If we apply this conception of evolution in general to the evolution of religion in particular—­and Bergson, I should say, does not—­then the centre of dispersion, common to all religions, is the heart of man.  The forms of religion evolving, emanating and radiating from that common centre are, let us say, fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism.  If we wish to avoid, in the theory of religious evolution, an error analogous to that of supposing birds to be descended from reptiles, we must decline to suppose that monotheism is simply polytheism evolved, or that polytheism is descended from fetishism.  We must consider that each of these three forms of religion is terminal, in the sense that no one of them leads on to, or passes into, either of the other two.  All three forms of religious life may, and indeed do, exist side by side with one another, just as the countless forms of physical life may be found existing side by side.  The foraminifera exist now, as they existed millions of years ago; but the fact that they co-exist with higher forms of physical life does not show that the higher forms of life are but foraminifera in a more highly evolved form.  Similarly, the fact that fetishism exists side by side with polytheism, or polytheism with monotheism, does not show that one is but a higher form of another:  we must consider each to be a terminal form, as incapable of producing another, as it is impossible to conceive that the serpent develops into the dove.

The common centre and starting-point of fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism on this view (the ‘dispersive’ view) of the evolution of religion lies in the heart of man, in a consciousness, originally vague in the extreme, of the personality and superiority to man of the being or object worshipped.  In all these three forms of religion there is worship, and in all three forms the being worshipped is personal.  Further, a special tie is felt to exist between the worshipper and the personality worshipped:  religion is the bond of union between them, and it is also a bond which unites the worshippers to one another.  It is by its very nature a bond of union, a means of communion between persons, human and divine.  That is the mystic aspect of religion which finds expression in the rite of sacrifice and in the sacramental meals which are felt somehow to bind together, or rather to reunite and keep together, the worshippers and their god.  This communion however is not merely mystic:  it has its practical effects inasmuch as it affects the conduct of the worshipper and enables him to do what without it he would not have had strength to do.