Current Superstitions | Page 4

continually active; in Europe, at
least, a similar identity will probably be discovered. But in this
category the problem of separating what is general, because human,
from that which is common, because diffused, always a complicated
task, will be found more difficult than in literary matter, and without
the aid of extensive collection insoluble. It is possible to fall back on
the consideration that, after all, such resolution matters not very much,
since in any case the survival of the belief indicates its humanity, and
for the purpose of the study of human nature borrowed superstitions
may be cited as confidently as if original in the soil to which they have
emigrated, and where they have indissolubly intertwined themselves
with thought and habit.
Again, it is to be considered that while differences of speech impede,
but do not prevent integration, changes of condition may have an
immediate effect in producing differentiation. Protestantism, by

banishing complicated usages connected with sacred days, has caused
English folk-lore to vary from Continental; so far this contrast seems a
result of the alterations of the last three hundred years, rather than of
more remote inconsistency.
If these remarks are in any degree valid, it follows that from the
presence or absence of any particular item of belief in this or that
English-speaking district no conclusion is to be drawn; the deficiency
must be supposed to proceed from absence of record, and seldom to
depend on the structure of the population. To this general doctrine, as
usual with such propositions, may be observed minor exceptions.
Whatever doubts may be cast on the operation of the principle as
applicable to England, there can be no doubt that it is valid in the
United States and Canada.
It is not, however, intended to assert that the contributions of the entire
region covered in this collection are identical in character. On the
contrary, it will be seen that the record made in certain districts, as for
example in Newfoundland and among the Mountain Whites of the
Alleghanies, presents superstition as more primitive and active than in
the eastern United States. But this vitality is only to be regarded as the
persistence of a stock once proper to English-speaking folk, and by no
means as indicating a diversity of origins.
The chief value of a collection such as the present consists in the light it
may be made to cast on the history of mental processes; in other words,
on its psychologic import.
To appreciate this value, it is needful to understand the quality in which
superstition really consists. This distinguishing characteristic is
obscured by the definitions of English dictionaries, which describe
superstition as a disease, depending on an excess of religious sentiment,
which disposes the person so affected to unreasonable credulity. In the
same spirit, it has been the wont of divines to characterize superstition
and unbelief as opposite poles, between which lies the golden mean of
discreet faith. But this view is inadequate and erroneous.
The manner of conception mentioned has been borrowed from Latin

and Greek writers of the Roman republic and of the Imperial period. In
primitive Roman usage, superstitio and religio were synonyms; both,
perhaps, etymologically considered, expressed no more than that habit
of careful consideration with which a prudent man will measure the
events which encounter him, and determine his conduct with a view to
consequences. Superstitio may have indicated only the overstanding of
the phenomenon, the pause necessary for its deliberate inspection. By
Cicero a distinction was made; the word was now employed to
designate a state of mind under the influence of supernatural terrors. In
the Greek tongue a similar conception was expressed by the word
deisidaimonia, or fear of dæmons, a term in bad odor as associated with
practices of Oriental temple worship representing primitive conceptions,
and therefore odious to later and more enlightened Hellenic thought.
Established as a synonym of the Greek noun, superstitio received all
the meaning which Plutarch elaborated as to the former; the idea of that
excellent heathen, that true piety is the mean between atheism and
credulity, has given a sense to the word superstition, and become a
commonplace of Christian hortatory literature.
It is, however, sufficiently obvious that the signification mentioned
does not have application to the omens recorded in the present volume,
the majority of which have no direct connection with spiritual beings,
while it will also be allowed that these do not lie without the field
ordinarily covered by the word superstition. For our purposes, therefore,
it is necessary to enlarge this definition. This may be done by
emphasizing the first component part of the word, and introducing into
it the notion of what has been left over, or of survival, made familiar by
the genius of Edward B. Tylor. In these lingering notions we