Page:The Everlasting Man.pdf/66

 "34 THE EVERLASTING MAN

Perhaps the last is about the nearest to the truth; for a civilisation that had religion would have a little more reason.

It is commonly affirmed, again, that religion grew in a very slow and evolutionary manner; and even that it grew not from one cause; but from a combination that might be called a coincidence. Generally speaking, the three chief elements in the combination are, first, the fear of the chief of the tribe (whom Mr. Wells insists on calling, with regrettable familiarity, the Old Man), sec- ond, the phemonema of dreams, and third, the sacri- ficial associations of the harvest and the resurrection symbolised in the growing corn. I may remark in pass- ing that it seems to me very doubtful psychology to refer one living and single spirit to three dead and dis- connected causes, if they were merely dead and discon- nected causes. Suppose Mr. Wells, in one of his fas- cinating novels of the future, were to tell us that there would arise among men a new and as yet nameless pas- sion, of which men will dream as they dream of first love, for which they will die as they die for a flag and a fatherland. I think we should be a little puzzled if he told us that this singular sentiment would be a combina- tion of the habit of smoking Woodbines, the increase of the income tax and the pleasure of a motorist in exceed- ing the speed limit. We could not easily imagine this, because we could not imagine any connection between the three or any common feeling that could include them all. Nor could anyone imagine any connection between corn and dreams and an old chief with a spear, unless there was already a common feeling to include them all. But if there was such a common feeling it could