The Hibbert Lectures

PREFACE

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

vii

LECTURE I.

ON METHODS OF RESEARCH INTO THE PRE-HISTORIC

MANIFESTATIONS OF RELIGION.

Religious beliefs and institutions discovered at the dawn of
history. Inability of the historic method to reconstruct
their origins.—Recourse to the comparative method neces-
sary

...

1-5

Reasons for believing that the general evolution of humanity
has been progressive; and inferences as to our humble
origins. Refutation of the theory that man began at a
high level of culture.-Point of departure of the religious
development.-Estimate of the value of the ancient tradi-
tions and Sacred Books of the several peoples
Conclusions drawn from philology.-Essence and form of the
conceptions formulated at the dawn of languages.—Ina-
bility of their framers to formulate abstract ideas

...

Data of pre-historic archæology.-Funeral rites in the mam-
moth age; in the reindeer age; in the neolithic period.-—
The megaliths.-Scull-trepanning.-Traces of idolatry;
the worship of the axe.-The method of pre-historic archæo-
logy
Folk-lore.-Religious survivals in popular customs; in social
usages; in ecclesiastical liturgies

...

5-12

12-14

15-30

30-38

Comparative ethnography: its legitimacy and its importance.—

How far is the contemporary savage the counterpart of

primitive man?

Applicability of the general law of continuity and progress
to the religious sentiment.-Present position of the pro-

...

PAGE

38-41

...

47-51

51-63

(i.) THE WORSHIP OF NATURE, AND THE WORSHIP OF THE Dead.
Definition of religion.-Did religion spring from the emotions
or from the reason ?-Have animals religion?

Unwarranted extension of the idea of personality.-Attribu-

tion of all movement to personal agents.-Metaphorical

language fosters but does not create the illusion.-To what

extent do children and savages confound the personal and

the impersonal?

Deity implies superiority and mystery.-Original distinction

between the natural and the abnormal.-Deification of

phenomena which man cannot understand or control.—

Nature-worship. The emotion of fear and the sense of

the Infinite as religious motives.--Worship addressed to

an active power with which it is possible to enter into

relations

Confusion of concomitance and causality

...

Assimilation of dreams to reality.-Effect of dreams in multi-
plying the superhuman beings and extending their attri-
butes

The idea of the "double."—Future life.-Sources of the worship

of the dead

...

Prayer.-Primitive theory of sacrifice.-Intimidation of the
gods.-Sorcery.-Sources of symbolism.-Did conjuration

63-71

71-73

73-76

77-82

precede propitiation ?

...

82-96

LECTURE III.

POLYDEMONISM AND POLYTHEISM.

(i.) SPIRITISM, FETISHISM AND IDOLATRY.

PAGE

When natural objects are adored, it is the personality with which
they are supposed to be endowed to which the worship is
addressed. This personality is conceived, by analogy with
that of man, in the form of a "double" that can be sepa-
rated from its envelope.-The distinction between body
and soul extended to all personified objects. - What
becomes of the crowd of souls released by the disappear-
ance of their visible envelopes.-Spiritism.-The belief in
spirits not necessarily the result of necrolatry
97-106

Religious phenomena connected with spiritism.-Obsession,
possession, talismans, fetishes.-Belief that the appropria-
tion of an object secures the services of the spirit lodged
within it. Sources of fetishism.-The idol an elaborated
fetish. Sundry springs of idolatry.-Criticism of the
theory that idols were at first symbolic representations.-
Is idolatry a step in advance?

...

(ii.) THE DIVINE HIERARCHY.

...

106-122

Arrested development and indications of degeneration in the
beliefs of certain peoples.-The progressive evolution of
the conception of God starts from the differentiation of the
superhuman powers.-Preponderance granted to the regents
of the great phenomena of nature, to the souls of the illus-
trious dead, to the genii of species, of social groups and of
moral abstractions
122-138

Subordination of spirits to gods.-The divine societies modelled

upon those of earth.-The divine societies of the Indo-

Europeans; of the Egyptians; of the Mesopotamians; of

the Western Semites; of the aboriginal Americans; of

(i.) THE STRUGGLE FOR ORDER.

PAGE

Selfishness of the first gods.-Alliance between the gods and

man.-Relations of mythology and religion.-How the

gods became interested in securing order in the universe 153-158

Dualism of the superhuman personalities representing the hostile

and the beneficent forces of nature respectively.-Accen-

tuation of dualism as religion advances.-Confidence in

the final triumph of the beneficent deities.-The idea of

the cosmic order generated by the spectacle of the regular

recurrence of phenomena

Gradual restriction of the field abandoned to divine caprice.-

Personifications of the natural order exalted above the

ancient gods.-The supreme god the author and sustainer

of the cosmic order

...

(ii.) THE STRUGGLE FOR GOOD.

158-167

168-174

The absurd and immoral actions attributed to the gods some-
times to be explained as metaphorical descriptions of
natural phenomena, sometimes as survivals from the bar-
barism of earlier generations.-Original independence of
morals and religion.-Influence of the religious sentiment
in consolidating the social relations

...

175-179

179-186

The divine sanction of the oath.--Intervention of the gods in

the ordeal.The gods punish attacks on the community.—

Conception of a moral order on the model of the cosmic

order

Unpunished violations of the moral order argue either the feeble-
ness or the injustice of the gods.-Solution offered by a
future life. Conception of the future life as similar to the
present, as better, or as worse.-Assignment of the souls
to different abodes according to their conduct in this
world. The theory of continuation and the theory of
retribution.-Recompense after death and recompense on
186-200

earth

...

PAGE

Purification of the character of the gods by the assimilation
of the moral order to the divine order.-The attributes of
Deity reduced solely to justice and love

...

200-203

LECTURE V.

MONOTHEISM.

Monolatry.-National pantheons.-Gods attached to the land
or the people.-Monolatry founded on the belief in the
superiority of the national god.-Conception of a supreme
god, sovereign of gods and men.-Formation of divine
genealogies in the national pantheons.-The supreme god
conceived as the universal father ...

204-211

The place of metaphysical speculation in the development of

monotheisn.-Monotheism implies superiority not only in

power, but in nature, on the part of the Supreme Deity as

conceived by his worshippers.-Simplification of the pan-

theons by the assimilation of the gods representing analo-

gous phenomena.--Conception of a single god of whom all

other deities are the several members, forms or names.-The

triune God of Egypt.-The Semitic monotheism.—God as

distinct from matter.-Indo-European pantheism.-God

evolving the universe out of his own substance.—God as

the soul of the universe.-The One without a second 211-226

The ancient gods before the face of the Only God.—Their
transformation into hypostases, demiurges and mediators.—
The religious syncretism of the declining Greco-Roman
paganism. The Christian theodicy.-God reduced to the
absolute unity by modern philosophy.-Opposition of
science, not to the belief in God, but to the supposition of
interventions by secondary deities.-The divine interme-
diaries transformed into abstractions or ideal types.-The
eternal and infinite energy whence all things proceed.-
The eternal power that makes for righteousness.-Corol-
laries

...

226-244