g is
accepted. The ritual is performed; and he is received back. I have
already spoken of this perfectly natural evolution of the twin-ideas
of Sin and Sacrifice, so I need not enlarge upon the subject. But two
things we may note here: (1) that the ritual, being so concrete (and
often severe), graves itself on the minds of those concerned, and
expresses the feelings of the tribe, with an intensity and sharpness of
outline which no words could rival, and (2) that such rituals may have,
and probably did, come into use even while language itself was in an
infantile condition and incapable of dealing with the psychological
situation except by symbols. They, the rituals, were the first effort of
the primitive mind to get beyond, subconscious feeling and emerge into a
world of forms and definite thought.

Let us carry the particular instance, given above, a stage farther, even
to the confines of abstract Thought and Philosophy. I have spoken of
"The Spirit of the Hive" as if the term were applicable to the Human as
well as to the Bee tribe. The individual bee obviously has never THOUGHT
about that 'Spirit,' nor mentally understood what Maeterlinck means by
it; and yet in terms of actual experience it is an intense reality to
the bee (ordaining for instance on some fateful day the slaughter of all
the drones), controlling bee-movements and bee-morality generally. The
individual tribesman similarly steeped in the age-long human life of his
fellows has never thought of the Tribe as an ordaining being or Spirit,
separate from himself--TILL that day when he is exiled and outcast from
it. THEN he sees himself and the tribe as two opposing beings, himself
of course an Intelligence or Spirit in his own limited degree, the Tribe
as a much greater Intelligence or Spirit, standing against and over him.
From that day the conception of a god arises on him. It may be only
a totem-god--a divine Grizzly-Bear or what not--but still a god or
supernatural Presence, embodied in the life of the tribe. This is
what Sin has taught him. (1) This is what Fear, founded on
self-consciousness, has revealed to him. The revelation may be true,
or it may be fallacious (I do not prejudge it); but there it is--the
beginning of that long series of human evolutions which we call
Religion.

(1) It is to be noted, in that charming idyll of the Eden garden,
that it is only AFTER eating of the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve
perceive the Lord God walking in t