III
Superstition is distinguished by a lack of organization both in man and his environment. It is a direct cross-relationship between an elementary interest, passion, or need, and some isolated and capricious natural power. The deity is externally related to the worshipper, having private interests of his own which the worshipper respects {233} only from motives of prudence. Religious observance takes the form of barter or propitiation—do ut des, do ut abeas. The method of superstition is arbitrary, furthermore, in that it is defined only by the liking or aversion of an unprincipled agency.
Let us consider briefly the type of superstition which is associated with the most primitive stage in the development of society.[8] The worshipper has neither raised nor answered the ethical question as to what is his greatest good. Indeed, he is much more concerned to meet the pressing needs of life than he is to co-ordinate them or understand to what they lead. He can not even be said to be actuated by the principle of rational self-interest. Like the brute, whose lot is similar to his own, he feels his wants severally, and is forced to meet them as they arise or be trampled under foot in the struggle for existence. There is little co-ordination of his interests beyond that which is provided for in the organic and social structure with which nature has endowed him. Over and above the instinct of self-preservation he recognizes in custom the principle of tribal or racial solidarity. But this is proof, not so much of a recognition of community of interest, as of the vagueness of his ideas concerning the boundaries of his own self-hood. The very fact that his interests are scattering and loosely knit prevents him from clearly {234} distinguishing his own. He readily identifies himself not only with his body, but with his clothing, his habitation, and various trinkets which have been accidentally associated with his life. It is only natural that he should similarly identify himself with those other beings like himself with whom he is connected by the bonds of blood and of intimate contact. Morally, then, primitive man is an indefinite and incoherent aggregate of interests which have not yet assumed the form even of individual and community purpose.
To turn to the second, or cosmological, component, we find that primitive man's conception of ultimate powers is like his conception of his own interests in being both indefinite and incoherent. In consequence of the daily vicissitudes of his fortune, he is well aware that he is affected for better or for worse by agencies which fall outside the more familiar routine operations of society and nature. So great is the disproportion between the calculable and the incalculable elements of his life that he is like a man crouching in the dark, expecting a blow from any quarter. The agencies whose working can be discounted in advance form his secular world; but this world is narrow and meagre, and is overshadowed by a beyond which is both mysterious and terrible. Of the world beyond he has no single comprehensive idea, but he acknowledges it in his {235} expectation of the injuries and benefits which he may at any time receive from it. It is an abyss whose depths he has never sounded, but which he is forced practically to recognize, since he is at the mercy of forces which emanate from it.
The method of primitive religion is the inevitable sequel. In behalf of the interests which represent him man must here, as ever, make the best terms he can with the powers which beset him. He has no concern with these powers except the desire to propitiate them. He has no knowledge of their working excepting as respects their bearing upon his interests. Obeying a law of human nature which is as valid now as then, he seeks for remedies whose proof is the cure which they effect. Let the association between a certain action on his own part and a favorable turn in the tide of fortune once be established, and the subsequent course of events will seem to confirm it. Coincidences are remembered and exceptions forgotten. Furthermore, his belief in the effectual working of the established plan is always justified by the difficulty of proving any other alternative plan to be better.
But, in order to understand superstition, it is not necessary to reconstruct the earliest period in the history of society, nor even to study contemporary savage life, for the superstitious intelligence and the superstitious method survive {236} in every stage of development. They appear, for example, in mediaeval Christianity; in Clovis's appeal to Christ on the battle-field: "Clotilda says that Thou art the Son of the living God, and that Thou dost give victory to those who put their trust in Thee. I have besought my gods, but they give me no aid. I see well that their strength is naught. I beseech Thee, and I will believe in Thee, only save me from the hands of mine enemies." The same period is represented by the petition attributed to St. Eloi, "Give, Lord, since we have given! Da, Domine, quia dedimus!" [9] In modern life the motive of superstition pervades almost all worship, appearing in sundry expectations of special favor to be gained by service or importunity.
The application of critical enlightenment to this type of religion has already been made with general consent. It is recognized that morally superstition represents the merely prudential level of life. It bespeaks a state of panic or a narrow regard for isolated needs and desires. Furthermore, it tends to emphasize these considerations and at the same time degrade the object of worship through claiming the attention of God in their behalf. The deity is conceived, not under the form of a broad and consecutive purpose, but under the form of a casual and desultory good-nature.
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But superstition has been corrected mainly by the advancement of scientific knowledge. Science has pronounced finally against the belief in localized or isolated natural processes. Whether the mechanical theory be accepted or not, its method is beyond question, in so far as it defines laws and brings all events and phenomena under their control. In the dealings of nature there can be no favoritism, no special dispensations, no bargaining over the counter.