The threshold of religion / by R.R. Marett.

  • Robert Ranulph Marett
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The threshold of religion / by R.R. Marett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “ELF-RESPECTING play requires no pro- logue, and it would, perhaps, be better policy on my part to ring up the curtain without more ado on these short studies in Com- parative Religion. Yet it seems only fair, when old work is about to be given a new lease of life, that the author should state whether he still abides by what he has written. The papers here brought together bear one and all on the same general topic, namely, the nature of the experience involved in rudimentary religion. Again, all of them alike illustrate the same general thesis, namely, that much of what has hitherto been classed as magic—so far as it has been noticed at all—is really religion of an elementary kind. In the earliest essay of the series I termed this so-called “ magical ” element, and the type of re- ligion in which it prevails, pre-animistic.” The epithet has gained some currency; nay, the sub- stantive expression “ pre-animism ” has been coined and brought into use, though not by me. Now, so long as we are at one about the facts, the words may take their chance. But I am as much concerned
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