Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/296

292 indefinite host of superhuman demons or spirits, and the form of his religion is determined by that fact.

Another thing that confirmed the primitive man in the belief that he was surrounded by a world of supersensuous beings was his experience in dreams: when he had developed far enough to remember his dreams with any vividness, he always thought of them as real experiences. The beings that visited him in his sleep were as genuine realities and as truly to be dealt with as any that he came in contact with when awake. In fact, he finds that he can often do things in dreams that he can not do when awake, and that he frequently communes with beings that he has no knowledge of when awake. The Kamchatkans and Eskimos, we are told, determine what they will do when awake to a great extent by their dreams; for they regard the knowledge obtained in this way far superior to that gained through the senses. Lucretius, however, goes too far when he asserts that "the dreams of men peopled the heaven with gods." Many of the lower animals are vivid dreamers, but they show no signs of having any religion. Still, dreams in all ages have often been regarded with superstitious reverence, and were undoubtedly an element in determining the character of the primitive religion of mankind.

It has come down to us from the Latin poet Petronius that "fear first made the gods." As a complete statement of the origin of religion, it is contrary to the history and nature of man. The primary religious influence is not fear, but confidence and awe. The spirit of many early religions was quite the opposite of fear. "Probably the first of all public rites of worship," says a high authority, "was one of joyousness, to wit, the invitation to the god to be present and to partake of the repast." Many modern students of the subject would bear witness to the presence of joy and confidence in primitive religions.

Yet it can not be denied but that fear early came to be one of their most important elements. For just as with the little child, the primitive man was often disappointed in his confidence. As his experience widened and the ills of life multiplied, he began to doubt the friendly character of the spirits. He soon came to the conviction that some only were favorable to him. The rest were to be feared. And as fear once aroused feeds upon everything within its grasp and grows with extraordinary rapidity, the uncertainty as to what the attitude of the spirits would be toward him naturally caused the primitive man to spend the most of his energy in devising ways to appease their wrath.

A slight step in advance beyond spiritism was taken when the opinion began to prevail that all objects do not contain superhuman beings, but only some of them. This stage in religion is called fetishism. The term was first applied by certain early Portuguese explorers to the objects worshipped by the savage tribes they discovered in Senegal and