Just as a white blood cell obeys laws of which it can have no conception, fulfills purposes whose meaning transcends its own welfare, so we, with all our self-consciousness and all the paraphernalia of individuality, are perhaps parts of a life we cannot understand.
[1] For example, read what the hard-headed Galton says ("Hereditary Genius," p. 376):
"There is decidedly a solidarity as well as a separateness in all human and probably in all lives whatsoever, and this consideration goes far, I think, to establish an opinion that the constitution of the living universe is a pure theism and that its form of activity is what may he described as cooperative. It points to the conclusion that all life is single in its essence, but various, ever-varying and interactive in its manifestations, and that men and all other living animals are active workers and sharers in a vastly more extended system of cosmic action than any of ourselves, much less of them, can possibly comprehend. It also suggests that they may contribute, more or less unconsciously, to the manifestation of a far higher life than our own, somewhat as . . . the individual cells of one of the more complex animals contribute to the manifestations of its higher order of personality." Perhaps such a unity is the basis of instinct, of knowledge without teaching, of desire and wish that has not the individual welfare as its basis. No man can reject such phenomena as telepathy or thought transference merely because he cannot understand them on a basis of strict human individuality. To reject because one cannot understand is the arrogance of the "clerico-academic" type of William James.
No one can read the stories of travelers or the writings of anthropologists without concluding that codes of belief and action arise out of the efforts of groups to understand and to influence nature and that out of this practical effort AND seeking of a harmonious reality arises morality. "Man seeks the truth, a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change; a real world,--a world in which there is no suffering. Contradiction, deception and variability are the causes of suffering. He does not doubt there is such a thing as, a world as it might be, and he would fain find a road to it."[1] But alas, intelligence and knowledge both are imperfect, and one group seeking a truth that will bring them good crops, fine families, victory over enemies, riches, power and fellowship, as well as a harmonious universe, finds it in idol worship and polygamy; another group seeking the same truth finds it in Christianity and monogamy. And the members of some groups are born to ideals, customs and habits that make it right for a member to sing obscene songs and to be obscene at certain periods, to kill and destroy the enemy, to sacrifice the unbeliever, to worship a clay image, to have as many wives as possible, and that make it WRONG to do otherwise. Indeed, he who wishes a child to believe absolutely in a code of morals would better postpone teaching him the customs and beliefs of other people until habit has made him adamant to new ideas.
[1] Nietzsche.
It is with pleasure that I turn the attention of the reader to the work of Frazier in the growth of human belief, custom and institutions that he has incorporated into the stupendous series of books called "The Golden Bough." The things that influence us most in our lives are heritages, not much changed, from the beliefs of primitive societies. Believing that the forces of the world were animate, like himself, and that they might be moved, persuaded, cajoled and frightened into favorable action, undeveloped man based most of his customs on efforts to obtain some desired result from the gods. Out of these customs grew the majority of our institutions; out of these queer beliefs and superstitions, out of witchcraft, sympathetic magic, the "Old Man" idea, the primitive reaction to sleep, epilepsy and death grew medicine, science, religion, festivals, the kingship, the idea of soul and most of the other governing and directing ideas of our lives. It is true that the noble beliefs and sciences also grew from these rude seeds, but with them and permeating our social structure are crops of atrophied ideas, hampering customs, cramping ideals. Further, in every race in every country, in every family, there are somewhat different assortments of these directing traditional forces; and it is these social inheritances which are more responsible for difference in people than a native difference in stock.
Consider the difference that being born and brought up in Turkey and being born, let us say, in New York City, would make in two children of exactly the same disposition, mental caliber and physical structure. One would grow up a Turk and the other a New Yorker, and the mere fact that they had the same original capacity for thought, feeling and action would not alter the result that in character the two men would stand almost at opposite poles. One need not judge between them and say that one was superior to the other, for while I feel that the New Yorker might stand OUR inspection better, I am certain that the Turk would be more pleasing to Turkish ideas. The point is that they would be different and that the differences would result solely from the environmental forces of natural conditions and social inheritance.
