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then duty it was in the beginning, and duty it will remain to the end. For those who conceive it to be merely magic, magic it was and magic it remains. Those who define it as belief in a god and communion with him find that belief in the earliest as well as the latest stages. All would agree in rejecting Bergson's view of evolution--that in evolution there is change, but nothing which changes. All would agree that in the evolution of religion there is something which, change though it may, remains the same thing, and that is religion itself. But on the question what religion is, there is no agreement: no definition of religion as yet--and there have been many attempts to define it--has gained general acceptance. We may even surmise, and admit, that no attempt ever will be successful. Such admission, indeed, may at first to some seem equivalent to admitting that religion is a nullity, and the admission may accordingly be welcomed or rejected. But a moment's reflection will show that the admission has no such consequence. None of our simple feelings can be defined: pleasure and pain can neither be defined; nor, when experienced, doubted. And some of our general terms, those at any rate which are ultimate, are beyond our power either to define or doubt: no one imagines that 'life' can be defined, but no one doubts its existence. And religion both as a term and as a fact of experience is ultimate, and, because ultimate, incapable of definition. It is not to be defined but only to be felt. It is an affair not merely of the intellect, but still more of the heart. In what sense, then, can we speak of the evolution of religion? Evolution implies change; and no one doubts that there have been changes in religion. No one can imagine that it has from the beginning till now remained identically the same. What seems conceivable is that throughout there has been, not identity but continuity--change indeed in continuity but also continuity in change. The child 'learns to speak the words and think the ideas, to reproduce the mode of thought, as he does the form of speech' of the community into which he is born. In the speech, thought, and feelings--even in the religious feelings--of the community, from generation to generation, there is continuity, but not identity. From generation to generation they are not identical but are continuously changing; and they change because each child who takes them over reproduces them; and, in reprodu
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