The positivist theory of religion seemed some years ago close upon its ultimate triumph.[10] Many had accepted it, but without having fully perceived all of its consequences. At the present moment it is, on the contrary, strongly contested. New elements have been introduced into the problem and the whole question must be gone over again. Max Müller in especial has made what might be almost called a desperate effort to make out a case for the objectivity and essential rationality of religion, which had both been compromised by positivism.[11] From a different point of view Herbert Spencer also, in his “Sociology,” has criticised theories which regard fetichism or naturism as the principle of religion.
Max Müller’s theory.
According to Max Müller some notion of divinity, in especial in the form of a notion of the infinite, must have preceded the conception of God. Gods are simply subsequent personifications of this great innate idea; our ancestors kneeled in worship long before they possessed a name for Him before whom they were kneeling. Even at the present day we recognize in the last resort the vanity of all the titles of the unknown God whom we must adore really in silence. Religion, which is responsible for the origin of the gods of history, may therefore well survive them. We say religion; for in effect, according to Max Müller, all religions amount in the end to one, since they may all be traced back through the long course of their development to a single original conception, that namely of the infinite, which from the very beginning was present in the mind of man. This universal conception, however, Max Müller does not regard as in any sense mystical or innate, in the old acceptation of that word. He willingly adopts the axiom: Nihil in fide quod non antea fuerit in sensu.[12] But in his opinion some perception of the infinite is logically involved in a perception of the finite, and this conception of infinity, with its basis at once in sense and reason, is the true foundation of religion. Given the five senses of a savage, Max Müller undertakes to make him sensible of or at least experience some presentiment of the infinite, make him desire it, feel some aspiration toward it. Take the sense of sight for example: “Man sees, he sees to a certain point; and then his eyesight breaks down. But exactly where his eyesight breaks down there presses upon him, whether he likes it or not, the perception of the unlimited or the infinite.” “It may be said,” he adds, “that this is not perception in the ordinary sense of the word. No more it is, but still less is it mere reasoning.” “If it seems too bold to say that man actually sees the invisible, let us say that he suffers from the invisible, and the invisible is only a special name for the infinite.” Man not only necessarily divines the infinite as existing beyond the limits of the finite, and as it were enveloping it; he perceives it within the limits of the finite, and as it were penetrating it; the infinite divisibility of matter is manifest to the senses, the fact that science seems to demand the existence of an irreducible atom as a necessary postulate to the contrary notwithstanding. And what is true of space is equally true of time, applies equally to quality and quantity. “Beyond, behind, beneath, and within the finite, the infinite is always present to our senses. It presses upon us, it grows upon us from every side. What we call finite in space and time, in form and word, is nothing but a veil or net which we ourselves have thrown over the infinite.” And let it not be objected that primitive languages supply no means of expressing the idea of infinity, of the beyond, which is given in every finite sensation. Do the languages of antiquity supply a means of designating the infinite shades and variety of colour? Democritus was acquainted with but four colours: black, white, red, and yellow. Shall we say, therefore, that the ancients did not perceive the blue of heaven? The sky was as blue for them as it is for us, but they had not yet established a conventional designation for the sensation it afforded them. And similarly in the case of the infinite for the primitive man; it existed for him although he had not as yet invented a name for it. Well, what is this infinite, in the last resort, but the object to which every religion addresses itself? A religious being is essentially one who is not satisfied with such and such a finite sensation; who looks everywhere for the beyond—looks for it in life, in death, in nature, in himself. To be divinely aware of a vague somewhat that one cannot quite understand, to feel a veneration for it and then to endeavour to fit it with a name, to call to it stammeringly, these are the beginnings of every system of religious worship. The religion of the infinite comprehends and precedes all others, and since the infinite itself is given in sensation, it follows that “Religion is simply another development of sensuous perception, quite as much as reason is.”[13]
Equally opposed to positivists and orthodox monotheists.
Max Müller is equally critical in his attitude toward positivists, who regard fetichism as the primitive religion, and toward the orthodox, who find in monotheism the natural uncorrupted type of religion. In his opinion, to name a god or gods implies antecedently the possession of a notion of the divine, of the infinite; gods are simply the different forms, more or less imperfect indeed, in which divers peoples have bodied forth one and the same idea; religion is, so to speak, a language into which men have endeavoured to translate one and the same internal aspiration—that of comprehending the great unknown; if man’s tongue and intelligence have gone astray, if the diversity and inequality of religions are comparable to the diversity and inequality of languages, that does not necessarily mean that at bottom the veritable principle and object of all these different religions, as of all these different languages, are not very nearly the same. According to Max Müller a fetich, in the proper sense of the word (factitius), is no more than a symbol which presupposes an idea symbolized; the idea of God cannot come out of a fetich unless it has already been put there. Casual objects, such as stones, shells, the tail of a lion, a tangle of hair, or any such rubbish, do not possess in themselves a theogonic or god-producing character. The phenomena of fetichism, therefore, are always historically and psychologically secondary. Religions do not begin in fetichisms, it is truer to say that they end in it; not one of them has shown itself capable of maintaining its original purity in connection with fetichism. Portuguese Catholics who reproach negroes with the feitiços were the first (were they not?) to have their rosaries, their crosses, their sacred images, blessed by the priests, before their departure from their native land.
Henotheism.
If fetichism, understood as Max Müller understands it, is not the primitive form of religion, if self-conscious monotheism is equally incapable of maintaining its claim to be so, it is more exact to say that the earliest religion, at least in India, consisted in the worship of different objects, accepted one after the other as representing a god (εἷς) and not the unique and sole God (μόνος). It is this that Max Müller calls by a word invented by him: henotheism (εἷς, ἑνός, in opposition to μόνος), or better, kathenotheism.[14] In ordinary polytheism the gods are arranged in hierarchies, belong to different ranks; order reigns in heaven; but in the beginning no such system of subordination could have existed. Each god must have seemed in turn the most powerful to whoever invoked him; Indra, Varuna, Agni, Mitra, Somah were accustomed to hear the same epithets addressed to them; religious anarchy preceded religious monarchy. “Among you, O Gods,” says Rishi Manu Vaivasvata, “there is none that is large, there is none that is small, there is none that is old nor young: you are all great indeed.” They are all but different symbols of the same idea, of an adoration for that which overpasses the limits of the human mind, for the mysterious infinite whose existence our senses prove by their very incapacity of taking cognizance of it.
The evolution of the Hindu faith typical.
Max Müller endeavours to trace the evolution of Hindu thought from a period long previous to the birth of Buddhism, which was the Protestantism of India. The learned philologist sees in the development of religion in India one of the essential types of the development of human religions generally. It may be even, he thinks, that the Hindus, who started from as low a plane as we, have in some respects reached a more considerable height. Let us follow him in this inquiry, which has nowhere been conducted more anxiously and indefatigably than in the great country which may almost be called the home of meditation. Let us take with him a “bird’s-eye view” of what may be regarded as an epitome of human history.