The Tree of Life
An easy study of religion by anthropologist Ernest Crawley. 1905. There is another Crawley book offered at this web address.
“Rationalists argue that theology causes stagnation; historians, on the other hand, make it a commonplace of history that the decay of religion is a chief cause of the decline of nations. And the latter view, though religious decay has never occurred in any important degree, shows the instinctive good sense of human nature. But, though it is not decay, the stagnation which results when the theological expression of religious truth becomes stereotyped, is more dangerous. If man is to progress, his theology must be elastic. True religion cannot live, and cannot be understood for what it is, unless its forms are continually changing. On this change its essence depends. As a matter of fact, however, should religious decay ever occur, it would be not the cause of national decline, but a chief result of that cause. Irreligion is thus a symptom of deterioration. We must exclude here those cases where some catastrophe, such as conquest in the old style, attended by decimation and oppression, has overtaken a nation; such cases are not real instances of national decay. Real decay is the degeneration—physical, moral, and intellectual, of the great mass of the people.”
“Rationalists argue that theology causes stagnation; historians, on the other hand, make it a commonplace of history that the decay of religion is a chief cause of the decline of nations. And the latter view, though religious decay has never occurred in any important degree, shows the instinctive good sense of human nature. But, though it is not decay, the stagnation which results when the theological expression of religious truth becomes stereotyped, is more dangerous. If man is to progress, his theology must be elastic. True religion cannot live, and cannot be understood for what it is, unless its forms are continually changing. On this change its essence depends. As a matter of fact, however, should religious decay ever occur, it would be not the cause of national decline, but a chief result of that cause. Irreligion is thus a symptom of deterioration. We must exclude here those cases where some catastrophe, such as conquest in the old style, attended by decimation and oppression, has overtaken a nation; such cases are not real instances of national decay. Real decay is the degeneration—physical, moral, and intellectual, of the great mass of the people.”