By Religion, Then, I Understand A Propitiation

From The Earliest Times Man Has Been Engaged In A Search For General Rules Whereby To Turn The Order Of Natural Phenomena To His Own Advantage, And In The Long Search He Has Scraped Together A Great Hoard Of Such Maxims, Some Of Them Golden And Some Of Them Mere Dross. The True Or Golden Rules Constitute The Body Of Applied Science Which We Call The Arts; The False Are Magic.

In Course Of Time The Slow Advance Of Knowledge, Which Has Dispelled So Many Cherished Illusions, Convinced At Least The More Thoughtful Portion Of Mankind That The Alterations Of Summer And Winter, Of Spring And Autumn, Were Not Merely The Result Of Their Own Magical Rites, But That Some Deeper Cause, Some Mightier Power, Was At Work Behind The Shifting Scenes Of Nature.

Dwellers By The Sea Cannot Fail To Be Impressed By The Sight Of Its Ceaseless Ebb And Flow, And Are Apt, On The Principles Of That Rude Philosophy Of Sympathy And Resemblance... To Trace A Subtle Relation, A Secret Harmony, Between Its Tides And The Life Of Man... The Belief That Most Deaths Happen At Ebb Tide Is Said To Be Held Along The East Coast Of England From Northumberland To Kent.

The Awe And Dread With Which The Untutored Savage Contemplates His Mother-in-law Are Amongst The Most Familiar Facts Of Anthropology.

Man Has Created Gods In His Own Likeness And Being Himself Mortal He Has Naturally Supposed His Creatures To Be In The Same Sad Predicament.