The Next Step in Religion Part 2

The Hindoos pa.s.sed from crude views to more abstract and refined concepts just as the Egyptians and Greeks did. In the Vedic period, there are many contradictory statements about the creation of the world and of the G.o.ds. Heaven and earth are spoken of as the parents of the G.o.ds, and at the same time the G.o.ds are said to have built, or woven, the whole world. When we remember that there was little distinction at first between nature and the G.o.ds, we are not surprised at this contradiction. Moreover, as one writer suggests, this contradiction seems only to have enhanced the mystery of the conception. When religion enters, logic is not always desired.

Another conception which we find in Hindoo thought is that of a world-egg. This a.n.a.logy is so natural that we are not surprised to discover it. Let us glance at one of the accounts given in the Satapatha Brahmana: "In the beginning this universe was water, nothing but water. The waters desired, 'How can we be reproduced?' So saying, they toiled, they performed austerity. While they were performing austerity, a golden egg came into existence. Being produced, {36} it then became a year. Wherefore this golden egg floated about for the period of a year. From it in a year a male came into existence, who was Praj.a.pati.... He divided this golden egg.... In a year he desired to speak. He uttered 'bhur,' which became this earth; 'bhuvah,' which became this firmament; and 'svar,' which became that sky.... Desiring progeny, he went on worshiping and toiling. He conceived progeny in himself; with his mouth he created the G.o.ds...."

This account of the creation is characteristic of Hindoo thought as it pa.s.ses from the frank admiration of nature, which distinguishes the Vedic period, to what more nearly approaches theosophic speculation.

Yet there is no genuine break with the animism of primitive times. The waters are thought of as desiring, that is, they are held to be alive and vaguely conscious. The belief that words are inseparable from things should again be noted. "Bhur" becomes the earth, and "svar"

becomes the sky.

In the course of time, Hindoo thought became more abstract and sophisticated without having achieved any method which would lead to tested knowledge. An a.n.a.logy may make clearer to the reader the vicious intellectual situation. Imagine the subtle minds of the Mediaeval scholastics, without the material furnished them by the Greek philosophy, and obliged to exercise themselves upon magic, myth and legend. The very energy and subtlety of their intellects would lead them into all sorts of phantasmagoria. Theosophy--and a large share of what is called theology--is simply a refining and subtilizing of mythology. The more difficult and abstract the thought, the more significance {37} it is a.s.sumed to possess. The penetrative and exploring power of mere untested speculation is taken for granted.

Words throw a spell over the mind because nothing of a more positive character is before it to counteract their charm. Even to-day we all know of people who like to employ such terms as force, and unity, and spirit, and will. The very vagueness of the words exercises a fascination which smothers the slight demand for explanation. Just as the Jews of the Dispersion spoke of Wisdom as the first-born creature of G.o.d and gave this abstraction an objective existence, so the Hindoo poets and theosophists explained the world in terms which seem to the scientifically trained mind subjective and irrelevant. For all its apparent profundity, such an outlook represents a lower stage than that which science has reached. Subtlety is not enough; it must be a servant to the right methods of investigation. Dialectic and imaginative vividness cannot give truth to ideas not adapted to explain the sort of a world we live in.

Those creation stories developed by the Hebrews with the aid of the Babylonians have had most influence on Western thought and, therefore, deserve considerable attention. The motives and mental processes at work are, however, essentially those which we have already examined.

Unfortunately, we have only hints here and there in the Old Testament of the more primitive traditions which were worked over and built upon by the priests and prophets. Moreover, the Yahweh religion seems to have been adopted quite late and to have made easy a break with the older tales. Probably few readers of the Bible, who have not made a systematic study of Semitic literature, are aware that ancient strands of {38} folk-lore are scattered through it. In Psalm 74, for instance, there is a good instance of primitive views: "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength; Thou breakest the head of Leviathan in pieces....

Thou didst cleave fountain and flood." In Job, likewise, there are references to these deeds of Yahweh in the far past. Very few casual readers ask themselves who Rahab and the Flying Serpent and Leviathan were. Now investigation has shown that we have, in these references to the deeds of Yahweh, fragments of the Babylonian myth of creation.

These creatures are monsters whom Yahweh makes captive before he orders the original chaos into a cosmos. In doing this, he is a counterpart of Marduk, the Babylonian creator. These monsters, like the G.o.ds who conquer them, are only personified forms of phenomena in the heavens above and the earth beneath. Let us now consider the stories of creation given in Genesis. It is not widely enough known that there are two distinct accounts which, although they are externally combined, can easily be separated even in the English translation. The oldest version begins with chapter two, verse five. This version is called the prophetic account. It a.s.sumes that the world already exists and concerns itself only with man's appearance, the inst.i.tution of marriage, and the general features of man's life. G.o.d forms man out of the dust of the ground, as a potter molds his clay, and breathes into him the breath of life. He places him in a garden to dress and keep it. But the incidents which follow are so familiar to every one that there is no need to repeat them. Scholars have pointed out that this account is very similar to that current in Babylonia. The motives are like those found in the Gilgamish and Adapa {39} myths. The differences in general tone and in geographical details can readily be explained by the later date--about the eighth century--and the character of the Palestinian landscape. Those who read Hebrew will note the difference in vocabulary between the second chapter in Genesis and the first, while those who are confined to the English translation should especially note that the two words, Lord and G.o.d, are combined in the prophetic account. There are many nave, and obviously primitive, touches in this creation story which give it a quaint charm.

Only those, however, who are themselves nave in their outlook upon the world can dream of taking it as other than folk-lore. I must confess that it is a mystery to me that so many fairly educated men can take it as anything but what it so obviously is, a creation myth.

The creation story, told in the first chapter, is called by scholars the priestly account. It is post-exilic and, so, relatively late. The foundation consists of mythical ideas which go back to the mists of antiquity. From these were derived certain terms which are scarcely translatable into English. The reader has been further confused by a poetic and inexact rendering of many Hebrew phrases. The "spirit of G.o.d" is literally the "wind of G.o.d," an idea which probably is historically connected with the Babylonian tale of how Marduk uses the wind as his instrument in his fight against Tiamat, the monster of the deep. Tiamat has become Tehom, translated as the "deep."

In spite of the lapse in verse 26, into the language of polytheism, the priestly account represents a late theological level in which creation is conceived as the pa.s.sage of will and word into existence. The effect is {40} majestic and intensely dramatic in its simplicity. Yet how else can critical thought portray creation? An omnipotent, personal G.o.d is necessarily conceived as one who has the power to call things into being. To ask how he does this is meaningless, for it ignores the stark power which is a.s.sumed. In accordance with the genius of the Semite, then, G.o.d was pictured as a monarch whose very will brought forth without effort. But a little reflection must convince us that this conception neither makes creation thinkable in any genuine sense nor proves its occurrence. We have merely attained the idealization of the creation myth, its most perfect form.

The Christian conception of the creation rests largely upon the Hebrew account. The uncritical way in which this was studied and accepted, previous to the rise of modern science and the higher criticism, remains a marvel to those who are not acquainted with the psychology of religion. Sanctioned by religion, idealized myth naturally held its own until something positive arose to dispute it. The Church Fathers, the scholastics, and the leaders of the Reformation accepted the stories in Genesis as revelations. They believed that there was a G.o.d and that he had revealed to man what he had done and what his plan of salvation was. These myths fitted into their view of the world as an essential and harmonious ingredient of it. What motive would there be for skepticism? Luther states that "Moses is writing history and reporting things that actually happened." "G.o.d was pleased," says Calvin, "that a history of the creation should exist." Of course, no really educated man of to-day can accept this att.i.tude unless he wishes to sin against his reason. It is {41} unfortunate that there has not been sufficient openness of mind to make possible a wider extension of the knowledge which scholars have been acc.u.mulating. The only candid thing to do is to cla.s.s these Hebrew stories of the creation with the myths which grew up in other parts of the world. All represent attempts to picture a beginning of things as they are, by appeal to a magnified and magical personal agency. Those early thinkers did the best they could do with the ideas they had at hand. They were innocent of our modern understanding of nature as a scene of impersonal, causal processes. To try to find science in mythology is like looking upon Dante's _Divine Comedy_ as a tale of real adventure.

It is interesting to study the speculations which Christian thinkers have evolved upon the question of creation. Usually, the idea of a creation of the physical world out of nothing by a fiat has been favored. "I am the Lord, that maketh all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth." Such is the natural goal of the idea of a creation. Yet a moment's reflection makes us realize that the position is entirely deductive and without a shred of evidence. To a.s.sign to a hypothetical agent called G.o.d powers sufficient to produce what experience tells us exists explains nothing.

The primary a.s.sumption, of course, is that there must have been a creation. But the conception of evolution has attacked that a.s.sumption at its very foundation.

Of late, there have been attempted compromises with the idea of evolution. May not G.o.d guide the course of natural change? But this outlook meets with certain difficulties. In the first place, was the physical {42} world created? If so, it must have been the best of all possible physical worlds, or else G.o.d is either not omnipotent or not omniscient or not ideally good. And when these questions are raised, we pa.s.s immediately into a field of mere speculation. The centuries have been witnesses of disputes between advocates of different dogmas.

At present, there seems to be a revival of interest in the idea of a limited and youthful deity struggling against odds to make the world livable. But G.o.d becomes a part of the universe in every sense, and so we are led to the idea that the physical world was not created but is, rather, co-existent with deity. Of course, there are many possible variations on the theme, and human ingenuity will exhaust itself in combining these possibilities in various ways.

The truth is, that these theological speculations carry us nowhere.

Myth and dialectical acuteness, however skillfully blended, cannot add to our genuine knowledge of the world. Instead, they create new problems of their own which cannot be settled, because there is no way of testing and verifying the various solutions. In short, the premises are at fault and must be outgrown and left behind. Our experience no longer suggests to us the idea of a supernatural agency at work, nor are we so p.r.o.ne to think of an act of creation some few thousands of years in the past. We have largely outgrown the mythological setting out of which theology arose, and it is tradition and the lack of a more positive view which enable it to retain for us any semblance of plausibility. There is nothing inherently irrational in the idea of creation; it simply bears witness to a looser, more personal world in which annihilation and {43} origination were familiar events, because man saw only the surface of things and was not able to follow the continuities which bind things together underneath. The principle of conservation, which is one of the grand achievements of science, is like a two-edged sword: it destroys not only the belief in an absolute annihilation but, likewise, the belief in an absolute beginning.

Slowly, but surely, this new view of nature will have its effect and undermine the more nave hypothesis of a creation. The emotional reverberation of the accustomed forms of speech, reenforced by the mental habits encouraged by religion, will die out only gradually. Man is instinctively romantic and tends to dramatize the world. His favorite categories are personal, and he has a profound distaste for the impersonalism of science. Only the slow pressure of actual knowledge will lift him to a truer view of the world in which he finds himself.

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CHAPTER IV

MAGIC AND RITUAL

Early man had not the conception of natural law that we now possess.

In order even partially to understand his att.i.tude toward things, the man of to-day must abstract from the idea of law and regularity which he has shot through nature, and ignore the knowledge about the antecedents of events which close observation and careful experiment have furnished him with. In the case of magic, just as in the case of mythology, he who wishes to see eye to eye with those who lived long ago must rid himself for the time being both of the knowledge which science has acc.u.mulated and of the mental habits of enquiry and causal explanation which have been fostered by it. These habits and this knowledge have become such a part of us that we are not fully conscious of them and of their importance. They are like the clothes we wear or the forms of politeness which we go through with automatically. It is only after the twentieth-century man delves into folklore or reads accounts of the beliefs and practices of the past, that he realizes that he stands on the shoulders of innumerable generations as the inheritor of a long process of mental evolution. Nothing, perhaps, can make him realize this fact more vividly than a study of magic.

What is magic? The best answer is to give examples {45} of magic. "In the Malay Peninsula the magician makes an image like a corpse, a footstep long. If you want to cause sickness, you pierce the eye and blindness results; or you pierce the waist and the stomach gets sick.

If you want to cause death, you transfix the head with a palm twig; then you enshroud the image as you would a corpse and pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; then you bury it in the middle of the path which leads to the place of the person whom you wish to charm, so that he may step over it." Ancient agriculture is full of magic rites designed to ward off evils. "To this day a Transylvanian sower thinks he can keep birds from the corn by carrying a lock in the seedbag." To this day, again, in Roumania, Serbia and parts of Germany, the peasants try to bring on a rain by sprinkling water on a young girl. It is supposed that nature will follow suit, and send a beneficent shower upon the thirsty earth. Magic is, then, an ingenious way of making or leading nature to do what you want it to do. As Professor Murray writes: "Agriculture used to be entirely a question of religion; now it is almost entirely a question of science. In antiquity, if a field was barren, the owner of it would probably a.s.sume that the barrenness was due to pollution, or offense somewhere. He would run through all his own possible offenses, or at any rate those of his neighbors and ancestors, and when he eventually decided the cause of the trouble, the steps that he would take would all be of a kind calculated not to affect the chemical const.i.tution of the soil, but to satisfy his own emotions of guilt and terror, or the imaginary being he had offended. A modern man in the same predicament would probably not think of religion at all, at any rate {46} in the earlier stages; he would say it was a case for deeper plowing or for basic slag."

Magic is a way of controlling things. Imitate the act desired, in a certain way, and it will come to pa.s.s. Talismans and amulets, again, possess a secret power for good and evil. Ancient societies built up a lore of this kind, adding to material objects the agency of demons under the control of magicians. This lore is practically a feature of the past. Even white magic is no longer good form, no longer accredited by the dominant social mind. It slinks into out-of-the-way places beyond the public eye. Yet research is showing that these seemingly discredited beliefs and points of view seldom completely disappear. They smolder beneath the surface and flame up now and then in a startling way to remind us that society in its evolution does not carry all its members along at the same rate. The historian is surprised to find that rites which are given an exalted place in various religions are magical at heart, and go back to beliefs which have long been discredited in other settings.

Some who have specialized in folklore and anthropology are very pessimistic as to the degree in which the scientific outlook upon nature is replacing the more primitive att.i.tude a.s.sociated with magic.

One of the greatest authorities upon primitive beliefs and customs writes as follows: "We seem to move on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent by the subterranean forces slumbering below.... Now and then the polite world is startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which tells how in Scotland an image has been found stuck full of pins for the purpose of killing an obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has been slowly roasted {47} to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has been murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those candles of human tallow by whose light thieves hope to pursue their midnight trade unseen." The danger to civilization foreseen by the specialist in uncouth customs is undoubtedly exaggerated, but his warning should remind us that education has a very valuable function to perform in training an ever increasing number in scientific habits of thought.

One of the a.s.sumptions which underlie magic is the idea that two things are connected in nature because they are like one another. s.p.a.ce is not looked upon as a barrier to this connection. So far as can be seen, anything can affect anything else; and the slightest suggestion of such a relation leads to the belief in its reality. There is almost entire absence of any conception of systematic testing: any accidental a.s.sociation may lead the savage to be a.s.sured of an important sign.

Thus, if a man went out hunting and saw a rabbit cross his path, and then had bad luck, he would be sure that a rabbit is a sign of bad luck. Moreover, since individuals were on the lookout for hoodoos, they would not tempt providence a second time. This example ill.u.s.trates the psychology rather than the sociology of the process.

It must be remembered that social groups developed what we call superst.i.tions by way of social contagion and suggestion. The laughing acquiescence of the present in hoodoos, mascots and lucky objects cannot be traced back to the credulity of any one individual. Such things come to pa.s.s by a process of accretion just as does the belief that a particular house is haunted.

Most writers on the subject cla.s.sify magic into two {48} kinds, imitative and contagious. These varieties are then carried back to two principles which seem to govern the a.s.sociation of ideas. Imitative magic follows the law of a.s.sociation by similarity, while contagious magic is based on the law of contiguity. To those who have studied psychology this cla.s.sification will present no difficulties. To others a word of explanation is, perhaps, necessary. Our minds connect things or acts which are similar (the principle of similarity) and those which are experienced or thought of together (principle of contiguity).

Connections are thus made between things and, since the principles are so liberal, almost anything can be connected with anything else. It is this liberality which is alien to science. Let us glance at some examples of both kinds of magic.

The most familiar instance of imitative magic is the device by means of which an individual hopes to injure or kill an enemy. A figure of the enemy is made and this is then stuck full of pins or else burned before a slow fire. "In ancient Babylonia it was a common practice to make an image of clay, pitch, honey, fat, or other soft material in the likeness of an enemy, and to injure or kill him by burning, burying, or otherwise ill-treating it." This practice occurs in the highlands of Scotland to-day as well as in Mexico, Italy, China and other countries.

Rossetti's poem, _Sister Helen_, has made this example of imitative magic fairly familiar to those who would probably never otherwise have heard of it.

"Why did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen?

To-day is the third since you began."

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"The time was long, yet the time ran, Little brother."

"Oh, the waxen knave was plump to-day, Sister Helen; Now like dead folk he has dropped away!"

"Nay now, of the dead what can you say, Little brother?"

There are many other curious instances of imitative magic. A Bavarian peasant in sowing wheat will sometimes wear a golden ring, in order that the corn may have a fine yellow color. Similarly, in many parts of Germany and Austria, the peasant imagines that he makes the flax grow tall by dancing or leaping high, or by jumping backwards from a table. Telepathic action, or action at a distance, was constantly believed in. The hunter's wife abstained from spinning for fear the game should turn and wind like the spindle and the hunter be unable to hit it.

While imitative magic works through fancied resemblance, contagious magic is based on the principle that what has once been together must remain forever after in a sympathetic relation, so that what is done to one affects the other. In Suss.e.x some forty years ago a maid servant remonstrated strongly against the throwing away of children's cast teeth, affirming that should they be found and gnawed by any animal, the child's new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth of the animal that had bitten the old one. It was quite the custom in former years to anoint the sword which wounded a man instead of the wound itself. In Bryden's play, _The Tempest_, Ariel directs Prospero to anoint the sword which wounded Hippolite and to wrap it up close from the air. Footprints, pieces of {50} clothing, pictures, locks of hair, all are connected with the individual and what is done to them reacts on the individual no matter where he is.

At first, mankind resorted to magic as naturally as we resort to the information given us by science. There was nothing nefarious about it.

Not to use all the precautions in your power and employ all the means you could think of was simply foolish. As time went on, however, socially approved magic became distinguished from black magic or that which it was wrong to resort to. But magic, like every other activity, tended to become specialized. Certain persons seemed to possess more power than others, and, since no one could tell what was impossible, what appear to us the most absurd claims were put forth. Things were believed because they were impossible. It was under the encouragement of this "will to believe" that magic flourished until the slow growth of civilization and the awakening reason of man cast doubts upon it.

To study the more technical developments of magic is extremely interesting. Magicians as a cla.s.s evolved a lore which was looked upon by the uninitiated as occult and mysterious. The ma.s.s of the people did not know of any bounds which could be set to their power. They and their deeds were shrouded in darkness and surrounded by all the gruesome a.s.sociations which the awe-struck imagination could conjure up. Such was the case especially when magic became outlawed as an underhand means of obtaining things. But magic had by then fallen on evil days. It was not yet disbelieved but simply condemned because it did not fit in with the dominant religious and social order. The exact {51} relation of religion and magic is a somewhat complex problem which we must postpone for a while.

The orient was always the fertile home of magic: here it reached its more technical developments. In _Lucian_ we read of the reputed power of the Chaldean wise men who were able to recite spells which would move even the G.o.ds. All through the East this esoteric science existed. In Egypt the magicians claimed to be able to compel the highest G.o.ds to do their bidding. By this time magic had, however, pa.s.sed beyond its more primitive character. So far as it involved signs and acts, these were of a highly symbolic type. Geometrical figures of intricate construction, phrases consisting of apparently meaningless words or of words supposed to have a peculiar significance, and the names of G.o.ds or demons were used with appropriate ceremonies.

Many of these magical formulae have come down to us. They are spells which are supposed to constrain even the highest G.o.ds.

The story of Faust reflects very well the notion of magic existing in Europe during the Middle Ages. The reader will call to mind the scene in which Faust calls up the Earth-Spirit. Devotees of Victor Hugo will remember the description given in his _Notre-Dame_ of Dom Claude's cell and this ecclesiast's unsuccessful attempts to use the hammer of Ezekiel. The important thing was to discover the magic word which this famous rabbi p.r.o.nounced as he struck upon the nail with his hammer.

We have frequently called attention to the close connection supposed to exist between name and thing. The name is a genuine part of the nature of the thing. {52} It was this a.s.sumption which lay at the root of the more involved magic of spells and incantations. "This is why every ancient Egyptian had two names," writes F. C. Conybeare, "one by which his fellows in this world knew him, and the other, his true or great name, by which he was known to the supernal powers and in the other world." He who possessed knowledge of the name of another had him to that extent in his power. Fear of such an eventuality led many nations to conceal the true name of their G.o.d. That is why the real name of the G.o.d of the Hebrews is a matter of conjecture to us, and why the Romans had an important deity whose name is completely lost. In an old Egyptian legend, the G.o.ddess Isis asks herself this question, "Cannot I, by virtue of the great name of Ra, make myself a G.o.ddess and reign like him in heaven and earth?" This conception reminds us of the pa.s.sage in Matthew, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Again, in Mark, we have this corresponding pa.s.sage, "John said unto him, Teacher, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbade him, because he followed us not." Thus names were things to conjure with in a literal sense. How few of those who read these verses understand their real meaning, that they involved a belief in the magic of names! In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter performs a miracle simply by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Is it necessary to remark that such cures as were possibly performed were due to {53} suggestion of the sort for which ecstatic religious faith prepares the way?

In pre-scientific times, diseases were regarded as the effect of spirits or demons. Death, itself, is considered the work of a malignant agent. It is unnatural and magical. Savages often address diseases respectfully as Grandfather Smallpox. Jesus heals a woman and speaks of her as "a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound these eighteen years past." This address is in accord with the beliefs of that day everywhere. That the early Christians held similar views is no matter for surprise. They were children of their age.

Religion and magic were long bound up with one another. It is useless to ask which came first, for they are not mutually exclusive in the beginning. Only as an ethical monotheism, with a high respect for the personality and power of the deity worshiped, develops, is the magical element rejected. There are few religions, even to-day, which do not contain magical elements, and the farther back in time we go, the more conspicuous is the presence of incantations and ritual acts imputed to have a mysterious efficacy. Man had sore need of help, and so he adopted all the means which accident, fancy and ignorance suggested.

If certain acts gave him the _mana_ of his G.o.d or brought pressure to bear upon a supernatural agent, so much the better. Much of early liturgy is a mingling of spell and prayer, and it is strictly true that much of Christian liturgy bears traces of this origin. The following example shows this intertwining of higher and lower elements: In the blessing of the baptismal water on the eve of Epiphany, a custom prevalent in the earlier Church {54} of Rome, the priest, while praying to G.o.d to sanctify the water, dipped a crucifix thrice into it, recalling in his prayer the miracle described in Exodus, the sweetening of the bitter water with wood; then followed antiphonal singing describing Christ's baptism in Jordan, which sanctified the water. "We appear to have here," writes L. D. Farnell, "a combination of the great typical forms of the immemorial religious energy, prayer pure and simple, the potent use of the spiritually charged object, the fetish (in this case the crucifix), and an intoned or chanted narrative which has the spell-value of suggestion."

It has been suggested by certain investigators that magic is nearer science than religion. It is the attempt of man to compel things to do what he desires. In religion, on the other hand, man proclaims his helplessness and his utter dependence upon spiritual powers. There can be little doubt that this difference exists and comes more and more to the front. But it is not until religion evolves into spiritual prayer and communion and away from ritual processes that the separation takes place. Few events are more interesting than the gradual rejection of magic by religion. But does not this rejection involve a similar rejection of science? Here, again, we meet the inevitable compromise.

White magic is distinguished from black magic. We shall have more to say of this relationship later.

Only after countless centuries of mistake did the intellect of man discover the actual relations in nature in such a way as to be able to use them with certainty. Subjective a.s.sociations were then replaced by tested causal connections. Faith in mere imitative acts was {55} lost, and it was finally realized that patient research was a pre-condition of the control of man's environment. Time, alone, could show what was possible and what was impossible.

We have pointed out that, as religion became more idealistic in its conception of deity, magic tended to drop into the background. Moral motives were considered the sole motives capable of moving him to beneficent action. Prayer came to be thought of as a pet.i.tion for the good, and it was even admitted that this omniscient being knew better than the pet.i.tioner what was best. We who have been brought up in the Christian belief have been too much inclined to belittle the character and intellect of races with a different heritage. It may be well, then, to point out that problems which are being thrashed over to-day in Christian communities were discussed and answered in much the same way by other peoples in less enlightened times. Ancient Greece reached the spiritual level expressed in the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done." The prayer of Socrates was: "Grant me to become n.o.ble of heart." The prayer of Epictetus was: "Do with me what thou wilt: my will is thy will: I appeal not against thy judgments." Is this not the inevitable deduction from an ethical monotheism? Any n.o.ble believer in a good G.o.d would look at prayer in this way. It is not surprising, then, that the more philosophic adherents of early Christianity questioned the validity of prayers for favors. Take away the support of science, with its healthy scotching of superst.i.tion, from the mind of the modern Christian and I doubt whether he would rise to higher ethical levels than any of his forbears.