they are often

esteemed divine, and especially do they rank as prophets. About

their birth and about their personal history wonderful stories

are told, and to their personal agency miracles are attributed.

Among the most conspicuous of these great moral leaders, Laotse

j of the Chinese, Buddha of the Hindus, and Jesus of the Chris-

\ tians are perhaps most revered by the multitudes of mankind.

I Mohammed has a great body of disciples, though he departed

i from the course pursued by the others in attempting to propagate

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