The question
here concerns the less picturesque and less urgent economic value
of the belief in such a preternatural agency, taken as a habit of
thought which affects the industrial serviceability of the
believer. And even within this narrow, economic range, the
inquiry is perforce confined to the immediate bearing of this
habit of thought upon the believer's workmanlike serviceability,
rather than extended to include its remoter economic effects.
These remoter effects are very difficult to trace. The inquiry
into them is so encumbered with current preconceptions as to the
degree in which life is enhanced by spiritual contact with such a
divinity, that any attempt to inquire into their economic value
must for the present be fruitless.
The immediate, direct effect of the animistic habit of thought
upon the general frame of mind of the believer goes in the
direction of lowering his effective intelligence in the respect
in which intelligence is of especial consequence for modern
industry. The effect follows, in varying degree, whether the
preternatural agent or propensity believed in is of a higher or a
lower cast. This holds true of the barbarian's and the sporting
man's sense of luck and propensity, and likewise of the somewhat
higher developed belief in an anthropomorphic divinity, such as
is commonly possessed by the same class.
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