NEOLITHIC RELIGION
MAN’S ancestors, as we have seen, owed their progress to their training, policing, and harassing by stronger and better-armed competitors. The earliest vertebrates developed a notochordal rod of cartilage, and then a backbone, by the habit of swimming forced upon them by the mollusks and crustacea which held the rich feeding-grounds of the ocean bottom along the shores. In early Paleozoic time the sharks crowded the ganoids in successive waves toward and into fresh water, until finally some crawled out on the shore as amphibia.
Land life and air-breathing gave the possibility of warm blood and high development of brain, and a strong tendency toward viviparous and finally intrauterine development of the embryo. Reptiles harassed mammals into the attainment of a certain amount of wariness and intelligence. The comparatively weak Primates were kept in the trees and forced to develop hand and brain by the fierce and well-armed Carnivora. Only a “saving remnant” has progressed, and these mostly under stern and strenuous pressure. The “aspiring” ape exists only in our imagination.
The apes had become accustomed to life in the trees, and found it safe and comfortable. A change of climate compelled those dwelling farthest north to seek their living on the ground. Most of them fled southward, many became extinct, a few came down and adapted themselves to the new mode of life. Nature was in no sense a “fairy god-mother” to them, but a stern, harsh disciplinarian whose method of education was “not a word and a blow and the blow first, but the blow without the word, leaving the pupil to find out why his ears had been boxed”[155]; and nature’s cuffs were frequently fatal. The pupil had to learn by others’ experience. Paleolithic man lived in France poorly armed and ill-protected against a threatening climate steadily changing for the worse. Food may have been abundant, but enemies hunting for him were also numerous. He was compelled to be keen, watchful, prying, wary; to discover distant danger, and to notice every trace of its approach. He learned the habits and behavior of animals, and the ways of things—an excellent course of study. He had to rely on his wits, and they were none too keen or many.
Some things he could understand: he learned to avoid or to ward off many dangers. Others seemed altogether beyond his understanding or control. Here he could only wonder; but the wise old Greeks knew that wonder was the mother of wisdom. He wondered at storm, lightning, hail, and flood; at disease and death, and a hundred other things. He sat in the mouth of his cave and watched that strange creature fire devouring the wood and sending smoke and sparks skyward. He thought a very little in a dull, stupid way, dozed and dreamed and awaked to wonder again. Or he saw fire raging through the forest and fled for his life. But it was warming and fascinating, and somehow akin to himself. Did it not devour wood and lap up water on the hearth?
He seems to have come to feel rather than recognize that he was surrounded by invisible powers, in some respects like himself but vastly more powerful, who knew what he was doing, and who would hurt him if he did certain things and might help him if he did others. Certain places were to be strictly avoided, certain objects must not be touched, certain things must never be done, or could be permitted only at certain times. They were taboo. He has started on a long journey of exploration, experiment, and discovery.
How had he come to believe this? Largely through hard experience of nature’s buffets, whenever he acted contrary to this hypothesis or feeling. His religion was largely one of fear fitted for a savage mind, though not without a mingling of hope.
Of course in us cultured folk perfect love, sentimentality, softness of fibre, heedlessness, forgetfulness, and general superficiality of life—to make a very inadequate list—have combined to cast out fear, “for fear hath torment”; and we thank God loudly that we are so much wiser than our benighted ancestors. Even our New England fathers feared God, though they feared nothing else, but we fear only everything else except God and law. But the unlucky scientific wight living and working in the shadow of adamantine law remains in hopeless bondage to fear.
“Nach ewigen ehernen, grossen Gesetzen
Mussen wir alle unseres Daseins Kreise vollenden.”[156]
These great powers might not necessarily be hopelessly hostile. They might be appeased or won over, possibly controlled. What could he do to please them? For something must be done. Here ritual arises.[157] Possibly he offers to one or more of them a share in the feast which he so much enjoys after a successful hunt. In time this may become a sacrifice, sent up and out on the wings of fire.[158] Or he practises a wind or rain dance as the outlet and expression of his intense desire; and to awaken, encourage, and help the powers of these elements. He holds a hunting-dance to rehearse and gain power for the killing of the bear. Call it objectification of his heart’s desire, or magic if you prefer. Magic and religion grow up side by side, and probably from the same root in these early stages: as alchemy and chemistry, astrology and astronomy will spring up later.