CHAPTER IX.

THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 304

Importance of the subject—Its Divisions. First Period: origin of the religious feeling—Primitive notions of the Infinite (Max Müller); Ancestor-worship (H. Spencer)—Fetichism, animism; Predominance of fear—Practical, utilitarian, social, but not moral character—Second period: (1) Intellectual evolution; Conception of a Cosmic Order first physical, then moral—Function of increasing generalisation; its stages; (2) Emotional evolution; Predominance of love; addition of the moral sentiment—Third Period: Supremacy of the rational element; Transformation into religious philosophy; Effacement of the emotional element—Religious emotion is a complete emotion—Manifold physiological states accompanying it; ritual, a special form of the expression of emotion—The religious sentiment as a passion—Pathology—Depressive forms: religious melancholy, demonomania—Exalted forms: ecstasy, theomania.