I.
INTRODUCTION
The dark side of superstition. We are apt to think of superstition as an unmitigated evil, false in itself and pernicious in its consequences. That it has done much harm in the world, cannot be denied. It has sacrificed countless lives, wasted untold treasures, embroiled nations, severed friends, parted husbands and wives, parents and children, putting swords, and worse than swords between them: it has filled gaols and madhouses with its innocent or deluded victims: it has broken many hearts, embittered the whole of many a life, and not content with persecuting the living it has pursued the dead into the grave and beyond it, gloating over the horrors which its foul imagination has conjured up to appal and torture the survivors. It has done all this and more. The brighter side of superstition. Yet the case of superstition, like that of Mr. Pickwick after the revelations of poor Mr. Winkle in the witness-box, can perhaps afford to be placed in a rather better light; and without posing as the Devil’s Advocate or appearing before you in a blue flame and sulphureous fumes, I do profess to make out what the charitable might call a plausible plea for a very dubious client. For I propose to prove, or at least make probable, by examples that among certain races and at certain stages of evolution some social institutions which we all, or most of us, believe to be beneficial have partially rested on a basis of superstition. The institutions to which I refer are purely secular or civil. Of religious or ecclesiastical institutions I shall say nothing. It might perhaps be possible to shew that even religion has not wholly escaped the taint or dispensed with the support of superstition; but I prefer for to-night to confine myself to those civil institutions which people commonly imagine to be bottomed on nothing but hard common sense and the nature of things. While the institutions with which I shall deal have all survived into civilized society and can no doubt be defended by solid and weighty arguments, it is practically certain that among savages, and even among peoples who have risen above the level of savagery, these very same institutions have derived much of their strength from beliefs which nowadays we should condemn unreservedly as superstitious and absurd. The institutions in regard to which I shall attempt to prove this are four, namely, government, private property, marriage, and the respect for human life. Four propositions to be proved. And what I have to say may be summed up in four propositions as follows:—
I. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order.
II. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for private property and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.
III. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for marriage and has thereby contributed to a stricter observance of the rules of sexual morality both among the married and the unmarried.
IV. Among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for human life and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment.
Preliminary remarks. Before proceeding to deal with these four propositions separately, I wish to make two remarks, which I beg you will bear in mind. First, in what I have to say I shall confine myself to certain races of men and to certain ages of history, because neither my time nor my knowledge permits me to speak of all races of men and all ages of history. How far the limited conclusions which I shall draw for some races and for some ages are applicable to others must be left to future enquiries to determine. That is my first remark. My second is this. If it can be proved that in certain races and at certain times the institutions in question have been based partly on superstition, it by no means follows that even among these races they have never been based on anything else. On the contrary, as all the institutions which I shall consider have proved themselves stable and permanent, there is a strong presumption that they rest mainly on something much more solid than superstition. No institution founded wholly on superstition, that is on falsehood, can be permanent. If it does not answer to some real human need, if its foundations are not laid broad and deep in the nature of things, it must perish, and the sooner the better. That is my second remark.
II.
GOVERNMENT
Superstition as a prop of government. With these two cautions I address myself to my first proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order.
Superstitious respect for chiefs in Melanesia. Among many peoples the task of government has been greatly facilitated by a superstition that the governors belong to a superior order of beings and possess certain supernatural or magical powers to which the governed can make no claim and can offer no resistance. Thus Dr. Codrington tells us that among the Melanesians “the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks’ Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin.”[6.1] According to a native Melanesian account, the authority of chiefs rests entirely on the belief that they hold communication with mighty ghosts and possess that supernatural power or mana, as it is called, whereby they are able to bring the influence of the ghosts to bear on human life. If a chief imposed a fine, it was paid because the people firmly believed that he could inflict calamity and sickness upon such as resisted him. As soon as any considerable number of his subjects began to disbelieve in his influence with the ghosts, his power to levy fines was shaken.[7.1] It is thus that in Melanesia religious scepticism tends to undermine the foundations of civil society.