The origin and development of the moral ideas

The common prevalence of animal worship is no doubt due to the mysteriousness of the animal world; the most uncanny of all creatures, the serpent, is also the one most generally worshipped. Throughout India we meet with the veneration of animals which by their appearance or habits startle human beings.41 In the Indian tribes of North America animals of an unusual size were objects of some kind of adoration.42 In certain parts of Africa a cock crowing in the evening or a crane alighting on a house-top is regarded as supernatural.43 White men have often been taken for spirits by red, yellow, or black savages, when seen by them for the first time.44 Religious veneration is among various races bestowed on persons suffering from some abnormality, such as deformity, albinoism, or madness.45 Some South American Indians “regard as divinities all phenomenal children, principally such as are born with a larger number of fingers or toes than is natural.”46 The Hindus venerate persons remarkable for any extraordinary qualities great valour, virtue, or even vice.47 By performing miracles men directly prove that they are supernatural beings.

The Muhammedan saints, like the Christian in olden days, are believed to perform all kinds of wonders, such as flying in the air, passing unhurt through fire, walking upon water, transporting themselves in a moment of time to immense distances, or supporting themselves and others with food in desert places.48 When Muhammed first claimed to be the Prophet of Allah, he was urged to give proof of his calling by working some miracle; and though he uniformly denied that he possessed such power, it was nevertheless ascribed to him even by his contemporaries.49

The dead are objects of worship much more commonly than are the living. Whilst the human individual consisting of body and soul is as a rule well-known, the disembodied soul, seen only in dreams or visions, is a mysterious being which inspires the survivors with awe. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Grant Allen even regard the worship of the dead as “the root of every religion.”50 But this is to carry the ghost theory to an extreme for which there is no justification in facts. The spirits of the dead are worshipped because they are held capable of influencing, in a mysterious manner, the welfare of the living; but there is no reason to assume that they were originally conceived as the only supernatural agents existing. We have noticed that even the lower animals show signs of the same feeling as underlies the belief in supernatural beings; and we can hardly suppose that they are believers in ghosts.

On account of their wonderful effects medicines, intoxicants, and stimulants, are frequently objects of veneration. Most of the plants for which the American Indians had superstitious feelings were such as have medical qualities;51 tobacco was generally held sacred by them,52 and so was cocoa in Peru.53 The Vedic deification of the drink soma was due to its exhilarating and invigorating effects.54

Among all the phenomena of nature none is more wonderful, impressive, awe-inspiring than thunder, and none seems more generally to have given rise to religious veneration. But with growing reflection man finds a mystery even in events of daily occurrence. The Vedic poet, when he sees the sun moving freely through the heavens, asks how it comes that it does not fall downward, although “unpropped beneath, not fastened firm, and downward turned”;55 and it seems to him a miracle that the sparkling waters of all rivers flow into one ocean without ever filling it.56 “Verily,” says the Koran, “in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the succession of night and day, are signs to those possessed of minds.”57

The attribution of miraculous power to a certain object or being may be due to direct experience of some effect produced by it, as in the case of a medical plant, or a poisonous snake, or a miracle-working spring, or a Christian or Muhammedan saint. Or it may be based on the inference that objects with a strange and mysterious appearance also possess strange and mysterious powers. This inference, too, is in a way supported by facts. The unusual appearance of the object makes an impression on the person who sees it, and predisposes him to the belief that the object is endowed with secret powers. If then anything unusual actually happens in its neighbourhood or shortly after it has been seen, the strange event is attributed to the influence of the strange object. Thus a Siberian tribe came to regard the camel as the small-pox demon because, just when the animal had appeared among them for the first time with a passing caravan, the small-pox broke out.58 Of the British Guiana Indian we are told by Sir E. F. Im Thurn that if his eye falls upon a rock in any way abnormal or curious, and if shortly after any evil happens to him, he regards rock and evil as cause and effect, and perceives a spirit in the rock.59 With the lapse of time the data of experience readily increase. If a certain object has gained the reputation of being supernatural, it is looked upon as the cause of all kinds of unusual events which may possibly be associated with it.

When I visited the large cave Imi-ntaḳḳándut in the Great Atlas Mountains, the interior of which is said to contain a whole spirit city, my horse happened to stumble on my way back to my camp, and fell upon one of my servants who was carrying a gun. The gun was broken and the man became lame for some days. I was told that the accident was caused by the cave spirits, because they were displeased at my visit. When the following day I again passed the cave with my little caravan, heavy rain began to fall; and now the rain was attributed to the ill-temper of the spirits.

Startling events are ascribed to the activity not only of visible, but of invisible supernatural agents. Thus sudden or strange diseases are, at the lower stages of civilisation, commonly supposed to be occasioned by a supernatural being, which has taken up its abode in the sick person’s body, or otherwise sent the disease.60 Among the Maoris, for instance, “each disease was supposed to be occasioned by a different god, who resided in the part affected.”61 The Australian Kurnai maintain that phthisis, pneumonia, bowel complaints, and insanity are produced by an evil spirit, “who is like the wind.”62 According to Moorish beliefs convulsions, epileptic or paralytic fits, rheumatic or neuralgic pains, and certain rare and violent epidemics, like the cholera, are caused by spirits, which either strike their victim, or enter his body, or sometimes, in the case of an epidemic, shoot at the people with poisonous arrows. Indeed, unexpected events of every kind are readily ascribed to supernatural influence, in Morocco and elsewhere. Among the North American Indians “the storms and tempests were generally thought to be produced by aërial spirits from hostile lands.”63 Among the Hudson Bay Indians “everything not understood is attributed to the working of one of the numerous spirits.”64 “Dans toute l’Afrique,” says M.

Duveyrier in his description of the Touareg, “il n’y a pas un individu, éclairé ou ignare, instruit ou illettré, qui n’attribue aux génies tout ce qui arrive d’extraordinaire sur la terre.”65 Of the South African natives Livingstone writes, “Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of good or evil, is ascribed to the Deity.”66 With the progress of science the chain of natural causes is extended, and, as Livy puts it, it is left to superstition alone to see the interference of the deity in trifling matters. Among ourselves the ordinary truths of science are so generally recognised that in this domain God is seldom supposed to interfere. On the other hand, with regard to social events, the causes of which are often hidden, the idea of Providence is still constantly needed to fill up the gap of human ignorance.