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Show THE DESCENT OF 11fAN. PAnT I. The feeling of religious devotion is a hig~ly. complex one, consisting of love, complete submiSSIOn to ~n exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, 54 fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for tho future, and perhaps other elements. N_" o being cou~d experience so complex an emotion until advanced m his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless we see some distant .approach to this state of mind, in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behaviour of a dog when returning to his master after an absence, and~ as I may add, of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from that towards their fellows. In the latter case the transports of joy appear to be somewhat less, and the sense of equality is shewn in every action. Professor Braubach 05 goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a god. The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs. Many of these are terrible to think of-such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood~loving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire; witchcraft, &c.-yet it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they shew us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the ·improvement of our reason, to science, and our 54 See an able article on the Psychical Elements of Religion, by Mr. L. Owen Pike, in' Anthropolog. Review,' April, 1870, p. lxiii. 55 ' Religio:1, Moral, &c., der Darwin'schen Art-Lehre,' 1869, s. 53. CHAP. II. MENTAL POWEHS. 69 accumulated knowledge.56 As Sir J. Lubbock has well observed, "it is not too much to say that the horrible " dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over " savage life, and embitters every pleasure." :rhese miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidenta~ and occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower ammals. ss 'Prehistoric Times,' 2nd edit. p. 571. In this work (at p. 553) there will be found an excellent account of the many strange and capricious customs of savages. |