Freud - Complete Works (771 page)

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   I feel sure that while you have
been listening to me you have been bothered by a number of
questions which you would be glad to hear answered. I cannot
undertake to do so here and now, but I feel confident that none of
these detailed enquiries would upset our thesis that the religious
Weltanschauung
is determined by the situation of our
childhood. That being so, it is all the more remarkable that, in
spite of its infantile nature, it nevertheless had a precursor.
There is no doubt that there was a time without religion, without
gods. This is known as the stage of animism. At that time, too, the
world was peopled with spiritual beings resembling men - we call
them demons. All the objects in the external world were their
habitation, or perhaps were identical with them; but there was no
superior power which had created them all and afterwards ruled them
and to which one could turn for protection and help. The demons of
animism were for the most part hostile in their attitude to human
beings, but it appears that human beings had more self-confidence
then than later on. They were certainly in a constant state of the
most acute fear of these evil spirits; but they defended themselves
against them by certain actions to which they ascribed the power to
drive them away. Nor apart from this did they regard themselves as
defenceless. If they desired something from Nature - if they wished
for rain, for instance - they did not direct a prayer to the
weather-god, but they performed a magical act which they expected
to influence Nature directly: they themselves did something which
resembled rain. In their struggle against the powers of the world
around them their first weapon was
magic
, the earliest
fore-runner of the technology of to-day. Their reliance on magic
was, as we suppose, derived from their overvaluation of their own
intellectual operations, from their belief in the
‘omnipotence of thoughts’, which, incidentally, we come
upon again in our obsessional neurotic patients. We may suppose
that human beings at that period were particularly proud of their
acquisitions in the way of language, which must have been
accompanied by a great facilitation of thinking. They attributed
magical power to words. This feature was later taken over by
religion. ‘And God said "Let there be light!" and
there was light.’ Moreover the fact of their magical actions
shows that animistic men did not simply rely on the power of their
wishes. They expected results, rather, from the performance of an
action which would induce Nature to imitate it. If they wanted
rain, they themselves poured out water; if they wanted to encourage
the earth to be fruitful, they demonstrated a dramatic performance
of sexual intercourse to it in the fields.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   You know how hard it is for
anything to die away when once it has achieved psychical
expression. So you will not be surprised to hear that many of the
utterances of animism have persisted to this day, for the most part
as what we call superstition, alongside of and behind religion. But
more than this, you will scarcely be able to reject a judgement
that the philosophy of today has retained some essential features
of the animistic mode of thought - the overvaluation of the magic
of words and the belief that the real events in the world take the
course which our thinking seeks to impose on them. It would seem,
it is true, to be an animism without magical actions. On the other
hand, we may suppose that even in those days there were ethics of
some sort, precepts upon the mutual relations of men; but nothing
suggests that they had any intimate connection with animistic
beliefs. They were probably the direct expression of men’s
relative powers and of their practical needs.

   It would be well worth knowing
what brought about the transition from animism to religion, but you
may imagine the obscurity which to-day still veils these primaeval
ages of the evolution of the human spirit. It appears to be a fact
that the first form assumed by religion was the remarkable
phenomenon of totemism, the worship of animals, in whose train the
first ethical commandments, the taboos, made their appearance. In a
volume called
Totem and Taboo
, I once elaborated a notion
which traced this transformation back to a revolution in the
circumstances of the human family. The main achievement of religion
as compared with animism lies in the psychical binding of the fear
of demons. Nevertheless a vestige of this primaeval age, the Evil
Spirit, has kept a place in the religious system.

   This being the prehistory of the
religious
Weltanschauung
let us turn now to what has
happened since then and to what is still going on before our eyes.
The scientific spirit, strengthened by the observation of natural
processes, has begun, in the course of time, to treat religion as a
human affair and to submit it to a critical examination. Religion
was not able to stand up to this. What first gave rise to suspicion
and scepticism were its tales of miracles, for they contradicted
everything that had been taught by sober observation and betrayed
too clearly the influence of the activity of the human imagination.
After this its doctrines explaining the origin of the universe met
with rejection, for they gave evidence of an ignorance which bore
the stamp of ancient times and to which, thanks to their increased
familiarity with the laws of nature, people knew they were
superior. The idea that the universe came into existence through
acts of copulation or creation analogous to the origin of
individual people had ceased to be the most obvious and
self-evident hypothesis since the distinction between animate
creatures with a mind and an inanimate Nature had impressed itself
on human thought - a distinction which made it impossible to retain
belief in the original animism. Nor must we overlook the influence
of the comparative study of different religious systems and the
impression of their mutual exclusiveness and intolerance.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   Strengthened by these preliminary
exercises, the scientific spirit gained enough courage at last to
venture on an examination of the most important and emotionally
valuable elements of the religious
Weltanschauung
. People
may always have seen, though it was long before they dared to say
so openly, that the pronouncements of religion promising men
protection and happiness if they would only fulfil certain ethical
requirements had also shown themselves unworthy of belief. It seems
not to be the case that there is a Power in the universe which
watches over the well-being of individuals with parental care and
brings all their affairs to a happy ending. On the contrary, the
destinies of mankind can be brought into harmony neither with the
hypothesis of a Universal Benevolence nor with the partly
contradictory one of a Universal Justice. Earthquakes, tidal waves,
conflagrations, make no distinction between the virtuous and pious
and the scoundrel or unbeliever. Even where what is in question is
not inanimate Nature but where an individual’s fate depends
on his relations to other people, it is by no means the rule that
virtue is rewarded and that evil finds its punishment. Often enough
the violent, cunning or ruthless man seizes the envied good things
of the world and the pious man goes away empty. Obscure, unfeeling
and unloving powers determine men’s fate; the system of
rewards and punishments which religion ascribes to the government
of the universe seems not to exist. Here once again is a reason for
dropping a portion of the animistic theory which had been rescued
from animism by religion.

   The last contribution to the
criticism of the religious
Weltanschauung
was effected by
psycho-analysis, by showing how religion originated from the
helplessness of children and by tracing its contents to the
survival into maturity of the wishes and needs of childhood. This
did not precisely mean a contradiction of religion, but it was
nevertheless a necessary rounding-off of our knowledge about it,
and in one respect at least it was a contradiction, for religion
itself lays claim to a divine origin. And, to be sure, it is not
wrong in this, provided that our interpretation of God is
accepted.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   In summary, therefore, the
judgement of science on the religious
Weltanschauung
is
this. While the different religions wrangle with one another as to
which of them is in possession of the truth, our view is that the
question of the truth of religious beliefs may be left altogether
on one side. Religion is an attempt to master the sensory world in
which we are situated by means of the wishful world which we have
developed within us as a result of biological and psychological
necessities. But religion cannot achieve this. Its doctrines bear
the imprint of the times in which they arose, the ignorant times of
the childhood of humanity. Its consolations deserve no trust.
Experience teaches us that the world is no nursery. The ethical
demands on which religion seeks to lay stress need, rather, to be
given another basis; for they are indispensable to human society
and it is dangerous to link obedience to them with religious faith.
If we attempt to assign the place of religion in the evolution of
mankind, it appears not as a permanent acquisition but as a
counterpart to the neurosis which individual civilized men have to
go through in their passage from childhood to maturity.

   You are of course free to
criticize this description of mine; I will even go half way to meet
you on this. What I told you about the gradual crumbling away of
the religious
Weltanschauung
was certainly incomplete in its
abbreviated form. The order of the different processes was not
given quite correctly; the co-operation of various forces in the
awakening of the scientific spirit was not followed out. I also
left out of account the alterations which took place in the
religious
Weltanschauung
itself during the period of its
undisputed sway and afterwards under the influence of growing
criticism. Finally, I restricted my remarks, strictly speaking, to
one single form taken by religion, that of the Western peoples. I
constructed an anatomical model, so to speak, for the purpose of a
hurried demonstration which was to be as impressive as possible.
Let us leave on one side the question of whether my knowledge would
in any case have been sufficient to do the thing better and more
completely. I am aware that you can find everything I said to you
said better elsewhere. Nothing in it is new. But let me express a
conviction that the most careful working-over of the material of
the problems of religion would not shake our conclusions.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   The struggle of the scientific
spirit against the religious
Weltanschauung
is, as you know,
not at an end: it is still going on to-day under our eyes. Though
as a rule psycho-analysis makes little use of the weapon of
controversy, I will not hold back from looking into this dispute.
In doing so I may perhaps throw some further light on our attitude
to
Weltanschauungen
. You will see how easily some of the
arguments brought forward by the supporters of religion can be
answered, though it is true that others may evade refutation.

   The first objection we meet with
is to the effect that it is an impertinence on the part of science
to make religion a subject for its investigations, for religion is
something sublime, superior to any operation of the human
intellect, something which may not be approached with
hair-splitting criticisms. In other words, science is not qualified
to judge religion: it is quite serviceable and estimable otherwise,
so long as it keeps to its own sphere. But religion is not its
sphere, and it has no business there. If we do not let ourselves be
put off by this brusque repulse and enquire further what is the
basis of this claim to a position exceptional among all human
concerns, the reply we receive (if we are thought worthy of any
reply) is that religion cannot be measured by human measurements,
for it is of divine origin and was given us as a revelation by a
Spirit which the human spirit cannot comprehend. One would have
thought that there was nothing earlier than the refutation of this
argument: it is a clear case of
petitio principii
, of
‘begging the question’ - I know of no good German
equivalent expression. The actual question raised is whether there
is
a divine spirit and a revelation by it; and the matter is
certainly not decided by saying that this question cannot be asked,
since the deity may not be put in question. The position here is
what it occasionally is during the work of analysis. If a usually
sensible patient rejects some particular suggestion on specially
foolish grounds, this logical weakness is evidence of the existence
of a specially strong motive for the denial - a motive which can
only be of an affective nature, an emotional tie.

New Introductory Lectures On Psycho-Analysis

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   We may also be given another
answer, in which a motive of this kind is openly admitted: religion
may not be critically examined because it is the highest, most
precious, and most sublime thing that the human spirit has
produced, because it gives expression to the deepest feelings and
alone makes the world tolerable and life worthy of men. We need not
reply by disputing this estimate of religion but by drawing
attention to another matter. What we do is to emphasize the fact
that what is in question is not in the least an invasion of the
field of religion by the scientific spirit, but on the contrary an
invasion by religion of the sphere of scientific thought. Whatever
may be the value and importance of religion, it has no right in any
way to restrict thought - no right, therefore, to exclude itself
from having thought applied to it.