"Ah! About the ritual-taboo culture of the Nipe! Yes. Sit down. Yes. So. Do you find it impossible that a high technology could be present in such a system?"
"No. I've been thinking about it."
"Ah, so." He sat down again. "Then you will please tell me."
"Well, let's see. In the first place, let's take religion. In tribal cultures, religion is—uh—animistic, I think the word is."
Yoritomo nodded silently.
"There are spirits everywhere," Scanton went on. "That sort of belief, it seems to me, would grow up in any race that had imagination, and the Nipes must have plenty of that, or they wouldn't have the technology they do have."
"Very good. Very good. But what evidence have you that this technology was not given them by some other race?"
"I hadn't thought of that." Stanton stared into space for a moment, then nodded his head. "Of course. It would take too long for another race to teach it to them; it wouldn't be worth the trouble unless this hypothetical other race killed off all the adult Nipes and started the little ones off fresh. And if that had happened, their ritual-taboo system would have disappeared, too."
"That argument is imperfect," Yoritomo said, "but it will do for the moment. Go on with the religion."
"O.K.; religious beliefs are not subject to pragmatic tests. That is, the spiritual beliefs aren't. Any belief that could be disproven would eventually die out. But beliefs in ghosts or demons or angels or life after death aren't disprovable. So, as a race increases its knowledge of the physical world, its religion tends to become more and more spiritual."