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On Religion Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments

Constant worked on this study of humanity’s religious forms and development throughout his life, eventually publishing five volumes between 1824 and 1831. His aims were to relate religious forms to their historical contexts and civilizational developments, to show partisans of the new post-revolutionary order that the religious impulse was natural to the human heart, and to show religious reactionaries that history had left them behind and that the natural state of the religious sentiment was an unfettered “spirituality” left free to find new forms of expression.

On Religion Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments. Translated by Peter Paul Seaton Jr. Introduction by Pierre Manent (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2017).

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The copyright to this edition, in both print and electronic forms, is held by Liberty Fund, Inc.

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Author: Benjamin Constant
Translator: Peter Paul Seaton Jr.

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Contents
Translator’s Note
Introduction to On Religion*
ON RELIGION
Preface
Notice to the Second Volume (1825)
Notice to Volume Four (May 1830)
Third Notice (October 1830)
FIRST BOOK
CHAPTER 1: On the Religious Sentiment
CHAPTER 2: On the Necessity of Distinguishing the Religious Sentiment from Religious Forms in Order to Understand the Development of Religions
CHAPTER 3: That the Moral Effect of Mythologies Proves the Distinction That We Just Established
CHAPTER 4: That This Distinction Alone Explains Why Several Religious Forms Appear to Be Enemies of Liberty, While the Religious Sentiment Is Always Favorable to It
CHAPTER 5: That the Triumph of Emerging Beliefs over Older Ones Is a Proof of the Difference between the Religious Sentiment and Religious Forms
CHAPTER 6: On the Way in Which Religion Has Been Envisaged until Now
CHAPTER 7: The Plan of the Work
CHAPTER 8: Concerning Questions That Would Be a Necessary Part of a History of Religion but Are Irrelevant to Our Purpose
CHAPTER 9: The Precautions That the Special Nature of Our Inquiry Obliged Us to Take
BOOK II: ON THE CRUDEST FORM THAT RELIGIOUS IDEAS CAN ASSUME
CHAPTER 1: The Method We Will Follow in This Book
CHAPTER 2: On the Form the Religious Sentiment Takes On among the Primitive Savages
CHAPTER 3: The Religious Sentiment’s Efforts to Rise above This Form
CHAPTER 4: On the Ideas of Another Life in the Worship of Savages
CHAPTER 5: On the Errors into Which Several Authors Have Fallen Because They Failed to Note the Struggle of the Religious Sentiment against the Form of Religion at This Period
CHAPTER 6: On the Influence of Priests in the Primitive State
CHAPTER 7: Consequences of the Influence of Jongleurs on the Worship of Savages
CHAPTER 8: Why We Believed That We Needed to Write in Such Detail about the Worship of Savages
BOOK III: ON THE CAUSES THAT FAVOR THE GROWTH OF PRIESTLY POWER FROM THE FIRST STEPS OF THE HUMAN RACE TOWARD CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER 1: The Object of This Book
CHAPTER 2: On the Social State That Is the Closest to the Savage State
CHAPTER 3: On Causes That Could Contribute Only in a Secondary Manner to the Increase of Priestly Authority
CHAPTER 4: On the Cause That, Whenever It Exists, Gives the Priesthood Much Power
CHAPTER 5: Facts That Support the Previous Assertions
CHAPTER 6: On Two Apparent Exceptions
CHAPTER 7: On the Variety in the Organization and Forms of Priestly Authority
CHAPTER 8: On the Division into Castes
CHAPTER 9: On Priestly Corporations Replacing Castes
CHAPTER 10: On the Various Competences of the Priesthood among the Nations It Dominated
BOOK IV: ON THE INFLUENCE OF SECONDARY CAUSES ON THE EXTENT OF PRIESTLY POWER
CHAPTER 1: An Enumeration of These Causes
CHAPTER 2: On Climate
CHAPTER 3: On the Fertility or Sterility of the Soil
CHAPTER 4: On the Necessity of Material Works and Products for the Physical Existence of Societies
CHAPTER 5: On the Phenomena That Engender Astonishment or Terror
CHAPTER 6: The Influence of the Character and Customary Occupations of Peoples
CHAPTER 7: On the Effect of Great Political Calamities
CHAPTER 8: On the Effect of Migrations
CHAPTER 9: On the Struggle of Political and Military Power against the Priestly Power
CHAPTER 10: Continuation of the Same Subject
CHAPTER 11: A Necessary Explanation of What We Just Said about the Jews
CHAPTER 12: That the Struggle between the Priesthood and the Temporal Authority Must End to the Advantage of the First, as Soon as the Principle of Priestly Authority Is Admitted
CHAPTER 13: The Summary of the Foregoing
BOOK V: ON THE PRIESTHOOD’S SMALL AMOUNT OF AUTHORITY AMONG PEOPLES WHO WORSHIPPED NEITHER THE STARS NOR THE ELEMENTS
CHAPTER 1: That the Little Authority Priests Have among Nations That Do Not Have the Worship of Stars Is Demonstrated by the History of the First Times of Greece
CHAPTER 2: That It Is Nonetheless Possible That at a Time Prior to the Heroic Age the Greeks Had Been Enslaved by Priestly Corporations
CHAPTER 3: On the Religion and the Priesthood of the Earliest Times of the Greek, According to the Testimony of Greek Historians
CHAPTER 4: On the Influence of Colonies on the Social State and Religion of the Greeks
CHAPTER 5: On the Modifications the Independent Spirit of Greece Always Caused in What Came from Elsewhere
CHAPTER 6: The True Elements of Greek Polytheism
CHAPTER 7: The Results
BOOK VI: THE CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENTS OF PRIESTLY POLYTHEISM
CHAPTER 1: On the Combination of the Worship of Elements and the Stars with That of Fetishes
CHAPTER 2: On the Popular Part of Priestly Polytheism
CHAPTER 3: On the Secret Doctrine of the Priestly Bodies of Antiquity
CHAPTER 4: Example of the Foregoing Combination in the Egyptians
CHAPTER 5: Example of the Same Combination in the Religion of India
CHAPTER 6: On the Causes That Modified This Combination in India, without, However, Winning the Day against the Priesthood
CHAPTER 7: That We Would Be Able to Find Examples of the Same Combination among All the Peoples Subject to Priests
BOOK VII: ON THE ELEMENTS THAT CONSTITUTE POLYTHEISM INDEPENDENT OF PRIESTLY DIRECTION
CHAPTER 1: That the Combination Described in the Previous Book Is Alien to the Polytheism That Is Not Subject to Priests
CHAPTER 2: On the State of the Greeks in the Barbaric or Heroic Times
CHAPTER 3: On Some Questions That Must Be Resolved before Proceeding Further in Our Investigations
CHAPTER 4: The Point of View under Which We Will Envisage the Polytheism of the Heroic Times
CHAPTER 5: The Embellishment of Divine Forms in Homeric Polytheism
CHAPTER 6: On the Character of the Homeric Gods
CHAPTER 7: On the Greek Notions concerning Destiny
CHAPTER 8: On the Means Employed by the Greeks to Penetrate the Secrets of Destiny
CHAPTER 9: On the Greeks’ Notions of the Other Life
CHAPTER 10: On the Efforts of the Religious Sentiment to Rise above the Religious Form We Just Described
BOOK VIII: A NECESSARY DIGRESSION ON THE POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO HOMER
CHAPTER 1: That the Religion of the Odyssey Belongs to Another Epoch Than That of the Iliad
CHAPTER 2: A Question That Results from the Previous Observations
CHAPTER 3: That the Composition of the Odyssey, and Hence Its Mythology, Belong to a Period after That of the Iliad
CHAPTER 4: Conclusion
BOOK IX: ON THE PRIESTLY RELIGIONS COMPARED WITH INDEPENDENT POLYTHEISM
CHAPTER 1: The Purpose of This Book
CHAPTER 2: On the Form of the Gods in the Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 3: On the Character of the Gods in the Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 4: On a Singular Notion Whose Traces Are Found in Greek Religion, but Which Is Found Developed and Reduced to a Dogma in Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 5: On Priestly Notions of Destiny
CHAPTER 6: On the Priestly Means of Communication with the Gods in Sacerdotal Religions
CHAPTER 7: On the Notions of the Future Life in Religions Dominated by Priests
CHAPTER 8: On the Abodes of the Dead, and the Description of Infernal Torments, in Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 9: On Metempsychosis
BOOK X: ON THE TEACHINGS PECULIAR TO PRIESTLY POLYTHEISM
CHAPTER 1: The Object of This Book
CHAPTER 2: On the Supremacy of One God over the Others in the Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 3: On the Inferior Gods or the Priestly Demonology
CHAPTER 4: On Malevolent Divinities
CHAPTER 5: Consequences of This Teaching in the Priestly Religions
CHAPTER 6: On the Notion of an Original Fall1
CHAPTER 7: On a Mediating God
CHAPTER 8: On Triple or Ternary Divinities
CHAPTER 9: On the Doctrine of the Destruction of the World
CHAPTER 10: On the Phallus, the Lingam, and Hermaphroditic Deities1
BOOK XI: ON THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF PRIESTLY RELIGIONS
CHAPTER 1: Exposition of This Principle
CHAPTER 2: On Human Sacrifices
CHAPTER 3: On Privations against Nature
CHAPTER 4: On Licentious Rituals
CHAPTER 5: On the Sanctity of Pain
CHAPTER 6: On Some Doctrines That Could Have Been Introduced into the Priestly Religions as Consequences of Those We Just Discussed
CHAPTER 7: A Demonstration of the Previous Assertions, Drawn from the Composition of the Polytheism of Ancient Rome
BOOK XII: ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDEPENDENT POLYTHEISM TO ITS HIGHEST POINT OF PERFECTION1
CHAPTER 1: How the Progress of the Social State Introduces Morality into Religion
CHAPTER 2: On the Contradictions That Characterize This Period of Polytheism, and the Way in Which These Contradictions Disappear
CHAPTER 3: That the Poems of Hesiod Are Contemporaneous with the Revolution We Are Describing
CHAPTER 4: On Pindar1
CHAPTER 5: On the Underworld of Pindar Compared with That of Homer and Hesiod
CHAPTER 6: That the Same Progression Can Be Seen in the Historians
CHAPTER 7: Of the Same Progression among the Greek Tragedians
CHAPTER 8: On Euripides
CHAPTER 9: A Few Words on Aristophanes
CHAPTER 10: Why We Do Not Speak Here of the Greek Philosophers
CHAPTER 11: On the Relations of Morality with the Two Religious Forms
CHAPTER 12: On the True Relations of Religion with Morality
BOOK XIII: THAT THE GREEK MYSTERY CULTS WERE INSTITUTIONS BORROWED FROM FOREIGN PRIESTHOODS, AND WHICH, WHILE CONTRADICTING THE PUBLIC RELIGION, DID NOT MODIFY IT AT ALL IN ITS POPULAR PORTION
CHAPTER 1: How Much the Subject of This Book Is Beset with Difficulties
CHAPTER 2: What the Mystery Cults Were among the Nations Subject to Priests
CHAPTER 3: How These Mysteries Were Transported into Greece, and What They Became
CHAPTER 4: The Conformity of the Teachings of the Greek Mysteries with the Priestly Rituals and Teachings
CHAPTER 5: On the Spirit That Reigned in the Mysteries
CHAPTER 6: Summary of the Composition of the Greek Mysteries
CHAPTER 7: On Gradual Initiations, as the Initiation into the Priestly Hierarchy
CHAPTER 8: On the Real Object of the Mysteries
CHAPTER 9: On the Explanations That Have Been Given of the Mysteries
CHAPTER 10: That Our Way of Envisaging the Mystery Cults Alone Explains the Often Contradictory Attitude of the Greeks toward These Institutions
BOOK XIV: ON THE SCANDINAVIAN RELIGION, AND ON THE REVOLUTION THAT SUBSTITUTED A PRIESTLY BELIEF FOR INDEPENDENT POLYTHEISM IN SCANDINAVIA
CHAPTER 1: Preliminary Observation
CHAPTER 2: How the Scandinavians Passed from Fetishism to Polytheism
CHAPTER 3: Revolution in the Scandinavian Polytheism
CHAPTER 4: That the Question Whether There Was a Third Religious Revolution in Scandinavia Is Irrelevant to Our Subject
CHAPTER 5: That the Two Revolutions of Scandinavian Polytheism Confirm Our Assertions Concerning the Nature and Differences between the Two Polytheisms
BOOK XV: RESULTS OF THE WORK
CHAPTER 1: Question to Resolve
CHAPTER 2: On the Disadvantages of the Principle of Stasis, Even in the Religions That Do Not Confer an Unlimited Power on the Priesthood
CHAPTER 3: That the Purity of Doctrine Diminishes Nothing in the Dangers of the Principle of Stasis in Religion
CHAPTER 4: How Harmful to Religion Itself Is Every Obstacle to Its Progressive Perfectibility

On Religion Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments

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