The cultivator of this science has to become acquainted
with so many groveling and horrible superstitions that a
presumption easily arises in his mind that any belief that is
religious probably is false. In the "prayerful communion" of
savages with such mumbo-jumbos of deities as they acknowledge, it
is hard for us to see what genuine spiritual work--even though it
were work relative only to their dark savage obligations-- can
possibly be done.
The consequence is that the conclusions of the science of
religions are as likely to be adverse as they are to be favorable
to the claim that the essence of religion is true. There is a
notion in the air about us that religion is probably only an
anachronism, a case of "survival," an atavistic relapse into a
mode of thought which humanity in its more enlightened examples
has outgrown; and this notion our religious anthropologists at
present do little to counteract.
This view is so widespread at the present day that I must
consider it with some explicitness before I pass to my own
conclusions. Let me call it the "Survival theory," for brevity's
sake.
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