TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. GUYAU NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1897 Copyright, 1897 , BY HENRY HOLT & CO. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J....

I. Sociality the basis of religion—Its definition. II. The connection between religion, æsthetics, and morals. III. The inevitable decomposition of all systems of dogmatic religion; the state of “non-religion” toward which the human mind seems to tend—The exact sense in which one must understand the non-religion as distinguished from the “religion of the future.” IV. The value and utility, for the time being, of religion; its ultimate insufficiency. I. We shall meet, in the course of this work,

Importance of the Problem of the Origin of Religion—Universality of Religious Beliefs or Superstitions—Variability of Religions and Religious Evolution. I. Idealist Theory which Attributes the Origin of Religion to a Notion of the Infinite—Henotheism of Max Müller and Von Hartmann—M. Renan’s Instinct for Divinity. II. Theory of a Worship of the Dead and of Spirits—Herbert Spencer—Spencer’s Objections to the Theory of the Attribution of a Soul to Natural Forces. III. Answer to Objections—Religiou

I. Animism or polydemonism—Formation of the dualist conception of spirit—Social relations with spirits. II. Providence and miracles—The evolution of the dualist conception of a special providence—The conception of miracles—The supernatural and the natural—Scientific explanation and miracles—Social and moral modifications in the character of man owing to supposed social relations with a special providence—Increasing sentiment of irresponsibility and passivity and “absolute dependence.” III. The c

I. The laws which regulate the social relations between gods and men—Morality and immorality in primitive religions—Extension of friendly and hostile relations to the sphere of the gods—Primitive inability in matters of conscience, as in matters of art, to distinguish the great from the monstrous. II. The moral sanction in the society which includes gods and men—Patronage—That divine intervention tends always to be conceived after the model of human intervention and to sanction it. III. Worship

I. Narrow dogmatic faith—The credulity of primitive man: First, spontaneous faith in the senses and imagination; Second, faith in the testimony of superior men; Third, faith in the divine word, in revelation, and in the sacred texts—The literalness of dogmatic faith—Inevitable intolerance of narrow dogmatic faith—Belief in dogma, revelation, salvation, and damnation all result in intolerance—Modern tolerance. II. Broad dogmatic faith—Orthodox Protestantism—Dogmas of orthodox Protestantism—Ration

I. Substitution of metaphysical symbolism for dogma—Liberal Protestantism—Comparison with Brahmanism—Substitution of moral symbolism for metaphysical symbolism—Moral faith—Kant—Mill—Matthew Arnold—A literary explanation of the Bible substituted for a literal explanation. II. Criticism of symbolic faith—Inconsequence of liberal Protestantism—Is Jesus of a more divine type than other great geniuses—Does the Bible possess a greater authority in matters of morals than any other masterpiece of poetry

I. The first durable element of religious morality: Respect—Alteration of respect by the addition of the notion of the fear of God and divine vengeance. II. Second durable element of religious morality: Love—Alteration of this element by the addition of ideas of grace, predestination, damnation—Caducous elements of religious morality—Mysticism—Antagonism of divine love and human love—Asceticism—Excesses of asceticism—Especially in the religions of the East—Conception of sin in the modern mind. I

I. Is religious sentiment an innate and imperishable possession of humanity?—Frequent confusion of a sentiment for religion with a sentiment for philosophy and morals—Renan—Max Müller—Difference between the evolution of belief in the individual and the evolution of belief in the race—Will the disappearance of faith leave a void behind? II. Will the dissolution of religion result in a dissolution of morality among the people?—Is religion the sole safeguard of social authority and public morality?

I. Decline of religious education—Defects of this education, in especial in Catholic countries—Means of lightening these defects—The priest—The possibility of state-action on the priest. II. Education provided by the state—Primary instruction—The schoolmaster—Secondary and higher instruction—Should the history of religion be introduced into the curriculum. III. Education at home—Should the father take no part in the religious education of his children—Evils of a preliminary religious education t

Are women inherently predisposed toward religion and even toward superstition?—The nature of feminine intelligence—Predominance of the imagination—Credulity—Conservatism—Feminine sensibility—Predominance of sentiment—Tendency to mysticism—Is the moral sentiment among women based upon religion?—Influence of religion and of non-religion upon modesty and love—Origin of modesty—Love and perpetual virginity—M. Renan’s paradoxes on the subject of monastic vows—How woman’s natural proclivities may be t

I. Importance of the problem of population—Antagonism between numerical strength and wealth—Necessity of numbers for the maintenance and progress of the race—Necessity of giving the advantage of numbers to the superior races—Problem of population in France—Its relation to the religious problem—Are the reasons for the restriction of the number of births physiological, moral, or economic?—Malthusianism in France—The true national peril. II. Remedies—Is a return to religion possible?—Religious powe

I. Is a renovation of religion possible? 1. Is a unification of the great religions to-day existing possible? 2. Is the appearance of a new religion to be expected?—Future miracles impossible—Religious poetry not to be expected—Men of genius capable of sincerely and naïvely labouring in the creating of a new religion not to be expected—Impossibility of adding to the original stock of religious ideas—No new cult possible—Last attempts at a new cult in America and in France—The Positivist cult—Eth

Social Aspect of Religions—Religious Communities and Churches—Ideal Type of Voluntary Association—Its Diverse Forms. I. Associations for intellectual purposes—How such associations might preserve the most precious elements of religions—Societies for the advancement of science, philosophy, religion—Dangers to avoid—Popularization of scientific ideas; propagandism in the interests of science. II. Associations for moral purposes—Tendency of religion in the best minds to become one with charity—Pity

Review of the Principal Metaphysical Hypotheses which will Replace Dogma. I. Introduction—Progress of metaphysical hypothesis—Metaphysical hypotheses destined to increasing diversity in details, and increasing agreement on essential points—Importance of the moral element in metaphysical hypotheses—The part played by conscience in human morality will not diminish, as Mr. Spencer says—Sympathetic groups under which divers systems of metaphysics will be ranged. II. Theism—1. Probable fate of the cr

Review of the Principal Metaphysical Hypotheses which will Replace Dogma. — Continued. I. Optimistic pantheism—Transformation of transcendent Deism into immanent theism and pantheism—Disanthropomorphized God, according to Messrs. Fiske and Spencer—Diverse forms of pantheism—Optimistic and intellectualistic pantheism of Spinoza—Objections, Spinoza’s fatalism—The moral significance that might be lent to pantheism by the introduction of some notion of a final cause—Qualities and defects of pantheis

I. Idealism—Different forms of idealism: subjective idealism, objective idealism: The whole of existence resolved into a mode of mental existence—Value of idealism considered from point of view of the religious sentiment—Most specious of contemporary idealisms: Possibility of universal progress on the hypothesis of radical spontaneity and of “freedom”—Reconciliation between determinism and the conception of freedom—Moral idealism as a possible substitute for religious sentiment: Dependence of th