I should be most unphilosophical if I
said it; for the history of mankind proves that he has infinitely
more in him than that. Yes: but in him that infinite more, which
is not only the noblest part of humanity, but, it may be, humanity
itself, is not to be counted as one of the roots of superstition.
For in the savage man, in whom superstition certainly originates,
that infinite more is still merely in him; inside him; a faculty:
but not yet a fact. It has not come out of him into consciousness,
purpose, and act; and is to be treated as non-existent: while what
has come out, his passions and senses, is enough to explain all the
vagaries of superstition; a vera causa for all its phenomena. And
if we seem to have found a sufficient explanation already, it is
unphilosophical to look farther, at least till we have tried whether
our explanation fits the facts.
Nevertheless, there is another faculty in the savage, to which I
have already alluded, common to him and to at least the higher
vertebrates--fancy; the power of reproducing internal images of
external objects, whether in its waking form of physical memory--if,
indeed, all memory be not physical--or in its sleeping form of
dreaming. Upon this last, which has played so very important a part
in superstition in all ages, I beg you to think a moment. Recollect
your own dreams during childhood; and recollect again that the
savage is always a child.
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