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THE IDEA OF GOD
IN EARLY RELIGIONS

BY

F. B. JEVONS, Litt.D.

Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Durham

Cambridge:
at the University Press
1913

First Edition, 1910
Reprinted 1911, 1913

[v]

PREFACEToC

In The Varieties of Religious Experience the late Professor WilliamJames has said (p. 465): 'The religious phenomenon, studied as aninner fact, and apart from ecclesiastical or theologicalcomplications, has shown itself to consist everywhere, and at all itsstages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercoursebetween themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselvesto be related. This intercourse is realised at the time as being bothactive and mutual.' The book now before the reader deals with thereligious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact, in the earlier stagesof religion. By 'the Idea of God' may be meant either theconsciousness which individuals have of higher powers, with which theyfeel themselves to be related, or the words in which they, or others,seek to express that consciousness. Those words may be an expression,that is to say an interpretation or a misinterpretation, of that[vi]consciousness. But the words are not the consciousness: the feeling,without which the consciousness does not exist, may be absent when thewords are spoken or heard. It is however through the words that wehave to approach the feeling and the consciousness of others, and todetermine whether and how far the feeling and the consciousness soapproached are similar in all individuals everywhere and at allstages.

F. B. JEVONS.

Hatfield Hall,
Durham.
October, 1910

[vii]

CONTENTS