It has been stated above that every race of
mankind, however primitive or advanced it may be, holds some form of
religious belief based upon some conception of the supernatural powers
back of the world; and what the universe is conceived to be must largely
determine the particular characteristics of a theology, and through this
the special form of its attendant religion. We have before us a wide array
of types to study and to compare, which vary so greatly, partly for the
reason specified, that an inclusive definition of religion must be couched
in very general terms. If we define it as the attitude and reaction of a
human being conditioned by his knowledge of the immediate materials and
his conception of the ultimate powers of the universe, its scope is so
extended as to include the ideas of the atheists and agnostics as well as
the crude conceptions of lower races and those systems of piety and
worship conventionally regarded as religions by civilized peoples. More
than this: we cannot regard the total reaction of a thinking being as
essentially different in ultimate value from the attitudes toward their
worlds of animals lower than man. The situation of a well-trained sheep
dog is one of pastures and fences and gates, of rain and sunshine, of
sheep, and of a master whose voice is to be obeyed.
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