Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/99

 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION 91

Rank ([51] Geburtsmythos) the two sciences have shown some interaction, but with Jones and Storfer more extensive "contacts" have made their appearance and in Freud's "Totem and Taboo" myth and religion at last found their proper allocation in the history of human mental development. There are instances enough available which go to elucidate the relation between these two manifestations of the mass-psyche. One might nevertheless say that this problem is still essentially awaiting solution. Meanwhile it is already clear that myth sprang from the soil of animism, and thus ante-dating religion had prematurely undergone a religious elaboration, further that reactions to the great crimes of the primitive herd, so impor- tant for the development of religion, are clearly recognisable in it also.

It has been the aim of Freud to determine the place of religion within the history of culture (16): Rank and Sachs (53) as well as Kaplan (24) have put forth a short statement of their views on the significance of religion in the development of man.

Religious art has been investigated analytically only in isola- tion: up to the present time Freud's analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's Madonnas (14) is the only important work in this direction. The article that appeared anonymously on the Moses of Michelangelo (80) displayed in the method and outlook so many analytical features that it may be reckoned as a paradigm of analytic ob- servation. The conclusions reached in it received additional verifi- cation and enhanced value from the analysis made by Reik of the Sinaitic pericope. Reik's article on the Schofar effects a junction with the analytic valuation of the role of dance and music in religious worship. In this the importance of totemism was also emphasized for the late stages of the development of religion (61). A romance in which a saintly character, that of St. Anthony, is the central figure is selected by Reik as object of analysis (57).

In separate notes Rank (54) provides a short character-sketch of the founder of religion and of the artist in accordance with their diverse psychic conditions and the accompanying determinations.

Kaplan's notes (on the Spinozan idea of God, on sins etc.) prove, the possibility of making use of the analytic point of view in the province of religion, a possibility which Winterstein has brought still more within range in a promising philosophical article (79).

Due attentionhas unfortunately not yet been paid to the development of childish beliefs about God, and to the religious ideas of children.