ld reasonably
subordinate reason at certain junctures. Its abdication, however, was
half playful, for he could always find excellent grounds for what the
demon commanded.

In much the same manner the priests at Delphi, when they were prudent,
made of the Pythia's ravings oracles not without elevation of tone and
with an obvious political tendency. Occasions for superstition which
baser minds would have turned to sheer lunacy or silly fears or
necromantic clap-trap were seized by these nobler natures for a good
purpose. A benevolent man, not inclined to scepticism, can always argue
that the gods must have commanded what he himself knows to be right; and
he thinks it religion on his part to interpret the oracle accordingly,
or even to prompt it. In such ways the most arbitrary superstitions take
a moral colour in a moral mind; something which can come about all the
more easily since the roots of reason and superstition are intertwined
in the mind, and society has always expressed and cultivated them
together.

CHAPTER III

MAGIC, SACRIFICE, AND PRAYER

[Sidenote: Fear created the gods.]

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief
could be on so great a subject. To recognise an external power it is
requisite that we should find the inner stream and tendency of life
somehow checked or disturbed; if all went well and acceptably, we should
attribute divinity only to ourselves. The external is therefore evil
rather than good to early apprehension--a sentiment which still survives
in respect to matter; for it takes reflection to conceive that external
forces form a necessary environment, creating as well as limiting us,
and offering us as many opportunities as rebuffs. The first things which
a man learns to distinguish and respect are things with a will of their
own, things which resist his casual demands; and so the first sentiment
with which he confronts reality is a certain animosity, which becomes
cruelty toward the weak and fear and fawning before the powerful. Toward
men and animals and the docile parts of nature these sentiments soon
become defined accurately, representing the exact degree of friendliness
or use which we discover in these beings; and it is in practical terms,
expressing this relation to our interests, that we define their
characters. Much remains over, however, which we cannot easily define,
indomitable, ambiguous regions of nature and consciousness which we kn