THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF RELIGION. IN N the discussions of religion, whether technical or popular, one frequently comes upon expressions such as the religious nature of man, the religious sense, the religious impulse, the religious instinct. But upon careful analysis, it is exceedingly difficult to discover that any of these expressions are used with precision or consistency. In this respect the professional psychologists are scarcely more satisfactory than the theologians. The tendency, however, of the psychologists is to establish a definition of terms which simplifies the task of determining whether religion is to be described by these terms. For example, it is clear that religion cannot be ascribed to any unique faculty for the simple reason that modern psychology does not recognize the existence of unique faculties of any kind. Neither can it be called a "sense," for the term sense is limited to those organic functions which are known as the sense of sight, hearing, pressure, temperature, and the rest. In the same way the words impulse and instinct are gradually attaining a specific usage which in the nature of the case precludes their application to religion. Both impulse and instinct are employed more and more to signify motor reactions; impulse indicating the dynamic, spontaneous character of an act, and instinct referring also to the organization of movements in the attainment of definite ends or in manifesting characteristic attitudes, such as fear. Thus the random movements of the infant express impulses, but grasping and sucking are usually classed as instincts. Certainly religion is not a motor reaction of this type. The phrase religious consciousness seems more promising, but this is largely because the word consciousness is inclusive enough and sufficiently flexible to escape the objections made against the other terms. Whatever else religion may be, it is some form of consciousness. This is the most general term which psychology employs, and therefore to speak of the religious consciousness puts the whole burden back upon the adjective religious, and we scarcely get nearer a solution of the problem than before, except that we have a designation for our subject which is not beset by conflicting or confusing usage. The question is then, What is the psychological basis and nature of the religious consciousness? It may add force to the question to recall that for functional psychology there is an indefinite variety of types of consciousness-art consciousness, scientific consciousness, civic consciousness, masculine consciousness, feminine consciousness, race consciousness, class consciousness. Each profession, trade, locality, family, or other group having common interests tends to develop a consciousness in which every member shares more or less keenly. One feels the reality and force of these different kinds of consciousness as one converses with men who possess them, men of different professions and persons from different sections of the country. Or, again, one immediately experiences for himself the contrasted mental attitudes and psychical functions when, in the course of the day, he goes from his study to the dining-room, to the tennis court, to the business street, to the hospital, to the concert, to the place of worship. All these forms of consciousness are definite and describable, and one is as real and as tangible as another. They are manifestations of interests, of habits, of customs. We never doubt their reality as genuine experiences, and we do not question that activities which we only observe, without actively sharing, involve definite forms of consciousness for those engaged in them. Because I do not play golf, I cannot deny that there is such a thing as golf consciousness in those I observe pounding the white balls over the green turf on a torrid day or eagerly discussing at dinner the drives and foozles of their afternoon sport. This golf consciousness is something in its own right. It is different from tennis consciousness or bridge consciousness. It develops its own social institutions, its heroes, its literature, its code of etiquette, its advocates, its apologists, and its fanatics. Taken in some such objective way, the religious consciousness is obviously a tremendous reality in all races and peoples. It is represented everywhere by ceremonials, temples, sacred places, priests, traditions, saints and sages. The definitions of this religious consciousness are notoriously various and partial. They represent special phases or stages of religious experience. In intellectual terms it is identified with the belief in spirits, in the supernatural, in the infinite; in terms of feeling, it is an emotion, the feeling of dependence, the feeling of fear; in terms of the will it is a set of desires and of organized habits. This diversity, representing different philosophical and temperamental standpoints, has led Höffding to assert that the definition of religion is largely a matter of taste. The statement offered here is, therefore, presented only as a working suggestion to indicate at once the general point of view and something of the scope of the religious consciousness. First, religion, or the religious consciousness, expresses man's craving for life and attaches supreme importance to those objects and activities upon which the maintenance and furtherance of his life depend; second, the religious consciousness is social in its nature, involving the welfare of the group and enveloping the mind and will of the individual in a body of inherited custom. The elaboration of these two propositions will show more fully what they signify. It will be convenient to draw illustrations from primitive as well as developed forms of religion. Use is made of primitive religions in this connection because in them the phenomena are simpler and are less complicated by the overgrowths and divergent interests of civilization. Besides, the evolution of the higher types of religion from these earlier stages is so obvious to the student of the history of society that he sees in the general structure and framework of primitive religion the main features of the later growths. Take, then, the first proposition that the religious consciousness expresses man's craving for life and attaches supreme importance to those objects and activities upon which the maintenance and furtherance of his life are felt to depend. The most casual observer of religious phenomena must be impressed with the fact that religion takes itself with the utmost seriousness. It regards its practices and customs as matters involving the very sources and conditions of life. Throughout the Bible, which in this respect expresses the keynote of religion everywhere, the assurance is that those who do the things enjoined shall live and prosper, while those who refuse or neglect to do them shall surely die. After the law of the ten commandments the injunction is added: "Ye shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord, the God of thy fathers, hath promised unto thee, in a land flowing with milk and honey." There are also many passages like the following: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thy self also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Religion is thus an expression of the most elemental demand of the human being-the demand for existence, for welfare, for success. It exalts those functions, habits, objects, and customs which are felt to further life and warns against whatever threatens it. Religion is identical with the central biological impulse; with the will to live, to affirm, to grow. It is natural, therefore, that the basal instincts of human nature should be conspicuous and controlling factors in religion, and the evidence is abundant that this is the case. This is particularly clear in primitive races where the fundamental instinctive reactions are preserved in the ceremonials without qualification or apology. The instinctive reactions are those involved in preserving, perpetuating, and protecting life. They are the instincts of getting food, of reproduction, and of resisting and escaping danger. The ceremonials are in large part the reproduction of actions and situations experienced in the actual life of food getting, courtship and war. If a people has totems, those totems are the familiar animals and plants of the environment. They are or have been the staples of food, of subsistence. The totems of Australia and of North America are the commonplace necessities of life in those countries. And the ceremonial of the totem, whether of fish or flower, consists of dancing and mimetic movements typical of the habits of the species. The leader usually wears a head gear and his body is painted to make him resemble the totem. Spencer and Gillen give the following description of the initiation ceremony of the eagle-hawk totem in Central Australia. It was performed by two men, supposed to be two eagle-hawks quarreling over a piece of flesh, represented by the downy mass in one man's mouth. “At first |