We Need Not Entangle Ourselves In The Vexed Question Of
Innate Ideas, Nor Inquire Whether The Principle Of Casuality
Is, As Kant Supposed, Like Space And Time, A Form Of
Intuition Given A PRIORI.
That every change has a cause must
necessarily (without being thus formulated) be one of the
initial beliefs of conscious beings far lower in the scale
than man, whether derived solely from experience or
otherwise.
The reed that shakes is obviously shaken by the
wind. But the riddle of the wind also forces itself into
notice; and man explains this by transferring to the wind
'the sense of his own nature.' Thunderstorms, volcanic
disturbances, ocean waves, running streams, the motions of
the heavenly bodies, had to be accounted for as involving
change. And the natural - the primitive - explanation was by
reference to life, analogous, if not similar, to our own.
Here then, it seems to me, we have the true origin of the
belief in ghosts.
Take an illustration which supports this view. While sitting
in my garden the other day a puff of wind blew a lady's
parasol across the lawn. It rolled away close to a dog lying
quietly in the sun. The dog looked at it for a moment, but
seeing nothing to account for its movements, barked
nervously, put its tail between its legs, and ran away,
turning occasionally to watch and again bark, with every sign
of fear.
This was animism. The dog must have accounted for the
eccentric behaviour of the parasol by endowing it with an
uncanny spirit.
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