It would seem, then, that though in religions of low { 149} culture we meet religion under the guise of desire, we also find that religion makes a distinction between desires; there are desires which may be expressed to the god of the community, and desires which may not. Further, though it is in the heart of a person and an individual that desire must originate, it does not follow that prayer originates in individual desire. To say so, we must assume that the same desire cannot possibly originate simultaneously in different persons. But that is a patently erroneous assumption: in time of war, the desire for victory will spring up simultaneously in the hearts of all the tribe; in time of drought, the prayer for rain will ascend from the hearts of all the people; at the time of the sowing of seed a prayer for "the kindly fruits of the earth" may be uttered by every member of the community. Now it is precisely these desires, which being desires must originate in individual souls, yet being desires of every individual in the community are the desires of the community, that are the desires which take the form of prayer offered by the community or its representative to the god of the community. Anti-social desires cannot be expressed by the community or sanctioned by religion. Prayer is the essential { 150} expression of true socialism; and the spirit which prompts it is and has always been the moving spirit of social progress.