Page:The Aryan Household.djvu/27

 ARCHAIC WORSHIP.

§ 1. The truth or the falsity of any belief has a very different meaning in history from that which it has in physical science. In the latter case, it is the supreme question. The object of science is to ascertain whether certain facts do or do not bear certain relations to certain other facts; and a belief upon the subject is useful only when and so far as it agrees with the actual state of things. But in discussions relating to human conduct, the matter is often different. In these circumstances, the inquiry relates not to the character of the belief, but to its existence. We ask not whether such a belief be true or be false, but whether men have or have not entertained it and acted upon it. In this aspect, the quality of the belief is immaterial. It is not relevant to the purposes of the inquiry. The great problem of history is to trace the process by which the Present has been evolved from the Past. One main agent of that process is human beliefs; and human beliefs include—and in their early stages absolutely pre-suppose—human errors. We must not, therefore, turn with scorn from the simple theories by which our forefathers sought to account for the phenomena which they observed in themselves and in the external world. In the absence of any accumulated experience, of any extended observation, of any systematic knowledge, these theories were of necessity rude enough. They were,