In the words of Lord Avebury, the archeologist, “the savage is a prey to constant fears.... Savages never know but what they may be placing themselves in the power of these terrible enemies (the demons); and it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life and embitters every pleasure.”
In our modern times the preachers, the revivalists, the pulpit, appeal to fear and to hell in order to keep their flock in the fold. Fear of eternal damnation for infidels is the war cry of religion.
Professor Dreslar elicited from 875 California normal school students four-fifths of whom were young women, 3225 confessions of belief in superstitions.... “How thin is the veneer of culture over that great mass of irrational predisposition which in the hour of fear and excitement resumes control of the popular mind, and leads on to folly and ruin!” (Ross).
Buckle is right in pointing out the significant fact that superstition is found in any walk of life in which risk or danger predominates. Sailors are more superstitious than landsmen, while farmers and business people, especially gamblers and speculators, are more superstitious than industrial workers. Similarly Cumont is right in ascribing the superstitions of soldiers as due to risks and dangers of war.
After the great world war one notices the rise of all sorts of superstitions. Superstitions and fear are close companions. A modern historian does not hesitate to declare that “Europe is held in hate, because the nations fear each other.... What sentiment has dug the ditch separating Russia from the rest of the world? It is fear. The states of Western Europe, which the Soviets regard as their persecutors, think themselves menaced in their turn by the Soviet republic.” The Great War was produced by self-preservation and fear. The world is still in the grip of the fear instinct.
The Bible claims: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The Latin poet declares: Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. The real state of things is: Self and fear are the Lords of life, individual and social.
Bacon in his essay “On the Wisdom of the Ancients,” with his clear insight has stated the matter succinctly: “In the Panic terrors there is set forth a very wise doctrine; for by the nature of things all living creatures are endued with a certain fear and dread, the office of which is to preserve their life and existence, and to avoid or repel approaching mischief. But the same nature knows not how to keep just measure,—but together with salutary fears ever mingles vain and empty ones; insomuch that all things (if one could see into the heart of them) are quite full of Panic terrors; human things most of all; so infinitely tossed and troubled as they are with superstition (which is in truth nothing but a Panic terror), especially in seasons of hardship, anxiety, and adversity.”