Scientific Essays and Lectures by Charles Kingsley
page 42 of 160 (26%)
page 42 of 160 (26%)
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the word is still to seek. But, indeed, the popular meaning, thanks
to popular common sense, will generally be found to contain in itself the root-meaning. Let us go back to the Latin word Superstitio. Cicero says that the superstitious element consists in "a certain empty dread of the gods"--a purely physical affection, if you will remember three things: 1. That dread is in itself a physical affection. 2. That the gods who were dreaded were, with the vulgar, who alone dreaded them, merely impersonations of the powers of nature. 3. That it was physical injury which these gods were expected to inflict. But he himself agrees with this theory of mine; for he says shortly after, that not only philosophers, but even the ancient Romans, had separated superstition from religion; and that the word was first applied to those who prayed all day ut liberi sui sibi superstites essent, might survive them. On the etymology no one will depend who knows the remarkable absence of any etymological instinct in the ancients, in consequence of their weak grasp of that sound inductive method which has created modern criticism. But if it be correct, it is a natural and pathetic form for superstition to take in the minds of men who saw their children fade and die; probably the greater number of them beneath diseases which mankind could neither comprehend nor cure. |
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