ABSTRACT
The religious interest is universally admitted to be one that is, so to speak, "pointed outward"; it always terminates upon an object found by it to be holy, sacred, divine. The dependence felt in the religious consciousness is therefore of the nature of dependence upon a superior person. In passing from the religious state of mind to the theoretical and speculative, something is changed, the religious shading is lost. A true statement of religious animism would recognise a development of the meaning of the soul-principle which the savage ascribes to things, from very crude beginnings. Religion will persist in human life and the religious interest will receive an interpretation that recognises the motives of man. The newer researches in primitive culture show that social organisation itself, even in its most secular details, has been dominated by requirements and distinctions rooted in religion.
