Again, the study of biology has led men to look, not in vain, for resemblances between the gills of a fish and the lungs of a mammal, between the hands of a man and the forefeet of a quadruped. Postulating the theory of evolution a common origin is discovered in either case.
The prehensile and tentacular movements of certain plants call to mind the like movements of certain fishes. Whether by means of the same theory, with the aid of the accredited results of research, they can be held to have had a common origin; whether, for example, they can be referred to some such quality or instinct as that which characterises the Proteus animalcule is perhaps an open question. It seems, however, quite clear that these blind, involuntary movements on the part of fishes are not derived from the similar movements of plants or vice versâ, but that, if a common origin is to be found, it must be sought in some very early stage before animal and vegetable became differentiated. The evolution hypothesis, whether it be regarded as proved or unproved, is in any case invaluable because it stimulates thought, observation, and research. By means of it knowledge becomes coherent, articulate, scientific.
The application of this principle to religion is becoming more and more the vogue, and, provided that its adherents are content to work on the same lines as the students of physical science, there is no reason why useful results should not be obtained. There is, however, a tendency to transmute this working hypothesis into a superstition which, in point of sanity, is only comparable to that of the number thirteen and that of the single magpie—the superstition, in short, which notes coincidences and resemblances and ignores their opposites.
It is by no means clear that resemblance of rite and ceremonial and coincidence in point of time of calendared festivals furnish the proper material from which to formulate the law and to determine the source of religious observance. For example, however we may judge of the Salvation Army, it is obvious that a very different principle underlies and animates Mr. Booth’s following from that which inspires the soldiers of King George. Military organisation merely suggested a useful and convenient form of discipline. In this case resemblance is utterly misleading, and the archæologist of the distant future, who should argue that the venerated coat of the General, supposing it to have been preserved, points to some mad but futile attempt to repeat the religious conquests of Mahomet, would be quite as wide of the truth as he who should seek the General’s prototype in the militant ecclesiastic of the Middle Ages.
A further danger attends the student of religions. This arises from prepossession rather than from hypothesis and leads him to mistake deduction for induction. He finds, we will suppose, what he takes to be a latchkey. It is an instrument considerably the worse for wear and of a somewhat unusual pattern. He is quite certain it is a key. There is no room for doubt. He determines to find a lock which it will fit. Starting with the key he examines locks prehistoric, mediæval and modern, but all in vain, for the simple reason that the implement in his hands is not a key at all but the head of a fish spear.
It is not the critical method of induction but the uncritical method of deduction which is to be reprobated. When, for example, we discover by observation, the practical universality of sacrifice as a distinguishing mark of religion, we may explain the fact in a dozen different ways, but in every case we are compelled to recognise the belief in a God of some sort, and when we find that generally, at some stage of religious development, sacrifice is offered by way of propitiation, we are led to the conclusion that safety and salvation were held to be only possible by atonement. We have before us a multitude of locks and one key fits them all, and we are therefore led to conclude that au fond offence and sacrifice are related as poison to antidote. When, however, we descend to particulars, resemblances and coincidences are found to be as misleading as the salvationist’s tunic. Their evidential value, to use a threadbare but useful phrase, is infinitesimally small and sometimes a negative quantity.
Relying upon resemblance, a person might be led to conclude that it was the spring turnip which suggested the shape of the watch and the duck’s egg the morphology of toilet soaps.
Utility and convenience have entered largely into the ritual systems of all religions. The same accessories are required for the worship of Baal as for the worship of Jehovah. To identify Baal with Jehovah is to beg the question and to fall a victim to the tyranny of coincidence and resemblance.
When attempts are made to discover a common origin for the Christian Eucharist, the Aztec communion described by Prescott, and the ceremonial eating and drinking practised by the worshippers of Mithras, it is often assumed that the closer the ritual resemblance between them the stronger the argument in favour of a common origin. It does not seem to have occurred to the maintainers of this hypothesis that public worship, of whatsoever kind it may be, finds expression in a symbolism of its own, just as thought expresses itself in speech and in written language. The fact that Christianity expressed itself in symbol and sacrament does prove that from the very first it claimed to be a religion and not a mere philosophy or school of thought, but it does not prove identity of origin or of intention with the pagan religions which employed the same or similar symbolism. It was inevitable that the Christian Passover should have been singled out in order to illustrate the prepossession that in origin it is essentially pagan. In this case, however, it is not resemblance but coincidence (in point of time) which is supposed to afford the ground of proof. One writer, at least, who rightly connects it with the Jewish Passover, in order to exhibit its sacrificial character,[[3]] does not hesitate to refer its origin to the worship of Attis or Tammuz, the earth-god, on the ground that the time of its occurrence roughly coincides with the solemnities of Attis. No better illustration of the tyranny of observed coincidence could be found than in his ingenious but futile attempt to apply the principle to Cornwall. His object is to identify the May-day festivities, which he conceives to be a survival of Beltane solemnities, with those of the Christian Passover. Unfortunately for him the latter festival occurs too early; it can never occur later than the twenty-fifth of April. But he has read of Little Easter, which occurs a week later, and attributing to the Cornish a preference for a réchauffé of the Easter banquet to the banquet itself—a preference for which no reasons are vouchsafed—he concludes that Little Easter is the Cornish equivalent of the Beltane Feast. It might have occurred to the maintainer of this opinion to test it by means of the same calculations which forbade the synchronising of Easter itself with the pagan solemnity. Had he done so he would have found that Little Easter (Paskbian) or Low Sunday occurs in May only once in sixty or seventy years, and on May-day less than once in a century.[[4]] A coincidence which occurs once in a century does not convince the writer and will hardly convince the reader of the identity of the Celtic feast of Beltane with the Christian Passover, or even with the Low Sunday celebration at Lostwithiel described by Richard Carew, the historian.[[5]]
It is impossible, without destroying the character of this enquiry, to consider the Christian Passover in all its bearings upon the subject before us, but a few remarks are needed in order to place it in a right relation to the more ancient solemnity from which incidentally it sprang.