Elements of Folk Psychology / Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

by Wilhelm Max Wundt

One of the most significant marks of the heroic age is the existence of national religions. Just as each race possesses its own heroes, so also does it have its own gods, who are reverenced as its protectors in wars with foreign peoples. True, gods and their cults may occasionally pass over from one people to another. Wherever there is an assimilation of foreign cults, however, all traces of origin disappear; the gods who are taken over from other peoples are added to the company of native gods, and enrich the national pantheon. So far as these conditions are concerned, world empires bring few changes. At most, they expressly subordinate the gods of conquered lands to the god of the ruling city, and thus prepare for the idea of an all-comprehensive divine State corresponding to the universal terrestrial State. The decisive step in the completion of this development is taken only under the influence of the world culture that grows up out of the world empire. The special national deities that represent the particular interests of individual peoples then inevitably recede in favour of gods and cults sustained by universal human needs, in which case the cults are, on the whole, identical, even though the deities bear different names.

It is of importance to note the motives that led to the first steps toward the realization of a universal human religion. They were identical with the very earliest incentives to religion, such as prevailed among all peoples on the very threshold of the belief in demons and gods. For, after the disappearance of political interests, to which the national gods owed their supremacy, it was again two experiences that occupied the foreground—sickness and death. During the period of Hellenistic world culture, the occupation of the physician was held in especial esteem. Connected with this was the fact that the cult of Æsculapius, the god of healing, grew from small beginnings into a cult whose influence extended over distant lands. Even more marked was the increase in the influence of those cults that centred about a world after death and the individual's preparation for it. The origin of these cults was connected both with the needs of this life and with the desire for endless joy in the beyond. In view of their identical development, how could it have escaped notice that, whatever formal differences there might be, the Grecian Demeter, the Phrygian Cybele, and the Phœnician Astarte were alike in nature? Even more than was the case with the Greek mysteries, these Oriental cults carried over into the cults of the beyond, into which they developed, certain ecstatic and orgiastic elements of ancient vegetation cults. All the more readily, therefore, were the latter cults incorporated into the deity cults, inasmuch as these had as their concern the satisfaction of human needs generally. But conditions were ripe for a still further advance. As has been suggested, the national and State interests which fettered man to the actual world of his environment gave way to interests transcending this world. In proportion as this occurred, however, did the life of the present, deprived of its former values, relinquish all cherished desires in favour of that heavenly world possible to all men regardless of class, calling, or nationality. This change was antithetical to the innate fear of death, and yet was its own final product. All these cults thus became redemption cults. To be redeemed from the evil of the world—the desire of deeper religious minds—or, after the enjoyment of the good things of this life, to receive still greater happiness after death—a hope doubtless entertained by the majority then as now—such was the primary object of the cults of these supranational gods. National cults had fashioned the gods in the image of man, even though exalting them with all the power of the mythological imagination into the superhuman and the unapproachable. At this later period, all efforts were directed toward bringing these anthropomorphic gods nearer to man as regards the activities in which they engaged, and particularly as regards the experiences which they underwent. No figure in the later Greek pantheon better lent itself to such a purpose than did Dionysos. Like the female deities representing Mother Earth, this male deity originated in the ancient field and fertility cults. Later, however, he became more and more transformed by legend into the ideal of a striving and suffering deity, who, after a horrible death, arose to new glory. Related to Dionysos were other deities who likewise became supreme in the Hellenistic age—Mithra, Attis, Osiris, and Serapis. All of these were gods who had been redeemed from pain and anguish, and were therefore capable, in their sympathy, of redeeming man.

In its beginnings, Christianity also was one of these religions of redemption. Over five hundred years before its rise, moreover, there had already appeared in the Far East a religion in which the same thought occupied the foreground. I refer to Buddhism. With reference to the steps by which Buddhism attained its supremacy, our only data are the controversies of the philosophical schools that participated in the development. These controversies make it probable that the basal motives involved were similar to those that were later operative in the cultural world of the Occident. There were also essential differences, however, traceable to the fact that the various Brahmanic systems had a common religious substratum, and that Hindoo thought had attained to a fairly advanced stage of philosophical development. One fact is doubtless universal—the appearance of a redemptive religion marks the decadence of an old and the rise of a new period of culture. Beginning with the Hellenistic period, therefore, and continuing with increased strength during the Roman world empire, there was a transition from a national to a humanistic culture. World religion was a more decisive indication of this crisis than were any of the other elements of world culture, or than was even world empire, which prepared the way for world culture. The old gods could no longer satisfy the new age, unless, at any rate, they underwent marked transformations. The age required new gods, in whom national traits were secondary, as they were in life itself, and universal human characteristics were supreme. It was particularly the unique worth of the individual human personality, without regard to birth, class, and occupation, which this period of transition from the national to the humanistic ideal emphasized. Hence the obstacles which the surrounding world placed in the way of personal endeavour were inevitably felt the more deeply in proportion as the values of the narrower community life disappeared. A change in mood took place within the consciousness of the age, as it so often does within that of the individual, and this change was enhanced by the contrast of emotions. The world lost the values which it had thus far held, and became a place of evil and suffering. In contrast with it, there loomed up a yonder world in which the desired ideals were believed to meet fulfilment. This mood, of course, did not continue permanently. World religion was of inner necessity forced to adapt itself to the earthly life in proportion as State and society again acquired a more fixed organization. But, just as the strata of the earth's crust retain the effects of a geological catastrophe long after it has passed, so spiritual life continues to exhibit the influence of upheavals that have occurred in the transitions from age to age, even though the spiritual values themselves have undergone many changes. In this respect, world religion manifests a conserving power greater than that of any other product of mental life.

There are only two world religions, in the strictest sense of the term, Buddhism and Christianity. Confucianism, which might perhaps be included so far as the number of its adherents is concerned, is a system of ethical teachings rather than a religion. Hence, when we take into account the vast number of Chinese peoples, Confucianism will be found to embody a great number of different religious developments, the most important of which are the ancient ancestor cult and Buddhism, the latter of which penetrated into China from elsewhere. The faith of Islam is a combination of Jewish and Christian ideas with ancient Arabian and Turanian traditions. As such, it has brilliantly fulfilled the mission of bringing a cultural religion to barbarian or semi-barbarian peoples, but it cannot be credited with being an original religious creation. Judaism finally formed a supremely important element of Christianity, one whose influence would appear to have been absolutely indispensable. In itself, however, it is not a world religion, but is one of those vanquished cults which struggled for supremacy in the pre-Constantinian period of the Roman world empire.

But what, let us ask, were the powerful forces that gave these two great world religions their supremacy? Surely it was not merely their inner superiority, though this be in no way disputed. Nor was it simply propitious external circumstances, such, for example, as the fact that Constantine made Christianity the State religion. Doubtless there were a great number of co-operating factors, foremost among them being the desire for a purely humanistic religion, independent of nationality or external position in life. And yet this also could not have been of decisive significance—precisely such a longing was more or less characteristic of all the religious tendencies of this transitional period. Moreover, this leaves unexplained the peculiarities of each of the two great world religions. These are in complete accord as regards their universal, humanistic tendency, but are just as different in content as is a Buddhistic pagoda from a Gothic cathedral. As a matter of fact, these world religions are also cultural religions. Back of each of them is a rich culture, with characteristics peculiar to itself, even though its basal elements are universally human. Hence it is that these two world religions are not merely expressions of a striving for a universally valid religious and moral ideal, in the sense in which such a striving is common to mankind as a whole; it should rather be emphasized that they reflect the essentially different forms which this striving has assumed within humanity. Buddhism, in its fundamental views, represents the highest expression to which the religious feeling of the Orient has attained, while Christianity, as a result of the conditions which determined its spread, has become the embodiment of the religious thought of the Occidental world. To appreciate this fact we must not allow our minds to be diverted to the tangled profusion of beliefs in magic and demons which Buddhism exhibits, nor to the traditional and, in part, ambiguous sayings of the great ascetic himself. If we would discover the parallels between Buddhism and Christianity, we must hold ourselves primarily to the ideas that have remained potent within the religion of Buddha. True, the worlds which these religions disclose to our view differ, yet in neither case had religious feeling up to that time received so exalted an expression. In Buddhism, as in original Christianity, human life is regarded as a suffering, and this underlies both the irresistible impulse to asceticism and repentance, and the hope for unclouded bliss in the future. The Christian of the primitive church looks forward to the speedy return of Christ, and to His inauguration of an eternal, heavenly kingdom. In contrast with this, it is as a prolonged migration through animal bodies, alternating with rebirth in human form, that the Hindoo thinker conceives that great process of purification by means of which sense is finally to be entirely overcome and man is to partake of an undimmed knowledge of the truth, and, with this, of supreme and never-ending bliss. This is the true Nirvana of Buddha. Nirvana does not represent the nothingness of eternal oblivion, but an eternal rest of the soul in pure knowledge, a peace which puts an end to all striving, just as does the heaven for which the Christian hopes. The difference between Nirvana and the Christian heaven is merely that, in the one case, the emphasis falls on knowledge, whereas, in the other, it is placed on feeling. This distinction, however, is not absolute. Buddha, also, preaches love of one's neighbour—indeed, sympathy with every suffering creature; and the Christian, as well as the Buddhist, seeks the knowledge of God. Moreover, ideas of purification are necessarily involved in redemptive religions, and hence are to be found in Christianity no less than in the world religion of the Orient, though in a different form. The Occidental Christian, swayed by his prompter emotions, images in the most vivid colours the agonies of the damned and the purification of the sinners in need of redemption. The patient and peace-seeking Oriental entertains the conception of a prolonged suffering that leads gradually, through the light of knowledge, from the debasement of animal existence to a state of redemption.

A further feature which differentiates these kindred religious developments is their relation to the contemporary philosophy which affected them. Buddhism grew out of philosophy, and then became a folk religion. In its spread, it became transformed from an esoteric into an exoteric teaching, continually absorbing older elements of folk belief. Its ethical basis never entirely disappeared, yet it became more and more obscured by a multitude of miracle-legends and magical ideas. Christianity, on the other hand, began as a folk religion and, in so far, as an exoteric teaching. But, in entering into the strife of religions and into the controversies of the thought-systems of the Hellenistic-Roman period, Christianity passed under the control of philosophy. Precisely because it lay outside the realm of philosophy, it was subjected to the influence of the various schools, though it was most decisively affected by Platonism and Stoicism. Inasmuch as philosophy itself had its setting in a superstitious age, it was the less able to purify Christianity from the belief in demons, miracles, and magic which the latter, as a folk religion, embodied from the very outset. Nevertheless, philosophical thought supplemented the real meaning of religious statements with an idealized interpretation. This gave birth to dogma, which consisted of a peculiar combination of esoteric and exoteric elements, and for this very reason assumed a mystical character. Hence it is that Buddhism, which sprang from philosophy, never possessed any real dogmas in the sense of binding norms of faith, whereas Christianity, which originated as a folk religion, fell a prey in its dogmatization to a theology which prescribed the content of belief.

These two world religions, which dominate the main centres of spiritual culture, do not, surely, owe their supremacy over other religious cults to the external conditions of their origin. Indeed, these conditions differ in the two cases. To account for the pre-eminence of the two religions we must look to the religious and moral nucleus which they possess in the sayings and teachings as well, also, as in the ideal lives of their founders. In spite of all differences, there is a similarity of character between the prince who wandered about as a beggar, preaching to the peoples the salvation which pure knowledge brings to him who renounces all external goods of life, and the man of the common people who pronounced blessings on the poor and the suffering because they are prepared above others to find the way to heaven. Another remarkable coincidence is the fact that the religious communities which they inspired sought to deprive them of the very characteristic which opens human hearts to them; they were real persons who lived and to whose deeds and sufferings their contemporaries bore testimony. What, as compared with them, are the redeeming gods in the pantheon of the various nations—Dionysos, Mithra, Osiris, or even Serapis, whose worship was established by the Ptolemies under the driving power of ideas of extensive political authority? The need of a living god whose existence was historically attested led irresistibly to the elevation of the man into a god. Thus, though in an entirely different world-setting and with a completely changed hero-personality, the process through which deities were created at the beginning of the heroic age was repeated. At this later period, however, it was not the universal type of idealized manhood that was regarded as the incarnate deity, but a single ideal personality. This purely human deity was no longer bound by national ties; he was not a guardian of the State and a helper in strife with other peoples, but a god of mankind. For every individual he was both an ideal and a helper, a saviour from the imperfections and limitations of earthly life. With this process of deification, the religions whose central object of cult was the suffering individual who secures for himself and for mankind redemption from suffering, opened their doors also to the gods and demons of earlier ages. Thus, there penetrated into Buddhism the Hindoo pantheon, together with the beliefs in magic and spirits which were entertained by the peoples converted to Buddhism. The Christian Church did not finally supersede the earlier heathen folk belief until it had assimilated the latter in the conceptions of demons and the devil, in the cult of saints, and in the worship of relics, the last-mentioned of which also constituted an important element of Buddhism.

In the case of Christianity, there was still another factor which prepared the soil for the new religion. This factor was due either to a direct transference or, as is probable so far as the main outlines of the history of the passion are concerned, to the real similarity of this event with the legends, prevalent in all parts of the earth, of the death and resurrection of a deity. Such legends everywhere grew up out of vegetation cults, which date back to the beginnings of agriculture. The hopes centred about a world beyond caused the cults based on these ideas to incorporate the soul cults. The latter then displaced the original motives of vegetation cults. In this way, higher forms of soul cult were developed, as exemplified by the ancient mysteries and by the related secret cults of other peoples. The exclusive aim now came to be the attainment of salvation from the earthly into a heavenly world. It was thought that this goal would be the more certain of attainment if, yielding to the old association of the mystical and secret with the magical and miraculous, the circle of initiated cult companions were narrowly limited. But how different is the form which this very ancient legend of a god who suffers, dies, and rises again assumes in the suffering and death of Christ! Jesus was a real person, whose death on the cross many had witnessed and whose resurrection his disciples had reported. Moreover, the cult of this crucified Saviour was not enveloped in a veil of secrecy. The redeeming god did not wish to win heaven merely for a few who had gained the privilege through magical ceremonies. The Christian heaven was open to all, to rich and poor, though especially to the poor, who were to receive in the beyond a rich compensation for the good things denied them upon earth. It is but natural that this new cult, with its vastly deeper and more vital significance, and with the strength which it nevertheless continued to draw from the old traditional legends, won for itself the allegiance of the new world with its strivings for a greater security in life as in death. Even some of the Roman soldiers, coming from their Saturnalian or Sacæan festivals, may, perhaps, have felt strangely moved upon seeing re-enacted, as a terrible reality, that which in their country was a playful custom, representing a survival of a once serious cult and ending in the mimic death of the carnival king. It was obviously in recollection of these very prevalent festivals that the coarser members of the crowd gave to him who was crucified the name "King of the Jews." The appellation was exactly suited to heighten the contrast between the joyous tumult of such mimic cults and this murderous reality.

The above scene was prophetic of the entire subsequent development of the new religion. That Christianity became a world religion was not due merely to the depth and sublimity of its spirit—these were hidden under a cover of mythological elements, from which Christianity was not free any more than were other religions. Christianity gained its supremacy, just as did Buddhism, in its own way, through a capacity to assimilate auxiliary mythological conceptions to an extent scarcely equalled by any of the previous religions. The very fact that the latter were national religions precluded them, to a certain extent, from incorporating alien ideas. It was not only mediæval Christianity that took over a large part of the earlier belief of heathen peoples. Even present-day Christianity might doubtless be called a world religion in this sense, among others, that, in the various forms of its beliefs and professions, it includes within itself, side by side, the most diverse stages of religious development, from a monotheism free from all mythological elements down to a motley collection of polytheistic beliefs, including survivals of primitive ideas of magic and demons.

But there is another phenomenon in which the spirit of Christianity comes to expression even more significantly than in its capacity to adapt itself to the most diverse stages of religious development. Here, again, there is a similarity between Christianity and the other great world religion, Buddhism. The belief of Hindoo antiquity in a populous heaven of gods was very early displaced, in the priestly wisdom of India, by the idea of "the eternal, unchangeable" Brahma. We here have an abstract deity-idea from which every trace of personality has disappeared. It was under the influence of this priestly philosophy that Buddha grew up, and his esoteric teaching, therefore, did not include a belief in a personal deity. Meanwhile, the ancient gods had continued to maintain their place in popular belief, though their original character was obscured by rankly flourishing ideas of magic and demons. This state of affairs was due to the fact that there was no longer a supreme deity who could give to mythology a religious basis. In the religious movement which began with Buddha, however, the latter himself came to be a supreme deity of this sort, the old nature gods and magic demons becoming subservient to him. The god-idea had been etherealized into the abstract idea of a superpersonal being, but its place was taken by the human individual exalted into a deity. Christianity underwent the same crucial changes, though in a different manner. In the philosophy of the Greeks, the personal deity of popular belief had been displaced by a superpersonal being. Plato's "idea of the good," the Aristotelian Nous, which, as pure form, holds sway beyond the boundaries of the world, even the Stoic Zeus as the representative of the teleological character of the world order, and, finally, the gods of Epicurus, conceived as indefinite forms dwelling in nebulous regions and unconcerned with the world—all manifest the same tendency either to elevate the personal deities of the heroic age into superpersonal beings, or, as was essentially done by Epicurus, to retransform them into subpersonal, demon-like beings. In contrast with this tendency, Jesus, as the representative of a religious folk belief, holds fast to the god of ancient tradition, as developed in the Jahve religion of the Israelites. Indeed, it is in the conception of Jesus that this god receives his deepest and most personal expression, inasmuch as he is conceived as a god of love, to whom man stands in the relation of son to father. This conception of the relation of God to man Christianity sought to retain. But history is not in accord with this traditional view. Cult and dogma alike testify that in this case also the deity came to be superpersonal from an early period on. To cult, which is always concerned with personal gods, Christ became the supreme deity; in the Catholic Church, there came to be also a large number of secondary and subsidiary gods, who sometimes even crowded the Christ into the background, as is exemplified particularly by the cult of the Virgin Mary. Dogma, on its part, cannot conceal the fact that it originated in philosophy, which is destructive of personal gods. For dogma ascribes attributes to the deity that are irreconcilable with the concept of personality. The deity is represented as eternal, omnipotent, all-good, omnipresent—in short, as infinite in all attributes that are held to express his nature. The conception of the infinite, however, contradicts that of personality, for the latter demands a character that possesses sharply defined attributes. However comprehensive our conception of personality may be, limitation is necessarily implied; the concept loses its meaning when associated with the limitless and the infinite. Even though dogma may continue to maintain that belief in a personal God is fundamental to Christian faith, such a belief is nevertheless self-contradictory; the union of the ideas 'personal' and 'god' must be understood as a survival within the era of world religions, where many such survivals occur, of the god-idea developed by national religions.