Sociology of Religion. by Joachim WachReview by: Hornell HartSocial Forces, Vol. 23, No. 4 (May, 1945), pp. 476-477Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571856 .

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476 SOCIAL FORCES

earlier Rise of American Civilization (I, 513). It was in Alabama, not "in South Carolina" (p. 244) that James Marion Sims made his bold experiments in the surgery of gynecology. The anomaly of Charles O'Conor's having received, as a Labor Reformer, more votes for president in Texas and Georgia than in New York and Illinois in 1872 (p. 331) would have appeared less remarkable had it been added that he was also the candidate of the "Straightout" Democrats disgusted with the nomination of Horace Greeley. By some strange species of cartography one of the maps shows the entire States of Iowa and Michigan as having been "granted by the government to railways [sic] companies between 1850 and 1871" (p. 283). Even more amazing, from scholars who have spent years delving into the sources of American history, is the fact that on three different pages (187, 189, and 251) and in the index the eleventh president of the United States is referred to as "Leonidas" Polk!

These and other errors betray a hasty and careless writing, which will prevent this volume from attaining a position in historical literature commensurate with that occupied by some of the earlier Beard works.

JAMES W. PATTON

North Carolina State College

SOCIOLOGY oF RELIGION. By Joachim Wach. Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1944. 412 pp. $5.00.

Wach defines the field of the sociology of reli- gion as consisting in the individual, typological, and comparative study of religious grouping, fellowship, and association. He distinguishes it from the study of doctrine and of rites and from. the historical study of religion. After a methodo- logical prolegomena, he divides the remainder of his book into three parts: I. Religion and Natural Groups; II. Religion and Differentiation Within Society; and III. Religion and the State.

In its general organization, this book clearly falls into the category of "scholarly" sociology. The footnotes occupy, on many pages, more than half of the space. There are three indexes-one of places and peoples, one of religious groups, and one of topics. The latter lists scores of abstract concepts. For example, the word "conception" has 70 references, the word "devotion" has 35, the phrase "religious experience" has 72, the word "expression" has 39, the word "interpretation" has 52, the-word "principle" has 29, and so on.

The discussion of generalized abstractions in the light of varied examples and opinions probably has a service to render in the early gropings of sociological development, provided that the concepts are clearly and operationally defined, that the examples are selected by comprehensive and unbiased methods, and that the conclusions are drawn in a form capable of verification and utilization. The present work, however, fails to fulfill such requirements. The abstract con- cepts are practically never defined in any clear-cut manner, the selection of material reveals marked bias, and the conclusions are vague, equivocal, and of little or no usefulness, except, possibly, to be woven into future vague and inconclusive discussions of a similar character.

"Our aim," says Wach "will be ... by an ex- amination of the manifold interrelations between religion and social phenomena to contribute to a better appreciation of one function of religion" (p. 5). The function referred to is not stated in that context, but on p. 383 he concludes by defining religion "as that profoundest source from which all human existence is nourished and upon which it depends in all its aspects: man's communion with God." But what does he mean by "God"? His third index contains 73 ref- erences to "God(s)," of which three are italicized, We are told that "Italic page numbers indicate the main (or most important) passages where the term occurs in the text. Wach's first italicized reference to God is on p. 23, where he merely says that "The nature of God or the gods, the origin and growth of deities ... all are.. . expounded in theology."' His second main reference is to p. 189, where he states that the doctrine of God-his nature, attributes, and relation to the world-has been a source for schism among Christians. His third main reference is to p. 252, where he sets forth in some detail various functions attributed to special deities among primitive peoples. Thus, the nearest that Wach comes to defining this "profoundest source from which all human ex- istence is nourished" is to stress the diversity of conceptions involved.

But he makes another approach to his central problem. On p. 13 he says that the most work- able definition of religion is that it is "the experi- ence of the Holy." To the word "holy" his index gives nine references, none italicized. The near- est he comes to a definition is on p. 16, where he agrees with Edwards that "the 'holy' is not so much a fourth value added to the Good, the True,

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 477

and the Beautiful as it is 'the matrix from which they are derived, their common form and origin.' " On p. 282 he uses the expression "sanctification ('holiness')." Somewhat related to his use of "holy" is his use of "charisma," to which his index gives 43 references. His definition of this termn, on p. 337, is as follows:

The term is derived from the Greek of the New Testa- ment (charisma, 'gift of grace'), but the phenomenon is known all over the world. Primitive people speak of mana, and under this term charisma is included. The Persian hvarnah, the 'glory' vested in the religious and political leader, is another instance.

His other references to msana suggest that he is unacquainted with the implications of the term except in the sense of awe-inspiring personal pres- tige. He makes no references to the connections between mana and fertility, sexual excitement, dead bodies, snakes, magic, taboo, ceremonials, or any of its other ramifications. Thus, even in the use of his most central terms-religion, God, and the holy-Wach shows such vagueness as to render his entire treatment largely futile.

In connection with his superficial acquaintance with the mana concept it should be pointed out that Wach shows no knowledge of Freudian psy- chology, or of related explorations of the subcon- scious. Apparently he has never confronted the schools of thought which see in ideas of God the product of subconscious pressures and mecha- nisms; he shows no acquaintance with the studies which have analyzed the cults in terms of com- pensations for social and economic frustration.

The significance of beliefs in life beyond death is almost entirely ignored. Wach's index gives 26 references to "death," but only 2 to "heaven," and 5 to "immortality." He refers 58 times to "economics" and only 6 times to "soul."

As examples of the conclusions which Wach has reached, the following may be cited:

Our historical and systematic review warrants the conclusion that man, in his religious attitudes, seems to have, all through his history, at once felt very near and very far from his fellow man (p. 377).

One fact stands out for everyone who reviews the history of society under the viewpoint of its interrela- tion and interaction with religion. Religious motives may work positively and negatively. They 'build up' and they 'pull down' (p. 381).

We like to think that the desired agreement among students of society could be reached on the basis of the formula that perfect integration of a society never has

been nor can be achieved without a religious basis (p. 383).

No explicit value judgments on the facts reviewed h-ave been passed in these pages (p. 374).

Even within the canons of scholarly sociology, Wach's book fails to achieve the clarity, rigor, impartiality, and conclusiveness which such studies, at their best, exhibit. But have we not arrived at the stage of sociological research in which we may begin to proceed operationally (in the best sense of that term) even in the field of religion? Such procedure, of course, is completely beyond the ken of the present treatise.

HORNELL HART

Duke University

MANKIND So FAR. By William Howells. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1944. 319 pp. $4.50. Illustrated.

Mankind So Far is an important and much needed contribution to the growing list of scien- tifically sound books written for persons without technical training in the field covered. The author is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin and a Research Asso- ciate of the American Museum of Natural History. His book is one of the volumes in the Museum's Science Series.

Listed by the publishers as an account of "Man's History: Past, Present and Probable Future," the book covers a wide field and, of course, has the weaknesses of sketchiness and over-simplification inevitable in such a volume. The author has, however, brought together an astonishing amount of accurate information and has put it into very readable form in scarcely more than three hundred pages. The volume is illustrated by end maps, photographs, and a number of clear, effective line drawings.

Mankind So Far begins with a section on "Ani- mals and the Coming of Man" which deals briefly with the evolution of man and his relation to the rest of the animal world. There are chapters on The Vertebrates, Mammals, The Primate Order, Man and the Anthropoids, The Fossil Anthropoids, and The Descent of Man. The drawings in this section are particularly good and the author manages to get a great deal of information into the limited space allowed.

The section on Man and the Coming of Homo Sapiens is a particularly welcome one in that it brings together in organized fashion the available

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