Variously as this power may be conceived, it is always regarded as distinct both from man himself and from any particular object in the world around him. But, though this belief in what may be called divine is involved in religion, and indeed in its indispensable condition, it does not of itself constitute religion. Animism, for example, is a very early form of belief, but it is a mistake to say that the belief in spirits is a form of religion. For there is a belief in spirits that does not call forth any religious emotion, but is rather the source of fear and repulsion; and such a belief is manifestly independent of religion. It cannot be said to be true that any relation to the individual that affects his life is entitled to be called religion. Goethe stated that what he referred to as ethnic religions is adequate to fear, but not to reverence, and this view has been frequently repeated. It is widely known, that in fact religion never has its source in fear (some sources refute this view though), but always in a lower or higher degree of reverence. No doubt primitive man fears certain things for example spirits; but however his dread of these is not in fact religious, on the contrary, it excludes religion. For the spirits that he dreads are those, which are beyond the circle of humanity, whereas the spirits that he reverences are those, with which he enters into sympathetic and friendly relations. It is true that a more developed form of religion may contain an element of fear as well as reverence, but this is due to the inclusion with the objects of worship of spirits that had formerly been regarded as unfriendly demons and had not yet been entirely transformed into gods.
As the first element in religion is belief, so the second element is worship. For religion implies not only a belief in powers that are able and willing to help man, but some form of worship through which is reverence is expressed.
