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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: accepted at some elder time of human history, and by
us seen as through a glass darkly."
[1] See Civilisation: its Cause and Cure, ch. i.
I think it is impossible not to see--however much in our
pride of Civilization (!) we like to jeer at the pettinesses
of tribal life--that these elder people perceived as a matter
of fact and direct consciousness the redeeming presence
(within each unit-member of the group) of the larger life
to which he belonged. This larger life was a reality--
"a Presence to be felt and known"; and whether he
called it by the name of a Totem-animal, or by the name
Pagan and Christian Creeds | 
