Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/448

 412 Lord Avebury on Marriage,

futed" Lord Avebury. I am happy to withdraw the saying, for by " reh'gion " Dr. Roskoff means one thing, and Lord Avebury means another thing. Lord Avebury does not recognise as " religious " beliefs and usages which are religious in the opinion of his critics. All that we can do is to produce, in the most savage regions, beliefs and usages which most men will confess to be essentially religious ; and if Lord Avebury still maintains that they are not, the question is left to the verdict of anthropologists, — -jtidicet orbis terrarum.

Here we are obliged, then, to define " religion," and in their definitions few people agree. Some may say that the minimum of religion is belief in non-personal power, Mana. Then a dispute arises as to whether Mana is or is not per- sonal. Perhaps I might describe an early minimum of religion as " the belief in and a measure of obedience to a potent being or beings, not ourselves." But, if I take that line. Lord Avebury meets me with " I have never denied that the fear of ghosts, fairies, demons, genii, and Nature- spirits, of the Ariels, Nixies, Brownies, etc., is found every- where among existing savages." (I wish I could find a savage Brownie !) " They are beings differing from living men, but are not gods, nor are they worshipped." ^^ Yet we have endless examples of prayers to and propitiation of Nature-spirits and ghosts. To Lord Avebury nothing is religious except a god, and a worshipped god. Where do the Saints come in ? Therefore we have to ask, what is the definition of a "god," what is the definition of "worship," and can no being who is not worshipped be styled a "god" }

For my part, though I spoke of " high gods of low races" in The Making of Religion (1898) I am now very shy of the use of the word "god " in this connection, — as it seems to be unacceptable, — and I often prefer, following Mr. Howitt, to say, not "god " but "All Father." Nevertheless I firmly believe that the belief in the All Father is the germ of the

^^ Avebury, p. 141.