ffence had been committed, not by the community, but by some one
member of the community, doubtless helped to give the community the
confidence without which its attitude towards the offended power would
have been simply one of fear. Had the feeling been one of fear, pure
and unmixed, the movement of the community could not have been towards
the offended being. But religion manifests itself from the beginning
in the action of drawing near to the god. The fact that the offence
was the deed of some one member, and not of the community as a whole,
doubtless helped to give the community the confidence, without which
its attitude towards the offended power would have been simply one of
fear. But it also tended necessarily to make religion an affair of the
community rather than a personal need: sin had indeed been committed,
but not by those who drew near to the god for the purpose of making
the atonement. They were not the offenders. The community admitted its
responsibility, indeed, but it found one of its members guilty.

We may, therefore, fairly say that personal religion had at this time
scarcely begun to emerge. And the reason why this was so is quite
clear: it is that in the infancy of the race, as in the infancy of the
individual, personal self-consciousness is as yet undeveloped. And it
is only as personal self-consciousness develops that personal religion
becomes possible. We must not however from this infer that personal
religion is a necessary, or, at any rate, an immediate consequence of
the development of self-consciousness. In ancient Greece one
manifestation--and in the religious domain the first manifestation--of
the individual's consciousness of himself was the growth of
'mysteries.' Individuals voluntarily entered these associations: they
were not born into them as they were into the state and the
state-worship. And they entered them for the sake of individual
purification and in the hope of personal immortality. The desire for
salvation, for individual salvation, is manifest. But it was in rites
and ceremonies that the _mystae_ put their trust, and in the fact that
they were initiated that they found their confidence--so long as they
could keep it. The traditional conviction of the efficacy of ritual
was unshaken: and, so long as men believed in the efficacy of rites,
the question, 'What shall I do to be saved?' admitted of no
permanently satisfactory answer. The only answer that has been found
permanentl