184 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



legends of Jemshid and Zohak, of Osiris and 

 Thammuz, of Hylas and Orpheus. The whole 

 universe was thinking, feeling, and willing. Noth- 

 ing was dead or inert ; all things were endowed 

 with life and activity. From this came sacrifices, 

 shrines and temples, oracles, and sacerdotal or- 

 ders. It would be difficult to find any traces of 

 scepticism in all this. Belief then reigned alone 

 in the human mind, and doubt found no place 

 there. As long as the phenomenal was as yet 

 harder to comprehend and more difficult to con- 

 trol than the unseen and unexplored world that 

 lay beyond it, scepticism was impossible. Not 

 only was it impossible, but it would have been 

 harmful. For the primitive man was barbarous, 

 treacherous, revengeful. 1 His selfish instincts 

 were as yet all in all. His sympathetic and so- 

 cial feelings were as yet undeveloped. In such 

 a rude condition it was only the bond of a firmly 

 rooted and wide- spread belief it was only the 

 ascendency of a priestly and governmental or- 

 der, thus secured which could keep society 

 from being disorganized. Had scepticism been 

 once let in, religious and political organization 

 would have been weakened, sects and parties 

 would have sprung up prematurely, and the 



i Spencer's Social Statics, pp. 409-413. 



