368 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



reviewed the elements of civilization arising from occupation, 

 mode of life, and social condition, and we have now finally to 

 examine the agents of psychical life chiefly concerned in its 

 development. Religion and knowledge must be considered as 

 the chief elements in this respect. 



Whether religion promotes or impedes the progress of civiliz- 

 ation and in what proportion, depends in the first place on its 

 nature, and mainly on its adaptation to the intellectual status, 

 and the moral ideas which govern practical life. Where the in- 

 telligence is yet undeveloped, there arise the crudest religious 

 notions and the most absurd superstition. Such a religion can 

 only obstruct mental activity and civilization. It has a similar 

 effect when its doctrines have no relation to morality, or when 

 it exercises a depraving influence by authorizing barbarous 

 customs, such as cannibalism and human sacrifices, the assassi- 

 nation of twins, ordeals, etc. We shall here illustrate these 

 relations, chiefly as regards primitive peoples. 



We have seen that the original form of all religion is a raw 

 unsystematic polytheism. Man in a state of nature finds him- 

 self surrounded by threatening dangers and actual miseries, 

 which he attributes to unfriendly powers who appear to him to 

 be constantly on the alert to impede his progress. That, on 

 the contrary, which regularly and periodically recurs, passes by 

 him unheeded, because, being expected and anticipated, he is 

 not obstructed in his path. He looks thus at nature as a world 

 of spirits ; but the notions he conceives as to the nature of these 

 inimical powers depend partly on surrounding nature and the 

 vividness of his imagination, and partly on the special occa- 

 sions which excite his affections and passions. The interpre- 

 tation of sensible objects depends entirely on the mental dispo- 

 sition of the individual who perceives them, and the mode in 

 which they act upon him. The heavenly bodies, the elements, 

 plants and animals, even stones, are looked upon as spirits. 

 Thus, for instance, rock-crystal is something sacred in the eyes 

 of the Australians. Leichardt 1 says, that the savage endows 

 glittering stones with beneficial qualities, and so is blood- 



1 Tageb. einer Landreise in Austr., p. 221, 1851. 



