on, without one thought
of the sociological conditions of the problem. They interpose, as I
have already pointed out, the theory of a state religion, when such a
foundation is incidentally found to be necessary to carry the imposing
superstructure of Celtic mythology, but they do not pause to inquire
whether the state, suddenly introduced into the argument, is a
discoverable factor; or they proceed to erect their superstructure of
religious origins without any social foundation whatever, and we are
left with a great concept of abstract thought having no roots in the
source from which it is supposed to be drawn. The sun-god and the
dawn-god, even the All-father, are traced in the most primitive
thought of man, but it is not deemed necessary to show in what
relation these concepts stand to practical life. It is here I must
refer back to Robertson-Smith's dictum on mythology, for it is the
necessary preliminary to showing that belief cannot enter into life
except through the sociological units into which all humanity fits
itself; or rather, I would prefer Robertson-Smith's way of putting it,
"the circle into which a man was born was not simply a human society,
a circle of kinfolk and fellow-citizens, but embraced also certain
divine beings, the gods of the family and the state, which to the
ancient mind were as much a part of the particular community with
which they stood connected as the human members of the social
group."[427] Any proposal to examine a group of customs, beliefs, and
rites which at their origin take us back to the earliest history of a
country must, therefore, be considered from the sociological side. The
great mass of the material to be used in such an inquiry is not
ancient so far as its date of record is a test of antiquity, but it is
ancient as traditional survival, and it is not possible to trace back
custom and belief surviving in modern times to the earliest times,
except through the medium of the institutions which formed the social
basis of the peoples to whom such custom and belief belonged. A custom
or belief exists as a living force before it sinks back into the
position of a survival. It is the lingering effect of this living
force which helps to preserve it for so many ages, and in the midst of
such adverse circumstances, as a survival among other customs and
beliefs existing under a different living force. It is not possible,
therefore, to ascertain the origin of custom or belief in survival