Current Superstitions | Page 5

have
opinions respecting relations of cause and effect which have resulted as
a necessary consequence from past intellectual conditions. A
superstition, accordingly, I should define as a belief respecting causal
sequence, depending on reasoning proper to an outgrown culture.
According to this view, with adequate information it would be possible
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