Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/211

Rh savage found himself placed was the expression of the hostility of higher beings, of a God who was an avenging power, and whom the savage believed he must have offended.

But even if we suppose these habits of action to have thus originated they very clearly could not have persisted in the race because of the advantage that was thus supposed to attend them. They certainly could not have had the advantage to the individual in relation to his God that their prototypes originally had in relation to the conquering warrior; we recognise full well that the anthropomorphic conception of an avenging Deity fails under rigid examination.

But beyond the fact that these habits of action had not the individualistic advantage which may not unnaturally have been attributed to them by uncivilised men, they clearly must have been in themselves far from advantageous to the individual exhibiting them; for there being no all-powerful mysterious enemy ready to attack man, actions which in moments of danger, or perplexity, blinded the savage to real dangers, and which induced him to assume attitudes in which alertness was altogether precluded, might often lead to his great individual disadvantage; and they might thus also often bring indirect disadvantage to the race of which he formed a part. And even where direct danger was not incurred, it surely could be of no direct service to an individual to assume attitudes which preclude reaction to the forces in his environment, while still remaining in a state of mental stress which would preclude his gaining any of the recuperative force which comes with the inactivity of rest.

It seems to me clear then that the tribes in which these prayer habits became markedly developed would have suffered in the contest for survival, unless connected with these habits there had been some indirect and unrecognised advantage of sufficient force to overbalance the disadvantages above spoken of; and if it appear that these habits have persisted, then we are bound to assume that they had some special racial values quite different from those originally attributed to them. It is unnecessary for me to say even one word to show that the habit of prayer is an exceedingly persistent one in the race, having been characteristic of religious expression from the very earliest times, and being one of the most widespread of all habits of action with which we are acquainted.

When we ask ourselves what this indirect racial advantage