The Psychological Origin and the Nature of ReligionLeuba, James H. (James Henry)
Religion
The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion
Leuba, James H. (James Henry)
Magic; Psychology, Religious
If, with this conception in mind, we turn to Religion, we shall understand
it to be compounded of will, thought, and feeling, bearing to each other
the relation which belongs to them in every department of life. And it
will, moreover, be clear that a purpose or an ideal, _i.e._ something to
be attained or maintained, must always be at the root of it. The outcome
of the application of current psychological teaching to religious life is,
then, to lead us to regard Religion as a particular kind of activity, as a
mode or type of behaviour, and to make it as impossible for us to identify
it with a particular emotion or with a particular belief, as it would be
to identify, let us say, family life with affection, or to define trade
as 'belief in the productivity of exchange'; or commerce as 'greed touched
with a feeling of dependence upon society.' And yet this last definition
is no less informing and adequate than the far-famed formula of Matthew
Arnold, which I forbear to repeat. We shall, however, have to remember
that Religion is multiform, and that certain ideas, emotions, and purposes
appear in it prominently at certain moments, and other ideas, emotions,
and purposes at other times. But neither prominence nor predominance is
synonymous with 'essence' or with 'vital element.'
I do not intend, at this stage of our inquiry, to offer a complete
definition of Religion. But I must guard against a possible
misinterpretation. In speaking of Religion as an activity, or as a type of
behaviour, I would not be understood to exclude from it whatever does not
express itself in overt acts, in rites of propitiation, submission, or
adoration. For, just as man's relations with his fellow-men are not all
directly expressed, or expressible, in actions, so his relations with
gods, or their impersonal substitutes, may not have any visible form; they
may remain purely subjective and none the less exercise a definite guiding
and inspiring influence over his life.
The adjectives _passive_ and _active_ might be used to separate amorphous
from organised Religion, _i.e._ the feeling-attitude from the behaviour.
'Passive,' used in this connection, would mean simply that the person does
not actively seek those advantages the gods might procure, but is content
to be acted upon by them.
_Unorganised religiosity_ must be, it seems, the necessary precursor of
organised Religion; it is its larval stage. But it does not by any means
disappear from society when a system of definite relations with gods, or
with impersonal sources of religious inspiration, has been developed. In
all societies there is always a large number of people who live in the
limbo of organised Religion. They are open to the influence of religious
agents, in which they believe more or less cold-heartedly, without ever
entering into definite and fixed relations with them.
CHAPTER II
THREE TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR DIFFERENTIATED
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