The Next Step in Religion: An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance

by Roy Wood Sellars

We must, perforce, admit that our ancestors awoke to consciousness of themselves and their surroundings at a time when they knew practically nothing, as we understand knowledge. Theirs was a world of sights and sounds, a world of woods and streams, of moving things, of growing things, of things to be eaten, of things good and evil. It was a driving, fearful, fascinating world. Unconsciously and inevitably, man interpreted his surroundings in terms of his own eager, childish life. Force and desire peeped from every corner.

The sky was not very high above him for it seemed to touch the mountain tops; and yet he could never hope to climb there. But he could see very well that it was inhabited. And was it not a wonderful place, since the heat and light of the sun and the warm, fructifying rain came from it? And what were the clouds that floated across it like huge birds or strange, gigantic creatures? Even the lush grass of the spring-time seemed full of a hidden life. Everywhere was force and will—the power for good and harm.

Perhaps only an imaginative child, or an adult with something of the poet's gift, can appreciate vividly the type of world in which these early men found themselves. The city-dweller of to-day lives in a subdued and mechanically controlled region whose every clank and rattle speaks of routine and order. The myth-making faculty of the street-urchin has little to feed upon—all is so obvious and open to inspection. The ordinary lad, again, is so soon filled with the conventionalized views of his elders that the hand of fancy soon ceases to write upon his soul or give a touch of wonder to familiar things. There can be no doubt, therefore, that a conscious effort is required before a man of to-day can give even a fleeting glimpse at the capricious, magical, animated, and intensely personal world of his distant ancestors. And yet the guesses and surmises of these earlier men were the source of more of his beliefs than he would care to admit. In these pages we shall see how much of mythology still lingers with us.

Mythology is a product of the social group, of clans and tribes and peoples, and is of slow growth. Story added itself to story, this feature to that. Hence it was often a work of art, though of unconscious art. It was an expression of the life of groups who had gods and totems. It was inextricably bound up with the whole savage outlook upon nature; and yet only recently has this setting been adequately appreciated. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, knowledge of mythology was practically limited to the poetized mythology of the Greeks and Romans. And so, because it was found in the poets, it was thought of as an artificial product, as a series of stories invented and embroidered by the fancy of bards and narrators.

But the wider knowledge due to exploration changed this narrow approach. The discoveries of travelers in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania gave pause to this too civilized and superficial theory of myth. Gradually, a more realistic view arose. The idea of evolution gave a genetic way of approach and made investigators aware of the slowness of human advance. The next steps followed quickly. Social psychology replaced the individualistic and overly rationalistic psychology of the early nineteenth century. All the phenomena of primitive society were seen to be the products of relatively non-reflective groups who felt and stumbled their way into rituals and beliefs. As the material accumulated, comparative methods were applied in the field. The result has been astounding. In place of the romantic conception of primitive life, which made the savage essentially a civilized child, a grimmer picture unfolded itself. Fetichism, shamanism, magic, human sacrifice, totemism, ritualism, all were found combined and interactive in a scheme of life alien to our own enlightened outlook. In such an atmosphere it was that mythology arose. It arose as an account of acts and beliefs, and, as these were purified and deepened, it, also, advanced in purity and depth. Yet, always, there remained the trace of the savagery from which it had sprung.

While primitive religion and mythology are not identical, they are closely bound up with one another. Both rest upon animism, totemism and magic as these are brought into relation with man's needs and fears. Religion is chiefly an affair of sentiment and cult, actively guided by belief in superhuman powers capable of helping and hurting man. Mythology, on the other hand, consists of the stories told about these dynamic powers as they are more and more personified and given a history and a name. And such stories are naturally built up around acts whose significance has been forgotten, or around dramatized interpretations of processes in nature. Myths are explanations of acts and events and names which aroused curiosity and therefore demanded some explanation. It was only after modern anthropology had unearthed the characteristic beliefs of primitive man that many myths became intelligible. A few examples will make this relationship clearer.

Totemism is a sort of cult rendered to animals and plants which are regarded as akin to the tribe. It must be remembered that primitive man was not nearly so convinced of his superiority as is modern man. Wolves and bears and foxes are strong and cunning, and seem to him to have a power and knowledge even superior to his own. Strange as it appears to us to-day, savages quite often assign their origin to some animal and regard that animal as the possessor of a force which is valuable to his kin. This cult of totemistic animals and plants is at the base of the tales of metamorphosis which we read in Classic literature or in our own fairy tales. "Beauty and the Beast" is an example of this transformation, which our ancestors looked upon as quite natural; while the savage tales of the werewolf go back to the same outlook. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is another instance of the same cycle of ideas. The application of our present knowledge of totemism to mythology has been very enlightening. Students of Greek literature used to wonder why all the gods had birds and animals as companions. As a matter of fact, these animals were once sacred totems. The eagle and the swan were gradually displaced by Zeus, the sky deity. But so gradual was this displacement that the animals became attributes of the younger deity, while he was thought to change himself at times back into the totem animal. The story of Leda and the swan can, in this way, be easily understood.

Many myths are explanations of rites which were no longer understood. Such myths are called ætiological. They are answers to questions which worshipers were bound, sooner or later, to ask. The myth of Prometheus, the Titan who stole the fire from heaven to succor men, was connected with the use of eagles on the front of temples to ward off lightning. Originally, the story concerns the punishment of the eagle, but is later attached to Prometheus. It is, according to Reinach, the development of the following naïve dialogue: "Why is this eagle crucified? It is its punishment for having stolen the fire from heaven." Other examples of ætiological myths are the Phaethon legend, the story of Hippolyte, and some of the stories told about Heracles.

Another source of myth is to be found in the sacrifice of animal-gods who are supposed to possess a secret strength. Such animal-gods are not anthropomorphized in early times. They are simply regarded as seats of vital power or mana. We must bear in mind the fact that savage man would not have been shocked by Darwinism as Bishop Wilberforce was. No distinction worth mentioning was made between men and animals in those ancient days. "English-lore," writes Andrew Lang, "has its woman who bore rabbits." The religions of Greece and of Asia Minor had rites and myths which introduced the sacred bull. In Mithraism, a religion which almost won against Christianity, the sacrifice of the bull and the consumption of its blood and flesh in a communion feast were prominent features. Again, in the rites of Dionysus Zagreus, a bull was torn to pieces and eaten. From this arose the myth of Dionysus Zagreus as a son of Zeus and Persephone changed into a bull and eaten by the Titans. He is born again under the name of Dionysus, yet carries horns on his forehead, evident signs of his animal origin. Thus different strata of religion and belief meet and blend and necessitate the growth of explanatory myths.

But we must not allow the newer recognition of the part played by misinterpretation in the development of myths to obscure the genuine role of naïve reflection upon the phenomena of nature. Yet the savage imagination was limited by the experience at its command. The Homeric hymn to Helios "looks on the sun as a half-god, almost a hero, who had once lived on earth." Still more naïve are legends which make it a beast which has once been trapped. Myths arise to account for eclipses, the waxing and waning of the moon, sunset, etc. The explanation of the rainbow as a sign of a covenant between Yahweh and Noah, is an excellent example of a nature-myth introduced as a part of a legend.