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Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Levy, Oscar, Cohn, Paul V. (Paul Victor), Common, Thomas, and Petre, Maude Dominica
The Origin of Religion.—The metaphysical requirement is not the origin of religions, as Schopenhauer claims, but only a later sprout from them. Under the dominance of religious thoughts we have accustomed ourselves to the idea of "another (back, under, or upper) world," and feel an uncomfortable void and privation through the annihilation of the religious illusion;—and then "another world" grows out of this feeling once more, but now it is only a metaphysical world, and no longer a religious one. That however which in general led to the assumption of "another world" in primitive times, was not an impulse or requirement, but an error in the interpretation of certain natural phenomena, a difficulty of the intellect.