Page:Tolstoy - Pamphlets.djvu/192

Rh agreed that humanity has already outlived two periods, the religious and metaphysical, and has now entered into the third and highest, the scientific, and that all religious phenomena are only the survivals of an outgrown spiritual organ of humanity, once needful, but long ago lost to sense and significance.

It is agreed that religion had its origin in the worship of imaginary beings, evoked by fear of the incomprehensible forces of Nature, as in ancient times Democritus thought, and as affirmed by the philosophers and historians of religion. But, putting aside the fact that the recognition of some unseen and supernatural being or beings has not always proceeded from a sense of fear evoked by unknown forces of Nature, as is proved by hundreds of advanced and learned thinkers of the past—Socrates, Descartes, Newton—and like men of our own times, who, being in no wise fearful of such forces, admitted the existence of some supreme supernatural being or beings—the affirmation that religion has been the outcome of man's superstitious fear of the incomprehensible powers of Nature, in reality does not answer the chief question. From what in man does the idea of an unseen and supernatural being derive existence? If men were afraid of thunder and lightning, they would fear them as thunder and lightning; but why invent an unseen and supernatural Jove, living in certain regions, and occasionally flinging bolts at men? If men were