Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/446

436 to unite himself with the powers which do actually dominate. Religion is a sense of need, a conviction of the insecurity of any merely worldly advantage that he may gain for himself, and a way of salvation through coming to terms with that which controls his destiny. Religion is both founded on fear and consummated in hope.

It will perhaps seem strange that one should thus have attempted to describe religion without referring to deity. But the reason for the attempt lies in the fact that deity is not the cause of religion, but the product of religion. God is not, as we have seen, a manifest fact among facts; but is an object invoked to meet the religious need. Let us consider briefly the various types of deity to which religion has given rise.

TYPES OF DEITY

The commonest of all objects of worship is some prominent aspect of nature, such as the sky, sun, moon, and stars, the earth, the sea, rivers, winds, the seasons, day, and night. Before the development of science man cannot control the operations of these phenomena. Whether they shall favor him with moderate rains, fertility, a calm passage and temperate weather, or torture and destroy him with drought, flood, storm, and the extremes of heat and cold, he can neither foretell nor predetermine. He can only wait and tremble, hope and pray. That he should hope and pray is inevitable. It is the instinct of any living thing toward that which is to decide its fate and which it is impotent otherwise to control. The sun thus regarded as able either to bless or to destroy, and therefore an object of importunity, already begins to be a god. But there is lacking a factor which if it be not absolutely indispensable to deity, is almost invariably present. I refer to what is commonly called "personification." What is worshiped is the "spirit" in the sun, or the sun construed as spirit. But this factor, too, arises, I believe, directly from the practical situation and not from any metaphysics on the part of the worshiper. It is the sequel to the familiar fact that we impute interest or will to any agency that helps or hurts. I do not mean that there is any express judgment to that effect, but that our emotional and practical response is similar to that which we accord to other living individuals. The animal will exhibit rage toward the rod