The
provisional explanation so arrived at is by neglect allowed to
stand as definitive, for trivial purposes, until special
provocation or perplexity recalls the individual to his
allegiance. But when special exigencies arise, that is to say,
when there is peculiar need of a full and free recourse to the
law of cause and effect, then the individual commonly has
recourse to the preternatural agency as a universal solvent, if
he is possessed of an anthropomorphic belief.
The extra-causal propensity or agent has a very high utility as a
recourse in perplexity, but its utility is altogether of a
non-economic kind. It is especially a refuge and a fund of
comfort where it has attained the degree of consistency and
specialization that belongs to an anthropomorphic divinity. It
has much to commend it even on other grounds than that of
affording the perplexed individual a means of escape from the
difficulty of accounting for phenomena in terms of causal
sequence. It would scarcely be in place here to dwell on the
obvious and well-accepted merits of an anthropomorphic divinity,
as seen from the point of view of the aesthetic, moral, or
spiritual interest, or even as seen from the less remote
standpoint of political, military, or social policy.
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