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THE FUNCTION OF RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION. 197 essentially attractive, or unless they brought to those who practised them other advantages than any that were realised. But we do not have to say a word to show that sacrifice must have been essentially unattractive to the primitive man, involving as it did much loss of precious things gathered together with much labour which itself was abhorrent to his soul. Moreover sacrifice evidently involves reduction of individual resources and capacities, and danger therefore not only to the individual but to his tribe from those enemies who had not thus reduced their resources. We must look then for other advantages than any that appear on the surface in order to account for the persistence of these customs. After the argument that has preceded this, I scarcely need to tell my reader that my thesis in reference to these, as in reference to the other religious customs already discussed, is that they have been enforced by Nature because of their value in establishing the mental attitude of submission of the will to the commands of God, as men have expressed it ; or in other words in establishing the habit of the restraint of individualistic tendencies, and of appeal to the guidance of the racial impulses of social import. The truth of this is evidenced in the very fact that the term sacrifice has been directly transferred in common language to apply to the voluntary renunciation or re- pression of individualistic tendencies ; the term " self-sacri- fice " in our everyday speech has come to mean self-restraint. Moreover the very attitudes assumed in connexion with sacrifice are ones which are most valuable in the production of a full measure of reverential awe, which would prepare those who watched the ceremonial to give attention to what came to them as commands from those conducting the sacrifice. The mere process of looking up withdraws our attention from the distracting objects around us, and arouses in us the powerful feelings accompanying the recognition of our own littleness, of the sublimity of what is not of ourselves, as all must realise who have lifted up their eyes to the mountain peaks, or who have worshipped in the noble naves of the Gothic cathedrals. The smoke arising from the altar naturally led the worshipper to follow with his eyes its up- ward curves, as does the incense burning in the ceremonial of to-day ; led him naturally therefore to assume a reverential attitude of mind. But beyond this, these physical attitudes tended to induce in him conditions distinctly opposed to the production of individualistic activities and therefore well calculated to