Now we say advisedly “primitive gods,” and this with no intention of obscurantism.  The god of later days, the unknown source of life, the unresolved mystery of the world, is not begotten of a rite, is not, essentially not, the occasion or object of art.  With his relation to art—­which is indeed practically non-existent—­we have nothing to do.  Of the other gods we may safely say that not only are they objects of art, they are its prime material; in a word, primitive theology is an early stage in the formation of art.  Each primitive god, like the rite from which he sprang, is a half-way house between practical life and art; he comes into being from a half, but only half, inhibited desire.

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Is there, then, no difference, except in degree of detachment, between religion and art?  Both have the like emotional power; both carry with them a sense of obligation, though the obligation of religion is the stronger.  But there is one infallible criterion between the two which is all-important, and of wide-reaching consequences.  Primitive religion asserts that her imaginations have objective existence; art more happily makes no such claim.  The worshipper of Apollo believes, not only that he has imagined the lovely figure of the god and cast a copy of its shape in stone, but he also believes that in the outside world the god Apollo exists as an object.  Now this is certainly untrue; that is, it does not correspond with fact.  There is no such thing as the god Apollo, and science makes a clean sweep of Apollo and Dionysos and all such fictitious objectivities; they are eidola, idols, phantasms, not objective realities.  Apollo fades earlier than Dionysos because the worshipper of Dionysos keeps hold of the reality that he and his church or group have projected the god.  He knows that prier, c’est elaborer Dieu; or, as he would put it, he is “one with” his god.  Religion has this in common with art, that it discredits the actual practical world; but only because it creates a new world and insists on its actuality and objectivity.

Why does the conception of a god impose obligation?  Just because and in so far as he claims to have objective existence.  By giving to his god from the outset objective existence the worshipper prevents his god from taking his place in that high kingdom of spiritual realities which is the imagination, and sets him down in that lower objective world which always compels practical reaction.  What might have been an ideal becomes an idol.  Straightway this objectified idol compels all sorts of ritual reactions of prayer and praise and sacrifice.  It is as though another and a more exacting and commanding fellow-man were added to the universe.  But a moment’s reflection will show that, when we pass from the vague sense of power or mana felt by the savage to the personal god, to Dionysos or Apollo, though it may seem a set back it is a real advance.  It is the substitution of a human and tolerably humane power for an incalculable whimsical and often cruel force.  The idol is a step towards, not a step from, the ideal.  Ritual makes these idols, and it is the business of science to shatter them and set the spirit free for contemplation.  Ritual must wane that art may wax.