, and 58.

[64] _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, 1883, p. 68.

CHAPTER FOUR

SEX & RELIGION IN PRIMITIVE LIFE

The connection between sexual feeling and religious belief is ancient,
intimate, and sustained. It has impressed itself on many observers who
have approached the subject from widely different points of view. Some
have treated the connection as purely accidental, and as having no more
than a mere historical interest. Others have used it as illustrating the
way in which so sacred a subject as religion may suffer degradation in
degenerate hands. Others of a more scientific temper have dealt with the
relations between sexualism and religion as illustrations of a mere
perversion. A deal may be said in favour of this last point of view. We
know, as a matter of fact, that such cases of perversion do exist, in
what form and to what extent will be discussed later. We are also aware
that strong feeling which cannot find vent in one direction will secure
expression in another. The annals of Roman Catholicism contain accounts
of numerous persons who have sought refuge in a monastery or a nunnery
as the result of disappointment in love, and it would be foolish to
conclude that strong amorous feelings are annihilated because there is a
change in the object to which they are directed. Paul was not a
different man from the Saul of pre-conversion days, but the same person
with his energies directed into a new channel. Protestantism is without
the obvious outlets for unsatisfied sexual feeling such as is provided
by Roman Catholicism, but it provides other outlets. Religious service
as a whole remains, and intense religious devotion may very often owe
its origin to sources undreamt of by the devotee.

Between religious beliefs and sexual feelings the connection is,
however, wider and deeper, than the relation expressed by mere
perversion. Neither is the relation one of mere accident. An examination
of the facts in the light of adequate scientific knowledge, combined
with a due perception of primitive human psychology and sociology, have
shown that the two things are united at their source. One eminent
medical writer asserts that "in a certain sense, the history of religion
can be regarded as a peculiar mode of manifestation of the human sexual
instinct."[65] Another writer substantially endorses this by the remark
that "in a certain sense the religious life is an irradiation of the
reproductive instinct."[66] How eas