great geographical, astronomical, physical, and biological discoveries. The influence of the aesthetic arts is more subtle because it works directly within the emotions; yet no one can doubt the religious effect of temple architecture the solemn colonnade at Thebes, the graceful dignity of the Parthenon, the aspiring mass of a Gothic cathedral. Similarly, the investment of the ritual with aesthetic wealth in tone, color, and movement guides as well as expresses sentiment. When painters and sculptors became interested in the human figure as such, and not merely as a means of representing the gods, art acquired ability to soften and humanize religion, as it has done through a multitude of Madonnas with the Child. On the other hand, the absence of development in any branch of culture means always some difference in religious development. Limit education to a social class, and you will have a religion different from that which will appear in the same people if education becomes universal. The printing press, too, is religiously momentous. In short, we have in these interactions still further evidence that religion is not a separate and independent interest with a history exclusively its own. Even when it takes the form of a special interest it does not become wholly specialized, but remains responsive to all the movements of the arts and sciences that originally sprang from it.

6. The institutionalizing of religion. Our first glimpse of religious origins shows us an institution-a ceremony firmly supported by custom. The sacredness of custom passes on to institutions like priesthoods, temples, systems of doctrine, and sacred laws and literature until in some cases civil government is paralleled in firmness

of organization, in dignity, and even in power by ecclesiastical institutions. Why religion gave itself institutional form is plain to see-important interests of a social sort appeared to require the correct repetition of the effective act, in the first instance some ceremony. But the mere fact that religion has been largely an institutional affair has had significant consequences, some of which are not so plain.

In the first place, it has helped to develop the notion of the secular as against the sacred. The temple and the priests are commonly supposed to be nearer to the gods than are the commonalty. In some instances this has resulted in two codes for conduct.

In the second place, institutions as such resist change. The very act of formulating and organizing anything carries in itself an assumption that here, at this point of time, something has been found that is worthy of preservation. Capital, labor, reputation, and dignity are therefore invested in it. The institutional leaders tend thenceforth to identify their own attitudes with those of the divine being, and thus finally demand the right to legislate for life in general and to exact obedience. The claim of ecclesiastical organizations thus to speak for the god is, historically considered, a demand that the religious spirit shall submit to one or more of its own ancient products.

But, in the third place, there is a much less understood side of the institutionalizing process. In spite of the conservatism of institutions, they are often organs, used in ways they know not of by the life-forces that produced them. Taboo applied to the property of the chief helps to found the general right of property. On

the other hand, by establishing the intermediate idea of the ceremonially holy, taboo led the way toward feeling for the ethically holy and right. Ethical content has, in fact, seeped into many an ancient pre-ethical shell. From purification ceremonies intended to remove the effects of broken taboo grew the notion of a purification of the heart. Spells and incantations grew into prayers for favor; these grew into aspiration for universal righteousness. The shell that remains from the original ceremony, or verbal formula, becomes at last more or less consciously a symbol. Christian practice contains many a form into which fresh meaning has come. This is true of baptism (a residual of lustration); the eucharist (a residual of totemistic eating of the god); our processions and our bowing, kneeling, or standing in public worship; finally, a great part of our religious terminology. Even formulae that were originally intended to define the truth for all time cease, almost insensibly, to be definitions, and become instead symbols of truths or of group interests, the definition of which is elsewhere attempted. Wherever freedom prevails, creeds tend to become mere flags that remind the people of their group loyalties.

To assume, then, that the present meaning of an institutional form is the same as the earliest meaning is to make one's self liable to historical and psychological error. Institutions are more plastic than their external forms would lead one to suppose. Especially is this true of institutions that commit themselves to some high ideal, as the Christian churches have so largely done. The extent to which the progressive changes of Christianity have sprung from within the ecclesiastical

bonds is rather astonishing. At the present moment, too, the faults of the churches are not more drastically exposed by the church's enemies than by loyal church people. It is safe to say, also, that no institution with a history has shown greater capacity for adaptation than the Protestant churches have displayed since the middle of the nineteenth century. The doctrine of evolution, the historical study of the Bible, the sudden expansion of the social consciousness, the transformation in people's ways through the growth of cities and of modern machinery-these things created a situation that would have been ominous for the churches if ecclesiastical institutions were really as inflexible as their external forms appear to be. Without attempting to say how far these churches have solved the problems thus thrust upon them, one can easily see that they have gone a long way in the assimilation of modern knowledge of a revolutionary character (as far as theology is concerned), that they have largely shifted their emphasis even with regard to the meaning of the Christian life, and that they have entered upon fresh practical tasks of the greatest difficulty.

7. The influence of individuals.-Several great religions and many minor ones take their start from individual leaders. It is an impressive and rather mysterious spectacle that we witness here. For in some cases the leader not merely starts something going, as a statesman, a warrior, or an inventor may do, but he attaches the people to himself personally with a loyalty or even affection that runs on for centuries after his death. There is nothing comparable, in other phases of life than the religious, to the attachment of millions of men

to Gautama, Jesus, and Mohammed. And these are but supreme instances; the masses respond, and have always responded, with a peculiar loyalty to many lesser lights. For this reason a chapter will be devoted to analysis of the mental traits of religious leaders. But it should be said at once that the influence of individuals in differentiating religion into specific religions is not limited to the leaders. Individual variation takes place, or may take place, in greater or less degree through a whole mass. The quick response that makes one an early disciple is an individual variation as truly as the quality in the master that evokes the response. So with the formation of parties for or against a new leader; the new issue, felt as such by large masses of men, is a sign that social evolution is going on by means, not only of "mutations" or large variations in a few individuals who lead, but also by accumulation of smaller variations in the masses that follow.

This list of the factors that give to each religion its special character does not include the mental traits of different races of mankind-what is sometimes called racial temperament. Differences between religions are, of course, to a considerable extent, differences between races also; but this does not prove that one is the cause of the other. Moreover, racial traits must themselves be accounted for. The most probable view of the matter is that mankind is a single species that originated at a particular spot, whence it spread over the earth, and that racial differences arose through the longcontinued influence of special habitats. It is natural to suppose that causes that could produce the anatomical contrasts with which we are familiar might produce cor