RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT 



In treating of the philosophy of fetishism 

 (Part I., chapter vii.) it was shown that by pri- 

 meval men, unused to scientific generalization, 

 the forces of nature must have been likened to 

 human volition, because there was nothing else 

 with which to compare them/ Man felt within 

 himself a source of power, and did not yet sur- 

 mise that power could have any other source 

 — and consequently he identified, without any 

 qualification, the forces displayed outside of 

 himself with the force of will as directly revealed 

 in his consciousness. In this necessity of thought 

 originated not only the personifications of an- 

 cient mythology, but also the primitive reli- 

 gious worship ; a religion of sacrifice, of sorcery, 

 and of terror, as different from modern religion 

 as mythology is different from modern philoso- 

 phy. Of primitive religion the most prominent 

 as well as the most abiding phase is devil-wor- 

 ship. Mr. Hunter's remarks concerning the 

 Santals will apply equally well to barbarians all 

 over the world, as also to the primeval men 

 from whose crude notions modern orthodoxy 

 has inherited its terrorism. " Of a supreme and 

 beneficent God the Santal has no conception. 

 . . . He cannot understand how a Being can be 

 more powerful than himself without wishing to 

 harm him. Discourses upon the attributes of the 

 Deity excite no emotion among the more iso- 

 ^ [See Introduction, § 44.] 

 299 



