it not have been like a tree
divorced from the soil?

Well, we know that the course of history has been far different from
what I have assumed to be the case. We know that the savage dies out
very slowly, and that even in civilised States to-day he is honoured in
the existence of a whole army of representatives. Each generation moves
along the road marked out by its predecessors, and broadens or lengthens
it to but a small extent. For many, many generations people went on
adopting the conclusions of the savage concerning man and the universe,
and finding proofs of the soundness of those conclusions in exactly the
same kind of experiences. The beliefs thus engendered were wild and
absurd--admittedly so, and many of such a nature that educated people
are now ashamed of them. But such as they were, they served the purpose
of perpetuating the belief in the supernatural, and so served to
strengthen the general religious idea. Of that there can be no
reasonable doubt. For the influence of beliefs that have been long held
does not end with the intellectual perception of their falsity. A belief
such as witchcraft dies out, but by that time it has done its work in
familiarising the general mind with the reality of the supernatural, and
so prepares the ground for other harvests. These long centuries of
superstitious beliefs have left behind in society a psychological
residuum that is at all times an obstacle and is sometimes fatal to
scientific thinking. We are like men who have obtained freedom after
almost a lifetime of slavery. We may be no longer in any real danger of
the lash, but fear of the whip has become part of our nature, and we
shrink without cause. So with all those now admitted delusions that have
been described in the foregoing pages, and which for generations were
asserted without question. They bit deeply in to social institutions;
the temper of mind they induced became part of our social heritage. They
perpetuated the long reign of supernaturalism, and still interpose a
serious obstacle to sane and helpful conceptions of man and the
universe.

INDEX

Adolescence and Religion, 177-8, 181, 276-7.

Adolescence and Primitive Customs, 178.

Adolescence and Nervous Disorders, 196-7.

Adolescence, Social Significance of, 183-5.

Agapae, 152.

Asceticism, 121, 125, 146, 208-13.

Asceticism and Purity, 213.

Asceticism, Influence on Religion, 224-5.

Augustine, 157.

Authority, Conflict with Sci