Nature and Philosophy of Religion

It appearsprobable that primitive men endowed with their own qualities every seeminglyactive object in the world. Experience forced them to take note of therelations of all objects to themselves and to one another. The knowledge of thesequences of phenomena, so far as the latter are not regarded as actingintentionally on him, constitutes man's science and philosophy; so far as theyare held to act on him intentionally, the knowledge of them constitutes histheory of religion, and his sense of relation with them is his religioussentiment. Science and religion are coeval in man's history, and both areindependently continuous and progressive. At first science is in the backgroundbecause most objects, since they are believed to be alive and active, arenaturally supposed by man to affect him purposely; it grows slowly, keepingpace with observation, and constantly abstracting phenomena from the domain of religion.Religion is man's attitude toward the universe regarded as a social and ethicalforce; it is the sense of social solidarity with objects regarded as Powers,and the institution of social relations with them.