ther of these parties:
and I shall simply say that superstition seems to me altogether a
physical affection, as thoroughly material and corporeal as those of
eating or sleeping, remembering or dreaming.

After this, it will be necessary to define superstition, in order to
have some tolerably clear understanding of what we are talking
about. I beg leave to define it as--Fear of the unknown.

Johnson, who was no dialectician, and, moreover, superstitious
enough himself, gives eight different definitions of the word; which
is equivalent to confessing his inability to define it at all:

"1. Unnecessary fear or scruples in religion; observance of
unnecessary and uncommanded rites or practices; religion without
morality.

"2. False religion; reverence of beings not proper objects of
reverence; false worship.

" 3. Over nicety; exactness too scrupulous."

Eight meanings; which, on the principle that eight eighths, or
indeed eight hundred, do not make one whole, may be considered as no
definition. His first thought, as often happens, is the best--
"Unnecessary fear." But after that he wanders. The root-meaning of
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