Introduction to the History of Religions / Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV

by Crawford Howell Toy

[965]. General rôle of polytheism. Polytheism has played a great rôle in the religious history of the world. Representing in general a thoughtful protest against the earlier shapeless mass of spirits, it expressed more definitely the belief in the intellectual and moral divine control of all things. It flourished at a time when there was no general demand in human thought for coöperation in supernatural Powers. The sense of variety in the world was predominant, corresponding to the absence of coöperation among the tribes and nations of the world; the apparently isolated character of natural phenomena and the independence of the nations, each of the others, seemed to men to demand a number of separate divine agencies. These were all made to accord with the external and internal condition of their worshipers and met the demands of life in that they represented redemption, salvation, and, in general, all blessings. They were not offensive ethically to the people for the reason that they embodied the ethical conceptions and usages of their time. Thus they furnished the framework for religious feeling—they secured the union of divine and human in life, brought the divine, indeed, into most intimate contact with the human, and so supplied the material for the expression of pious feeling. When the gods were represented by idols, these tended to become merely the symbols and reminders of their divine originals. The elastic character of this theistic system permitted the widest variety of cults, with the possibility of bringing any new social tendency or idea into immediate connection with a divine patron, so that human life became religious with a degree of intelligence and intensity that has perhaps not existed under any other system.

[966]. The great civilizations of the ancient world arose and were developed under polytheism—many noble human characters and customs and institutions were created under the dominance of this system in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere—that is to say, human instincts and aspirations developed freely under a theistic organization that satisfied in general the intellectual and moral needs of the time. The different polytheistic cults of the world differed considerably in intellectual and moral value. These differences pertain to the diversity of characteristics among the nations of the world and are to be studied in connection with the histories of the various peoples. Here it is sufficient to note the general position which polytheism has occupied in the whole religious development of the world.[1762]

[967]. At a relatively early time, however, dissatisfaction arose with the discordances of the polytheistic conception. It raised many problems and failed to account for many phenomena, and efforts were made to systematize and simplify the conceptions of the divine government of the world. These efforts took the shape of dualism, monotheism, pantheism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and later tended to regard the supernatural in the world as Ultimate Force or as Moral Ideal. These tendencies may be examined in the order just given.

Dualism

[968]. In all the religious systems so far considered the existence of human suffering is assumed. The sole object of religious practices, in all cults except the highest, has been to secure extrahuman or superhuman aid and comfort in the ills of life. There has been the conviction, for the most part implicit, that man is not in harmony with his surroundings. We have now to consider those systems of religious thought in which the existence of this disharmony is more or less distinctly announced and the effort is made to discover its source.

The conception of two sets of Powers in the world, one helpful and the other harmful, is suggested by human experience and by the larger observation of natural phenomena, and it is found all over the world, among low communities as well as high, perhaps in all tribes of men.[1763] Possibly there are some low groups, such as the Fuegians and the African Pygmies in which the conception does not exist; but as the religious ideas of these low groups are yet imperfectly understood, we cannot say what their position on this point is. In general, for the lower tribes the world is peopled by spirits, which are the ghosts of the departed or the embodiment of natural forces, and the feeling has been that these are sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly.[1764] In some cases the hurtful spirits stand in contrast with a god who may be a strict ruler and somewhat indifferent to men, but not hostile; in other cases there is a simple division of spirits into two classes, the friendly and the unfriendly,[1765] and in the higher forms of savage life there may be two such classes of deities.[1766] The double feeling of man respecting the attitude of ghosts toward living human beings is referred to above.[1767]

[969]. In certain higher forms of savage and half-civilized life we find the conception of a definite contrast between the two sets of Powers. The Hottentots are said to believe in two opposed supernatural beings, the struggle between them ending to the advantage of the one who is beneficent toward men.[1768] The Masai have two powerful beings, one accounted good, the other bad; the difference between them is not ethical, but represents only the relation of their acts to man's well-being.[1769] The Malays have a very elaborate system of good and evil spirits, but the system is colored by foreign influences.[1770] For the Ainu snakes are an embodiment of merely physical evil, and other Powers are the dispensers of physical well-being.[1771] The Arab jinn represent the unwholesome and antagonistic conditions of nature, stand opposed to the gods, and are without ethical motives.[1772] Even the Andamanese, one of the lowest of human communities, have a division of Powers into one who is friendly and two who are unfriendly.[1773] In all these cases we have to recognize simply the expression of the perception of two sets of physical agencies in the world. It is easy to exaggerate the nature of these contrasts and to represent certain low tribes as possessing general divine embodiments of good and evil.

[970]. Such a conception has been attributed to the American Redmen,[1774] but on insufficient grounds. The most careful recent investigations of the religious ideas of the Creeks, the Lenâpé, the Pawnees, and the Californian Shasta (four typical communities) fail to discover anything that can be called a real dualistic conception.[1775] Dorsey mentions a Pawnee myth of the introduction of death into the world by a member of the heavenly council of gods who felt himself slighted; but this isolated story does not prove the existence of a general dualistic scheme—the act in question has parallels in savage systems that recognize various unfriendly Powers.[1776] The reports we have of two definite morally antagonistic deities in Redmen tribes resolve themselves on examination into misconceptions or exaggerations on the part of the reporters; or, so far as the antagonism really exists, it is due to Christian influence. The Iroquois dualistic system as described by Chief Cusic (in 1825)—two brothers, Good Mind and Bad Mind, the former the creator of all things good, the latter the creator of all things bad—appears in the version of Brébeuf (in 1636) as a simple nature myth, the two deities in question being somewhat more definite forms of the friendly and unfriendly spirits met with in all lower communities.[1777] In like manner Winslow's two opposed Powers of the New England Algonkins turn out not to be morally antagonistic to each other, in fact, according to Brinton, not antagonistic at all.[1778] These facts warn us to treat with caution the vague statements of early travelers respecting dualistic views supposed to be held by tribes in North America and South America.[1779]

[971]. In West Africa the Ashanti embody the sources of physical misfortune in several deities, who are malignant but do not stand in opposition to the friendly gods. A preliminary step to the conception of a god of misfortunes is the assignment of a sort of headship to one of a mass of unfriendly or hurtful spirits—such a crude organization is natural in a community in which there is a fairly developed form of social organization, and the head spirit easily grows into a god. A simple headship over hurtful spirits appears to be found in the Ainu system, though this latter is in general not well developed.[1780]