Nature

On the contrary, Taylor explains the origin of the religious cult of nature and its phenomena by the above-mentioned propensity of the savage to transfer his own States to the objects and phenomena of the surrounding nature. Recognizing in man himself the existence in addition to the body of a special double or spirit, the savage assumes in all phenomena of external nature the presence of the same spirit, capable of influencing the environment, and in particular on man and his fate. If the primitive savage was able to come to the deification and religious worship of the souls of dead people, then, of course, he could stop and deify those powerful and mysterious spirits, which, in his opinion, live in various objects and phenomena of nature. So there is a reverence for nature, as well as demons, goblins, mermaids, brownies and other all sorts of mysterious spirits, which the rude mind of the savage fills all nature. And here the purpose of religious worship is purely utilitarian: by this worship the savage wants to appease the spirits of nature and protect himself from their evil influence.5

That animism, understood in the sense of the belief in the existence of spirits or various demons capable of influencing human life, is almost a universal phenomenon among savage and uncultured tribes, is a fact beyond question. But whether this animism is the primary form of religious consciousness, or whether it represents a further stage in the development and processing of the simplest, so to speak, embryonic religious ideas – is a question and is still debatable. In any case, the theory of Herbert Spencer and Taylor does not provide a completely satisfactory solution to the question of the original origin of religion in the human race. The main question is: what made man recognize in the souls of dead people and in the spirits of nature special divine beings? – remains open in this theory. The main motive for creating a religious cult is recognized here as the desire of a person to find an accomplice in the arrangement of their well being; religion is said to have “arisen in man as a mere cult and in purely practical interests, and precisely in the interests of the protection and well-being of man’s earthly existence in the struggle against the need and dangers of life” (Froshammer). But if this is the case, then this basic motive would have to be preserved at all subsequent stages of the development of religion, or with its disappearance religion would have to disappear. But the cultured man, even after he has realized that neither his dead ancestors nor the imaginary spirits of nature can help him in the struggle against need, often continues to be religious, and in religion he seeks not so much a happy life as a righteous, higher, God-pleasing life. All that is based on error and gross ignorance must disappear in the light of knowledge and a true understanding of their position in the world. But religion still lives on, not only in the heart of the simple man, but often in the soul of the man who stands on the heights of scientific knowledge. Therefore, the root must be sought not in primitive ignorance and depression of vital need, but in something else.