RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT 



sible for us adequately to represent in imagi- 

 nation the overpowering emotions of mingled 

 doubt and dread which must have seized the 

 primitive thinker when brought face to face 

 with this omnipresent, but to him utterly inco- 

 herent universe. Where certainty is for us, for 

 him was uncertainty. The same resistless forces 

 which to us bring expected benefits were for 

 him productive mainly of unlooked-for calami- 

 ties. We, holding in our grasp the Aladdin's 

 lamp of physical knowledge, may find them 

 obedient slaves : to him, who had not unearthed 

 the talisman, they proclaimed themselves inex- 

 orable masters. Hunger and disease, exposure 

 to heat and cold, to the attacks of savage beasts 

 and of unseen enemies, were stern realities of 

 daily experience. There were neither houses for 

 shelter and defence, nor cities for the common 

 protection, nor arts to ensure exemption from 

 physical discomfort. Language had not yet 

 found need for words to denote some of the 

 most necessary implements and some of the 

 most ordinary processes of life. Nature was un- 

 manageable as well as unknown, — a stumbling- 

 block as well as a riddle. 



Thus the unclassed phenomenon came to be 

 a source of terror ; for experience had taught 



des Menschen, in einer ernsterfiillten Ansicht der Dinge, dass 

 das Unerwartete, Ausserordentliche, zur Furcht, nicht Freude 

 oder HofFnung erregt." Kosmos, torn. i. p. 119. 



301 



