Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/350

 340 The Religious Basis of Social Union.

(7) Actual worship of the King (from Alexander to

Constantine).

(8) Monarchy again falls under the control of the

Elders (the Christian Hierarchy).

(9) 'Divine Right' at the Reformation = deifying

actual force : the new worldly autocracy of the Modern State : frank utilitarianism of the unit : Society based on force and coercion, not moral appeal.

Summary: Human aggregation artificial not ?iatura/ ; up to present society has been reinforced by religions sanctions— which have now altogether disappeared.

15/// December, 191 5.

I. This paper represents an analysis of a book soon to be issued, which deals with a historic (indeed prehistoric) study and a momentous modern problem. The present war has thrust us all back upon the rudiments, has destroyed much of the easy rationalism and shallow idealism of the Victorian Age, and has sent some of us back with humbled mind to the study of average human nature. I have not myself felt qualified, as many of my Academic colleagues at Oxford have obviously felt, to rise from the arm-chair and note-books of a student and explain exactly how the present crisis arose, what lines its progress and final settlement must follow. I am a little sceptical of the value of these views set forth by worthy professors in subjects for which their own re- searches, their previous training and outlook, can hardly have fitted them. I am content, in the amazement or stupor, the enforced idleness, the mingled feelings of pride and humiliation, which the war produces in Oxford — I am content to apply its lessons to our studies and theories, to the ideals which it has savagely and contemptuously over- thrown.