Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/834

 RELIGION

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RELIGION

distinction between them and the totem spirits is absolute. Nowhere do the great deities bear the names of animals or plants as a mark of totem origin. In the majority of the religions of the world, there is no trace of Totemism, vestiges of which ouglit to be wide- spread it it had been the source of all other forms of reUgion. The totem, like the fetish, presupposes the very thing that needs to be accounted for, behef in the existence of unseen personal agents.

V. The Iniversalityof Religion. — A. Historical Survey. — From what has already been said, it is plain that religion, though often imperfectly conceived, is in normal conditions of human existence the inevitable outcome of the use of retison. It is but natural, then, that religion, at least in some crude form, shoidd be a characteristic feature in the life of all peoples. This truth was widely questioned during the last few cen- turies, when the extension of travel to unexplored lands gave rise to reports asserting the absence of religion among many native tribes of Asia, Africa, America, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. One by one these reports have been nullified by the con- trary statements of travellers and missionaries better qualified as witnesses, so that to-day there remain but very few peoples of whom it cannot be said with cer- tainty that they possess some form, however degraded, of religion. These rare exceptions do but prove the rule, for they are insignificant tribes which, in the struggle for existence, have been dri\-en by their enemies to inhospitable regions where the conditions of life are so wretched as to cause them to degenerate almost to a state of brutalization. A degradation of this sort can prove fatal to the sentiment of religion. A notable instance is the Indian tribe in Southern California among whom Father Baegert, a Jesuit mis- sionary', laboured for many years. In the account which he gave of liLs experiences, a translation of which was published in the "Smithsonian Report" of 1864, he testified to their stupidity and utter lack of religion. Yet their descent from Indian stocks that had well- defined religious notions is practically certain. Father Baegert observed a few vestiges of an ancestral belief in a futiu'e life — for exanijjle the custom of putting sandals on the feet of the dead, the significance of which the Indians could not explain. Mental degrada- tion like tills may thus involve the loss of religion. But such degradation is extremely rare. On the other hand, wherever tribes e.xist in normal conditions, they are found to possess some sort of religion. The erroneous reports of earlier travellers asserting a lack of religion where reUgion actually exists, have been due either to superficial obser\'ation or to a misunder- standing as to what should be called religion. Some have accepted as religion only an exalted notion of the Deity coupled with well-organized rites of public worship. The absence of these has often been set down as an absence of religion. Again, unfavourable verdicts have not infrequently been based on a stay of but one or two days with tribes speaking an un- known tongue, as for example was the case with Verrazano and Amerigo Vespucci. But, even where observers have stayed for months among rude peoples, they have sometimes found it extremely difficult to obtain information in regard to religious beliefs and practices; a suspicion that the white man was seeking to obtain some advantage over them has more than once led savages to resort to deceit to conceal their rehgion. It is the calm, impartial judgment of anthro- pologists to-day that there is no people of note that is ab.-iolutely devoid of religion.

B. Outlook. — But the further question may be asked: If rehgion has been universal in the past, have we any a.ssurance that it will persist in time to come? Has not the advance of modern science been marked by a progressive substitution of mechanical for personal agency in nature, with the inevitable result, as a writer has expre.s.sed it, that God will one

day be bowed out of His universe as no longer needed? To this we may reply: The advance of modern scientific culture is fatal to all polytheistic forms of religion, in which the recognized secondarj' causes are, through ignorance, mistaken for personal causes. The well-establislied scientific truth of the unity of nature's forces is in harmony only with the mono- theistic interpretation of nature. Christian Mono- theism, far from being inconsistent with true science, is necessarj' to supplement and complete the limited interpretation of nature afforded bj- science. The latter, being based on observation and experiment, has for its legitimate sphere of study only secondary causes of nature. It can tell nothing of origins, nothing of the great First Cause, from which the order- ly uni\-erse has proceeded. In substituting physical laws for what was formerly thought to be the direct action of Di\-ine agency, it has not accounted for the intelligent, purposive direction of nature. It has simply pushed the question somewhat further back, but left it mth its religious answer as importunate as ever. It is true that in modern civilized nations there has asserted itself a notable tendency to re- ligious scepticism and indifference. It is a sympton of unrest, of an unhealthy, excessive reaction from the simple \-iesv of nature that prevailed in both science and religion in former times. In the material order, ignorance of the natural causes of lightning, tempests, comets, earthquakes, droughts, and pests, has led less cultured peoples to see direct super- natural agency in their production. For them nature in its seemingly capricious moods has had the aspect rather of master than of ser\-ant. Their sense of dependence has thus been keen and constant; their need of Divine help urgent to a high degree. On the other hand, the mdespread recognition among cultured peoples of the reign of law leads man to seek natural remedies in times of distress, and only where these fail to turn to God for aid. Modern civilization, in removing many scourges of ancient times that were viewed as supernatural, in greatly lessening the range of the miraculous, in binding nature in a thousand ways to beneficent ser\-ice, has tended to create in the heart of man a feeling of eelf-sufficiencj' that tends to enfeeble the virtue of rehgion. That this tendency, however, is an abnormal, passing distemper rather than a permanent, characteristic feature of modern civiUzations, may be seen from the unshaken Cliristian faith of many of the greatest exponents of scientific culture (e. g. Clerk-Maxwell, Sir John Herschell, Lord Kelvin in England; Faye, Lapparent, Pasteur in France). It is still more strikingly shown by the conversion from scepticism to Christian faith of distinguished scholars such as Littre, Romanes, Brunetiere, Bourget, Coppee, and von Ru\-ille. It was recognized by these and other profound thinkers that the deeply seated craving in the human heart for bliss-giving communion with God can never be stilled by science or by any other proposed substitute for religion.

Vi. The Civilizing Influence of Religion. — Religion in its highest forms has exercised a pro- found influence on the development of human culture. In the recognized sphere of morality, it has offered powerful motives to right conduct; it has been the chief inspiration of music, poetrj', architecture, sculpture, and painting; it has been the dominant influence in the formation of a perma- nent hterature. In all the early civilizations, the chief representatives and transmitters of the highest known culture have been the officials in charge of religious rites. Religion has been a mighty force in the life of n.ations, cultivating in the hearts of men a striving for better things, a healthy tone of cheerfulness, hope, joy, resignation under calamities, perseverance in the face of ilifficulties, a readiness for generous service, in short a spirit of highminded