Freud - Complete Works (720 page)

   But at present they still behave
quite differently; and in past times religious ideas, in spite of
their incontrovertible lack of authentication, have exercised the
strongest possible influence on mankind. This is a fresh
psychological problem. We must ask where the inner force of those
doctrines lies and to what it is that they owe their efficacy,
independent as it is of recognition by reason.

  
¹
I hope I am not doing him an injustice if I
take the philosopher of ‘As if’ as the representative
of a view which is not foreign to other thinkers: ‘We include
as fictions not merely indifferent theoretical operations but
ideational constructs emanating from the noblest minds, to which
the noblest part of mankind cling and of which they will not allow
themselves to be deprived. Nor is it our object so to deprive them
- for as
practical fictions
we leave them all intact; they
perish only as
theoretical truths
.’ (Hans Vaihinger,
1922, 68.)

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VI

I think we have prepared the way sufficiently
for an answer to both these questions. It will be found if we turn
our attention to the psychical origin of religious ideas. These,
which are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of
experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions,
fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of
mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those
wishes. As we already know, the terrifying impression of
helplessness in childhood arouses the need for protection - for
protection through love which was provided by the father; and the
recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it
necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a
more powerful one. Thus the benevolent rule of a divine Providence
allays our fear of the dangers of life; the establishment of a
moral world-order ensures the fulfilment of the demands of justice,
which have so often remained unfulfilled in human civilization; and
the prolongation of earthly existence in a future life provides the
local and temporal framework in which these wish-fulfilments shall
take place. Answers to the riddles that tempt the curiosity of man,
such as how the universe began or what the relation is between body
and mind, are developed in conformity with the underlying
assumptions of this system. It is an enormous relief to the
individual psyche if the conflicts of its childhood arising from
the father-complex - conflicts which it has never wholly overcome -
are removed from it and brought to a solution which is universally
accepted.

   When I say that these things are
all illusions, I must define the meaning of the word. An illusion
is not the same thing as an error; nor is it necessarily an error.
Aristotle’s belief that vermin are developed out of dung (a
belief to which ignorant people still cling) was an error; so was
the belief of a former generation of doctors that
tabes
dorsalis
is the result of sexual excess. It would be incorrect
to call these errors illusions. On the other hand, it was an
illusion of Columbus’s that he had discovered a new sea-route
to the Indies. The part played by his wish in this error is very
clear. One may describe as an illusion the assertion made by
certain nationalists that the Indo-Germanic race is the only one
capable of civilization; or the belief, which was only destroyed by
psycho-analysis, that children are creatures without sexuality.
What is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from
human wishes. In this respect they come near to psychiatric
delusions. But they differ from them, too, apart from the more
complicated structure of delusions. In the case of delusions, we
emphasize as essential their being in contradiction with reality.
Illusions need not necessarily be false - that is to say,
unrealizable or in contradiction to reality. For instance, a
middle-class girl may have the illusion that a prince will come and
marry her. This is possible; and a few such cases have occurred.
That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less
likely. Whether one classifies this belief as an illusion or as
something analogous to a delusion will depend on one’s
personal attitude. Examples of illusions which have proved true are
not easy to find, but the illusion of the alchemists that all
metals can be turned into gold might be one of them. The wish to
have a great deal of gold, as much gold as possible, has, it is
true, been a good deal damped by our present-day knowledge of the
determinants of wealth, but chemistry no longer regards the
transmutation of metals into gold as impossible. Thus we call a
belief an illusion when a wish-fulfilment is a prominent factor in
its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to
reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by
verification.

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   Having thus taken our bearings,
let us return once more to the question of religious doctrines. We
can now repeat that all of them are illusions and insusceptible of
proof. No one can be compelled to think them true, to believe in
them. Some of them are so improbable, so incompatible with
everything we have laboriously discovered about the reality of the
world, that we may compare them - if we pay proper regard to the
psychological differences - to delusions. Of the reality value of
most of them we cannot judge; just as they cannot be proved, so
they cannot be refuted. We still know too little to make a critical
approach to them. The riddles of the universe reveal themselves
only slowly to our investigation; there are many questions to which
science to-day can give no answer. But scientific work is the only
road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves.
It is once again merely an illusion to expect anything from
intuition and introspection; they can give us nothing but
particulars about our own mental life, which are hard to interpret,
never any information about the questions which religious doctrine
finds it so easy to answer. It would be insolent to let one’s
own arbitrary will step into the breach and, according to
one’s personal estimate, declare this or that part of the
religious system to be less or more acceptable. Such questions are
too momentous for that; they might be called too sacred.

   At this point one must expect to
meet with an objection. ‘Well then, if even obdurate sceptics
admit that the assertions of religion cannot be refuted by reason,
why should I not believe in them, since they have so much on their
side - tradition, the agreement of mankind, and all the
consolations they offer?’ Why not, indeed? Just as no one can
be forced to believe, so no one can be forced to disbelieve. But do
not let us be satisfied with deceiving ourselves that arguments
like these take us along the road of correct thinking. If ever
there was a case of a lame excuse we have it here. Ignorance is
ignorance; no right to believe anything can be derived from it. In
other matters no sensible person will behave so irresponsibly or
rest content with such feeble grounds for his opinions and for the
one he takes. It is only in the highest and most sacred things that
he allows himself to do so. In reality these are only attempts at
pretending to oneself or to other people that one is still firmly
attached to religion, when one has long since cut oneself loose
from it. Where questions of religion are concerned, people are
guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual
misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they
retain scarcely anything of their original sense. They give the
name of ‘God’ to some vague abstraction which they have
created for themselves; having done so they can pose before all the
world as deists, as believers in God, and they can even boast that
they have recognized a higher, purer concept of God,
notwithstanding that their God is now nothing more than an
insubstantial shadow and no longer the mighty personality of
religious doctrines. Critics persist in describing as ‘deeply
religious’ anyone who admits to a sense of man’s
insignificance or impotence in the face of the universe, although
what constitutes the essence of the religious attitude is not this
feeling but only the next step after it, the reaction to it which
seeks a remedy for it. The man who goes no further, but humbly
acquiesces in the small part which human beings play in the great
world - such a man is, on the contrary, irreligious in the truest
sense of the word.

   To assess the truth-value of
religious doctrines does not lie within the scope of the present
enquiry. It is enough for us that we have recognized them as being,
in their psychological nature, illusions. But we do not have to
conceal the fact that this discovery also strongly influences our
attitude to the question which must appear to many to be the most
important of all. We know approximately at what periods and by what
kind of men religious doctrines were created. If in addition we
discover the motives which led to this, our attitude to the problem
of religion will undergo a marked displacement. We shall tell
ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who
created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there
were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a
very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish
it to be. And it would be more remarkable still if our wretched,
ignorant and downtrodden ancestors had succeeded in solving all
these difficult riddles of the universe.

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VII

Having recognized religious doctrines as
illusions, we are at once faced by a further question: may not
other cultural assets of which we hold a high opinion and by which
we let our lives be ruled be of a similar nature? Must not the
assumptions that determine our political regulations be called
illusions as well? and is it not the case that in our civilization
the relations between the sexes are disturbed by an erotic illusion
or a number of such illusions? And once our suspicion has been
aroused, we shall not shrink from asking too whether our conviction
that we can learn something about external reality through the use
of observation and reasoning in scientific work - whether this
conviction has any better foundation. Nothing ought to keep us from
directing our observation to our own selves or from applying our
thought to criticism of itself. In this field a number of
investigations open out before us, whose results could not but be
decisive for the construction of a
‘
Weltanschauung
’. We surmise, moreover, that
such an effort would not be wasted and that it would at least in
part justify our suspicion. But the author does not dispose of the
means for undertaking so comprehensive a task; he needs must
confine his work to following out one only of these illusions -
that, namely, of religion.

   But now the loud voice of our
opponent brings us to a halt. We are called to account for our
wrong-doing:

   ‘Archaeological interests
are no doubt most praiseworthy, but no one undertakes an excavation
if by doing so he is going to undermine the habitations of the
living so that they collapse and bury people under their ruins. The
doctrines of religion are not a subject one can quibble about like
any other. Our civilization is built up on them, and the
maintenance of human society is based on the majority of
men’s believing in the truth of those doctrines. If men are
taught that there is no almighty and all-just God, no divine
world-order and no future life, they will feel exempt from all
obligation to obey the precepts of civilization. Everyone will,
without inhibition or fear, follow his asocial, egoistic instincts
and seek to exercise his power; Chaos, which we have banished
through many thousands of years of the work of civilization, will
come again. Even if we knew, and could prove, that religion was not
in possession of the truth, we ought to conceal the fact and behave
in the way prescribed by the philosophy of "As if" - and
this in the interest of the preservation of us all. And apart from
the danger of the undertaking, it would be a purposeless cruelty.
Countless people find their one consolation in religious doctrines,
and can only bear life with their help. You would rob them of their
support, without having anything better to give them in exchange.
It is admitted that so far science has not achieved much, but even
if it had advanced much further it would not suffice for man. Man
has imperative needs of another sort, which can never be satisfied
by cold science; and it is very strange - indeed, it is the height
of inconsistency - that a psychologist who has always insisted on
what a minor part is played in human affairs by the intelligence as
compared with the life of the instincts - that such a psychologist
should now try to rob mankind of a precious wish-fulfilment and
should propose to compensate them for it with intellectual
nourishment.’

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   What a lot of accusations all at
once! Nevertheless I am ready with rebuttals for them all; and,
what is more, I shall assert the view that civilization runs a
greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than
if we give it up.

   But I hardly know where to begin
my reply. Perhaps with the assurance that I myself regard my
undertaking as completely harmless and free of risk. It is not I
who am overvaluing the intellect this time. If people are as my
opponents describe them - and I should not like to contradict them
- then there is no danger of a devout believer’s being
overcome by my arguments and deprived of his faith. Besides, I have
said nothing which other and better men have not said before me in
a much more complete, forcible and impressive manner. Their names
are well known, and I shall not cite them, for I should not like to
give an impression that I am seeking to rank myself as one of them.
All I have done - and this is the only thing that is new in my
exposition - is to add some psychological foundation to the
criticisms of my great predecessors. It is hardly to be expected
that precisely this addition will produce the effect which was
denied to those earlier efforts. No doubt I might be asked here
what is the point of writing these things if I am certain that they
will be ineffective. But I shall come back to that later.