Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/296

 284 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s. f 22, 1920

The Social Evolution of Religion. GEORGE WILLIS COOKE. Boston,

The Stratford Co., 1920. 416 pp.

Durkheim developed with brilliancy the thesis that religion is a social product, integrated with the social life. The application of this was limited, in his exposition, almost entirely to Australian life.

Cooke may be said to start where Durkheim left off. He shows us the application of this theory to the larger field of the religious life.

There is an excellent statement of Durkheim's view and an appli- cation of it to much of primitive ceremonial initiation ceremonies, for example. Out of these may have come the mysteries. There is a dis- cussion of myth and an insistence that the application of the theory 'ritual first myth later' has been overworked. There are examples of the social transmission of human experience, as also of the creative' genius of social man. Into this social- order the individual injects his impulses and concepts, sometimes with success, sometimes to no purpose.

If the religious life is an integral portion of the social life it follows that we can not have change or advance in the one without accompanying changes in the other; the religious will, moreover, in some sense keep step with the social, if it is to retain a place in the social scheme. This consideration doubtless suggested the order of the last six chapters, which deal respectively with Communal and Tribal Religion, Feudal Religion, National Religion, International Religion, Universal Religion, Religion as Cosmic and Human Motive. In his treatment of these themes the author is not so much concerned to show that the one has developed into the other as endeavoring to show that distinct types of religion may be recognized and that these types are well correlated with the respective states of society. Differentiation in social life has been accompanied with a differentiation in religious life, with a separation of religion from the rest of life. "Religion is dependent for its manifesta- tions on the industrial, social, and political developments of a people. As these change the religion changes to meet the new conditions."

We think it safe to say that no book treating of religion has appeared since Durkheim published his "Elementary Forms of the Religious Life" which is so stimulating as the one before us. The author shows a balance and steadiness, a thorough knowledge of most of the great reli- gious systems and of the speculations of writers on religion, which has been .but seldom attained. Sanity is the penetrating tone, and every sentence is clear and telling. The chapters are excellently balanced and the argument is well put.

If the book is written 'for a purpose,' that purpose seems to be to

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