James Henry Leuba

“ By the sick-bed of one beloved, one must do something, however useless to him. Who shall say that we do not have in this natural tendency the origin of the large class of magical acts represented by sticking pins into, or burning, an effigy? The less a person is under the control of reason, the more likely is he, not only to yield to promptings of this order, but also to be seduced by his wish into a belief in their efficacy.
If any one finds it difficult to admit that the savage can so easily be deceived, I would direct his attention to the well-known instances of children’s self-deceptions. ”

“ We should have to admit almost anything which any one may have a fancy for designating by that much-abused word, even to ‘the sense of eternity in connection with our higher experiences,’ and ‘the feeling of reality and permanence of all we most value.’ But since the function of words is to delimitate, one defeats the purpose of language by stretching the meaning of a word until it has lost all precision and unity of meaning. ”

“ What is in the mind of the stoker when he thinks of the power of coal? What in the mind of the gambler when he tries to coerce fate? What in the mind of the necromancer when he summons the shades of spirits? ”

“ We think because we will. Thought does not exist for itself; it is the instrument of desire. To discover ways and means of gratifying proximate or distant desires, needs, cravings, is the function of intelligence. The psychologist speaks, therefore, of the instrumental character of thought, and considers cognition to be a function of conduct. The mastery of desire over thought is abundantly illustrated in the history of belief, and nowhere so strikingly as in Religion. ”

“ Travellers have borne testimony to the absence of fear in birds inhabiting certain regions. But, it may be asked, would Religion have come into existence under these peaceful circumstances? A life of relative ease, comfort, and security is not precisely conducive to the establishment of practical relations with gods. Why should happy and self-sufficient men look to unseen, mysterious beings for an assistance not really required? Under these circumstances the unmixed type of fear-Religion would never have come into existence. ”

“ What did Magic contribute to the making of Religion? Frazer’s Theory.—Our conclusions are, so far, that Magic has had an independent origin, that it very probably antedated Religion, and that they associate for common purposes without ever fusing, for they are referable to different principles. Are we, then, driven to the opinion that even though Magic should have antedated Religion and been often combined with it in common undertakings, it has, nevertheless, contributed in no way to the establishment of Religion? ”

“ The new religious movement Christian Science has spoken a language so foreign to cultivated ears, its interpretation of the Bible is so false, it is so obviously committed to errors, illusions, and aberrations of every sort, that the intelligent have been disposed to shrug their shoulders in contempt and to ignore it. ”

“ As belief in a God seems no longer possible, man seeks an impersonal, efficient substitute, belief in which will not mean disloyalty to science. For man will have life, and have it abundantly, and he knows from experience that its sources are not only in meat and drink, but also in ‘spiritual faith.’ It is this problem which the Comtists, the Immanentists, the Ethical Culturists, the Mental Scientists are all trying to solve. Any solution will have the right to the name Religion that provides for the preservation and the perfectioning of life by means of faith in a superhuman psychic Power. ”

“ The method illustrated above by which animals learn to deal with forces in the midst of which they live has a much wider range of application in human existence than is generally supposed. Man’s fundamental mode of learning is also the unreflective, experimental, one in which frequent blind attempts and chance successes slowly lead to the elimination of ineffective movements. Would you convince yourself of the vastly exaggerated rôle ascribed to abstract ideas and to logical processes in ordinary human behaviour, inquire how ‘power’ is conceived of by those who use it. ”

“ The thunder might be the voice of some monstrous animal. The surpassing variety, the magnitude and magnificence of nature, stimulate the imagination into more original activity than the apparitions of men and women in dreams or in trances. ”