This little book, the last of a series of similar volumes each containing an exposition by a recognised authority of one of the many Religions the world has known, might have been put with as much propriety at the head of the series, there to show how Religion originated in the mind of man, what mental powers it presupposes, what is its nature and what its relation to the non-religious life. But one is, no doubt, better able to take up profitably these problems after having familiarised oneself with the several aspects of religious life. Therefore The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion was placed at the end, where it fulfils the additional purpose of linking the concluded series of Histories of Religions with a cognate one, now being prepared by the same publishers, on Ancient and Modern Systems of Philosophy.
CONTENTS | CHAP. | | PAGE | | I. | The Fundamental Nature of Religion, | 1 | | II. | Three Types of Behaviour Differentiated, | 11 | | III. | Origin of the Ideas of Ghosts, Nature-Beings, and Gods, | 39 | | IV. | Magic and Religion, | 48 | | Magic classified, | 49 | | Two Theses maintained: (1) the probable priority of Magic;
(2) the independence of Religion from Magic, | 53 | | Magic and Religion combine, but never fuse, | 65 | | What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion? | 68 | | Magic and the Origin of Science, | 74 | | V. | The Original Emotion of Primitive Religious Life, | 80 | | VI. | Concluding Remarks on the Nature and the Function of Religion, | 87 |
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND
THE NATURE OF RELIGION
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