3^2 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920
Christianity and primitive religion. There is the importance of ritual; of initiations or conversions, designed to effect much the same thing; of sacrificial offerings; of borrowings from related cultures.
What is the explanation of this uniformity? It lies in the essential unity of man, whatever his social environment may be. Its expression is determined by the environment and by the times in which he lives, but the will to struggle with nature and to comprehend the mysteries of life is inherent in man and must find its outlet. As his intellectual development proceeds he assumes new attitudes in his endeavor to interpret and to utilize nature and her message. It is, Mr. Carpenter thinks, time that Christianity shed some of the cruder interpretations and adopted points of view that harmonize better with the renaissance of learning.
In the evolution of the religious consciousness we can recognize three stages: The first is that in which man does not perceive himself as a creature essentially separate from the rest of nature; the second is the stage of clearly defined self-consciousness and exaltation of the self; the third is, somewhat after the Hegelian principle, a reconciliation of the inconsistencies existing between the first and the second, a stage in which man has self-consciousness, a clear perception of the external world, and has effected a unity between the two.
To some such unity-consciousness we have to return; but clearly it will be it is not of the simple inchoate character of the First Stage, for it has been enriched, deepened, and greatly extended by the experience of the Second Stage.
The moral of the book for I think it may be said to have a moral is that man will attain freedom by recognition of the chains that have bound him. For then he can break them and achieve that freedom which is the goal of individual life.
He will realize the inner meaning of the creeds and rituals of the ancient religions, and will hail with joy the fulfilment of their far prophecy down the ages finding after all the long-expected Saviour of the world within his own breast, and Paradise in the disclosure there of the everlasting peace of the soul.
As always, Mr. Carpenter is forceful and stimulating. At the age of seventy-five he shows all the mental vigor of middle life, and the liberality of his thought has not abated one jot. No one will read him without feeling repaid. There are many new angles on the interpretation of religious rites or beliefs, and the author has injected new life into many of the old problems. If we disagree with him on many issues he will at least force us to find new arguments for our old conclusions.
W. D. WALLIS
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