Current Superstitions | Page 5

to trace the mental process in virtue of which arise such expectations of futurity, and to discover the methods of their gradual modification and eventual supersession by generalizations founded on experience more accurate and extensive. Yet it is not to be assumed that in each and every case such elucidation will be possible. In all human conduct there is an element which cannot be designated otherwise than as accidental; this uncertainty appears to be greater, the reaction against the natural conditions less definite, the more primitive is the life. It is impossible to forecast in what manner a savage may be impressed by an event of which he can note only external conditions, or how his action may respond to the impression. One may guess what opinion an augur would form concerning the appearance of a single eagle or raven; but it would be labor lost to attempt to conjecture the manner in which the imagination of the observer would explain a flight of these birds, or what complicated rules augural art might evolve to guide the interpretation.
This accidental quality, and the arbitrariness with which phenomena are judged to be ominous, will be visible in the numerous "signs" here recorded. At first sight, it may be thought that extreme folly is their salient quality. Yet if we take a wide view the case is reversed; we are surprised, not at the unintelligibility of popular belief, but at its simplicity, and at the frequency with which we can discern the natural process of unsystematic conjecture. Such judgments are not to be treated with derision, as subjects of ridicule, but to be seriously examined, as revealing the natural procedure of intelligence limited to a superficial view of phenomena.
This consideration leads to an important remark. The term survival expresses a truth, but only a part of the truth. Usages, habits, opinions, which are classed as superstition, exhibit something more than the unintelligent and unconscious persistence of habit. Folk-lore survives, and popular practices continue, only so long as endures a method of thinking corresponding to that in which these had their origin. Individual customs may be preserved simply as a matter of thoughtless habit; yet in general it is essential that these usages should be related to conscious intellectual life; so soon as they cease to be so explicable, they begin to pass into oblivion.
The chapters of this collection, therefore, will emphasize the doctrine that the essential elements of human nature continue to exist, however opposite may be the actions in which its operations are manifested. In examining many of the maxims of conduct here set forth, we are able to understand the motives in which they had their being; we perceive that the inclination has not disappeared, however checked by mediation through complex experience, and however counteracted by the weight of later maxims. The examiner finds that he himself shares the mental state of the superstitious person; if not, he can easily make an effort of imagination which will enable him to comprehend its evident reasonableness. Thus, while superstitions are properly designated as survivals, it will in many cases be found that they represent a survival of ratiocination as well as of action.
In some striking examples, also, it happens that the modern notion indicates the continuance of conceptions more ancient than a mass of connected ideas which have wholly perished. The former endure, because, being simple in their nature, they represent a human impulse, an impulse which animated the prehistoric ancestor as well as the modern descendant. When this tendency ceases to operate, the plant suddenly withers. So it is that an elimination of these beliefs, which formed the science of remote antiquity, has taken place in our own century, which has worked a change greater than fifty preceding generations, because it has been able to introduce generalizations with which ancient notions and habits are perceived no longer to coincide.
As illustrations of the psychologic value of the material, it may be permitted to offer brief comments on the several sections.
In the usages of mothers and nurses, it is interesting to observe with what persistence survives the conception that the initial action of the series determines the character of events sequent in order. It is still a universal practice to consecrate every baby by a rite not ecclesiastical. The infant, on his first journey, must be taken to a height symbolic of his future fortune, an elevation believed to secure the prosperity of his whole subsequent career. It would be of interest to learn what analogies the practice has among races in a primitive condition of culture. The babe of the Pueblo of Sia, when on the fourth day (four being a sacred number) for the first time he is taken from the dark chamber, is ritually presented to his father the Sun; similarly,