ces as an
unquestionable fact. Modern thought tends more and more surely in the
direction of regarding the universe as a complex of self-adjusting,
non-conscious forces. Primitive thought assumes a supernatural agency as
the cause of disease, and seeks, logically, to placate it by prayer or
coerce it by magic. Modern thought turns to test-tube and microscope,
searches for the malignant germ, and manufactures an antitoxin. The
history of human thought is, as Huxley said, a record of the
substitution of mechanical for vitalistic processes. The beginning of
religion is found in connection with the latter. A genuine science
commences with the emergence of the former.

With this aspect of the matter I have not, however, been specially
concerned. It has been left on one side in order to concentrate
attention upon another and a more neglected aspect of the subject--that
of the conditions that have served to perpetuate the religious idea.
Grant, what cannot be well denied in the face of modern investigation,
that ideas of the supernatural began in primitive delusion. How comes it
that this idea has not by now disappeared from civilised society? What
are the causes that have given it such a lengthy lease of life?
Experience has shown that all really verifiable knowledge counts as an
asset of naturalism, and is so far opposed to supernaturalism. Moreover,
the history of science has been such that one feels justified in the
assumption that, given time and industry, there are no phenomena that
are not susceptible to a naturalistic explanation. Why, then, has not
supernaturalism died out? Even the religious idea cannot persist without
evidence of some kind being offered in its behalf. This evidence may be
to a better instructed mind inconclusive or irrelevant, but evidence of
some sort there must have been all along, and must still be. Granted
that the religious idea began with primitive mankind, granted also that
it was based on a mistaken interpretation of natural phenomena, these
reasons are quite insufficient to explain why thousands of generations
later that idea is still with us. "Our fathers have told us" offers to
the average mind a strong appeal, but surely the children will require
some further proof than this. What kind of evidence is it that
throughout the ages religious people have accepted as conclusive? A
study of primitive psychology shows clearly enough how the religious
idea vitalised the facts. What we next have t