Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/52

38 Being exists and is somewhere close at hand, for there lies his hut in ruins, and the cuts made by the hail-stones are bleeding, and somebody must have done it and done it intentionally. But as he can not find this malevolent Being, his mind is filled with that horrible dread which is always aroused by unknown danger, against which we are not able to defend ourselves—this sentiment is the beginning of Religion.

It is a well-known fact that all travelers who have had opportunities for observing savages, are unanimous in saying that the sentiment of Religion among them is expressed exclusively as superstitious fear. And naturally so. Unpleasant occurrences are not only more frequent, but more forcible than pleasant ones, and they produce a deeper and more violent internal and external effect than the latter. An agreeable sensation is borne stolidly and passively; the intellect is not called upon to define it; muscles and brain can remain at rest. But a disagreeable sensation forces itself at once upon the consciousness and makes necessary a series of actions of the intellect and will, to discover and remove its cause. Hence it comes that primitive man was aroused to a perception of the malevolent powers of nature before he became aware of those which are his benefactors. He devoted no thoughts to the facts that the sun warmed him and the fruit supplied him with food, because he could eat the fruit and lie down in the sunshine, without any effort of mind, and he only exerted himself to think, when compelled to do so. Dangers and calamities on the contrary, roused him to intellectual and psychical activity and peopled the world of his imagination with enduring figures. It was only at a far more advanced stage of intellectual development that man became distinctly sensible of the pleasures that life offered him, and instead of enjoying them