In all this there is of course an obvious implication as to the
temperament, tastes, propensities, and habits of life imputed to the
divinity by worshippers who live under the tradition of these pecuniary
canons of reputability. Through its pervading men's habits of thought,
the principle of conspicuous waste has colored the worshippers' notions
of the divinity and of the relation in which the human subject stands
to him. It is of course in the more naive cults that this suffusion
of pecuniary beauty is most patent, but it is visible throughout. All
peoples, at whatever stage of culture or degree of enlightenment, are
fain to eke out a sensibly scant degree of authentic formation regarding
the personality and habitual surroundings of their divinities. In so
calling in the aid of fancy to enrich and fill in their picture of the
divinity's presence and manner of life they habitually impute to him
such traits as go to make up their ideal of a worthy man. And in
seeking communion with the divinity the ways and means of approach are
assimilated as nearly as may be to the divine ideal that is in men's
minds at the time. It is felt that the divine presence is entered with
the best grace, and with the best effect, according to certain accepted
methods and with the accompaniment of certain material circumstances
which in popular apprehension are peculiarly consonant with the divine
nature. This popularly accepted ideal of the bearing and paraphernalia
adequate to such occasions of communion is, of course, to a good extent
shaped by the popular apprehension of what is intrinsically worthy
and beautiful in human carriage and surroundings on all occasions of
dignified intercourse. It would on this account be misleading to
attempt an analysis of devout demeanor by referring all evidences of
the presence of a pecuniary standard of reputability back directly and
baldly to the underlying norm of pecuniary emulation. So it would also
be misleading to ascribe to the divinity, as popularly conceived, a
jealous regard for his pecuniary standing and a habit of avoiding and
condemning squalid situations and surroundings simply because they are
under grade in the pecuniary respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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