KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF. 309 



The dogmas which are used for the explanation of 

 phenomena in the various religions, and which go hy 

 the name of " faith " (in the narrower sense), are of a 

 very different character from the forms of scientific 

 faith we have enumerated. The two types, however 

 — the "natural" faith of science and the "super- 

 natural " faith of religion — are not infrequently con- 

 founded, so that we must point out their fundamental 

 difference. Religious faith always means belief in a 

 miracle, and as such is in hopeless contradiction with 

 the natural faith of reason. In opposition to reason 

 it postulates supernatural agencies, and therefore may 

 be justly called superstition. The essential difference 

 of this superstition from rational faith lies in the fact 

 that it assumes supernatural forces and phenomena, 

 which are unknown and inadmissible to science, and 

 which are the outcome of illusion and fancy ; more- 

 over, superstition contradicts the well-known laws of 

 nature, and is therefore irrational. 



Owing to the great progress of ethnology during the 

 century, we have learned a vast quantity of different 

 kinds and practices of superstition, as they still 

 survive in uncivilised races. When they are com- 

 pared with each other and with the mythological 

 notions of earlier ages, a manifold analogy is dis- 

 covered, frequently a common origin, and eventually 

 one simple source for them all. This is found in the 

 " demand of causality in reason," in the search for an 

 explanation of obscure phenomena by the discovery of 

 a cause. That applies particularly to such phenomena 

 as threaten us with danger and excite fear, like 

 thunder and lightning, earthquakes, eclipses, etc. 

 The demand for a causal explanation of such pheno- 

 mena is found in uncivilized races of the lowest grade, 



