The article addresses controversial questions related to Robert N. Bellah's Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011), and the sequel, The Axial Age and its Consequences (2012). Discussed is the difference between the macro-historical hypothesis of an axial age and more abstract aspects of axiality. Critical questions are raised about whether Bellah's theory of the emergence of religion in play and ritual does not underestimate the cognitive functions of pre-axial religion. Finally, Bellah's project raises questions as to the creative transitions taking place in post-axial epochs, not least due to the development of canonical traditions in the first centuries ce, and to the emergence of concepts of autonomous individuals in early modernity.

This paper presents a systematic approach to compute the angularity and the axiality indices for a Schönflies parallel manipulator. Angularity index may be considered as a measure of the sensitivity of the mobile platform to changes in rotation, while axiality index can be used to measure the sensitivity of the OP of the mobile platform to changes in translation. Since both indices were inspired by very fundamental concepts of classical kinematics (angular velocity vector and helicoidal velocity field), they offer a clear and simple physical meaning, which may be useful to the designer of parallel manipulators. Moreover, both dexterity indices do not require obtaining a dimensionally homogeneous Jacobian matrix, nor do they depend on having similar types of actuators in each manipulator's leg. Detailed numerical examples are given in order to illustrate the computation of the dexterity indices.