Mythology

7 This devout attitude is by no means absent from the Protestant mind, ancient and modern. Quite logically, too; for, if there is an active Providence, that Providence must manifest itself in some outward and visible sign. Hence we find to-day what we find throughout history, that there are superstitions fostered by the religious disposition, and others that may be called social for want of a better term. They are accepted apart from any ecclesiastical creed. The faithful will agree that relics are good to be adored; the non-religionist has no opinion about relics, but he will carefully avoid walking under a ladder. Now we come to the most difficult question of all: why is it that some of the superstitions in the past persist in the present? Why do we, in an age of increasing knowledge, still retain some of our fears the offspring of ignorance? We can understand the perpetuation of a custom, even when its inner significance has gone, but a living superstition is a different thing. One reason must be sought in the fact that superstition has always been contagious. This is amusingly set forth by Bagehot in his Physics and Politics, although probably India contains more mysteries than he allowed: In Eothen there is a capital description of how every sort of European resident in the East even the shrewd merchant and the post-captain with his bright, wakeful eye of command comes soon to believe in witchcraft, and to assure you in confidence that there is really something in it; he has never seen anything convincing himself, but he has seen those who have seen those who have seen those who have seen; in fact he has lived in an atmosphere of infectious belief, and he has inhaled it. If this is true now, it must have been more profoundly true in past centuries. The presence everywhere of the same superstition, though in different forms, is a testimony to the power of contagious fears. Children brought up in the atmosphere of credulity do not often rise above it. White in his Selborne observes: It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices; they are sucked in as it were with our mother s milk; and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven with our very constitutions, that the strongest sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion. He adds that such a preamble seems to be necessary before he enters on the superstitions of his own district, lest he should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for an enlightened age. But and this is a further reason for the persistence which is the object of our enquiry there is a superstitious mind, quite independent of education and training. One has already referred to Newman, who possessed as subtle an intellect as any man in the nineteenth century; there is Dr Johnson, who believed something bad would happen if he did not touch every post as he passed along the road or street; he had for some reason built that idea into his mind, and nothing could dislodge it. Take another instance, this time from a source where one would not expect it. J. D. Rockefeller, reputed to be the world s wealthiest man, is of Puritan or Nonconformist associations, and yet, according to a London journal which specialises in personal items, he pleads guilty to a pet superstition. For years he has carried an eagle stone in his pocket. This is a kind of hollow stone, containing in its cavity some concretions which rattle on shaking the stone. It is of a brownish tint, and is often carried by the eagle to its nest. Superstition ascribes wonderful virtue to these stones when actually found in the bird s nest. They are a charm against disaster, shipwreck, and other calamities. A ribbon passed through

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