HOWEVER worship be defined, little reflection is needed to discern the basis of its beginnings in what has preceded. Worship implies in the worshiper fear, reverence, gratitude, veneration, homage, love, respect, admiration, or a complex of some or all of these; and in the object worshiped power, worth, or dignity, or a complex of them. As we moderns know it, and as the world has known it as far back as written traditions or remains of various sorts permit investigation, worship involves certain definite modes of action by worshipers, directed to or at the object of worship; and these modes of action tend to become stereotyped, or, to anticipate a little, to crystallize into ritual. And many reasons lead to the belief that this stereotyping began very early.
Man's conception of things being anthropopathic, he would regard them as he did men, and in addition he would treat them, so far as circumstances and the nature of the case permitted, much as he did men. Since he thought of them as having senses to be tickled, appetites to be gratified, mentality to be reckoned with, temper to be made or kept placid and amicable, and power to be turned to good account or at least to be prevented from acting against him, he would deal with them as his experience and observation had taught him his own kind liked to be treated, and thus secure his own well-being. It could not have been long before the social element entered, tradition as to methods of accomplishing ends soon becoming a determining factor. Man had already discovered that the individuals of his own species differed greatly in qualities and power, and that different modes of procedure were either politic or necessary. Those weaker or less cunning than himself he could either disregard or render subservient. Those stronger and more resourceful would evoke fear or win respect, and to them he would concede what he must. The degree of respect or fear, expressed in terms of tribute or homage, would depend upon the conceived or actual disparity between his powers and those of the others. How short a distance separates respect or homage from worship becomes evident when one considers the refinement in theology of the distinction of dulia, hyperdulia, and latria from each other, or when one notes the difficulty of distinguishing the results in the objective actions attending "veneration," "higher veneration," and "worship."[1] This same standard of action would apply to whatever grade or order of beings man actually dealt with or conceived himself as dealing with. As Professor King puts it:
"Granted that the idea of a superior personality once appears in the religious consciousness, it is easy to see that the problem of worship itself, and of different types of worship, is quite a simple one. It seems almost self-evident that the deity will be approached and treated precisely along the lines of intercourse within the group of worshipers. He will be bargained with, or treated with respect, because be is recognized as having the advantage in power. He will be flattered, offered gifts, feasted, and treated precisely as would occur in a human society
if any member were felt to surpass the rest in some important type of excellence. In general, the modes of worship will be, first of all, repetitions of the acts called forth by the object or situation which has aroused the interest. In what better way could keepers of flocks conceive of honoring their god and keeping him interested in men than by the ordinary communal feast, of recognized importance in maintaining proper social relations on the human side? The peoples with whom witchcraft is of dominating importance will necessarily treat their deities after the manner of treating the human sorcerer."[2]
The expression of animistic thought in this relation is that what is pleasing to the worshiper will be regarded as pleasing to the object of devotion; what would effect the purpose in mind if applied to the subject is considered effectual applied to the object.[3]
Most likely the impression upon man most nearly (if not quite) universal made by any given object was that of relative power. The question that would then arise would be: Is this being favorable to me or adverse?
And Todd's testimony is given again as follows: "Oral traditions and the 'customs that are written within the book' . . .form the social matrix and make up by far the larger part of that social heredity which is the very stuff of informal education, and the basis of formal pedagogy."[8] From a different branch of the American aborigines evidence of the application
The continuity of this extreme conservatism can be traced in the area of ritual down to our own times. Indeed it has become an axiom among investigators both of religion and of anthropology and folk-lore that the oldest living remains we have are to be found in ritual, whether of worship, work, or, strange to say, play. The Brahmins have enshrined in their writings the necessity of adhering with the utmost fidelity to the words and ads, and the very sequence of the same, to the end that the sacrifice may be effectual. It is a matter of history that Sumerian rituals which began to be formulated in Babylonia perhaps as early as the sixth or fifth millennium before Christ were employed for a thousand or more years after the Sumerian language had ceased to be spoken, and this in order to gain effectual approach to the gods. Several branches of the Christian Church still employ languages long defunct and unintelligible to the majority
[9. FIetcher and La Flesche, Anthropological Report, etc., p. 575.]
of the worshipers, and this is done for no reason that is intelligible, or at least plausible, to those not of the communions referred to. Only a few years ago intense feeling was caused in Greece over the proposed rendering of the Greek of the New Testament into modern Greek. In various other ways might be demonstrated the tendency to a fixity in ways of thinking about things, in modes of action, and in methods of expression, and all this as a characteristic native to man in all stages of civilization and in all spheres of action.
The second element includes the complex results of many minds working on the same problem. An ever stronger emphasis upon the formative influence of the social factor in the development of mankind is laid by modern investigators in anthropology and religion. One way in which communal life worked was the observation of details, supposed to be of significance, which might or did escape the notice of individuals. A gesture in a dance, a chance occurrence in a ceremony, mere coincidence in some totally unrelated phenomena such as the presence of a variegated leaf or the simultaneous note of a bird or leap of an insect--any of these or a thousand other details marked at the time might come to be considered essential parts or accompaniments of the performance, whatever it was, thereafter to be included or simulated whenever the results were sought again, with the assumption that omission imperilled those results. Here is one partial explanation of the growing complexity of ceremonial up to a certain point. It can be seen at once how conservatism steps in here to preserve the method of procedure thus arrived at.
But this social factor undoubtedly operated also in a different way. The ways of seeing and interpreting things differ among observers. Man is an argumentative animal. Opinions pro and contra passed, and one consequence must have been a series of compromises in which weight of opinion or authority produced finally the formulæ and methods most acceptable to the community. Here is one door by which probably entered what we know as progress. The interest of the community, clan, or tribe, we have seen, operated to restrict and limit individual choice and initiative. Society did at a certain stage, and perhaps much earlier than any period of which we have dire(ft evidence, regard itself as open to reactions from benefit or injury done to non-human beings through the agency of any one of its members. This being so, the individual must a(ft with reference to the welfare of the whole. It is at this point pertinent therefore to point to the entrance of the ethical as distinct from what has so long been regarded as the religious. To examine this, however, would take us away from our theme, as it belongs in an entirely different field from that we now cultivate.