30 Evolution and Religion 



of another. The word 'survival,' then, best defines 

 * superstition/" * 



Race Survival 



You have seen how before the obscure enemies of 

 his life, known now as disease germs, man offered his 

 pathetic prayers or uttered his childish threats to the 

 unseen agencies in the air about him. You have seen 

 how he deified the life-giving sun who chased away all 

 the phantoms of the night; how he worshiped heat and 

 cold ; the divinity which brought pestilence, the divinity 

 which brought back health; the divinity which brought 

 famine, the divinity which brought back plenty; the 

 spirits which resided in thunderstorm, earthquake, 

 flood, volcano, and conflagration. Man appears to 

 have worshiped everything from which he apprehended 

 danger; man seems also to have worshiped everything 

 from which he received good, in the sense of its being 

 favorable to life. The motive of his worship has 

 apparently been either fear or gratitude; the basis 

 has been love: fear or gratitude for those whom he 

 loved, always not excluding himself. The immediate 

 cause of his worship seems to have been ignorance or 

 helplessness before the obscure, the mysterious, the 

 unknown, the terrible, in the death-compelling or life- 

 giving agencies which encircled him. Among these 

 death-compelling agencies stood certain of the wild 

 animals also. These, too, he worshiped, holding them 

 as sacred. But all through this deification of the ideas 

 > Int. Cyc. vol. XIV. p. 94. 



