Question

The question of how and when religion began naturally raises in our thoughts other questions connected with it, which are extremely important: does religion constitute a specific feature only of man? are not even animals, at least the higher animals, capable of religious feelings? is it not necessary to look for the beginning of religion already in the animal world? Darwin’s current theory of biological science, which protects the origin of man from the animal by evolutionary transformation and thus eliminates the essential differences between man and animal, not only in the physical but also in the spiritual nature, inspired the followers of this theory with the courage to prove the possibility of the existence of religion, even in the most rudimentary form, even in animals. Even Darwin himself was ready to look at the dog’s attachment to man as a manifestation of primitive religious feeling; and some of his followers, relying on the evolutionary theory, decide to put the question much wider and prove that animals have all those properties of mental life, the presence of which causes the emergence of religious feeling. “If we must,” says E. In the higher animals we can hardly doubt that such animals would also be capable of developing religious relations, if only the objects peculiar to these relations could be represented by them in a sensuous form accessible to them, and if we can state in the higher animals such spiritual properties as the desire for sociability, compassion, love, the motive of retribution, gratitude, affection, loyalty, humility, generosity, repentance, devotion, self – sacrifice to death, even a sense of duty.” According to Hartmann, such a religious object really exists for animals, if not for the wild, at least for the domestic, and it is in the person of their owner; in this respect, they seem even happier than the savage, who, deifying the objects and phenomena of the heavenly and earthly world, sees in them only the expression of power, while the noble Lord However, Hartmann does not consider it possible to assume that the celestial and terrestrial phenomena, deified by man, can be an object of religious veneration for animals, since the latter “lack the ability of disinterested observation.”

But another scientist, van Ende, recognizes the possibility of deification on the part of animals even natural phenomena; to admit this, in his opinion, is very easy, since only we recognize animals capable of the process of analogy and to personify phenomena, and this ability is undoubtedly inherent in animals. “Cosmic phenomena are presented to the animal only with clearly expressed signs of movement, sound, and action – that is, with clear signs of motion, sound, and action. they are the signs of a living being, and the principle of analogy must lead the animal, as well as primitive man, to see in them the presence of animate beings endowed with the highest power.” In support of this, van-Ende refers to some facts from the life of animals: the storm and earthquake cause in animals an inexpressible fear, which can be explained by the fact that they spiritualize the terrible phenomena of nature, ascribe to them by analogy with themselves evil thoughts and associate their fate with them; and the synthesis of these three factors – the idea of spirit, the idea of destiny, and the process of analogy or personification – is the basis of religion.